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Felicia
comments that happy muscles feel like soft butter
to the touch. When in that buttery state the
"work" of "carrying" a body
around ceases. Muscles are not meant to hold the
body up; it's the skeleton that supports the body
— your muscles get a free ride. When
skeletal alignment and support happen, your body
automatically becomes buoyant and light.
Often when muscles are "holding" the
body they do so in a way that goes against our
true design. Here's an example: Rarely is it
considered fashionable, by those who dictate
those cultural commandments, to have a sway back
and a derriere that sticks out. Instead
"tails" are tucked and pelvises held
tight. These muscular holding is created when a
baby begins to toddle. What's more, this
incorrect curve travels up the spine causing the
thoracic spine and shoulders to hunch over
forward. This results in pressure on the cervical
spine causing, among other things, neck pain and
headaches. With upper back and shoulders hunched
forward the chest is collapsed and a good deal of
space designated for lungs and breathing is lost.
Less oxygen is inhaled and available for use.
With bones and muscles not allowed to function
freely the way they were designed by a good long
stretch of evolution, having a body often becomes
a heavy, tense, serious experience. Odd and
distressing to realize that this heavy, tense and
serious body experience has become the norm for
so many of us!
For most babies beginning to move and discover
their bodies, all they |
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can do is
ecstatic: fingers that find their way into a
mouth, toes on extended legs that swing and find
fingers to clasp them. Babies revel in these
simple but profound joys. Scientific research
confirms that babies create their neural pathways
through these moves and interactions with their
environment. This is the source of their ability
to see, speak, move, rest, love and unfold as
individuals.
Numerous "realities" contribute to the
loss, rather than the integration, of these
pleasurable, easy, moving-being experiences. By
the time most people are merely a decade old they
have "learned" instead to integrate a
downcast perspective of disappointment,
frustration, isolation and self doubt. Patterns
displayed emotionally usually have their
counterparts in the physical body, and vice
versa. Modern culture contributes its share of
rules: Don't be too big, best to squelch your
curiosity, sexuality, creativity, intelligence,
etc. so that you "fit in" and "do
the right thing." But even fitting in and
doing the right thing does not exempt you from
being typed, labeled, objectified and oppressed
according to gender, sexual preference, race,
religion, education and earning capacity.
Felicia’s work with the body, and the being
that resides inside, presumes no single, right
response. She trusts in the body's unique
intelligence, claiming that all bodies know just
what to do, but many need some guidance to get
back to this original place of knowing. What's
more, Felicia’s warm |
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acceptance
and encouragement of all efforts is a grand
contradiction to the prevailing cultural messages
that steer toward the self entrapment mentioned
above. What a relief to know there's a way to
re-find freedom.
Both she and her work present an experiential
perspective that demonstrates life in a body was
designed to be fun, easy and comfortable. What's
more, the liberation and all that follows from
this is vast. Re-finding this original place of
knowing coincides exactly with the wide openness
of connection, compassion, respect and love. I
have begun to notice, along with some of the
other students at La Escuela Feliz, that in doing
this work the boundaries of self and other
dissolve into acceptance. I shared with Felicia
my wonderings that if this great work were made
available to everyone on the planet, would peace,
respect, understanding and love flourish? She
informed me that Moshe had had a similar idea. He
believed that mankind was on the edge of making a
quantum leap to becoming fully human. Knowing
that, he wanted to make his work available
world-wide by broadcasting it via Sputnik.
Lest you read this and think babymovesTM to be
magic, I do want to observe that working on your
own is also a piece of effecting the miracle.
There are a series of easy, simple moves that,
when practiced regularly on your own, will
continue the process of allowing your body-being
to integrate this revolutionary information. As a
beginner, it takes 30 to 40 minutes to do.
Felicia claims however that after doing them
consistently for a year or so, you can actually
do the whole series while waiting for your
porridge to cook.
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