Moving Health

Moving Health
Feldenkrais for improving your movement and you living better

(from a physiotherapist who is also a Feldenkrais practitioner).

You might be one of the many people who have difficulty that they had been told that you had to live with. (Implied in this means that you have to learn to tolerate merely existing; rather than really LIVING!). People frequently find that this different approach is more sensible and opens up whole new ways of moving and then doing what they want, and more as they hope.

Benefits of the Feldenkrais method include its innovative and gentler approach to your movement, (whether its unravelling challenging movement difficulties, or just promoting better quality technique and performance), is that what had seemed impossible to you, shifts, and becomes possible; the possible then becomes easy; and the easy graceful. No matter what your difficulty then, that means easy and comfortable ways for you to move.

• Move freely, with less pain and stiffness
• Improve your movement for sports, music, hobbies and interests
• Move effortlessly, by unravelling guarding, limping and favouring
• Recover better movement quicker, e.g. after surgery or injury, or neurological difficulty

There are 2 basic approaches inter Feldenkrais method

one is through individual hands-on movement education sessions; after which I would frequently give you individually tailored material and activities to practice and extends your learning and benefits of the movement lessons. We call this part of the method functional integration, because it addresses how you function in your life, and how to integrate all of the parts of your underlying movement patterns into a more unified way of you doing what you wish.

With Feldenkrais there is no crunching, no tying you up in knots or painful moves. There is relaxation and moving better with greater comfort and knees. Whether it sports, making music, computing or washing the car; problematic movements give ground. Balance coordination and self-limiting patterns change. Young or old, moving becomes joyful and free of pain as movement options appear. Clumsy or guarded gives way to coordination and confidence. Sitting, walking, typing and writing etc flow, becoming graceful and elegant..... it’s holistic and it works.

(as I am a physiotherapist and the Feldenkrais practitioner, you may claim partial rebates for physiotherapy and/or the Feldenkrais method from many of the health funds)

The other approach is through movement education and re-education classes called Awareness through Movement Lessons,
Over the next 6 months I will be running monthly introductory 3 hour workshops, probably on a

Saturday afternoon about topics including

• Dealing with back and neck pain
• Comfortable and stressfree computing
• Easy walking
• Flexible feet
• Fluid, total body running
• Improving your swing, e.g. for golf, tennis or..........

For further details or other topics and times to be arranged and tailored for your particular audience and interests, please enquire through the contact details provided on this web page

The quality of your movement is one of the best indicators of the quality of your life. Therefore when you improve the quality of movement throughout all your system, those parts that we experience as limiting become much less of an issue. Irrespective of the movement difficulty, you can improve your movement, for example with

• Back and/or neck pain
• Arthritis, or other chronic pain
• After a stroke, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis
• Cerebral palsy or learning difficulties
• Limitation due to tension or anxiety
• Challenges to your voice
• Or perhaps you desire to simply be more artistic, creative or graceful in your hobbies and interests

b>Consider the following

When we make repeated mistakes in movement or in our posturing, when we perform activities of daily living with effort and repeated stresses week in the latest wear and tear, (friction, heat and inflammation) and inevitably pain. Pain and discomfort lead to even more inefficient movements so that further injury, sprains and pain are caused by the mismatch between the work that is required to do the job and how we are unwittingly putting unnecessary effort to do the job and have to move or protect and unconsciously guard ourselves instead.

By lowering the effort we are more relaxed, the muscles and our body are softer/quieter, so it is possible for us to notice more clearly our mistakes, which were previously out of our awareness. The inefficient habits can be addressed by feeling and finding better patterns and paths of movements that are more comfortable on appropriate to our needs and goals.

Another way of saying this is we are better to go slowly to learn quickly. For a moment recall something that you tried to learn to do by beginning quickly and inevitably making mistakes; and then through lack of skill and refinement of your movements, that you continued to repeat in frustration? Perhaps instead think of other things you learnt to do, that you approached more quietly and attentive to eliminate unnecessary efforts, the results of which was that your movement and action became smooth , effortless and without mistake or even pain? Can you remember learning to drive, throw or kick a ball, run , draw, play a musical instrument, write, learn the alphabet, or cleaning your teeth? At some stage these needed to and became effortless and easy and automatic, or good habits, because they were performed lightly, easily, softly, and slowly?

Therefore any movements you wouldn’t wish to be easier and more comfortable, approach it by doing it L.E.S.S.; Lighter, Easier, Softer and Slower. Applying this idea into your exercises and activities of daily living will help you make your movements more effortless and more graceful automatically; so that unnecessary stresses and strains are taken out of life and discomforts minimised

People who have found this include

• I’m used to feeling pushed around and saw after other treatments, but this approach is both gentle and more effective
  Amanda G (34, mother and home duties)
  
• My mum (who doesn’t get help for anything) tried Feldenkrais. We both better now; mums hit shoulder and neck but the best bit of being in ages, even after years of working too hard on the farm!; and I recovered extremely well after my knee reconstruction and as a bonus of none of my usual back and neck aches.
  Kristen W (25, early childhood worker)
  
• For 50 years I’ve had to be consciously cautious about my walking, after a really severe ankle sprain, that only partially got better. Now I actually enjoy walking, without any of the usual concerns for the terrain.
  Andrew L ( 71, Retired)