Improving Performance with the Feldenkrais Method (Skiing)

If you know “what” you are doing and even more important “how” you use yourself to act, you will be able to do things the way you want.
--Moshe Feldenkrais, The Elusive Obvious

In a previous post, entitled Feldenkrais^® Is Not Therapy, I introduced the idea that learning to use the Feldenkrais Method could open the door to the process of self-healing. Inextricably tied up with that idea is the concept of self-improvement and, today, I'd like to give a personal example of how I use the Feldenkrais Method to improve my physical performance, something that has nothing to do with healing.

A little over a week ago I returned from five days of skiing in Colorado. It was the first skiing I'd done in two years and I skied better than I ever have in my life. Since becoming a devoted and consistent practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, this phenomenon of improving my skiing, even when I don't ski, no longer strikes me as miraculous, but rather, as something that I now expect.

I was first introduced to Feldenkrais work when I was just over forty years old. I'm now fifty-six and my skiing has improved more over the past ten years than it had for the thirty-five years previous, despite the fact that I'm what most would consider far past my physical "prime," I'm not in the best "shape" of my life, and I ski fewer days per season than I did during my twenties and thirties.

What accounts for my improvement? My ever increasing ability to sense myself and to translate that sensation into concrete and immediately available physical knowledge of how I do what I'm doing. When I was younger and taking ski lessons, I recall being frustrated when instructors would give me directions like, "Keep your shoulders facing downhill and let your legs do the turning." Sure, that made sense to me, but I had no idea how to do it. Partly because the instructors' language wasn't particularly clear. "…let your legs and pelvis do the turning," would have been much more accurate although, at the time, I doubt I would have found those words any more useful.

(Here's a link to a VERY short video of me skiing. 5 secs in, a couple skis into view; I'm the one behind in the yellow jacket.)

I began to sense what was involved in twisting myself, differentiating the movement of my pelvis from that of my shoulders. My improving sensory ability told me which of my ribs and vertebrae participate more or less easily in the twist, how each of my hip joints responds differently, how the musculature of my lower back and abdomen work better in concert with one another on my right side than on my left. I began to build a useful kinesthetic "toolbox" to improve my technique. I can now consciously (even as my nervous system does the same unconsciously) use my musculature and skeleton to find better harmony with the forces of gravity, the changing terrain and my ski equipment. Instead of thinking about my place in the sport as a fight to be won, it has become more of a synergistic give and take between me, the mountain and the snow. For example, I became better aware of how to allow my weight to settle just forward of the center or my foot over the downhill ski as I eased my knees into the hill (utilizing the aforementioned twist, along with some side-bending), thereby directing the downward gravitational pull on my body mass to find a near perfect balance with the upward force of the camber of the skis to make the ski do exactly what it was designed to do: carve a perfect turn.

This sense of dancing with gravity and terrain, not conquering, but using my skill to find harmony with a well-designed piece of equipment, creates a feeling of euphoria that I have found unmatched in any other physical activity in which I've ever engaged. And the big bonus? I keep getting better. Each time I go, my skill improves and it's more fun.

But that's just me—I love to ski. The real point is that the skills that are improved and refined through your work with the Feldenkrais Method will improve any and every physical activity in which you chose to participate. Or even those you might like to try but, heretofore, have not. Golf? Tennis? Volleyball? Squash? Handball? Swimming? Body Surfing? You'll find you have greater skill at anything and everything as you increase your facility to sense what you do, improve your ability to activate your musculature in very specific ways, find greater physical efficiency through a heightened awareness of how to sense and inhibit unnecessary actions and become more adept at detecting how force is most effectively transmitted through your skeleton.

Don't worry if that last sentence leaves you thinking, "How can I learn to do all that?" Nothing more is required than patience and a willingness to show up, be present, and allow yourself the luxury of engaging in the process that is inherent in the Feldenkrais Method.

As a society we have become over-reliant on our brains, to the detriment of our bodies. Some of us, consciously or unconsciously, look at our bodies as having no more use than a bag of bones that carries our brain from one place to another and processes fuel to keep that brain alive. Our body can provide us with so much more joy than that. It's never too late; you're never too old. Use your body and learn to use it better and better with the Feldenkrais Method. The rewards will be gigantic.

See you in class.