3rd Act Magazine – Fall 2021

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DO LESS AND MOVE MORE WITH THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD BY W.R. SHAW

Two years ago, I received a flyer

at my office informing me that I was probably getting in and out of chairs the wrong way. The ad offered an inexpensive class in something called the Feldenkrais Method, or “Awareness Through Movement,” that promised to teach me to move more efficiently and to do everyday things with less effort. Although I’m quite active, an old back injury and a recent leg injury were cramping my style, and I was intrigued. A week later, lying on a blanket while an instructor explained that this class was about doing less and making the movement lazy, I was skeptical. I was also in pain. For the last 20 years, three herniated disks at the base of my spine had made it painful to lie on a solid surface. The scientist in me was a little worried that there might be what I thought of as a “woowoo” element to the practice— some kind of magical thinking.

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3rd Act magazine | fall 2021

But I was determined to give it a fair trial. By the third lesson, the back pain that had dogged me for two decades had faded to barely noticeable discomfort. I was hooked. As for my concern about the “woowoo factor,” a little research quickly dispelled that notion. There is nothing mystical about the Feldenkrais Method. Its creator, Moshe Feldenkrais, held degrees in physical and electrical engineering as well as physics. He was also an expert in the martial arts. He was fascinated by the intersection of these fields—the mechanics of the movement of the human body. This fascination led to his “Awareness Through Movement” technique, which combines gentle, mindful movements with focused, playful

experimentation designed to release muscle tension, increase joint mobility, and eliminate habitual, dysfunctional patterns of movement.

What to Expect If you’ve taken other exercise classes, you’ll notice right away that the language of Feldenkrais is different. Feldenkrais instructors don’t give orders. Instead, they invite students to explore a movement to the extent that is comfortable for them. They use phrases like, “Begin to think about how you might…” and admonish students not to push the movement past the point of comfort. In fact, the Feldenkrais Method holds that if you can’t do the movement at all, simply imagining it at first may help the brain to figure out how to organize it. Be ready to do a lot of thinking when you walk into a Feldenkrais lesson. Awareness Through Movement is as much about the awareness as it www.3rdActMag.com


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