Page 211 - Total War on PTSD_FINAL

intention or need the student has. The practitioner’s goal is to create an environment for learning comfortably.
Strategies That Make the Feldenkrais Method Work
For many Veterans, the concepts and principles of the Feldenkrais Method may seem foreign especially because they run counter to long-held beliefs about physical fitness. For others, there are familiar aspects. Engineers, physicists and mechanics may see scientific principles enacted through the body. Dr. Feldenkrais trained first as an engineer, then earned his doctorate in Physics from the Sorbonne in Paris. Veterans familiar with Judo and other martial practices may see martial arts roots in his work. Dr. Feldenkrais was one of Europe's first black belts in Judo and, at the request of Judo’s creator Jigaro Kano, he introduced Judo to France during the 1930s.
We focus on the skeleton rather than the muscles. Many people with some familiarity of the Feldenkrais Method believe that it is solely about flexibility. It is not. We look principally at how a person organizes their skeleton, which provides both stability and flexibility. Most people don’t trust their skeleton to support them, because they don’t know how to let their bones do their work. When your skeleton works efficiently your muscles don't have to overwork to hold you up, no single part does more than its fair share of the work and force transmits throughout the skeleton without torsion, shear, or compression, causing less wear and tear on the body.
Movement should be performed as slowly as possible. The human nervous system, which controls our posture and movement, learns new things slowly. When we do movements quickly, we are not learning anything new — we are simply reinforcing
211 of 837