Awareness Through Movement #433

Edges of the feet - DIFFERENTIATION

Vita, Asanga… this one is a little ‘edgy’… perfect for you both… a really relaxing and inquisitive classic Feldy lesson I promise!

symbolising the delicate interplay of balance, awareness, and differentiation available in the amazingly fluid human body.

We’ll be lying on the back and explore the inside and outside edges of the feet… differentiating, feeling the differences when we use the lower leg as a fixed unit (like a table leg) vs when we separate these two areas and learn move the feet and the rest of the leg independently. Then we bring the whole back together and walk to sense in to any differences that these movements could have made.

I think I’m figuring out why I love Feldenkrais so much, I LOVE before and after’s and we get to feel these differences after every lesson!

Grok has some interesting points to make about the learning that is available in through these some of the movements we’ll be exploring:

“Combining head rolling with foot movements introduces the concept of cross-body neural connections. The vestibular system (inner ear) and cervical spine influence balance and foot placement, mediated by the brainstem and cerebellum. Differentiating these movements shows how habitual patterns, for example tilting the head while lifting a foot… can be broken, which can improve overall coordination.”

Who’s getting a stronger sense of balance lately?

It could be, like me when I hear soften the jaw that it’s just more of somebody telling me what to do.. that these directions are dismissed with a “pffft”.

There is a method in Moshe’s madness, much of his guidance is missed amongst the profundity of his teachings… and yet, softening the jaw…

“…sensing into the face and avoid holding the breath ties the lesson to the autonomic nervous system. Unconscious breath-holding during movement often signals unnecessary effort or poor coordination. By maintaining calm breathing, we learn ways to relax the diaphragm and reduce activation of the sympathetic (fight-or-flight) response, and this has a strong connection to enhancing movement efficiency.”

For a rare handful of people the ontological benefits far outweigh the anatomical ones:

“Many people move through life with unconscious habits
—e.g., always shifting weight to one foot or tensing the jaw during effort.
This lesson’s emphasis on differentiation
(e.g., moving the foot without the knee or head)
disrupts these patterns,
offering a sense of agency

and freedom.

Ontologically, this can feel like rediscovering the self as adaptable rather than fixed.”