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Moving from pain & anxiety to flourishing- The Feldenkrais Method

It has been six months since my last blog contribution. In this time I have embarked on my journey to learn more about the Feldenkrais Method and the three and a half year process of becoming a registered practitioner. In this offering I want to share with you my experience of engaging in a movement method for the brain that helps to improve physical and mental ability. But first, a brief history of the founder.

 

The method is named after the Israeli scientist Moshe Feldenkrais, D. Sc. (1904-1984) . Feldenkrais worked in Paris as a nuclear physicist with the Nobel Laureate Joliot- Curie, developed an electronic antisubmarine detection system and was the first European to earn a black belt in Judo. After seriously injuring his knee in a soccer game, Feldenkrais learned that surgery had only a 50 percent chance of improving his condition, and would, if unsuccessful, confine him to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

 

Unwilling to accept theses prospects, he proceeded to learn anatomy, physiology, kinesiology, and physiology and combined theses with his knowledge of mechanics, physics, electrical engineering and martial arts. These endeavours restored most of the movement in his knee and marked the lifelong investigation into human function, development, and learning ultimately leading to the Feldenkrais Method. Beginning in the 1970s, Dr Feldenkrais taught this method internationally. He directed the Feldenkrais Institute in Tel Aviv until his death in 1984. Thankfully the effectiveness of his work was recognised early on, facilitating filming and recording of his training and thousands of his Awareness Through Movement  (ATM) lessons.

 


It was the grounding in science and the background of the founder that first drew me to the Method. I began my journey in 1996 exploring it’s potential, motivated by a desire to learn more about functional anatomy, and how to move more efficiently. As my experience increased, so did my understanding of how neuroplasticity was central to the effectiveness of the Method. Feldenkrais new that that brain and nervous system could change from experience and his method is more about creating flexible brains than just flexible bodies. The Feldenkrais Method makes use of brain plasticity to improve your ability to move. The goal is not so much to change the strength of your muscles, but to change how your muscles are controlled by your brain.

 

The Method however, is more than movement. It is a process of developing self-awareness, cultivating mindfulness through movement practice. Central to this is discovering and disrupting habitual patterns that may not be serving you, finding more efficient and effective ways of functioning. A central tenet of this process is the integration of mind and body, and as such, improvements in function go beyond the physical, including the mental and emotional. The process involves attending to self, with the focus on how we do what we do. In a nutshell, we are learning how we learn. By cultivating awareness we learn to create a space between intention and action, interrupting habitual patterns, creating more choice in how we respond and move through life.

 

“We act in accordance with our self-Image… Our self-image consists of four components that are involved in every action: movement, sensations , feeling and thought.” Awareness Through Movement – Dr Feldenkrais

 

Some Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

 

As some of you may already know, I have just completed a week long retreat practicing the Method. If my discussion so far has sounded too cerebral, I will share some more tangible benefits that I have experienced over the last week and previous six months of reengaging with this work.

 

Less pain, more gain…

 

The most notable change I have experienced is a reduction in pain and pulling in my lower back. Over the last five years I have had numerous acute lower back episodes that have impacted my ability to function freely. Through regular awareness through movement practice, this pulling and tightness has dissipated, allowing me to regain the mobility that I had been missing. It has been refreshing to move without pain and effort.

 

Science shows that pain is a result of complex activity in the nervous system, especially the brain. In a nutshell, when receptors in the pain system are repeatedly activated, they become more sensitive, triggering pain more easily and causing pain to spread to more places in the body.

 

A sense of tense muscles pulling can be attributed to a poorly organised neuromuscular system. Over time our system can develop habits of activating the wrong sequence of muscles to perform an action. In the worst case, we can even have muscles engaging that are parasitic or contradictory to the intended movement. This can result in strain or tearing.

 

The Feldenkrais method can reverse that downward spiral:

 

  • Giving you an experience of safety and comfort in movement so you can relax and enjoy your body more easily

  • Teaching you new ways to move that won't hurt so much, and

  • Improving your body awareness so you have better control over your experience

 

 

Make the impossible possible. The possible easy, and the easy elegant.

 

Apart from a reduction in pain, I have also enjoyed connecting with the joy and pleasure in well, co-ordinated movement. During my stay in Sydney, I reacquainted myself to the process of walking.  Normally this is an activity we do unconsciously and without attention. Through engaging in numerous Awareness Through Movement lessons (ATM) I could sense with every stride:

  • My feet and how they contacted the ground, initiating impact on the outer heel and then rolling form small toe, over to the large toe before pushing off the ground

  • The transfer of ground reaction forces through the leg moving into rotation through the pelvis

  • The lateral lengthening and rotation in the spine as the foot contacted the ground

  • The contralateral rotation of shoulder and arm swing

  • The movement of the head, maintaining centre of gravity as the movement moved up the whole chain

  • In short, a connection from toe to head as I engaged in walking

 

The result was an experience of walking on clouds, feeling  a sense of expansion and fluidity through the joints. An experience of ease in movement. It was a lesson in  learning how to walk again, or gaining access to the “elusive obvious”

 

 

Move over stress and anxiety

 

The most notable think I have experienced when engaging in this Method is the calming affect it has on the nervous system. If you live in the modern world, chances are you spend a lot of time 'stuck in your head', and don't experience much variety in movement. 

Every day you sit in the same chairs, walk on the same flat surfaces, and work at the same computers. You use the same finger on the same mobile phone to do 100,000 different tasks.

 

That's not how your nervous system is built to survive, let alone flourish.

Without variety of movement and mindful attention, you can become numb, stressed, and disconnected from your emotional life and from the people around you.

 


With better movement, you can feel centred, grounded and present, even in emotionally demanding situations. With better sensation, you can have better access to your body's intuition and wisdom. The Feldenkrais Method has  helped me develop a mindfulness practice that is completely integrated with my life rather than separate from it, helping me better relate to stress and move through my anxiety.

 

“Anxiety appears when deep in ourselves we know that we have no other choice- no alternative way of acting… Without learning to know ourselves as intimately as we  possibly can, we limit our choice. Life is not very sweet without freedom of choice. Change is very difficult with no alternatives in sight; we then resign ourselves to not dealing with our difficulties as if they were prescribed by heaven

Dr Feldenkrais- The Elusive obvious

 

Transforming change

 

As a coach in the domain of health and wellbeing: I empower busy and stressed professionals to slow down, create alignment and boost vitality so that they can get more out of life. At its essence, coaching is simply a conversation between myself and my client. Through a process of question and reflection I hold up the metaphorical mirror to  help increase a client’s self-awareness and develop their resources for change, so that they can implement their own vision of wellbeing.

 

Similarly, the Feldenkrais Method uses the kinaesthetic mirror of the floor to help an individual sense and differentiate small movements and the affect they have on the nervous system. Dr Feldenkrais  used movement exploration to help develop people’s awareness, he then challenged people by giving them novel movement sequences and asking them to move with  particular attention to detail. His ultimate aim was  to teach people how to live what he called a more potent life.

 

From my 30 years working in the field of changing behaviour and increasing wellbeing, the Feldenkrais Method is a potent resource for increasing awareness, disrupting ineffective habits and creating more choice in action. Ultimately, empowering you to moving through life more fully, efficiently, and comfortably. J.


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