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Moshe Feldenkrais, who is one of the founders of somatic practices, developed his methodology after suffering an accident that left him unable to walk, proving that injury and limitations can help unlock a deep understanding of how we move.
His student, David Zemach-Bersin noted Feldenkrais’ main discovery that “learning is the primary ingredient in our formation. He thought that if he could understand how learning actually takes place, then he might be able to change old habit patterns and restore lost functions, such as his own ability to walk.”
We are especially sensitive to how we move when we experience physical trauma like an accident, surgery or chronic pain. Somatic practices keep us learning, refining the healing process to not only recover lost function but learn more efficient ways of moving. Directing awareness while in movement to consciously notice the effort, the sensations, the configuration and coordination, breathing etc. is termed by Feldenkrais as “awared learning” and “is complete when the new mode of action becomes automatic or even unconscious, as all habits do.”
This learning eventually integrates with the neuro-circuitry where automatic and subconscious responses occur. One common illustration of this can be seen when experiencing pain from repetitive strain injuries. The system has habituated itself in a certain pattern which is causing frequent stress on muscles and/or joints which over time weaken them causing injury. The discomfort often prompts a knowing that something needs reconfiguration or a new way of organizing movement to avoid another injury. Understanding these patterns and bringing awareness to how the body is moving helps to actively learn to adopt new patterns which gives rise to powerful agency over our body-mind.
We are constantly adapting and re-adapting to life’s ever-changing nature. We are also exploring our ‘developmental roots’, trying to understand how we came to be and the various influences that have formed our habits and conditioning. As Feldenkrais notes, “an earlier learning always stands in the way of a new learning.”
In a sense, we are an apprentice to our own body-mind system, especially when experiencing limitations, discomfort and/or pain. The signals by which this system communicates, even though unpleasant at times, are the channels for receptivity and understanding of what it means to adapt in this human form. This creates a deep connection to our own self as Feldenkrais explains: “understanding of the somatic aspects of consciousness enable us to know ourselves more intimately.”
The chance to learn, integrate and apply this kind of understanding is a self-empowering tool we innately have been exercising since birth to move us forward in our development. Thomas Hanna, Feldenkrais’ collaborator, expresses the profound sense of freedom which comes with learning to work with our dynamic body-mind in this way.
“All my life I have been profoundly concerned with being free. I have always understood that to be free does not merely mean to be without external hindrances. Rather, the prime requisite for being free is to have the internal power and the internal skills, judgment, perception, and intelligence in order to be autonomous, because freedom is essentially self-responsibility and independence… What I seek to encourage in other human beings is a growing self-competence, so that they can become freer.”
The expansiveness that comes from freeing up what binds us, whether it be from stubborn postural patterning, injuries, repetitive narratives etc. is the intention behind the somatic yoga practice.
Sources
A Conversation with Thomas Hanna, Ph.D. by Helmut Milz, M.D. (n.d.). Somatic Systems Institute. Retrieved January 16, 2024, from https://somatics.org/library/mh-hanna-conversation
Feldenkrais, M. (2011). Embodied Wisdom. North Atlantic Books.
Hanna, T. (1979) The Body of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf Publishing. Somatic Salabasana