Why is the Feldenkrais Method so wonderful for working on change? What makes it effective, and how can you make the changes more permanent?
Learning
The Feldenkrais Method is essentially a model of how you learn. It’s a very organic way of learning from movement, which is also how we began our learning capabilities: from movement. If you know the steps in movement, you can apply it to anything.
The way your brain is highly ready to learn is when you ask it questions. In Feldenkrais lessons, these are questions like:
- About what you feel when you move
Those are sensory questions: what changes in your contact with the floor, where does the pressure increase or decrease, or do you even move away from the floor? Can you follow the movement line of your elbow in space? - About how you move precisely
Your movement rhythm, motion pace, how fluidly you move, what happens to your breathing in the process, etc. - About differences between left and right
Where does it move more easily, where more stiffly or jerkily, or with difficulty in another way?
By varying the questions, you get closer to what you are doing exactly, what the quality is, and whether you find the movement pleasant. And if you don’t find it pleasant, what could you do to make it feel better? Move smaller, seek another direction, see if you can particularly move more slowly, and seek uniformity in pace.
Why Change?
Often, dissatisfaction is the main reason for change. Something isn’t working you’d like to have work. Often the alarm bell rings only when something repeatedly causes pain, for example. Or you feel stiff, and you know you didn’t feel that way before. Why accept feeling stiff? Could there be another possibility?
Utilizing Your Human Potential
A very different reason to work on change is that you are symbolically in a much tighter jacket than your actual possibilities. You could say that all personal traits also limit you in a certain way, your personal boundary. But if you look at human potential? There is so much possible if you wish it, if you can make room for it. And that is at the core of Feldenkrais lessons: challenging to realize more of your human movement potential. Some of these movements are outright challenging, constantly seeking new ways to maintain ease or find ease while moving and varying. And as you notice there is more possible in movement, your jacket naturally becomes roomier and translates playfully to other areas in your life. Why settle for less?
Your Reason to Change
What would be a reason for you to want to change? Thinking about it is the first step in taking action. A reason like “I want to get rid of back pain” is not a good one. It’s more like: what would you do differently if you didn’t have that back pain? Where would new possibilities lie for you then? What in your life would change? Please leave a comment below, I’m curious.
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