Micro-movementsusing the Feldenkrais® Method of SomaticEducation
Felt sense through BodyS
Starting January 12th to February 23rd, 2026
1 – 2 pm – Balance
2:30 – 3:30 p.m. – Awareness through Movement
Feldenkrais® is a system for learning new actions through movement to increase function and quality of life. There is no dogma or self-image attached to this system of independent self-learning. This means it introduces a focus upon what you can do, not what you can’t. It reduces limiting beliefs by increasing focus of attention in the present moment. As an empath, I can trust the Feldenkrais® experience as it deepens my inner understanding, clarity and skeletal support through perception. It taps into the same dynamic of inner support I trusted as a baby to stand up and begin taking my first step.
I recommend it to everyone longing to be free of the past and to shift the fear of the unknown future. I especially recommend it for those who have been given labels and now identify with them. The only way to transformation is through a new action.
Dedicated Feldenkrais Focus, influenced by Somatic Dialogue & Awareness of Environment Stimulation to function
In a post called, “Lost connection with our feet,” I introduced the concept of people often referring to their body parts as a third party in our conversation. Our cultural conditioning leaves the majority of us disconnected from having a focused felt sense of the body parts that keep us upright to stand, walk, run, sit and get up from standing or out of bed. Pain will be felt immediately and that will be the focus of the conversation. People will point to an area where they feel pain usually without the ability to identify the body part, or they will give an incorrect label of the body part they want checked out.
The education that has been a part of our cultural conditioning has lacked focus on the integration of the connected experience through the body. I have found that the focus is on memorizing the names of the muscles, bones and organs rather than focusing attention on the experience of those part’s from a felt sense ability through the transitions of movement. Even suggesting the focus of attention on ones felt senses will be received with varying degrees of experiential understanding and thoughtfulness. The response is usually related to yoga, tai chi, kinesiology, physical therapy or some other exercise patterns versus the actual ability to either visualize the movement or feel the functional aspects of it. There is a blank in understanding and clarity. The mind goes to association with other outside possibilities. As an empathic responder to the environment inside and out this was the hardest gap to bring clarity to for myself and others.
As a Feldenkrais Practitioner this tells me that the person responding back with these comparisons is unable to quiet the mind of memories and analysis long enough to go into feeling the actual functional connected movement patterns inside their body. The mind is actively seeking answers and concepts versus sensing. This is an important concept to distinguish as the two abilities are used for different outcomes. In my experience the analytical comparisons will not support a new pattern of movement that integrates into the brain and body connection via neural pathways. Rather, it will became an artificial strategy creating rigidity and blocking an increase in a range of motion. The expectation created by the thinking and need to know will increase the level of pain, anxiety and pain which will increase the contraction in the muscles and soft tissue intensifying the pain. It will create a contrived pattern of movement that is memorized with the concept of being the right way to do it versus organic spontaneous movement. The rigidity will significantly increase the levels of pain even more and reduce all function due to the levels of fear associated with the pain.
People seek answers and will even ask, is this the right way to….. walk, balance breath, etc., forgetting that as a baby they couldn’t ask anyone. Their movement was free range and more efficient than any current day concept.
This lack of mindful clarity and understanding to the interconnectedness of the physical body creates a disconnect to the skeleton and it’s available core micro movements. In the post mentioned in the first sentence called, “Lost connection with our feet,” the focus was on the functional physical balance. In Chinese medicine the 6 meridians that are focused upon in acupuncture begin in the mouth and end in the feet. This training suggests that the energy is released from the body through the feet into the earth’s gravity. The feet connect the bodies energy to the earth’s gravity. In Feldenkrais the functional perspective of the skeleton is viewed as architectural engineering and the view is how the feet connect with the earth’s gravity by pushing off it. When pushing off the earth the force of the earth’s gravity translates from the feet through the core of the skeleton all the way to the skull. However to experience this efficiently the focus of core movement is through the skeleton, not concepts, muscles, or flow of energy in patterns. These add value to movement, however they cannot create the experience of pushing off from the earth’s gravity.
The dominant force of movement pushing off the earth using the skeleton with the micro movements through the bones and joints tones the muscles. (Not the same as yoga stretches or massage) Muscle development is of value, however not the central core of whole and spontaneous healthy movement. Dominant muscle focus lifts the feet away from the earth that translates into walking separately from, or against, the earth instead of with it. The bones create connection with the earth while the muscles create disconnection.
