Become More Amazing

Being alive is amazing, right?

And then, within that, we all have our amazing talents, quirks, and inclinations. We are all amazing.

And just as perfect as we are, we can get even better. If we want.

Sometimes riding the contentment of exactly who we are is just what we need to do.

Sometimes these words ring true:  Life is Yes, and can get Better and Better and Better.

I work with high performance musicians who don't mind going to higher and higher levels of ease, learning and performance.

I also work with children who have either cerebral palsy, or autism. They are amazing. They can become more amazing.

This is what is amazing about them, and why they can make so much progress with the Anat Baniel Method. They can learn.

Many other systems teach them, but those systems unfortunately often teach them that they are failures, by over and over giving them tasks they can fail at.

However,  a sensitive Anat Baniel practitioner, by moving in ways that are slow and clear, and creating small differences that the child can feel and notice, creates actual rewiring of the brain.

Learning is the noticing of differences that make a difference.
A slight new movement of the hand, in awareness, in learning, is vastly more important than being sat up because that's what the child is "supposed" to be doing at a certain age.

A child that can feel the difference between a little finger and a thumb, between a shoulder moving this way, and moving that, between the arm moving with connection to their back, or moving without connection, is a child on the way to learning the vast array of distinctions that allow functioning to happen.

Training and learning.
Training vs learning.

This is a big subject.

Even "regular" kids are so much better off if the parents and the teachers are setting up conditions about learning.

And relationships, ah. how much time to we waste trying to train our partners, when what we really want is love and connection.

And how does that happen?
Learning what that other person is really like, how they are different from every other person in the world.

Including us.

What a thought?
What a joy.

Alright. Have a good evening.
Chris

More Moving, on the Side, Shoulder, Hip, Brain

Redo, if you have time, yesterday's lesson
and then add this on

Lying on your right side,
a bed
a firm floor with a blanket or several layers of yoga mat on it
a lawn

Today
have your left knee on top of your right knee
either put your right hand
or a cushion of some sort between the knees to ease the movement of the top knee

Have your left arm straight forward from your head on the ground/ floor ( we'll call it floor from now on)

1. Move your left arm slowly forward
and as per yesterday,
forward is the direction your chest is pointing

have the shoulder, your shoulder, move slowly forward and back to neutral
feeling this as a rolling in the top part of your spine
go slowly
and enjoy feeling each vertebra as it gets involved

rest

1.b.
Move the left arm forward and a bit down,
say a 45 degree angle
and as you do this
pull in your stomach muscles
and round your back a bit
then return to neutral

do this a number of times

rest

1.c.
Move your left arm forward and up a bit,
again, about 45 degrees,
and
as you move it forward and up,
arch your back
let your back seem to be pushing your arm
away
( it is),
feel the sternum lifting as you do this

return slowly and with awareness to neutral
and then do this many times

rest on your back and notice differences
side to side

return to your right side after a pleasant rest

2. Move your left leg ,
just a little bit,
straight ahead,
as if tipping off the right knee
and then come back

feel this as pure rotation
and feel the vertebrae move one by one

do this many times

rest

2.b.
Move your knee back and down
not a whole lot
but enough to feel how this works
well with push the belly forward
and arching your back

come back to neutral
go
very
slowly
and feel the back hip knee connection

back and forth,
from no arch and the knee on top of the other,
to arch and the knee back and down

rest

2.c.
Move your knee back and up a bit,
as if you were curling in
and bringing your knee toward your chin
and with this pull in your belly and round your back  a little
so the knee is coming back with a feeling of
curling up in the middle

rest on your back
enjoy the sensations
notice the differences:
beginning to now
right and left sides

stay here awhile,
and then
back to your right side

3.
arching

in extension,
in arching,

move your arm up and forward
while your arch your back
and lift your sternum
and
while you
bring your knee back and down a bit

as if you could keep going into a yoga like thing
with the arm toward up and the leg coming behind you

rest

4
rounding,
belly in

rounding,
flexion

this time
bring your arm down and forward
and your belly in
and bring your knee back and down

( the knee back and down is quite odd
go slowly
and figure it out

go very small
and have everything rotating around your movement being led
by your belly coming in

rest

5. Finish off with extension again
it's more natural

arm forward and up
back arched
belly forward
knees back and down

and a general feeling of lengthening

rest

and enjoy

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT ATE

This is inspired by watching my friend,
George Altgelt,
owner and proprietor of GeoGrowers soil making company
near Austin/Fredricksburg,Texas
talk about how important feeding our soil is.

The VIDEO interview with him is here:
INTERVIEW WITH GEORGE ALTGELT

The point is that if you feed the soil, then your vegetables, and trees
and flowers will be so much happier.

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT ATE

Feed your spinach organic soil and it will have 83 times more iron than
inorganic spinach.

Feed the meat you eat grass and they will be an omega-3 shot for brain and protein blast for your body.

Feed them the normal feedlot, stress life and GMO food and they will be a cancer bomb.

PS: These statements have not been validated by the FDA, but the 83 times iron is from published research of which George, above mentioned, actually knows the specific source.  

So, what is this blog posting about?

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT ATE

Two quotes from Kids Beyond Limits, both way at the beginning: Life is Transformation, remember, remember, remember

Anat Baniel doing her gentle "magic", i.e. helping this child's brain rewire to a higher and more advanced level, touch by gentle touch

From Anat's first page:

"Just yesterday I saw, for the first time, a fourteen-year-old boy who had suffered severe brain damage in infancy. The injury had left him blind, with no language abilities and with no voluntary movement. After just a few days of sessions with my colleagues and just one sessions with me, for the first time in his life he began vocalizing and moving his legs; his arms were freer, and it was clear that he was engaged in the process --- he was even able to follow some simple movement instructions I gave him-- and loving it. He was waking up to himself."


