About the Work
Neuromovement is a set of essential principles and methodologies centered around the instruction of slow, gentle movements focused on expanding and refining a student’s awareness of their body. The work can be done in one-on-one sessions, in which the instructor physically moves the client’s body. It can also take the form of group lessons, in which the instructor verbally guides a class of students through a series of movements centered around various functions of the body. Lessons are available to any and everyone, regardless of age or ability.
The Nine Essential Principles
1) Movement with Attention
Move often and bring attention to what you feel as you move. Your brain will start building new connections, creating new possibilities for transformation.
2) Slow
Slow way down to learn new skills and overcome limitations. Fast you can only do what you already know.
3) Variation
Introducing variation and exploration will allow for new possibilities in your movements, feelings, thoughts, and action.
4) Subtlety
Reduce the force with which you move, think, and act. Develop greater sensitivity that will enhance your brain’s ability to perceive finer differences.
5) Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is a skill you can develop. It is a choice to appreciate and take delight in the small things. It amplifies what is important and grooves in new learning in your brain.
6) Flexible Goals
If you knew how to reach your goal, you’d already be there. Embrace unexpected steps and mistakes along the way. The first time you do anything new is as least partially accidental.
7) The Learning Switch
The brain is either in a learning mode—or not. Expect that you will do, think, or learn something NEW in each situation, even familiar ones, to turn your learning switch ON.
8) Imagination & Dreams
Imagine and dream! With imagination, you can create. Dreams call you and guide you from your future.
9) Awareness
Presence is necessary for deep learning, and it is the result of engaging deeply with your self.
Compared to other mammals, human beings are born with relatively little capacity for movement. Over the course of our first few years of life we typically explore a wide variety of potential patterns of movement, and eventually settle on the patterns we find most useful. Every individual has a unique set of bones, muscles, and nerves. Through trial and error, we cultivate permutations of muscle contractions (and de-contractions) that move and balance our bones in order to achieve our goals. Our goal might be to grasp a toy in front of us, to crawl up the stairs, to play Tchaikovsky, or to live without pain. Most of us stop our development of general movement around the time we learn how to run. Some of us continue more specified development of movement: athletes, artists, and those with movement oriented trades… But almost none of us continue the general process of exploration and refinement that dominated our experience for the first few years of life. We sit at desks, cram our feet into flattened shoes, and twist our necks about without the dynamic influence of our spines.
Through gentle, slow, intentional movements, we can explore our bodies capacity to release chronic tension, and organize itself in new ways. This can have profound benefits physically and emotionally.
For more information on the kinds of students who could most benefit from this work, please see the “Adults” and “Children” tabs.
Neuromovement is also known as The Anat Baniel Method, which expands on the Feldenkrais Method. You can learn more about the method by clicking the link below, or by exploring the Relevant Reading List.
https://www.anatbanielmethod.com/
Relevant Reading List:
The Brain's Way of Healing: Remarkable Discoveries and Recoveries from the Frontiers of Neuroplasticity by Norman Doidge, M.D
Kids Beyond Limits by Anat Baniel
The Elusive Obvious: The Convergence of Movement, Neuroplasticity, and Health by Moshe Feldenkrais, Ph.D
NY Times Article: “Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain”