-Stand on your left foot and lift your right a few inches. You might want to hold a counter or something with your left hand. (or this can actually be done sitting at your computer if at a desk) :rolleyes:
-Swing your right foot in a clockwise circular direction, kinda like you’re buffing the floor. :rolleyes:
-While doing so, now take your right index finger and draw the number “6” in the air in front of you. :rolleyes: :smack:
Betcha your right foot isn’t going clockwise anymore! Go ahead. Try it again.
There’s a whole bunch of stuff like this that I learned in massage school in a class on Robert Masters’ Psychophisical Re-education method. Yeah, I can do it, but two years ago I wouldn’t have been able to.
Basically, your brain limits itself as to what movements it thinks are simultaneously possible. When you’re a baby, you moved in every which way, all at once and probably looked pretty spastic. As your neurons become more “organized”, your brain decides what movements work together and which ones don’t. Sometimes it’s right, but sometimes not. Taken too far, you see little old men barely moving one foot in front of the other as they shuffle across the street - it’s not generally because their muscles are that inflexible, it’s because their nervous systems have trained their muscles that that’s how far they can move. An afternoon of doing silly exercises like this dramatically increases range of motion in normal activities. It’s pretty cool.
OK, here’s my favorite:
Sit in your chair so you’re comfy, looking straight ahead. Turn your head to the right as far as you comfortably can. Don’t push it, just turn your head. Note how far this is. Now return to center. Do the same to the left. Note har far that is. Return to center. Now, stick your tongue as far into your right cheek as possible. Now look to the right as far as you comfortably can. Most people increase their range on motion by 10-20 degrees (!) by sticking their tongue in their cheek!
Another? Put your head back at center. Try moving your eyeballs so you’re looking left, and then turning your head to the right. Range of motion is greatly decreased, yes? See how quickly you can switch, eyes looking right, head turning left; eyes looking left, head turning right. Some people can’t do it at all at first. But you can with practice. Once you can, try the tongue thing again. You’ll likely have even more range of motion than before!
Even more bizarre, when I do the same thing but draw a backward 6 (like your looking at it in a mrrror), I don’t have the same problem. When I rotate my foot counter-clockwise, the normal six is now easy to draw while still rotating my foot, by the backwards one isn’t.