A Midwest Adjustment

When I was in my Feldenkrais teacher training, I volunteered at the annual conference for the Feldenkrais Guild of North America in San Francisco. Hundreds of practitioners and trainers attend this event every year, and I was looking forward to meeting as many of them as possible and learning as much as I could about the Method from them.

What stood out for me were the people who had been practicing Feldenkrais for many years looked far younger than their chronological age. They moved smoothly and their faces were (don’t laugh) less wrinkled. I realized then that Feldenkrais was the way to age successfully. I just didn’t know why or how yet.

It has only been 7 years since I began my Feldenkrais training in Sonoma County with Russell and Linda Delman and Alan Questel. In that time, I have learned and taught hundreds of lessons. My ideas about Feldenkrais continue to evolve. Here are some of my ideas about how to stay healthy as you age using the Feldenkrais Method.

Awareness Through Movement lesson; photocredit:

Go to Ground. Keep your ability to get up and down from the floor. Come up with different ways of doing it. There are many Feldenkrais lessons that can prepare you and then take you through this most important transitional movement. If you lose the ability to get up and down from the floor, you can regain it. The requirements for being able to do this are essential to a healthy body:

1. Strong legs and abdominals
2. Flexible hips, knees, ankles, ribs, and spine
3. Good balance and coordination
4. Confidence
5. Easy breathing

If you lack any of these essential requirements for a health body, the Feldenkrais Method is a good way to restore your abilities.

Lie on Your Belly. Contrary to what you might hear from others, lying on your belly is good for you. A healthy human body should be able to briefly rest in just about any position that is anatomically possible, except extremes that would damage soft tissues or bone, or during pregnancy. Lying on your belly is possible if you have a healthy body. Here are the rewards for lying on your belly:

1. Erect posture.
2. Flexible ribs.
3. Flexible spine, including neck.
4. Flexible shoulders.
5. Flexible ankles.
6. Easy breathing.

If you are unable to comfortably lie on your belly, there are lessons in Feldenkrais that can help restore this ability to you.

Boogie Boarding; Photocredit:

Extend Your Middle Back. By the time we are middle-aged, most of us have experienced neck or low back pain. There are many reasons for this, but one antidote that can work in most cases. Maintaining or restoring the flexibility of your thoracic spine and ribcage is crucial to preventing and treating most cases of neck and low back pain.

Why the middle back? It is probably the part of your back that you are least aware of, unless it is in pain. Although very flexible in babies and young children, the thoracic spine and ribcage become stiffer as we age because often we don’t move them that much in our daily functions. Instead, we tend to compensate with our necks and low backs, which can result in overuse, injury, and pain to those areas. If we restore the natural flexibility we were born with to the middle back, we can experience the following benefits:

1. Little or no neck or low back pain.
2. Erect posture.
3. Lower risk for falls.
4. Lower risk for spinal compression fractures.
5. Easy breathing.
6. Improved ability to get up and down from the floor.
7. Comfort while lying on belly.

As you can see this last “secret” is a key to the first two. There are many Feldenkrais lessons that can help you improve your awareness and mobility of your thoracic spine and ribs.

Move Your Pelvis. There are many schools of thought and movement pertaining to the body that emphasize the pelvis. In Eastern martial arts, the pelvis is said to contain the Tan Den, or be the center of your chi. Moshe Feldenkrais taught that it was the locus of the potent self. The pelvis is central to many dance forms including belly dance, latin styles, and blues. It contains or is closely associated with our vital organs of reproduction, absorption, and excretion. That being said, many of us hold our pelvises quite still, either from social habit, physical, or emotional injury. Restoring natural movements to our pelvises can help restore more youthful functioning to the body, including:

1. A flexible, healthy spine.
2. Erect posture.
3. Little or no back, neck, and jaw pain.
4. Confidence.
5. Easy walking.
6. Comfortable sitting.
7. Sexual pleasure.

All human functions can be improved by practicing the Feldenkrais Method. There are lessons for vision, walking, sitting, balance, sport, work, and breathing. Because Feldenkrais helps you improve the movement of your attention, thinking, sensations, and emotions can all be improved. To find a practitioner near you, click here.

- Holly Bonasera, M.P.T., G.C.F.P, licensed physical therapist, certified Feldenkrais practitioner, and middle-aged person

Watch, listen, and learn from a model for healthy aging in action, Feldenkrais teacher trainer Ruthy Alon, originator of Bones for Life.

If you want to know more about how to use Feldenkrais to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, watch this blog for a future entry on that subject.

Feldenkrais trainer Mark Reese, Ph.D. on aging elegantly. This article is on the German Feldenkrais guild website; please page down to find it among the English articles. It is worth the extra effort