Improving Your Sense of Self (even more...)

Who are we? When any of us speaks of "I" or "me," what do we mean? Most of us identify with our consciousness. We see ourselves as an synthesis of what we think and how we feel emotionally, coupled with the perception we have of the world through our five senses. It is our consciousness that gives us a sense of autonomy, of control over our own actions, our sense of free will.

Consequently, many of us limit what we identify as "me" or "I" to what we take in or produce through conscious action. What if you were "bigger" than that? More than just your consciousness? What if there was a creative, immensely capable part of yourself that you left unacknowledged, its power unused, simply because it resides outside your consciousness? Worse, what if leaving this power center's potential untapped caused it to atrophy and lose its ability to help you?

I'm writing of the potential power of your nervous system as a whole and, particularly, the part of your subconscious mind that organizes your movement. This power center resides within every human being but most of us never realize even a small portion of the ability that this aspect of ourselves has to contribute to our health and wellbeing.

Let's back up for a moment and think just about human movement. Even as adults, most of the time, we think of movement much as we did when we were babies. We think of movement not in terms of how it is done—what muscles are contracted in what sequence, timing and power level—but rather we think of movement in terms of what we want. Stand up. Sit down. Take a box off the shelf. Turn to see what made that noise. Walk to the car. Dial the correct combination to the padlock. Run to catch the bus. We rely on this untapped power center—our nervous system—to do the job of translating our desires into action, of directing the appropriate musculature to fire in just the right sequence at just the right time and with just the right level of contraction (and that is a gross simplification of what actually takes place) to move our body as our desires have requested. And most of us do only a small fraction of what we are capable of to improve the functioning of this part of our brain and nervous system.

Every Feldenkrais lesson provides food, in the form of information, for this aspect of our being, improving the functioning of our nervous system. But some lessons provide more direct input than others. These are the lessons through which we come to know our physical selves with greater and greater clarity and detail. In essence, these lessons provide pure and undiluted information to your nervous system that helps it (you) to do a more "informed" and efficient job of the movement assembly process outlined above. When your nervous system has better tools to work with, it will improve its (your) ability to assemble the details of how you move in a more efficient manner, resulting in greater comfort and pleasure in movement.

How does improving your movement improve your sense of self? Moshe Feldenkrais saw the human organism as an integrated system. If a change is made to one part of the system, a response is generated throughout the rest of the system. A positive change in one aspect results in a positive change to the whole. For more detail on this, see my blog post from last summer, here.

The types of Feldenkrais lessons that contribute most strongly to the nervous system's ability to sense itself and the body in which it resides require much more mental effort than they do physical exertion. These lessons can be mentally taxing, sometimes frustrating, but the effort expended in concentration and attention generates great rewards. As with all Feldenkrais work, the benefits can be immediate and profound. Moreover, the more of this type of work that is done, the more those benefits accrue over time. Whether or not a change or improvement is felt right away, these lessons provide very powerful input into the amazingly competent information processor that is our nervous system. And as one's physical self-image becomes more detailed and complete, one's self-image (in the larger sense that encompasses our thoughts and feelings as well) also expands and improves. The result is that we feel more confident, more powerful, more secure and more comfortable in the world.

I invite you to begin or continue, as the case may be, your journey toward finding a "bigger," more confident version of you, one that includes all of yourself and is no longer limited to just what your consciousness brings to your attention. This is what we'll do at my three-hour workshop (and in three related follow-up classes), Improving Your Sense of Self (click here for registration information), to be presented at The Feldenkrais Institute of New York, on Wednesday, March 5 at 6:30 pm.

More Thoughts on Improving Your Posture

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!

Dynamic Sitting at the Feldenkrais Institute

No matter what you're sitting on, dynamic sitting will help!

It really makes no difference whether you purchased your chair at a yard sale for ten bucks or spent a thousand dollars at a tony office furniture store. If you don't know how best to sit, the extra nine hundred ninety dollars isn't going to make you much more comfortable.

No matter what you're resting your behind on, once you learn to sit dynamically, you'll find yourself sitting more comfortably for longer periods of time. The comfort of your back, neck and shoulders will improve now and for the rest of your life.

That's what my workshop, Dynamic Sitting, is all about. Come join me next week at the Feldenkrais Institute for a three-hour workshop in which you'll learn how to sit more comfortably in any chair.

For those of you who are in for the big bucks (or who have employers nice enough to purchase a great chair for you), we'll go over some simple adjustments you can (and should) make to get the most help possible from the chair you have.

I'll identify the most "optimal" sitting dynamics and help you to experience them. You'll learn how to use simple sensory cues to find your own best sitting position. Further, you'll learn how to make small adjustments while you sit so you no longer feel "stuck" or "frozen" in your chair.

