Folding with the tanden, 36 min

I just taught this lesson in class today, two days after Christmas when people are often exhausted from socializing, especially if being social calls up energy from the depths of your scant resources.

Sometimes the holidays are rough for folks who count themselves among the highly sensitive people, which is about twenty percent of the population. Regardless if that’s you or not, this lesson will help drop down into sensing yourself.

HSPs are defined by four qualities (DOES):

Depth of processing. HSPs can be deep thinkers because the insula in the brain is more active, which enhances perception and increases self awareness. They might be processing over twenty pieces of data from a situation while a non-HSP will be processing two or three pieces.
Over-stimulation or over-arousal. HSPs are more impacted by social stimulation, which is exhausting. Violence is difficult to watch, environments, like rock concerts and crowds, are difficult to navigate. Note that this is not correlated to extroversion or introversion. There’s a sweet spot to recharge and not get under- or over-stimulated.
Emotional responsiveness and empathy. HSPs have more active emotional responses. HSPs are more impacted by positive and negative situations: they fare better in positive situations and worse in negative situations.
Sensitive to subtleties in people and environment. HSPs notice subtle details that others miss. Like if something’s been moved, or someone behaves a little differently. It also shows up by being impacted by strong sensory impact: bright lights, strong smells, rough textures.

Note that extroverts can be sensitive just as much as introverts.

No matter how you experience the holidays, my suggestion is to honor the time you need to recharge and use this lesson to return to a deeper sensing and knowing of yourself.

(Check out hsperson.com or unapologeticallysensitive.com)

In the notes on this lesson, Moshe Feldenkrais talks about the movement as a distraction from the attention on the tanden. The more you try to “perform” the movement, the more you effort. Effort takes you out of your sensing. Attention stops when effort increases. The movement will improve as you become clear in yourself.

He writes,

“Of course, while doing this, during the entire lesson the attention to the tanden is more important than the movement. We do the movements just to test ourselves if we are sleeping or are awake. That means [to distinguish] if we are able to pay attention, to do what we want, or if something inside of us, by itself, does what it wants. In other words, we are trying to stop being machines, but rather to become something closer to being a human that has awareness, knows what he is doing, and does what he wants.”

(ay359)

More lessons:

This lesson is from Destress and Calm under the Seven Best series under the Arms and Hands section of the Feldenkrais Treasury.

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