Baby Liv Learns to Roll: Developmental Movement and the Feldenkrais Method®

By Al Wadleigh, GCFP

Article Summary

This short film follows Baby Liv as she discovers rolling through movement, curiosity, repetition, and the support of the floor beneath her. Irene Lyon narrates Liv’s exploration in a way that reveals why developmental movements are such an important source for Feldenkrais® lessons. The video offers a simple and beautiful reminder that learning begins by sensing what is possible.

Learning Begins with the Floor

A baby lying on the floor has no idea that she is taking part in human development. She is not trying to improve her posture. She is not strengthening her core. She is not following instructions about the proper way to roll.

She is looking. She is sensing. She is moving toward something interesting. She is finding support in the floor, discovering a relationship among her eyes, head, arms, ribs, pelvis, and legs, and repeating what produces a new result.

She is learning.

That is what makes this small film so compelling. It gives us a chance to watch learning before it has become burdened by instruction, correction, performance, or the belief that there is one right way to move.

In Feldenkrais® work, we often return to movements that emerge early in life: rolling, reaching, lifting the head, pushing through the feet, coming to sit, crawling, and standing. Moshe Feldenkrais understood that these movements are not isolated milestones. They are part of a process through which a child gradually learns to organize themselves in relation to gravity, support, space, and the world around them.

Learning begins when movement is guided by curiosity rather than by the demand to get somewhere.

Recording Info

Video title: Rolling – Feldenkrais® with Baby Liv
Runtime: 3 minutes, 21 seconds
Original publication date: July 24, 2010
Created and produced by: Irene Gutteridge (Lyon)
Directed by: Irene Lyon and Jenn Strom
Camera, writing, and editing: Jenn Strom
Original music: David Picking

The film is a montage of Liv during her first year of life, compiled from footage filmed in Whistler, British Columbia. Irene Lyon narrates the movement as a short developmental exploration, drawing our attention to the support Liv finds in the floor and the many small experiments that gradually lead to rolling.

A Baby Awareness Through Movement® Lesson

Liv is not literally taking an Awareness Through Movement® lesson. No one is giving her verbal directions. No one is telling her which body part to move, how far to move it, or when she has succeeded.

But Irene Lyon’s framing is insightful because it lets us see the connection.

Liv looks. Her eyes move. Her head follows. An arm reaches. One leg bends while the other presses into the floor. Her weight begins to shift. She pauses, changes direction, repeats something, and finds another possibility.

These are many of the same elements that an adult may explore in a Feldenkrais® lesson. A teacher might invite students to notice how the eyes participate in turning, how the ribs respond when the pelvis shifts, or how a foot pressing gently into the floor can change the movement of the whole body.

The adult lesson does not ask us to imitate a baby. It gives us an opportunity to recover something of the learning process that was present when movement was new: attention, experimentation, comfort, and the freedom to vary an action.

Repetition that is driven by curiosity and exploration.

That phrase comes from Irene Lyon’s description of the film, and it captures what we see in Liv’s movement. She repeats, but she is not performing repetitions. Each movement provides new sensory information. Each attempt changes the next attempt.

Support, Curiosity, and Variation

Three principles are especially clear in this film.

The Floor Gives Support

Liv does not move in empty space. The floor gives her something to push against, lean into, roll over, and sense herself through.

This support is fundamental. Before a child can move freely through space, the child learns through contact with the ground. The floor provides resistance, orientation, and information about where the body is.

Many Feldenkrais® lessons begin lying on the floor for this reason. The floor makes it easier to sense weight, pressure, contact, and the way movement travels through the body. It can reveal patterns that are less obvious when we are standing and trying to maintain balance.

Curiosity Organizes Action

Liv moves toward what interests her. Her eyes follow something. Her hand reaches. Her attention draws her into an action.

This is different from movement imposed from the outside. Curiosity gives the movement direction. It creates a reason to explore.

Adults often lose touch with this simple relationship. We may move because we have to, because we are rushing, or because we have been told what exercise to do. In a Feldenkrais® lesson, the teacher can restore curiosity by asking a question rather than supplying a correction. What happens if you move more slowly? Can your eyes lead the head? Which side feels different? Where do you feel support?