From Norman Dodge, MD, author of The Brain that Changes Itself:

"Following in the footsteps of the revolutionary scientist-clinician Moshe Feldenkrais, the greatest thinker about how to improve movement in the twentieth century, [Anat] Baniel show why our mainstream approach to these children is often wrong, and at times damaging, because they train the children to 'ape' developmental milestone they are not developmentally ready to meet. The approach here, far wiser, far more subtle, truly holistic, far more ingenious, far more in accord with how brain development occurs, show ways to access the child's OWN brain plasticity, and yields far greater results, so that the children can spontaneous grow from within."

His intro is longer. Anat has a whole book to take parents through her nine essentials.

Please jump to her webpage, read more about it,
and BUY AND USE THE BOOK.

http://www.anatbanielmethod.com/children/kids-beyond-limits

EVERY DAY USE IT.  ( Your brain will love it, too.)

Aging, "Anti-aging," reversing the clock, waking back up to life

Say you took a walk down a narrow path to a river each day, fetched some water and then carried it back up to your village.

Then you picked some fruit from a tree, perhaps climbing up the tree, and if the day got too hot you swam and splash in the river down below, so once again a walk of attention (the path is narrow and you could fall off) and back up: nice exercise.

You hunt or you make baskets or you cook food or you prepare weapons or you take a nap or you talk to the grandchildren or children or adults or grandfathers.

You move, you pick up things from the ground, you harvest roots, you skin any animals you have killed.

It sounds primitive and could have it's own charm and appeal or could be a horrifying life to us "moderns", what with food in grocery stories and cars to carry us to work to make money to drive home via the market and cook our food in convenient ways that require no bending down to light the fire or pick up the firewood.

We don't move much, and some go to a gym and push various machines and barbells and metal around, and that certain helps, but the overall picture is one of a lot of sitting. At desks. In front of computers.

And then, even on the part of the day we used to just walk to the car, we are on the cell phone, and now it's a smart phone, so our eyes are glued to the little one and a quarter by three inch screen.

We hunker around our little electronic communication network, not around the fire, not around the circle of family and friends telling stories.

Movies tell our stories, and less and less people even sit with others watching the mutual dream. We stay home, we get our Netflicks, and probably a big chunk of that time is also spend texting and gazing at the even smaller screen.

People are missing. Movement is missing. Nature is missing.

And so we age.

People in the tribes in the old paradigm aged too, but their bodies stayed relatively mobile and their minds, with real problems to solve, real pathways to negotiate with real sleep, stayed alert. The elders job was to pass on the lore and the skills to the young. The young are figgity and keeping up with their minds and bodies must have kept the elders way more on their toes, literally, than the shoved off in old folks homes, and dimming away to Alzheimers, and decaying into the cancer plague.

And does Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel have something to offer the modern woman and man, the modern desk ridden, car enslaved, smart phone addicted person.

Sure.

It has a plethora of movements, that are slow enough to be engaging on their own.

Movements that vary, and so the brain has to pay attention, and even better new neural pathways are laid down. And this is learning.

We try things in a new way, with attention, and learning, real learning of new connections gets hooked up in our brains.

And the spine lengthens, almost always with either table or group lessons. All the moving this way and moving that reminds the vertebrae: hey, you guys aren't a rod, you are a chain of linked and separate units, and the more you can remember and move in all directions with some separation from how your neighbor is moving, the more the spine can lengthen out.

The hunching over of the old, as the spine gets more and more trapped in the patterns of a life time of slouching, this can begin to "un-do" with the lessons of this work.  In the old days, people picked up things from the ground, reached up to climb and pick fruit, rotated right and left to follow prey and avoid danger and get through various openings. We can create, in gobs of fun and different ways, bends and arches and twists and sidebends in our spine.

We can recapture the joy of having a body that is excited to learn something just a little new each day.

So it isn't really "anti-aging," we don't have anything against aging. It's "anti letting ourselves stop learning, and anti falling into deeper and deeper immobility, and anti thinking we have reached the know it all stage of existence.

It's anti fear of the new, but excitement, and this can spill over.

What new will life bring today?

It's so exciting. Let's find out!

Piggybacking on Evolution

Piggybacking on Evolution


What we do, as Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel practitioners, is elusive to many, and extremely effect, often. One way I’ve come to see as one source of our effectiveness is what I call “piggybacking” on evolution.

Many types of bodywork seem interested in “fixing” this problem or that. Many want to balance something. Many wish to release “blocked” energy.

And we just move people slowly and gently in ways related to this famous word “function.” Functional Integration we call what we do when we aren’t being lazy and called it FI. I’m a big fan of keeping that word Function front and center, and this piggybacking phrase of mine could be little more than another way of saying that.

Then again, maybe it hints to a bit more.

Take one of the simplest and most effective Functional Integration lessons. ( Notice I did not say FI). The client lies on their side, both arms forward, one palm on the other. We work with the shoulder via the vertebrae and the ribs and the pelvis and gently moving the hand forward and the usual this and that.

And what are we doing this “working with” the shoulder.

We’re doing what I call piggybacking on evolution, which in this case is a human body evolved with a shoulder very loosely connected to the other bones of our body so that the “function” of reaching forward can be incredibly fluid and accurate and of almost infinite variation.

Evolution helped us create such a shoulder to help the hands reach forward for food, for love, for craft, for cooking, for wrestling, for opening doors and throwing spears.

We have a big batch of vertebrae, all of which can contribute to this reaching forward function.

As practitioners we don’t have to sweat “range of motion” or even “relaxation.” We “just” have to help that amazing product of evolution, the human shoulder, become even better at becoming a shoulder.

We can roll the ribs. We can engage the neck. We can connect the pelvis to the shoulder. Every little thing we do that “wakes up” that shoulder to be a better “functioning” example of the shoulder that evolution spent millions of years creating for human beings, every little bit adds up, because it’s way IMPORTANT to four million years of humanity that this shoulder be a better and better shoulder.

And that’s what I mean by “piggybacking” on evolution.

Babies love to learn, help them along

I had a nice talk with a parent on the phone
the other day.

Her daughter does not yet use
much language.

I suggested that she could have a lot of fun
and be of huge use to her child
by playing with differences in the world of sound.