When someone is walking through the force of the earth’s gravity through the skeleton there is less effort, more flexibility and an increase in resilience. If there is pain in one’s feet there are higher levels of anxiety, irritability, anger and panic. As one limbers up through miro movements, the pain subsides along with irritability, anger and panic.
This Feldenkrais Practitioners perspective of balance begins in the micro movement availability of the skeleton as it responds to the environment. This includes pushing off the earth’s gravity through the bones. As an ex Shoe Store Manager there is some understanding of the cultural conditioning that has evolved through the generations of shoe development.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
As a Feldenkrais Practitioner the lost connection of mankind with their feet is observable in every student’s posture that attends my Awareness through Movement Lessons. One series is called, “Balance and a Fear of Falling.” In one-on-one Functional Integration sessions, it is felt through the movement patterns themselves. After the first lesson in the focused movement class series there will usually be such a huge shift in the individual participants abilities to balance that some students will report this back in the second class. They also seem happy in sharing that there is a drop in their fear levels. I will witness class participants leave their canes behind at the end of the second and third classes which I have to remind them to take with them. By the fourth class they are coming without them.
So, what is the secret? The simplest answer is that Feldenkrais doesn’t focus on the strategy to fix a perceived problem. Most Practitioners don’t get caught up in the ego of philosophies where it becomes about the label, appearance, or fame by being in competition with other modalities. It can be corrupted by those Practitioners that do though who are trying to capture it’s elusive nature and fit it into the preexisting knowledge base of human concepts. Organic learning is not containable in the precepts of the human mind. Moshe was a scientist with a mind that loved to explore learning like an adventure. This is a key element that has been passed down in a good practitioner.
In the Balance class mentioned above our first focus in on feet. The cultural conditioning in our society has caused a lost connection with one and their feet. Time and time again I hear this disconnection in the stories I am told and that I visually see in one’s response to their own feet. Usually, the speaker addresses their feet as a separate part of themselves. They have no whole connection to them as being a whole part of themselves. This is typical of an analytical process thinker in my experience. Their body parts and functions will be expressed with an outside view in the manner of it being a third party and no attachment. Imagine standing on one’s feet with no attachment to their felt sense.
These cultural conditioning habits of our society are points brought to the surface of attention in our movement lessons, however the emphasis as a Practitioner is on aligning one’s felt senses to the micromovements in the bones associated with the feet. The emphasis is on cultivating awareness, not memorizing one pattern, as one needs many patterns when it comes to balancing.
Currently live group classes happen at #yyj’s Monterey Recreation Centre in Oak Bay. I also work with people privately in person, online, over the phone and yes even by text and email depending upon the needs and travel of students.
Past career segways into understanding the social and cultural conditioning of feet
After a challenging year and a half that ended with the loss of my father, my mother, my lover and letting go of the strong hold of my career, I entered into a year of grace. I landed in #yyj’s Greater Victoria Communities and began living on a sailboat at Fisherman’s Wharf after finally taking a career break never explored previously. This began a journey to reintegrate into my empathic nature and to understand it, Re-emerging into society from a year of retreats and learning with a focus on a new career direction as a store manager ended up being with a shoe chain. Working for Naturalizer as store manager for stores at both Hillside and Mayfair Malls became quite an opportunity to explore the human conditioning with one’s feet. In a deep empathetic state while viewing the shape of people’s feet had a giant impact. This experience is a key foundational understanding I tap into when working on balance and cultural conditioning with my students. I am not a salesperson by nature and couldn’t consciously sell to people something through manipulation, so it was a short career. Even the carrot of taking on Regional Manager for B.C. wasn’t far enough removed from that behavioural conditioning.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
This photo gallery focuses on legs up the wall to sense movements in ones leg joints without bearing weight. These movement patterns are for cultivating awareness using the model of Feldenkrais which is a somatic technique that can harnesses one’s potential to increase physical, mental and emotional fitness. These patterns of movement are ones I have personally witness not being accessed in all ages from elementary ages through to elder stages of life. The culprit? The chair.
These movement tips can support movement in ones hip joints with freedom from upper body weight.
