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It's possible to learn to move more easily and competently, and I've been exploring some of the possibilities for over 40 years.
I'll just be describing systems I've spent some time on. When I say incomplete, I'm not kidding. This isn't everything I've tried, and everything I've tried is very little compared to everything there is.
This is a *lot*. If you're interested, choose something that looks promising and try it out. This can only be learned by doing it, not by only reading or thinking about it.
I started with Rubenfeld Synergy, later called Gestalt Synergy. It's a combination of Gestalt psychology, Alexander Technique, and Feldenkrais method.
I didn't have anyone local for the whole system, so I got into Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method.
One way of looking at Alexander Technique is that it's a way of noticing the moment of preparing to move, and not doing anything extra at that moment. It also involves releasing neck tension and propagating the release through your body. It takes giving up the desire to be "correct', which is rather a subtle matter. In general, moving better involves dropping parasitic habits.
There's also not "end gaining". End gaining is focusing on a goal while ignoring what you're doing to achieve the goal. For example, sometimes when people reach for something distant, they put their head backwards even though that limits their reach. I'm playing with that now, and I think the underlying premise is a habit of moving my chest closer to what I'm trying to reach, when I actually have more range if I let my whole torso tilt forward as an integrated unit when I'm reaching.
This is probably best learned from a teacher, though Alexander did invent it himself by observing himself in a triple mirror (this was around 1900) to find out why he was having difficulty with public speaking. The difficulty turned out to be a combination of bad advice to grasp the floor with his feet and existing bad breathing habits which caused him to interpret the advice in a way that tightened his throat. Once he found out what he was doing, he went on to learn how to change deeply ingrained habits.
Bill and Barbara Conable added "mapping" to Alexander Technique. They found that some intractable movement problems were caused by inaccurate mental beliefs about the body. For example, some people never incorporate how much they've grown, and don't really allow for how long their arms and legs are.
Feldenkrais method involves gentle repeated movements which remind you of parts of your movement repertoire you've forgotten or which you never learned. It has two versions, Awareness Through Movement (do movements on your own, or mostly so) and Functional Integration (movements guided by a teacher). My exposure has been almost entirely Awareness through Movement.
There are books and videos of Awareness Through Movement sets. As far as I can tell, sets by Feldenkrais typically take about 40 minutes, and end with a surprise improvement in parts of your body that you didn't think you were doing anything with. Sets by more recent teachers are more typically about 20 minutes and not surprising.
I can recommend Somatics by Thomas Hanna. Good, simple explanations and a nice daily warmup set. Awareness Heals by Stephen Shafarman-- good exercises and also the story of how Feldenkrais taught Ben Gurion how to do a headstand. Running with the Whole Body by Jack Heggie. I never worked through the whole set (and the first one might be too difficult), but I learned about the relationship between my feet and my hips and had higher arches for a while.
Mindful Spontaneity by Ruthy Alon-- very good for releasing your back, with some excellent exercises on a roller or folded blanket.
Lam Kam Chuen's The Way of Energy is an introduction to standing meditation and includes an Eight Brocades qi gong set. I used it to clear up a case of repetitive strain. That took some months of 20 minutes each per day of standing meditation and "holding a tree" (arms make a circle in front). I suddenly realized I didn't need my level of tension, let it go, and my elbow didn't hurt again.
Scott Sonnon worked up a system that's both athletically ambitious and careful about not injuring joints or connective tissue.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBCF16AA17907B625 is a seated version of his Ageless Mobility set. The channel, flowacademycst, also has his Intuflow (beginner and intermediate), which I recommend.
Eric Franklin's Franklin Method involves sophisticated use of imagery to improve kinesthesia. There's quite a bit in books and online. His Dynamic Alignment through Imagery includes both getting in touch with your body through imagery and theory about different sorts of imagery-- literal anatomy, visual metaphors for anatomy, and more comprehensive images.
Martin Mellish's A Tai Chi Imagery Workbook: Spirit, Intent, and Motion is in Franklin's style, but there's little overlap, and it's specifically about Tai Chi.