And we'll do a series of Feldenkrais exercises that will make it easier and more pleasurable to adopt and maintain your newly improved sitting position.

Don't get me wrong. There are times when slumping or sagging on a nice, soft sofa or easy chair is just fine. But if you are unable to find comfort when you choose to sit more efficiently, your poor sitting habits will catch up with you (if they haven't already) and cause you unnecessary pain and distraction.

Join me at 6:30 pm on Tuesday, September 10 at the Feldenkriais Institute of New York to learn how to make sitting more comfortable now and forever. To register click here. (Always a 5% discount for online registration. An additional $10 discount is available until midnight, September 3--$50 instead of $60.)

I hope to see you on Tuesday!

Improving Your Sense of Self

Most people come to a Feldenkrais^® practitioner or to Awareness Through Movement^® classes attempting to improve some physical condition or injury—they might have neck or back pain, sore hips or knees, a frozen shoulder or difficulty recovering from an injury or surgery. Some have heard that the Feldenkrais Method^® can help with sleep disorders or digestive problems.

Feldenkrais work does help people overcome all of these issues and many others. Because of this, the Feldenkrais Method has a reputation as a healing modality, as a form of alternative medicine. At various times, clients have told me that I have, "healing hands," or that I am able to perform "magic." I've received other wonderful, ego-stroking comments of this nature that are all absolutely untrue. Anyone who improves with my help, improves because I have helped them find the means to help themselves.

Dr. Feldenkrais said:

"The natural tendency of all living creatures is to go in the direction that helps them, which makes them better….. The evidence is that each person, when you help him find himself, becomes more comfortable with himself and more comfortable with others….

From the ignorance of all of humanity, something is done that disturbs the person from really becoming a person."¹

Dr. Feldenkrais was known as a gifted healer. People traveled great distances so that he might put his hands on them and receive a Functional Integration^®. And yet, to call the Feldenkrais Method a healing modality is to minimize his aims in creating and disseminating his work and falls far short of the Feldenkrais Method's potential to facilitate self-improvement.

Think of it this way. Dr. Feldenkrais could have written some very successful books that might have had titles like, Effortlessly Heal Your Aching Back or Ten Simple Steps to a Relaxed Neck or Breathe Better—Feel Better. But instead he chose to write, The Potent Self, Body and Mature Behavior, Awareness Through Movement and The Elusive Obvious, among others. Just the titles alone make it apparent that Dr. Feldenkrais was after much more than helping people with aching knees and shoulders. He was after helping people become better, more expansive, more effective, happier human beings. And the key to this is improving one's sense of self or self-image.

Here are some excerpts that provide only a fragmented bare beginning of Dr. Feldenkrais's thoughts on self-image from his book, Awareness Through Movement:

Only the unusual person will continue to improve his self-image until it more nearly approaches the potential ability inherent in each individual.

… social conditions allow an organism to function as a useful member of society without in the least developing its capacities to the full.

It is important to understand that if a man wishes to improve his self-image, he must first of all learn to value himself as an individual, even if his faults as a member of society appear to him to outweigh his qualities

A man tends to regard his self-image as something bestowed upon him by nature, although it is, in fact, the result of his own experience.

The establishment of an initial more or less complete, although approximate, image will make it possible to improve the general dynamics instead of dealing with individual actions piecemeal. This improvement may be likened to correcting playing on an instrument that is not properly tuned. Improving the general dynamics of the image becomes the equivalent of tuning the piano itself, as it is much easier to play correctly on an instrument that is in tune than on one that is not.²

And here's the only secret, the only magic: self-improvement does not come from the Feldenkrais teacher, it comes from you. You have the power to heal yourself, to improve yourself, to learn more, to become more, and this power never leaves you. All you have to do is invest some time, let go of some old ideas and embrace the possibility of change.

The whole process begins and ends with improving your sense of self. And we'll make a concrete beginning (or add to the work you've already done) in my three-hour workshop at The Feldenkrais Institute on July 25, Improving Your Sense of Self. Click here for registration information. You won't learn everything you need to know to make yourself a new human. It's a step along the way. Remaking ourselves is a process and because we have unlimited potential, it's a process that never has to stop. The only thing that stops our self-improvement is our own lack of desire.

Hope to see you on the 25^th.

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¹ Feldenkrais, Moshe: Awareness Through Movement Lessons from Alexander Yanai; International Feldenkrais Federation, Paris; 2000; pp. 2081, 2082

² Feldenkrais, Moshe: Awareness Through Movement, Harper Collins, New York; 1977; pp. 10-24

The Beauty of Constraint

"When you know what you're doing, then you can do what you want." --Moshe Feldenkrais

When you take Feldenkrais^® Awareness Through Movement^® lessons (ATM^®), you are encouraged to find your own way of moving, to keep the movement comfortable for you. You are often told that there is no "right" way of doing a particular movement, that however you can best follow the teacher's instructions is the "correct" way for you to do the movement at that moment. And while all of that is true....