It could be differences
in pitch,
going eeeeee in a high pitch
and eeeee in a low pitch.

It could be differences in long and short:

laaaaaaaaa and la
la and laaaaaaaaaa

It could be differences in sound
ma ma ma ma
ba ba ba ba

It could be differences in fast
and slow
ma////////////////ma//////////////////ma////////////////////ma
and ma ma ma ma

All sort of combinations
could be invented and played with
ba ba baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ba ba
ma ma maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ma ma
and the ba and ma could be different pitch

When the child hears the difference and begins to play
with them
she is learning the basis of language.

"The dog is in the house" can
wait,
first play with da da da n nnnn nn n nnnn hoooooooooo
huuuuuuuuuuuuu haaaaaaaaaaaa heeeeeeeeeee
ssssssssssssssssss snake salad slippery and so on

the "dog in the house" will come


It's like how I explain our system is so different that the rest
by talking about crawling.

Take a child who doesn't crawl
and do
accupuncture
energy work
spinal adjustment
stretching
and you'll get no results, and probably a lot of
discomfort in most of these,
since babies aren't masochists yet

Take a child who can't crawl
and show her connections of pelvis to shoulder
and to knee and to ribs and to head
little soft
showing of connections

and you've given information
and information
which is the learning of differences
that make a difference
is what the nervous system
lives for

it's called learning

it's great

go out and have a learning day


ciao
Chris

Out of the Soup, into the brain: Transforming Emotional Pain

The amazing results we get from the Feldenkrais Method
and the Anat Baniel method,
are all about going slowly, and
gently,
and in harmony with the natural functional movements
of humanity,
so that our brains get more alert and smart
and at ease moving in many new ways.

New options.

New possibilities.

And the pain becomes superfluous because the movement
and our selves becomes so interesting
and free.

Let's take a "bad feeling"
and play a little with what I'm calling the
Elixir of Transformation.

You feel bad, very sad say, as if you are all alone in the world,
no friends, or something like that.

First thing is to pause,
and not try to run away from it,
but just stick around there awhile and see
"What Is."

Then you start to gently see this feeling as a
four layer package:

The thoughts:  I'm never going to have any good friends. No one likes me.
(Whatever they are(

The emotional feeling: which is sad and abandoned, say. But it's you,
you find what it is for you, now, today.

The physical sensations. Where is this constricting you.
All "unpleasant" feelings are felt as unpleasant
because we clamp in and down on ourselves.

How and where are you doing that? Now. Today.

And the "soul" equation.
Soul knows we are all one, and that this moment is precious,
and body life isn't forever, and that life is good.

This area is a bit less clear to work with, but we can just
feel the missing, the longing in our soul, when
this feeling is where we are living.

And then,
hang out with the four layers all at once,
and experience who and how you are.

Now,
my whole process is taking each area into more and more
distinctions,
more and more differentiations,
more and more options,
so the stuck becomes not only unstuck,
but darn interesting.

Let's take the feeling realm.

One option: intensify and lessen the intensity of the feeling.
Notice these differences.

Two: think of the feelings as a child that needs care.
1) Give that child a tender feeling, by breathing gently into the pain,
as if stroking the child.

2) Feel the historical aspect of this feeling, the whole panorama of times
this has been where you've been caught.
Find an observer in you to witness this, like a kind parent,
just watching and knowing you went through all this.

3) Look around the room. Be like a parent who guides a sad child
to look at the tree leaves and the colors in the sky in addition
to the feelings.

4) Rock yourself, not to escape the feelings, but as if it's a baby,
that needs soothing motion.

5), Sing to the child

Three:
Give voice to the feelings without words. Let them sing
to you,
but with no words.

Change styles: opera, lullaby, country western, classical, anything you want

Four:
Add other feelings at the same time.

1) Sad plus gratitude

2) Sad plus curious

3) Sad plus patient

4) Sad plus happy!

really, you can do both, it's not common,
and it's freedom.

Five:
perspective:
think of happy moments in your life, and see them from your sadness

think of happy moments in your life and see the sadness from your happy moments

Six:
Get lost in the present,
leave the words out,
leave the history out,
just sense what you are aware of in your body now

This leads to the sensations part of your feeling,
and there are lots of options there,
and that's another essay,
and the sensation route is actually the most sure route
out.

So why didn't I pick that first?

I don't know.

Enjoy this much learning.
Even though it's a fourth of the Elixir of Transformation,
leaving out the work of Byron Katie on the thinking part,
and all sorts of movement and sensing play in the physical part,
and all sorts of distinctions on when we are in soul and when not,
it's huge what I've offered here.

Take advantage of it, if you wish.

Ciao
for
NOW,

Chris

What are Brains for?

You know that seems like a silly question,

or an obvious one?

And in our day and age,
this insulting phrase is floating around:
"it's a no-brainer"

As if a human could stand,
let alone breathe,
let alone make an easy/ what the talker or writer thinks is obvious
decision.

And brains can get us in trouble:
they are very good at comparing;

So and so has a bigger car?
You should have been nicer to me (comparing reality to our picture
of how reality "should" be,
is ,
alas,
one of the great ways to suffer in this world)

It's hotter outside than inside,
or vice versa.

Brain's notice.

They also are kind of lazy, sometimes.
If you know how to open a door,
we "just do it,"
we don't really feel our fingers on the door,
or "play around with/ experiment with" several ways
to open the door.

When is the last time we used the other hand
to open a door?

When is the last time we slowed the rate of turning
as we opened the door?

When is the last time we noticed how our feet were placed
or how our breathing felt
when we opened the door?

And this is just one of the many things
that we could,
for all we know,
improve,
or at least become more awake and aware and playful
about.

What others?
Saying hello.
Looking around on the computer.
Rummaging around in the kitchen.
Walking to our car.
Getting in our car.
Driving our car.
Getting out of our car.

Me, not having a car,
like to point out how auto-matic
people tend to get around their auto mobiles,
but put a mobile phone in my hand,
and I go automatic, too.

