Issue #16

Hear me out and be healed

If in the past ten years you crossed paths with me and mentioned a backache, shoulder pain, or neck issue, chances are I tried to convince you to try Feldenkrais; chances are even better that you listened about as well as you’d listen to a Jehovah Witness who’s cornered you in an elevator.

This right here is another closed elevator, and I am a proselytizer. Unless you scroll down quickly, you are my captive audience for the next few minutes. Let us discuss the miracles of Feldenkrais.

First I’ll tell you what Feldenkrais is. It’s um, well, er uh—it’s like, you lie on the floor and you go through some weird movements and then you stand up and you feel better—I see the elevator doors opening, I sense you ready to bolt down the hall—

The difficulty of describing it reminds me of a time years ago when my husband, our friend Paul and I watched 2001 Space Odyssey for the first time. Emerging from the movie theater, blinking in the light, dazed and confused, we asked each other, “Did you understand it?” “Yeah,” said Paul. “But I can’t explain it to you.”

That’s how I feel about Feldenkrais. I understand it but I can’t explain it. You just have to do it.

Maybe it’s easier to start with what Feldenkrais isn’t. It’s not exercise. It’s not a workout. It’s not competitive. It’s not meditation or hypnosis. It’s not yoga or tai chi. It’s not a cult either, although we aficionados may act like we’re in one.

Feldenkrais is a somatic education. You learn through awareness of your body, awareness of your breathing, of your contact with the floor and of how you move through space. Feldenkrais students learn ease and efficiency of movement, which can help with pain and injury.

—Wait, don’t run away! Take this pamphlet! Just give me a minute more—

It’s based on principles of physics, body mechanics, how babies learn to move and neuroplasticity. Here’s what an instructor said on a lesson I listened to online:

“With neuroplasticity, when neurons fire together they wire together. So there is an ability of the brain to reorganize itself, for movement to reorganize itself. Even after months, years, we can recover function . . . There is real hope even if we’re in a disorganized state and have various movement problems.”

Have I chased you out of the building yet?

What I love about Feldenkrais is how counter-cultural it is. It’s a complete break from daily living in this fast-paced, goal-driven world. You move slow. You do less, not more. Sometimes you only think about a movement without actually doing it. It’s playful, experimental. You are asked to soften, to rest. The only requirement is to be curious about how different parts of your musculoskeletal system coordinate or don’t coordinate.

I discovered Feldenkrais when I had the worst back blowout of my life. Along with Pilates, it healed me. Pre-pandemic, I went to class weekly, down in my teacher’s basement where I got on my back, cheek by jowl with a motley assortment of other students, old and young, professional musicians and people recovering from terrible accidents, and followed the instructor’s directions. At the end of the hour we stood up and felt lighter, freer, interested.

If you’re lucky enough to have an in-person Feldenkrais class in your area, I urge you to try it. It’s so gentle, you can’t hurt yourself, and if nothing else, it will be the most relaxing hour of your week. But if you don’t have a Feldenkrais practitioner near you and you are Feldenkrais-curious, here are two free resources.

• Short lessons from Feldenkrais UK

• Longer lessons from Open ATM (Awareness Through Movement)

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Walk this way! No, walk this way

I am a student of ambulation. I’ve always loved analyzing and imitating how different people walk, or in Feldenkrais terminology “movement signatures.”

My own walk was a problem that contributed to my back issues—but I didn’t know that until I un-learned my movement signature in Feldenkrais.

Since grade school I’ve walked with my pelvis forward, tucked in, as I placed one foot directly in front of the other. Imagine a model walking the runway, and then tone it down for daily life. I walked that way not to be glamorous but because I was shy and during change of class I looked down at the tiled floor and made a game of keeping my feet straight on the crack.

At the end of a Feldenkrais session, as we walked around the room to notice any changes, my teacher would say, “Be proud of your butts!” She wanted us to stick them out. “Promenade like a rooster! Walk like a baby in a diaper! Let your belly hang forward!” Gradually I began to untuck without really trying to.

Okay, I’ve said my piece. You are free to leave.

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Agatha, Liz, Gene, and the foolish stranger

With measles in the news, a vague memory of a murder plot that revolved entirely around measles kept teasing me but I couldn’t pin it down. Then the other morning I woke up with an image in my head of Elizabeth Taylor in a purple dress and an unflattering flowered hat, a veritable bathing cap on steroids. I looked up Taylor’s filmography, and sure enough, I found the measles story. In 1980 Taylor starred in an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s novel The Mirror Crack’d. In the movie, Elizabeth Taylor is an American actress filming on location in Miss Marple’s little English village. The first murder happens at a meet-and-greet reception with the actors and the locals, and by the time the murderer is revealed, two more bodies pile up.

I had read the book as a teen and watched the movie as a young adult. The measles plot seemed so strange and sad, even among all of Agatha Christie’s other outlandish plots, that it stuck with me all these years.

But it turns out that Christie borrowed the story wholesale from real life. Minus the murders though.

—SPOILER ALERT—

Gene Tierney was a stunningly beautiful actress in the 40’s and 50’s. Her notable films include Laura, Heaven Can Wait, and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. (Funny coincidence: Tierney was offered Elizabeth Taylor’s role in National Velvet but didn’t take it because of a production delay.) Tierney, like many stars, entertained the troops during WWII at the Hollywood Canteen, a free night club for soldiers. In 1943, secretly pregnant with her first child, she made an appearance at the Canteen to sign autographs before she left for maternity leave. Within days Tierny came down with measles. Her baby was born blind, deaf and severely developmentally disabled. Doctors told Tierney that the baby’s condition was caused by the measles she contracted during pregnancy.

Two years later, a woman approached Tierney and asked if she remembered her. Tierney didn’t. Then the woman asked her if she ever got the measles. The stranger explained, cheerful and clueless, that back in ’43 she herself had the measles but was so excited to see Tierney that she broke quarantine and went to meet her at the Hollywood Canteen. Tierney said nothing and walked away.

Tierney’s daughter, named Daria, would eventually be institutionalized, and Tierney’s subsequent life was tragic. She suffered several mental breakdowns, was subjected to electric shock treatments that destroyed her memory, and attempted suicide.

[Not relevant but interesting if you like gossip: Tierney’s life intersected with many famous men—she had affairs with John F. Kennedy, Kirk Douglas and Prince Aga Kha. She was married to designer Oleg Cassini (father of Daria and later favorite of Jackie Kennedy). Hugh Hefner, a friend, paid for Daria’s treatment, and Humphrey Bogart supported Tierney during one of her mental health crises.]

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Ham and cheese

I can’t remember if The Mirror Crack’d is a good or cheesy movie but I’m going to re-watch it (on Prime) because the cast is amazing—Angela Lansbury as Miss Marple, Rock Hudson as the movie star’s husband, Elizabeth Taylor, Kim Novak, Geraldine Chaplin, Tony Curtis, and even Pierce Brosnan in a bit part. The other reason I want to re-watch it is to get a feel for Elizabeth Taylor. I’m of an age that I know Taylor mostly for jokes about her weight and many jewels and many husbands—but not for being a formidable actress. From this little bit, I see she’s a ham but a magnetic screen presence for sure.

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