I was working with a client who had pretty limited movement. Her movement had been increasing through our work together but we could still only work in one position in a small range of motion. I thought, “What would help with this? How could we make some progress here?” And I thought, “You know, Feldenkrais, could really help this woman. What else would be good to do in such a small quiet way?”
And I cracked myself up because that’s exactly what we were doing. I was her Feldenkrais practitioner. I was in the process of giving her an FI. The thing that would help was the very thing I was doing. But I somehow forgot. Or perhaps I just thought, “You know – this FI would be a lot easier if someone could increase her mobility here for me. Then I could really DO this lesson I have in mind.”
And of course, no one can do that for me. That is my job. And my IDEA about what I was trying to achieve clearly needed abandoning. Instead I needed to quiet my own noisy nervous nervous system. I needed to let go of trying to achieve something outside of really paying attention to my client.
I wasn’t wrong. Feldenkrais could really help with the Feldenkrais lesson. And once I remembered what I was doing – it did. She felt lighter than she’d ever felt before. Nothing does the job of Feldenkrais better than Feldenkrais.