Moshe Quote Of the Day: "...in order to learn we must sharpen our powers of sensing, and if we try to do most things by sheer force we shall achieve precisely the opposite of what we need." (from Awareness Through Movement, p. 58)
Ladies and gentlemen! Step right up! It’s the fight you’ve been waiting for all your lives. You’ve never seen anything like this one, folks! Two powerful methods of change, squared off in the center ring for the fight to the finish! In this corner, the challenger, weighing in at 50-some-odd years, The Feldenkrais Methaaaaahhhhhd. (Yaaaaayyyyyy!) And in this corner, our current champeen, and best-known body-practice in the worruld, Yyyyyogaaaaaaa!!! (Raaaahhhhhh!)
Okay, okay. So I set myself up posing that question. Not only am I asking you to choose between two things you may never have tried, but I am potentially creating a rift between two wonderful, very gentle methodologies whose practitioners share so many ideals in common. So let me start out by apologizing to the Yoga community (I’m sorry.) for any implication that we Feldenkrais teachers believe we can replace Yoga.
The fact is that many people want to effect change in their lives and are faced with a number of ways to do this, ways whose effectiveness and relevance to their situations are often unclear. Not only Yoga, but Tai Chi, Aerobics, Pilates, Tae Kwon Do, and even Outward Bound offer their wares to the traveller hungry for some change in their lives. What I really want to get at today is “Why Feldenkrais?” When do you know that this method is the one that will suit you best?
I believe Feldenkrais will benefit everyone who does it. I also know that some people benefit from the work without thinking they are because they still lack enough of the skill that Feldenkrais teaches, awareness, to really be able to assess the changes they are going through. What is this awareness, and why does the Feldenkrais Method focus on it, rather than on the attainment of certain postures or abilities?
Let’s examine a situation in which awareness will be useful. If I asked you to make a fist, the odds are you could do it. Once you had brought your fingers together, you’d probably think no more of it. Goal accomplished. You’d look around, notice that most people could also make a fist, and that a few others couldn’t. That would be the end of your curiosity about the matter.
The truth is that the ability to make a fist is not a “can” or “can’t” situation. Despite what we perceive as a finished task, the fingers curled into a fist, there are really a large number of shades of “fistness” that we may have missed. Is your fist as tight as your neighbor’s? Are the two people who can’t make a fist both equally unable to do so, or does one come closer than another?
When you’ve thought about it for a moment, you quickly realize that making a fist is not a “can” or “can’t” situation, that there is a spectrum of ability ranging from “cannot curl the fingers” to “can crush an apple,” with every possibility in between. This is the first step in awareness: recognizing that we are on an infinite path with our movements, and that improvement is always possible no matter how well or poorly we do something.
The next step would be to ask ourselves “How do we make a fist?” Some people obviously cannot curl their fingers because they have been paralyzed in that arm. But what about the rest of us? What makes the difference between the person with arthritis and the person with “weak hands?” Why can one person make a strong fist, while another can literally crush a brick? What enables the fingers to curl with greater ability?
Let’s back up and examine the entire body. Every movement we make requires participation from our whole self, whether that participation be the organizing of a steady base beneath us or the relaxation of the part that does less. So let us ask the question of ourselves: As we make a fist, are we organizing ourselves in the best possible way to do so? What is the best possible way? What muscle groups need to work together in coordinated action to make the strongest use of the levers that are our bones? What parts of us are working when they do not need to be? Do we put forth effort in a way that actually hampers the movement?
To the extent that we are aware, we will have more and more of an understanding regarding these questions. Perhaps we can begin to answer them, but even if we can’t, the miraculous thing is that our nervous system will. We can experience a change even if we cannot fully explain it to ourselves. For some, this is frightening, but it doesn’t have to be. Through the process of becoming more aware, we are simply giving our bodies more choices in movement than it had before. We can always inhibit these choices if we like, but the important thing is that we become aware that we are doing so.
The state of awareness is a quiet place. It’s a non-judgemental state where we can move without worrying about having to do it right all the time. It’s a state of play, like the ones children are in, where anything is possible. When you are able to experience awareness, you can make choices more clearly because you are really able to understand their results.
All the while Feldenkrais teachers are telling you how to move, they are encouraging you to do so in that particular state of curiosity, of non-judgement, of pleasure. They know that moving in this way, you can truly learn something and make a lasting and positive change in the way you move, and in the way you live.
I believe that the ultimate goal of Yoga, as well as other disciplines, is awareness, because Yoga teachers promise the kinds of changes in the body, mind and spirit that one gets when one increases awareness of their movement. So one can gain the same benefits that one gets from Feldenkrais by doing Yoga if one has an instructor that understands the benefits of going slow, being gentle, and not focusing too much on attainment of a goal over the process of getting there.
If one wishes to really focus on this state of awareness, there’s nothing better than Feldenkrais, because Feldenkrais teachers will teach you how to listen to yourself while you are moving, instead of simply telling you which moves are the most beneficial. With the knowledge you can gain from a Feldenkrais workshop, you can go into any Yoga class and benefit from it in ways that may have been impossible to you before.
Listen!
Next
month: How You Can Speed Up By Slowing Down
© 2002 Adam Cole