New Home

It's been a busy couple of months for us and I'm afraid I've neglected this blog because of it. One of the results of the past month's work is a new website (or a new web-location) with my blog a little more integrated - after all we Feldenkrais Practitioners do like to be integrated.

So with a new blog entry almost ready, please from here on in, visit us at: www.somalearning.com/feldenkrais/a_flexible_mind/

If you've subscribed to my blog you'll need to re-subscribe at the new location (sorry for the hassle).

I hope to see you all there.

Sensing Thinking Feeling Moving (The Lost Art of Writing pt.2)

It’s been a while since my last blog post and I’ve been diligently practicing my running (cursive) writing. It hasn’t gotten any prettier but it’s already gotten a whole lot easier. And I’m happy to report that there have been times when I’ve surprised both my husband and myself with a very witty retort.

So why would my running writing practice affect my fluidity of thought? As mentioned in part 1 of this blog, Norman Doidge reported on a connection between fluid thought and running writing. Though he looks at it from the angle that running writing is representative of fluid thought, as a Feldenkrais Practitioner I took that knowledge and reversed it. I know refinement of movement can affect mental capacity, so since I wanted to improve my fluidity of thought I refined my running writing to access that potential.

Here’s the theory behind it. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais said that four components make up the waking state – sensation, feeling, thought and movement.

Sensation being our 5 senses plus our kinesthetic sense (orientation in space, pain, passage of time and rhythm). Feeling is our emotions, self image, confidence, inferiority etc. Thinking being all our cognitive thought (memory, knowing right from left, good from bad, understanding and knowing we understand, classification etc.) Movement is all temporal and spacial changes in the body and it’s parts (moving through space but also breathing etc).

Moshe then goes on to say that “… not a moment passes in the waking state in which all man’s capacities are not employed together." Awareness Through Movement pg. 32

And if you think about it, that's true. We can't know where we are without a kinesthetic sense of our bodies in space or by locating ourselves through hearing, smell or sight [all sensation]. We can't know who we are without some emotional connection to that knowledge [feeling]. We can't do anything without intention [thought] and we need movement to live.

Moshe continues by saying that while we can speak of these elements individually, in reality they are so closely linked that they cannot be separated. Therefore if you wish to affect any one of these elements you will also affect the other three.

Now I have to admit that this is a concept that I struggled with at first. How I got started with understanding this concept was with the idea that limited movement – be it due to pain, injury or enforced stillness (back pain, illness, plane travel, staff meetings etc) - not only causes physical discomfort [sensation], but tends to play on our emotional state – lack of concentration [thought], making us short tempered, sad or depressed [feeling].

So while The Feldenkrais Method is predominantly known as a method for improving movement, it is actually through movement that we aim to improve the whole person.

Of course ultimately if this is all a bit too abstract for you, but you want to get rid of chronic pain you've had for years, please feel free to ignore the rest and come to us just so that we can get you moving again.

The Lost Art of Writing - Part 1

I find it difficult to say anything worth saying in a short Blog post. So I’m calling this Part 1 and will add Part 2 later. This will give you the analogy and next will come the theory behind it. I hope you enjoy it!

These days, it’s rare for me to pick up a pen and write more than a paragraph. Perhaps a short note to my husband or some instructions to my staff, but anything longer and I turn to my computer. Add to this that when I do write, I print - I haven’t used running (cursive) writing in a very long time.

But then a few months ago I was reading Norman Doidge’s book "The Brain That Changes Itself", in which he draws a connection between fluid thought and running writing. Basically saying that adults who prefer to print rather than running write, tend to have a lack of fluidity in their thoughts.

Now, I’m not one to think on my feet. I will come up with the perfect response (or the 10 questions I should have asked) about an hour after the conversation took place. So in an attempt to improve my witty response time, I’ve picked up a pen. I bought a shiny new book and ditched my laptop.

And I hate to admit just how hard I’m finding it. Keeping track of all those loops and going back to cross my t’s and dot my i’s! I cringe every time I open my beautiful book to reveal my horrid scrawl – and never mind that I can barely read it. It’s not fluid at all, so no wonder I can’t think on the go if I’ve lost such a basic skill.

What does this have to do with The Feldenkrais Method? Movement can affect the way we think. We can create new neurological pathways by refining a skill or learning something new. There’s a trendy new catch phrase called Neuroplasticity – heard of it?

More on that next time, but for now I’m curious, is it just me who’s lost the art or writing? How often do you hand write more than a paragraph, and do you use running writing?

