The pitfall of making assumptions.

The body tells…

After a Feldenkrais lesson people often share that a movement is more difficult on one side than the other. And often they immediately explain to me why this is so. I then hear about an injury or experience from the past. And I see their now-body trapped in an old story. I call that traveling with your backpack loaded.

This reminds me of my parent’s friends who loaded the caravan with potatoes and peanut butter on their holiday to France. We are all creatures of habit and it is the habits of thinking, focusing, and feeling that direct our movement. Bringing your assumptions into your movement is like packing your backpack with kilos of potatoes and jars of peanut butter on the way to France.

Our mind listens less openly when it is occupied with thoughts and beliefs. It also gets in the way of our nervous system’s ability to create efficient movement patterns and process emotions. The movement journey then reinforces the limiting patterns formed by the experience of the past. We have, as it were, traveled back in time instead of in the present.

The path of least resistance is about playing in the present.

How will and can your body move now? By moving small and slowly, you can hear its suggestions clearly and provide the nervous system with new information. In this way, the less efficient patterns in our feeling, thinking, and doing can cease to exist. We invite our mind to listen with childlike curiosity and attention so that it can become silent for a moment and learn from the body. And where that will take us is a surprise and a yet unknown point on the map.

Are you ready to meet your body where it is now and create something beautiful with it?

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