NOTE: This was originally published as part of my newsletter in May 2024. Subscribe to my newsletter to receive the next Om Letter direct to your inbox once a month.

Time can feel so strange - it somehow moves fast and slow at the same time. Although this past winter felt long and unrelenting, Spring is flying by and Summer picnics in the park feel palpable.

For me, another week of Feldenkrais teacher training has arrived. In terms of movement practice this means being told to ‘sense more’ and ‘effort less’ on loop. Usually, when this goes on for two lessons a day, for more than a week without interruption, I eventually hit a point of rebellion.

This week however, as I sat down to write to you, I was struck by an overlap between Patañjali’s Yoga Sutra’s and the methodology of somatic movement that I had failed to notice before.

Patañjali’s yogic path might be described as traversing a series of perceptual thresholds. Here, the trajectory of yoga takes us backwards and inwards through ourselves towards a state of non-doing as the most direct way for body and mind to unlearn what they think they know. This resets the course of our life towards a state of pure awareness.

Asana, the third limb of yoga (which we’ve been interpreting in class over the past week) asks us first to relax even the most subtle bodily effort, as effort promotes instability. Each pose then represents a window onto the ways in which our bodies have been conditioned by their environment. A body that shapes itself to grow and move to ‘fit in’ creates a mind that does much the same. Simply put, asana asks us to do less so that we might be more.

Most of our active movements are learned behaviours that are communicated along well-worn neuromuscular routes within the body. They’ve adapted to grasp at anything we find pleasant and push away what is unpleasant. Stillness on the other hand, is a reflection of our growing openness to the unpredictable unfolding of the world as it is.

We might begin to catch ourselves earlier in the process of tightening - vicelike - around difficulty, disagreement, or frustration. As we relax into these uncomfortable experiences, we embody the intention to know each moment more clearly and openly. Loosening the valves allows things to resolve without interference and creates room for wisdom to enter.

So as effort gives way to effortlessness, we liberate ourselves from the constant need to bend things to our liking; to make them conform to our conditioned notions of good and bad.

This, in turn, allows us to see the relationship between the body and our consciousness more clearly and invites a unique sense of freedom: the freedom to act, as well as the freedom not to have to. Moshe, who originated the Feldenkrais Method, calls this our most ‘potent’ Self.

If you’d like to dive deeper into the practice of undoing and non-doing then join myself and Mali Bowers for a long weekend retreat this November in a spectacular setting - think former medieval monastery perched on a Cornish peninsula (details below). Or, if you can spare an hour of your time next week, come to one of the open clinics hosted by my teacher training cohort to receive a free one-to-one Feldenkrais lesson (details also below). Otherwise I hope to see you back on the yoga mat at the end of next week when I return to shake off a week of Feldenkrais in your joyful presence.

With love,

OM x

Images from Wake Up to Yoga by Lyn Marshall (1975)

Monthly Mantra

“It takes a special kind of effort to achieve effortlessness”

Chip Hartranft

May Playlist

Dance your way into the Summer sunshine with this playful mixtape

Listen here

Featured Flow

Watch Here

May 2024 | Anchor

Monthly Mantra

“It takes a special kind of effort to achieve effortlessness”

May Playlist

Featured Flow

April 2024 | Yield