Awareness Through Movement is designed to improve your ability to move.

It is easy to confuse what's comfortable with what is familiar. And if we only explore movement within the parameters of the familiar, our improvement will be much slower than it will be if we comfortably move ourselves into the realm of the unfamiliar, exploring the possibilities for movement in ways that we rarely or never do.

One of the most frequently used tools in the structure of ATM lessons is constraint. There are many types of constraints built into lessons; 1) verbal, including constraints on timing or speed or the quality of movement; 2) physical, including holding onto a particular part of the body while you do a movement, adopting and holding a physical shape, or changing orientation to make the floor a constraint; and 3) imaginary, including holding onto something that isn't there while moving, or imagining that someone helps you to do a particular movement.

In my experience as a teacher I frequently see students unknowingly thwart the intent of a constraint in order to move farther or faster or in a way that is more comfortable or familiar. People usually don't disregard these constraints intentionally. They do it because they don't understand the intent or structure of the constraint.

In my workshop, to be given at The Feldenkrais Institute of New York on June 25 (for details and registration information, click here), you'll learn how to recognize various types of constraints that come up in lessons and how to use them to direct yourself to move in places and ways that are unfamiliar. Once you know how to effectively use constraints you'll more quickly find different, more functional ways of moving. Through experience, you'll learn to intellectually understand the intent of a particular instruction so that your movement explorations can become better self-directed in a way that will lead to more movement options, faster improvement and greater movement health.

In other words, this workshop will help you discover, in a more concrete way than ever before, "...what you are doing [so] you can do what you want." 

The Position of Your Head (Where Is Your Head?)

Why’s it important? Let’s begin with the assumption that in evolutionary terms, the human body came to be what it is as a result of a set of environmental and cultural conditions that have not existed for a very long time. The vast majority of Americans no longer have to physically compete for food, nor do we have to actively avoid predators, two primary conditions that contributed to the “survival of the fittest” resulting in the human anatomy we currently share. Historically, for the purpose of survival of a human being, there are few things more important than the most efficient means of transporting the teleceptors (eyes, ears, nose) toward a source of potential danger or sustenance. Because of this, in terms of our evolution (this is not only true of humans, of course) the development of the freedom of the head and neck as we grow and mature is given high biological priority. In his book, Body and Mature Behavior, Dr. Feldenkrais writes extensively of the process of human development and, in that context, of the importance of the placement of the head. Here is an excerpt in which he writes that effective movement of the head is a precursor to the development of consciousness itself, the very thing, one might argue, that most makes us human:

The anatomy of the head determines the conditioning of response to sound, and the reflective response to gravity. Next, the motility of the eyes is integrated into the already existing basic movements of the head. The first manifestations of consciousness will appear with the control of the head which allows the child to follow and direct itself towards moving objects or sources of sound. (p. 113)

He goes on to describe, in the developing infant, the importance of the position of the head to achieve any effective change of physical orientation as well as the ability in a well-functioning child to maintain an efficient head position nearly indefinitely:

Soon afterwards, the head begins to right itself to a special position [a somewhat confusing description of that position is omitted]. At the beginning, the head tends reflexively to this position, in whatever position the body may be. A baby, put on its tummy, lifts its head to this reference position, and remains that way as long as necessary. The tonic muscular contraction is practically [incapable of being fatigued]. With this position of the head is associated the image of oneself in one’s relation to space. And for correct appreciation of spatial relation, all acts involve a brief fixing of the head in it. Standing up, or changing attitude are sensed to be accomplished when the head assumes the reference position. Only after this can a new act be initiated without the reflex impulses contradicting voluntary control. (p 113-114)

In other words, before we can do anything, we have to orient ourselves physically and that orientation is accomplished by a learned reference point of our head that contains the teleceptors and the receptors for our vestibular system. As an organism we are predisposed to finding a “resting” position for our head that least taxes our neck muscles so that we can most easily move the head in any direction. The contraction of the neck muscles is intrinsically related to the habitual contraction of the flexors and extensors in our entire body. A positive or negative change on either side of this equation (the muscles of the neck on one side and the muscles that control our ability to remain upright on the other) elicits the same positive or negative response in the other side. It’s a matter of infinite degrees but many (perhaps most) of us live a life of relatively poor self-use and lack of attention to our physicality. Our habitual physical organization, both in movement and at rest, is affected by this inattention, often resulting in the “poor posture” that so many of us lament. For most of us, the optimal positioning of the head that we knew in our early youth is slowly lost and forgotten. In Body and Mature Behavior, Dr. Feldenkrais goes on to illuminate the detrimental effect of having a poorly aligned head. Here, he speaks of only one of several possible poor head placements:

