Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method(!)
00:00
When I sat down to think about the surprises I've had along the way in my journey as a Feldenkrais student, one memory came to mind of I was in an awareness through movement lesson, the group class lesson, and it was being taught from my colleague, my fellow student at the time. And we were doing these rolling movements, extending and reaching and rolling and curling into a ball.
00:30
back the other way and I got up and I felt good after that lesson, no question, but I didn't know quite how good I felt until later that day when I went to play volleyball at the park with some friends and I had an amazing game. Like I was just, I was just jumping and having fun and just the biggest, widest smile on my face.
01:00
and I was like, this is atypical. I mean, I have good times at these games, but wow, something reorganized within me and I felt great. So what I'm aiming at here with this episode is to talk about the surprising benefits of the Feldenkrais method. Welcome to the Expand Your
01:29
where we explore what it means to be a human with a body and how to live and act in your environment. My name is Jeffrey Schwinghammer, and I'm your guide on your Feldenkrais journey. This episode is about the surprising benefits. A key element of the Feldenkrais method is that you get surprised by what happens, by what is possible.
01:58
just merely by the fact that we explore movements that bring you into newer and newer combinations of movements and possibilities and finding a greater sense of internal support and clarity. And so because that's outside of your imagination, because we're going into unknown territory, you will be surprised. And there are many different types of surprises.
02:27
in this work and I want to share some of them today. I also made a ebook, a very short ebook that you can check out called the nine surprising benefits of the Feldenkrais method and you can find that in the show notes. I think the most fundamental surprising benefit is that you realize I had no idea I was doing that. That's the thought. When you...
02:55
when you're in the middle of a lesson and you're exploring one movement and just this emergent sense of I'm holding myself in this tension pattern that is limiting my movement and now you finally realize what you're doing and then it can melt away or you can choose to stop it or
03:23
or you can come up with a different movement and that there's this moment when it just appears to you that is just so for me, it's just so like, whoa, I had no idea. That's what I've been doing. Of course, this movement's been difficult for me because I've been doing this in an invisible way to myself. This habit is there. And of course, our habits.
03:53
go throughout our days, we do these without knowing, these movements, these tensions, these ways of holding ourselves. And these lessons open the window to becoming aware of what we do. That's why it's called awareness through movement. Because with awareness, you can do more of what you want to do, or do less of what you don't want to do. And so that's the emphasis, is on becoming aware.
04:24
Another benefit of the Feldenkrais method is this, I've never done that before. These lessons are designed around novelty, thus offering your nervous system new experiences. And Feldenkrais who designed hundreds and hundreds of lessons that drew from yoga, from judo,
04:52
from other esoteric practices. He created lessons that take you out of your normal experience into greater possible functioning. Functioning I just mean verbs, ing words, walking, crawling, rolling, all these functions, just higher and more refined functions.
05:19
So some lessons that come to mind that I've been experiencing recently are lessons that invite you to bring your foot to the top of your head.
05:30
Oh, I've never got my foot that close to the top of my head. Didn't get it quite there yet, but if I were to keep exploring that, I'm sure I would. There's other lessons including a series of lessons that we filmed for the documentary. Book on a Foot is what they're called. This wasn't from Felton Crice specifically. One of his students crafted these lessons, but the idea is you work your way up to having four books.
06:00
on your hands and feet and you roll from your back to your front and back again. Never done that one before, but it's possible. And one of the most famous examples of what Feldenkrais can bring people to is the headstand. Feldenkrais himself gained a lot of notoriety when he brought the Israeli Prime Minister Ben Gurion.
06:30
to do a headstand. This was years of working with him. When they had started working together, Ben Gurion was basically operating out of his bed. He had such back pain that he was immovable and then through working with Fallen Christ, over I think it was a couple of year period he got him to do a headstand and there's this famous photo of him doing so on the beach.
06:59
For the next benefit, I'm gonna circle back around to the story I told at the beginning of this episode where I went to volleyball and wow, like my game improved. Nothing in that lesson that I had that earlier that day was specifically aimed at volleyball. It wasn't aimed at how I could improve my jumps, like...
07:26
at least in the presentation of what we were talking about in the lesson. It was a different context. I was lying on the floor. I wasn't vertical. And yet this benefit arose, became emergent out of the lesson, after the lesson. How could that be, right? Well, it's because the Feldenkrais method aims at the unification of the body.
07:56
actual power comes from a new organization of you, of your body, of your skeleton, of your musculature, and the tone of your muscles. Organization is a big topic, a big word in the Feldenkrais Method, and I'll definitely talk about that in future episodes. The point here is that a higher
08:24
quality organization, a more refined organization that is less encumbered by tension, unnecessary activity of the musculature, is better prepared for action. You'll feel that in how you stand after a lesson, how you go through the reference movements after the lesson, and then spontaneously in your life you'll find
08:53
You'll find glimpses of, wow, I didn't know I could do that. I didn't know I could feel this good. And from that surprise comes, well, what else can I do? What else could I feel? What more is possible for me? To conclude this episode, I hope I gave you some images to think about for
09:23
what benefits you could find in the Feldenkrais method. I talked about being surprised. I didn't know I was doing that. And I've never done that before. Hehehe.
09:38
and the spontaneous emergence of, I didn't practice that and I got better. If you want to learn more surprising benefits of the Feldenkrais method, I invite you to check out the short ebook PDF that I've made. It goes into nine surprising benefits and let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at
10:08
Jeffrey at expandyourability.com. Are you interested in discovering these surprises yourself? Or maybe you've already been in the awareness through movement process and the Feldenkrais method for a long time. What surprises did I miss? Let me know. Because having conversations and sharing what we learn helps us learn, I invite you to take these ideas in this podcast.
10:37
and go to someone you care about and share them with them, and get their take on it. What makes sense to you? What makes sense to them? My question for you here at the end of this episode is, when's the last time you did something completely new, and how did you feel afterwards? Thank you for your attention.
Creators and Guests
