Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
November 5, 2021
| |
From the Editors
We can’t live without habits. From the moment you get up on your side of bed, make your coffee, brush your teeth till you turn the light out at night, you rely on habits developed over years of practice. Without habit, you wouldn’t be able to back out of your driveway, or type on your keyboard. But habits can also interfere with your ability to live the life you want. The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education offers you options for developing new and more functional habits.
In this issue, Seth Dellinger offers you a very concrete way to explore your habit of holding your tongue and what effect it has on your posture. Joyce Ann McGinn investigates how physical habits of self-use affect the overall function of children with developmental delays and how the Feldenkrais Method can help. Finally, Amona Buechler shares her experience of overcoming her habitual fears to master salsa dancing.
Lavinia and Yulia
| |
|
Photo by Nicole Elliott on Unsplash
By Seth Dellinger, GCFPCM
Do you remember the last time you had something to say, but then changed your mind and held your tongue?
A lot of people won’t have to think too far back.
These days our world is awash with competing moral codes being loudly pronounced all about. It’s enough to make more than one person hold their tongue before voicing what might internally feel like a perfectly reasonable thing to say.
Sometimes that puts you in a bit of a bind when you want to speak. Because when you inhibit your expression, it quickly shows up in your body.
Here’s a quick experiment that will help you feel the connection of your tongue and spine – and what happens to your spine when you hold your tongue. (...)
| |
About Seth: Seth Dellinger is a Feldenkrais® practitioner whose unique approach draws on his background in improvisational music and dance, a lifelong fascination with language, and his ongoing study of the dynamics of interpersonal communication. He is the creator of several innovative online movement programs including Breathing for Resilience, Reimagining Asana, Vitruvian Human, Finding Your Voice, and Expand Your World. He produces frequent new content about movement practice and life purpose for his YouTube channel, Move With Seth. His website: sethdellinger.com.
| |
|
Stimulating Behavioral Changes in Children
| |
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
By Joyce Ann McGinn, OTR/L, GCFPCM
When I first met Enrique*, a cute three year old boy, he stood by the doorway, tilted his chin downward, moved his eyes upward and growled at me. He wanted to play with a simple shape sorter. However Enrique had difficulty focusing, manipulating and matching the objects. He sat on his heels, leaned on one hand, and would not let go of one shape until another was given to him. Enrique required redirection to the sorting activity every 5-15 seconds. When it was time to put toys away, he cried and flung himself on the floor. In order to calm him, his mother quickly gave her son another object to hold.
Enrique’s mother said he did not like to swing or climb on the playground and I learned that he did not like to lie on his stomach. When working further with Enrique, we discovered he liked doing backward somersaults with help. During the session, Enrique imitated words, but he did not initiate them, and he babbled quietly to himself.
Six sessions later, Enrique opened the door for me to enter the room, gestured to me and told me, “Come on in.” Enrique not only quickly completed an alphabet puzzle independently, but did so by turning it around to match the pieces correctly upside down. He did this without help or breaks. (...)
| |
About Joyce Ann: Joyce Ann McGinn is a registered and licensed Occupational Therapist, Guild Certified Feldenkrais PractitionerCM, Anat Baniel Practitioner, Masgutova Neurosensorimotor Reflex Integration (MNRI) specialist level III, Nondual Kabbalistic Healer, and certified in Early Intervention (0-3 year olds). Joyce Ann achieves success improving movement efficiency with children and adults who battle developmental delays, neurologic, orthopedic, trauma, pain, PTSD, balance, emotional and behavioral challenges. Her website: www.joyceannbbb.com
| |
Photo by Ardian Lumi on Unsplash
By Amona Buechler, GCFPCM
“Owing to the close proximity to the motor cortex of the brain structures dealing with thought and feeling, and the tendency of processes in the brain tissue to diffuse and spread to neighboring tissues, a drastic change in the motor cortex will have parallel effects on thinking and feeling.
A fundamental change in the motor basis within any single integration pattern will break up the cohesion of the whole and thereby leave thought and feeling without anchorage in the patterns of their established routines. In this condition, it is much easier to effect changes in thinking and feeling, for the muscular part, through which thinking and feeling reaches our awareness has changed and no longer expresses the pattern previously familiar to us. Habit has lost its chief support, that of the muscles, and has become more amenable to change.”
- Moshe Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement
My ex-partner introduced me to Salsa dancing, and when we separated years later, I decided to continue going solo, despite not having much confidence. We’d mostly danced together; he tended to do his own thing and not quite go with the Salsa rules. Being solo, I was dancing with ten to twenty men in one evening without the opportunity to tune into one person. It quickly became apparent that I needed to stick with the rules.(...)
| |
About Amona: Amona Buechler is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais PractitionerCM and a Certified Feldenkrais® Assistant Trainer. She is also certified as an advanced ARUN Conscious Touch practitioner, as well as a Focusing Trainer. Amona is now located in Leipzig, Germany, where most of her work takes place online. Amona is fascinated by self-exploration, through which she discovers her spontaneous and creative being, and guides others to catch fire for a path towards living themselves authentically and joyfully. Her website: move-with-life.org
| |
- Atomic Habits book by James Clear. Click here to purchase.
- The Feldenkrais Method and Habits video by Marek Wyszynski, PT, GCFPCM who speaks about postural and movement habits, their impact on our health, and the application of the Feldenkrais Method. Click here to watch.
- On the Way Unconscious Habits Shape Our Playing, and How Feldenkrais Can Help Us Unlock More of Our Potential by Uri Vardi. Click here to read and watch.
- The Feldenkrais Way podcast, episode “The Power of Habit” by Erifily Nikola. Click here to watch.
| |
|
|
|
|
