“Slowing Down to Feel”: Moving Our Minds Around Our Bodies
Last week The New York Times published an inspiring short article about coping with the pandemic’s long-term constraints with somatic practices, including The Feldenkrais Method. It’s worth a read, and here’s the link.
Too long for now? I’ve pulled out two of my favorite quotes below.
– Nick
In a time when it seems we have little control, having agency over our bodies — and our internal world — is a kind of power. By engaging in a somatic experience, you come to realize that these practices are not just about creating flexible bodies, but flexible minds.
We can use movement as a way to look inward. Through stillness and slowing down, we can create a rich sense of space by moving our minds around our bodies. Slowing down can feel like freedom….
About that beautiful weight shifting
Kayla Farrish, a dancer and choreographer, appears in a wonderfully simple movement video at the top of the article. If exploring and improving your own weight shifting appeals to you, try Bending Sideways, one of our 52 free Feldenkrais Project lessons:
Framed with standing explorations of shifting weight, this back-lying lesson explores important and often underrepresented functions (in our self-image of movement) of bending sideways, and connects them to improving balance, and our use of the hips, spine, chest, neck, head, and functions of the legs and feet.