Intelligence in Action
When Adults Play
by Graeme Lynn, GCFP, CSTAT
Remember - and probably you can't! - what you could do when you were a newborn...
Anyway, it wasn't very much!! But in a matter of a few years each of us learned to talk, walk, run, swim, skip, skate, and manipulate all kinds of objects and tools. If our functional development had continued at that pace, we would all be Michael Jordans by now, or better.
Unfortunately, many of us, as we grow older, interrupt the huge and continual improvements of childhood or, worse, we lose abilities we once had and find ourselves curtailing our daily activities. This often happens because of reflex responses to stress, injury, surgery, disease, and traumas of every kind, or because of lifestyle habits, emotional patterning, character strategies, core beliefs, poor nutrition, faulty development, imitation in youth, and other such factors which instigate faulty patterns of movement and coordination. In some cases, this regression or termination of sensory-motor learning is simply due to a loss or suppression of interest in and curiosity about the body or even a failure to rightly value the body as the temple of the soul. Sometimes this self-limitation in our lives is because, instead of our vital adaptation being nurtured as children, we went to school - where we learned to disregard our functional needs in favour of intellectual or social gains or acquisition of power and where we learned to act upon our bodies rather than as them. For many of us as inheritors of a culture founded on most organized religions' eschewing of the body and the emotional concomitants of that attitude, we learned to not enjoy or to be embarrassed about or even dismissive of bodily life.
There is a cure for physical limitation, and it can be found in the work of one of the geniuses of the twentieth century, Moshe Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais was a true Renaissance man, a renowned physicist, a brilliant mechanical engineer, master judoka, Gurdjieffian, neuroscientist, and educator. After a debilitating knee injury where the recommended surgery offered a doubtful success, he began an extensive and in-depth exploration of his movement capabilities and, eventually, of human movement in general, and thereby not only regained his own ability to walk but established a technology of human movement and a method of refining the quality of movement through enhancing self-awareness in action which has found universal applications.
The Feldenkrais Method, which grew out of his decades-long investigation into human movement, is a complex and evolving system grounded in modern neuroscience and the movement sciences. It uses sensory awareness stimulated by intelligent movement or manipulations to facilitate alternative patterns of action that are harmonious with one's physical structure (thereby bypassing pain) and rightly conformed to the mechanical requirements of the surrounding world (and so, maximally effective). The movements and manipulations used in this method are founded in a sophisticated scientific understanding of human psychomotor development and function and of the integrated or systemic nature of human movement. It has successfully treated many conditions resulting from such diverse conditions as stroke, neurological impairments, asthma, osteoarthritis, and fibromyalgia, as well as common sensory-motor deficiencies associated with deterioration of any kind in structure or function, such as headache and backache, neck and shoulder pain, poor breathing, movement difficulties, and ailments commonly associated with the ageing process: stiffness, aches and pains, fatigue, limitation. And in cases of incurable conditions, it often provides significant symptomatic relief through re-educating maladaptive patterns built upon the untreatable problem.
The Method thus provides help to the healthy and the disabled, the young and old, because we are all fitted with brains and nervous systems which are the most advanced learning mechanisms on the planet, the greatest portion of which is devoted to sensing and moving, and whose limits have never been seriously tested.
The Feldenkrais Method has two forms: Awareness Through Movement (or ATM), which is group work, and Functional Integration (or FI), which is individual work:
ATMs are carefully designed movement explorations in which the teacher verbally guides students through a coherent series of developmental or functional movement patterns (for example, reaching, bending, turning, or rolling or elaborations that look like complicated dance sequences), draws attention to the sensations elicited by these movements, and thereby facilitates, in a most interesting manner, improved coordination and a widened self-awareness. The lessons are interesting, refreshing, and relaxing. They increase flexibility and suppleness without strain; improve efficiency while actually reducing effort; and in many cases free individuals from chronic or acute pain. Because ATMs take ingenious advantage of the virtually unlimited learning potential of the human nervous system, anyone can begin to improve his or her movement capabilities and, through practice, this improvement can be continuous. As Feldenkrais once wrote, 'the lessons are designed to make the impossible possible, the difficult easy, and the easy pleasant.'
A Functional Integration lesson or FI is a private lesson tailored to an individual's particular learning needs or presenting limitations. Using refined touch and skilful handling, the practitioner gains an intelligent sense of the person's unique neuromotor functioning, and thereby initiates, stimulates, and directs a process of sensory-motor learning, clarifying and then undoing patterns of habitual tension and stereotyped movement, and leading the person to better coordination options. The Feldenkrais practitioner uses primarily gentle passive movements and 'goes with' the client's habitual pattern of coordination. By thus sensitively reflecting to the client his or her own characteristic patterning, the practitioner enables the person to become aware of, and thereby think and feel through, those very sensory-motor patterns that limit the quality of movement. This growing awareness is the foundation of coming to sense yourself better, and thus to move better. The effects of these lessons range from improvement in well-being and vitality, ease and efficiency, to alleviation of pain and enhanced performance. Like ATMs, FIs are founded in the understanding that a person changes most readily when the new means of action are more pleasant than the old, that effectiveness comes through reducing effort - by working 'smarter' not harder - and that learning is natural and native to the human process.
But you don't have to analyze the complex strategies of the Feldenkrais Method to benefit from it. Really, all you need to do is play - begin again, as you did as a child, the playful and curiosity-filled exploration of your own movement through the artfully devised and scientifically sound patterns created by Feldenkrais and the teachers certified by the Guild founded in his name.
As children we learned so much so fast partly because our involvement in our activities was playful, present, without a goal, exploratory, grounded in the physical, open-ended. When we bring this same attitude to the movements of the Feldenkrais Method which in turn brings to such sensory-motor exploration a sophisticated technology that eliminates a large portion of the trial-and-error investigation of childhood, our learning or re-learning of effective and refined movement is greatly quickened. And it is very interesting and enjoyable. Soon, this bodily play returns us to the easeful quality of a child's movement but with an adult's maturity and understanding.
In time and with practice, not only do we become easier in our bodies and more graceful in our movement but, remarkably, we find that our relationships and our manner of engaging many common activities of life come naturally to be more playful, less stressful. We take a more relaxed attitude to our daily life in general. Curiosity reaches into areas of our lives where there was fixity and confusion. The body becomes a source of happy pleasure. We broaden our horizons.
These life changes were in fact part of Feldenkrais' genius. They emerge spontaneously from sensory-motor exploration as 'higher learning'. As we are systemic wholes, and fundamental shifts are being made in the sensory-motor process, a fundamental process within our wholeness, it is not possible to determine in advance where in one's life these changes will manifest. But because such learning is, by definition, positive, any changes wrought in the process of self-investigation stimulated by the Feldenkrais Method can be welcomed most assuredly as benign and good.
To schedule lessons, please contact Graeme in Toronto, Ontario, at 416-964-7026, or click to email.