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Felden-WHAT?
By Lawrence Wm. Goldfarb
ã
1993-94, All Rights Reserved
It was
about to happen; that moment, that dreaded moment. I was at my friend
Marcello's
birthday party, enjoying the Brazilian music when one of the other
guests engaged me in a friendly conversation. We discussed the
usual things,
such as the weather and how we each knew the guest of honor. Peter had just
finished
telling me about his research in engineering when it happened:
“What do
you do for a living?"
“I'm a Feldenkrais® teacher."
“Felden-what?"
“Feldenkrais.
It is a method of movement re-education, named after the man
who developed it, Moshe Feldenkrais."
“Felden-Christ?"
“Close, but
not quite. It's Feldenkrais: F — E — L — D — E — N — K — R — A
— I — S. It
rhymes with rice."
“Feldenkrais?"
“Exactly.
The Feldenkrais Method® is a way
to teach movement. I work with
people who
have physical limitations, such as chronic pain or neurological
problems,
or with people who want to improve their performance, like actors,
musicians, or athletes. I also teach classes in the physical
education program at
the University."
“What do
you teach?"
“Usually
students come to me because they are experiencing some kind of
limitation,
something that is interfering with their daily life or obstructing
progress or performance. My job is to figure out how they
are moving, how that
relates to
the problem they are experiencing, and how they could move
differently enough so that the problem can't continue."
“Sounds
interesting. Is it some kind of exercise? Or do you show people how to
correct their posture?”
“Well, it's
not that easy to answer, mostly because what I teach, and how I teach,
is pretty different from exercise or posture. Both of
these are based on similar
assumptions:
If you are weak, then you should exercise to strengthen your
muscles. If, on the other hand you think bad posture
causes your problem, then
you should correct it and stand up straight. Both assume
that the body is something
that must be molded, reshaped, put
in its proper place. Neither gives you
the chance
to see that what you are doing might contribute to the problem you
face. Neither approach looks at how you move and how that
could relate to the
problem you’re experiencing.”
“Are you
saying that people shouldn't exercise?”
“No. I'm
not saying that. I am saying that
exercise alone isn't enough. The idea
behind
exercise is that you are not strong enough, that your muscles need to be
in better condition. So an exercise program is designed to
increase the ability of
muscles to work. I think this is often a mistaken view,
because the problems that
I deal with—chronic
pain, neurological difficulties, obstacles to performance—do
not have to do with how strong the
person is, they all have to do with the way
someone moves. I guess you could say, I am interested in
people moving
smarter, not stronger.”
“Are you
saying that movement can cause problems?”
“Yes, that’s
close to what I am saying. The way you move can lead to problems.
What's more
interesting is that you can be unaware that the movement is at the
root of the problem.”
“Oh, so
people might think that their problems are caused by not being strong
enough or
by being damaged, when actually it is a result of how they are
moving? And we are not aware of this?”
“Yes, most
of us are unaware of how we move. We pay attention to where we’re
going or what we are doing, not to how we move. For example,
think about how
you stand up from sitting. How do you do it? What happens?
What moves
when?”
Peter
stands up and sits back down a few times, saying, "I see what you mean. It
is more complex than I expected. Usually, I think of
standing up and then, next
thing I know, I am standing. I guess I have never thought
much about it before.”
“That's
what I mean. Most of us don't think about our bodies until we experience
pain or some kind of problem. But that means that we could
have been moving
in an
inefficient or dangerous way for a long time by the time we notice
something is wrong. This is one place where the saying 'If it works, don't fix it'
doesn't apply.”
“But why is
that? Why don't we notice?”
“Because
our movements become habitual, automatic. We repeat the same
movements over and over, without thinking or noticing. When
something
happens repeatedly, it drops from our consciousness. This
isn't necessarily bad, it
is a part of the process of learning.”
“Does that
mean we learn to move in inefficient ways?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Well,
because we move only as well as we've learned to move and that learning
process is pretty haphazard. There are many things that
influence how we move:
childhood
development, accommodations to previous injuries, and the
requirements
of specialized activities we engage in (such as sports, musical
instruments, or work motions). Finally, since we don't really
understand how
our bodies
move, we often move in ways that don't fit with the way we are put
together.”
“Can you
give me an example?”
“Sure.
People think that the body hinges at the waist and they move as if that
were so. Unfortunately, the lower back does not allow for
that kind of motion;
the design of hip joints is what allows the torso to bend
forward and back. The
muscles of the back are not designed for that movement. Interestingly
enough,
this is region where most people hurt their backs. ”
“I see.
Moving as if your back were made to hinge at the waist can lead to back
strain and pain.”
“That's it;
you understand. But, anyway, I have taken enough of your time with
this. Sorry, I can get carried away talking about my work.”
“Not at
all, this is very interesting. It sure beats the normal party chatter. My
mom has had chronic back pain for years, so I'm curious
about your work. I was
going to ask you what you could do for her.”
