Please see the list of gadgets and gizmos that our clients, practitioners, and therapists have found helpful when dealing with low back pain and sciatica: Knee-Pillow is another useful gadget for side-lying positions that allow the thighs to be parallel and the knees to be aligned with the hips. Tail-bone pain? Here is a cushion worth considering: Loofah sponge for self-massage. Especially useful when dealing with subcutaneous pain syndrome - a condition of pain and tenderness stemming from the fascia and superficial tissues. Do you experience extreme tenderness and discomfort when pinchi ..read more

Knowing that there are likely many great answers to this question, we have found one answer that we like a lot. We’re going to help our clients to establish a Feldenkrais practice that we envision to be somewhat similar in form to a meditation practice or a yoga practice. We want to give people the tools they need to utilize not only Feldenkrais lessons themselves but also to use the principles that underlie the mechanics of the Feldenkrais Method. With these ideas and techniques, we imagine our clients being excited about spending some time engaging with the Feldenkrais Method regularly -- v ..read more

This coming Monday, December 7th at 5:45 pm (EST), I will be hosting my last Q & A, at least for the time being. When I began these talks in July I wanted to convey certain insights I’ve had regarding the interactions of the conscious and subconscious as it relates to improvement gained through practicing the Feldenkrais Method. At this point, I’ve explored most of what I intended to say and more. The interactions with you over these few months have helped me to clarify my thinking and have brought new things to light I had not previously considered. I thank you all for that. I’m goi ..read more

Mindfulness: The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something: "their mindfulness of the wider cinematic tradition" A mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique In the Feldenkrais Method, our class modality is called, Awareness Through Movement. What if Dr. Feldenkrais had decided to call it Mindfulness Through Movement? Or Mind Training Through Movement? Or even Movement Mind Training? If you know much a ..read more

As I prepare for the upcoming workshop, Mindfulness and the Feldenkrais Method, I’ve been struck by how many different pathways seem to provide different sorts of bridges between mindfulness and Feldenkrais. Here’s just one example. It’s an excerpt from an intriguing book I picked up a while back on brain function. Here, the author is describing various brain wave frequencies. What follows is how alpha brain waves seem to affect us. Before you read it, you might want to know that an attunement to the alpha frequencies is associated with regular meditators and also with those who engage in regu ..read more

In creating our method that bears his name, Dr. Feldenkrais studied and synthesized a large amount of existing information and a number of techniques drawn from then-current educational, psychological, philosophical and rehabilitation modalities and systems. Interestingly, some of the techniques that came from this research run completely counter to techniques and ideas utilized in some of those other healing and/or educational modalities. I’ll talk in-depth about one technique that we are taught as, “Taking over the work,” of a function or an aspect of function for a client as a therapeutic ..read more

This week, I’m going to tell another kind of “story” about the way certain parts of our conscious and subconscious mind interact. More specifically, I’ll talk about my understanding of the role your subconscious plays as “protector” in relation to many of your conscious desires. Understand that when I talk about the subconscious, I’m only talking about the part that organizes movement. I’ll speak a bit about the strategies your subconscious uses in its protective role that may, at times, seem detrimental to your happiness and comfort. At the level of the subconscious, there is always a positi ..read more

In this week’s Q & A, I’m going to revisit a topic I touched on a few weeks ago. How do we make the positive results of engaging with Feldenkrais last longer? I also have a question on what to do if you experience a sense of numbness during a Feldenkrais class. Please join me this Monday, September 28th at 5:45 pm (EDT). I have time to take more questions. If you’d like me to consider your question in advance of Monday’s meeting, please email me at: mark@bettermovement.com and include “Q & A” in the subject line.  As always, the session will last for 40 minutes; it’s f ..read more

“Distinguish between learning and doing. When you learn how to do something, you must do less than you are able to do. When you "do" you must be able to do it quickly, powerfully with everything good. When you learn, it is not the same thing. It is not "to do." Whoever does not distinguish between these two things, never learns.”             --Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais The Alexander Yanai Lessons, ATM #399 v. 8, p. 2726 This week I’ll talk about what is arguably the single most important aspect of the Feldenkrais Method. When you do Fe ..read more

In this week’s Q & A, it’ll all be actual Q & A. I’ve received three different questions that all ask the same thing but, in each case, from a slightly different perspective. Why do the positive results of engaging with Feldenkrais seem to fade quickly? And what can one do to make them last longer? I’ll do my best to answer those questions on Monday, August 31st at 5:45 pm (EDT). I may have time to take another question or two, so if you have a question you’d like me to consider in advance of Monday’s meeting, please email me at: mark@bettermovement.com and include “Q ..read more