Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement
By Phyllis Marie Jensen
All in all it added up to a not so gradual decline into decrepit old age. That was until I discovered Feldenkrais. It’s a method of retraining the body’s movements, muscle by muscle, with pain-free existence as the outcome and the added benefit of elegant, graceful movement.
Months after I began Feldenkrais classes (called “Awareness Through Movement”) and had a number of private “hands on” sessions (called “Functional Integration”) with Marion Harris, a qualified Feldenkrais practitioner, I noticed an amazing difference. My knees and mid-back didn’t ache all the time, and I felt supple enough to consider dancing – something I had not been able to do.
Feldenkrais therapy is not a onetime fix-it treatment, but a form of preventive medicine because it teaches you how to move without damaging your body. There are sessions on how to get up out of a chair without hurting your knees or get out of bed without straining your neck, using your arms and how to bend without wrecking your back. For those with back problems, Feldenkrais is excellent because it allows you to live like an ordinary person without having to worry about your back giving out. Because of this I’ve stayed with the classes for two years. I think I’ve still got a lot of bad habits to unlearn and many movements to simplify.
When I first heard about Feldenkrais I really identified with his problems because he was an “old” athlete with bad knees from soccer injuries. When his physician told him there was only a 50-50 chance of improvement with surgery, Feldenkrais decided to heal his own knees.
At the time he was a scientific officer with the British Admiralty. Prior to this he had completed his PhD in mechanical engineering and high energy physics at the Sorbonne in Paris, as well as earning the first black belt in Judo in Europe.
During the Second World War he fled to England and began an intensive study of anatomy, physiology, anthropology and Zen Buddhism. Focusing on the human body as a cybernetic, or feed-back system, with an ability for self-regulation and self-improvement, Feldenkrais began to apply these principles to his own body.
He know that his body would re-harmonize itself if it was given the chance, because our bodies have a built-in bias or tendency towards efficiency. All that is needed to achieve this state is a new sensory awareness and new motor control or muscle habits.
The first step was to create a new environment for learning new movements. As a physicist he understood the implications of gravity on human movement. He tried to discover how to eliminate it and give the body a chance to re-experience motion. The solution was found. He lay on the floor and reconstructed the movements he usually did upright. The change was sufficient to create a new awareness of habitual actions and introduce new patterns.
The next step was to reduce habitual patterns without conscious attention. It is not enough to want to change an awkward movement or bad posture. There must be a reprogramming of the involuntary system – the one that works without you directing it. Unless we change the involuntary system, as soon as we forget to “sit up straight” or “hold our stomach in,” we slip back into the old pattern. To achieve this involuntary change, Feldenkrais movements are done just below the usual threshold of awareness. He compares it to feeling the difference between lifting a feather or a heavy weight with your arm. It is possible to feel the feather. That is why Feldenkrais retraining is so gentle: when you concentrate on a new small movement you can actually feel the freedom of it. You can feel your body releasing the tension and stress that you usually put into an action.
It is not just tension and stress that are eliminated, but parasitic movements. They are a lot like “tics,” but on a grand scale. For instance, when I used to cut a slice of bread I always tightened up my neck and my forearm which was totally unnecessary. A lot of Feldenkrais is getting rid of parasitic movements which occur because we learn and reproduce movements in an emotional context.
If we are under a great deal of stress or fear when we learn or repeat an action, then that stress and fear become part of the movement. Actors understand this phenomenon well because they learn to portray emotional states with body postures and physical movements – many of which have become stereotypes. All of us have made assumptions about people based on the way they hold their body and walk. Everyone has an image of the “upright” person that includes a picture of body stances.
An important part of Feldenkrais work is getting rid of the psychological baggage that accompanies habitual behavior by changing the physical movements. In releasing parasitic movements we also release old emotional responses. At this point our movements become pleasurable with a sense of peacefulness.
There are a series of detailed instructions in Feldenkrais’ book Awareness Through Movement. Cassette recordings are also available. I prefer the class setting where a teacher will assists me when I haven’t quite figured out what I’m supposed to do. Many of the movements are very subtle and are synchronized with the breath, whereas my natural inclination is to do things fast and big, or to stop breathing when I’m concentrating. It took a whole year of one-hour a week classes for me to unconsciously coordinate my breath with my movements and stop tightening my neck when I moved my foot. That’s the level at which the retraining takes place.
In Functional Integration the practitioner demonstrates to the body and mind more effective postures and patterns of movement through a series of gentle manipulations. Your feet are re-oriented to the floor through the creation of a new floor – the practitioner’s hands. Instinctively you can feel that it is right, although it does feel odd when you finally stand up. Your neck is gently positioned in an alignment with your spine. My tendency is to hold my head to the left which puts a strain on the right side; once my body got the message that it was easier and more comfortable to hold my head straight, it’s been gradually re-correcting itself without conscious effort on my part. That is the beauty of Functional Integration.
