What human body parts must move together?

When we walk, our arms naturally sway as well.

yes, notice when you stand with your weight on one foot the opposite ear will rest over your heal. its the spiral way of balancing. go ahead, ask someone to do it for you if you dont have a full length mirror. we learned this is art school so we could accurately portray balance and form.

Some such dependencies are habits which can be changed, and others are natural because the muscles, tendons and bones are connected, sometimes in unintuitive ways. It’s a very rich and complex field of study. See for (amazing) example The Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education for awesome studies and practices around this type of thing.

ooo! second for Feldenkrais!

When I was in Kindergarten, we learned a song about hands that listen the digits as:
little one, lean one, long one, lick pot, and thumbo. I for one, can’t move my little finger without lean one tagging along, so I guess that might fall under Feldenkrais, Zaku?

now I’m going to have that song going around in my head for the rest of the day, I can even hear the lady singing it

Yes, Seesul. Perhaps you could move little one without lean one, but you don’t. People tend to learn movements early in life, and then after they’ve learned to do something, they tend to stop paying attention and forget that they can learn to use their bodies and do things in new ways, and we develop limitations which are only in our heads, but which we treat as real. Also, when we do learn new ways to move, it wakes up parts of our minds that may be stuck in thought patterns we aren’t aware of, as well. So what can be really astonishing is the effect of paying attention to your body’s movements and learning new ways to use your body… on your thoughts and feelings.

@Zaku: Well now that you mentioned it, I just tried and if I really concentrate, I can, just like the Star Trek hand greeting. We actually did that as an exercise in class. I wonder how many people my age that song “trained” like that? I do know from ECE that early motor development is very important and can have a great impact on reading skills later, if not watched carefully. Really interesting subject here.

Pincer grasp: thumb and finger to pick things up.

I read this thread to my night supervisor, and he just said his hips sway when he thinks gay thoughts.

I wish the big toe and other four toes were interdependent. For me, they are, but for my boyfriend they’re not, and he drives me crazy by twitching his big toe back and forth against his other toes when we’re in bed. Ugh.

Any body part needs the brain to jump-start it, no?

Some people can’t talk without wiggling their noses a bit.

your tounge and youre mouth have to move together for you to talk

@scrumpulator: I tried it. I shifted my weight to one foot. I shifted to the other. I lifted one foot. I brought my knee up to my chest. My head never moved. My ears stayed in the same plane. What am I missing about your example? I don’t understand.

@Brian; you can still stand on one foot and bring the opposite knee to chest? Wow.

Maybe you need a friend with a plumb line to verify what is the vertical.

A woman I work with cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

Eyes move together.

I can’t put in my contacts without opening my mouth.

@Andrew: when I raise binocs to eyes for birding or star gazing, I notice also that my jaw drops when I look up. (Oh, the number of bugs I have swallowed.)