Welcome to our March 2020 issue.  The ever relevant topic of stress and relaxation is the theme this time round.  Do read Ana Stojadinovic's fascinating article on this subject, and you can also try the 20 minute lesson on this topic at home.
  
There's lots going on: take a look at our workshop and class listings to find an event near you.  We are gearing up for International Feldenkrais Week from 6th to 13th May this year, focusing on the breadth of areas the method relates to.  Keep a look out on our website for new lessons and other resources every day that week.

Reducing muscular effort to a minimum by surrendering to gravity, detecting a range of movement that is effortless and easy, moving slowly in order to be able to sense differences and reduce unnecessary effort – those are some of the strategies we use in Feldenkrais lessons. Recognizing and respecting the easy effortless range of movement, however small it might be, results in our system feeling safe. As movement stays with existing ability rather than imposing a big task for which we might not be ready, there is no need to self-protect and the nervous system is able to calm down.  A shift in the nervous system from the sympathetic towards the parasympathetic mode is felt as relaxation. 
 

Flexors and extensors

Many lessons explore a relationship between flexor and extensor muscles, which is a life long relationship to balance (try the 20 minute lesson in this newsletter).   Flexor muscles contract to enable us to bend, and curl up (at the same time, in a well organised action, the extensor muscles disengage and lengthen). Extensor muscles - termed ‘anti-gravity’ muscles by Feldenkrais - contract to straighten ourselves (and the flexor muscles disengage and lengthen.)

A state of anxiety is linked to contracting flexors, originating from our inborn protective reaction to falling.  Flexor contraction protects our head, throat and soft vulnerable internal organs, offering hard bony obstacle to the threat, and in face of sudden or great danger this can be very useful.

Nowadays however we often react to events that are not life threatening by employing the same protective mechanisms. Common physical manifestations fall broadly into either a flexing or extending acting pattern, with endless variants in between, which we have developed as individuals throughout our life experience. 

To every emotional state corresponds a personal conditioned pattern of muscular contraction. We all have our personal ways of holding our breath, of tensing our abdominal walls, clenching our fingers, tightening our jaw, our personal ways of reacting to challenges of life. By learning to recognize and disentangle motivations through experiencing their effect on our ever changing state and action, we can let go of certain habits that are perhaps not serving us that well.

For example, if we are flexed all the time, the anti-gravity extensors of the back lose their tone and over-lengthen – they cannot do their job to bring us upright, resulting in a posture with rounded back, sinking chest and head lowered, also inhibiting our breathing.  

We can experience a lesson in many ways, as feeling taller or shorter, more or less open, breathing more fully, or just somehow different than usual, depending on our original pattern. It helps with balancing the two opposing intentions of flexion and extension, rather than them fighting against each other, and we can feel calmer and generally more comfortable within our own skin.

Having options - reaction vs. response

Moshe Feldenkrais made a distinction between a compulsive and spontaneous action in response to a given situation, be it the way we fall when we trip over a step or the way we feel in relationships with other people – in short, the way we act in life.

A compulsive reaction is a result of our habitual ways of acting established usually in the early stages of our lives, then reinforced throughout our life by repetition, until we become almost unaware of them and they become more or less automatic. In the same way that habits can be reinforced, they can also be loosened, interrupted, altered. Whilst generally useful (after all, they brought us thus far through life), our habitual ways might not be optimal in all circumstances we are presented with. 

Anxiety appears when deep in ourselves we know that we have no other choice – no alternative way of acting.   With more alternative options available, we are able to act more spontaneously, to respond rather than react - to choose, often unconsciously, the most appropriate way to respond to a given situation.   This is key in being able to respond to a stressful, potentially problematic situation, be it related to our external environment or within ourselves.
 

A personal experience

The Feldenkrais Method addresses fundamental properties of human being and can benefit anyone and everyone.  In a continuous process of learning, each of us will experience it in a different way, depending on our own unique personal structure, inherent inclinations and history.

I would like to end with the words composed by a student of my weekly Awareness Through Movement classes, illustrating beautifully one possible experience:

“It's hard to say exactly what I get from Ana's Feldenkrais classes because a lot of what happens seems to work on a non-verbal or even a pre-verbal level. Sometimes I have no idea what's going on in a session, or if I'm moving in the "right" way or if I'm even understanding Ana's directions properly.   But what I often find is that during a class my mental activity seems to quieten down and I'm left with the delicious sensation of being more in my body and sensations, even if they're not always comfortable. And I can become aware of my tensions more deeply and when I'm holding my breath or using too much force. 

My favourite classes are the ones where I end up rocking, rolling or crawling like a baby. There's a real rediscovery of myself in these movements that isn't connected to thought or language. There's a freedom from being an adult for a while and a new realisation that I don't really need much more than my body and to be grateful that it can move and be more open. Feldenkrais complements and enhances the work I do in my individual therapy and allows me to gently accept who and what I am. And Ana's frequent laughter and the fact that she doesn't take the classes too seriously is a real help for me.”
 

Sources
Feldenkrais, M (1985); The Potent Self, Berkley, North Atlantic Books 
Feldenkrais, M (1981 & 2019), The Elusive Obvious, Berkley, North Atlantic Books

Ana Stojadinovic is an architect specialised in lighting, running an independent architectural lighting design practice in London. She is due to graduate from the Feldenkrais London 3 training in April 2020 and teaches Awareness Through Movement classes at Colomba Studio in Camden, London. (contact: feldenkraiswithana@gmail.com)