Read this Article - Featuring an MD who's a Feldy Fan!

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/08205/898695-114.stm

This doctor turned to the Feldenkrais® Method to find relief for his mysterious foot pain he felt while jogging.

Rock and Roll Your Walking - Walk with Feldenkrais® Power

Most people never think about how much energy and power they can infuse into their walking just by drawing attention to how their feet contact the ground under them.  Your pelvic mobility as well as your feet's connection with the earth or floor both profoundly influence how much your body is propelled forward with each next step. 

You can explore this dynamic in a couple of ways.  One quick way is to walk around imagining that with each step, as your foot contacts the ground, you are rolling from your heel all the way along the bottom of your foot forward towards your toes.  The main feeling you're going for is that walking is not alternately lifting one foot and then the other, but it is rolling across the bottom of one foot and then the other.

You can also improve your ability to do this with Feldenkrais® exercises that will heighten the neural connections between how you use your feet and pelvis for walking.   Here's a short sequence that can help:

Lie on your stomach with your legs a little spread and your arms resting on the floor near your face.  Turn your face whichever way is the most comfortable for your neck. Position one of your feet so that the bottom of the toes are on the floor, the heel towards the ceiling.  Start gently pushing with your toes so that you feel you can use your toes to roll the weight of your pelvis towards the opposite hip.  Keep repeating this action many times, starting with very small gentle movements and growing them if they become easier, as they probably will.  Make sure that you can easily breath throughout this exercise.  You might start holding your breath as you  concentrate.  As soon as you notice that, return to breathing easily.  It may mean slowing down or making smaller movements.  That's fine.

Rest for a couple of minutes with the tops of both feet on the floor or on your back.  Now repeat the actions on the other side.  Be sure to start out with very small, gentle movements.  As you feel more clearly what you are doing, it will become easier to make larger movements.  You will notice that it feels a little different to do these movements on each side.  Also, the direction your head is turned will affect what you're doing.  You might want to experiment with turning your head one way and the other to notice the effect.

When you have experimented as much as you want to, take another short rest.  Then practice alternating a gentle push from the right foot with a push from the left, back and forth until you feel you can easily feel how to do it.

Stand and walk.  See if you feel more power and spring in your step.  You may also feel a few inches taller!

If you want more guidance improving your movement the Feldenkrais® way, visit http://www.highfunctionfeldenkrais.com where you can find CD's of lessons you can do at home.

A Quick & Easy Way to Achieve Better Seated Posture

Here's a shortened version of one of my favorite Feldenkrais® exercises that almost immediately helps me sit more upright with ease.

Step 1: Sit comfortably in a chair near the front edge so that your thighs are mostly not on the seat of the chair.  Slowly slide your right hand up and down along the length of your right leg, from your hip joint down towards your foot and back up again. Don't try to stretch.  Stay within a comfortable range of motion, but do notice that as you continue the action, you may be able to travel further down your leg.  After you do this 4-8 times, rest by sitting in the chair.  You can sit back in the chair if you wish.  Repeat the movements on the left side of your body.  Rest.

Step 2: Now repeat the same idea except take your right hand up and down your left leg.  Always repeat a number of times, as long as it is easy and interesting for you.  Then after resting, take your left hand up and down your right leg.  Rest.

One of the keys to why this simple exercise is so helpful is the gentle invitation your arm movements are inviting into your abdomen and back muscles so don't think of this as an isolation exercise.  If you pay attention, you'll start noticing how a number of different parts of your body are cooperating to make the movements easier.  Even if you don't pay much attention (except to going gently and easily!), you can still get great results with this exercise.

Step 3:  Cross your right leg over the left so that the right ankle sits on top of the left knee.  Repeat the hand sliding motion going with the right hand up and down along the left leg, reaching over the crossed leg.  Rest in sitting.  Repeat on the other side - with left leg crossed, ankle resting on right knee, take left hand up and down right leg.  Rest.

Step 4:  This one is harder for some people, so skip it if it is strenuous for you.  Bend your right leg and put your right foot on the chair seat.  Slide the left hand up and down the left leg.  Rest in sitting.  Now bend the left leg, placing the left foot on your chair seat, and slide your right hand up and down your right leg.  Rest in sitting.

Step 5: Repeat step 1.

You'll probably feel more at ease sitting at your full height and may not even need to lean back against the chair for support.  That's what happens to me!  If you don't feel a big change, allowing some time to pass between your attempts, and repeat the exercise a couple of more times.  Be sure you are not straining.  This exercise is about inviting your brain to change how it organizes your movement.  If you are very set in certain patterns, it may take a little longer for the changes to happen in your nervous system.  Just be patient and gently allow them to occur and they will.  You can do this exercise any time you feel like you are getting into bad posture when you're seated and it will start taking you back towards better posture.

For more guidance doing Feldenkrais® exercises, visit www.highfunctionfeldenkrais.com.

Trying Slowing Down This Holiday - At Least for An Hour!

Especially at holiday times, we rush around as if we have no other options. The Feldenkrais® Method is built on the principle of "slow": slowing down gives your brain, via your senses, the opportunity to notice new possibilities and make meaningful connections. Create at least one time period of "slow" this holiday se...ason, spending the time with others or alone. I bet you'll look back on it as time well spent.

A Simple Back Pain Solution

My step-father sometimes wakes up with a sore lower back and so I gave him this simple Feldenkrais® exercise to do which usually eases the strain within minutes.  I can't promise that it will always be enough to help in every case, but it can definitely be a first step toward pain relief and feeling better.

