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Speak Softly To The Body: Utilizing the Body's Own Language for Lasting Change

Speak Softly To The Body:

Utilizing The Body's Own Language For Lasting Change

Shari Lee

How do we learn to move freely without pain? This is the question that Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais began to investigate when he realized that knee surgery was not the answer to his pain and difficulty walking. When his surgeons gave him a 50/50 chance of improving his ability to walk, he declared that he could do better than that himself, without surgery. He countered that he'd taught himself to walk once (as we all have) and that he would teach himself over again. Thus the Feldenkrais® Method was born.

Feldenkrais began exploring the developmental process of learning along with the biomechanics of the human skeleton and how it is designed to move when unimpeded by excess muscular effort. He discovered strategies to access and communicate with the part of the brain responsible for learning movement. Unlike the logic and reasoning that we use to develop our intellect, the part of the brain that develops movement patterns, controls muscular contraction, physical actions and postural habits learns through pressures, images, angles, distances and sensations. These kinesthetic cues speak the dialect that our mind understands and employs to improve posture, balance, coordination, flexibility, mobility, comfort and pain-free range of motion.

As babies, we learned to roll over, sit, crawl, stand and walk, not by following the instructions of an outside expert, but by exploring sometimes seemingly unrelated movements and experiencing the sensations and relationships of those actions. Such gentle exploratory movements and attention to sensation speak to the part of the brain responsible for movement in the language it understands.

The Feldenkrais Method's two modalities capitalize on our brain's ability to improve how we move and how we feel. Awareness Through Movement® classes verbally lead students through a series of movement possibilities. Each variation includes an important element of the desired movement. The lessons approach these explorations in a gentle, relaxed, playful, safe, novel and pleasurable way—all features that the brain and neuromuscular system need to actualize new and improved action patterns. The Feldenkrais practitioner encourages small, slow, gentle movements to heighten the student's sensitivity and awareness. Through minimal effort and maximal attention, these variations spontaneously lead to coordinated, efficient and comfortable pain-free action.

Functional Integration® sessions use gentle touch to elicit new and improved actions by reorganizing neuromuscular habits. The Feldenkrais practitioner initiates an effective and meaningful kinesthetic conversation with the student, by using gentle pressures, suggesting subtle differentiations in movement and inviting the whole person to participate in motion to distribute labor proportionately throughout the entire system. This dialogue develops freedom of movement without pain, stiffness or discomfort, by activating the body's inherent learning process.

Anyone can benefit from Feldenkrais lessons -- from world-class athletes to those with ordinary stiffness, aches and pains to those suffering from significant injuries or disabling conditions. In addition, the gentleness of the method makes it a perfect choice for those whose pain levels may preclude other forms of exercise or treatment.

The Feldenkrais Practitioner shows the body how to reduce physical stresses, wear and tear, and risk of injury by gently inviting the participant to develop healthy, more efficient, biomechanically sound movement patterns. Sessions make movement feel more pleasurable, providing a great boost to those who would like to develop or resume a more active lifestyle. Whether learning to (as Dr. Feldenkrais put it) “make the impossible possible, the possible easy or the easy elegant,” regular participation in Feldenkrais sessions will have an undoubtedly beneficial effect on how a person moves and feels.

Although the improvements that take place in a Feldenkrais session are awakened by the practitioner, they are generated by the student's own neuromuscular system. This creates a deeper level of improvement that the individual's sensory-motor system is intimately familiar with, more capable of integrating and, therefore, better prepared to adopt for longer lasting change.

Shari Lee, M.S., Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, offers classes, individual bodywork, Hawaii guided hiking and kayaking adventure February 23-26, a 2/26-3/5 Hawaii retreat, employee wellness programs and ergonomic evaluations. Call 274-3539, or email: feldenlee1@aol.com

Feldenkrais®, Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® are registered service marks of The Feldenkrais Guild of North America®.