Peter Ralston (chenghsin.com) has done long study of how mind and body interact, driven by the question of what does consciousness have to do with fighting. One of his subjects is cultivating such a clear and accurate sense of touch that it's easy to tell how an opponent will move. There's the importance of seeing what's actually there, so that if a punch is coming at you, you aren't distracted by thinking about what might happen. Just seeing the punch makes it easier to dodge.
Kathleen Porter (kathleenporter.com) has researched how people from low tech societies move, and how their backs are in better shape. I was especially impressed with her advice to swing your pelvis back and forth like a bell until you find where your breathing is easiest. This is not posture based on an idea of how people should should look, it's functional!
She also thinks that Americans lost track of how to stand around the 1920s, and we're fallen into a combination of collapsing and over-correction.
Bruce Frantzis' qi gong school at energyarts.com has been very valuable to me, both in specific qi gong sets and the 70% rule-- only put out 70% effort when you're learning. This permits progress while protecting against injury.
Back in the 60s, he was studying qi gong in China, and had come to the conclusion that the medical system wasn't going to be able to do a lot of care for aging people. He asked his teachers what would be the best method for health for average people who don't want to learn 100-move sets, and they concluded that Dragon and Tiger Medical Qi Gong, a 7-move set would give about 80% of the benefit. No guarantees, but I'm 71 and not in chronic pain. It isn't a substitute for conventional medicine, but it's a valuable supplement.
I haven't studied the whole system, but it includes martial arts and meditation as well as healing. There's a school in Colorado and online classes for sale, and there are also books.
Chris Cinnamon teaches sensible, simple methods for avoiding falls and preventing knee pain, based on Frantzis' system, and also simplified Tai Chi (circling hands, which teaches the movement qualities but isn't a martial art).
A Sufi postural reset-- it leaves me feeling like a primate ready for action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNUuztKc2mM
Walking Well by Bruce Fertman is a wide exploration of walking more easily and effectively, and includes philosophy and practical metaphysics, not to mention animal imagery and famous creative people who found walking to be extremely valuable. I've barely begun to explore the book.
I'll just be describing systems I've spent some time on. When I say incomplete, I'm not kidding. This isn't everything I've tried, and everything I've tried is very little compared to everything there is.
This is a *lot*. If you're interested, choose something that looks promising and try it out. This can only be learned by doing it, not by only reading or thinking about it.
I started with Rubenfeld Synergy, later called Gestalt Synergy. It's a combination of Gestalt psychology, Alexander Technique, and Feldenkrais method.
I didn't have anyone local for the whole system, so I got into Alexander Technique and Feldenkrais Method.
One way of looking at Alexander Technique is that it's a way of noticing the moment of preparing to move, and not doing anything extra at that moment. It also involves releasing neck tension and propagating the release through your body. It takes giving up the desire to be "correct', which is rather a subtle matter. In general, moving better involves dropping parasitic habits.
There's also not "end gaining". End gaining is focusing on a goal while ignoring what you're doing to achieve the goal. For example, sometimes when people reach for something distant, they put their head backwards even though that limits their reach. I'm playing with that now, and I think the underlying premise is a habit of moving my chest closer to what I'm trying to reach, when I actually have more range if I let my whole torso tilt forward as an integrated unit when I'm reaching.
This is probably best learned from a teacher, though Alexander did invent it himself by observing himself in a triple mirror (this was around 1900) to find out why he was having difficulty with public speaking. The difficulty turned out to be a combination of bad advice to grasp the floor with his feet and existing bad breathing habits which caused him to interpret the advice in a way that tightened his throat. Once he found out what he was doing, he went on to learn how to change deeply ingrained habits.
Bill and Barbara Conable added "mapping" to Alexander Technique. They found that some intractable movement problems were caused by inaccurate mental beliefs about the body. For example, some people never incorporate how much they've grown, and don't really allow for how long their arms and legs are.
Feldenkrais method involves gentle repeated movements which remind you of parts of your movement repertoire you've forgotten or which you never learned. It has two versions, Awareness Through Movement (do movements on your own, or mostly so) and Functional Integration (movements guided by a teacher). My exposure has been almost entirely Awareness through Movement.
