Safe Hands, Spirited Contact

Protecting your hands means strengthening your fingers, stabilizing your wrists, and learning to shape your hands.

Shaping your hands is not just about self-protection—it's also about preventing accidental injury to your partner. You'll learn to mold your hands to the shape of your partner's body, rather than pinching, scratching, or poking. The more you can feel your partner's surface and adapt to it, the safer both of you become.

• If you’re new to LMA, start with our table of contents

The activities in this video are invitations. They're low to moderate intensity, but they take time. Consider how often they need to be practiced and how much session time to dedicate to them. You can treat these as daily scaffolds or temporary supports that develop your sensitivity, stability, and imagination for movement.

Activities 1-7

Non-exhaustive ways to close your loop and grip your hands. These activities aren't just meant to strengthen but to spark imagination in how you form loops. Each loop has a different function, texture, and quality.

Activity 8

Make a fist while anatomically aligning your wrist. Your palms face each other. Keep your hands open and loose, allowing them to hang down. Then lift your wrists and close your grip as if holding a hammer. Feel your fingers curl while your wrist stays aligned. Notice the relationship between tension in your grip and stiffness in your wrist.

Activity 9

Make a strong fist while curling your wrist inward.

Activity 10

Spread your fingers apart, then bring them together. When your fingers are apart, they're more prone to injury and more likely to scratch or poke. When your fingers come together, no one finger is vulnerable—they share strength.

Spreading your fingers increases your hand's surface area, which can be useful, but notice how stress often makes us grab with fingers spread apart. This can pose a risk to you and your partner. Practice feeling the difference—how togetherness stabilizes and protects.

In LMA, we speak often about autonomy. When we are under stress, we lose autonomy—not just in motor control but also in executive control. We do things we don't mean to. Autonomy and composure must be fostered on parallel tracks.

Activity 11

Alternate between shaping your hands like crab claws (thumbs out) and shaping them like clamps (thumbs in). Stress often leaves us clawing our grips—pinching, grabbing clothes, or digging with nails—without exploring other possibilities, such as clamping our hands. But once we become aware of new paths, we can explore them.

Activity 12

Make a tight fist, aligning your wrist as if you're about to hammer something with the bottom of your fist. Stiffen your fist and wrist, then strike your knuckles flat against your opposite palm.

Activity 13

Align your wrist and hold a wall plank on your knuckles. If this irritates your knuckles, use a towel or wear work gloves.

Activity 14

This is a progression of Activity 13. Align your wrist and hold a low plank against the wall. Lower your hands, bringing your head and body closer to the wall as you bend your elbows.

Activity 15

Hold one palm away from your body, hand turned downward. Use your other hand to apply gentle pressure against your palm, stretching your wrist and forearm.

Closing reflection

Hand safety isn't just about protecting yourself—it's about caring for the people you train with. The way you shape your hands expresses your relationship to pressure, care, and control. When your hands are steady and sensitive, you can play freely without anxiety.

– Sam