Learn! At your age?
“I teach; I engage you in the experience”
(– A.H. Almaas, Founder of Diamond Approach School)
Have you ever considered that after a certain age, it is no longer necessary to embark on a learning path? Have you ever heard loved ones say: "anyway at my age...."?
Research on the plasticity of the brain has shown that the way we think and perceive ourselves has an impact on our functionality. The method developed by M.Feldenkrais, one of the pioneers of somatic education, is based in particular on the ability to reorganize our neuronal connections according to our experiences and improve, even change not only our habits of movement but also the way we perceive ourself and how we relate to the world. This reorganization has no age limit. There is therefore no expiration date for engaging in a process of somatic education, meaning, learning to be aware of our moving body in our environment.
Isn't that hopeful?
I have just participated in a seven-day retreat in the Laurentians dedicated to Klessmer music and culture during which I learned to sing Central Europeans Yiddish songs, participated in a writing workshop and even designed and shot a video where I sing a meditative song without words called Nigoun. These new experiences once again took me out of my comfort zone while contributing to the plasticity of my brain and to my happiness.
This retreat also offered me the opportunity to take time to feel and think about what excites me in my work even today after forty five years of practice in the field of expressive dance and somatic education and which motivates me year after year to meet you to teach online or face-to-face.
In a conversation during this retreat, where I shared my questions about pursuing another segment of the Feldenkrais functional integration training dedicated to giving individual lessons on the table through touch, a friend, coach , asked me: "but why do you still need to train yourself with all your experience? » And she added: “it is especially women who feel this need, as if their value was never enough”. Her very relevant comment of course made me think. I totally share his observation about the endless need for validation, a trait that is found statistically in women, due to a lack or a loss in self-esteem, a phenomenon that get worse while aging.
I took the time to think about it. It's a feeling I've experienced myself. Life history is never a calm river for anyone. All my experience in somatic education, as a student and as a professional, has made me aware of this. The experience of somatic movement has not only helped me maintain or regain efficient functionality, but has also optimized the way I see myself today. Feeling better about my body has gone a long way in improving my confidence and the way I interact with the environment. And this is also what I have seen for my customers through their generous testimonials.
This is how the fruit of my reflection made it possible to reveal and confirm that my desire to continue was not based on a need for validation but rather on an immense pleasure in learning.
Doesn't our brain have possibilities to learn and reorganize without age limits?. According to the Feldenkrais Training Institute of Lyon (IFELD) about the biography of Moshe Feldenkrais), “the living body is conceived as a whole. Thoughts, images, emotions and sensations are embodied, experienced and manifested in the lived body. The human is first as a developing being, a self-regulated conscious system, a system in constant learning.
So deciding to complete a training I started twenty-five years ago, put me back on an infinite exploratory road that feeds my curiosity and my thirst to discover diversified or new paths and gives me a multitude of options to choose what is the best for me on a somatic level and for my teaching as a somatic educator.
Of course, like my students, I have experienced motor limitations, pain here and there.
I will soon be 69 years old. And during my last training, I was still able to discover movements that I had either forgotten or that had never been part of my motor repertoire. I was able to question my habits that led to my limitations and go through challenges. I was able to make possible certain movements that seemed to me to have become impossible. I find it healthy to go through these challenges, to solve them in part. The longer I stay in motion myself, the more I discover that my pains and limitations can be transformed and greatly improved.
Once again, I was able to first apply what I learn to myself and then share it in my classes. Questioning myself helps make my teaching better. Being able to get out of my teaching habits, enrich my practice, diversify my educational options to better support you with consistency. Through their renewed presence year after year, my students bear witness to this. I express my gratitude to them for their renewed confidence.
So if you ever consider that after a certain age, it is no longer necessary to embark on a learning path or if you hear your loved ones say: "in any case at my age...", invite those to come discover with you and live the experience of a somatic education course in gentleness, slowness, respect and pleasure to discover that despite the limitations, there are still so many possibilities to learn.
Come join us! We're boarding soon!