‘My ribs were locked like a safe. Now I take pleasure in moving them'
Forty-eight-year-old John Malone came to the Feldenkrais Method ‘on a whim’ when his attention was brought to the method by two people he knew. He had been looking for relief for neck pain emanating from a car crash that happened 15 years ago.
He feels his experience of Feldenkrais has had a life-changing impact on his physical and emotional health.
Initially John was non-plussed about the encounter: ‘I went to see Shelagh [a practitioner and assistant trainer based in Bath] and during my first visit lay there thinking it was a bit ridiculous as she poked at my ribs and moved my feet up and down.
‘When I left I still thought it had been a waste of time and then I realised something had happened to my vision – I could see the bricks on the house in the distance that I hadn’t noticed before and I was also calmer, I didn’t get annoyed for three days, not even when people were cutting me up in the car or someone stole my stapler at work.’
John, who is a software developer and spends much of his working life sitting in a chair, made another appointment and continued having one-to-one [Functional Integration] sessions.
‘My neck didn’t get better immediately but I felt that my entire structure was improving all the time and had faith that that was connected to the root cause of my pain. I realised my neck problems were a by-product of the way I moved.’
John, who has also tried a number of other therapies and methods in his search for relief, has found that Feldenkrais has helped him the most: ‘Feldenkrais is by far and away the physical practice that has left me feeling more embodied than before the session.’
Five years on and neck pain has gone from being debilitating and chronic and on his mind all the time, to occasional twinges every two or three weeks. Furthermore, he feels that improving the way he moves has had an impact on his general demeanour.
‘I realised my view of the world was a consequence of the that way I move and the way I sit and stand. Once I began to move differently I have begun to view the world differently.’
John’s positive experience has been compounded by recent experience of Feldenkrais in group lessons (Awareness Through Movement). During a workshop on Vision and Movement he realised that it was his habit not to use his left eye very much.
‘When we finished the ATM I was walking as if there was a giant chasm to my left and suddenly my whole world opened up. I felt way more symmetrical,’ he says.
And since attending a week-long Feldenkrais retreat in Devon with the theme of walking: ‘I can’t believe how differently I feel. Unquestionably something has changed in my pelvis and lower body, I feel fundamentally different and connected to the ground in a way I haven’t felt before.
‘I went for a long walk and realised what it felt like to be grounded, perhaps because I was putting weight in all the correct places.
‘It may sound odd, but I no longer feel as if I’ve sneaked into the world, I feel as if I have permission to be on the earth and so I have a right to ask others for things. It’s so fundamental.
‘Nobody goes to a physio and says I have a problem with my ribs, they don’t move. I didn’t know what my ribs were before my sessions with Shelagh – they were locked like a safe – now I take great pleasure in moving them.’
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