Feldenkrais and living with Multiple Sclerosis – a practitioner’s story
A senior Feldenkrais Practitioner living with a diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is using his own experience to explore ways of helping people who live with degenerative disease to maintain movement and stay active.
Alan Caig Wilson, a practitioner in Edinburgh with over 20 years of experience of working with a broad range of people, including those with cerebral palsy, stroke and complex neurological issues, was diagnosed with Primary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis three years ago.
He is convinced that a professional lifetime of contact with the Feldenkrais Method has kept the disease from progressing as far as it might have done.
‘During a Feldenkrais lesson, the gentle persistence of the instructions, focused on clear outcomes, never rushed and always accompanied by conscious awareness with frequent moments of rest, primes the brain to build new synaptic connections and new fluidities in the control of movement. In my case I feel these connections are compensating for capacities that may have been eroded due to the effects of MS on my motor control,’ he says.
Sixty-four-year-old Alan was first awakened to the potential of Feldenkrais at the age of 26 when he was training as an actor. As a young man he had not been particularly attracted to sports, but a teenage back injury drew him to a fascination with how his physical body actually worked. Before studying Physical Theatre at the Ecole Lecoq in Paris he was advised by an osteopath that he should avoid dance or movement theatre.
Within a month of his first Awareness Through Movement lesson it was apparent that there would be no restrictions to him doing the thing that he had set his heart on – a career in acting and physical theatre.
‘It was clear that I was just as capable as my classmates, and more supple and mobile than some. The use of Moshe Feldenkrais’ inspirations in my training as an actor in Physical Theatre freed both my body and my mind to concentrate on my development as a theatre artist, rather than on the supposed restrictions I had been told to expect,’ says Alan.
‘Recent neurological research suggests that during rest periods between physical activity, the brain is rehearsing new ideas in movement deep within the structures associated with memory. In the use of frequent resting during lessons, Feldenkrais returns us to the way we learned to move in the world, playfully, allowing our subconscious to reorganise itself around new ideas, in the time before we even knew we were learning.
‘Moshe Feldenkrais understood this process, from his lifetime study of engineering, martial arts, child development, human ingenuity and his contact with thousands of his students.
‘He teaches us that the next step in our journey is much easier if we connect practically and playfully with our moving self, patiently observing what might be possible, rather than forever rehearsing pain and restriction,’ adds Alan.
‘Feldenkrais lessons lift our awareness away from a dogged focus on what is holding us back, towards a place where we can recognise and develop our in-built potential for lightness and solution. I call this process ‘building my stock of personal treasure’ – which I began to store and earn interest on, from the first days of my Mime training in Paris in 1984.’
Since completing his Feldenkrais training in 2001, Alan has worked with all kinds of people nationally and internationally, including dancers, actors, young creatives and those with challenging physical conditions.
‘My current student list includes people with severe spinal and brain injuries – the results of riding accidents, strokes, cerebral palsy and MS. Those who turn up for my Awareness Through Movement classes often don’t share their reasons for attending until they have begun to find their solutions. Only then do I hear stories of people who have been told that their symptoms of ‘degeneration’ are but stages on a one-way journey to immobility, or that their treatment is more a case of containment rather than aspiration. Now, given the freedom to explore in the gentle space of Feldenkrais, that perspective has often changed entirely. They breathe more easily. And they smile frequently.
‘In my own life, MS is now a constant, though somewhat argumentative, companion on my Feldenkrais journey – a journey marked by a growing awareness in the moment of what I am capable of, and the power of my nervous system in overcoming obstacles.’
An Awareness Through Movement lesson taught by Alan as part of International Feldenkrais Week and hosted on the Feldenkrais Guild website focuses on improving movement in the hip joints, and is inspired by his ongoing exploration of how the periods of physical uncertainty in balance affect his emotional and digestive state. The lesson Drawing Circles in the Cosmos can be found by scrolling down on this page and can be done seated in a wheelchair, on a sturdy dining chair, or on the floor.
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