It's never enough to simply understand what to do
if one feels unable to put that knowledge to use.
One of the mantras of more traditional postural techniques is, "Keep your chest up!" And yet, how one is supposed to hold one's chest "up," especially for any length of time, seems to be elusive for many people.I have found one of the most exciting and practical applications of the Feldenkrais Method is to help people experience the sense of how to do something while providing the means to incorporate that ability into one's daily life. However, for some people, even Awareness Through Movement® lessons that are designed to activate and balance the work of the back muscles and help them to lift the chest, leave those people feeling that the lower back is working too hard. We understand that this happens because, for those people, the lumbar area of their spine is most available for (or is, in fact, already doing too much of) the work of keeping them upright. So, for me, a long-time question has been, how can I help people achieve the sense that they can effortlessly lift through the chest without overworking the muscles in the lower back?
A couple of months ago, looking for something else, I stumbled across a trio of Awareness Through Movement® lessons that were originally taught by Dr. Feldenkrais during his weekly classes in Israel. More than any set of lessons I have encountered, these lessons answered my question. Brilliantly constructed by Dr. Feldenkrais to help the student achieve greater flexibility throughout the thoracic area, these lessons also get the mid-back extensors firing in a way that seems almost magically to lift the chest with no sense of extra effort. It's a wonderful feeling.
On November 6, I'm going to teach a three-hour workshop, Improving Your Posture with the Feldenkrais Method at the Feldenkrais Institute of New York. For the most part, the workshop will consist of the incredibly potent Awareness Through Movement lessons I mentioned above. All the material taught on Nov. 6 will be entirely different than what you've previously experienced from me in a posture workshop. For more information and to register for the workshop, click here.
Don't misunderstand, I still firmly believe in the ideas on which I've based my previous posture workshops. If you'd like to read more of my thoughts on how the Feldenkrais Method can help you to improve your posture, take a look at my blog post from last year. Click here to read it.
Hope to see you on the 6th!
