Volume 3, No. 5, June 2004
Quote from Moshe: “The
nervous system and the frame develop together under the influence of gravity in
such a way that the skeleton will hold up the body without expending energy
despite the pull of gravity. If, on the
other hand, the muscles have to carry out the job of the skeleton, not only do
they use energy needlessly, but they are then prevented from carrying out their
main function of changing the position of the body, that is, of movement.” Awareness
Through Movement, p. 68
BONES FOR LIFEtm IMPROVES
POSTURE AND BONES!
By Louise Runyon, G.C.F.P.
Most of us are concerned about posture, or alignment,
in one way or another. The Feldenkrais Method® teaches that “good posture,” or alignment, is our
birthright – that our skeletons were designed to be upright without using our
muscles to force ourselves into
alignment. The Feldenkrais Method also
teaches about dynamic, functional
alignment – that the optimal configuration of the skeleton at any given
moment is that which is suited to the task at hand, not a rigid, static
“straightness.”
Many
of us are also concerned about bone strength, or bone density. Women over the age of 40 or 50 are concerned
about avoiding osteoporosis, and many older women and men are concerned about
reversing it. Anyone who has broken a
hip, or who knows someone who has broken a hip, is aware of the very real
danger of brittle bones. Many people are
also aware that loss of height – “shrinking” in an older person – is related to
bent, hunched posture and to loss of bone strength.
Osteoporosis
and brittle bones have long been thought to be part of the natural process of
aging in our society. However, several
recent discoveries have changed this thinking.
Outer space exploration revealed that young, fit astronauts suffered
dramatic bone loss in outer space when not subject to gravity. It was determined that impact – the striking of one’s heel into the earth – was essential
for continued generation of new bone cells, and floating in a zero-gravity
environment provides no impact. It was
also discovered that bone loss could be reversed, that when astronauts returned
to gravity and embarked on a program of impacting the earth, their bone mass
could be restored. It is this impact
that allows calcium in the diet to be absorbed.
Another
crucial discovery is that measurable bone density does not necessarily
correspond to bone breakage. Comparative
research has recently shown that African women who bear heavy loads on their
heads have only five percent of the bone fractures of Western women, despite
lower bone density! What these women
have is functional bone
strength. Ruthy Alon, one of the
earliest students trained by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais in
As
you may imagine, alignment is a necessary factor in carrying a heavy urn of
water on one’s head. Distortions in
alignment would result in either spilling the water, breaking the urn, or
both! This alignment also means that
there is direct transmission of movement
through the skeleton, which enables blood (carrying nutrients and oxygen) to
penetrate the solid tissue of the bone and provide for growth of new bone
cells. In our society, in contrast, we
have fewer and fewer opportunities for direct transmission of movement, as more
and more of our work is done with wheels, automatic
doors and escalators. BONES FOR LIFE,
invaluable for women and men of any age, is oriented towards developing a
springy and dynamic walk which stimulates bone growth and bone strength. It is also about recovering one’s natural
alignment, without which a springy walk is impossible.
In
life, we hold ourselves in many different and often contradictory ways. If you watch people jogging, you will see
that some move forward with their knees, but backward with their chest, or
forward with their head, but backward with their pelvis. Moshe Feldenkrais called this
cross-motivation: part of you wants to go forward, part of you doesn’t. Contrast this in your mind’s eye with a
Disney animation of a squirrel bounding through the forest, and how movement
flows buoyantly from one part of the squirrel’s body to the next. You can also see this direct transmission of
movement in slow motion footage of gifted runners.
Rather
than direct transmission, which involves every single vertebrae and every
single part of the body, in life we often try to do most of the work of
walking, for example, with our feet. The
Feldenkrais Method teaches that
walking is much simpler and more comfortable when the movement moves through
our pelvis and spine and ribcage and chest and head. In BONES FOR LIFE, students lie down and push
with their feet into the floor, and notice where the
impact goes. They then push into the
wall with their hands, and notice what happens to that force. In the beginning, this effort often does not
travel anywhere – or the force from the feet only goes as far as the pelvis, or
the force from the hands doesn’t get through to the feet.
Through
these and other ingeniously-designed movement processes, the information is
delivered to the brain that we have other options than holding on and
preventing the flow of movement through the skeleton. BONES students quickly begin to find the
connections, and to develop a much springier walk. The use of the wall and the floor provides
the feedback of what we are doing, and how we are doing it. The wall, in particular, gives the kind of
feedback that we as bi-peds get only through our feet in walking, but which
quadrupeds get through all four extremities.
Often,
when people begin traditional impact activity to develop bone strength, the irony
is that they injure themselves. The same
movement limitations and alignment problems that put them at risk for fracture
often mean that running, weight-lifting and even walking are too much for them. BONES FOR LIFE provides a much safer, surer
way to bone strength by utilizing our innate intelligence – which knows that we
were designed for movement to flow through our skeletons. Much of the work is done in the safety of
lying on the floor, which then allows a person to come to their feet in a much
more aligned, organized way, so that impact is both comfortable and
non-injurious. BONES also utilizes a
strip of cloth, called a harness, which allows even students with significant
limitations to jump safely.
From
my personal experience as both a student and a teacher of BONES FOR LIFE, I
have found that one of the main results is becoming sturdy. My students often
use this word, and I find that I have a confidence on my feet that I didn’t
have before. BONES explores every aspect
of walking, including how movement passes through the body from the peeling off
of the foot to the top of the head.
Students also learn very quickly what true alignment means, and are able
to discard various myths and illusions about it.
Case studies conducted by Ruthy Alon in
There
is tremendous joy in movement which flows unimpeded through one’s self. This is our birthright, but something which
we find so seldom. BONES FOR LIFE, and
the Feldenkrais Method on which
it is based, provide this sense of vitality which we all search for. This vitality, as well as a springy and
dynamic walk, are based on what Ruthy Alon calls
“biological optimism” – that this is the way we were meant to be. Strong bones and dynamic alignment can be
realized by utilizing the astonishing intelligence and power of our own evolved
nervous systems.
For more information on BONES FOR LIFE,
see www.bonesforlife.com. Louise
Runyon is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitionercm and
a certified BONES FOR LIFE teacher based in
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Ask Adam
Question: “What is the Guild?” Les Snow
Answer: The Feldenkrais Guild of North America is a nonprofit organization
which certifies practitioners, sponsors their continuing education, and
protects the legal status of the terms Feldenkrais,
Awareness Through Movement, and other Feldenkrais-specific terms in
The Guild maintains a website at www.feldenkraisguild.com.