Except when we don't.

Brains love to learn.

They love to notice differences,
and learning could be said to be
the noticing of differences that make a difference.

So brains love to learn.

In good Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Method lessons,
our brains are given, via movement, opportunities to
tune into options and possibilities that were there
before the lesson.

We learn that we are less restricted than we thought.
We learn how big and amazing our possibilities are.
We learn how to move easier and more gracefully
and farther from the clutches of pain.
More pleasure.

This is all learning that takes place in the brain,
by new pathways and options being opened.

Brains love to learn.
Brains love to stay to same.

This clues us into the challenge and opportunity of living an
amazing life.

How are we going to use our brains?


For a change.


Good,
Chris

The Learning Switch: Anat's Second Principle/ Essential

One: there is no learning switch.

Two: Anat didn't invent learning as crucial to our method

Three: without a constant awareness that a purpose of a lesson is
this:
the student/ client learns something
the lesson isn't a lesson

That's really all that needs to be said.

With a special needs child, with any child, with your lover:
what's the difference between the "this little piggy goes to the market" toe,
and "this little piggy stays home" toe

That's huge
That's delicious

and if we can hook that up
with the opposite hand's fingers,
little toe left to little finger right,
how much more delicious

and if we can sense
and they, the special needs child, any child, the lover
wakes up to the spine in between this two,
how useful

and then for a lesson:
what's a function this can tie into

for the practitioners:
you figure it out

for the parents:
stand up,
move around,
find something you do that noticing left big toe
and right thumb makes clearer, easier, happier,
more pleasurable, more potent

don't try to evoke that in your children
by movement or manipulation,
but have it in the back of your mind
when playing with toes and fingers

go slow enough so you can see that look
in your child's eyes,
you know the look when the learning switch is on

practice with your mate
who knows the delights that might led to

Good
Move into Life
 










The Potent Self



Mindfulness and Learning

A movement for pleasure, undoing pain, and talking to both sides of our brain

We could do this lesson with pictures,
and it would be "easier" because it would all
be on one side of the brain.

Most "movement" classes, not only are watch and copy,
but also don't really require a use of mental attention that
actually increases our intelligence.

This lesson,
giving you words to translate into actions,
and giving your brain/self some challenge and non-habitual chances
for your attention,
can do a lot for your ability to move think and be
with more ease grace and pleasure
in the world.

Take advantage.

Go slow, slower, slowest.
Do the movements many times,
as if each time were new.
Look for pleasure and connections you might not
have known before.
Look for ways to make this easier and more alive for you.

So, here goes.

Get on your hands and knees.

There is a yoga thing called cat and cow.
That's our start.

A.
Begin with the regular cat and cow,
where for the cat,
you lift your back and belly towards the sky,
let your head drop,
pull your belly in,
and rotate your pelvis so your sex and nose are
going toward each other.

You might even like to breathe out in the cat phase.

Do this slowly, and stay "relaxed."

Then undo this and come to the "cow,"
which is belly down and forward toward the floor,
back arched,
head with nose up to the sky,
pelvis rotated as if the bottom of your rear end
is coming toward the back of your head.

Go back and forth between cat and cow
and then rest.

Kneel, or lie down, and put your head down,
or get up and walk around. You decide how to rest.

Now the first variation:

B.
Let your head hang down toward the Earth
the whole time.
So in cat it's like it would be anyway,
but then as you arch your back and rotate your pelvis
for cow,
keep your head loose and hanging down.

Rest after doing this ten or twenty or thirty times.
Do it "many," and so slowly it is pleasure,
and so much in awareness that is as if each time
is new.

C.
Second variation:
Your head will go the opposite of the way
it did in A, the "normal" cat and cow.

Which means:
in the cow part, when you arch your back
and tilt your pelvis so the rear end is toward your neck,
your head will travel down toward the floor,
even as if you were to look at your belly.

And in the cat part, when you round your back,
and tuck your pelvis under, you bring your head "up"
as if to look at the ceiling.

This can be confusing.
Realize that the back and head are here
going up and down in sych: head toward the ceiling when belly lifts,
head towards the floor when belly drops.

Rest.

D. Now do the "normal" cat and cow,
or A,
and in the first way:
D.1. notice what your eyes want to do,
and deliberately look up when your head is going up,
and look down when your head is going down.

Rest a bit.

D.2. Now,
continuing to do the "normal" cat and cow,
bring your eyes the opposite of your head

so in cat, head down, belly up, and eyes up

in cow, head up, belly down, and eyes down

go slowly, very slowly,
be gentle
follow your breathing
take it easy
rest if confused
go slowly and gently,
did I say that?

Rest.

E. for extra credit,
do C, where the head goes down when the belly goes down,
and up when the belly goes up,
and have your eyes go opposite your head.

Rest.

F. Do, just a few times do the "normal" cat and cow, but with almost delirious pleasure
at how sweet and easy the "normal" way has become.

Rest on your back.
Notice feelings of upgrade and feelings of relaxation.

Roll slowly to sitting and then easily come to standing
and walk around.

Again notice feels of ease (relaxation) and potency ( increased connection inside of yourself)

Good.

Parents of Special Needs Children: keep the learning alive in YOU

Anat Baniel has a wonderful article, available as pdf,
on the Revolutionary Possibilities for Special Needs
Children
with three of her nine essentials:
slow,
subtle,
variation

These are great principles for parents to remember when
touching their children,
and when "looking for change,"
and just in general when we are being impatient with
ourselves and our mates.

Slow is crucial.
The brain can have awareness only of what is
slow enough for our attention to track it.
Once we slip on the banana peel, ancient layers of the brain
quickly send us into action.
But if we want to learn to raise our foot up onto a chair,
and want to discover three or four different ways to do this,
just 'cranking it out,' won't do it.

And anyway, we like to soothe our children,
the lullaby effect,
so slow and gentle movement,
this is something we do anyway.

