Would you believe that it is possible to lie down, perform the tiniest movements for minutes and arise with less pain, improved bio-mechanics and a psychological lift, and that these effects would last?
Feldenkrais is unlike any other wellness practice. A practitioner guides students through a series of small, gentle movements, directing their attention to how these movements feel. The method is based on neuroplasticity: the ability of our brains to rewire through experience. Awareness of these surprisingly small and subtle movements naturally accelerates this rewiring, which leads to general improvement, and can address very specific physical and often even psychological issues. At the end, students are often astonished by how much better they feel, physically and emotionally.
Here is what they have to say about their experience:
“I am always amazed at how much looser and how spacious my body feels after a session. It doesn’t seem logical that with such small, soft, quiet movements so much space is created.”
“Post-lesson, I observe a fresh and lasting lightness of movement that carries into all of my activities.”
“Igor’s Feldenkrais classes have helped me to stay sane and in tune with my body during the pandemic.”
“Not having a goal or a specific intention while moving (being) a certain way is very much different than my life approach. This idea is an immense opening for me.”
How can the same physical experience lead to results that are so different, including a lot of changes in overall mind-body state?
Increased Awareness Accelerates Inherent Trend
Each living organism’s natural trend is to survive and to thrive. See Actualizing Tendency as defined by Carl Rogers).
Moshe Feldenkrais recognized this inherent trend and devised an effective way to accelerate it by attending by attending to the quality of movement.
Quality of Movement is Quality of Life
One of Moshe’s most famous quotes is “Life is movement, movement is life, without movement life is unthinkable.”
Good quality of movement translates into having good posture, balance, coordination, less tension, lower chance of injury, faster injury recovery, improved self-regulation and many other wonderful benefits.
Even though we are only attending to physical properties of movement, change is experience on all levels, because the trend that is accelerated is a whole person trend.
How to Attend Effectively to The Quality of Movement:
Slow Down and Reduce the Amount of EFfort:
By slowing down, you allow yourself to naturally make more subtle distinctions and even the smallest differences in the amount of effort you use becomes noticeable. See Weber-Feichner Law and Just Noticeable Difference.
Let go of the goal
Normal everyday movements require more effort and focus on the goal, which makes it difficult to sense and feel subtle nuances. Even gentle practices like Tai-Chi or restorative Yoga have an end goal for each movement in mind, generally done with more effort than necessary to simply feel the quality of movement. There is usually a goal that takes priority over sensing and feeling the quality of movement. In more intense physical practices, goal takes priority over one’s comfort which makes it even harder to feel.