The FP Weekly Class
Pain, Pleasure, and Feldenkrais:
Navigating the space between stimulus and response
Tuesdays, April 4 – May 30
Nick Strauss-Klein leads all dates
Newcomers and drop-ins are always welcome!
9:30-10:30 AM US Central time
Pay-what-you-can pricing
Order Zoom links and/or Replays
Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.
– attributed to Viktor Frankl (but not)
I often say that one of our goals in Feldenkrais study is to restore pain and pleasure to the roles they evolved for. Sensations, both pleasant and unpleasant, arise on their own as our nervous system is stimulated by external and internal events. In the space before we act there’s usually an opportunity to interpret our sensations with wisdom, and to make skillful choices, but often our educational and cultural training have corrupted this internal messaging system by confusing us about the purpose of these signals.
We’ve even been taught to ignore sensations, since most of us have been rewarded many times for “toughing it out” through pain, or accused of wasting time if we linger in a pleasant moment.
In April and May The FP Weekly Classes will focus on learning to relate more simply to our pains and pleasures, so we can restore them to their natural roles as behavior modifiers. We’ll learn to listen more closely to our moment-to-moment sensations, interpret them with equanimity, and respond kindly and intelligently so that our movements in the very next moment can be more satisfying, nourishing, and even pleasurable – in lessons and in life!
As we learn to more skillfully navigate this space between stimulus and response, between our sensations and action, we’ll develop strategies that can help when we’re in situations of short-term pain, chronic pain, emotional pain, anxiety, or stress.
Because it feels good to function well, the payoff for becoming more present and responsive to our sensations are those delightful spontaneous “Feldenkrais moments” when we feel new ease, skill, and creativity seep from our lessons into regular life.
Themes of length, breath, posture, and graceful movement in gravity will carry forward from recent classes, but as always newcomers are welcome.
Order Zoom links and/or Replays
See you on the mat!
Nick