Cynthia Allen, Feldenkrais and Bones for Life Teacher

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Got to love this. A Good Morning America reporter showed up for High Heel Boot Camp at the Feldenkrais Institute in New York City and then by golly she got Feldenkrais on the show.

While high heels are not “high” on my list of healthy daily walking apparel, a somatic approach can do wonders for walking with balance and health even in stilettos.

Bones for Life^® is chalked full of movement processes such a Roman Sandals and the Water Carrier’s Walk series that gradually train the rebalancing of weight between the toes and the heels. This is good for anyone, but also for someone going out on the town at night in spiky, red shoes.

Using Feldenkrais^® Awareness Through Movement^® there are great possibilities in freeing the hip joints, low back and neck as well as learning to balance without extending or flexing in any of these areas inappropriately.

In our Integral Human Gait™ program, we use variations on tandem walking to train the counter rotation of the torso. We also have some easy-to-learn Functional Somatic Mobilization exercises that can be used daily to counter act the shortening of the calf muscle and hamstrings.  Remember that the reporter said the worst moment of the day for her was when she got out of bed in the morning and tried to put her feet on the floor?  Wearing high heels day-in and day-out actually changes muscle length.

If you are a young woman reading this, start looking at older women’s feet. You will find many life-long high heel wearers have foot deformation, and it isn’t pretty either in looks or how it feels. 

Ask and you will often find they have a lot of complaints about their feet hurting all the time. Some will have a diagnosis, others not. But how we walk and the footwear we use does make a difference. The best time to change a pattern is always going to be when one is younger. Consider learning to walk in high heels effectively. Vary your foot wear daily–including going barefoot at least around the house. Too much of anything has consequences. We did not come out of the garden in shoes and this was not because the creator forgot them.

If you are already at the point of regular pain (for some people their pain is more noticeable in the low back and neck), there is still hope!! 

• Start playing around with your footwear. 
• Stimulate your bare feet by standing on different textures and uneven surfaces: something squishy, something pebblely, or even rough. Your foot was made to adjust to uneven and even unfriendly terrain. Restoration of this adjustment capacity can reawaken not only the tissues and bones of the foot but the entire body.
• Schedule an appointment with a practitioner such as myself.  In a short amount of time, you can learn some items you can use at home.
• Attend Awareness Through Movement^® or Bones for Life^® classes.

If you start a home-based program without assistance from a somatic movement expert, the most important thing is to go very slowly. For example, if you always wear shoes, even around the house, don’t immediately start going without shoes an hour at a time. Work into it gradually to avoid setting off other problems

Another example would be if you get out of bed in the morning and your heels can’t reach the ground. Start moving in bed before you hop out.  Make small movements of toe pointing and then heel pointing–nothing strenuous, just a little hello. Then circle each foot a couple of times under the covers. When you rise from the bed, stand first with your heels on a towel folded a couple of times. Then gradually remove the padding.  All this will only take 5 minutes and give your muscles the time  needed to make a less injury prone change.

I hope you will enjoy exploring the option of wearing heels when you want but also to hike and bike and sit around without shoes and think how pretty your feet are even when you are 80.

In this time of year where we are reborn through the innocence of the Christ child, the end of one year and the birth of another, and the discovery that through a miracle there is still more oil to light our lamps, we each have the chance rediscover or perhaps to confirm our unique presence in the world.

Famous dance and choreographer Martha Graham told a struggling Agnes De Mille.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all Time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.

“The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine: how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions.

“It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.

“Keep the channel open … no artist is pleased…there is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

While Graham’s inspiration was directed towards DeMille as an artist, I posit that to live life is an art. A life of meaning is not lived for the viewing pleasure of others but lived from within. Lived from this place, others are touched, challenged and encouraged by your exploration of purpose and instinctual composition.

For me,  today, I am taking away this particular pearl from the above.

“You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you.”

Martha-the Life and Work of Martha Graham by Agness De Mille

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With the longest running ever presidential campaign, it is easy to lapse into a place of disinterest even amidst the historic nature. Some people are so very tired of it. Others indicate they don’t plan to vote at all. To that end, in these last few days before the presidential election, perhaps you can catch some passion from me.

