Easy upright posture may be easier than you think
'Ancient of Days' William Blake
This Thursday we will be exploring another simple Feldenkrais lesson that gives you a sense of effortless length through your body.
It’s essentially one movement explored in a variety of contexts and has a huge effect.
The big thing in this lesson is not trying to stretch as we extend our body.
It’s a funny thing that what looks straight in our body is often not experienced that way from the inside.
Our spine for a start is a flexible structure of four curves. In order for it to lengthen, all of those curves need to move. Many people have a tendency to exaggerate one of those curves when they stretch and to brace other parts of the spine as they do it.
This has the effect of dividing the body and limiting what you feel.
In this lesson you reach gently through the whole body and pay attention to all the curves. It’s a matter of lengthening along the curves. The effect is rather interesting. It allows us to feel what is going on in those places that seem to remain tight whatever we do.
It’s not just a matter of tuning into our musculo-skeletal structure. We embody our mood or state of mind in all the structures of our body. We are constantly in a state of excitation or relaxation in all our body systems. Have a look at this chart and consider the feeling of each of these things and how those feelings contribute to our mood or even the sense of our body.
Taking the time to tune into the way we feel as we move can enable us to notice the restrictions our unconscious tensions create and then to relax about them. You just find a way of moving with those restrictions and spread your attention around the rest of your body as you do.
It’s amazing to consider how the structure of our body affects the way we function and feel.
If we incorporate all of ourselves into each movement we do we can move with incredible lightness and ease. Just consider how agile this goat can be. So tomorrow let’s accept where we are with our bodies and lives and apply the tenderness of compassion to this exploration of how we move.
William Adolphe Bouguereau, Portrait of Gabrielle Cot detail
The class will be held upstairs at Avalon Recreation Centre at 9.30am this Thursday. It’s $25.
It’s the last class for this term. We’ll begin again on Thursday the 18th of October. You’ll find more details on my website - www.bodylogic.net.au
See you on Thursday!
with love
David
0404 625 326