Transform how you move, feel and live

This week I was back at school, teaching the violin. I’ve been teaching at the same school for 19 years- that’s quite a thought!

I was teaching scales to one of my pupils, we’ll call him Ian. I was outlining how to practice in a “scale framework”. We take common notes of the scale, in a certain order, to help us find them in the different places of the scale. It improves all the scales, and helps the tuning become more reliable, and for you to play them faster. For the non-musicians, scales are part of the grammar of the musical language. So important for learning to read and play more easily.

Ian was trying hard to be a good pupil. To show himself, and me, that he was good at the violin. He’s bright, and takes on ideas fast. But there’s a difference between understanding a idea and creating it in 3D. He was playing so fast that he didn’t have time to listen to what he was doing, breathe at the same time.

A learning speed is one where we can both breathe freely, and listen. To our instrument, if a musician, but also to ourselves, no matter who we are, or what we’re trying to do. If we’re practising movement, it means being able to feel what we’re doing. And to sense not only the part we’re moving, but everything that responds from the whole self.

Breathing and Listening.

When we’re learning something new, if we can’t do those two things, we’re moving too fast. They’re good barometers for when we could slow down, or simply take a moment’s pause.

Trying hard, Ambition, in whatever guise it takes, complicates the intention. Mostly it adds excess tension. If we’re trying to listen to ourselves, that unnecessary tension gets in the way of that too. Slowing down to a speed of movement that helps efficient learning is challenging. For some people it’s the hardest part of a Feldenkrais lesson.

Sensing your whole self

It’s a skill, one that as we grow gets a little harder. We all know people who don’t seem to know where their feet are, or seem a little unco-ordinated. Sensing our whole self isn’t something we learn in school for the most part. But it’s an important part of working out how you can move, or learn to move more easily. What we can sense, we can organise. What we can’t feel, we simply can’t move as well, or as easily.

When do you go too fast for learning? And could you slide some times in your day, to slow down your movements and think about how you’re connected. How you move.