Expand Your Ability: Embodiment, Somatics, and Feldenkrais

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I believe the Feldman-Christ method is a way to improve your own sense of self-value in your own eyes. The way in which you value yourself by your own standards, and less and less by the standards of others. How good does that sound? Welcome, my name is Jeffrey Schwinghammer, and this is the Expand Your Ability Podcast. Here we explore how to live and grow within our human bodies through the lens of the Feldman-Christ

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This episode is a part of a series of episodes on the topic of why movement is essential to the Feldenkrais Method. Now if you're new here, this is a perfectly great place to join the conversation. Afterwards, if you want to listen to any of the previous episodes in this series, they are episodes 5, 9, and 13. This series is based on the nine reasons

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Moshe Feldenkrais offers for why he chose movement as the basis for his teachings in the book Awareness Through Movement. Awareness Through Movement is also the name of the group class in the Feldenkrais Method. The subject of this episode is the fourth reason he offers. He says,

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I'll read the section here that he writes on it and then we'll break it down line by line. He goes on to say, A person's physical build and his ability to move are probably more important to his self-image than anything else. We must only watch a child who has found some imperfection in his mouth or something else in his appearance that seems to make him different from other children. To convince ourselves that this discovery

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will affect his behavior considerably. If for instance his spine has not developed normally, he will have difficulty with movements requiring a keen sense of balance. He will stumble easily and will require a constant conscious effort to achieve what other children do quite naturally. He has developed differently from the others. He discovers that he must think and prepare himself in advance.

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He cannot rely on his own spontaneous reactions. Thus, difficulties in moving undermine and distort his self-regard and force him into behavior that interferes with his development in the direction of his natural inclinations. All right, that's the section. Let's break it down bit by bit. He starts with, the ability to move is important to self-value.

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A person's physical build and his ability to move are probably more important to his self-image than anything else. Alright, right off the bat, this is a big statement. A person's physical build and his ability to move are probably more important to his self-image than anything else. Wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. But aren't people more than their physical bodies?

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Like, shouldn't we not judge a book by its cover, as the saying goes? Like people come in all shapes and sizes and abilities, don't they all have value as a person? Yes, yes of course, but Felton Christ I think is pointing at the sense of self-value. The person valuing themselves, not us or other people valuing other-

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people, this is the child in how they develop their sense of their own internal sense of value. I think Feldenkrais is speaking neutrally and technically here. However your shape is, however you learn to move is hugely important to your self-image and how you regard yourself. What is the self-image? A quick definition is the self-image is an umbrella word.

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for all the aspects of you, your history, your biology, your habits, your beliefs, much of which you are unconscious of, some of which you are conscious of, and all of it, your self-image, is what guides you to make the decisions you make. Felton Christ created his method as a way to deliberately expand your self-image, to make it more detailed, more complete, more whole.

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What are examples of filling out your self-image? In the realm of movement, it means making more and more functional and expressive movements. First, to make the movements possible, then to make them easy, and then eventually elegant. In terms of thinking, expanding your self-image is to not skip over steps in your thinking. To be...

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clear and clear about the what and the how of your thoughts. Emotionally, it's not being held as a slave to your passing feelings. You can watch them rise and then to derive information from them but to act independently from them if you have to. In sensation, it means having a more and more

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in relation to each other and in relation to the environment and your goals. Overall it's you becoming a more active and capable agent in your life. You are a human being in a human body navigating a world. Your body is how you experience yourself and so your movements would naturally inform your self image and vice versa. Back to the book.

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We must only watch a child who has found some imperfection in his mouth or something else in his appearance that seems to make him different from other children. To convince ourselves that this discovery will affect his behavior considerably.

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What are the imperfections you have felt in yourself? Have you felt some imperfection before? A self-consciousness of a flaw where you turn away, you hide some part of yourself. It's that internal moment where you choose to reject yourself. Here are some examples of felt imperfections. It could be a facial feature. Maybe it's the shape of your nose.

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or chin? Or perhaps it's something about your teeth that makes you think twice about smiling for a photo? Or is there something in your natural walk that gets you made fun of? Or maybe you hear snickers when you speak, making you want to share less and less? Or is there something about your skin color that makes you stand out among your peers? Is there

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that gets you more attention than you would like from the opposite sex.

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What's critical in these examples is the social pressure, the expectations we learn from others that say whether or not we fit in, that say, oh, we're not good enough or I should hide myself in some way. Responding to this real or imagined experience of what others think is a physical act. We may turn away. We may tighten our chest.

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We may turn our eyes down, make ourselves small or practically invisible. We cover up. We add extra tension to control our voice. We walk bracing ourselves to avoid comment, whatever it may be. All of which is to maintain some sense of security because we don't know any better because often that happens when we're quite young.

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And because there's a strong emotional impulse that comes with this experience, that physical response becomes habitualized. It goes into automatic habit territory. It was learned and then forgotten in some sense. It continues to run in the background of our experience. Now,

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The perk is this is a free automatic protection. You've learned a way that you have to protect yourself and it continues to run and keeps you safe from whatever bad thing that could happen. It's our body keeping us safe and it's effective because we don't have to think about it. And the unfortunate downside is that

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it might get in the way that we desire to function today. We're no longer in those old scenarios, and yet we still act out these patterns today. To some degree we might not even be aware of what we're acting out. And another downside is maintaining this tension expends a lot of energy. Protecting yourself day after day can be draining.

