Dancing with the Brain: open and curious to body and mind in Yoga & Feldenkrais

I only recently found out that just by thinking about moving a part of the body, the muscles of that body part are supplied with nerves – they are innervated – and so thinking activates muscles, prior to movement. Sportspeople will rehearse a skill or technique in their imagination and in so doing, invoke a sense of muscle memory, so that when they actually move, they are already wired in. For me, this is one of the clearest reminders that our brains and bodies exist in a two-way continuum – a truism that is so often repeated that it becomes easy to take for granted or ignore.

I also recently came across the term ‘flinking’ - a combination of feeling and thinking which is another cheeky way into our brain-body inseparability. Maybe you already knew about these things that are fresh to me....?

And so, as I practice and teach Yoga and am also a trainee of the Feldenkrais Method, I think and feel and feel and think about the similarities and differences between these two approaches to experiencing the body and mind together. As I flink and flink, I’m more and more open and curious about how what I know and feel so far about Feldenkrais, has changed my Yoga, and about what there might be to offer back to Feldenkrais from Yoga in return. I gradually feel clearer about some of the similarities and differences but also experience the relationship between the two like I’m slipping into a sea of unknown potential – a not knowing that tastes like freedom and surprise.