what Moshe Feldenkrais called parasitic tension — unwanted and unnecessary muscle contractions in many other areas (e.g. the shoulders, neck, or jaw). We could make similar observations about other activities we do all day long such as reaching, breathing, walking, sitting or standing. Excess tension in these activities is unlikely to cause any dis

Fortunately, because the different body parts work as a team, you can change the way a painful area moves and feels by moving a non-painful area. For example, if your shoulder hurts, it is probably best not to start with a lesson about shoulder circles.

skill development is characterized not by adding new muscle contractions, but taking away the unnecessary ones. In the context of everyday emotional life, inhibition allows you to make measured responses to stressful events. When a car cuts you off in traffic, there is a flash of excitement in the muscles and heart rate, but the spread of excitemen

Another common observation is that the hips tend toward stiffness into flexion, extension and rotation, which invites compensatory excess movement in the low back, knees or, subtalar joints. For example, in a forward bend movement, if the hips are too stiff, the low back moves into too much flexion to compensate. This is why so many different movem

Posture is really just another form of movement — it takes skilled and coordinated work of the muscles and proper positioning and alignment of the joints. Further, posture always involves some small degree of movement — breathing, oscillations around a center point, turning the head from side to side, etc. Because the quality of posture is determin

A broad area of contact distributes the load and prevents excessive stress in a small area. A narrow area of contact, for example a valgus (knock-knee) position, will tend to stress the lateral part of the bones and the medial ligaments. Small differences in joint angle can have large mechanical effects.

Stabilizing the nonmoving parts reduces the variables the brain has to deal with in predicting the consequences of muscle contractions.

The interesting thing about this exercise is the transitional movements produced by the mere intention to reach or get a view of something are often smoother, more integrated, and more coordinated than the same movements would be if we intended to perform them on purpose. This highlights the fact that babies do not learn movement by trying to learn

While in quadruped, looking up, down, right and left will mobilize the entire spine and pelvis into coordinated global patterns of flexion, extension, side flexion and rotation. In quadruped, reaching a hand forward to grab an object will encourage a transition into crawling.