If you are like many of the seniors that I have worked with, you have probably been told to learn to live with your pain, discomfort or limitations. Or that your aches and pains are just a part of the aging process. What if the way you are moving, how you sit, go from sitting to standing, how you reach or walk, is connected to your aches and pains? As a culture we have some strong beliefs about our aging population, one is “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
However, the field of neuroscience is revealing more and more about our brain’s extraordinary ability to learn and adapt. This “new” research is turning some of our old beliefs about the brain…on their head. But Moshe Feldenkrais and the many teachers of the Feldenkrais Method® around the world have known this for quite a while: Our actions are shaped by our learning, which also shapes who we are, in a continuous cycle of action and learning that literally changes our brain’s structure (this is called “neuroplasticity”). And by engaging our attention and our movement in very specific ways using the Feldenkrais Method®, we can actually “build” a smarter and more flexible brain—and thus become smarter and more flexible human beings and maybe even enjoy our lives as we age.