Moshe Feldenkrais was ahead of his time in understanding the need to do less to learn to have quality movement. But before I get into that, let’s talk posture for a second. Overcoming beliefs about good posture is one of the biggest challenges to be overcome by people I see. Suffering pain, they are often doing everything they can to have “good posture”. What they often don’t realize is that all that effort they’re putting into having good posture is detrimental to having quality movement. There are two common misconceptions about posture I come across all the time. One is about the importanc ..read more

End back pain with the Feldenkrais Method This is edited reprint of a former post about Feldenkrais for lower back pain and why strength and flexibility don’t cut it. This post is written specifically for people who want to understand why they’re having back pain even after doing everything they’ve been told by medical professionals and/or fitness coaches. And why the Feldenkrais approach to lower back pain can be the solution. If you want to… overcome back pain or prevent back injury to be able to do more of the stuff you love without worrying about your back move with with more power and ef ..read more

Effortless Effort The Feldenkrais Way This is a an edited reprint of a previous post about one of Feldenkrais’ four elements of quality movement: the absence of effort. Feldenkrais spent a great deal of time making it clear that… “….posture relates to action, and not to the maintenance of any given position. Acture would perhaps be a better word for it.”* He pointed out that the image of ideal posture shown in medical textbooks or on those medical charts with a plumb line overlain on the skeleton is a pretty crazy way to look at what “proper” posture is. For starters, such an image doesn’t ta ..read more

A couple weeks ago a drop-in student asked me…“Awareness Through Movement (R) lessons – why do them?” She continued…”Can I ask you a really blunt question?” Me: “Sure – of course.” Student: “What’s the point?!! I mean, where are we going with this? Are there like…10 lessons…like a progression?” It seemed to me that she was frustrated and exasperated. She was having a lot of chronic pain issues. She used to teach exercises classes. Now she couldn’t. Her pain was too bad. She was suffering. She was doing other therapy. Nothing was getting her issues resolved. I have to ..read more

Do you think you’re genius material? If you’re like most people I know (yours truly included), although you’d like to be a genius at something, you probably don’t think of yourself as genius material. Why is that? What do you think makes a genius a genius? You’d be surprised what a little time and effort will do Moshe Feldenkrais had this to say about genius: “I believe that there is no essential difference between what we call a genius and everybody else except that the so-called genius finds the correct method of using himself – sometimes by fortunate circumstances, but more often by searc ..read more

No one would have guessed it! Meg walked into surgery more or less fine…and walked out with a spinal cord injury. Meg had no idea she had anything wrong with her spine until she had to have a scan for a completely different reason. It was then that they found she had a problem. She had a huge bulging disc that was compressing her spinal cord. It was a surprise to everyone as she didn’t have any neurological symptoms. But, within a couple of years, she started to notice a few odd things now and then. So it was decided she should have spinal surgery to prevent a possible catastrophe that could ..read more

          We’re up to Part 3 of our 5 Part Series on what makes for Quality Movement. You can find Part 1 here: Want Quality Movement? Learn the Feldenkrais® Less is More Rule And Part 2 here: How to Improve Your Posture Effortlessly the Feldenkrais® Way In those first two posts we looked at the myths related to good posture, the “Less is More Rule”, and the first of the four elements of quality movement: The Absence of Effort. Today we’ll explore the second element: The Absence of Resistance. Learning to think and move through the world with less resis ..read more

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what constitutes strength. Through listening to my own experiences and exploring ways to integrate my history of traumas and my weaknesses these past few months. Through sharing my experiences with my husband Sean and dear friends. Through negotiating a new friendship. Through mindfulness practices and reading wise words from people like Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, Moshe Feldenkrais and others… I’ve been musing… And I’ve come to make connections between the nature of strength, courage, love and understanding. It is said that true love is only possible ..read more

In last week’s post, I introduced this series on Quality Movement. In it, I suggest that good posture isn’t necessarily all its cracked up to be. And yet, you can improve your posture effortlessly if you know what you’re actually going to be looking for. This week, we’ll take a look at another way to consider “posture”, and explain more about the nature of the first of the four elements of quality movement, the absence of effort. It’s this absence of effort that will improve your posture effortlessly. Feldenkrais spent a great deal of time making it clear that, ….posture relates to action, an ..read more

Moshe Feldenkrais was ahead of his time in understanding the need to do less to learn to have quality movement. But before I get into that, let’s talk posture for a second. Overcoming beliefs about good posture is one of the biggest challenges to be overcome by people I see. Suffering pain, they are often doing everything they can to have “good posture”. What they often don’t realize is that all that effort they’re putting into having good posture is detrimental to having quality movement. There are two common misconceptions about posture I come across all the time. One is about the importanc ..read more