16 october 2023
The overlapping of legs and breath
There is an overlapping of legs/breath and psoas/diaphragm between vertebrae T12 and L1, L2. If we consider the diaphragm and the psoas together we can begin to get a sense of the importance of their relationship. In normal, healthy, relaxed breathing, the diaphragm flexes down on this water balloon causing it to flex and bulge. With every breath, this bulging and reshaping acts as a kind of massage for the psoas. When our breathing is shallow, on the other hand, the diaphragm does not flex down fully in this beneficial manner. Then the abdominal muscles can remain clenched causing reducing the space and capacity for the diaphragm to flex downward, thus disabling a full breath. It also reduces blood flow to the region. Like a clenched fist in which the knuckle goes white, persistently contracted abdominal muscles push a healthy blood flow out of the abdominal region setting the stage for the iliopsoas to become ischemic.
The normal respiratory rate for an adult is 12 to 20 breaths per minute. That calculates to 720 to 1200 breaths per hour or 17,280 to 28,800 breaths in a 24 hour period.That’s an extraordinary opportunity for the action of breathing to be exerting a positive impact on the psoas.
06 november 2023
And we are crooked trees
50’50 when you come into the system with the idea you want to get something unstuck then you try to fix the thing. If you just ask the question about how the tree learns to be in its world, your focus shifts
52’50 how do we express those pushes and contortions, those pinches that we live within that we have to somehow move between? And we are crooked trees…
53’23 how do you fix the tree? Well that is the wrong question. A better one is how is the tree learning to be in its world, then you have another question, how am I gonna participate in that mutual learning? That’s another whole thing to how do I facilitate it, how do I manipulate it, how do I manage it? I don’t want to do any of those things. I want to give room to learn to be in its world in another way and learn with it. My learning and the trees learning are not separate
27 November 2023
Reaching without reaching
Paradoxes are important. Feldenkrais is about creating a new language. But how to do it? Using different words is good but sometimes it is also a huge simplification because it doesn’t bring the context. It would actually hide it. For example: we are used to the words like “reaching”, “achieving”, “accomplishing” in everyday life. These words can trigger sensations of anxiety and challenge of not being good enough. We could simply try of not using them and find other words suggesting movements without the implied emotions. This is a good way to go, but not the only one. Exploring the limit of language is important and highlighting the cultural context where that word is rooted. This is another important way of making awareness.
22 January 2024
Skier imagining the ski run
29 january 2024
“I’m allowed, I don’t do…” – Ido Portal
Interview Dr. Andrew Huberman – Ido Portal
24′ Ido Portal mentioning Feldenkrais and his uniqueness in talking about, nervous system and environment
1h30’45 “I’m allowed. I don’t do…free will. I am allowed to do. I dance within that dance but I’m not the only dancer. That’s my sensation” Ido Portal
1:32:32 “You said you are allowed. In the principles of neuroscience, we talk about instructiveness versus permissiveness. There are instructions but the brain doesn’t work like that. The action is already generated… and the gate is opened. We are always in an anticipatory mode of movement” Dr. Andrew Huberman.
05 February 2024
Spinal waves
Interview Dr. Andrew Huberman – Ido Portal
1h about spinal waves
1h08 Huberman talking about the neuroscience of spinal waves. About fish and side to side movements
1h02 “to win the game sometimes is game over” – Ido Portal
1h04 small frame and big frame. From martial art the importance of small movements in the spine.
Ido Portal Teaches Dr. Andrew Huberman the Fundamentals of Movement
19 February 2024
Who moves?
Almost all fish swim with a side-to-side motion. This obviously involves the contraction of the two lateral ‘contractile fields’ in succession.3 Perhaps the original creator for this movement (and thus the deepest expression of the Lateral Line) is found in the tiny intertransversarii muscles that run from transverse process to transverse process in the spine. When one side contracts, it stretches the corresponding muscle on the other side (Fig. 5.20). The spinal stretch reflex, an ancient spinal cord movement mediator, causes the stretched muscle to contract, thus stretching the first muscle on the opposite side, which contracts in its turn, and so on. In this way, a coordinated swimming movement (in other words, coordinated waves running down the lateral musculature) can occur with minimal involvement by the brain.
A lamprey eel, a modern equivalent to ancient fish, can be decerebrated, and when it is placed in flowing water, it will still swim upstream in a blind, slow, but coordinated fashion, working only through spinal mechanisms – the stimulation from the vibratory sensors on the lateral skin linking to its stretch reflex.
Myers T., Anatomy trains, pag 86
04 March 2024
Between sleep and awake
The important thing in this lesson is to imagine and pretend that the movement is done by someone else who is pulling or pushing. The movement is very subtle and for a while it might be difficult and incomprehensible. The repetition of this same movement for many times might take into a state between sleep and awake, a sort of dreaming state like the one mentioned by Leonard Bernstein. If one accepts to dwell in that state, the movement might emerge by itself like it is done without conscious control.