I saw this article in the New York Times regarding lower back pain. It is interesting how little the medical establishment actually knows about treating this malady. So many people are suffering from this problem and yet most doctors don’t know how to deal with it. It points out that in 85 percent of patient visits the doctor can’t find a cause. This means that after the initial examination, x-rays, and MRI they still have no idea what is causing the pain. 85 percent. That sounds astonishing to me because so many people are having surgery or taking drugs (according to the article 300,000 spinal fusion surgeries are performed annually at an average cost of $59,000). One of the important problems that the article points to is that most insurance companies cover invasive solutions like surgery and painkillers. However, things like longterm physical therapy or joining a gym are not covered.
The work of somatic modalities like Feldenrkais® can be a great way to begin to take control of your life if you are experiencing lower back pain. I’ve worked with a number of people who have discovered the Feldenkrais® Method after having surgery or being told by a doctor that they need to have surgery. A number of these people are pain free today. I’m not giving myself credit but actually giving the students who came to me and took charge of their own health the credit. They realized that true healing comes from the inside out. This article in the NY Times seems to legitimize the need for other forms of working with the body. The current accepted medical model can only do so much.
July 21st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
There is a great article in Scientific America about a study they did on dancers. What they discovered was how the brain integrates rhythmic information and allows the spacial orientation of human bodies to move. One of the more fascinating points was the issue of visualization and how it integrates all of the sense experiences.
As our research shows, however, the ability to simulate a dance sequence—or tennis serve or golf swing—in the mind is not simply visual, as these studies might suggest; it is kinesthetic as well. Indeed, true mastery requires a muscle sense, a motor image, as it were, in the brain’s motion-planning areas of the movement in question.
In many Awareness Through Movement lessons we spend time visualizing movements on one side and then doing them on the others side and seeing how that feels. This study proves that in order to actually make change you must experience the visualization in your kinesthetic body not just in your mind’s eye. Just seeing it is not enough you have to feel it. This also points out that as you master particular movements you brain begins to develop a pre-planned movement system. It may feel original and organic but the brain is actually integrating already learned patterns.
Both investigations highlight the fact that learning a complex motor sequence activates, in addition to a direct motor system for the control of muscle contractions, a motor-planning system that contains information about the body’s ability to accomplish a specific movement. The more expert people become at some motor pattern, the better they can imagine how that pattern feels and the more effortless it probably becomes to carry out.
This is important to understand for Feldenkrais practitioners. It is both true about dance but also true about movement in general. Our patterns of walking, sitting, reaching, standing, etc. are all based on a series of pre-planned movements that generate movement. These movements may be very detrimental to our bodies but they are still the movements we have to survive. In order to shift these patterns new and more engaging patterns must emerge. In a nutshell that is what a Feldenkrais practitioner does. We provide an easier more comfortable way to move the body which is usually the way in which the body wants to move.
June 17th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
It is great to see more evidence that there is no relationship to age and brain deterioration. This article I found in the Seattle Times focuses on a woman who lived till she was 115 years old and had not lost any significant cognitive skills. Although the article doesn’t go into this what would be an interesting follow up is to see how she did it. Was she spending her time watching passive stimulation like television or challenging her brain throughout her life? Clearly in terms of how our brains work the more we use them and challenge the more likely we are going to have strong cognitive skills long into the later stages. Unfortunately many people become more sedentary and less active as they get older. People get “set in their ways” which eliminates new learning and new possibilities.
June 14th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Much of what we do in the work of Feldenkrais is to change neurological patterns. In many ways we do this by tricking the brain into new ways of functioning. What is so powerful about the nervous system is that it always chooses the pattern most effective for you. If this wasn’t the case things could get really confusing. One of the more important ideas in doing this is using an idea called differentiation. In differentiating we may move a student in a less functional way to help the brain discover new possibilities. For example, today in an ATM class I was teaching we had people lying in the prone (on their bellies) position with their chin on the ground. We first did the more efficient movement of lifting the head and the shoulders together while pressing the hands into the ground. Then to differentiate the movement we started lifting the head while the shoulders were on the ground and then bringing the head to the ground and lifting the shoulders. What this does is it helps to differentiate the shoulders from the head in a way that teaches the brain how they can move independently.
