The Game Of Bones…Making sense of everything I know.
September 2023
Hi Friends...
When I finished the recent module of my Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement training, I perused my photos looking for an image that would express the current permutation of my cells.
Meet the Three Graces. I took this photo the last time I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. According to The Met website, "They bestow what is most pleasurable and beneficent in nature and society" Headless, arm-less, bare, and undeniably supporting each other as they quietly bestow their gifts to the world.
As I researched the Graces, I was struck by all the different attributes and names they are assigned.: Radiance, Joy, Flowering, The Arts, Fertility, Nature, Charm, Splendor and on and on.
On The Met website it uses these three words:
Beauty, Mirth, Abundance.
Perfect. Permutations described!
Beauty:
Beauty feels to me like dance. It feels like the space around me when I am moving lyrically, boldly, dramatically. It feels like my soul's response as the rhythm of the music reaches my limbs. Beauty feels like fitness...when one muscle lengthens and the opposing muscle contracts to support me in a power pose. It feels like sweat after a delicious workout. Beauty is when my body feels strong and lithe and I can hold a plank for two minutes or endure a sequence of walking lunges longer than when I was 30!
I am skipping Mirth and putting her at the end. You will see my reasoning...read on!
Abundance:
Abundance, in my opinion, is the perfect word to describe Yoga, and especially Yoga Therapy. A 5000 year old practice, and philosophy that teaches us ethically and morally to be good to ourselves and in the world. It teaches us interoception or the knowing of our bodies from the inside out. It teaches us equanimity or the ability to be calm and composed during difficult situations. It teaches us to witness our practice (asana, breathwork, meditation etc.) without judgment. It also teaches alignment, postures, contraindications, the use of props, chants, invocations, mudras, and a thousand different ways to sit! As a yoga teacher and yoga therapist with 1500 hours of official training, I have just scratched the surface.
Mirth:
Mirth is defined by Merriam-Webster as
"Gladness or gaiety as shown by or accompanied with laughter."
In the photo above, the middle Grace is Mirth. She is facing away with her remaining arm draped upon Beauty as if to hold her close. Her pelvis leaning toward Abundance as if in a gesture of solidarity. I chose to speak about her last because as the echo of my last Feldenkrais module created a muddy puddle around me, I find myself comparing this moment to the end of a comedy act when I realize that everything I have just laughed at, totally applies to my life in this moment. Oh the irony!
When I first embarked on this training I was in such disdain regarding how it was taught. I wanted to "fix" what I thought was incorrect or "add" what I thought was missing. After 35 years of trainings in the fitness and yoga worlds, I figured that my way of presenting and teaching was pretty darn stellar. I really had a hard time leaving my teacher hat outside the room just to dive in as a newbie, a novice, and gasp, a student!
It is such a different approach to movement, compared to all the other modalities I teach. But, as time passed, my body began to feel really free and really good. Feldenkrais began to coalesce around me, and in me, and underneath me...and I have become a devotee!
The differences from the worlds of fitness and yoga are vast. There is never any music but you don't miss it. The teacher does not demonstrate. Instead, you are led in a way that allows for your own exploration. What might seem like a contraindication in another modality is offered as a puzzle for your whole self (not body) to discover a way around or through. The repetitive nature of the lessons (not classes) become a delightful sensory inquiry with profound revelations. You are asked many questions which allows you to listen (another Feldenkrais buzzword) to your whole self rather than perform movements habitually. You are cautioned against stretching. We find length, range, fluidity through ease and comfort rather than pushing through resistance. And the list goes on....
I chose the photo of the Three Graces not only for the meaning but also because after this intense month of deep work and study, I thought I had lost my mind! Hence, the lack of heads! How am I ever going to wear three hats?
“The aim of Feldenkrais (Awareness Through Movement) is...healthy, powerful, easy and pleasurable exertion. The reduction of tension is necessary because efficient movement should be effortless. Inefficiency is sensed as effort and prevents doing more and better. The gradual reduction of useless effort is necessary in order to increase kinesthetic sensitivity, without which a person cannot become self-regulating.”
~Moshe Feldenkrais~
The above quote is the Feldenkrais Method in a small bite, but also encapsulates some of my teachings with Functional Fitness and Yoga/Yoga Therapy.
When I went back to teaching yoga and fitness again in September, I realized that I have been teaching this way all along "What can you let go of?" "Release your glutes." "Initiate from the bones." "Let your upper body receive the movement." "Don't muscle through." "Soften." These are my ubiquitous cues that many of you are probably tired of hearing!
Many of my private clients are amazingly fit individuals who are so tight, so gripped, and so driven that they have lost their natural gait and find themselves in chronic pain. Ironically, I have lost a number of clients over the years because I asked them to start doing less. So how do I proceed?
Well...by learning more, teaching more, and laughing a lot!
May you be happy!
May you be safe!
May you embrace your life to the fullest!
Enjoy the beauty of autumn!
All my love...Lisa