“It's not
easy to say because I would have to see how she moves.”
“Can you
say generally what you do when you start working with someone?”
“Yes, I can
describe what would happen if your mom were to come to see me. I
would begin
by looking at her move, asking her to turn right and left, bend
forward, back and to each side. I would put my hands on
her to feel which
muscles
were working, which muscles weren't engaging, and which ones weren't
letting go. I would look for some kind of habit or pattern
that interferes with
other movements.”
“You lost
me there. What do you mean when you say a
pattern that interferes with
other movements?”
“I mean
that it often seems as if people have gotten stuck doing a movement or
holding themselves, unconsciously, in certain way. For
instance, if you injure
your leg, you change how you walk and you begin to limp. The
limp may be
appropriate
immediately after an injury, but it can last much longer than the
injury. If it continues longer than it's needed, it can lead
directly to pain, stiffness,
and other problems. But that's just one example; you can
limp with your
shoulder, your neck, or your back. Indeed, you don't have
to injure yourself to
develop this kind of movement. You can acquire a similar
habit playing a
musical
instrument, repeating work movements day in and day out, playing
certain sports, and so on. The key is that you develop a
movement pattern you
get stuck
with, a pattern that underlies every movement and interferes with any
activity that runs counter to it.”
“Go on.”
“For
instance, I was recently working with a bus driver who had recurring back
pain. When I looked at her movement, it became quite clear
that the muscles of
the lower trunk were chronically contracted and that her
back was locked stiff.
Even when
she tried to stretch, she could not get her lower back to let go. It was
as if she had lost control of those muscles. She thought
her back was supposed to
be
straight, so after her first bout of back pain, many years earlier, she
taught
herself to keep her back flat. When she moved her trunk,
she overused the
muscles of her upper back, so they had begun to hurt
constantly. Though the
doctor
could find no disease, the bus driver still thought something was wrong
with her spine. I could help her see that it was her
movement that was causing
the problem.”
“Once she
saw that, could she change what she was doing?”
“Not
immediately. You see, over the years, she had lost touch with what those
muscles were doing. It was as if she was on automatic
pilot and she had
forgotten how to regain manual control.”
“So what do
you do about that? I think it would be incredibly frustrating to
understand the cause of the problem and not be able to do
anything about it.”
“That's
where the method comes into play. There are two ways in which I work
with people: in hands-on individual lessons and in group
lessons. Both ways of
working are
based on the idea of teaching people to be aware of how they are
moving, how they can move, and to increase their options and
comfort. During
the group
lessons, I talk people through a sequence of gentle movements; during
the individual lessons, I use my hands to move the student.”
“Does it
hurt?”
“Not at
all. Feldenkrais is gentle. The idea is that you will change most easily if
the new movements are more comfortable than the old ones. I
like to say that our
motto is ‘No pain, MORE
gain.’ ”
“Is this
like massage or chiropractic?”
“No. The
one similarity is that we touch people, but beyond that the Feldenkrais
Method® is very different. In massage,
the practitioner is working directly with
the muscles, in chiropractic, with the bones. Feldenkrais
is about working with
your
ability to regulate and coordinate your movement; that means that
Feldenkrais
is about working with the nervous system and the coordination of
movement.”
“What do
you mean?”
“Well,
remember the bus driver I mentioned. Her muscles were tight because her
nervous system told them to contract. They didn't decide
to tighten on their own,
muscles don't think for themselves. The brain tells them
what to do. So my job is
to help my student learn to control her or his muscles
again. I do that using very
gentle guided movements, staying in the range of ease at all
times.”
“Pretty
amazing. You really think people can change without hurting?”
“Absolutely.
That's one of the reasons I love what I do.”
“But wait,
my mom has some kind of problem with her discs. Would Feldenkrais
cure her?”
“Feldenkrais
isn't about curing or fixing people. It isn't a medical treatment, it's
an educational approach. It's about helping people get
control back into their
lives by
understanding why they feel the way they do and by learning how to
move differently so that they don't have to keep feeling
that way. Even when
people have
an organic problem or disease, I can often help them deal with how
they respond to the problem. For instance, when I work with
people who have
arthritis, my job isn't to get rid of the disease. In this
case, my job is to help them
move so
that they don't stress the effected joints and so that they can find more
comfortable, safer, ways to do what they want to do. Same thing
applies to disc
problems—even
when there is a structural problem—the question is how can the
person move
in a better way, so that they increase their comfort and avoid or
minimize future problems.”
“Oh, oh. They
are lighting the candles. Can we talk more after the festivities . . . ”
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Functional Integration®, and Awareness
Through Movement®
are
registered
service marks; and Guild Certified
Feldenkrais Practitioner® and Guild
Certified Feldenkrais
Teacher® are
certification marks of The FELDENKRAIS GUILD.
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