In some instances even though parts are moving together somewhat efficiently there is a problem when things become “glued” together. For example, the pelvis can lift and bring the leg with but if the hip and pelvis are not differentiated the leg is not able to move in the hip joint as effectively. This can result in some fairly inefficient movements that will cause lots of tension in the hips and inner thighs. But allowing the hip and pelvis to move separately will reduce a lot of this tension and free up the legs to work smoothly in walking and running.
It is interesting to think about differentiation as something of an evolutionary advantage. In his book The Body of Life: Creating New Pathways for Sensory Awareness and Fluid Movement, Thomas Hanna explains how the non-symmetrical approach to movement is helpful for our species.
Research in hemispheric differences continues at a fascinating pace, but enough has been confirmed to each us that symmetry of the two side has, in the human species, been both violated and transcended. There is no doubt that asymmetry is biologically advantageous and that the human being has evolved to use this advantage. Whereas the apes are ambidextrous, the vast majority of humans are, and apparently always have been, predominantly right-handed – and also right-eyed, right-footed, and even right-jawed in chewing. (pg. 97)
Human beings do not deal with problems using both hands. They are more selective. They use one hand and one side in order to perform in a more specialized way. Human beings, like all somas, have advanced in efficiency and complexity through a basic biological device: differentiation. That is what human laterality is, a differentiation of function that automatically creates two discrete functions. (pg. 97-98)
As Hanna points out the ability to differentiate between functions gives human beings a decided advantage in becoming more specialized in what they are doing. We can all relate to this when using our hands. For right handed people it may be typical to use the right hand to do more minute motor skills like screwing a screw. But the left hand can be used for less challenging movements like lifting heavy things. By specializing through differentiation the human is able to continue to evolve in new and exciting ways.
June 11th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Today I’m reminded me of a man I knew in Brooklyn when I lived there many years ago. His name was Barry and he had this amazing red hair. Anyway, he was pointing out that one of the most important lessons in life is not to run from life’s problems but to face them dead on. It was how you dealt with the problem not what the problem was. At the time this advice seemed a bit hollow. I remember thinking to myself that it was so basic and obvious. Yet these years later I realize how wise Barry’s words were.
I recently received this email from a friend back east who is having some hard times as her lover goes through challenging health issues. What struck me about the email was that she was realizing something important about our way of dealing with life’s stuff. It is so much about how you perceive it. Barry’s words live on in Nisha’s words.
Dear Friends,
I want to express the enormous gratitude I feel for the e-mails and calls that I’ve received from so many of you these past two months. Your caring, concern and suggestions have been a strong foundation of support for us. Your suggestions, as well as those from other friends and family, have been like stepping stones leading us from one modality or variation of one, to another. We’ve felt a bit like Sherlock Holmes following clues and unraveling a mystery.
I can’t say that the mystery is solved in the clever but neat way of Sherlock. However, Rob is much improved and once again working as a Feldenkrais practioner. The vertigo is no longer debilitating, though he still gets dizzy and has ringing in his ears. Only slight, low frequency sounds are accessible to him in his left ear. None of the doctors know the cause. The alternative healers have plenty of theories but nothing that feels exactly right to Rob. He’s still exploring and experimenting, and being treated by a couple of healers.
The best part has been the healing journey we’ve been on individually and together. Russell’s Embodied Life teachings have been crucial in the way we’ve handled whatever has arisen. At the beginning and end of each day the practice of gratitude has anchored me in the goodness of whatever comes my way. This may sound hokey, but just listening to the birds singing so loudly and clearly early in the morning when I awake, helps to focus my attention on the continued flow of life… on beauty, on love (because it’s their mating season)! Then I breathe throughout my body, mind, emotions and connect to whatever “felt sense” is present. Saying “Yes” to whatever comes up throughout the day helps me to stay fluid and not tighten up. Then I leave space so I don’t identify with or believe a thought just because I think it!!! Sometimes I’ve just wanted to close off or close down. That’s been the hardest part for me.