Feldenkrais®, Feldenkrais Method®, Awareness Through Movement®, Functional Integration®, are registered service marks of Feldenkrais Guild® of North America. Feldenkrais Method®
Micro-movementsusing the Feldenkrais® Method of SomaticEducation
on Mondays:
Sept 16 – Oct 28 ’24
Nov 04 – Dec 16 ’24
Felt sense through the Body
1 – 2 pm – Balance
2:30 – 3:30 p.m. – Awareness through Movement
Upcoming Workshops
Feldenkrais® is a system for learning new actions through movement to increase one’s function and quality of life. There is no dogma or self-image attached to this system of independent self-learning. This means it introduces a focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. It reduces limiting beliefs by increasing the focus of attention on the present moment. As an empath, I can trust the Feldenkrais® experience as it deepens my inner understanding, clarity, and skeletal support through perception. It taps into the same dynamic of inner support that I trusted as a baby to stand up and begin taking my first step.
I recommend it to everyone longing to be free of the past and to shift the fear of the unknown future. I especially recommend it for those who have been given labels and now identify with them. The only way to transformation is through a new action.
Dedicated Feldenkrais Focus, influenced by Somatic Dialogue & Awareness of Environment Stimulation to function
These two videos visually support learning points that I support my students to integrate through movement using guided micromovements in a particular way of exploration. I encourage my students now to watch both of these videos to imprint the visual stimulus for growing envisioning techniques with a focus on transitions of the body’s moving parts.
Why is this important?
Watch this video again, however this time, raise your gaze up towards the hip joints at the top outside of the legs. Notice the weight being dispersed equally side to side with no effort. The movement appears to be dance like in the flow of easy counterbalance motions.
If you continue to observe the video again you may begin to view how lite the legs are with each step. With each separate step the legs response in a similar way as the feet. Using the ability to shift weight this way with through the bone the also shifts forward and back, and side to side. This is why bones have rounded ends into rounded joints.
Remember that the individual leg bones shift weight differently, in any given moment, as a response to the pressure in the foot. For example, the standing leg that bears ones weight is locked at the ankle, knee and hip when the other leg bends at the ankle, knee and hip.
Mentoring micromovement patterns in community learning groups I have observed that one of the biggest culprits to mobility is the loss of this natural counterbalance. In an earlier post I write about the hidden influences in our environment that are silent systems of learning interrupting these natural movements. I believe it started with sitting for long periods of time having a locked focus of attention in one area of function only. I have discovered the outcome to sitting for long periods creates a gap in one’s brain of the natural movement patterns through the bones of ones pelvis, hips, upper and lower legs, knees, angles and feet.
You will see the differences in how these people walk in this second video. In this video they are mostly picking up their feet and not using the ground to push off like the person in the first video.
Begin watching this video with a focus on noticing how both people lift their feet up and hold them in a straight blank like way. This takes an extreme amount of muscle effort which becomes more difficult to continue as one ages.
On second viewing begin to notice their hips. Both people do not have any sway that demonstrates counterbalance through their legs, hips and pelvis. Both of them have one side where the hip seems to bounce hard in the socket of a locked pelvis. Almost as though wearing an artificial leg. As a Feldenkrais® practitioner I observe a stumble like action.
Watch one more time and lift your gaze upward to observe turned heads. Each person is looking at the other in a state of intent focus on mental processing. There is no evident counter balance through the upper body. What I see is a locked torso that begins at the base of their neck. It is a much different pattern of walking than in the first video.
I would describe the first video as effortless and the second one as having tremendous effort.
In the first video the pattern of movement reflects what each toddler has learned in order to roll over, sit up, stand, walk and run. In the second video the pattern of movement reflects what happens through the silent learning patterns in institutional learning systems – sitting in a chair to focus on tasks and memorization. Both these learning systems reflect right and left brain activities. They are both relevant to a healthy and productive life, however there is no balance of both systems. The silent organic and inherent one each of us was born with was replaced by the non-organic one created by our ancestors.
Models of learning are around us starting at birth and continuing into old age. One never stops learning from the influences surrounding us. These boards are an example of a learning model that imprints rotations patterns of movement for those who are having chunky movements and balance issues. Using these boards at set times throughout the day can enhance integration of the movement pattern, especially if one cultivates awareness of different shifts in weight. This pattern of micromoving can reduce inflammation and pain, and increase circulation.
Inside Awareness Center for Integrative Somatic Learning 