Do Less

Do less - a surprisingly difficult concept for many of us to grasp. How often are we told to "do our best", "try harder", "be all that we can be" and my personal favourite "no pain, no gain". And yet "do less" is a central concept in The Feldenkrais Method. One that I find very difficult to convey to my students. If you ever join one of my Awareness Through Movement Classes (and you'd be very welcome) you'll hear my mantra of "now do less", "do this so you can feel the organisation of the move and don't strive for the end", "make it smaller", "do only what's comfortable", "you will learn more if you do less" and many more variations thereof. And at the end of the class those who heard me will find greater benefit than those who couldn't translate my words into their own actions. But that's ok too because it takes a while for us to change our conditioned mindset and few people leave an ATM class without some benefit.

Why do less? Well, we in the Feldenkrais community like to quote the Weber-Fechner law which states: "The least perceptible difference in stimulus is a definite fraction of the stimulus already present"* Which basically means (in relation to our work) that the smaller the movement you make, the easier it will be for you to perceive a change. If you're making a big movement - say striving to bring your head and elbows towards your knees (in a movement akin to a sit up) - it will be much more difficult for you to notice the subtleties of the movement in your back, pelvis, shoulders, stomach, ribs, breastbone etc; than if you make a much smaller movement - get nowhere near your knees with your elbows - but are able to pay attention to the organisation needed in your torso to perform the movement. By bringing your own attention to this organisation you are increasing your nervous systems ability to chose the easiest path of action.

Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais liked to say that we should have three options to perform any one task. Often we learn one way of doing something and that's it. Which is fine as long as that one way of doing it serves our purpose. But what happens when something stops you from using that one way - perhaps an injury, perhaps just a reduction in your flexibility as you grow older? How do you then learn new ways to perform that same task? Through self awareness. Through options. If you know what you're doing then you can change it.

But how many of us can say we know exactly how we stand up from sitting, for example. Do you lead with your head? With your nose? With your shoulders? Which muscles do you tense to stand up? Where exactly do you place your feet and how do you get the momentum to stand? If you knew how you stood up from sitting you could find other ways of doing it. But if you don't, then you're stuck doing it the same way, even when that way starts causing you difficulty. The same goes for walking, reaching, sitting, bending and everything else you do in your daily life. What was easy in your youth gets harder as you age and you don't know what to do about it. That's where we step in. We can help you become aware of your organisation and change it in a way that suits your movement - not mine, not your partners but your own way of moving.

Albert Einstein was quoted as saying "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."That fits in with our Method perfectly. One of the benefits of awareness is to simplify. To use our bodies only to the extent necessary and not more. Lets see if I can use an analogy to help explain this. It's generally known that it's a bad idea to drive your car with the handbrake on. I don't know why exactly it's bad, but I know it has something to do with increased wear and tear. Well it's the same for us. If we carry unnecessary muscle tension and use excess force in our movements, then we're creating excess wear and tear on our bodies.

A common misconception of our Method is that we want to make everything so easy that we end up as floppy rags. That is not at all what we intend. Rather we want to help you use your large muscles for tasks requiring strength and your smaller muscles for tasks requiring precision. We want to help you use your skeleton effectively to carry and transmit force and not be using muscles you don't need, to compensate for lack of structural stability. Because as a result of using yourself only to the extent that you need, you not only carry less tension, which will reduce stresses on your body, but you're free to be aware of the subtleties of your self-use and surroundings, and you'll be able to react to any change in situation.

This is getting to be far too long a blog post. I will return to and elaborate on many things I’ve only touched on, at another time. Let me just leave you with a situation I found myself in today that just happens to be quite a good example of what I'm trying to say here.

Today I put on a pair of roller blades for the first time in over a decade. I have only once before in my life ever been on roller blades and that was when I was much less fearful of the consequences. Nonetheless I've decided I want to try it again. I had my husband come down to be my physical support and in case he needed to scrape me off the pavement. To my great surprise I was able to get up on the roller blades and take some very tentative... well, steps. I was very awkward and not at all able to affect the direction in which I was traveling or find a smooth gliding motion. Very quickly too, I felt my calf muscles and ankles become sore. My Feldenkrais Practitioner husband was of course watching my movement and suggested I relax my legs and breath. Easy for him to say! But of course it worked. Not only did my legs feel better but I was able to sense the subtleties of the movements in my feet and then be able to adjust the pressure and direction needed for me use the roller blades much more smoothly, and even turn a circle with them! So the unnecessary tension in my legs through fear of falling was actually making it more likely that I would fall since I couldn't adjust easily to my situation. Once I "did less" I was able to find better self use and master my roller blades... well maybe not master... yet.

*Weber-Fechner law definition taken from "The Feldenkrais Method Teaching by Handling" by Yochanan Rywerant. pg. 16.

