Tag Archives: mindfulness

A Change for the Better

Last week, my car keeled over and wouldn’t start. It’s been a great car, nothing wrong with it whatsoever and then suddenly it wouldn’t start. The AA man came out and looked at the battery and asked me “how old is this?”.  I know perfectly well that you should replace a car battery every 2-4 years so sheepishly I told him: “The battery is six years old”. He just looked at me sadly. I hadn’t bothered thinking about anything underneath the bonnet at all, the car just magically kept going – until it didn’t. We often think about ourselves in the same way; we choose not to think about our own physical and mental state as long as we can keep going – until a crisis happens. To prevent our personal battery running down, we need to make small changes in order to make a big difference to our physical and mental welfare.

I’m a qualified Feldenkrais teacher and I am particularly interested in the notion of change. The Feldenkrais Method is a process of self-education through movement and is named after Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, who developed this approach. The aim of The Feldenkrais Method is to improve functional movement, primarily through developing perception, motor learning, and our innate ability to discover that better movement patterns can be pleasurable and instinctive.

When we become aware that one form of posture is uncomfortable and potentially damaging but another approach can be pleasurable and beneficial, then perhaps we can create a different form of habitual movement. However, remembering to be mindful can be a real challenge. Our habits form part of our identity, they create a structure on which we build our self-image. We define ourselves by what we do but we often limit ourselves by how we do something. The Feldenkrais Method helps you identify limiting habits – this can be as simple as changing the way you sit on a chair or reach up to a high shelf.  Small changes in everyday actions work with the nervous system, increases your self-awareness, and teaches you easy and comfortable options for self-reorganisation.

In a Feldenkrais class, we gently explore movement patterns that are similar to the way you first learned to move: we learn to release tension in the muscles and to use the skeletal system more efficiently in order to reach, roll, stand up and sit down with less effort. The emphasis is on re-learning the natural movement you had as a young human, to regain pleasure and freedom instead of effort and anxiety. The pleasure principle is important in all learning situations because no matter what type of habit we are dealing with (emotional, mental, or in movement) a person will not give up an old habit unless the one being offered as a replacement is in every way as good or better than the old one.

When I begin to teach a Feldenkrais class lesson, I start by asking the class to lie down on the floor – to give up on the struggle with gravity for a moment and surrender to the floor. There is very little muscular effort required in order to lie on a neutral surface and so in this way, the nervous system can feel safe and calm, then it is possible to notice in finer detail the physical and mental state. Here, the practice is closely aligned to mindfulness, I’m asking everyone to notice the present moment, without judgment and without dwelling on the past or the future. Try it, your body will thank you for it.

I teach a regular online class for home office workers called “Take a Break From Work”. For most people, the idea of taking a break is to put the kettle on, it’s a habitual response to needing time out.  If you can instill the notion that before you reach for the tea bags, you pause, check in with your physical and mental state, perhaps even lie down for a few minutes, then you will discover a sense of relief and release. You might even create an easy, new habit that will benefit your whole body and mind.

(This blog piece originally appeared on The Practice Rooms website in January 2021)

And breathe…

  I can’t believe that next week will be the beginning of December and so the last Saturday workshop of 2018! It’s been an action-packed and very eventful year both personally and globally so the theme of this workshop “Take A Breath” seems very apt. We can often feel overwhelmed by the pace of life and the expectations we create for ourselves: therefore it is very important to find time to pause, reflect and simply, take a breath. This December workshop will focus on breathing, mindfulness and relaxation techniques to help build personal resilience and equip you for the month ahead. You can book by going to the bookings page here
More information is on the Classes page here
 

Words matter…

On 3 June, I will be running a morning workshop – Releasing Tension in Neck and Shoulders – at Breathe Pilates in Sheffield. This workshop is all about learning to undo tension in the neck and shoulders and find greater ease in moving and reaching. It’s a popular workshop as so many people find themselves dealing with stiff shoulders, tension headaches and a pain when moving the neck – life literally becoming “a pain in the neck”! Where Feldenkrais can help with this is raising awareness of how you sit, stand and reach as well as how you arrange your environment when carrying out long or repetitive tasks. A simple example is the way you sit at your office desk and look at your computer screen. ( Go to http://diannehancock.co.uk/the-feldenkrais-method-in-action/ for a short lesson in how to sit more comfortably at work)

But The Feldenkrais Method isn’t just a physical training discipline, it is also a way to rethink how you feel about yourself. Your own self-image dictates your approach to life, exercise and well-being: poor self-image can often lead to poor or harmful choices about how you go through life. Bound up with self-image are the words we use to describe ourselves and our intentions and these words can reinforce our state of mind. Constantly telling yourself that you are “rubbish” or “failing” only emphasises failure – which is as logical as constantly criticising a baby on their attempts to crawl or walk! Sports scientists have discovered that visualising success, the perfect trajectory and the winning outcome, leads to better achievement. I learnt on my Feldenkrais teacher training to change or avoid words such as “try” “fail” “push” “doesn’t work” and find alternatives such as “interesting” “experiment” and – my favourite – “approximation”. I often work with people who attend gym and fitness classes regularly and are very frustrated by injury. They struggle with the recovery process, mainly because they can’t (or won’t) change whatever they were doing to cause the injury in the first place. In a Feldenkrais session, we try to encourage self awareness, to observe what is happening and perhaps find a different, more “successful” route to achieve flexibility and efficiency. For those who want to be “fixed” and not have to think about it, this is quite a challenge, particularly when they see the injured part of the body as “rubbish” “wonky” “bad”.  Recently I had a one to one session with a client who has had ongoing problems as a result of poor and excessive exercise: running without a warm-up, “no pain, no gain” as a constant mantra – habits that he was finally letting go off. Hopefully, he will continue his exploration into better movement through thinking disciplines such as Feldenkrais, mindfulness and yoga and question those practices that talk about “push your body”, “feel the burn” and “push harder”.