MOVEMENT and MIND
Benslow Music Weekend Workshop April 2017: Liberate Your Music Making with the Feldenkrais Method
A silent but essential and illuminating figure was our plastic skeleton, Clint. Through observation and discussion the four students learnt about the spine, the mechanics of the shoulder girdle and the function of the sit bones in balanced sitting.
"Most helpful were the movement routines and ideas of linkages - pelvis, spine, head and shoulders, with better understanding of the skeleton, Clint was a helpful participant."
"I feel I know much more about the skeleton now - it's really clarified for me."
The workshop themes were to discover the role of the spine and pelvis in balanced sitting, and freedom of the hands arms and shoulders in relation to the whole. The participants responded enthusiastically, and by the end were looking taller, had more vitality in their posture as they played, their feet were well grounded and they had a more direct connection to their tone and projection.
The players went home with plenty of strategies to help them sustain and develop the improvements they had experienced through the workshop. Participants and tutors alike were satisfied and happy with what had been achieved and the weekend was immensely enjoyed by all.
In early April Yeu Meng Chan and Josephine Horder ran a weekend workshop at Benslow Music titled 'Liberate your Music Making with the Feldenkrais Method'. After two and a half relaxed but intensive days all participants were indeed playing with palpable freedom and a risk-taking attitude and were clearly really enjoying applying what they had learnt.
"I feel I'm going home with lots of tools and ideas which will gradually filter through into my playing."
The content of the workshop combined Awareness Through Movement group lessons with episodes for individual attention when each participant played their instrument. They had been asked to bring a short excerpt of music or even simply a scale in order to sense change and development as the workshop progressed.
"Definite changes in mobility and posture at the keyboard"
Article in ARCO, the periodical of European String Teachers' Association UK
Introducing The Feldenkrais Method: a fresh perspective on playing, teaching, learning, and so-called ‘talent’.
Aged 58, I embarked on a four year training in the Feldenkrais Method. Why? Because a handful of Feldenkrais lessons had miraculously liberated my playing, opening up a fresh pathway of development and potential at a time when I might have expected my progress to slow down.
I had never seen myself as particularly ‘talented’, any achievement being due to good teaching, intense application and countless hours of practice. After those Feldenkrais lessons I began to get an inkling what this elusive quality - ‘talented’ - might feel like, often in surprising and unexpected ways. I needed to understand how a mysterious little-known method had awakened such a sense of potential, and I wanted to be able to share the benefit with others.
The physically ‘talented’ players I have known appear to function effortlessly. It seems as if they do not put mental or physical obstacles in their own way, and they absorb each new skill with relaxed confidence. They give the impression that they have been born with their neurons ready and eager to connect, allowing actions to obey intentions seamlessly.
We instrumentalists need to move and coordinate, sense, think, feel and express - the task for the nervous system is extraordinarily complex. For the student who initially appears to lack physical ‘talent’ the learning process requires an equally complex developmental approach from a teacher.
So how can we help our pupils if they strain and struggle? How can we avoid the temptation to “write off” a student who makes little progress. How can we stimulate potential and turn frustration into optimistic engagement? Personal experience has given me a strongly sympathetic motivation to help every student navigate the trial and error process that is human learning in the search for effortless ease….or innate ‘talent’.
Here are a few examples of the many ways in which the Feldenkrais Method has informed and enriched my approach to helping students of all aptitudes overcome challenges.
Establish equilibrium throughout the body.
Balance, meaning an equilibrium which is mobile and responsive, is central to the Feldenkrais Method. Equilibrium was the key that originally unlocked my playing. A dynamic balance on our sit bones (in other words the pelvis) gives the spine a stable yet responsive foundation. In turn, a poised alignment of the spine allows the shoulder girdle to sit comfortably and to move freely over the chest, liberating the arms. It can be a revelation to discover the true length and extraordinary mobility of our arms when we realise that they actually extend to our collar bones and free-floating shoulder blades. Exploring and establishing a mobile balance, whether sitting or standing, can provide the conditions for releasing habitual tension patterns so that our muscles are free to respond to our intentions, and self expression can flow.
Shine the spotlight of conscious awareness
While my students are playing I express comments as questions: “Is your bow straight?” “How is your tuning?” “What is your thumb doing?” This approach directs their own awareness to something they can improve. It also hands them the responsibility for making the improvement.
If an unwelcome habit is intractable I ask the student to exaggerate the habit deliberately. A Feldenkrais principle is: “if you know what you are doing you can do what you want.” If the unwanted habit has not yet come into conscious awareness no amount of nagging will make any difference. Once a habit becomes conscious we open up possibilities. Through guided exploration of viable and preferable alternatives we can learn by trial and error, discriminating with increasing sensitivity differences between more or less efficient options.
Awaken curiosity and engagement
Our brains come alive when occupied with unfamiliar and intriguing stimulation. Games and tricks help students to have fun developing their bow holds, awakening their sensory experience of bones, joints, and the myriad of coordination possibilities from fingertips to shoulder blades. Over time a stiff ‘claw’ may be transformed into a flexible and responsive ‘paw’ through the gradual process of building new, or strengthening underused, neural pathways.
