"Now I know the buoyancy
of the perfect curves in my upright spine,
the opulent, round grounding
of my feet flesh on the floor."

excerpt from a poem by Brooke McNamara

"If I hold a twenty pound weight, I cannot detect a fly landing on it because the least detectable difference in the stimulus is half a pound. On the other hand, if I hold a feather, a fly landing on it makes a great difference. Obviously then, in order to be able to tell the differences in exertion one must first reduce the exertion.

Finer and finer performance is possible only if the sensitivity, that is, the ability to feel the difference is improved." 

~ Moshe Feldenkrais

One of our shared central life passions is the exploration of learning, teaching, and exploring contexts that support others in finding and honing their unique inner compass and reliable embodied guidance.

We are so looking forward to this month of experiential, embodied explorations of  Intimacy With Your Spine in the Embodiment Lab.

In this course, we will explore several wonderfully enlivening and intimate movement lessons that focus on your spine.

Some lessons will be subtle, some dynamic, and all will lead to a greater sense of intimacy and connection with this central structure in your body. The movement explorations we'll explore will help you grow a clearer self-image (which leads to greatly improved function) and a clearer understanding of this beautiful, mysterious column of bones that holds us upright in the field of gravity.

These brilliant movement lessons can have a powerful effect on

• freeing your neck,
• releasing tension in your upper back and chest,
• reducing back pain
• organizing your low back and pelvis for more efficient movement
• improving upright posture
• and restoring health and vitality to your spine overall.

We work with this at such a deep level when we slow down, feel ourselves with respect, learn to listen to our body's ongoing feedback through pain and pleasure, and liberate ourselves from unconscious habits that may no longer be serving our well being and our efficient movement. It's so worth doing!

Brilliant Feldenkrais teacher Ruthy Alon uses an image we've long loved: that each of us needs family therapy for our vertebrae. As happens in some families, many of us have a part of our spine that does too much work and so hurts itself. Many of us have a part of our spine that doesn't feel much and doesn't participate much, and so contributes to the problem. In these lessons, we'll experience the spine as a whole, feeling into ways of moving that invite appropriate participation from all the parts.

Feldenkrais lessons offer a unique and surprisingly effective approach:

“To produce the mental ease necessary for the reduction of useless efforts, the group is repeatedly encouraged to learn to do a little less well than is possible when trying hard – to be less fast, less vigorous, less graceful, etc. They are often asked to do the utmost and then deliberately to do a little less. This is more important than it might seem. For if enabled to feel progress while not tensing, pupils have the sensation of being able to do better, which induces more progress. Achievements that otherwise may need numerous hours of work can be obtained in twenty minutes with this attitude of mind and body.”
― Moshé Feldenkrais

Moshe Feldenkrais

WAKING
A POEM BY AUDREY GIDMAN

" I step into my body as though

I am a temple making holy

the dirt. Here              I crack myself

open     like an eggshell –                     a pale

blue thing        coming apart now

in unfolded bloom.

I wash my face. I will go home but not

in the same shoes, not

with the same shoulders.

I pull on my clothes. I am learning

to carry

the belly of the water         in my knees,

that mother tongue drum in my spine

and when it settles

so too does the roof

of my mother’s house—I am here

cooking breakfast over the stove, unraveling

the bone quilt

my grandmothers sang        until their fingers

bent       into wind—

these knees are for prayer: the river

remembers itself in my hands. "

Let's explore Intimacy With Your Spine!

We hope you'll consider joining us in the Embodiment Lab!

Wishing you an unshakable connection with your own inner teacher,

Carl & Erin

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