The FP Weekly Zoom Class
Resilience
Tuesdays in August and September, 2023
Nick Strauss-Klein led all dates
It’s a chaotic world out there. We face unexpected challenges all the time. When life knocks us down, how do we find the internal resources to get up again?
Moshe Feldenkrais’s Judo background meant he took this question literally from the very beginning of his work. As he continued to develop his method, his aims grew much broader and deeper.
In a 1979 article called “On Health,” Moshe wrote, “health is measured by the shock a person can take without his usual way of life being compromised.” Moshe makes the case that this resilience is a better definition of health than simply not needing medical or psychiatric care.
In August and September I taught nine weekly Feldenkrais lessons designed to promote our amazing capacity for resilience. Because our neuromusculoskeletal system functions as a whole, this learning is applicable regardless of what knocked us down, and whether our struggles are physical or emotional. We explored how we can again experience the support and confidence we need to recover, and to function well – summary below.
These lessons include brief discussions to help connect our sensing and moving practices with the Feldenkrais Method’s underlying principles that point us at our wholeness and personal autonomy, even when we’re hurting.
See you on the mat!
Course Summary
Each of these resilience-promoting strategies is available to us anytime, not just in Feldenkrais lessons! They can help us rediscover our sense of freedom, support, and confidence when we’re down. I’ve highlighted lessons in which each strategy is particularly emphasized.
Grounding – drawing skeletal support from the earth: throughout all lessons
Distribution of effort and proportional tone – throughout, but perhaps especially Aug 1: Games of Weightlessness • Aug 8: Lifting and Lengthening with a Spiral • Aug 15: Circling the Arm Over • Aug 29: The “Morning Prayer” Lesson
Lengthening – Aug 8: Lifting and Lengthening with a Spiral • Aug 15: Circling the Arm Over • Sept 12: Lengthening, Extending, and Rolling
Organizing flexors and extensors – all the rolling lessons: Sept 5, 12, and 26 plus Aug 29: The “Morning Prayer” Lesson
Centering, lingering in the unique neurological space that is not left and not right – Aug 29: The “Morning Prayer” Lesson • Sept 19: Centering, Literally
Attending to novelty, noticing the chance to begin again in any moment. Sept 5: Folding, Unfolding, and Rolling • Sept 19: Centering, Literally