Part 1: Super light arms, lengthen whole self, 40 min
On the lesson
I know this one is a bit longer than usual. It’s worth doing as it’s the first of three spectacular lessons in a sequence. The next two, which are shorter, will follow in the next two weeks.
They all have the arms overhead, so if that’s an issue for you, place the arms more out to the side, or else put a blanket under the arms to support them. In other words, when you can’t reach the floor, raise the floor. You’re still doing the lesson!
This lesson is slow and uncomplicated, inviting lots of movement in the ribs, upper back, and shoulders.
(This is from SF yr 2, 7-21-76)
This week’s thought: Learning and Smiling
One of my favorite quotes by Moshe Feldenkrais is:
“One has to set about learning to learn as is befitting for the most important business in human life; that is, with serenity but without solemnity, with patient objectivity and without compulsive seriousness. Clenching the fists, tensing the eyebrows, tightening the jaw are expressions of impotent effort. It is possible to succeed in spite of these faults only at the expense of truly healthy joy of living. Learning must be undertaken and is really profitable when the whole frame is held in a state where smiling can turn into laughter without interference, naturally, spontaneously.”
* * *
Learning in a state of near-smiling is important because it creates more bandwidth for absorption. When your face is scrunched, fists clenched, stomach tight, and your jaw clamped down, it’s just about impossible to take in new information.
Any contracted state is a defensive one, a physiological blockade to hearing ourselves (we’re efforting to contract) and to hearing others. This isn’t wrong, it’s a useful survival skill. It’s just not helpful all the time, and it’s not helpful for learning.
Open, neutral muscle tone is the appropriate state for state-shifting.
Ideally, new information arrives without ANY associated stress.
When we originally learned a muscle pattern, like standing up straight, if there were any stress or negativity associated with it (like someone yelling at us), we will, on some level, experience anxiety every time we engage with that muscle pattern.
Training ourselves to learn in an easy, stress- and anxiety-free state, even if it’s softening the jaw or breathing easy for just one or two movements, is vital for shifting out of exhausting tension and stress.
It is a training. Consider how long it took us to develop these patterns!
More lessons:
This lesson is from Light, Easy Arms in the Feldenkrais Treasury.
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Quote(s) of the week:
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
“Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”