And how can we FEEL this movement in our children?
Again, if we are going slow, and really paying attention, we could be slowly
rotating the ribs and could feel what is happening in the spine.
And/or the pelvis
legs,
neck
shoulders,
feet and hands even.

Slow enough
and all will be revealed.

And from love,
everything we discover is good,
fine and wonderful.

Recall last week's article:
our ideas and intentions may hugely matter.



Slow, though, or we're just taking the kid for a ride.
Gentle, though, or we're getting them insensitive to their
own bodies and nervous system.

And what is the best way for a parent to learn this
slow and subtle/ gentle movement?

Having lessons.

And all good parents want 'it all' to go for their
children, but think of the airlines, and the oxygen masks,
first save yourself, then you can save your children.

The more a parent feels deeply and almost instinctively
the power of this slow and gentle, 
the more they sense in their own body
how slow and gentle in THEIR ribs
can connect to pelvis and neck and feet and hands and legs,
the more
likely they are to go home between lessons
and touch the child in a way that keeps the child's lessons alive.

.......
And the third essential in the article:
variation.
Well, go to my Life Potency blog,
and click on the Movement lesson label,
or here, I'll do it for you:
Movement lessons in Life Potency,
and start playing around with them,
slowly and gently with yourself.

Feel how this activates your brain
and
calms your nervous system,
all at the same time.

Good.

When the impossible seems impossible; difficult case fellow

Here's a question I received from a friend:

What are your thoughts on working with a 40 year old man who's been felled by a reaction to a bee sting 5 or 6 years ago. He is in a long term care facility. His eyes are open but he does not see. I think he hears well and understands some/most of what is said around him, but he does not respond in any meaningful way. He can vocalize and uses a few word (I'd say in an automatic way - pat phrases). He can swallow food, but not liquids. He can move his arms and legs and head, and roll to his side(foetal position) but cannot sit or stand. He has to be moved with a winch-like hammock system from bed to chair. He loves music.

I've seen him a few times, but am at a loss of how to go beyond making him feel more relaxed and more comfortable.

My thoughts are that a lesson
is a lesson is a lesson.

comfort and a feeling a reassurance go a long
way to opening a person to being alive

but certainly can't really move
the person forward
(unless they can learn to make themselves more
and then less comfortable as
a volitional thing0

So what's a lesson to be
for this poor fellow

same old same old:
INTELLIGENCE IS THE ABILITY TO DISTINGUISH DIFFERENCES

Can he understand yes and no?

Can he follow someone with his eyes?

Can he open and close eyes on command/

open and close mouth

turn head this way and that

Can he distinguish which music he likes more

Can he tell when the music stops

can he tap this hand, that hand,
this finger, that finger in time to the music

can he watch a hand move up
and down in time to the music

can he tap on his body
or feel taps in time to the music

can he distinguish fast and slow tapping

can he feel the difference between more foetal position and less
can he turn head eyes tongue ? while in fetal position

can pressure through feet or sit bones in fetal position
give information about sitting and standing

and so on

what do we have to lose
trying anything
and everything

that's a start anyway

in a way,
this is like autism:
what can the brain latch onto
and learn from?

anything
anything is
a step in the moving back
into life
direction

ciao
Chris

Pain is... not everywhere, so where else can you go/ Bonus: helping with migraines

Let's say your right shoulder is sore
You had an accident way back when
or you fell on it
or lifted weights with anger and inattention
or whatever
pitched a baseball too many times without full awareness

It's sore.

You lie down on the floor or table or bed
and someone asks you to pay attention
to what you notice.

Where do you go first?
To the sore shoulder?
To the calm ribs on the left side?
To the happy toes in right or left foot or both.
To the tension in your neck that you didn't even know was there,
and you're kind of excited to release.
To the feeling/ sensation of the back of your head on floor/ ground/ table/ bed?
To the good feeling in your left pinkie?

The list is long and varied, but the points are two:

One: there is a lot of us to pay attention to
This is a great and glorious "game" at almost any moment in our lives.

Two: we may have a tendency to put our attention
immediately on "what's not working"
rather than what feels good.

So, be it.
This might be nature's way of helping us remember that
we have an area needing improvement

And the other point is elusively obvious:
why neglect all the rest of us.

So, if you are in any pain:
lie down and any position that is comfortable

Scan yourself for painful areas
and non painful areas

Be sure to include a sensing of all of your skeleton:
legs toes fingers hands ribs vertebrae pelvis head arms shoulder blades

Sense all of you
and get this feeling:
how much of you is a non pain zone
and how much is.

And then try this:
begin any movement
slow and gentle in the non pain zone,
and notice it
feel awareness spreading to this movement
and allow yourself to enjoy aware and slow and gentle movement

Now rest
and feel what difference that made

Now do this same feel good movement
in a slightly different way.

As you do this,
feel what is going on in your body
learn more about how this feels good.

Rest again.

Now pick some third way of making this movement.
Go slowly and gently
with the premium on awareness
and as you are doing this movement
pay
a SMALL amount of attention to your pain zone.

See if you and your brain can realize that gentle good feeling
movement can coincide with parts of us that don't "feel so great"

Rest.
Now, with the smallest possible movements,
move some part of you in the "pain zone"
or right next to it
(shoulder is the zone,  move the ribs, or your elbow or fingers, or you neck;
or move, very very slightly,
your shoulder)

The movement has to be slow enough and gentle enough
that the pain doesn't increase.

Add in an awareness of all the part of you that aren't in pain.

Move slowly and gently,
I've said that I know,
and
hey
move slowly and gently,
and find the pleasure
the learning,
the pleasure
even in this small and slow and gentle movement
inside the pain zone.

Rest.

This is a retraining of many people's whole world view,
so go slowly and gently about learning to see pain
neither as all consumming
nor as something that needs to be instantly "gotten rid of"

It will go
as organization increases,
so keep moving slowly (and gently)
in ways that feel like they are connecting more
of
you
to more of
you

Good luck.
Lots of rests.
Tons of awareness and smiling and breathing.
And did I mention:
move slowly and gently.

ciao
for
Now

Good.
Chris

Monday treat, Chapter 61: Easier neck, smarter brain for those who sit at computers

The normal Monday posting is at my Special Needs Children blog.
It's about the amazingly vast field of opportunities parents or
anyone has to create learning in themselves or another, by
NOTICING DIFFERENCES.

