Category Archives: Fitness

Perception Vs. Reality: Practicing New Patterns of Self-Use

What Is Real?

Perception and Reality words on a stack of balls with an arrow sticking into RealityToday one of my clients came up to standing after a Feldenkrais® lesson and said, “It feels like my left foot is in front of my right foot.” He looked down and saw that, in reality, his feet were in line with each other. This was a novel relationship for his feet: his pattern typically is to have his right foot a little forward. His perception was different than reality.

It takes time to become incorporate new patterns into your self-image.

When you find something new in a lesson like a different place for your foot to be in standing, you can play with that. Take one foot a bit forward, shift weight back and forth between the back and front foot. Take the other foot forward, again shift weight. With feet side by side again, observe your perception now of where they are with respect to each other. Feel it, look at them.

Can you make it a game?

Later in the day, check in again. Stand and observe. How are your feet now placed?

Use Your Life as a Lab to Refine Perception

You can incorporate Awareness Through Movement® practice into your daily life with this kind of attention.

Waiting in line at the grocery store becomes an opportunity for self-investigation. Or pushing your shopping cart, you can observe how you transfer weight between your feet. Standing at the kitchen sink, you can check in to see how weight is distributed between your feet. Not changing or correcting anything right away, just observing. Then you can begin to look for what feels most efficient, testing theories about function we’ve begun investigating in class.

Reality Check

A woman lifts dirt with a garden fork.

© International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive, Robert Golden.

It’s particularly illuminating to discover where some familiar pattern of self-use expresses itself as discomfort.

Although I’ve been clarifying and improving my walk for the last three years, when I garden my old pattern re-emerges. After two hours of transplanting and weeding this spring I felt a familiar pain in my lumbar spine. I hadn’t yet brought new movement patterns I’d learned in the context of the walking into bending and bearing weight. Now I have a new goal for self-study: improving how I lift.

Moment by moment, we have the change to discover ourselves in movement. To perfect our self-images.

Learning More about Awareness Through Movement

If you’re curious about the theory behind ATM, read Moshe Feldenkrais‘ book Awareness Through Movement. He wrote it for the general public. The first part presents his ideas about functional movement and learning. The second leads you through 12 lessons, including one entitled “Perfecting the Self-Image.”

Another way to learn more about ATM, come to a class or workshop here in Dallas. Click here to find a class near you.

Locating Your Hip Joints & Why It Matters

Where to Start

The Feldenkrais Method® has no set lesson plans. We don’t have a school board. There’s no one dictating to me what themes to choose when teaching.

People walk around stools in a studio

© International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive, Robert Golden

So, after six years of teaching, I follow my hunches when planning what to teach. I listen to my private clients, to students in my classes. I continue with my advanced study. Patterns emerge. Something comes into the foreground.

Now it’s hip joints which keep presenting themselves to me.

Connecting with Your Strength

My ongoing interest remains uncovering innate strength. And clarifying use of our hip joints is key. The pelvis is our power center. Those bones are the biggest we have. The lumber vertebrae are enormous, compared to our cervical vertebrae.

2 gymnasts posing in studioThe head of the femur is spherical, almost. It has the potential to rotate in almost any direction. Yet most of us use only a fraction of the potential. Watch a dancer or gymnast to see the hip joint exploited to its fullest.

Most of us don’t have hypermobile joints like acrobats. Yet we can still find more range of motion than we’re currently taking advantage of. We can find, for example, the top of our hip joint, that place around which we can pivot freely and discover what Moshe Feldenkrais called good posture: the ability to move in any direction without preparation.

Why Study Anatomy?

I’ve been going back to the transcripts of the lessons Moshe Feldenkrais taught years ago in Jerusalem. We have roughly 600 of these lessons, from the time he spent teaching on Alexander Yanai Street. I’m finding gems in his comments to students. He says repeatedly that we don’t know where our hip joints are. We can’t accurately locate them on ourselves. We think our hip joints are located where our pants crease at the top of our legs. They aren’t. Because we move from a faulty understanding of our anatomy, we damage our hip joints and low back. Moshe said that 60 years ago, and it’s still true today.

