‘Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.’ According to Moshe Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais method.
Feldenkrais is a practical and efficient method to learn how to have more of your own movement options. Focusing your attention is crucial here and because of that you could say that Feldenkrais is ‘mindfulness in movement’ or ‘becoming aware through movement’. Focusing might not be the correct term here, it is more like being curious how your body functions, how your movement is going. Focus has more of a single pointedness, whereas curiosity has an almost childlike playfulness. And it is very relaxing to see your life as a ‘play of conciousness’.
We move more or less all day long and most of the time we take our movements for granted. Until a movement is suddenly no longer self-evident due to injury, illness or surgery. Because of the obviousness, we no longer realize whether a certain movement is taxing our body.
Our nervous system can learn movement patterns. Often that goes well, but sometimes not. After an injury for example, it may be that an incorrect movement pattern has arisen and the movement pattern has to be rearranged so as not to overburden the body. Learning new movement patterns is an organic process, where body and mind are both involved, so that new neural pathways can be formed in a soft learning way.
The question now is: what is a correct posture? Let’s get back to Moshe for answering this question. Moshe says: a correct posture is that from which you can move easily in all directions without having to make an adjustment first and the movement execution is done with minimum effort and maximum efficiency.
What I like personally about the Feldenkrais method, is that it teaches you to move freely and this method is for everyone, regardless of age, experience or condition (you will see that under the header movement) and it is used worldwide. I had a lovely teacher too!
Did you ever try the Feldenkrais method? I would love to hear your experiences!