Someday I'll fly
Someday I'll soar
Someday I'll be
Something much more
Cause I'm bigger than my body
Gives me credit for
“Bigger than My Body”
John Mayer
There are times when everyone thinks of their body’s limitations. It may be an injury, being too small/big or just not good enough for what you want to do. If you moved into a new improved body, your problems would be solved. What if our bodies were not the problem? What if it was something else?
In the beginning of the San Francisco Feldenkrais Training in 1975, Moshe Feldenkrais spoke of our real dilemma: the way we think of and use our bodies. Remember when you first started using a computer. It took a long time to do just a few simple tasks like email or surfing the internet. You could upgrade to the best computer money could buy and there would be little to no improvement. Why? The limitation was not the computer (you were just using a tiny fraction of the computer’s potential); it was your ability to use the computer.
“We act according to the image of our own body, the image that we make ourselves. But the image of our own body, I contend, is a small portion of our real body. Your real body image, is superior to your body image you are using, or we are using. The body image we are using is inferior, is a small part of the real body as it is now, sitting here.”
Moshe Feldenkrais, June 16, 1975
Feldenkrais thought most people used less than ten percent of their potential. He spoke of the self-image, the way we currently think and act and the real self-image, using ourselves to our greatest potential. The real self-image, like the computer example, is capable of much more than we presently know and understand. How does one find and cultivate their own self-image to its real potential? Feldenkrais spent his whole life working on the answer.
The Feldenkrais Method is a process of using the awareness of how we move to enrich and enhance our self-image. Each lesson is an opportunity to learn something new about our thinking, sensing, feeling and movement. These are the ingredients for nourishing and improving self-image. After a lesson, I often feel taller and sense lightness of being. I also notice a change in my thinking. I am more focused on solutions and actions than problems or difficulties. The improvements of self-image result in much more than just better moveme
Today I fly
Today I soar
Today I create something more
As I move along the floor
Discovering along the way
My best self for today
“Bigger than My Self-Image”
Me