I’m guessing Mr. Wray never read any of Moshe Feldenkrais’ writing, or he would have known that movement and creativity have been linked for over 50 years.  In developing Awareness Through Movement® lessons, Feldenkrais often said, “It’s not flexible bodies, it’s flexible minds I’m after.”  He understood the link between movement and thinking in ways that modern science is only now beginning to verify. 

            When people regularly attend Feldenkrais classes, perceived limitations and obstacles become opportunities for seeing in a completely new way.  In Wray’s article, he speaks about people literally thinking “outside the box” by walking around the outside of a box.  In Feldenkrais classes, we can go beyond that and realize that even the box is a perception. We can think through and around the box.  In the movie The Matrix, the hero encounters a child bending a spoon with her mind.  The child says, “The secret is, there is no spoon.”  Instead of struggling with challenges in a habitual way, the challenges transform and disappear, like the spoon.  Feldenkrais students don’t just think outside the box; they learn that indeed, there is no box.

photo: Ron Morecraft

How many doors will you pass through this holiday season? Relatives’ homes, airport terminals, department stores: all offer thresholds. Will you remember or will you forget what’s really important?

 This season, I’m going to use the doorway as an invitation to remember…me. As an experiment, I will try to remember to pause and take a breath, sense my feet on the floor and maybe even relax my shoulders. Then it should be a breeze to step into the present, the most precious gift of all.

“Less pain, more gain,” is the Feldenkrais motto.  Gentle, easy movement sequences developed over forty years of research change the way you move and in the process change the way you feel, think and act in all aspects of your life.  In both group classes, called Awareness Through Movement® and private lessons (Functional Integration®),  the emphasis is on inquiry, not striving.  The movements, done lying down, sitting and standing, improve posture, breathing, range of motion and quality of life.  There is nothing to memorize and anyone can participate. From Olympic athletes and baby boomers to musicians and people with neurological challenges, the Feldenkrais Method offers a non-invasive way to live life the way you want it.

The Feldenkrais Method is an exquisite movement technology that retrains the nervous system.  Pain from old injuries, past traumas, and inefficient habits is often the result of how the nervous system processes information.  Feldenkrais’ gentle, pleasant movement sequences are done slowly while lying, sitting or sometimes standing in a non-competitive learning environment where awareness is stressed over performance.  The slow, repetitive movements help students recognize and eliminate limiting habits and tensions, improving both  quality of movement and of life.

The motto of the Feldenkrais Method is, “Less pain, more gain.”  By accessing the kinesthetic intelligence that is everyone’s birthright, students improve without painful stretching or stressful exercises.  The carefully designed movements, developed over forty years of research, are part of many university curricula and arts programs as well as being included in rehabilitation programs throughout the world

.   Certified teachers guide the students’ awareness, allowing a relaxing learning experience that often goes beyond motor learning. Group classes, called Awareness Through Movement® lessons, are an affordable, safe way to have a regular movement practice.  Functional Integration®, (one on one lessons) offer custom programs that target an individual’s needs.  For a detailed description of both types of learning, visit: http://laviniaplonka.com/feldenkrais.html.

In Budapest, we went in search of the Gellert Baths.  The guidebook said it was only 2.5 km from our hotel, a 2 mile stroll.  After what seemed like an eternity, we found a sign that said Gellert something or other and a staircase.  Three hundred stairs later, someone informed us that this was Gellert MOUNTAIN, not the baths.  A sign is just a sign if you can’t understand it.

I can read all the anatomy books in the world and still not understand how best to walk, reach, jump, turn.  Scientists are constantly announcing new maps of the brain in order to explain our experience.  But the map, as they say, is not the territory.  We learn not by just by looking at self -help books and educational videos, but through experience.  It does help to have a guidebook to prepare you for a strange city or a new business venture, but in the end, you have to walk the streets yourself in order to truly know the way.

One of the most fascinating “undiscovered countries” is the landscape of myself.  The Feldenkrais Method allows me to travel from the known to the unknown to what I thought I knew but am now seeing from a completely different angle, like rounding an new corner and finding yourself on a familiar street.  And maybe, instead of just making a new map of my brain, I’m actually improving the territory of the city called Lavinia.

People often feel frustrated and disempowered by the problems they see in the world. “What can I, one puny person, do to make the world a better place?” Is it possible that by changing the way I see myself, I can change the world?  Recently a French graffiti artist named “JR” received the TED Prize for a wish for the world.  His wonderful, impossible wish is to use art “to turn the world inside out.”  In his refreshing TED talk, he invited the world to participate in a global art project that would change the way we see the world. “To change the way you see things is already to change things themselves,” he said.

Whether a self-image is the result of outer circumstances, personal choices or a combination, one way to begin to change the world is to change how you see yourself.  So if things look bleak, take a moment to notice: are you breathing?  Are you tired?  Are you in pain?  Feldenkrais lessons have changed thousands of people’s lives –from children with brain damage to Olympic athletes.  These people go on to change our world.  One Feldenkrais lesson at a time.

Yet every day, our feet take us to work, jogging, dancing, into and out of trouble. They help carry endless bags of groceries, babies, laptops, or bags of mulch. They lead us to job interviews, wars, first dates, parties, divorces, diplomatic negotiations, and the dreaded committee meeting.  Another expression, “Putting your best foot forward,” can suddenly have a deeper meaning.

Your feet go where your mind takes them.  On a mission?  Your feet race to get you there on time.  Daydreaming in the park? Your feet shuffle along, maybe kicking a stone, meandering over to a flower.  Darwin once said that we stamp our feet when angry because we are frustrated that we can’t get what we want in the same way that a horse trapped in a barn will stomp his hooves.

