Working in Movement

Feldenkrais work uses movement as a learning tool. Anyone who has more than casual exposure to the Method usually experiences lessons in which they are asked to imagine movements rather than actually doing them. Often, this produces significant improvements when they actually perform the movement.

Now, a new brain imaging study at the University College of London confirms the idea that the neurons in the brain that fire when we perform an action also fire when we just observe that action, provided we are skilled in the action in the first place. Sorry, you can't qualify for the PGA tour by just watching on Sunday afternoon.

Though the study worked with observing rather than imaging, the principle may be the same. That would probably take another study.

In a Feldenkrais lesson, a movement will be performed on one side of the body (with awareness, of course) and then imagined on the other side. For example, slowly move head and eyes to look to the right a few times. Notice what happens during the movement. Then move head and eyes to the left ONE time and then back to the center, noticing the quality of that movement. Close your eyes and imagine moving to the left, using the image of sensation you gathered when actually moving to the right. Imagine it a few times, and then actually move your head and eyes left. Notice the quality of the movement. Any improvement came from the imagining, not the movement itself.

Feldenkrais himself used this to recover function after injury. One story has it that one of his knees was banged up and nothing anyone did for him was doing it any good. A day or so later, though, he showed up with no signs of the injury. It turns out that he sat in a chair and imagined himself squatting, a movement that would call for a functional knee. He took two hours to imagine the movement, so there was a great deal of detail in his imagining. But a successful squatting movement, even if only imaginary, involved his knee in a way that allowed it to function normally. (I believe this story can be found in the book Mindful Spontaneity by Ruthy Alon.)