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Understanding the Feldenkrais Method The chief goal of the... Feldenkrais Method is to help you become more aware of your posture and movement patterns, explore how you limit yourself, and enhance learning of new patterns. It's said to do this be re-educating your neuromuscular system. It is based on the theory that people over time develop patterns to compensate for pain and injury, but these patterns can become obstacles to healing and optimal functioning. Subtle changes to these habits can improve flexibility, balance, breathing, and coordination, easing tension, strain and pain. The [Method] is offered in two forms. In the first you're verbally guided through gentle movements, typically while lying on the floor or sitting in a chair. The second form uses hands-on contact to address individual needs. To do this, your teacher may move your arms, legs, head or trunk in ways that enhance your awareness of movement patterns. With both forms, your teacher may draw attention to elements such as your breathing or the differences between the two sides of the body. Attention to these elements demonstrates how small differences in these aspects may change the quality of movement and the ease or difficulty with which it is accomplished. Because the movements are gentle and involve no pain or strain, most people can participate and possibly benefit from the Feldenkrais Method. People who use Feldenkrais Method often notice changes in thought patterns when they change their movement patterns. Feldenkrais Method is most often used for increased flexibility, coordination and balance; neck, back and joint pain relief; headache; neuro-muscular disorders and physical rehabilitation. It's also said to improve athletic performance and to help circumventing creative "blocks". From: Special Report: Integrative Medicine, Moving
with Ease
Physical Habits and Emotional Habits Doing so, he proposed, could alter other habits, too, including emotional ones. He believed that making changes in the motor cortex would bring changes in the habitual conditioning controlled by other parts of the brain. "The only thing permanent about our behavior," Moshe used to say, "is the belief that it is so." His attitude toward habit change was refreshing and encouraging: much is possible if we allow ourselves to climb out of our familiar mind-sets and routines and so gain access to a greater range possibilities. ...when we do a familiar task in a novel way, we stir a fresh awareness. The dull, automatic routine becomes an opportunity for a small awakening. In this sense, breaking free from a habit, no matter how seemingly trivial, can bring a shift in our awareness, inspiring a fresh attitude: beginner's mind, seeing things as if for the first time. And that fresh look gives us the option of doing things differently. From: Emotional Alchemy, How the Mind can Heal the Heart, Original Melthods, Striking Results by James S. Gordon, M.D. Moshe Feldenkrais initially developed his method to deal with his own disability a knee that he had torn up playing sports. Feldenkrais, who was brilliantly analytic and wonderfully intuitive, discovered that he could create and teach movements that would re-educate the brain and in turn enable it to communicate in new ways with the rest of the body. He taught it in one-to-one, hands-on sessions, and in classes where students practiced movements... Feldenkrais methods were original and dramatic, and the results were striking. Stroke victims and people with cerebral palsy often recovered functions they had been told were forever gone. Ordinary people discovered they could expand their repertory of movements and, in the bargain, their own sense of psychological as well as physical possibility. From: James S. Gordon, M.D., Manifesto For A New Medicine Your Guide to Healing Partnerships and The Wise Use of Alternative Therapies, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1996. James Gordon is Director, Center for Mind-Body Medicine, Washington DC; Chair, Advisory Council of NIH's Office of Alternative Medicine, and Dean of the School of Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University. Physiology: The Avenue of Excellence by Anthony Robbins The better you use your body, the better your brain is going to work. That's the essence of the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. He used movement to teach people how to think and how to live. Feldenkrais found that simply by working on a kinaesthetic level you can improve your self-image, your state, and the overall functioning of your brain. In fact, he states that the quality of your life is the quality of your movement. His works are an invaluable source for creating human transformation though improving physiology in a very specific way. From: Anthony Robbins, Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement, Free Press, 1997. |