Intelligence in Action
Of the Nature of Water
by Graeme Lynn, GCFP, CSTAT
Stretching, strengthening, and aerobics are common methods for attaining functional health. Their fundamental drawback is that they do not effectively improve the way we characteristically move. You may be able to stretch yourself into many positions (but move poorly); you may have strength in many muscles according to some social model of attractiveness (which model rarely provides a useful support to your daily activities); you may be aerobically fit in terms of cardiopulmonary capacity (but be neither breathing well nor relaxed). In spite of such exercise, the manner in which you carry out any common activity tends to remain founded on your habitual coordination or self-organization, which may be ineffective and harmful. Conventional exercise seldom facilitates functionally useful improvement. In fact, it tends to aggravate habitual patterns.
This has two significant implications. Efficient everyday action is inherently pleasurable, aesthetically pleasing, and regenerative. In contrast, inefficient action is destructive through wear and tear over time and leads to the ailments commonly associated with ageing: stiffness, aches and pains, fatigue, arthritis, and limitation.
The Feldenkrais Method offers a truly holistic, healthy alternative to conventional exercise. Simply described, the Feldenkrais Method is an exploration of movement possibilities. It is grounded in awareness and intelligence - genius really, for Feldenkrais was a genius of the movement sciences. Remarkable results of such intelligently designed self-exploration are functionally integrated flexibility and strength, and cardiopulmonary health.
The sensory-motor nervous system, which governs self-sensing and movement, is designed as a cybernetic-like feedback circuit so that as self-sensing improves, movement likewise improves, and vice versa; that is, as self-sensing becomes truer, movement becomes mechanically sound (thus, by-passing pain) and maximally effective. The self-senses are the senses of balance, articulation, felt movement, tissue pressure, tissue tension, and pain. If you sense yourself well in movement, then you have effective control of the related musculature, that is, it can be used optimally in response to an intention to act, and otherwise be relaxed. Relaxed musculature is the essence of flexibility. And it is an integrated, functional flexibility, part of your daily active life. You are also more sensitive to yourself, so that as tension arises or when you find yourself going wrong, you can then feel how to un-do your pattern of tension or explore the ineffective response and find better options.
When you learn to use all of yourself in an harmonious way when carrying out any action, you bring to bear upon that action the unified strength of the whole body. So, in lifting, for example, all of the body's musculature will participate harmoniously, not just the arms and back. Obviously, six hundred-odd muscles working thus together as one are stronger than several dozen. Moreover, optimally released musculature is inherently stronger than chronically over-toned musculature, because a released muscle has more available contractibility.
When the body is well organized such that unnecessary tension is released and the anti-gravity mechanisms are working reflexively, the body buoyant and relaxed, and ease the context of every action - rather than effort - the heart works without strain and the body allows full and spontaneous breathing. Ideally and potentially, breathing is relaxed and naturally full. We learned to breathe badly, just as we have learned stress and tension, and how to use ourselves piecemeal rather than as a whole. Fortunately, what has been learned can be unlearned, and renewed learning can replace inefficient habits. Such learning is the purview of this method.
Happily, the Feldenkrais Method is more interesting, more pleasurable, and, in a real sense, more life-affirming than stretching, strengthening, and aerobics, where you are effectively fighting your own body. This is profoundly significant because we find pleasant sensations enjoyable, and as our ability improves through such enjoyable self-exploration, we will want to continue to improve our ability. Whereas when we do what is not really pleasant, even if the result seems to represent an improvement, we will not choose it naturally and, without the effort of misplaced will, we will tend to give it up as soon as we can. So, one chooses this kind of self-improvement over conventional exercise because one values effortless pleasure in learning more than stressful effort.
And that is why the quality of the Feldenkrais Method is of the nature of water. Water always finds the easiest way to the boundless strength of the sea. Like water, effortless flow is both the means and the goal of the Feldenkrais Method. It is, thus, congruent with traditional practices for enhancing human well-being and, also, it is uniquely modern and scientifically sound.
To schedule lessons, please contact Graeme in Toronto, Ontario, at 416-964-7026, or click to email.