I believe this is one of those rare transformational moments where a nation (or an individual) can choose to be passive or actively leap. Leap where? UP! Such leaps require going for it, despite fear or malaise.

To leap, first we choose to vote.
To leap, we choose to become real about what a President can and can’t do.
To leap, we choose to examine the contrasts between candidates
To leap, we choose to overcome our disbelief and ask “What if? What if….my choice can make a difference?” Continue reading ‘Can What If lead to Big Bang?’

This week I bought and planted a blue hydrangea.  Not so funny you think, but to me it is downright hilarious. I am entranced and entertained by those changes that happen in me that I cannot predict and come out of the blue (see in this context even that is funny).

Until five years ago, I totally did not like blue hydrangeas. As a kid, I found the Mother’s Day displays to be some bizarre abhorrence of nature.  I did not, I did not, I did not like BLUE hydrangeas!  WHO WOULD BUY such a thing. True my rather creative but less than particular Grandma Bessie might enjoy such a color but RE-ally.

How did I develop such an early clarity of anti-blue hydrangea sentiment? Continue reading ‘Self Entertainment’

Is the impossible,
possible for you or me in 2008?

What if it is?  Perhaps not by some fairytale version of magic wands (although I do enjoy those myths and find them a very important part of health and healing). Instead, what if this change is brewed through a recipe of time, play, persistence, faith…doing small things differently and non-attachment?

Recently, I expanded my own idea of personal possibilities by finding (once again) capacities on the physical level I had never before considered. The changes started with a small inner smile, a kind of optimistic hunger to try something previously unconsidered, and from there have slowly expanded.

Of course, my primary influence in such expansions is the Feldenkrais Method®, which at this point is reliably embedded into my life. At times, my own development takes big jumps–seemingly out of nowhere–but is the result of that magic brew: time + play + persistence + faith + doing small things differently + nonattachment 
 
The sheer joy of feeling the impossible become possible in small incremental steps Continue reading ‘Impossible, possible?’

Perhaps you have heard about the recent publication of Mother Theresa’s letters to her spiritual advisors. In these letters written over many years she chronicles her spiritual challenges.

Her struggle is poignant as she pours out how isolated she feels from God. Yet we know she continued to do the work she felt God called her to do as a young woman.

As I read the press version of these letters (I have not yet picked up the book), I remember the times in my own life when I have felt such despair. I reasonate with the challenge of serving others–still bringing forward the possibilities for them–while undergoing immense personal struggle. It is the nature of being human to have such times.

My internal wandering also brings two clients to mind. While people typically come to see me for reasons of a “physical” nature, it is natural that some clients spontaneously share other aspects of their lives. We all need someone we trust to hear our deeper experiences.

I recall Marilyn, a grandmother in her 80’s, who lost her husband several years ago. She shared how she misses him more now than when he died. She asked me with a kind of hopeful hopelessness if the pain in her body will ever get better. She wonders if her grief will subside.

My heart was most touched when Marilyn said, “I must not trust God very much. Every morning I pray and every morning I cry. Why would I cry if I trusted?”

Who among us hasn’t had these times of despair in our lives when Continue reading ‘Faith, Prayer, Tears, and Moistness’

You have probably heard that your body is in a continual life/death cycle. Within a 7-year time frame, every atom in the body will be replaced. This is spread out over time and happens without our being aware of any change at all.

Posture and movement are intimately linked to this remodeling. Research continues to confirm that posture affects blood pressure and even our heart rate. Additionally, the way we move makes a difference in the way the body recreates itself.

One way movement impacts us is in bone remodeling. Stress on the bone Continue reading ‘How Movement Affects the Body’

If you are someone who has experience both of these works, I would love to hear from you.  How would you describe each of them? What were the benefits? How are they different? How are they the same?

Or whatever you would like to share.  Just hit the comment button and type away!

I am also posting this press release about the two works.

Among Feldenkrais Practitioners, Rolfing is actually not discussed all that much. It is curious since Moshe Feldenkrais and Ida Rolf were friends, colleagues and pioneers in the field of human potential with the body as a primary vehicle.

Perhaps the lack of interest for many Feldenkrais Practitioners has to do with a principle of Dr. Feldenkrais’ that learning through pain was counterproductive. And in the original format at least, Rolfing was Continue reading ‘Feldenkrais and Rolfing’