So what happens when your feet won’t obey your mind?  Maybe you’d like to be assertive and confident, but your feet insist on turning out like duck feet, forcing you to not move as efficiently as you like.  Painful bunions and “fallen arches” likewise create limitations for “stepping up to the plate.” Often these foot challenges affect the knees, hips and even posture.  Those two little supports down at the bottom of your body are really important after all!

There are many explorations you can do to develop awareness and comfort in your feet. Here is a simple movement sequence based on the Feldenkrais Method you can play with.  If you find this helpful or intriguing, you can find a teacher or CDs to help you learn more.

This exercise works better if you can do it without shoes. Stand with your hands on a wall or on the back of a chair.  Notice where the weight is under your feet without trying to fix anything.  Shift your weight to your left leg and begin to raise and lower your right heel by bending your right knee.  As you do it, notice if your pelvis is affected at all.  Allow your pelvis to tilt as you raise your heel.  Which way feels more logical?  Rest, then try the same thing on the left.  After resting again, (feel free to sit down) shift your weight to the left leg again, and this time, begin to raise the ball of your right foot.  Which way would your pelvis go now?  The leg remains straight, and you tilt your pelvis so that your tailbone reaches back and you create a bigger curve in your lower back.  Try the same thing on the left, including the movement of the pelvis in each direction.  Then try going from heel to toe a few times on each foot.

Just stand still a moment and notice if your feet touch differently now.  Take a walk around and see if your feet and your mind are communicating differently than before.

Most people think that we gesture in order to help clarify our ideas to others.  But we’re really gesturing in order to clarify our ideas to ourselves. The movement of your hands are like a feedback device to your brain.  We’ve all heard the cliché, “Actions speak louder than words.”  Your gestures often reveal the truth behind your carefully chosen words.

In the early nineteenth century, a man named Francois Delsarte was the premier body language expert of his time.  He developed a system for studying the whole body and how it communicates.  Long before modern science, Delsarte stated that the hands were connected to the thoughts.  “Gestures are the lightning, words are the thunder,” he once said.  Besides identifying parts of the hand associated with our mental, emotional and physical processes, Delsarte broke our gesture language into nine functions:

1)    To define or indicate – e.g. pointing.

2)    To affirm or deny –hand moving up and down, or sideways

3)    To mold or detect – fingers softly coming apart and together

4)    To conceal or reveal – closing and opening fist

5)    To surrender or hold – open palm or cupped palm

6)    To accept or reject – palm beckons or palm pushes away

7)    To inquire or acquire – hand reaches or pulls inward

8)    To support or protect – palm up or covering

9)    To caress or attack – to stroke or slap

You can experience the difference in how a gesture affects the quality of your words by saying a simple sentence:  “I have no idea.”  If your palm pushes away, you are rejecting the whole concept.  Try it with closed fists, and you can feel how it’s as if you’re holding something back.  Reach your hand out to someone and you’re begging for the answer.  These are just a few ways to amplify the words.  Of course, hand gestures are a small part of your body’s story.

Play around with the following sentences and see how changing your hands affects the words. Pay attention to what the rest of your body chooses to do as you gesture.

“You can count on me.”

“I can count on you.”

“I really like that idea.”

“Have you considered another alternative?”

“I am definitely qualified for the job.”

There is a Greek saying that “language was invented so that men could lie.” But it takes mastery to control one’s gestures.  You can begin today with some simple things to remember while in conversation.

1) If you want someone to trust or like you, don’t put your hands in your pockets.  It means you’re literally “hiding your thoughts.”  In television, they call hands in pockets “the kiss of death” for a TV guest.

2) While folding your arms across your chest does not, as is commonly believed, always mean you are “closed”, it is a protective gesture.  You may be feeling insecure, or want to keep your thoughts to yourself, literally.  It can affect your easy breathing (more on that in a later article).  It limits your gestures, making people feel you are holding back. Just try to check in with yourself when you catch yourself folding your arms in a conversation.

3) When in doubt, as weird as it feels, allow your arms to rest by your sides.  That neutral space gives people permission to speak to you.

4) As your mother said, avoid pointing, unless you’re trying to direct people’s attention to something.  Pointing at someone always feels like an attack or an accusation.

5) Be aware of clenching your fists.  Even though it seems like a small gesture, it betrays and actually causes tension as well as again, giving the impression of hiding something.

My book, Walking Your Talk: Changing Your Life Through the Magic of Body Language, contains many more exercises that can help you understand your gestures.

Everyone is moaning that time is speeding up, that we have less time to think, plan, rest, as we scurry every faster like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass. But if Einstein is right, then time is just another perception. So if the faster you go, the faster time goes, what would be the opposite?  Why slowing down of course.  Jeremy Rifkin, in his book, Time Wars, suggested that when time seems to be going too quickly, the best thing to do is to just stop and be present. If I am in the present moment, time doesn’t even exist, because every moment is just right now.

The other day, my internet went down as I was reading an article on entropy.  Wow, disorder right before my very eyes, I thought.  After waiting, and cursing, and wandering about the house like a lost soul, I found myself in my library staring at the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Yup, the real thing, all thirty volumes, staring reproachfully at me, abandoned and forgotten for years. I looked up entropy. I soon had seven volumes spread out on the bed and actually thought, “It’s like 3D Google!” Among all the fascinating things I read was an explanation that entropy proves the irreversibility of time.  So, if I stop time, am I reversing entropy?

Every Feldenkrais lesson is an opportunity to reverse entropy.  Or at least to stop time for a bit.  Moving slowly, pausing and allowing your attention to expand, has been known to reduce stress and anxiety, two products of our hurried lifestyle.  Who knows, maybe if everyone lies down at the same time to just listen their breath, we could, well, change the world.

So after reading this, just for a moment, stop. This is your moment.