Writings

 

This is an article I wrote for the Berkshire yoga circle before teaching a workshop there

 

The Feldenkrais Method was founded by Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, a distinguished scientist, mechanical engineer and judo teacher. The Method promotes a sensory-motor approach to movement and learning and combines understandings from biomechanics, motor development, psychology and martial arts. After a debilitating knee injury that left Moshe Feldenkrais unable to walk, he began to closely examine the relationship between human movement, thinking, feeling and our potential for self-regulation and healing. These intense explorations culminated in his own recovery, his first book ‘Body and Mature Behaviour’ (1949), and the development of the Feldenkrais Method.

 

Most people who join a Feldenkrais or Yoga class want to feel better. Maybe they wish to address some discomfort or limitation they experience when moving or are looking for ways to improve their general mobility, posture, breathing and health. Or perhaps students would like to enhance an existing skill in sports, music or drama. But how do movement or yoga classes help people feel better or improve whatever it is they would like to do better in life? From a Feldenkrais perspective, the answer is through embodied learning. 

 

As teachers or facilitators of learning, we believe that improvement does not solely happen through practice and repetition but through a process of exploring and learning through trial and error. Rather than teaching students the correct way to move, we encourage pupils to experiment and find out for themselves what feels right and comfortable. We endeavour to create favourable conditions for learning where the emphasis is on the students’ self-directed discovery rather than linear, information-driven teaching. 

 

This process is similar to how we learned to move as babies. Motivated by their curiosity, babies explore their bodies, movement and environment and build on what feels good and works well.  Rather than following a particular script, babies learn through their own experience of what they inquire into.

 

Moshe Feldenkrais called this sensory-based, organic learning; learning that is process-oriented rather than goal-directed. As adults, we can tap back into this ability to learn from our own experiences and find our own movement solutions.

 

We might further investigate how learning happens. As I mentioned earlier, learning to improve the way we move and act in the world is not predominantly a cognitive process. It is difficult, for example, to sit or stand straight for a prolonged period if someone tells us to do so. We might maintain a more favourable position for some time but soon revert back to our habitual way of sitting or standing when our mind is occupied with something else. To learn to do something differently, to act differently, we need enough sensory input. We need to be able to compare; this feels short, this feels longer, this feels supported, this doesn't so that we can make the necessary adjustments, for example, to being upright easily. And in order to make comparisons, we need to move slowly so that we have enough time to notice and register what we are doing. Often, we need to reduce the muscular effort we are using and increase our sensitivity to feel nuances and details. Paying close attention to what we are doing and listening to ourselves, allows new ways to emerge and gives our brain the necessary information to alter what we are doing. 

 

Moshes Feldenkrais inferred that “If you know (feel) what you are doing, you can do what you want”.

 

In our workshop 'Finding more mobility in our spine and ribs through turning and twisting’, we will use some of these principles and look at our theme and how we move from various angles, partly from a biomechanical viewpoint and partly from a learning perspective.

 

We might ask what needs to be in our awareness to be able to turn and twist easily? Which places do we need to sense clearly? Does involving more of our entire self lead to more harmonious and efficient movements?

 

We might investigate which connections we need to feel through our skeleton; for instance, how do our upper and lower body coordinate to turn and twist easily?

 

We may compare how our right or left side moves; do they feel similar, or do we notice differences? How does detecting differences help our brain to work towards a better balance?

 

We might further pay attention to the tempo of our movements. Are we moving slow enough to feel, for example, how our contact with the floor changes as we turn and shift our weight? Which areas need to adjust to the floor? Are we breathing as we move? 

 

Perhaps we draw our attention to the quality of our movements. Are we moving in a comfortable, even pleasurable way, or are we straining unconsciously? Does reducing the effort we are using lead to smoother, more fluent movements? Would including our eyes further assist the ease of the motion, give it more direction and clarity?

 

Apart from exploring the theme of our day, the biomechanics of turning and twisting, we will also inquire into how we orchestrate and perform our movements, what we do and how it feels. This will help us to become clearer about our actions, about the way we learn and will ultimately support our self-knowledge and self-development. One could argue that human improvement happens through a better understanding of oneself in all its dimensions; the way we move, act, feel, sense, think and how we relate to ourselves and our environment. 

 

These global observations about motion, learning and improvement can be generalised to almost all movements and disciplines, and you should be able to transfer them into your own practice and teaching. 

 

Sabine Schmid Blackaby