a community of practitioners

What is relaxation?

As a long time practitioner of Tai chi, I found it challenging when my teacher would tell me to just relax into a position. As a beginner and for many years, I didn't know how to communicate that intention to my body. When I joined a yoga class in 1988, my instructor was combining his understanding of Feldenkrais into his Sivananda yoga class. It was this additional approach that helped me to experience the actual physical way to communicate my intentions to my body effectively. I was amazed to discover that it is all brain work!

Eventually, the teacher became my husband, Ofer, and he founded Sugi Yoga (see Body Sense magazine Autumn/Winter 2006).
Since then, I have learned that there are a number of neuromuscular reeducation techniques out there and I feel this is a field that isn't getting enough attention.

I would love to hear from others who have experienced neuromuscular reeducation (a term I didn't know or understand early on) as a positive influence on their practice of a movement art or sport.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Stevie on October 15, 2009 at 7:20pm

I agree! I was incredibly lucky to have had The Feldenkrais Method group classes known as Awareness Through Movement taught in the massage school I attended, as well as Meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Gestalt. I took the opportunity to experience all of them. Surprisingly it was the ATM classes that peaked my attention the most because it had such a profound effect on changing my body-mind with the combined use of attention and small movements.

I had never experienced anything like it. It seemed magical to lie down on the floor, find usual and unusual ways of moving my right shoulder, and my right hip. Then I'd stand up and my whole right side would be softer, longer, connected, and easy. My left side felt blocky, contracted, and disjointed. What I felt in myself I could see in the other people that were in the class. We were all lopsided and half-shuffling around the room. I eventually went to a Feldenkrais Method training to find out how that could happen.

I agree that it is all brain work. The work of getting to a clear intention, knowing in a sensory sense how I am connected, where I am in space, how a force moves through me, to name a few. It takes curiosity and self-responsibility.

If this style of learning was introduced in elementary schools we would all be at a higher level of maturity.

Permalink Reply by Hans Albert Quistorff, LMP on October 21, 2009 at 12:52am

Some discussion groups have asked what music do you use during a session. The music of my sessions is my voice. While I am communicating with touch, movement, and holding; verbal description can connect the mind to sensory input that the client has been denied or never permitted to experience.

When working with someone that knows the anatomical terms I use them but for most clients I just describe what is there. after all most anatomical terms are just names given by Latin speaking disectionists to the things they were discovering.
I learned most anatomical terms by just translating them.
Hans Albert Quistorff, LMP
Antalgic Posture Pain Specialist

Permalink Reply by Stevie on October 21, 2009 at 6:44pm

Hi Amy~

Sure. Let's see where this thread goes.

Amy Erez said:

Stevie,
I wanted to pick up on the thread about children and education. I'm going to start a discussion separately on it so others will notice. Will you join me there?

Stevie said:
I agree! I was incredibly lucky to have had The Feldenkrais Method group classes known as Awareness Through Movement taught in the massage school I attended, as well as Meditation, Tai Chi, Yoga, and Gestalt. I took the opportunity to experience all of them. Surprisingly it was the ATM classes that peaked my attention the most because it had such a profound effect on changing my body-mind with the combined use of attention and small movements.

I had never experienced anything like it. It seemed magical to lie down on the floor, find usual and unusual ways of moving my right shoulder, and my right hip. Then I'd stand up and my whole right side would be softer, longer, connected, and easy. My left side felt blocky, contracted, and disjointed. What I felt in myself I could see in the other people that were in the class. We were all lopsided and half-shuffling around the room. I eventually went to a Feldenkrais Method training to find out how that could happen.

I agree that it is all brain work. The work of getting to a clear intention, knowing in a sensory sense how I am connected, where I am in space, how a force moves through me, to name a few. It takes curiosity and self-responsibility.

If this style of learning was introduced in elementary schools we would all be at a higher level of maturity.