Learning to Sit and Walk All Over Again – ECSTATIC!

Let me tell you what. At 44 I am just learning how to use my body. I just completed the third of a three work course that covered Pelvic Floor Strength, Sitting, and Standing. I was AWFUL at all three. Here is my original post, which explains why I put this three-part class together First Organ Prolapse Prevention Class - YAY!

I am ECSTATIC at the outcome of the three classes. I think I kind of get an idea of the thrill and excitement babies have each time they learn a new way to use their bodies. Start watching babies and how they sit and stand. They have it going on…until our awful furniture overcomes their innate movements.

These classes have profoundly and positively affected all of us. For the last couple of years I have been telling people that I am amazed at how good I feel thanks to eating healing, nutrient dense foods and thanks to my incredible doctor of Oriental medicine, Ken. That feeling has been indescribably great – feeling better as I get older!

Even with those amazing advances, I knew that I was not at my peak, and now I am having a ball with another important part – learning how to use my healthy body! I never knew how little I actually knew about how to use my body. Using your body is supposed to be effortless! WHO KNEW!?!

Of the three classes, the sitting class is the most challenging for me, as I have some layers of poor body use to undo before I can fully master sitting. According to Candy, our incredible instructor, I have some collar bone issues to undo. When she manually corrected me, I sat with ease, but I don’t know how to maintain that correction. Even so, I am sitting with more ease than ever, Candy gave us very helpful activities to continue to learn how to sit, and I am working to disrupt my poor upper body habits.

Standing – well wow. Today’s class was amazing and I am very much changed from it. It feels great to stand tall and effortlessly. There is so much that goes into it, but a couple of key points are:

• Shoes mess people up. If you want to see some healthy feet, check out my son’s, compared to mine: Going Barefoot. You may also be interested in the book Born to Run, which I mention in this post: Running like the Wind and Vibram Running Shoes

• Orthotics mess people up

• People don’t have muscle tone or know how to use the muscles in their feet (we learned some great practices for improving this, and it is going to be a lot of work for me)

• We don’t use our hips properly

• When we stand properly, it is effortless, our muscles are relaxed, and our feet are close together, but not necessarily touching

Our class is going to continue working with Candy on a monthly basis, and I can’t wait. We have a ball, and it has been great reconnecting with old friends more regularly and making new ones. In fact, some of them are going to do the Rugged Maniac Race with Ryan and me. Talk about laughing our butts off…especially now that we are getting a clue about how to use our bodies.

Finally, here are a few key take away ideas:

1. Body awareness is imperative. If something hurts or doesn’t feel right, change what you are doing. For me, ease of breathing is an indicator that I am not sitting or standing properly. For others it is pain or tight muscles or something else.

2. We have to disrupt the body’s normal, painful, or highly muscular patterns that cause us to work hard and replace them with patterns that bring ease. This is the crux of our classes.

3. “Correct posture” is a ridiculous idea. Posture is constantly changing for changing reasons. Effortless body use is the goal, not an artificial construct of correct posture.

Hopefully you are inspired to find your own Feldenkrais instructor and learn how to use your bodies to their highest and easiest potential.

There may be no fountain of youth, and many people stay young at heart and mind, and there are definite ways to keep youth physically in your life!