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Happy summer! I hope you are enjoying this time. My life has slowed this summer. I am in town, seeing friends, teaching, attending meetings for various projects in my community, gardening (a little), going on field trips with both my grandkids and our local senior center. |
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One of the most fun activities that I go to is my twice a week Zumba class. Zumba with this crew- what a hoot! A real plus is that we know the music. There are 30 or more seniors, all levels of abilities, jumping, twisting, waving. This week, in honor of the 2024 Olympics, we did the Can-Can. Our leader Gee is a fun-loving, innovative teacher. Yesterday our dancing was to Olympic theme, the Rocky Theme and Eye of the Tiger. We were just having a great, patriotic time. |
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I am out there, still dancing with my peeps. I am grateful to have the mix of my years of exercising, living Feldenkrais, and my genetics. Fitness & health. Health & fitness. Are they the same thing? Generally, the two are thought to be one. However, does one always lead to the other? I think not. Being able to lift weights, run, jump, or swim, does not actually guarantee health. Any exercise combined with moving without awareness of how we’re moving or where our body is in space can lead to injury, overuse syndromes such as arthritis or plantar fasciitis, and just plain old back pain, knee pain, and other pain. My favorite definition of health is: a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. I love this definition. Fitness is certainly a component of health. But, I could tell you many stories about people I’ve seen in my 47 years of practice that are traditionally fit but not healthy. Why? Because exercising – even to fun music – simply reinforces our years of habitual patterns of movement. The more we move and exercise without awareness, the deeper our habitual patterns of movement become. And it’s those habitual, unexamined movement patterns that create much of the pain, injury, and overuse syndromes in our lives. The movements that we do in the Feldenkrais Method enable us to learn how we can move in a way that works for us. This process of learning is crucial to health and well-being. Then we can dive into our exercises to find that not only strength but also comfort, ease, and grace will be available to us. My moto for this summer: keep moving and keep learning. Our ability to learn is a blessing. We learned to move many years ago. Now is the time to continue our learning and refine our movements. This is what Awareness Through Movement® lessons bring to our lives. |
Take a few minutes and ponder this. Look at your exercise and movement routines. Assess what is working for you. Are you just going through the motions without awareness of how you are moving? Or are your exercise programs really taking you to a new level of health? Feel free to contact me with questions or to get more information. I always love to hear from you. Stay healthy, Beth |
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