The heads of the femurs point towards your sacrum. Your hip joints are located where they can direct ground forces up and into your spine on either side to help you stand erect and move your spine freely.

When you stand using your skeleton clearly, without unnecessary activity in your core, you’ll feel support flowing up from your heels to your hip joints, all the way to the crown of your head.

It’s literally a heady feeling.

So why do so many of us lack or forget that connection? Many reasons: injury, prolonged sitting, inactivity in general. I also think the English language doesn’t help.

Basic Pelvic Anatomy

Illustration of human pelvis.We have one word, “pelvis,” for what are actually three bones: the sacrum in the middle and an ilium/ischium on either side. To add to the confusion, we don’t have one word for the hip bones on either side of the sacrum. Each is composed of three elements, the ilium, ischium, and pubis. These are separated in newborns and become fused by adulthood. The three elements form a deep socket called the acetabulum where they meet. The acetabulum articulates with the head of the femur. In front, the pubic bone on either side is connected by cartilage. So each of these three parts of your pelvis has the potential to move independently. To see that potential exploited to its fullest, watch a skillful belly dancer.

Why isn’t study of basic human anatomy required? How we’re put together is fascinating. When kids meet my skeleton Heinrich, they can’t stop touching him, moving his bones around, asking questions. It’s absurd and a profound disservice to allow children to reach adulthood in ignorance of how their physical selves function. (Of course, public school would probably find a way to make anatomy boring. But that’s another story.)Female skeleton reclining

The point is, understanding and clarifying function of our hip joints is key to improving our movement and self-use. This spring, that will be the theme throughout my classes. I hope you’ll join me.

Going Deeper with Anatomy

If you’d like to study human anatomy on your own, there’s no better place to start than Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain. Her analysis focuses on function, not the study of anatomy for its own sake. She’s a dancer and physical therapist. The book is full of great illustrations. It’s organized so you can easily pick it up and simply read the section dealing with the pelvis. Or go cover to cover, if you like.

Taking Movement Investigation Beyond the Studio

Practicing Feldenkrais is about cultivating curiosity about your physical (and mental) self. Here’s a great example from Seth Dellinger. He’s a Feldenkrais teacher who continues to expand his horizons, looking for opportunities to play beyond the studio.

Start Small

John Tarr with a friend, practicing parkour.

Playful practice: John Cedric Tarr with friend.

John Cedric Tarr guided Seth recently in a parkour exploration. Parkour is a training discipline using movement that developed from military obstacle course training.

One rule: you start with something simple—ridiculous—and gradually increase the level of difficulty. You play at the boundaries, just like you do in an Awareness Through Movement lesson.

Seth writes: “The main thing isn’t being a daredevil, but yes, you must face your fears. So, start small, where everything is entirely safe!  Jumping from one ledge to another is no different than jumping from one line on the sidewalk to another. So start practicing your precision jumps where the height of the jump doesn’t pose any danger. And start with short jumps . . . there’s no hurry!”

Practicing Parkour

Another practical tip from Seth: “One of the key ingredients to turning the environment into my playground is making decisions.

  1. I look around for something to do.
  2. I decide: I will jump over that bench.
  3. I decide how I will jump over that bench: I will put my hands right THERE in order to support myself and swing my legs over.”

I’m hoping John and Seth will both come teach at Dallas Movement Lab this year.

Meanwhile, read the rest of Seth’s blog here.

Like to see the basics of parkour? Check out the video below. Six packs not essential.

Not ready to take on a self-designed obstacle course? Take a walk in an unfamiliar park or neighborhood. Or try crawling across your living room rug. Forwards and backwards and sideways.

More about Strength

Strength from the Ground

In my teaching over the past year, uncovering inherent strength has become the organizing principle.

Tennis player in motion

© International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive, Robert Golden

My mentor Jeff Haller, PhD, first pointed me in this direction. It’s the central theme of his advanced training program. He said, “if I train myself in any exercise system, and I’m sloppy in the way I provide support for myself, all I will do is train muscles based on supporting myself the way I am accustomed to.

