Home Mumonkan-Do Aikido Embodied Mindfulness Somatic Experiencing Feldenkrais MCHI Press MCHI Home Contact Us
How The Method Works
 
 

When we were small children, we learned how to sit up, roll over, crawl, stand, walk and run. These accomplishments were achieved through an important natural process of trial and error. Scientists call this process "sensory motor learning". It is called "sensory motor" because it involves the use of our senses - sight, hearing, balance, and touch - in conjunction with movement. And it is called "learning" because, as a result, we learn to do something new.

Sensory motor learning is how all physical learning takes place. It occurs through an information feedback process between your senses, muscles, and brain. As your body moves, your sense of touch, balance, and sight send your brain information about your body's position and muscular activity. Your brain responds by modifying the outgoing messages to your muscles.

As the information is fed back and forth, the counter-productive and unnecessary muscular effort in your body is detected and "weeded out". Bit by bit, your movement becomes more refined and efficient. Information is exchanged between the brain and the senses until a successful, coordinated pattern of action is formed.

In order to take advantage of your body's extraordinary ability to improve itself through sensory motor learning, you must give your brain an opportunity to detect and reduce the unnecessary, counterproductive muscular effort in your body. Research in neurophysiology has shown that when we extert a lot of muscular effort, it is impossible for our brain to make the sensory distinctions needed to improve our neuromuscular organization.

This is why conventional exercise, with its reliance on muscular effort, force, and speed, actually restricts your brain's ability to work on your body's behalf. When we use minimal muscular effort, our brain is free to make important sensory distinctions. So these movement lessons apply the powerful neurological rule: less muscular effort produces more sensory motor learning and physical improvement.

The movement sequences involve slow, easy movements that activate your brain's movement centers and generate a flow of valuable information between your brain and your muscles. Automatically, as if by magic, tension, strain, fatigue, and discomfort disappear as your neuromuscular system reprograms itself for optimum health and functioning.


Return to Home page