Move Better, Feel Better

An introduction to the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education, meant to help lay a foundation and conceptual background for your participation in the experiences of this Summit. You will hear about some of the underlying principles behind how Awareness Through Movement lessons work through attention to gentle movement. Movements, which can sometimes feel too insignificant to make a difference, but do. You will see a video clip of a client whose attention is guided in such a way that his pain diminishes even before a hands on Feldenkrais session is started. And you will have an opportunity to ask questions.

The most surprising data point I learned while researching my book is that humans are the worst breathers in the animal kingdom, and that this affliction is new in our evolution. Our ancient ancestors shared in universally straight teeth, powerful jaws, wide nasal apertures, and much more expansive airways. And yet, so many people of today have some form of airway obstruction. We’ve become a culture of snorers, chokers, wheezers, coughers, panters, and generally miserable breathers. How did this happen? What caused it? And can it be fixed? These are the questions that inspired me to spend so many years digging through ancient burial sites, medical libraries, ancient scripts, dental records, and more. It was all so hard to believe when I first discovered it, but the proof is all over the place. And, in this talk, I will tell you what I discovered and why it matters.

We can learn to cultivate genuine and spontaneous interactions that respect the complexity of living systems. Every act of our ordinary life reflects our capacity to create, improvise, and co-evolve with others. Health, welfare, our relationship to the biological ecology in which we live, are all implicated in these simple acts of creativity.

Consciousness is a fundamental aspect of all matter. Clinical Anatomist John Sharkey believes that understanding the hierarchy of specific fascia condensations will allow you to facilitate informed, local to global, conversations; resulting in immediately perceived therapeutic outcomes for you and your clients. Movement can be nutritious, while bringing awareness to local fascia dampening influences can encourage a new level of consciousness informed motion. Embracing collective behavior within a complex system of self-organization can lead to greater self-reference for restorative movement patterning.

It became inevitable for us, these days, to assume Responsibility and begin to look inward in order to create an outside world made of Consciousness and wellbeing. You aspire to Consciousness? Well, the good news is that Consciousness wants you too, and needs you, in order to gain understanding of itself, and allow, during the process, your most powerful self to emerge.

To do so, we first must understand what we are talking about when we use the term Consciousness, understand how we function, and then, use a reliable, practical, and modern way of embodying it in our lives.

In this talk, we will see how to use our body as a bridge to Consciousness in a 4-phase process that will allow us to live that connection.