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can reduce you of your vitality. And it also limits your ability to make new choices. Okay, back to the book. If, for instance, his spine has not developed normally, he will have difficulty with movements requiring a keen sense of balance. He will stumble easily and require a constant conscious effort to achieve what other children do quite naturally. It's not just if a child

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has an abnormal spine or something like that, the way the child has learned how to move could also make him awkward. For me personally, I dealt with the challenges of a very strained and weak voice during my formative teenage years, and this continued into my twenties as well. I would see other kids who could speak so easily and so clearly and even have fun singing.

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And these kids were witty and quick, too. Because of my throat tightness, speaking required more effort. Because it came with strain, it didn't flow naturally. So I ended up watching and listening more and more. I avoided the spotlight. I tended to stay at the edges of groups. To communicate in the moment with others is a natural skill that people naturally learn

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easily if unencumbered by tension and emotional stress. For me there was always this background of difficulty. I had to make more conscious effort than others, and this still does persist to this day as well, but much less than before. I had to think in advance a lot. I had to worry of what my voice would sound like in the next utterance.

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And this conscious effort is so draining over time.

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Okay, back to the book. He's talking here about the boy with the abnormal spine. He has developed differently from the others. He discovers that he must think and prepare himself in advance. He cannot rely on his own spontaneous reactions. Now I'm reading from a copy of this book that I've had over a decade. I see markings from the first time I read it. I underlined these lines here and I starred them and this yes yes yes in the margin.

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I couldn't rely on myself for spontaneous action. So many times in the worst period of all this was this feeling of profound discomfort with making cold calls for work. I had to think and rehearse and calm myself down before every call. Approaching any situation where I had to talk to people came with tension and restriction. I was confined.

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and not as playful as I could be. Not as playful as my nature really is.

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Back to the book. Thus difficulties in moving undermine and distort his self-regard and force him into behavior that interferes with his development in the direction of his natural inclinations. Okay behavior that interferes with development. Let's look at what that might be. Because of the difficulties I experienced.

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I have so many times chose to bypass opportunities to connect with so many people. Because of a sense of disconnection with myself and my own value. I have chosen a path with a lot of individual pursuits. I often take solace in solitude. I have read books instead of having conversations. None of which are bad here. I think this has all served me in many ways.

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But when I look back, I see that this path didn't come from conscious proactive choice. It came from avoiding more pain, avoiding discomfort, and not knowing what to do about it.

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As I grow more and more through the Feldling-Christ method, I sense more clearly what is something I enjoy, something that is from me. It's spontaneous in that it's not forced or imitation, it's not out of some should from somewhere else. It's more like playful interacting with the world. At least that's what it feels like in peak moments.

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is that they become saddled less and less with shoulds. While I might make choices in alignment with some worldly societal shoulds, they come from me thinking it's best for me. For me to host a podcast, this one right here, is a massive checkpoint to my growth. It would have been impossible for me to even think of years ago.

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For me to be visible, or well, heard in this way out in the world has been a big step. And it's been a lot of work to get here, and worthwhile work. Now it's more fun than daunting. So how does the Feldenkrais method help a person become more confident in their bodies, less awkward, and more spontaneous? Feldenkrais lessons are a broad and thorough look

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at the infinite ways in which we can move, think, feel, and sense ourselves. The primary tools in the Felling Christ method are movement and sensing. Every student that comes into class has a different physical structure, a different history of the lessons they've learned, of the injuries they've had, the stories of their life. No two people are the same. And the lessons accommodate individuals.

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to move within their own personal range, within their own limits. There isn't the social pressure to be like others. When a teacher in a movement class, as it so often is, they demonstrate the movements that they want the students to do, and they are implicitly suggesting that you should look like this. Feldenkrais bucks this trend and says no.

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the teacher generally doesn't demonstrate, not as a rule per se, but because it's generally not so helpful for the student to imitate. They're invited to be in their experience. So regardless of where you start in a lesson, students can learn from their experience and improve in some way through asking questions. It's about being in the process of being where we are right now, being curious, and attentive.

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and trying something new. Students after a lesson report feeling lighter or taller or heavier or more grounded or more energetic, more calm, more nimble, more playful, more expansive, or just even different too. Right? All sorts of experiences. They feel themselves differently. They sense themselves differently. They move.

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with a greater fluidity. Each of these changes after a class represent growth towards a greater self-regard and self-value, and this accumulates more and more over time. To conclude, through the Feldenkrais method we can use movement to improve our sense of self-value in our own eyes, by our own standards.

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and that brings us more in alignment with what we are meant to do. As always, I invite you to talk about these ideas with a friend. Did something ring true in this episode? Did you see yourself in my story? Do you have some sense of how you tried to hide an imperfection you felt in yourself? I really encourage you to share that with someone you care about, someone that you trust.

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Tell them a story like mine, if you have one, where, hey, you know, when I was younger, I felt this way, and I did this. Just start the conversation, and hear about their experience too. I'd also like to invite you to download my free guide. I have a guide called The 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldman-Christ Method. Check it out. It's a PDF. It's a quick read.

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You will also be invited to join my newsletter and then you can get more information about upcoming opportunities to work with me. I'll be starting an online course soon. Okay, my final question for you today is, how does movement affect your self-value?

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Thank you for your attention.