Reluctant Definitions

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

One of my favourite movies. And no it is not set in Switzerland! – the clue to this is the ending where they walk over the mountains to escape the Nazis by entering Switzerland. (A personal gripe).

Well that’s all good and well but what does this have to do with the Feldenkrais Method? Simply that the song came to mind when I was contemplating this entry.

Here is my dilemma. One of the intended purpose of this blog was for me to personally nut out how to define the Feldenkrais Method in its full glory and applications without writing an essay. But after my first blog entry I’ve already hit a stumbling block – the problem is that some people who have read my first entry (and thank you very much to everyone who has already taken an interest) don’t know anything about the Method. So while I’m hoping they hang in there and learn much more as we go along, I feel I do need to give them a starting point.

However any definition I have myself created or come across fails to encompass the full potential of the method. So replace Maria with The Feldenkrais Method in the song and it becomes far less musical – but nonetheless demonstrates my dilemma. (Except the last line that doesn’t relate at all, but how could I leave out a word like flibbertijibbet?)

My concern in offering an incomplete definition is that it will be read, understood and nicely slotted into the filling cabinet that is our brain, as bodywork or alternative therapy, never again to be extracted and re-evaluated. Where as it should be torn into numerous pieces and slotted under so many different categories that it is impossible to list and purely dependant on the personal history and needs of the owner of the filing cabinet brain.

So with cringing heart, I offer two very incomplete definitions (yet of the better ones that I’ve come across) that nowhere near do The Feldenkrais Method justice, on the condition that you take them for what they are, but please, please return here to learn the Method’s full application. It has so much to offer every one of us that it would be such a shame for it to be filed away and never to be seen again.

So here it is:


direct from answers.com

“The Feldenkrais Method is an educational system that allows the body to move and function more efficiently and comfortably. Its goal is to re-educate the nervous system and improve motor ability….” (please follow the link for their full definition)


and from Natural Therapy Pages:

“The Feldenkrais Method is recognised for its demonstrated ability to improve posture, flexibility, coordination, self-image and to alleviate muscular tension and pain. The effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method is in its ability to access the nervous system's own innate processes to change and refine functioning. The Feldenkrais Method is a unique and sophisticated approach to human understanding, learning and change...” (again please follow the link for more)

Intended Intention

Hello and welcome!

Oh you're just browsing? That's fine. If you have any questions my name is Denise and I'd be happy to help.

This is how we're trained to welcome customers in the store I manage. This is how I train my staff to welcome customers. Because if it is discovered that we don't use this phrase, it is reported back to the powers that be — to whom I then need to explain myself.

Today I was listening to a book on CD by Seth Godin titled "Tribe. We Need You To Lead Us", in which he says something along the lines of 'managers do not lead they merely manage within set parameters'. That has to be amongst to truest statements I've heard. It's a good thing that in my other life I'm a Feldenkrais Practitioner and even better that I'm also married to a Feldenkrais Practitioner who gently eases me out of my mold each evening.

As anyone in the know knows, the Feldenkrais Method is all about individuality, about breaking the mold (on a side note: you should never use the expression 'break' in the bodywork industry... so it’s a good thing we're in the education industry instead); or perhaps better stated it's about disregarding the mold and doing what works best for you.

Well, this blog hasn't started at all how I'd anticipated. Do I go back and erase it (not very Feldenkrais) and start on perhaps a more professional note like I'd intended?

Speaking of intention please allow me to start over. After all if we always did what we intended, then no-one would need The Feldenkrais Method. And as we know everyone can benefit from the Feldenkrais Method. And I sincerely do mean this — no sarcasm intended here - I truly do believe that everyone, every single person out there, can benefit from The Feldenkrais Method.

So to start again, I do sincerely welcome you to my blog and do hope you have a good browse around. This blog has come about from listening to the before mentioned CDs by Seth Godin in which he speaks about tribes and leaders and sharing of information. I have been inspired! This is the first blog I have ever attempted so bear with me while I sort out what is interesting to everyone and what is only interesting to me.

The 'intended' purpose of the blog is to help people understand the Feldenkrais Method and how it can help. Since The Feldenkrais Method is so multi-faceted it makes it very difficult to explain succinctly. What I hope to do is look at articles about (or not about) The Feldenkrais Method and related (or unrelated) health and movement material; write up my interpretations of these (and most probably some incredibly witty anecdotes from my own life — sarcasm intended) and see if I can't make this an enjoyable and informative blog for anyone interested in The Feldnekrais Method. I very much encourage comments and debates and sharing of information and maybe together we can work out a perfect (again not very Feldenkrais - so lets say suitable but malleable) definition for this Method that I feel so passionately about.

NB: This entry was not written by Patrick Hughes as it states below but by Denise Hughes (I hadn't yet created my own account)