In this world that is forever competing for our attention many people are finding it difficult to stay focussed for longer than five minutes. It can be the case, particularly in big cities, that short video’s randomly snap into our view, bright, flashing lights grab hold of our nervous systems with sounds ‘advertising’ the next big thing… to grab our attention, take it away from whatever was being thought or intended… to make sure we don’t miss out on anything.
The art of staying still, watching the mind is often the way of the meditator, to sit often times in uncomfortable positions as the legs ‘go to sleep’ and humans persist through the experience to reach in to the unknown, to bear witness to thoughts.
In my experience, Feldenkrais attains a similar ‘goal’ to what is sought by the meditator, and it does that t h r o u g h movement, by being present to the movement.
Rather than having our attention directed by external sources, with these bite sized movement practices we learn to be the director of our attention, shifting it to different areas that are involved either with or without our ‘knowing’.
“If you know what you are doing”
only then
”can you can do what you want.”
What difference will this make you might be asking? Well, the mind might come up with all different answers to “do you know what you’re doing”, and nothing really changes with the answers it provides. Through these movements our whole selves get to experience the differences, and from these differences more options are created for when we experience pain or fatigue. These options are greater than the mind, they’re a whole body experience, and it is through practice that these different options become more habitual and therefore more likely to be chosen.
Tonight we continue practicing ways to develop our awareness on a range of different areas that are involved in movements, some ways we may have forgotten, others that tend to dominate our attention.
Choose for your self.
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