As I rewrite and upgrade the book I sell as a pdf,
I keep find chapters I'd love people to experience right
away, whether or not they buy the book.

Here's chapter 61:

Sit somewhere comfortably where there is a desk or a table in front of where you are sitting. Put your forearms on the table/ desk, such that one hand is on top of the other. Then lay your head on your hands.

Practice rolling your head right and left (nose going right and left, rotating in your neck and spine) in two ways:

1. Your forehead rubs along your hands, so that as your head rotates, the spot on your hand stays roughly the same. Do this a number of times.

2. Your head actually rolls right and left, as your nose rotates. So as your nose goes left, the part of your head touching your hand rolls toward the right on your hands. As your head turns, you touch a new spot on the hands at each part of the moving. Your head shift a bit to the right. Sense this moving point of contact, a, from the point of view of the backs on the hands, and b, from the point of view of your head feeling where it is touching/ pressing against the tops of your hands.

Of course, coming back, your nose goes right and head travels to the left.

Do this “many times” (eight to thirty), slowly and easily.

Rest.

Now switch which hand is on top and do this movement the second way, where your head rolls along the hands, again “many times,” and as you do it, shift easily your focus:
What’s happening in your neck?
What’s happening in your ribs?
Where is your nose pointed?
Can you feel a tendency to shift in your pelvis?
What are you eyes doing, or do they want to do?
Do you have a breathing pattern with this?

Rest.


Now do the head rolling way, again shifting top hand, where you deliberately:

1. Shift your weight side to side on your pelvis and thrust out your ribs a bit on the side to which your head is rolling (which is opposite the way your nose is pointing. Keep sensing the point of contact between your head and hands).

2. Let your eyes swing like a pendulum actually looking farther to the left and right than your nose is.

Go slowly. Gently. “Many times.”

Rest;


Now, the final variation. Roll your head this moving along your hands way. (Put the other hand on top). And move your eyes in the opposite direction that your nose is moving.

If you really want to pay attention, notice that your eyes and pointing the way that the pelvis is shifting.
Go slowly. Follow your breathing.
Enjoy learning this and picking up more clarity about yourself and being present.

If you want all 108 Wake Up/ 

Move and 

Be Happier and 

Think Better and 

Cultivate "Soul"

lessons,

feel free to

order the book,

links above will give you views of the contents

of all 108 lessons,

and the text of the first eight lessons.

here's the pay pal
thing, if you'd like to order now

108 Paths to Awakening

4 Brain Transformation

Friday Extra, #300: Smart Fitness, Smart Weight Loss, using awareness and variation, and taking it fun/ easy/ awake

Barefoot rock lifting

for the brain

spine

ribs 

pelvis

arms

breathing

awareness

brain

joy of it

Let's say you or anyone wants to:

lose weight and be healthier
or
just plain be healthier, their weight is fine and they know
they aren't really feeling "fit" as a human being
or
improve an ongoing skill in tai chi, yoga, music

How could we/ they/ you/ I
go about this?

Let's take some steps from the Anat Baniel Method
and
the Feldenkrais Method
and
a whole lot of other things that say:
Do something, no matter how small,
to get the ball rolling.

And the Buddhist and other traditions
that hint either subtly or not so subtly:
either we are mindful
or
mindless.

So:

If you keep being and doing the same thing,
nothing will change, so let's start with some small changes:

One:
In moving, I'd like to suggest ten minutes worth of "moving"
with awareness that could make a huge difference in
somebody's life:

One five minute package,
and set the timer, and quit at five minutes,
you can work up to more,
or do another five,
but for three or four days,
quit at the buzz or harp or marimba of the timer:

Go outside if you can
Get barefoot if you can
and do this:
Touch the ground (bend your knees all you want)
in whatever way comes easiest to you
and then
lift one or both hands up toward the sky.
Find a pattern and repeat what you have picked
for five to twelves times:

As you go up and down notice:
the shape of your spine
your breathing
(go very slowly on this, so you can feel/ sense and
savor yourself at every point of the movement)
where is the weight on your feet

which foot has more weight
what's going on in your ribs
are you keeping your neck soft
where are your eyes focused
are your fingers and toes and jaw soft and relaxed
what is the "five line" shape of you, two legs, two arms, one spine
how is your pelvis shifting in this


After a number of times,
stand up and just notice yourself,
and then pick another way of going down,
maybe a little twist
or just touching with one hand
or touching between your legs, or out to the sides
and as you come up
find another variation on what to do with your arms
and then
feel
sense
savor
learn from and enjoy doing this a number of times

Then stand and rest

Now, if you want to get a little strength from this
get something,
a rock
a broom
a gallon jar partly filled with water,

and touch that object to the ground,
and lift it up overhead

Have a pattern that you decide on
and repeat it
slowly
and with great awareness
a number of times

You can lift the object with one hand
lower in with the other

Lift it near your body
or farther away

Make circles in your lifting

many many choices

Pick one at a time
and enjoy really feeling and sensing this in yourself

Do all this for five minutes
and then stop

BIKE RIDING WITH "LAZY" INTERVAL TRAINING
And what of the other five minutes:
get a bicycle and go ride it somewhere uncrowded

Play around with what is about 50% effort,
what is 30%, what is 80% and so on.

Then start at 20 % and increase up to 80%,
keeping your back easy
your jaw relaxed
your arms relaxed
your breathing through your nose

When you get tired,
slow to any amount of effort you pick
less than 50%,
keep breathing and recovering
and making sure the rest of you that isn't pedalling
is as relaxed as possible.

Then, when you pick, speed up to something above 50%,
you pick the amount,
you pick the duration,
but don't go until you are panting and unable to easily
breathe through your nose.

