How a sore back led me to Feldenkrais: my story and what the Feldenkrais Method taught me

Hello, and welcome. I'm Chava Sorani.

I'm a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, and I'm the founder of Feldy, an online Feldenkrais program.

This podcast is called At Home in Yourself. It's a place for short episodes of thoughts on the Feldenkrais Method®. Thoughts about what changes in us when we move with attention.

Most episodes will be ideas. Things I've noticed in lessons, and things I keep wondering about. And now and then, I'll offer a small experiment you can try right where you are.

I'll keep these episodes short. You can listen on a walk, or in a quiet moment in the evening.

Whether you've been to many lessons or you've never heard the word Feldenkrais before, you're welcome here.

Today I'd like to start at the beginning. I want to tell you how I came to the Feldenkrais Method in the first place.

It started with a sore back.

Many years ago, a few weeks before my own wedding, I had terrible back pain.

Nothing I tried in those weeks brought relief.

Then a childhood friend suggested Feldenkrais.

I was skeptical, but desperate. Both of those things were true at the same time.

Here's what happened next. A Feldenkrais teacher heard about the bride who couldn't stand on her feet. And the teacher came to me, to my small apartment in Givatayim, a town near Tel Aviv.

So my very first Feldenkrais lesson happened at home, in my own small apartment. It was a one to one lesson, hands on, what we call Functional Integration.

Right after that first lesson, I felt enormous relief. I felt uplifted, too. And after two lessons, the pain was gone.

I want to be careful with this part of the story. This is what happened for me, in my body, at that time. Every body is different. I'm not sharing it as a promise of what will happen for you. I'm sharing it because this is how I started.

And if you're living with pain, Feldenkrais lessons can sit alongside the care you get from the professionals you trust. They don't replace that care.

That wasn't the end of the story.

Some time later, the back pain came back. This time, I found a Feldenkrais teacher near my home, and I started going to her Awareness Through Movement lessons. Those are the lessons where the teacher guides you through the movements with words.

I left every lesson feeling light, as if I was walking on a cloud.

And I became curious. How does the magic work? What was actually happening in those lessons, that I could walk in one way and leave feeling so different?

Later, that curiosity led me to Ruthy Bar's Feldenkrais teacher training in Tel Aviv.

Today I'm a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. And I still find myself asking the same question. How does the magic work?

I don't have one tidy answer. But I'd like to share a little of what I came to understand.

When I look back at those first lessons, they had less to do with my back than I expected. They had much more to do with noticing.

In a lesson, you move slowly and gently. You're given time to notice how you're moving. Where you're working hard. Where there might be an easier way.

Most of the time, we don't pay much attention to these things. We move because we have somewhere to go. We get up from a chair, we reach for a cup, we turn to look behind us. Our attention is on the next thing.

A lesson gives us a pause from that. A chance to feel how we do what we do.

For me, this is one of the simplest ideas in the work. Noticing comes before change.

Before we can do something differently, we first need to sense what we're already doing. And when we explore a movement in a few different ways, slowly and with attention, we give the nervous system more options. More than one way to turn your head, or to get up from a chair.

Something else surprised me. In a lesson, we're often invited to do less. To make a movement smaller. To go slower. To rest more often than we expect.

That can feel strange at first. Many of us are used to trying harder when something feels difficult. But when we do less, it's often easier to feel what's happening. Small differences become clearer. And a clearer sense of ourselves may give us more choice in how we move.

The kind of attention matters too. In a lesson, the attention is gentle and curious. Whatever we find is simply information. A breath that pauses. A jaw that tightens a little. We notice it, and we let it be for a moment.

For me, that's a big part of what those lessons offered. Time, and a little space, to find an easier way.

Then something may shift, quietly, without us forcing it. Often it's a small thing. A movement feels a little lighter. A side that felt heavy feels a little more like the other one.

In my work since then, I've seen this in other people too. Sometimes people assume it's too late for them to improve. And then they discover they can get up from the floor without fear. Or they notice that walking simply feels lighter.

There was something else, too, from those early lessons. Something that had nothing to do with how far I could bend or turn.

After a lesson, I felt at home in myself.

That's the simplest way I can say it. At home in my own body. Present in it, and curious about it.

That feeling is where the name of this podcast comes from. At Home in Yourself.

It also seems fitting, now, that my very first lesson took place at home, in that small apartment in Givatayim.

So let's try a little of that noticing together.

If you're driving, just listen, and try this another time.

For everyone else, let's take a moment. You can keep your eyes open. There's nothing to do here, only something to notice.

I told you about the bride who couldn't stand on her feet. So let's begin with the feet.

If you're standing, notice how your feet meet the floor. If you're sitting, notice your feet too, and notice your weight on the chair.

Where do your feet touch the floor most clearly? Perhaps more through the heels, or more toward the front of the foot.

Now notice your weight. Does one side feel heavier than the other? Is one foot, or one side of your seat, taking a little more?

There's no right answer. Whatever you notice is fine. And if you don't notice anything in particular, that's fine too.

If you like, make a tiny shift. Let your weight move just a little toward one side, and then come back to the middle.

Notice how you're standing or sitting now. Perhaps something feels a little different. Perhaps it doesn't.

Either way, you've just spent a moment listening to yourself. That's where a lot of this work begins.

In the next episode, I'll talk about what the Feldenkrais Method is, and how a lesson works. And I'll guide you through a small experiment, so you can feel a little of it for yourself.

After that, we'll move into a series of short reflections. Each one starts from a single word. Peace. Attention. Listening. Awareness. And others, as we go along.

Some episodes will have a small experiment, like the one we just did. Others will simply be a thought to take with you. You don't need any special space to listen. Only a little curiosity.

Thank you for listening to At Home in Yourself.

If you'd like to feel some of what we talked about, Feldy has gentle Feldenkrais lessons, guided by audio, that you can try free for seven days at feldy.me.

Until next time, take good care of yourself, and be at home in yourself.