Go Slowly
Time is an extremely valuable tool in the Feldenkrais Method. The movements you are learning may seem unusual and unfamiliar to you. You will need time to assimilate them, to feel the way your body is moving and changing. Do not rush. Pause often. Slowly repeat movements you find pleasurable or want to experience more fully.
Insist On Comfort
Modify any movement or position to be most comfortable for your body. No need to push through or force anything at all. No need to do anything a certain way or do anything that is uncomfortable. Empower yourself to attend to your body’s needs in the moment and find comfort and ease. If you feel pain, your body is simply asking you to find a new, gentler way to move. Answer your body’s request with gentleness and respect. Sometimes, the way to find comfort is simply to rest and give your brain and body a nourishing break.
Don’t Test Your Limits
The Feldenkrais method is not about seeing how far you can move, how high you can lift, or how long you can stretch. There isn’t some perfect shape or ideal goal in mind with any movement or lesson. The intention is simply to discover the sensations of your body and learn how your body can move more easily. Your movements should always be light, effortless, without any “work”, and with no intention of “trying hard”. For many, we live our lives in this mentality and it has rewarded us with success and accomplishment. Forget all of that. Let it go.
Use Your Imagination
Take the time to do different movements from your lessons in your imagination. The brain loves visualization and imagination, you can prime the nervous system to optimize new neural pathways to emerge. Be very clear and lucid in your imagination of the lesson. Do this immediately before doing the movement, it can make an enormous difference in your ease of motion. You may find that your body responds to your mind by moving as if it is replaying the imagined movement, with almost no effort at all.
Rest Frequently
The movements during a Feldenkrais Lesson may cause slight strain or fatigue because you are using parts of muscles you may not have used in a long time or in ways that are not familiar to you. Joints often explore uncharted territory, so you may find yourself needing to let the joint relax more often. Your attention and focus may also fatigue more than you’d expect, because you are learning a new movement, allow your brain to rest as well if you find yourself frustrated or mentally straining in any way while moving. You cannot rest too much. Relax and let the movement settle in, enjoy the feeling. Who knows-it could become a habit!
Do Your Lesson in a Comfortable Place
Learning occurs in direct proportion to the comfort and relaxation your body experiences during the movement. In other words, if you feel comfortable from the beginning of a new lesson, you will be much more likely to learn. For this reason, it is perfectly all right for you to do “lying down” lessons in bed if the floor is uncomfortable or if getting down to or up from the floor causes stress or pain.
Don’t Feel Obligated To Do All Of The Lessons
Stop any lesson or part of a lesson if it’s too difficult or painful. Return to imagining the movement and this will benefit you even more than if you were to perform the movement with pain. Your brain and body will change over time and your quality of movement will improve, go back to the tricky lesson and explore if and how it has now become possible to perform. If the movement still causes pain, stop and choose a lesson that does not.
Take The Lessons With You
Throughout your day, pay close attention to how a lesson affected you. One way to do this is to keep a notebook and write down what you felt from the lesson and how it influenced the way you performed everyday activities. Be aware of changes in the way you reach, walk, sit, and work. Putting your sensations into words builds a new sensory vocabulary and expands your body awareness, increasing aliveness and changing fixed habits of thinking and feeling. A lesson doesn’t have to end with its last movement-let the learning process linger and grow!
Paul McAndrew facilitating a client with “The Piano Keys Lesson”.