I just printed the wonderful group picture that Sharry took. I grinned when I looked at all of you.Rob and I will be at Russell’s NYC Workshop for the next several days. After that I intend to re-connect with some of you individually and all of you as a group relating to the readings and other activities. Please e-mail me or call if you’re so inclined. I enjoy hearing from each of you.
Sending love and blessings,
Nisha
So many times in my own life I find myself struggling with problems rather than getting deeper into them. It is the denial or fear of the problem that actually causes most of my pain. We create a bigger problem in our heads rather than just dealing with what is in front of us.
In the process of healing that I deal with in Feldenkrais I find that the people who will be most successful are those who are ready to take charge of their pain or discomfort. The clients who want to take full responsibility are the ones who will progress rapidly. On the other hand I find the client who is still looking to be fixed this work can be slow and less effective.
The work of Feldenkrais is never one way - practitioner to client. It is really two nervous systems working together to find new creative possibilities. I am never attempting to fix anyone but instead always looking for ways to connect with the client so I can help them feel some new discovery in their body.
May 27th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
This is the title of a book by Guy Claxton. In it Claxton proposes that the problem with much of our educational system is that we only focus on the issue of learning from an intellectual pursuit. Here is a quote from the book:
On this view, learning is not primarily intellectual. What happens in schools and colleges, through the instruction of teachers, books or computers programs, is just one kind of learning – and a culturally local, historically recent, and generally rather odd kind at that. There is an abundance of evidence now to show that conscious understanding is not only unnecessary for many learning tasks, but may substantially interfere with learning. The brain, it turns out, is built to perform certain kinds of learning with subtle brilliance that can be easily disturbed by thinking too much and trying too hard. The relationship between conscious knowledge and practical know-how is much more problematic than current attitudes admit. Of course intellect provides us with a set of very refined tools that have an important role in learning, but you do not throw away your spade just because you have bought a scalpel. Even brain surgeons still have to dig the garden from time to time. And a lot of lifelong learning is more like gardening than surgery. (pg. 7)
As a practitioner of somatic learning it seems to me that much can be gathered from how embodied experiences can teach us. I have been through the educational system in the U.S. and it was not very broad. It was a general sense of input - output. You learned what you needed to learn and then you spit it out on a test. I never found this satisfying even though in many ways I excelled at it. My Feldenkrais training was very different. We learned through our bodies. This way of learning was, initially, quite challenging. It became more relevant to my experience as I got hot it was changing me.
I am hopeful that in my lifetime the current pedagogy will shift and allow for other types of learning experiences. People have so much more potential than the accepted pedagogy currently allows. How many artists, dancers, musicians are unable to perform in the ways that our schools funnel everyone through? But they are not to be diminished but encouraged in their own pursuits. We cannot all be intellectuals and this is a wonderful thing. We need to consider ways that we can continue to learn that broaden our perspective and allow the whole person to unfold.
May 13th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
I have been thinking lately about balance and how it is so critical in our lives. Something that we only seem to become aware of when we lose it. I think that balance is so crucial in life because it is such a good metaphor for how we can live our lives. When you are not in balance it is not just the physical element of
falling to the floor. Balance in relationships, work/play, mind/body…all of these are critical to living a healthy life. I tend to work with people specifically on the balance they want to find in their bodies. Seniors who are dealing with the possibility of falling want to find more balance. But as in everything a change in our bodily balance can mean great changes in how we balance the rest of our lives.