…once the sunken head posture is acquired, a person will revert to the most awkward and tiresome (to normal people) procedure in turning his head, but will obstinately avoid lifting it into that position from which turning is normally easy. A parallel procedure is observed on the emotional plane, where the immature person uses detour, roundabout ways instead of direct, simple methods. (p. 118)

He’s saying that the more familiar poor head placement becomes, the more difficult it becomes for us to do what would be easiest. As a forward leaning head (or any other misalignment) becomes more familiar than a position that would allow simpler, easier movement of the head and neck, the position of ease of movement becomes more difficult to attain and maintain than a position of inefficiency. This sets up a deteriorating pattern in which our poor self-use and lack comfort steadily increase. The entire system suffers as a result. Conversely, the freer the head and neck, the greater the possibility of freedom in our entire being, both physical and emotional.

And that’s why it’s important. The position of your head and its freedom is a gauge for the freedom and effective use of your entire self. Finding the best position for your head can alleviate neck pain almost instantly. With more effective head placement, back pain will lessen in short order. Breathing will ease and become fuller and deeper. Your entire sense of well-being and personal security will increase as you improve the position of your head.

If you’d like to start that process, come join me on Tuesday, September 4 at The Feldenkrais Institute for my Feldenkrais Method^® workshop, “Where is Your Head?” For more information and to register online with a 5% discount, click here.

Spontaneity and Summer Spine Essentials

At the Feldenkrais^® Institute of New York our theme for July is Spontaneity. If you've done Awareness Through Movement® (ATM®) exercises, this may seem at least a bit incongruous. In ATM, everything seems planned. Each movement is carefully described. Often, movements are nearly identical except for a seemingly minor change in one component. Where is there any room for spontaneity in a structure like this? Even within a structure--any structure--spontaneity is there for you to find. In an ATM exercise, you are always encouraged to do only what is easy, only what feels pleasurable. If that means, to remain comfortable, you have to alter the instructions the teacher gives, well, that requires some spontaneity.

But more important is the realization that what we do in an ATM exercise is training. The human body, like all efficient systems, is nearly always capable of performing the same action in a variety of different ways. Your brain assembles or "organizes" movement—dictates which muscles will be activated and in what sequence and level of contraction, while also inhibiting other muscles from acting. Every Feldenkrais experience you encounter presents your brain with more options for how to organize movement. The specific way a movement is organized in the brain is dictated mostly by habit and, depending on how "well-organized" we are, by the circumstances under which the movement is performed. (I'm getting to the issue of spontaneity, I promise.) The training done during ATM exercises provides you with more organizational options for doing any number of different movements. And the more options you have available, the more spontaneous your movement becomes, changing and optimizing depending on what you're doing and why you're doing it. As you do more and more Feldenkrais work, your ability to be spontaneous increases.

So what does this have to do with my workshops, Summer Spine Essentials? The spine is the central core of support for over half your body mass. If you improve the movement of the spine, you improve the potential for nearly every movement you do. In addition, many common aches and pains, both the obvious ones like neck and back aches, and some less obvious like hip, knee and ankle problems, can often be helped by improving the ability of the spine to move effectively.

Summer Spine Essentials is made up of three related workshops, beginning on July 10th, when we'll explore turning and twisting. This workshop is great if you have neck problems, shoulder issues or back pain. Further, improving the ability of the spine to turn contributes directly to the ability to more easily bend forward and back, the theme we'll explore on Tuesday, July 17^th. In the third workshop on July 24^th, we'll look into how you can use your entire spine to move in all directions. As you improve your ability to sense all of your spine, you'll be able to better detect what parts of your spine are working too hard and what parts aren't doing the job they should be.

As you become better able to sense and utilize your spine, you can use that information to improve your posture, be more comfortable standing or walking, and sitting will become more effortless in nearly any situation. You'll also be able to better help yourself solve and prevent neck pain and backaches.

Spontaneity is usually something we believe we have or do not; something we're comfortable with or we're not. But as you do more Feldenkrais work, you may be surprised to find that you become more and more spontaneous. As your nervous system gains more tools to use in movement assembly, resulting in more spontaneous movement, you'll likely find an increase in the spontaneity of your thinking and feeling, as well. As a human organism, you're all one system. When you change and improve one part (like the way you move) the rest of the system responds in kind.

I invite you to join me for any or all three of the Summer Spine Essentials workshops. The cumulative experience of all three will be the best, but if you can only make one or two, each evening will stand on its own.

Why not try out a little spontaneity today? Use this link to find out more and register for any or all of the Summer Spine Essentials workshops. I hope to see you there.