In other words, if I don’t improve my relationship to the ground, I’ll strengthen habits of self-use which don’t serve me and might actually harm me—which is how I sprained my ankle playing squash. (By the way, I then got up and finished the game: don’t do that!)

(Find the complete interview with Jeff here.)

Are Humans Machines?

Image shows cover of Mass Psychology of Fittism: Michaelangelo's depiction of human strengthRecently I’ve begun reading an excellent book which delves into the question from a slightly different angle: how do we define fitness? Author Edward Yu answers the question in depth. He looks at how the West has defined health, fitness, beauty, and the human body over a period of centuries, to see how we’ve arrived at the point where for many these are synonymous. As a martial artist, runner, and Feldenkrais practitioner, he asks, what are we fit for?

He writes: “If I am considered fit enough to be on a magazine cover, does that also make me fit for the rest of life, which occurs outside of the confines of 8 1/2 x 11 inches? Should Albert Einstein, who probably never performed a single push-up, be deemed unfit?

How we came to equate our physical selves with machines (thank you, Descartes!) is key to Edward’s analysis of the contemporary conflation of fit/health/beauty.

Read the prologue to his book, The Mass Psychology of Fittism: Fitness, Evolution, and the First Two Laws of Thermodynamics, here.

How Do You Define Strength?

Often we think of strength from the physical perspective. When I searched for stock photos showing “strength,” what came up were dozens of images of bulging muscles and effort.

We can certainly appreciate the skill required to evoke strength at an extraordinary level. Witness the remarkable weight-lifting of Taner Sagir.

Of course we all want physical strength. We want to be strong enough to lift our children easily, lift groceries, practice yoga, or garden. Some of us want to be strong enough to practice an instrument for three hours and then play a concert. Or to run a marathon.

Woman saws a tree branch

© International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive, R. Golden.

That was the kind of strength I was expecting to investigate during four days of advanced training last month at IOPS Academy (Ideal Organization & Profound Strength). But in his first talk our instructor, Dr. Jeff Haller, spoke of emotional strength.

Jeff described a client who’d experienced abuse as a child and has been living with its emotional weight for much of their life. That client is discovering a different way to inhabit their body, from the ground up, with clear contact of their feet, open chest, and unrestricted breath. The client can now feel the difference between this new pattern and the former. He’s gaining the tools to choose consciously between living in the past, with all its weight, and in the present with its relative ease, based on being aware of these patterns.

Group investigations that week allowed us to experience how we physically express fear. As they progressed, we were guided toward finding different responses—becoming pro-active, rather than reactive, assertive rather than cowering, calm rather than wary. In other words, Jeff invited us to discover emotional strength in ourselves, and observe its physical manifestations.

Above all, he invited us to be kind to ourselves.

I realized that I’ve held back from articulating publicly that there’s an emotional component to the Feldenkrais Method®. When a new client comes to talk about relieving physical pain, I’ve thought—oh, they’re not expecting to talk about the emotional side. So I’ve left it unstated. But when you discover limiting patterns of movement, you’ll inevitably discover related patterns of thinking and feeling.

In Body and Mature Behavior, Moshe Feldenkrais writes: “Every emotion. . . is associated and linked in the cortex with some muscular configuration and attitude.”

As you learn new choices, you learn new ways of thinking and feeling. Instead of being at the mercy of your past, you can choose what to keep and what to discard. You might literally feel more buoyant.

Strength is an evolving idea for me. A goal to move towards, sometimes approaching via the physical realm, sometimes the mental: two possible approaches to the same goal. I think human strength is synonymous with maturity. As we move through our lives, at each moment we have the choice between falling into old patterns or choosing the new. We can choose to relish our ability to thrive in uncertainty. As we uncover our inner strength, we can trust that we have the resources to respond without hesitation. We can aspire to anti-fragility.

Cultivating a Growth Mindset

You probably first researched the Feldenkrais Method® because you wanted to change. Maybe you wanted one of your knees to be more reliable in walking. Or to diminish back pain so you could run with pleasure.