May 7th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
So much of the work in Feldenkrais is teaching people how to reduce the tonus in their muscles. Habituated patterns are holding muscles and forcing them to fire when there is no need to. Our mind/body connection is very alive in this tonus firing. In other words, we are able to fire our muscles with thoughts. This means any trauma or emotional stress can result in a firing of muscles. We experience this all the time. Next time you are startled notice how your abdomen muscles feel. Are they tight and working hard? What happens over time is that we begin to live in these habituated patterns all the time. The muscles never stop working. They are constantly using effort to maintain something that happened months, years, even decades ago. Our experience then forces us into deep pain as eventually the muscles give out and start communicating that they want to stop working so hard.
For most people the “myth of aging” kicks in and they start to accept this painful reality. They see it as the inevitable decline of aging. As the belief goes eventually they will lose their functionality and start to experience more and more pain as they grow older. This myth creates an expectation which then leads to the intended outcome. But it is not just the fact that we expect it. We do actually lose functionality and find our bodies in more pain as we grow old. The truth is that this has nothing to do with aging. It is true that younger children and young adults also may lose functionality and find their bodies racked with pain if the trauma in their lives is overwhelming enough. The reason most of this happens later in life is that it takes several decades for the little habits to build up to the point where we are seriously imposed upon in our bodies.
In the Feldenkrais Method we are able to find new and comfortable ways for people to be in their bodies. We discover the habituated muscle habits and then begin to move towards new patterns that are more efficient. The inner tensions of our muscles are freed to do the things they need to do such as moving our bodies through space.
May 1st, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
I have recently been reading Thomas Hanna’s book Somatics. In it he theorizes that the real problem with aging is not the inevitable decline everyone associates with getting older, but a degradation of our sensory motor system. What he means by this is that over time we build up patterns of movement and muscle holding that are detrimental to our well being.
The Feldenkrais Method is able to change this by bringing into awareness the habituated postural and muscle patterns that we all have developed over time. Throughout life we are dealing with levels of stress. There is no way to avoid this. We are living on a planet that is always asserting a gravitational pull on our bodies. How we deal with these stresses is what is most important. Our ability to engage stress and use it to our advantage rather than allowing it to create all kinds of negative unconscious habits is what will determine our ability to maintain functionality in life.
You can imagine someone who is stooped over in their 80s or 90s. The question is why are they stooped over? To Hanna the issue is really not aging but the fact that this person has chosen certain movement patterns that inhibits the most efficient way of moving. Maybe the person was abused, maybe they had serious injuries throughout their lives. Whatever it was they chose to deal with the problem by tightening their abdominal muscles, flexing their back muscles and tensing their shoulders forward and hands inward. It didn’t happen all at once of course but it took its tole over many years. Eventually one day this person saw themselves in the mirror and were horrified at the person looking back. How did they get this way?
Hanna points out that the reason more people in their later stages of life are slowing down and losing functionality is due to the fact that they have more time to accumulate all of the unconscious habits that cause the problems. The person who was stooped forward was never able to get out of the survival state where they were dealing with physical, emotional or spiritual problems. We all know that not dealing with emotional problems throughout our lives can cause us great pain down the road. Someone who was abused as a child will function much better with future relationships if they are able to go back and deal with all of the issues they faced during the abuse. The same is true for our physicality. When we don’t deal with our physical issues, flexing too far forward, turning our feet inward or outward, arching our neck, or tensing our jaw eventually this will cause us problems which typically show up as pain. We then go to the doctor with back pain or neck pain. Unfortunately they can only prescribe pain killers or initiate surgery. But what is really needed is for the body to make conscious those habitual patterns. It isn’t necessary to understand why the body got that way. That is the realm of the psychotherapist and a process that can be very beneficial. What is important is to make the unconscious patterns conscious and find new movement patterns that can reduce and then eliminate any of the pain someone is feeling.
Hanna makes this point very clear:
“Thus, it is not “age” that causes these bodily changes, it is distress. The more there is of it, and the longer it lasts, the more the Red Light reflex (survival reflex) shows its long-term effects. It is not “age” that causes a stooped posture and shallow breathing; it is accumulated response to negative stress. Having a family and taking care of the kids and holding a job and paying the bills and solving the daily problems of life are all causes of looking old and stooped, unable to climb steps without getting breathless and hearing one’s heart beat faster.”