You pick when to slow back down to
less that 50% effort.

Notice where your attention is.
Can you look out at the world and sense inside yourself
as you do this.
It's only five minutes.
Enjoy.

And if you don't have a bike:
walk out of your house,
this has to be something you can do
as often and easily as possible,
walk out and
walk like this,
alternating less than 50% of what you feel like your
maximum effort could be
alternating that with some figure/ guess you pick
above 50%

This again: with looking
and breathing through your nose
and keeping all the places not involved in walking (neck, nose, jaw, fingers,
even toes except to push off and press into the earth) keeping
all of you as soft and aware and relaxed as you can
while you change up your speed and effort

Again, just for five minutes.

Later, a longer essay on eating,
and you can see the page at my website:
Food, Health, Weight Loss: Discoveries and Suggestions
from halfway decent shape 66 year old

Here's a gift from tomorrow's blog entry:
a simplified:
try this and this a this
morning, lunch and night
program of the positive sort,
link is SIMPLE DAILY EATING PROGRAM
FOR OPTIMIZING HEALTH AND/OR WEIGHT LOSS

Here's more of an overview on
a non-habitual
pretty darn healthy
eating pattern:

A green smoothie each day

Consider a diet without these:
flour products,
pasteurized dairy,
fruit out of season,
sugars like sugar and agave and the fake stuff,
soy that isn't fermented
nuts and seeds that aren't presoaked

Figure out what sort of high grade protein
might be wonderful for you

You can eat lots and lots of what's left:
high grade meat, eggs, vegies, soaked nuts, smoothies,
beans if that's your thing (not mine), butter, especially raw,
fish

Lots

a study went like this:
people of semistarvation diets
of 1000 calories:

90% fat lost .9 pounds a day
90% protein lost .6 pounds a day
90% carbs gained .24 pounds a day

raw fat,
in a raw meal,
will lose you weight
and build your body
and feed
your brain

(see Nourishing traditions, below)

Think about how a meal or two a day of
raw eating could figure in with the above ideas

Don't worry about it.
Make one shift today
and see how fun that could be.

Consider a "cheat day" per week where you go out,
buy and consume out of your house,
the various "left behind" elements.

Alight

Here's some "Eating a cooler and smarter way books:



For non raw this is amazing, and cured me from the vegan trap:
Nourishing Traditions



And for Raw eating,
this chick is 50 and hasn't been sick in 14 years,
eats raw meat, cheese and milk,
and has a lot of fun:
Raw Fifty



And these people
found at RawFamily.com
are sweet, amazing,
and the inventors of the
extremely useful and delicious
and life changing
GREEN SMOOTHIE:
Green Smoothie Revolution

Twisting in Sitting, Chapter 25

TWISTING IN SITTING

Sit comfortably in a chair. Feel how this is.

Move to the front edge of the chair and look around behind yourself to the left and to the right. Notice the difference. For this learning we’ll just go to the left. So, just look to the left five or six times and notice how easy this is, and how far your head turns. Rest.

Now, put your left hand on the chair to your side or behind you, and put the back side of your right hand on your left cheek. Now turn to the left, using the ribs and the upper spine as well as your neck.

Do this a number of times, at least twenty, “easily,” and learn about your spine.

Rest. Rest means, to deepen your connection inside. To feel at ease. To feel in the sensation way of feeling what learning and awakening is happening inside of you. To notice changes in your breathing, your sense of length, your ease in sitting, your sense of aliveness. And anything else that comes to you.

Be present.

Give yourself, over and over, in all these lessons, be they moving, thinking, feeling, or soul, the present of being present.

Even reading or hearing this, just now, if you aren’t “doing” the lesson, breathe, close your eyes, feel your spine, and be with yourself, right now.

Come to the above position (right back of hand on left cheek), and turn about half as far as you go to the left. Then take your hand from your left cheek and put it about a foot in front of your face. Now, “easily,” and “many times,” move your right hand in a circle around where your face is pointing.
Watch the hand with your eyes and let your head turn with the watching. KEEP A SMALL DISTANCE BETWEEN THE HAND AND YOUR NOSE AND KEEP THIS DISTANCE FIXED. So when your hand goes up your nose comes forward and up, when you hand comes down your nose stays the same distance away.

Even more, use your back, as if you are “looking” at your hand with your whole spine.

Go slowly with this.

Have someone read the directions to you, or do it small, small piece at a time.

When your hand goes up, arch your back a little and push out your belly, as if your whole spine is lifting your nose.

When your hand goes down, fold and round your back a little, bringing in your belly, again as if your whole spine is bringing your nose down.

When your hand circles to the left, come to sit on the left side of your pelvis, and when your hand comes to the right, shift your weight that way.

Read these directions a few times and really get it, going back and forth between the hand circle and the head/ back/ spine/ pelvis circle.

Feel the pelvis’ rotation in all of this. This is huge to notice and will change your life forever if you do something like this every ten minutes when you are at a computer.

Come back to the middle and rest.

Rest deeply as per all the above suggestions.

Come back to the first position, with the back of your right hand on your left check. Again turn halfway to the left, and this time make the head/ hand/ back/ pelvis circle in the opposite direction, but this time with the hand touching the face.

Feel the circle your elbow is making as well as the circle your nose is making as well as all the shifting in your vertebrae and your pelvis.

Slow down.

Really enjoy this. There is tons to learn and love and like and discover and enjoy.

Feast on it all.

Rest, again, fully and deeply, with pleasure, presence and learning.

Then simply turn left and right and notice whatever learning and ease has come to this simple human action.

And then get up and walk around with whatever new feelings and sensations are in you.

(the book is for sale as pdf,

see link at top of the page)

this is chapter 25


In case you want the book
without looking at the table of contents that
this link will get you to,
here's the pay pal
thing:

108 Paths to Awakening

4 Brain Transformation

Monday's posting at my new special needs children blog

Even on the road
and out in CA
being support staff for Anat's amazing new training
I'm getting out my blogs

On Mondays
it's now my new special needs children blog

Tidbits from Anat's first day,
not counting the movement lessons and
the hands on the spine demo:

One:
Moshe Feldenkrais invented his system
when his cruciate (? spelling) ligaments
on one knees were worthless.

