Feldenkrais - a personal view

by Gillian Bibby (musician), who regularly attends Rupert Watson’s Wellington classes.

“I have never been so comfortable in myself in my entire life.”

It is difficult to describe Feldenkrais in one word, as it addresses so many of the body’s movements, has so much variation in the exercises and takes so many different directions.

It could, for instance, be a logical continuation to take after Alexander Technique, which addresses the sitting, standing, muscle lengthening, forward- and-up activities.

Feldenkrais does not involve telling your body to do something  - “sit up straight” “don’t tickle your ear with your shoulder”  “be tall”, etc. , as an exercise programme would.

These orders we give ourselves make us feel guilty that we can’t do them all the time, or that we are failing in some way.

Feldenkrais offers a wonderful way of allowing the body to find its own “best” way of
doing even the most complex movements. The exercises are often (but by no means always!) quite simple, though not necessarily easy to achieve at first, and occasionally similar to Pilates exercises.

They involve an analysis of the basic and then more complex movements of the body, giving the nervous system the opportunity of experiencing these in unexpected ways, such as practising movements normally done vertically in a horizontal plane (lying down) and vice versa.

One experiences the way a certain action involves muscles throughout the whole body in a wave-like progression and the  nervous system/brain has the opportunity to “think” about this for itself without the interference of the conscious mind.  On returning to the movements in “normal”stance it is quite surprising to find oneself experiencing a new freedom in the movement and that one’s body is freer and relaxed and “better” at it. And it lasts!

I must add that the effect is strictly and amazingly cumulative. I have noticed beginners in Feldenkrais - and this involved me, too - saying after the first session that they felt “nothing” - that they’d found the initial exercises too basic,  implying they’d found it a waste of time/money/effort. But this is so deceptive.

After the first four or five sessions the effects become cumulative, and one becomes aware of a new freedom, the exhilaration of moving well, of losing the customary pains that one often carries round with one (sore neck, aching back, twisting feet...). And the nice thing is that in the hands of a good practitioner, the exercises can all be directed at the particular movements or physical pains one may experience in one’s own profession. Hands, for instance, and their weight. Twisting movements of the spine. Balance when in command of an instrument.

I now have new ways of analysing and helping my own student’s movements. And I have never felt so comfortable in myself before in my entire life.