It is clear that there is a chemical breakdown in our bodies as we age. Deane Juhan in his book Job’s Body makes this really clear:
“There is no way that we know to prevent the eventual drying and stiffening of the connective tissues, a process which eventually produces the wrinkled skin and cranky joints of old age. Connective tissue does seem to have some final limits upon its ability to regenerate and maintain its resilient properties, limits which make us the mortal creatures that we are. But there can be no doubt that poor nutrition and sedentary habits weaken all the connective tissues of the body, stiffen them, and can significantly accelerate their biological aging, even in a young adult.” (pg. 68-69)
While it is clear that the onset of wrinkles and other types of aging are inevitable the ability of our bodies to maintain functionality is not obvious. The Feldenkrais Method and other somatic modalities provide a really important bridge into the senior years. It allows us to reduce and many times eliminate the “sensory-motor amnesia” as Mr. Hanna calls it. By doing this we can bring our bodies into a place that allows tremendous strength, flexibility and movement till the point where our lives end.
April 23rd, 2008 - Posted in Aging | | 0 Comments
I just finished reading “Train Your Mind Change Your Brain: How a Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves”. I thought it really explained in detail how the old idea of brain science that our brains are fixed after childhood is a deeply flawed perspective (although there are still scientists who believe this). It is very exciting to see the potential that all humans have in creating and developing themselves. It shows that the limitations we have in life are generally set by our minds. If we change these limitations we will change the way we experience the world.
Here is a quote from the book:
“In the mid-1990s, Pascual-Leone conducted an experiment that, in retrospect, seems like a bridge between the discovery that outside stimuli can alter the brain and the more recent work showing that self-generated stimuli – thoughts and meditation – can, too. What he did was teach a group of volunteers a five-finger exercise on a piano keyboard. They were instructed to play as fluidly as they could, without pausing, trying hard to keep to the metronome’s sixty beats per minute. Every day for five days, the volunteers practiced for two hours. Then they took a test, in which they played the exercise twenty times while a computer counted their errors. Over the five days, the players made fewer and fewer errors while improving their beat so that the intervals between notes came closer and closer to what the metronome called for.
The volunteers underwent one further test. For a few minutes once a day, they sat beneath a coil of wire that sent a brief magnetic pulse into the motor cortex of their brain. This transcranial magnetic stimulation briefly disables the neurons just beneath the coil, allowing scientists to infer what function they control. In the piano players, the pulse was directed at their motor cortex – specifically, the stretch that controls the flexion and extension of their fingers. In this way, the scientists could map the boundaries of that stretch, discerning the area of the motor cortex devoted to finger movements needed for the piano exercise. What the scientists found was that, after a week of practice, the stretch of motor cortex devoted to these finger movements took over surrounding areas like dandelions on a suburban lawn.
That finding was completely in line with the ever-growing pile of discoveries, including those discussed in chapter 2, that greater use of a particular muscle causes the brain to devote more cortical real estate to it. But Pascual-Leone did not stop there. He had another group of volunteers merely think about practicing the piano exercise. They played the simple piece in their heads, imagining how they would move their fingers to generate the notes on the score. Result: The region of the motor cortex that controls the piano-playing fingers expanded in the brains of volunteers who merely imagined playing the piece just as it did in the brains of those who actually played it. Mental rehearsal activated the same motor circuits as actual rehearsal, with the same result: the increased activation caused an expansion of that bit of motor cortex.”
As a Feldenkrais practitioner it is very exciting to see that research is validating our work. All of the therapies that are being developed to retrain the brain are exactly what the Feldenkrais Method does. We create change in the brains patterns. It is high time that researchers look at Feldenkrais as a way to keep people young and cognitivly active throughout their lives.
April 9th, 2008 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
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