In this lesson, you’ll learn an enjoyable and exhilarating way to release stiffness in your hips, knees, and lower back.
1. Take a moment to observe your contact with the floor while lying on your back. Calm down and focus your attention inside your body. Then, come to sitting with your knees bent so the bottoms of your feet stand on the floor. Take your left hand and reach around the outside of your left knee holding on to the outside edge of your foot, near your toes, thumb together with your other fingers. Lift your foot in the air and set it down a few times and feel what your pelvis and lower back need to do to help you. Feel free to use your right hand on the floor for support.
Each time you lift the foot up and set it down, have the knee cross underneath your arm so it flips to the outside of the arm and back to the inside several times. Do it slowly so you can feel what happens in your hip joint to create this turning of the knee under the arm. Rest on your back.
2. Come to sitting and hold on to the foot arranged exactly the same way as before. Lift the foot up and set it down somewhere else on the floor. In fact, lift it up and set it down in as many different places on the floor as you can.
Cross it to the other side of your body and even find a couple of ways to set the foot behind you, over your head. Rest on your back again.
3. Now, arrange yourself the same way with your right hand reaching around the outside of your right knee and holding on to the outside edge of your foot. As in step 1, explore how to flip the knee back and forth under the right elbow. Rest.
4. Sit again with the right hand holding the outside edge of the right foot. As in step 2, explore all the places you can touch on the floor around your body with this foot. Rest on your back with your legs long.
5. Come to sitting with both of your knees pointing to your right and both of your feet to the left. This means you will be side sitting with your left foot just in back of you on the floor and the right foot relating to the left knee.In fact, the left knee will probably be touching the bottom of the right foot.
At the same time, hold onto the outside edge of your left foot with your left hand and the outside edge of your right foot with your right hand. Lift both feet from the floor and simultaneously flip both of your knees under both of your elbows. As the knees get straighter, come to side sitting in a mirror image of your starting position. Your knees are now to the left and your feet to the right, with your left foot touching your right thigh.
✓Awareness Advice:
As you move your feet from one side of your body to the other, in side sitting, you will experience yourself rolling on your pelvis from side to side and you will need to lift your feet high in the air for the knees to flip under the elbows. Make sure you don’t strain or hold your breath. Work to make it easy.
Take your feet and knees from side to side this way, several times. Make it easier each time. Rest on your back with your arms and legs long.
6. Come to side sitting again. Choose your favorite side. Again, hold on with both hands to both outside edges of your feet. Once again, you’ll be changing to side sitting on the other side by flipping your knees under your arms, but this time try to do it by sliding your feet on the floor the entire time, as the knees change from side to side. Rest on your back.
✓Awareness Advice:
As you do this movement, you will discover that your feet slide out away from you and back again along the same line on the floor while the knees flip from side to side and your pelvis rolls from side to side.
When you get up to walk, notice if your legs and back have more freedom.
-Frank Wildman, PhD
This “Oiling Your Hips the Easy Way” exercise is excerpted from the book, The Busy Person’s Guide to Easier Movement, by Frank Wildman, PhD, which has common-sense lessons connecting the mind and body through movement to help people move with more ease, comfort and efficiency.