Lay on your back with your knees bent, about hip width apart, and start paying attention to your breathing.  If you feel like your head is titling backwards, put some support under it like a folded up towel, or thin, firm pillow.  Let your breathing becoming fuller, so that you are very conscious of each inhale and exhale.  Don't push or strain in any way, just allow your breathing to expand through attention and intention.

Now, each time you exhale, start gently pressing with your feet in order to gently press your lower back toward the floor beneath you. As you do this, you can notice that your tail bone moves towards your center, like a dog would do if it was putting it's tail between it's legs.  You might also notice that the top of your pelvis, the bones you can feel as your hips, are getting a little closer to the bottom of your ribs. You are essentially initiating the beginning movement of curling up, but you can't go very far because your back is against the floor.

Now, gently reverse that action on an inhale.  As you start breathing in, GENTLY tilt your pelvis in the opposite direction.  You will notice that as your pelvis tilts, you'll be creating air space between your lower back and the floor.  Imagine how deep and wide that air space is.  You'll also probably notice that your breastbone starts tilting away from your pelvis and that there is a growing sense of spaciousness between your ribs on your front.  Continue gently alternating the pelvic tilt, in one direction and then the other.  Remember to use your feet to assist with tilting your lower back towards the ground, and then ease off on the pressure in your feet when you go back the other direction.

Also, start paying attention to how your pelvic tilts are changing your head position.  This may be difficult to notice for some people.  See if you can at least notice a slight movement in your chin towards and away from your chest.  Figure out which direction of pelvic tilt can pull your chin towards your chest and which direction will invite your chin to move away from your chest.  Allowing your head and neck to be moved by your pelvis can help in freeing up your neck and releasing tension in the upper back.

Hope this helps!  Let me know if you have any questions!

Better Breathing within Minutes

Breathing Tip:  To get more oxygen flowing through your system, use your hands and the floor to give you information about your breathing. Spend a few minutes on your back with your hands on your ribs and feel the movement.  See if you can feel the back side of your ribs pressing into the floor too.  Now lay on your stomach and feel the ribs pressing into the floor when you breath and once again look for movement in your back ribs.  Repeat lying down on each side.  Can you feel the ribs pressing into the floor?  Now just breathe and notice that it is fuller than before.  You have just created a new breathing pattern through sensory awareness and movement!

A Simple Breathing Exercise to Release Stress

Most of us are probably feeling like life is stressful these days, frequently feeling anxious about one thing or another.  Will my job get cut?  Will I meet my quota?  Am I spending enough time with my children?  You may not notice, but a side-effect of anxiety is a tightening of the abdominal muscles.  And guess what!  When your abdominals tighten up, you not only compromise your posture, you're interfering with your breathing too! 

Here's something you can do that can really raise your awareness about your breathing and help you maintain healthy breathing habits most of the time.  Lie down on your back.  You can bend your knees if your lower back is uncomfortable.  Put one hand on your breast bone and the other just below your belly button.  Practice slowly and gently breathing first into one hand and then into the other.  Repeat this type of breathing about 10 times.  Then rest with your hands by your sides for a few moments.  Then switch your hands and repeat the alternating breathing about 10 more times.  Notice if the second time it is easier to notice movement in your ribs and belly.  As you "breathe into your belly" you are more deeply filling the lower regions of your lungs as well as releasing the tension in your abdominal muscles.  Rest and breathe without trying to do anything.  Just notice if your "normal" breathing has become deeper.  Repeat this exercise everyday for a few days in a row and you'll almost surely notice a greater capacity to deal with stress from a place of calmness, and for sure, you'll have a tool to use any time the stress really starts to get to you!

The Feldenkrais® Method Offers Help for People with Incontinence

Many women start experiencing some level of incontinence as they age as well as men, who have had prostate surgery or other invasive procedures.  The bottom line(no pun intended) is that the muscles of the pelvic floor need to be used to a certain extent otherwise they will atrophy just like any other muscles in the body.  "Use it, or lose it" as they say.  The general recommendation to strengthen the pelvic floor is to do Kegel exercises, but doing them correctly is not that straightforward because you are working with a set of muscles that are hidden from most people's awareness.  Also, people often fail to follow through on exercises unless they have a concrete plan of what to do: how many, for how long, how often, etc.

Deborah Bowes, PT, PhD, used her knowledge of the Feldenkrais® Method to develop a series of exercises that incorporates kegels and makes pelvic floor exercises easy, simple, and relaxing to do.  I've used it myself and found it made a real difference within days.  Since toned pelvic floor muscles are integral to the experience of sexual sensation, these exercises are very helpful in more ways than one.  I've researched numerous sources of online information about kegel exercises and haven't found any approach that I thought was so easy to use.  I think this approach to kegel exercises is easier because it associates moving the pelvic floor with the movement of larger muscles that we are more familiar with.  I highly recommend you read more about the Pelvic Health and Awareness Program which you can view at http://www.highfunctionfeldenkrais.com!

A Quick Easy Feldenkrais® Way to Reduce Neck Tension

For some quick relief from neck tension, try this: For a few minutes, lie on your back.  Without letting tension creep into your jaw, gently roll your head a little from side to side, letting your eyes look in the direction your head is turning.  Then switch it up.  Slowly turn your head one way and look in the opposite direction.  Keep your movement slow and gentle and repeat a number of times.  You'll probably have deep relaxing breaths organically happen during this process.  Finish by repeating the head rolls with the eyes gazing in the same direction as your face.  

If you would like to get support at home to practice these techniques, check out the Feldenkrais® Lessons at http://www.highfunctionfeldenkrais.com.  There's also a 10 minute film you can watch to understand more about the Feldenkrais® Method.