The question invites the student back into direct experience.

Variation Creates Learning

Liv does not repeat a single perfect movement until she has mastered it. She tries many small variations. Sometimes the movement is incomplete. Sometimes she rolls partway and returns. Sometimes one arm participates more than the other. Sometimes the eyes, head, and legs seem to be exploring different possibilities.

This variety is not a detour from learning. It is learning.

Variation gives the nervous system something to compare, and comparison makes new possibilities easier to recognize.

When a person has only one familiar way to move, the action may feel fixed. When they can sense several ways to organize the same action, choice becomes possible.

Why Rolling Matters

Rolling may appear to be a simple transition from back to stomach or from stomach to back. When we look more closely, it is a rich coordination problem.

Rolling involves the eyes, head, spine, ribs, pelvis, arms, and legs. It involves shifting weight, finding leverage, yielding to the floor, and changing one’s relationship to gravity. It also involves attention. The infant is not moving body parts in isolation. She is responding to what she sees, feels, wants, and discovers.

Many adult movement difficulties become clearer when we return to this kind of relationship. A person who has trouble turning may be organizing the head separately from the ribs and pelvis. A person who strains to get up may not feel how the floor can provide support. Someone who experiences stiffness may be repeating one habitual solution rather than sensing alternatives.

Rolling is therefore more than a childhood achievement. It is one of the early experiences through which we learn how movement can travel through the whole self.

Developmental Movement and the Feldenkrais Method®

Moshe Feldenkrais drew deeply from the study of child development. He observed that babies do not learn movement through explanation or correction. They learn through their own activity in a responsive environment.

They discover relationships.

A child finds that looking can lead to turning. Turning can lead to rolling. Rolling can lead to reaching. Reaching can lead to coming onto the stomach. Each new action creates conditions for another action to emerge.

The Feldenkrais Method® uses this developmental logic in its own way. Lessons often revisit early movement relationships because these relationships remain part of adult functioning. The aim is not to send an adult backward through development or to require a prescribed sequence of milestones. The aim is to make available the learning principles that were present from the beginning.

Support. Curiosity. Variation. Rest. Attention. The discovery of new possibilities.

These principles are as relevant to an adult learning to turn more easily as they are to a baby discovering how to roll.

What Adults Can Learn from Liv

The lesson in this film is not that adults should move exactly as babies move. Liv’s body, needs, and developmental situation are her own.

What adults can learn from Liv is the quality of her exploration.

She does not force a movement. She does not judge an incomplete attempt. She does not stop because one approach fails to produce the desired result immediately. She continues to sense, vary, pause, and try again.

This is the atmosphere of a good Awareness Through Movement® lesson. The student works within comfort. The movement remains small enough to be felt. Rest becomes part of the learning. Differences are noticed rather than ignored.

The purpose is not to achieve an impressive movement. The purpose is to become more capable of learning.

A Small Film About Human Learning

Baby Liv’s movement is ordinary and remarkable at the same time. Every child discovers some relationship to rolling, support, gravity, and the floor. Yet when we slow down enough to watch, we can see the foundations of human learning at work.

Liv’s movements show us that development is not simply a series of milestones to complete. It is an ongoing process of sensing, exploring, organizing, and discovering what becomes possible next.

That is why this brief film belongs in the Feldenkrais® archive. It lets us see, in Liv’s own unhurried experimentation, the same learning process that Moshe Feldenkrais spent his life investigating.

Related Resources

• What Is the Feldenkrais Method®? Students Describe Their Experience
• Andrew Dawson Demonstrates Rolling from Lying to Sitting to Standing
• What Is Feldenkrais®?
• About Moshe Feldenkrais

Video Source and Accessibility

This page embeds the original Rolling – Feldenkrais® with Baby Liv video on YouTube. The video was created by Irene Lyon and collaborators, as credited above.

The YouTube player currently reports that captions are unavailable. Since the meaning of the film depends on both Liv’s movements and Irene Lyon’s narration, this written companion describes the developmental ideas that organize the video. It is not a complete transcript.