There are books and videos of Awareness Through Movement sets. As far as I can tell, sets by Feldenkrais typically take about 40 minutes, and end with a surprise improvement in parts of your body that you didn't think you were doing anything with. Sets by more recent teachers are more typically about 20 minutes and not surprising.
I can recommend Somatics by Thomas Hanna. Good, simple explanations and a nice daily warmup set. Awareness Heals by Stephen Shafarman-- good exercises and also the story of how Feldenkrais taught Ben Gurion how to do a headstand. Running with the Whole Body by Jack Heggie. I never worked through the whole set (and the first one might be too difficult), but I learned about the relationship between my feet and my hips and had higher arches for a while.
Mindful Spontaneity by Ruthy Alon-- very good for releasing your back, with some excellent exercises on a roller or folded blanket.
Lam Kam Chuen's The Way of Energy is an introduction to standing meditation and includes an Eight Brocades qi gong set. I used it to clear up a case of repetitive strain. That took some months of 20 minutes each per day of standing meditation and "holding a tree" (arms make a circle in front). I suddenly realized I didn't need my level of tension, let it go, and my elbow didn't hurt again.
Scott Sonnon worked up a system that's both athletically ambitious and careful about not injuring joints or connective tissue.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBCF16AA17907B625 is a seated version of his Ageless Mobility set. The channel, flowacademycst, also has his Intuflow (beginner and intermediate), which I recommend.
Eric Franklin's Franklin Method involves sophisticated use of imagery to improve kinesthesia. There's quite a bit in books and online. His Dynamic Alignment through Imagery includes both getting in touch with your body through imagery and theory about different sorts of imagery-- literal anatomy, visual metaphors for anatomy, and more comprehensive images.
Martin Mellish's A Tai Chi Imagery Workbook: Spirit, Intent, and Motion is in Franklin's style, but there's little overlap, and it's specifically about Tai Chi.
Peter Ralston (chenghsin.com) has done long study of how mind and body interact, driven by the question of what does consciousness have to do with fighting. One of his subjects is cultivating such a clear and accurate sense of touch that it's easy to tell how an opponent will move. There's the importance of seeing what's actually there, so that if a punch is coming at you, you aren't distracted by thinking about what might happen. Just seeing the punch makes it easier to dodge.
Kathleen Porter (kathleenporter.com) has researched how people from low tech societies move, and how their backs are in better shape. I was especially impressed with her advice to swing your pelvis back and forth like a bell until you find where your breathing is easiest. This is not posture based on an idea of how people should should look, it's functional!
She also thinks that Americans lost track of how to stand around the 1920s, and we're fallen into a combination of collapsing and over-correction.
Bruce Frantzis' qi gong school at energyarts.com has been very valuable to me, both in specific qi gong sets and the 70% rule-- only put out 70% effort when you're learning. This permits progress while protecting against injury.
Back in the 60s, he was studying qi gong in China, and had come to the conclusion that the medical system wasn't going to be able to do a lot of care for aging people. He asked his teachers what would be the best method for health for average people who don't want to learn 100-move sets, and they concluded that Dragon and Tiger Medical Qi Gong, a 7-move set would give about 80% of the benefit. No guarantees, but I'm 71 and not in chronic pain. It isn't a substitute for conventional medicine, but it's a valuable supplement.
I haven't studied the whole system, but it includes martial arts and meditation as well as healing. There's a school in Colorado and online classes for sale, and there are also books.
Chris Cinnamon teaches sensible, simple methods for avoiding falls and preventing knee pain, based on Frantzis' system, and also simplified Tai Chi (circling hands, which teaches the movement qualities but isn't a martial art).
A Sufi postural reset-- it leaves me feeling like a primate ready for action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNUuztKc2mM
Walking Well by Bruce Fertman is a wide exploration of walking more easily and effectively, and includes philosophy and practical metaphysics, not to mention animal imagery and famous creative people who found walking to be extremely valuable. I've barely begun to explore the book.
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