Feldenkrais you make me as light as a Feather

 Cuban heat is always so relaxing

People called me relaxed. They think I never lose my temper, get stressed out or feel murderous towards my loved ones.
With convoluted thought patterns, I believe them, they perceive therefore I am.
 However there is always another side; I have made a secret discovery about myself with help of my sister in law Verena Gersbach who is a Feldenkrais practitioner.

flying was the most relaxing thing kyle could  do

Our session began with me standing - comfortably in front of her, or so I thought! "Now how do you stand? where is your weight ? how do you breathe and where?" So I lay on my back & my side for further questions,   "how do you sleep? how does your back feel in that position? Move this arm, make a right angle with your legs, how is that? and always the same droll enquiry "why do you make it so hard for yourself."


She moved my spine and turned my head, continuously asking - how does that feel?
Well it actually felt like awakening a part of my brain that had forgotten the "Yes you can relax " command.
I realise that in day to day tasks - like now - as I sit tap - tap - tapping at these keys I am using and sustaining enough strength to chop a basket of kindling. It is apart from the fatigue, so very ageing.
As a young child I listened daily to a story broadcast on the old BBC home service. It began with "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin"
I always was: legs thrown on a chair - laying on my back on the floor - the dog as a pillow, eyes wide open and gazing at nothing. Do you remember?  The childhood day time revere - abandoned, unplanned, unscheduled and non discussed; pure relaxation, experienced until boredom kicked in, and then, we really had to scour our brains for "Something to do!" Now most of us experience the exact opposite.
 Verena popped into the kitchen to see how I was after the session. "So tired, as if I had received a pummelling sport massage" I said as I put a cup back on a shelf, "Are you still carrying the weight of that cup? ask your body? can you release it now?" "Am I?" My mind fluttered - that tray, that heavy pan,  school satchels , push chairs, baskets, buckets, boxes, and countless bags of this that and the other. "Yes I am; I carry all the compound weights of the day the week, the month and the years, holding myself ready for it all with a tight lipped and professional smile .

Verena has gone back to Zurich now but she, in her ethereal form , which is very similar to her real physical body:  a supple trained dancer of slight proportions, is a voice in my head, reminding me to: simply find the easier way to use my body, to exert the energy I need for the moment and then to let go.

Catch yourself now in the pose in which you may be reading this - legs tense ready to sprint - curvacous hips and pelvis locked to the world - shoulders and back loaded up for a polar expedition - jaw tight - a slight frown and breath almost non existant? In other words "Are you sitting comfortably?

sometimes things can get too relaxed 

Verena   Gersbach will be facilitating a week long residential and non residential Feldenkrais  workshop @ The Phoenix in early April 2013.

Details will be posted here.