Dotti Harness-Foster, a Feldenkrais© practitioner in Homer, offers free online instruction.
"Move today and you'll love moving tomorrow." - Ruthy Alon, Feldenkrais Method© Practitioner and movement trainer.
We have endless options to move, to go place to place, up and down, side to side, but can you feel the pleasure, the efficiency in your movement? As children we're curious. Reaching for a toy, we roll over for our first time, we crawl to fetch, walk to explore a new place. Yet, as the years go by, many folks find it challenging to get enough exercise.
Health benefits of movement
This spring, stay healthy by learning how to move with ease and comfort. By moving, you're strengthening your muscles, improving your coordination, flexibility and balance. Just by making simple movements you're constantly changing because you're moving.
Feldenkrais Method® lessons guide us to mobilize our spine, to use our bodies more fully, which increases performance and reduces repetitive stress injuries.
The health benefits are truly motivating with respect to preventing disease. By embracing movement, you reduce pain, you'll have fewer doctor visits, higher quality of daily living, sounder sleep, and the need for less medication. In a nutshell, the better we move, the better our health, we have greater independence and life is more pleasurable.
So, what is movement? That moment when you change your position, even your posture, your brain sends a signal via your nervous system, which travels along your spinal cord, engages your nerves, which triggers muscle movement. But it is a conscious move of a body part that maybe also "invites" other parts to participate in the movement, making it easier or, at least, different.
Motivating even in COVID-19 times.
I haven't met a soul who couldn't benefit from moving more efficiently and with greater ease. Necessity gets us going, while curiosity keeps us going. Curiosity is a key ingredient in the Feldenkrais Method©, which lends itself well to group, online lessons where I verbally guide you through a sequence of gentle movements.
"Body Moves" is an online class, at no cost to you, and is accessible from the comfort of your home, thanks to the Homer Council on the Arts (HCOA) and the American Parkinson's Disease Association (APDA). Each 40- to 50-minute lesson starts in the sitting position, adding layers to the movements. You only need to move within your range of comfort. Along the journey, I'll share my passion for anatomy, which in turn gives you better insight to how you can learn to move in your range of ease and comfort.
After a lesson, people often report pain relief, increased energy, that their brain is "awake" and they have more swagger in their gait. You are in charge so take a chance, try something new, and discover how easy and pleasurable movement can be.
Classes are Wednesday and Saturday at 9:30 a.m. Alaska Time. Drop in for one or two lessons, or the entire series.
Register at http://www.homerart.org/body-moves.
Dotti Harness-Foster, M.Ed., GCFP is a Feldenkrais Method© Practitioner and instructor at Insightful Body Moves in Homer.