In classes the students do all the work. These are exercise classes, but totally unlike anything you’ve done before. The aim is not muscle building and strength through numerous repetitions, but reprogramming the brain. There’s no counting off the number of times you repeat a movement because the emphasis is not on what you do but how you perform a movement. Sometimes, I find myself concentrating so hard that I feel nauseated. It’s not because it is physically difficult – we never sweat or strain – it’s because we are creating new pathways in the nervous system.
Dressed in comfortable clothes we lie on the floor with eyes closed, quite unaware of each other. We are learning to tune into our “kinesthetic awareness” or sensory experience of movement. We begin by noticing what parts of our body are touching the floor. Areas where the body is tight or tense – what Feldenkrais calls “holding” – do not touch the floor.
It’s interesting and important to begin to recognize the differences between one side of the body and the other because one of the objectives is to create body symmetry. It’s not just for aesthetic appeal; it’s because if we overuse particular muscles they become fatigued over time and more prone to injury. After a while the overused muscles will try to gain a reprieve from overwork and begin to limit the range of movement or a whole series of actions. Being creatures of habit we become quite used to a limited range; we accept everyday aches, pains and distortions and think that they are normal or a function of aging.
When I tune into my kinesthetic awareness, I am always surprised that my right side still feels longer, bigger and fuller than my left; although the difference is not as much as it used to be. When I started Feldenkrais work my right shoulder was noticeably higher than my left because for years I used to carry a shoulder bag. To ensure the strap didn’t fall off I’d lift my right shoulder a slight bit and hold it there. When I moved or walked the shoulder did not participate in the action the way it is supposed to. In fact, it became more or less immobile and I couldn’t slide my shoulder blade away from my rib cage, the way it is supposed to work. When Marion Harris suggested it, I thought she was a bit mad; but it is actually possible and an important part of reaching, writing, playing the piano and racquet sports. Part of the pain I had been experiencing between my shoulder blades went when I freed up my shoulder blades. It changed all kinds of things: the way I shake hands, touch other people, stroke my cat, type and play the piano. That’s one of the delights of the Feldenkrais work – the unexpected changes. It definitely improves the way you make love.
In Feldenkrais the watch words are “If it hurts you aren’t doing it right” – the opposite of Jane Fonda’s workout principle of “burn baby burn” or many athletic programs based on the notion of “no pain, no gain.” Feldenkrais rejects this approach because when the body hurts it does not learn; it puts its energy into defending itself. Students are cautioned to make the movement smaller, lighter, slower, because it’s not what you do, but how you do it that’s important. Students are encouraged to be the judge of what they are doing, to be responsible to themselves and stop when they want to.
Most movements are very small and easy actions, like turning your head one way and your eyes the other. Because of new or old injuries or just tightness in the beck some people may find this difficult. They are encouraged to use visualization techniques or imagining the movement. When they have perfected it in their imaginations, then they try it. Much to their delight they are usually then able to do it.
Feldenkrais is not just about posture and healthy people, although good posture and freer movements are aims that bring a lot of performers (dancers, actors and musicians) to class. Feldenkrais helps the disabled gain greater range and control over their movements. Children with cerebral palsy learn to walk with fewer or no supports. People suffering from muscle wasting diseases or strokes have simple functions improved beyond belief.
Feldenkrais’ book, The Case Of Nora published in 1977, documents the problems encountered by a middle-aged woman incapacitated by a stroke. Her physicians and physiotherapists had done their utmost; still she was unable to read or write and very depressed about it, as these activities were her greatest source of pleasure. She complained that she couldn’t see the words. More than one person concluded it was a psychological problem, but it was a complex neuromuscular one in which her eyes would jump instead of following a line of words on a page.
The Case Of Nora nicely demonstrates the discovery process used by Feldenkrais, and the experimental method he used to correct her disability. He was never a guru, content to create a new method of healing and have generations of disciples rigidly follow his pattern. Rather he insisted that the first principle was that there was no principle because each case was unique. He tried continually to instill in his students the need to re-evaluate and create new ways to deal with individual problems and get the client participating in his/her own therapy.
In one article he discusses his initial attitude of curing his patients. He later realized that he and the client were working together to try to achieve an understanding of the problem; only then did his work change and produce remarkable results. Only then was he certain about what was being accomplished – freedom of movement, pleasurable movement, efficient, elegant, free and natural movement.
Note: This article appeared in Healthsharing Winter (1985) and the above is a slightly abridged version.