Feldenkrais®
What is Feldenkrais®?
Named
after Moshe Feldenkrais it is a practice that increases
body awareness and provides the individual with increases physical
awareness of the body and mind.
Moshe Feldenkrais, D.Sc was a visionary scientist who pioneered the field of mind-body education and therapy. He wrote numerous books on Feldenkrais and Judo.
Thousands have found renewed health and increased sensory awareness through the Feldenkrais Method.
Moshe wrote many books, including Awareness through Movement and The Potent Self. In Awareness Through Movement he writes "To learn we need time, attention, and discrimination;to discriminate we must sense. This mean that in order to learn we must sharpen our powers of sensing, and if we try to do most things by sheer force we shall achieve precisely the opposite of what we need.
I practise Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement classes in our local town. I also have been fortunate enough to attend Functional Integration sessions with numerous highly experienced Feldenkrais practitioners throughout the world.
Increasing Body Awareness
I have found I have increased body awareness. I now stop before I injure myself and know that tension in the body can be alleviated through simple movements and visualisation as is used within the Feldenkrais Method.
"Life and movement are practically
the same thing." Moshe Feldenkrais, The Potent Self
"Everything we do is manifested through the muscles." Moshe Feldenkrais. The Potent Self
When our body is well organised we can move with ease.
"We are aware of inner tension and resistance; we feel strain when acting the way we do. The strain is always expressed through muscular tension of the muscles of the face, the neck, the abdomen, the fingers, or the toes that can easily be detected if looked for." The Potent Self
Ultimately through awareness we can move in a way that allows the body to seek pleasure (absense of pain) rather than repeating movements that cause pain. How are you sitting as you read this website? Do you have more weight on one foot than the other? What do the cheeks of your face feel like, are you gripping your jaw or clenching your teeth? Drawing your attention to the muscles and habitual patterns of our day to day lives we can seek to move in an optimal way.
"What I'm after isn't flexible bodies, but flexible brains. What I'm after is to restore each person to their human dignity. " Moshe Feldenkrais.
More Than Just Exercise
The Feldenkrais Method is more than just exercises it is a way of looking at life with a flexibility that sees infinite possibilities.
"Find your true weakness and surrender to it.
Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives
using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses.
Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses,
who don't divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any
generation there are a few and they lead their generation. "
Moshe Feldenkrais
If you like the sound of Feldenkrais then I can highly recommend and I particularly like Lavinia Plonka's CDs and books. I practice a short 18-25 minute Feldenkrais lesson each morning. I find I don't ache sitting at my computer!
These Feldenkrais lessons are gentle movements to perform, and involve you really thinking about what you are doing and tuning into your body's wisdom to increase your awareness. On the CDs Lavinia guides the listener to do small movements, seeking awareness through the movements not straining or striving to achieve the goal. The act of moving is more important than the goal of, for example, touching your toes.
Feldenkrais Resources
To buy Lavinia's or any of the
other experienced Feldenkrais practitioners' CDs please visit the
store at Achieving Excellence.com You are able to buy
downloadable audio versions to play in iTunes!
Sadly there is little video of Moshe during his life, and his final training he fascilitated was in Amhurst, Massachusetts, USA.
I have been fortunate enough to attend a training segment with a trainer who attended this training with Moshe Feldenkrais. He was quite a character apparently and that now lives on through the many teachers throughout the world.
Another audio recording that I regularly do is
by a man named Jack Heggie. He has written books called
Skiing with the Whole Body, Running with the Whole Body and Golf
with the Whole Body. The recording I particularly like is
Healthy Back™ in less than 20 minutes a day. The exercises
are simply incredible at releaving muscle tension in the neck and
back. A must for anyone who uses a computer!
To browse all audio or book titles on the Achieving Excellence website:
A goal of mine is to do the training in 2012 as I would like to include Functional Integration lessons in my Wellness Consulting.