Feldenkrais Method
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Posts tagged Alexander Technique
Breathing 1 & 2 - The extent of the breath without effort & the co-ordinating role of the breath and eyes

This post relates to the first two lessons in the breathing series - The links to the actual lessons alternate with each photo or GIF.

The lessons work with breathing and explore how it relates to the sense of being, the scope of our awareness and our ability to move and function.

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Breathing 3 - The eyes inside your body

Many people think they don’t breathe well. They should breathe more deeply, or more freely but perhaps they’re looking at it from the wrong perspective? ‘Breath’ is defined as the air we take into & then exhale from our bodies. We tend to think of ourselves (surprise! surprise!) & not see what is around us - thinking of air moving in & out rather than air moving us. Our atmosphere is amazing ..

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Breathing 4 - The wisdom of your silken layer

Do we restrict ourselves by breathing poorly? Do we restrict our ability to sense what is actually going on?

We’ve been considering the movement of our respiratory cavity as we breathe and following its effortless rhythm. You may have experienced a great sense of ease in the way you were breathing after each of the classes we’ve been doing but if we increase our workload or the range of interactions we share we may need to do a little more.

However, increasing tension to achieve this rarely works. As with the finger trap, the more we resist the tighter we become.

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Breathing 5 - Inside and out

Breathing in harmony .. meaning that most of the time our breathing is peaceful and returns to that peace after periods of aerobic activity .. means that we are harmonious.

Breathing is circular just like the tides. Moving with that natural flow is not so simple in the chaos of human life. However, if you pay attention to your breathing as a daily practice it’s much easier to find that cyclone centre.

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Breathing 6 - Breathing co-ordination

How do you go with the flow of life? So that with each change or fluctuation of circumstance you adapt like water in a river. Ancient Chinese sages spoke of paying close attention to where you are now in order to better predict what would be useful for the future.

In that case you were ready when the changes occurred.

Paying attention to where you are and what is happening is a pretty obvious thing but in reality it’s not that simple.

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Breathing 7 - The geometry of depth

This lesson explores the role of the head and neck in that experience of stillness. The jaw, the eyes, the tongue .. they make a huge difference.

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Breathing 8 - The rhythms within you and the rhythms of which you're a part

So in last weeks class we refined a way of perceiving and freeing our head, neck and torso using the breath.

This week we’ll explore larger movements in that context. We’ll examine how we can develop more power and ease through awareness of breath.

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Breathing 9 - Twisting and rolling in water

This lesson is an improvisation on one of Moshe’s most famous lessons. We’ll explore it within the prism of our ever freeing breath.

It’s so simple but the effect is just lovely.

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Breathing 10 - Flying

The vividness of our internal life & the dance of the way we feel & function is a remarkable thing. It’s so easy to be seduced into thinking there is an objective world that exists separately & to believe our internal judgements are statements of fact. For me, observing the shifting landscape of sense, thought & feeling make that seem less certain.

This universe is a strange and beautiful place.

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The Central Limb 1 - The steering wheel for up

How to look up at the stars effortlessly .. or maybe to reach for the stars. So many movements involve a movement of your body behind the coronal plane. We’ll be looking at our relationship to gravity as a starting point. One of the major challenges many people face is that their idea of ‘up’ is distorted. It’s hard to go up if your idea of up is down or if it twists away to the left. So we’ll set the instruments for the heart of the earth and consider the steering wheel for ‘up’.

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The Central Limb 2 - The sphenoid floats

This lesson explores the position and significance of the Sphenoid bone. It’s part of the base of the skull & the top of the back of the nose. It sits in front of the skulls centre of gravity, is shaped like a butterfly and our breath passes beneath it. How can awareness of this exquisite bone assist us to feel the delicate balance of the skull on top of the spine? or the weight of the skeleton in its dance with the space in the airway? Or the sense of freedom in our eyes? Go for a walk afterwards!

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The Central Limb 3 - Softening the bones of the face

This lesson considers the role of smell in our orientation to the world.

We’ll explore another extraordinary bone - The ethmoid which sits at the top of our nose and also forms part of the base of the cranial skull. Here’s a representation from the front ..

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The Central Limb 4 - The front and back to the sides

This lesson goes right to the heart of the paradoxical nature of our bodily experience. The sense of hard and soft .. spacious and dense .. all at the same time. We’ll be right in the heart of our visceral skull .. The Maxilla and Mandible .. and we’ll be looking at it in relation to the rest of our body. Here are the two maxilla bones highlighted ..

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The Central Limb 5 - The journey to the side

This lesson explores the shapes of the length and width of or bodies.

The front and back of our spine from the skulls occipital bone to the sacrum along with the spiral lines from the front and back of our shoulder girdle and pelvis.

It’s the curves that enable us to roll.

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The Central Limb 6 - How the side supports the other

This lesson explores the limbs and how we transfer our weight from one side to the other. It examines how each side supports the other to move and wraps our movements around the midline of our axis from front to back, side to side and top to bottom.

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The Central Limb 7 - Arches

We are both particle and wave ..

like water flowing through an invisible container

What is our shape ?

and where is the plane of the midline?

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The Central Limb 8 - Figure 8's for the hip and shoulder

Some days things just fall into place. It can seem unearthly.

Something that a moment before was impossible mysteriously becomes possible, appears or unfolds. Is it a matter of perception or is it a matter of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts?

Perhaps it’s the co-operation of the parts that co-opt the surrounding or enclosed space to function in a new way?

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The Central Limb 9 - Conducting with the hands and feet

How do we create the stillness necessary to go with our limitations and explore their full potential? In my experience, people (myself included!) have a tendency to look at their limitations in isolation and then struggle against them. We tend to compare ourselves to people such as Roxana or Sylvie Guillem and seek to imitate in five minutes what has for them been a lifetime of practice.

Perhaps if we begin with where we are ..

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The Central Limb 10 - Skipping around the sun

This lesson explores the centre of the centres and the realisation of that place is a cause for celebration.

The wonderful thing about the centre is that you don’t have to do anything to get it as it’s already there. It’s the gift we unfold for a lifetime ..

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The Heart of Movement 1 - The extent of the pulse

This series of lessons will be exploring one of divining rods for painful or pleasurable experience.

We’ll be exploring the heart .. There are so many surprising things about the heart. We’ll be focussing on the way it contributes to the feeling of movement and our capacity to sense our experience of life through its beating prism.

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