STUDY WITH ALFONS

I’ve been playing with these movements for two weeks now, and it still seems rather impossible to touch my knees to the floor. If it wasn’t for other people, I wouldn’t even think it possible.

Nowadays it seems like no big deal to take pictures of yourself. But when I started out doing Feldenkrais back in 2004, it was considered almost borderline insanity to film yourself studying; certainly a lapse of etiquette being caught doing so. It gives me relief though. When I look at myself from the inside-out, sometimes the situation looks dark, stuck, insurmountable. But from an outside perspective, suddenly, what seemed to be a problem, seems like no big deal at all.

The knees don’t go down to the floor, so what? The play with movements, the explorations, the sense of self, the awareness of gravity and leaning points, the discoveries, aren’t those the important things, the sparks of joy?

Over the past few years the Youtube Recommended algorithm presented me with numerous “How to learn any language in 3 months”, “How I learned to speak Italian in 48 hours“, and “The real science of language learning – a professor explains” videos. This led me to two things: 1. Search for a browser plugin that can hide Youtube Recommended 2. Wonder about how first language learning might really work.

Backstory

Over the past few weeks I sat on chairs (of all places) a lot, and didn’t do any sports or exercising. But instead I overworked my knees with a few demanding postures, and started to have some knee pain.

Therefore, I decided to take my own medicine, and moved along to my video „Do your hip-joints connect up?” [link] I only did the first 20 minutes and only worked with my right leg. But after getting up, to my surprise, my knee pain was gone.

Two days later I wondered what else I could do with the same movements, and whether I could game-ify the movements of my lesson. A classic balancing game came to mind. It’s called „Labyrinth”, which I have on both my iPhone and Apple TV. It occurred to me that I could try controlling this game with my feet instead of my hands — much like some people paint with their feet instead of with their hands. I gave it a try.

Day 1

On the belly, with knees bent, feet towards the ceiling. 

It took a couple of minutes to figure out how to play, but then it actually went quite well. I put on socks and slipped the Siri remote control in between the sole of my foot and the sock to secure it. Then the game was on. It was fun. 

However, afterwards, when I checked for any improvements in my left leg, I didn’t register much. Overall my left foot felt a bit softer and more supportive, and my left knee seemed a wee bit more comfortable as well, but by far not as much as with 20 minutes of my movement lesson of Somatic Education on Youtube.

Day 2

I liked the idea of playing a computer game with my foot, though. It was almost like magic to watch the ball on the screen move, without my hands involved. This reminded me of a prank I played on a fellow office worker back in the day when I was a Software Engineer: I placed my computer mouse under the table and controlled it with my foot, out of sight to my co-worker, and pretended to move the mouse pointer on the screen with the power of my mind.

I tried a new position: on the back, with one leg extended, its sole pointing toward the ceiling. This time I used a rubber band instead of socks to secure the remote control on the sole of my foot, which worked a lot better.

Bok choy, was this a challenge. I knew my hamstrings were short—but with this game it really showed. I needed to do some auxiliary movements and some tricks first, just to get the soles of my feet level enough to be able to play.

But then I had a good gaming session, and completed the first 5 beginner levels with each foot. Twice.

Afterwards my legs felt a bit tired, but also light and more flexible than before.

Day 3

Today I was super excited to play the balancing board game again. In the evening I set myself up the same way as the day before: lying on my back, sole facing to the ceiling, with the remote control strapped to my foot with a rubber band.

Today the gameplay was smoother than yesterday. I could play more advanced levels. My nervous system seemed to already have learned and adjusted itself to the new gameplay style. Two things stood out:

• Balancing was a lot more steady with my feet than with my hands. This really surprised me. My hands are faster and more flexible, but my feet more steady and more precise. Overall it seems like balance control in this game is better with my feet than with my hands.
• My right leg is not only more flexible than my left, but my right foot is more “dexterous” than my left. This surprised me quite a bit. On the other hand, my left leg is my standing leg, and my right leg my moving leg. Obviously, there’s a handedness to the feet. Actually, no surprises there. But still, surprising to actually feel it as such a big difference.

