This weekend I had a concert in Lichfield. It isn’t well connected in the late evening for public transport. It’s not alone of course. So I travelled by car, with a colleague. It took 2 1/2 hours to get there, and 3 to get home, with detours for roadworks, and a few wrong turns. Habits … More and pause…
Why do Feldenkrais? Every time you move, with attention, you’re improving your awareness. You’re improving your connections between body and brain. Part of the problem for all of us is that we don’t sense enough of ourselves. We don’t feel the relationships between all the parts. In each lesson I shine a spotlight on a … More Heads, Shoulders, Toes, Nervous System…
“Heads shoulders, Knees and Toes” Part of a song we learn as children. Connecting all the parts of our skeleton with action. We spend the first months, years, learning to connect and own different parts of ourselves. In order to make complex movements such as crawling, walking or talking. As we socialise, and move towards … More Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes…
I spent half term in my role as a teacher on the Professional Feldenkrais training programme in London. It’s a four year course to qualify as a teacher, in an experiential learning environment. I get to teach, but also learn from other more experienced practitioners. One of whom as she worked asked the student if he’d … More Re-adapting, resetting old habits…
Humans are one of the best species at receiving new information, digesting it ,and changing what we do. That’s the definition of learning of course. In Feldenkrais’ words: “Thinking leads to new action, anything else was swilling around of the brain”. Which always puts me in mind of someone swilling a wine glass before sniffing … More Learning is easier together…
One person who joined my class last week shared her surprised that she experienced relief in her back when she felt her feet and ankles freeing up. Her walking felt freer and lighter. I love it when my students and clients feel the connections for themselves! Who would have thought that improving the suppleness of the feet … More Your thigh bone’s connected to your…
I’ve been teaching lessons in the last week on freeing up the shock absorbers. Built into your system is a series of shock absorbers: the feet, ankles, glutes, and the vertebral discs. Often people are surprised about the last one. But there’s elasticity in the discs of your spine. They’re designed to help. Together they … More You and your shock absorbers
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 … More All of You
Much of Feldenkrais’s thinking was that if we change the way people move, we also change the way that they think. And that’s very much part of the process when we start to work with Feldenkrais. Many of our habits are learnt via a reward-based process, of “negative and positive reinforcement”, whether sensorially, or socially, … More Changing Habits
I took part in a plenary session today of Specialist Music and Feldenkrais teachers today, after our successful week’s event- Daily Feldenkrais for Musicians. One of the questions that came up was an interesting one. How do we as musicians incorporate or involve Feldenkrais in our instrumental (or singing) practise? Even if you’re not a … More Feldenkrais and Practice Part 1: Start Small