Learning to be Comfortable

Eveline Wu

The good news is this: the discomfort you feel now doesn’t have to be permanent.

How are you sitting as you read this magazine? Where do feel your shoulders, your legs, your hands? Are you comfortable?

Most likely, with these few questions, you’ve already spontaneously adjusted the position of your body, or paid attention to something in yourself that you weren’t paying attention to before. In addition, you’ve experienced a fast and simple way to use your nervous system to change and alter your behavior.

Your nervous system—composed of your brain, as well as the nerves that sense and create pain, tension, movement, and your spacial sense—constantly takes in new information to shape your behavior. Your nervous system both makes habits and breaks them down to learn new ones.

Forming habits is a healthy part of learning and an important way you make your life easier. Habits help you to brush your teeth, put on your seatbelt when you get in a car, and adapt to any of the complicated routines you have in life.

What does this have to do with your aching back, your ongoing shoulder strain, or how you sleep at night?

Not only does your nervous system direct your unique way of walking down the street, it also directs how you sit in a chair, how you rest on your side or back in bed, and the signals that tense and relax your back muscles.

In childhood, your brain actively formed new connections about movement; back then, one of your primary jobs was to learn to crawl, sit, and walk comfortably. When you were uncomfortable, you recovered rapidly because your habits were less ingrained.

In adulthood, after years of stress, injuries that wear and tear on your joints, or repetitive work, you become “habituated” to discomfort. Moving and carrying your body in uncomfortable ways is habitual, ingrained, and familiar.

The good news is this: the discomfort you feel now doesn’t have to be permanent. Recent research has demonstrated the plasticity of the nervous system, which means the ability of your brain to form new connections throughout life, no matter what your condition.

As a Feldenkrais practitioner, I have witnessed client after client discover with surprise that the stiffness and tension in their bodies that they thought were just the way they are, able to change.

I’ve seen people’s posture transform: hips that have been stiff for years become more flexible, coordination and balance improves. Even things that seemed permanent due to injury, like an arm that hadn’t been to go above the shoulder comfortably, can improve. At times, surgery or painkillers become unnecessary. With these changes, muscles relax, and tension and pain release.

How can you employ the tools of learning to change the way you move and feel?

The first thing you can do is learn to pay attention. Sense how you’re sitting again right now. What parts of you touch the surface of a chair or the floor? Are you able to breathe? What can you do right now to be more comfortable? Then, if you’re inclined, you might start to notice what types of situations and movements relate to your discomfort.

Second, learn to trust your feelings. If someone tells you to sit up, what do you do? Do you erect your back because that’s “good posture?” Is that really more comfortable?

I’ve discovered that, as adults, we have heard so many ideas about how our bodies should be that we often forget to feel if they are true for ourselves. So, if someone asks me, “How high of a pillow should I use at night?” I reply that there is no standard formula. Instead, I teach you to discover what height works for you as you are right now.

Women: Do you hold your knees together ladylike and suck in your belly, resulting in extra strain in your back and hips? Men: Do you pull back your shoulders to stand up tall, so much that you actually strain your neck? Whatever you do, feel if it really is comfortable. By giving yourself a chance to trust and act on what you feel, you begin the process of changing habits.

Third, learn that being comfortable should not require a lot of effort, and certainly not strain. This may sound obvious, but notice the next time you’re uncomfortable what you do. Do you try to push through it? Can you gently move in ways that are not painful, rather than push through the pain?

Fourth, take time once in a while to go slowly, and try doing things in new, unfamiliar ways. In my work, I apply these principles when teaching floor movements, and also in hands-on work. Gently guiding yourself to move in new ways, rather than pushing or straining, may sound obvious, yet when actually applied, produces profound results.

Eveline Wu is a certified Feldenkrais practitioner whose specialty is helping adults and children with chronic pain, tension, and neurological conditions to improve mobility and comfort in their bodies. Call 783-1009.