Losing your balance in order to find it

When she was 10 months old, Annabelle slipped in the bathtub.  I caught her and, since she was unhurt but a bit scared, said lightly, "Oh no!  Did you fall down?" She laughed, and decided to reenact the fall.  She tipped over on purpose and it was much more fun.  This became a game for the next few weeks, migrating out of the tub onto our bed.  She'd wake up in the morning, sit up, raise her hands overhead, and open her mouth in mock alarm.  "Oh no!" we'd cry, and she would fall into our arms.  Some falls were really just token falls, where she just leaned over quickly and patted the bed with her hands.  Others were melodramatic--head tipped backward, hands thrown in the air, eyes closed, she would collapse onto a pillow.  We started encouraging her to play the falling game whenever friends came over because it was so cute.

But, as with everything in childhood, play-falling faded away too quickly.  Annabelle stopped instigating it.  A week or two later, we were playing on our living room rug and I tried to get the game going again.  "Are you going to fall?"  She smiled, stood, put her hands in the air, and got ready to fall.  But she failed to fall for a long time--she took about 5 steps trying to lose her balance.

I should mention that Annabelle hadn't yet figured out how to walk at this time. And what better way to learn to walk than to try to fall down?  There's no stress, no ambition, no failure involved--it's just an accident.  The whole thing was a game, not a studied effort.

Walking came about a month later, after surfacing and subsiding a few times.  She played around with the idea for a while and then one day decided it was a useful way to get around, and walked.   We could use more of this kind of learning in our lives.

By the way, there's a great Feldenkrais lesson (posted here) which uses this idea--playing around with taking yourself out of balance in order to find your balance.

Where to begin?

I just received an email from a young woman from Greece who is studying the flute. Her question:

"The thing is that I have tried so much to find a good balance, body posture and breathing that I am really confused at the moment and all the flute teachers tell me about it. It is about time for things to change! Could you please suggest to me a method and/or a place to begin?"

My response: Everyone has an opinion about posture! I'm sure you hear many confusing and contradictory things. What I like about the Feldenkrais Method is that there are no rules about posture, and there is no one good position. Feldenkrais sees posture as a point of equilibrium and uses going in and out of balance to find the place of balance, which can be different every day. My favorite flute teacher, Liisa Ruoho at the Sibelius Academy in Finland, says "You have to lose your balance in order to find it."

It's important to find your own balance and comfort from the inside, exploring different movements until you find what suits you. Everyone has a different shape and a different history and different habits, so one teacher's solution may not work for you. Also teachers tend to simplify and turn advice into rules. For me following rules takes me out of myself and causes more tension.

I recently taught the Feldenkrais lesson called "What Is Good Posture?" and recorded it. I'll post it now on my blog so you can do it if you'd like. It's also published in a book by Feldenkrais called Awareness through Movement. This book has 12 sample lessons which are a good introduction to Feldenkrais. There's another good one concerning breathing, which I have posted here.

Disclaimer: this is a recording of a live lesson, unscripted, and responding to the people who attended the class. It is not a substitute for a live class, where the teacher can observe your movements and respond to your pacing. But it's a good introduction to the method.