What did he do:
thought through
and then set out to discover
how human beings could walk ,  stand and move
if they all didn't have cruciate ligaments.

This about how our work can use
brain plasticity
and learning
and awareness to have suberb
function even though
"Something is wrong"

Two: In the middle of the first movement lesson,
which she calls TMLs
Transformative Movement Lessons,
which can sound pretentious until you experience
how one is taught
she was coaxing and or demanding people slow down
and she told the story
of a young boy
who come to her very limited
and by six
was amazing and could speak 2 and a half languages
and did better work in school
that all the other kids,
except he was slow

So his teacher,
wants him to speed up
and work as fast as the other kids,
whose work isn't as good

Anat, via the parent back to the teacher
suggests:
teach the other kids to slow down,
so they too can do excellent work

okay,
wednesday
I'll have an invented lesson for you all

ciao
chris

And a little p.s. in here:
Anat's book, though simplified a bit,
gives a grand overview of how lifelong learning
takes place
in a 90 year old
in a world class athlete or musician
and in a special needs child.

Here is is:'

Move Into Life

Lying on our side, learning the spine by moving our knee

Learning about the pelvis and spine

Lie on whichever side is most comfortable to you. Put a small pillow or rolled up blanket or sweater under your head to keep your neck comfortable. Put your knees on top of each other and bend them, as if you were sitting, more or less. So your thighs are out from your body, and then your knees bend and your lower legs are more or less parallel to the top part of you.

Begin to play with moving the top hip forward, and the top knee forward. “Forward” in all movement lessons means the way your torso is facing. Lying on your back, forward is toward the ceiling or sky. Lying on your belly forward is into the floor or ground. Or your side, it is the way your face and chest are pointed.

So, begin to take your top knee and hip forward, so the top knee goes ahead of the other knee as if it were going to look over a ledge. Do this a bring it back.

Now, here’s the fun, here’s the learning. Learning is noticing differences that make a difference.

Roll your hip as you bring your knee forward, so that you feel as if you hip and pelvis are simply swiveling to make this happen. Do this five or six times. And then rest.

Now bring your knee not only forward, but somewhat down, as if pointing to a place in front of your feet. As you do this push out your belly and arch your back a little bit. This can feel quite wonderful. Do this and return to the start position a number of times.

And then rest.

Now bring your knee forward and a bit up, as if pointing to a place in front of your chest. As you do this, pull your belly in a little bit and round your back as if your were going to curl into a ball. And then come back to the beginning position. Do this a number of times. Then rest. Now, do these three different ways one after another.

Throughout the day notice your pelvis and spine.

Neurological Upgrading Lessons

Chris Elms doing this for the first time in his life, at 63:
Feel younger, more at ease, happier in your body.

Whole Brain
Whole Self
Lessons:

to come to the
NEXT LEVEL
of moving,
thinking,
feeling,
living.

In these lessons, you either sit or lie down,
fully clothed,
on a firm and comfortable
table, chair, or bench.


You are guided
to being present
with yourself
and your breathing
and your awareness.



From that being present,
in easy and gentle increments,
you are guided,
by touch
and word,
to new and better feeling
possibilities
of using yourself
and being in your body.


These lessons
to beginners
appear to be "body work."

"BODY WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
back ease
neck ease
shoulder ease
grace and joy in movement
moving as if 20 years younger
ability to "work out" without the usual masochistic nonsense
discovery of whole new movement, dance and voice possibilities
discovery of the miracle of having a "body"



"BRAIN WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
new ideas
trying new things in life
sudden creative urges
letting go of old, boring patterns
rekindling love of learning



"HEART WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
the giggles
a sense of fun
a sense of mischief
a sense of humor
a sense of delight
loving other people
and yourself
more

These touch guided "lessons"

(a far gentler touch
than you may have ever
experienced)



30-40 minute lessons.
You lie or sit comfortably and fully clothed
on a low and firm table.
You are moved and very slow, very gentle, very
brain awakening ways.



Best taken in sets of
5-10 lessons in one week
(10 for children is amazing)
for two weeks and then taking some time
off,
feeling the amazing changes,
and then setting up an ongoing schedule
of 1-3 lesson per week for several weeks on
and several off.


The more you bring one lesson
close to the next
the more the reprogramming of your brain
and action
"stick"
as a new set of habits and options
and
ways of being in the world.







contribute to

• increasing everyday joy,
• decreasing depression and anxiety,
and can
• radically improve thinking
  and problem solving abilities
• Sports can get better
• Sports coaches can radically improve their capabilities
• High performers
  can improve their already fine level of skill
• Musicians can learn to tune their bodies
  and their instruments at the same time
• Carpal tunnel and the aches of sitting around too much,
  or repetitive work can transform
• Actors and executives can be more in touch
  with an inner clarity
  and vitality
• Cerebral palsy
  and
  autism
  can undergo amazing transformation
• ordinary aches and pains can be undone
and your
• whole life
set out on a course of
• improvement,
• joy
and
• learning

If that's not enough
for you
check out the list at
BENEFITS OF THE Anat Baniel Method

---

To come to skill and understanding
in these lessons,
I studied 5years
in the Feldenkrais Method,
with 1000 hours of training.


The next level up from the Feldenkrais work
is the work of Anat Baniel,
who has kept the magic, and rigor and discovery
alive and thriving in this amazing
system of learning, change,
development and transformation.

I am certified as an Anat Baniel Method
Practitioner,
have completed
200 days over four years
(21 of the nine day segments of the Anat Baniel Method

including
Advanced Training in the Anat Baniel System:

Special Needs Children: 31 days the first time around, and then redoing this training, for 4 nine day segments, for another 36 days

Vitality and Anti-Aging: 18 days, plus redoing the first nine day segment once again

High Performers and Peak Learning: 9 days