Here's to Your Health - a Feldenkrais Perspective

With all this talk about health care reform I thought it would be interesting to share Dr. Feldenkrais' view of health. I have recently been listening to some audio recordings made in the 1970's at a workshop he gave in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. It is amazing how relevant this discussion is today.

Dr. Feldenkrais described someone who is healthy as a person who could receive a shock (illness, injury, emotional trauma, etc) and recover from it. As long as the system can respond, it was healthy. Health was not about avoiding circumstances but learning from them.

Momentary ill-health is necessary to develop the skills needed to respond. An uninitiated system could be devastated by a sudden large shock because the person doesn't have any experience in returning to health. Repeated experiences of small shocks and recovery strengthen the person to be able to respond if and when larger shocks come along. This doesn't mean the person is the same as she was before the shock, if you lose a limb it will not grow back. But the person as a whole is able to return to a state of health that incorporates the changes resulting from the shock. In other words, one learns how to be healthy.

Feldenkrais considered a person unhealthy when the shock was so great that the body could not recover. The system does not have the capacity to respond.

David Butler, author of Explain Pain, talked about a similar idea in helping people recover from chronic pain. He explains to his chronic pain patients how pain works in the brain so that they understand the process. Then he teaches them how to move out of the pain cycle through techniques such as imagery and mirroring. Until they begin to experience momentary relief, the pain is self-fulfilling. They have to learn how to get out of pain!

When we are exposed to something and then have the experience of recovering, whether that is an illness, injury or fright from a fall off the horse, we learn how to be healthy. This idea is similar when training our horses. We expose them to something small, not overwhelming, so that they learn to be self-confident.

If, however, we have an experience that is much more devastating, e.g. the fall results in a serious injury or emotional trauma, we can still recover as long as we have the desire to respond, to ride again. Now however, we have to learn new ways of moving, thinking, expressing our fears and acknowledge that the process of recovery may require time. This will not erase the past experience but will teach us how to live through it, to survive the shock and return to health.

In so many ways our modern health care system has become one of 'palliative care' "

Relieving or soothing the symptoms of a disease or disorder without effecting a cure". We have lost our ability to respond and therefore recover from dis-ease! When older or less experienced riders have a serious accident or major fright they often lose the ability to respond. Instead these riders embody the patterns of chronic mental and physical fear by trying to sooth over the feelings with bravado, denial or avoidance. They have lost the capacity to respond.

In order to return to riding health we need to acknowledge the shock and respond by learning new ways of moving, thinking and expressing ourselves. Dr. Feldenkrais devised his system of Awareness Through Movement® as a means to expose unconscious, self-limiting patterns (both mental and physical) and provide a learning system to attain our fullest potential.

We are liberated from fear when the unconscious patterns are exposed through the act of awareness and with the creation of new choices. Feldenkrais' method of using non-habitual movements to optimize self-organization gives us options in how we think, move and act. We can continue down the old path (as in chronic pain experience) or choose a different way; one that is responsive to the present circumstances, not the old fears. We learn that we can start, stop, continue or go back at any moment in our movements, thoughts and our riding to ensure a feeling of safety and confidence. With this knowledge we can choose to respond to the present circumstances and maintain a sense of well-being, the definition of true health.

Here's to your riding heath!