Human’s opposable thumbs are thought to have developed c.2 million years ago during the Homo Habilis time of our evolution. They may have been used for food gathering, and most certainly contributed to the development and use of tools. Our Chimpanzee cousins have opposable toes as well as thumbs, which makes them much better at … More Musicians’ Fingers and Thumbs
You are your primary Instrument… Whether that’s a Strad or a factory violin is up to how you use what you have! All of our technique, whatever we play or sing, boils down on movement: we move ourselves to create music. The less effort and tension we use, the better, and more efficiently, we can bring across to … More Feldenkrais Method for Musicians – Why do it?
Some clients I wish I had recorded as they speak. There’s something about being at the beginning of a learning process that makes our thoughts fresh, and our way of describing what’s happening easy to understand to other beginners to our learning process. ‘Mary’ has been coming for assistance with shoulder pain. She felt something … More Discovering easy shoulders
If we think about the spine, there are 3 main planes of movement: flexion and extension, (arching-rounding), side-bending, and twisting. I’d like to focus a little about twisting. Twisting is where our power comes from. As upright mammals without massive muscles in our jaws (think crocodiles) or paws- who’d want to be swiped by a … More How easily does your back move?
Happy New Year! Thank you for being part of my community this last year. I hope you had a good Festive Season, and are looking forwards to another journey around the Sun! January is of course the time for new resolutions. Some of us like to make a list of things we’d like to change … More Taking Easy Steps
When we learn about the body, if we do in school, it’s not always that we learn about the nervous system. We can think of our nervous system as our communication system between the brain and the body. Like an old fashioned telephone exchange. The nerves communicate with electrical signal, which can travel up to … More Our nervous system
Unwrapping yourself One of the things we talked about this weekend was this idea central to Feldenkrais, of stripping back. We used to play this version ofpass the parcel in my family when we were little. The parcel would be wrapped in many layers of wrapping paper, sometimes with chocolates between the layers. When the … More Unwrapping yourself
Your internal monologue is part of your interoception: the sensations, emotions, and sounds make up the internal processes of your mind&body. Many people have an internal monologue, but interestingly some don’t. Russell Hurlburt discovered that we have inner speech for an average of 20% of the time. For some that’s up to 75% of the … More What’s your self talk like?
This week I managed to stub and sprain my toe on a pesky paving stone. So undramatic an event, and yet pretty painful. But what I know about pain these days meant the way I dealt with it was different. Previously, I would have told everyone about my mishap through the day. I would have … More Pain and thought
Straight after an intense week in Brussles, representing the UK Guild at the International Feldenkrais Federation, this week I’ve been teaching teachers on the London Professional Training Programme! It’s great to be back in a learning environment, seeing the learning process, now for the third time around. We were lucky to have the wonderful Mara … More Perception and Feldenkrais
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