Imagine having an energy auditor come to your home to examine the efficiency and sustainability of your energy usage.
Your old fridge, your uninsulated hot-water pipes, your old windows – they may be wasting a lot of energy. Once you know, you can make smarter choices. The kinds of somatic investigations we engage in invite you to do a similar energy audit with your movement habits. (The upgrades to your own moving body only cost you awareness, presence, curiosity, and a willingness to learn. Otherwise they're free!)
We have to notice first what's happening, and then we can upgrade using less effort.
I remember a few years ago, a student of mine in a class was astonished to realize that that extra effort, it doesn't just disappear. That's actually what creates wear and tear in our joints.
For many of us growing up in a family or a culture where we can conflate trying hard, which means a lot of effort with doing our best or being a good person, it can take some time to unwind that habit of overdoing. Our senses can become much more subtle over time as we pay attention to ourselves and maybe let go of the habit of cranking so hard.
When I first started Feldenkrais more than 20 years ago, I was a yoga teacher at the time, and I was really used to doing big movements. One of my teachers used to say, “How far do you have to go to know that you're doing it or to know that you're doing enough?” Over time, I would ask myself that.
It takes time. You might not get it in 30 minutes... It took me years to notice: Wow, I have to go really far. Sometimes I'm going toward pain to feel like I'm doing enough.
Also, for many of us, it's a strong way of feeling of “I'm doing good because I'm trying hard.” It's deep territory.
The Feldenkrais Method creates a wonderful way over time to break that habit and start to reclaim a lot more subtlety in our senses.
Are you working harder than you need to be? Are you clenching your shoulders and jaw to “help” you do a movement that is in fact not helped by those exhausting actions at all? Are you squeezing your butt when you bend over and so overtaxing your lower back? Are you walking in a way that is wearing out your knee joints?
When you learn to weed out what Moshe Feldenkrais called “parasitic actions” – those habits that drain your energy rather than support you in what you're trying to do – your movement and your life become more coherent.
No longer working against yourself, you become more free to actualize your intentions in a streamlined and sustainable way. And your joints can last longer too!
This is such an important skill to learn. While the movement lessons I'll be sharing with you work with an important somatic themes, the greater harvest is found in learning how to learn in this way from your own moving body throughout your daily life. Finding less effort and more ease when washing the dishes, lifting heavy items, reaching for an object, working at the computer, or walking up stairs – what a gift!
The Feldenkrais approach offers such an optimistic view of aging. Though our bodies are changing day to day, we can always learn and improve a sense of graceful ease, eliminating habits of overwork and self-aggression, and find our activities becoming easier and more graceful – provided we have not lost the orientation to learn in this way. I'm so deeply grateful for this learning and practice in my own life. It's not about being perfect but being present. It's the difference that makes a difference.
May your own embodied presence be an ever-open doorway to feeling at home, to experiencing deep belonging and the felt beauty of this precious, temporary aliveness. Hope to see you on the floor!
20 LESSON SERIES BEGINS NOV 13
WHY FELDENKRAIS
with Erin Gessaman Rabke
1. Age Gracefully
2. Befriend Yourself
3. Discover the Gifts Inside Pain
4. Embody Sustainability
5. Cultivate Less Effort & More Pleasure
6. Decolonize Your Bodymind
7. Feel More
8. Update Your Habits
9. Learn to Slow Down
10. Become Authentically Intelligent
11. Improve Your Brain's Map of Your Body
12. Grow Your Attentional Flexibility
13. Be Mindful and Spontaneous
14. Become Yourself
15. Do What You Want
16. Learn to Trust Something Other than Your Thinking Mind
17. Practice Systems Thinking
18. End the Culture of Domination
19. Embody Ancestral Healing
20. Nurture Reverent Curiosity
The first 4 lessons are free. Sign up here:
About Erin:
Erin Geesaman Rabke is a Somatic Naturalist & Embodiment Mentor, professionally trained as a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, an Embodied Life® Teacher, a Work That Reconnects Facilitator, and a Community Grief Tender. Over the past 25+ years, she’s been trained in many somatics lineages as well as in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions of Dzogchen and Lojong. Along with her husband, Carl, she hosts the Embodiment Matters Podcast as well as offers many courses, workshops, and retreats.
Erin and Carl live in Salt Lake City, Utah, with their 13-year-old son and many wily animals. She is a lover of poetry, a beekeeper, a permaculture gardener, a coffee devotee, and a home herbalist. She is currently working on her first of several books. Learn more about Erin’s work/ play at: www.embodimentmatters.com