You might have an explanation about why the problem exists. Like your age. Or because you have a particular skeletal pattern like scoliosis. Or because your gym teacher said you weren’t athletic.

Cultivate a growth mindset: we all had one when we were children.Feldenkrais practitioner John Tarr wrote an excellent blog, “Growth Mindset and Movement,”  about the importance of believing you can change. Which means letting go of those explanations, your familiar stories, and creating  space for something different with a growth mindset. He writes, “. .  the march of time and fate do bring about irreversible changes, but often we are not fully using the potential we still have.” We can investigate this potential by cultivating curiosity, enjoying investigation and discovery the way we did as children.

John’s blog cites Carol Dweck, author of the book Mindset, and Maria Popova‘s summary on Brain Pickings. Read his complete blog here.

Making the Floor Your Friend

When was the last time you lay on the floor? Do you remember how delicious it felt to be completely supported and feel effort gradually drop away?

Stacy Barrows, Doctor of Physical Therapy and Feldenkrais Practitioner, wrote an excellent blog about the value of using the floor for more than getting from one place to another.

Stacy Barrows, PT, GCFP

Stacy Barrows, PT, GCFP

Stacy says:

“When I practice getting up and down off the floor, I’m building resilience in my musculoskeletal system. Being able to get up and down off the floor is an essential movement skill. It is not only one of the first things we learn as infants; it is one of the last things we want to lose as we age. In fact, the ability to get up and down from the floor is associated with greater longevity. People who do this regularly are counteracting the long-term effects of gravity and maintaining their proprioceptive abilities that are part of maintaining upright balance and navigating the world with less risk of falling.

Proprioception is how we sense where we are in space, and the speed and intensity with which we’re moving.

Read the rest of Stacy’s blog here, including tips for enticing your family to the floor.

And speaking of making friends with the floor, I can’t resist sharing this video of Baby Liv again. Babies don’t have to make friends with the floor. They love it!

Nothing’s Wrong: Why Explore Feldenkrais When You Feel Fine?

Most of us discover the Feldenkrais Method when something goes wrong. For me, it was neck spasms. For many, it’s back pain which resists massage, chiropractic, and other well-known treatments.

Why investigate the method if you feel fine?

Because most of us learn just enough about movement to get by. We function fine. Some of us learn far more—elite athletes, performing artists, surgeons, for example. But there’s so much more we can refine. So much to discover about how movement can be not just okay, but delightful—light, graceful, and effortless. Many more movement choices we can uncover and expand into.

MaryBeth Smith, GCFP

MaryBeth Smith, GCFP

Feldenkrais teacher and vocal coach MaryBeth Smith underscored the value of an expanded movement vocabulary in a recent blog:

“It’s good to have alternatives if one way of doing something stops working! Think of  Major League Baseball switch pitcher Pat Venditte, who can throw a baseball right or left-handed with equal skill and power. When he experienced an injury to one shoulder a few years ago, he simply threw with the other arm. He continued to play that season, instead of going on the injured list.”

Read her entire blog—”Why Learn to Move Better?”—here.

The Problem with Sitting & 1 Quick Solution

If you’re in my classes, you’ve heard me talk about how we humans are designed to move, not sit for hours on end.

Dr. James Levine, director of the Mayo Clinic-Arizona State University Obesity Solutions Initiative and inventor of the treadmill desk, is credited with coining the phrase “sitting is the new smoking.” Just Google the phrase and you’ll find a slew of recent articles invoking it. This Huffington Post blog sums up Dr. Levine’s findings nicely.

Check out the cool TED animation below making the same point. Murat Dalkilinç gives the lesson: the animation’s by Oxbow Creative.

What the video doesn’t mention: most chairs are designed to tilt us behind our sit bones. Check your own: is it pulling you back into a slump? Or encouraging you to sit erect? Is your pelvis free to tilt in any direction?

What can you do, if you have a desk job? One simple solution: set an alarm for every 30 min. or so. When it rings, stand up for a moment. Shift your weight from side to side, back to front. Compare how you feel when you come back to sitting: perhaps more alert?