Here’s an interesting idea — what if your current discomfort is something that you are experiencing right now, rather than something that you “have?”
One of the things we think we know best is our pain. And yet, our sensation of pain dulls all of our other sensations. We go on “auto-pilot,” go-go-go, trying to ignore or conquer ourselves — and then wonder why we feel worse instead of better. Ever notice that when you try to “get rid of something,” it just sticks to you like velcro?
When you get injured, you limit movement to stop the pain. Once the pain is gone though, you continue to move as if you were injured — the brain still remembers the injury and protects the area. Such compensation can lead to further problems. So unless you retrain those movement abilities, you limit yourself more and more.
The Feldenkrais Method uses your own ability to learn and pay attention to yourself as you do slow, subtle movements. It’s like doing crossword puzzles for the body,” says Barrows, the Los Angeles practitioner who treated Dumas. Just as working the Sunday crossword increases your language fluency by exposing you to new words and subtle shadings of meaning, Barrows suggests, doing Feldenkrais improves your physical functioning and athleticism by introducing the body to nuanced ways of moving.
I call it improving your movement vocabulary.
With well over 1,000 different movement sequences, for every part of you from your eyeballs to your toes, the Feldenkrais Method is the best way I know of to really get to know your body. Not “get to know your body” in some abstract, woo-woo sort of way, but to get to know “it/you” – as someone real, alive, moving — animated.
Your body, in action. Real action, that is useful to you in your life. That’s what the Feldenkrais Method is for.
If you like to do yoga, Pilates, running, dance, workouts, competitive sports, performing arts or just LIVING — the Feldenkrais Method can help you to feel your way toward doing it better.
You always have the power to change the quality of your experience.