Build skills gradually from small and manageable component parts
For many beginners, coordinating the left hand with the bow can be a big challenge. I use a ‘hands separately’ approach until that coordination is working comfortably. When facing each new hurdle, break it down into smaller elements, establish each in turn, then combine the elements at a manageable rate. If we want to promote effortless ease then the learning process needs to be finely tailored to the student’s capacity and rate of learning.
Exploit the power of imagination and visualisation
It has helped my playing to pretend I have square podgy hands in contrast to my own long narrow hands, such that transforming my image of my hands had the effect of transforming the way my hands functioned, for the better. I might ask my students to imagine themselves playing a challenging passage with effortless ease, offering adjectives, metaphors and visualisations to inspire the imagination. We can become more ‘talented’ by imagining how ‘talented’ might feel. Indeed, the pleasurable sensation of effortless ease can be used as a yardstick to measure whether a challenging passage has truly matured.
“What is this thing called Feldenkrais?”
The Feldenkrais Method is a somatic education system related to what is nowadays called brain plasticity. The method assumes that we all have enormous potential for learning and improvement throughout our life, and this potential is accessed by increasing and refining our awareness of our movements, sensations, feelings and thoughts.
My teacher at the RCM, Joan Dickson, a founder of ESTA UK, believed that her job was to prepare her pupil to be his/her own best teacher. Similarly, Moshe Feldenkrais promoted the “art of learning”, or learning how to learn. His extraordinary life spanned the 20th century and both world wars. He was a doctor of physics, an engineer and a judo black belt. He was a polymath, widely informed in philosophy and psychology as well as his own disciplines. His method grew out of a need to repair his own serious knee injury. It is a fascinating synthesis of his understanding of forces, anatomy and physiology, the behaviour of the skeleton as it moves through space in relation to gravity, and human developmental processes.
Eventually Dr Feldenkrais created a vast collection of lessons called “Awareness Through Movement” which can be taught verbally to groups and also one-to-one via touch and words, "Functional Integration".
What is Feldenkrais?
Awareness Through Movement (ATM) is the name given to group classes in the Feldenkrais Method and the title exactly describes the purpose and effect of this extraordinary and powerful work. Feldenkrais lessons are a space in which to increase and refine awareness in order to improve function in all areas of life. The Method belongs firmly in the world of learning, not therapy, and yet the eventual effect is often a sense of enhanced well-being.
The most obvious benefit of the Feldenkrais Method is that you discover and develop easier, more efficient movement in daily life. The learning process is playful, intriguing, non-competitive and a truly safe space to care for yourself, regenerate and rejuvenate. At the end of a lesson people often mention feeling taller, more spacious, more integrated, more ‘whole’. They sense an improvement, they feel better.
"It is magic!” says one of my regular clients.
In an Awareness Through Movement class you will typically lie on the floor and follow verbal instructions which lead you mindfully through a sequence of coordination riddles. You will be reminded regularly to move gently and slowly, respecting your own comfort, and to rest when needed. Your attention will be drawn to subtle sensations, your breathing, the quality of your movement, and your ability to take care of yourself while exploring unfamiliar movement combinations.
Feldenkrais classes having nothing to do with fitness, exercise or aerobics and they involve no imitation, stretching or straining. They are therefore suitable for people at any level of fitness and state of health. Individual accommodations will be made for those who cannot manage certain positions and each person follows the instructions according to their own individual needs and abilities. It is amazing but true that the movements can even be experienced in the imagination with equal power, which can be especially helpful if you have an injury or limitation.
You can also access the Method through individual one-to-one lessons (called Functional Integration) tailored to your specific needs and interests. Your existing habits are explored and experienced and then fresh movement possibilities and pathways are suggested via the teacher's gentle touch, as well as via conversation.
A hallmark of both Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration lessons is the gentleness and subtlety of the work. You develop an ever increasing refinement in awareness of movement, sensation, feeling and thinking. You learn about your existing, possibly outdated or unhelpful habits, and experience alternative patterns and new options for healthier action. The lessons are designed to exploit our infinite capacity for learning on both a conscious and an unconscious level. Because the effects take place in the brain it can be particularly helpful to people who are recovering from injury or stroke impairment, or living with a nervous system condition such as Parkinson's or MS.
Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) was an engineer, a Physicist, a polymath and a black belt Judo instructor. He originally developed his Method through rehabilitating his own injured knee, and then devoted his life to helping others move and function better. The Method synthesises a profound understanding of the human condition, the human brain, child development and the way our skeleton has evolved to function in gravity. Dr Feldenkrais was a pioneer in understanding and exploiting brain plasticity long before it became an established area of neuroscience.
About the Author
I am a concert cellist and I stumbled across the Method later on in my performing career. Initially I was amazed at the transformational and liberating effect a few Functional Integration lessons had on my relationship to my instrument and performance. With longer experience of the Method, through learning how to learn, I am constantly delighted by my ability to tackle new challenges and sense my expanding potential. I am frequently surprised by unintended benefits such as faster reactions and my life has opened up at a time when it might easily have slowed down. I offer classes, workshops and one-to-one lessons from West Hertfordshire while continuing to give concerts at the highest level and cello lessons. I also run a world class concert series, Tring Chamber Music.
You can contact me, Josephine Horder, via www.feldenkrais-westherts.co.uk
Or you can visit the Feldenkrais Guild website at www.feldenkrais.co.uk where you can find more information, a free short taster Awareness Through Movement lesson, and a directory of teachers in your area.