Walking the Earth

by Deedee Eisenberg, Ph.D.

Have you ever walked outdoors at dawn and sensed the earth turn on its axis towards the sun? Try it sometime and see what happens. As we hurry to and fro, it’s so easy to take our steps for granted. But lose that carefree rhythm, and each step becomes precious. Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says we don’t have to walk in space or on water to experience a miracle... walking on the green Earth is a miracle.

Sarah is a woman in mid-life with two grown children. After a disabling bout with Lyme disease, she felt that her feet “refused to follow orders.” Her gait was disturbed and simple tasks became hazardous. One evening she broke her ankle as she walked across her bedroom! Now her determination to stay mobile was burdened by more pain and weakness.

At this point, Sarah’s massage therapist sent her to me for Functional Integration lessons. She made immediate and rapid progress; her feet found their way; and her gait became stable and fluid. “In the aftermath of Lyme disease, Feldenkrais lessons contributed to my entire sense of well-being. The movements improved my fine motor skills. Also, because I was walking all wrong, it tired me out. I knew I was walking incorrectly, but I didn’t know how to correct the problem—now that I’m walking better, I have more stamina,” she explains.

Walking is a boon for all ages—it builds bone, aids digestion, and banishes depression. It’s a great way to be outdoors with friends and loved ones. When we nourish the neurologic “roots” of walking—integrating arms, legs, chest and pelvis—we take off down the road with confidence and pleasure. Enjoy your daily miracle, walk on the green Earth.

The Joy of Discovery

by Deedee Eisenberg, Ph.D.

According to Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra, yoga is the ability to direct the mind without interruption or distraction; an ability cultivated in order to act decisively, with clarity, unimpeded by mechanical habits of perception. We develop this goal through physical and breathing exercises, self-inquiry, and quality of action. The FELDENKRAIS METHOD enhances all these means of yoga. Many of Moshe’s movement explorations are akin to playful commentaries on classical yoga themes, and yoga teachers trained in the FELDENKRAIS METHOD expand their ability to bring
yoga practices alive to both beginning and experienced students.
Yoga poses and movements are meant to unfold from the core of an individual’s
spine, breath, and awareness, rather than be copied from a model outside ourselves.
The FELDENKRAIS® approach evokes this unfolding from within, gradually and steadily developing suppleness and release through the rib cage, stable balance through the limbs, shoulders, and pelvis, and fluid integration through the spine, tail to crown. These are the skills that make challenging poses easy! In fact, Moshe’s promise, “ to make the impossible possible” is listed in the Yoga Sutra as a benefit of yoga practice.

  “I used to feel limited in my capacity to do these (yoga) movements. Now after the
FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION® work, I see that was just my perception. My perception has changed. I feel whole! These movements are within my reach,” Cathy Suttle beamed to me.

I love to witness students’ delight as they discover yoga poses unfolding from
within themselves. A FELDENKRAIS learning process primes their intelligence, readying the feet, hands, buttocks, eyes, mouth - the dynamic whole - to engage wholeheartedly, with great ease, in a practice sequence. No more pushing
and pulling in an arbitrary manner to achieve a form foreign to them: rather, a
simple inquisitive process to unleash their own self-knowledge, which guides them to a new, stable and open balance. Since both the FELDENKRAIS METHOD and yoga
explore unknown personal experience of the human nervous system, they delve deepinto common ground:• body as an expression of, and handle on, one’s emotional and social makeup
• right and left sides of the body in an intricate dance of duality and union, conflict and cooperation
• breath as a bridge between upper and lower body, conscious and unconscious action
• imagination and inner gaze as an entry into and preparation for action.

Donna Maeboori, a physical therapist in Portland, Oregon, (<dobimel@teleport.com>) offers both FELDENKRAIS and yoga strategies to people who seek help with chronic pain. She finds that small FELDENKRAIS movements give subtle information that
augments yoga poses and guides people to move smoothly in and out of a pose.
Her FELDENKRAIS window on yoga deepens her kinesthetic descriptions,
freeing her students to find ease, confidence, and spontaneous full breathing in
their poses.

FELDENKRAIS lessons are akin to, and prepare for, meditation. Eryl Kubicka  codirector of the Madison Zen Centre, who has decades of meditation experience,
found that the quiet, relentless selfdiscovery process of an AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT ® lesson reminded her of the intimacy engendered in meditation
practice. “We encounter the same resistance, and must navigate our way through.” Yoga means attentiveness in action, and it shares with the FELDENKRAIS METHOD a thoroughly practical approach to improving one’s life, step by step.