How do your movements become smooth and light?
Many of our daily movements are less light than they could be. We often tense more muscles than necessary without noticing, simply because it has become a habit. As a result, movements can feel heavy or jerky, and pain can even arise. When we better understand how movements are actually organized, space opens up to do things differently — lighter, softer, and more connected.
The cooperation between muscles
Every movement you make is a subtle interplay of different muscle groups. The muscles that initiate a movement shorten to give direction; these are called the agonists. Other muscles move along in a supportive way, allowing the movement to flow smoothly through your body. And then there are the muscles that work in the opposite direction: the antagonists, which need to let go, lengthen, and create space. How they do this largely determines the speed and suppleness of your movement.
This cooperation — the timing, the listening, the giving and taking — is called coordination. It’s a refined process that usually happens outside our awareness, until something in that cooperation starts to feel off.
A movement to feel this interplay
Lie on your back with your knees bent. Let your left hand rest behind your head so you can support your head when you lift it. Place your right hand around your left knee so you can bring it closer to your belly. Then slowly move your left elbow and left knee toward each other, letting your head naturally follow, and then return to the starting position. Repeat this a few times while sensing what happens within you.
Because you’re moving against gravity, the muscles that normally act as brakes can stay more in the background. Gravity takes over part of the regulating work. This makes it easier to feel where you are truly active — in this case, the front muscles that shorten — and where you can soften. The long back muscles, which often tense unconsciously, don’t need to actively participate here, making it clearer that they can give space instead of resistance.
How habits can get in the way
Many people tense the working muscles and the opposing muscles at the same time without realizing it. While the flexors try to make the movement, the muscles at the back — the extensors — keep holding tension. This makes the movement heavier, costs more energy than necessary, and prevents the skeleton from moving clearly. Yet it’s precisely that clarity, the ability of the spine to follow the movement, the rounding of the back, the changing contact with the floor, that provides direction and lightness.
Variations to refine cooperation
You can vary this movement in many ways by switching which hand is behind your head and which hand holds which knee. For example, you can bring your right elbow toward your right knee, or toward your left. Each variation creates a slightly different organization of flexors in relation to extensors.
Placing both hands behind your head and bringing both elbows toward your knees asks for yet another form of coordination between front and back. In all these variations, you keep searching for lightness — for small changes in your contact with the floor, for the moment when the movement becomes more effortless. You keep listening for the lightest part of the movement, noticing when your back muscles and other extensors don’t resist, and you return before it becomes heavy. Gradually, more harmony develops in the cooperation between your muscle groups, and the movement becomes lighter and more enjoyable.
What you may notice afterward
When you sit or stand again after such a lesson, your posture often feels different, as if a new balance has been found between the front and back of your body. You may sense more length or greater ease in being upright. While walking, the improved cooperation can show up as a lighter, more supple way of moving.
A beautiful example
The recently deceased Feldenkrais trainer and dancer Ruthy Alon showed this principle beautifully in her work. In her video Movement Nature Meant – part 1, you can see how movement becomes fluid and light when muscles cooperate the way nature intended.