After playing, my legs felt way more smooth and flexible, and going for a walk was a pleasure. l think this game might be able to solve my hamstrings „problem”. Stretching is out of this world boring to me, so that’s not an option, and I also get bored easily with lengthy Feldenkrais lessons for the hamstrings, but this game (I think) I could play 20 minutes to half an hour on several days a week, no problem.

Day 4 (morning time)

Yesterday evening I went to bed with limber legs and flexible hamstrings, and woke up with legs made from oak hardwoods. Interesting. Why is that? How come my body stiffens up its connective tissue overnight? Is this some kind of internal Settings reset? I mean, I welcome such tightening up for my facial skin, and neck, but for my hip joints and hamstrings… what’s the benefit of tightening up those areas?

Looking forward to play the balance game again tonight, I will keep us posted.

John Trust asked, via Youtube: „Do you have anything to recommend that truly relaxes a chronically tense pelvic floor? I get some temporary relief from various hip lessons but i feel like i’m tackling it the wrong way 😁 love your work btw”

A chronically tense pelvic floor can be treated like a chronically tense jaw. In a nutshell, save for the theory behind it, you need to attain full ownership over the movements and tensions of the jaw space (including the tongue et al) and integrate these with the whole body. A client story comes to mind:

She wrote in to make an appointment. When she arrived at my studio she looked perfectly healthy. Slim, sporty, cheerful, in her mid 30ties, mother of two. She told me about her TMJ issues, and her jaw lock, and how it’s destroying her teeth, and giving her tension migraines, and about the many specialists she’s already seen—to no avail.

As a last hope, she told me, she’s visited a holistic dentist just a few days ago. This specialist recommended special dental braces which would realign not only her teeth but her entire posture. She said the dental braces therapy would cost $5000 for a first instalment, and the treatment would take anywhere from 1.5 years onwards, and she wasn’t looking forward to it.

As she was discussing this dilemma with her best friend, her best friend told her about me (I was living in a small town), and that she could try a hands-on session with me as one last thing before deciding for the dental braces. So that’s how she got into my studio.

I think the most difficult part of the story is this: How do we find the shoes that fit? Why do some of us have to search for years, sometimes for decades, for the thing that works?

For example, I had to go trough a lengthy Odyssey and visit many specialists to find a diet that would stop my skin from breaking out. It took more than two decades of trial and error! And in the end the solution was surprisingly simple and inexpensive.

Or another example, my own teeth grinding problem. First and foremost I didn’t know of it. I knew that some of my teeth suffered damage over the years, but it was only because of a comment from a dental assistant, when I was 43yo, that I became fully aware of it. She claimed that my teeth were terribly ground down for my age. I asked my new dentist about this, who then arranged his mirrors so I could see the backside of my teeth for myself, and confirmed. Up to that comment I thought I’m doing mostly all right with my teeth, since I didn’t have any new cavities for three decades.

With that, too, it took me decades to identify the problem. The costly, holistic specialist dentist who „advised” me when I was a child (and who makes most of her big money with dental braces for adults) was wrong in vital aspects. I almost too late dropped the exercises and habits she recommended to me. The damage is done and I have to live with it. It almost seems like as if half of the „experts” out there actively and knowingly create the problems they also happen to provide the solution for.

I’m touching on some bigger topics here. Maybe the biggest topic being culture, and how culture would originally keep us free from harm. For example, if all people of a culture would move in a way that is saving the lower back from lower back injuries, then the children would automatically learn to move like this too, thus there would hardly be any lower back injuries – and the other way round. But where am I going with this blog post?

Let me finish with my client’s TMJ solution: after one hands-on session her jaw lock was greatly relieved, and after three hands-on sessions her tension related problems—including her migraines—were solved.

Before she left I recommended that she talks to her dentist about a night guard (as I have been wearing one myself, for the past two years, even though I  myself opted for a self-adjustable one, $12 for 2 on Amazon, instead of a custom made one for $600 from my dentist). And I recommended to do at least one of my shoulder and neck videos on Youtube once per week. Her search for a solution to her specific problem took years, and my professional expertise took even longer to develop, but in the end the solution to her problem was surprisingly simple and inexpensive.