Roll across the midline, 32 min
(Apologies for the delay in this week’s post; minor technical difficulties have been resolved.)
For this lesson, you’ll need a folded towel under the head in the beginning. Then, as the rolling starts, lower the height or remove it altogether. The audio will prompt you as you go along.
I love this lesson for the way I feel smooth, light, and fluid afterwards. It sneaks up on me! My back just flattens out with very little work. I feel happier and more vivid, like a little mood pick-me-up with the joy of rolling side to side.
There’s nothing special you have to do for this to happen, just go along with the lesson, lifting a leg here, an arm there, and then suddenly you’re more coordinated.
There’s no “correct” thing to do except listen to your ease and comfort. Try not to fix yourself. That never works anyway. Instead, for a half an hour out of your day, practice creating positive habits of mind and meet yourself with kindness, curiosity, and openness, wherever you are in this moment.
(This lesson is from the balance section in the Feldenkrais® Treasury.)
Thought for May 23: Out of anxiety, into the skeleton
I got a call the other day from the editor of the North American Feldenkrais® journal wanting to publish one of the short articles from my blog. This happens every once in a while, although it’s usually someone out of the blue contacting me from Finland or Italy or Mexico.
This lovely woman was in Houston, and she reminded me of a note on anxiety I wrote many years ago, inspired by Moshe's quote about aggression being a behavior, not an energy:
“Aggression is a behavior, not an energy. There is no such thing as dammed-up aggression that relieves pressure when it is expressed. Although an unrestrained expression of aggression does have a relieving effect, this is due, in my mind, not to the reduction of the pressure, but to the amount of confidence the person has gained through exercising the function in which he or she is impotent.”
— Moshe Feldenkrais
In today's reactive climate, it is worth revisiting this idea of aggression as a behavioral expression of helplessness and impotence.
Victor Frankl, the Holocaust survivor who wrote Man's Search for Meaning, writes that, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” I believe this is true, and I believe that we can “learn to make ourselves secure,” as Moshe’s said when asked about the emotional discomfort that many of us experience as we reclaim our natural skeletal support.
Anxiety and Support
Fear of falling is one of the most basic and fundamental of human fears, and the foundation onto which most other anxiety responses are built. In fact, one of the major ways we construct feelings of anxiety is by pulling ourselves up and away from the ground. A sense of physical support from the ground, then, is basic to any sense of emotional security and well being.
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(For the super Feldy-geeks, more background on this topic can be found in the introduction to Moshe's The Potent Self under the subheading "Energy.")
quote(s) of the week:
“Just because an animal is large, it doesn't mean he doesn't want kindness; however big Tigger seems to be, remember that he wants as much kindness as Roo.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
“And don’t worry about the bits you can’t understand. Sit back and allow the words to wash around you, like music.”
― Roald Dahl, Matilda
“Today, to him gazing south with a new-born need stirring in his heart, the clear sky over their long low outline seemed to pulsate with promise; today, the unseen was everything. The unknown the only real fact of life.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows