This evening sees the third and final part of our online Autumn Pelvic Floor workshop. While most participants are women, it is worth remembering that men also have a pelvic floor and the pelvic floor has many ‚manly‘ functions. Like not falling over.
Pelvic floor muscles help us with..
(1) Controlling the opening of the bladder and bowel.
(2) Sexual potency: if these muscles have too little tone and are ‚off-line‘, or have too much tone, are stiff, and frozen, feeling and sensation can be dampened.
(3) Supporting the contents of your body from underneath.
(4) Finally we come to today’s theme, balance. The pelvis is the keystone of your skeleton and the pelvic floor muscles are part of your ‚core‘. Every movement you make with your skeleton involves co-activation of the pelvic muscles. No muscle in the body acts in isolation, and so the pelvic floor, the core muscles, the diaphragm, and the eyes are all part of „team-balance“.
Photo by Ramiz Dedaković on Unsplash
How important are the eyes for balance and movement? Picture the inquisitive eyes of a cat turned towards you. You can see the whole face so both eyes are on you, and there is a graceful bend in the spine from shoulder to hip. Here you have an vibrant picture of how balance, stability and intent are all dependent upon the eyes.
Indeed, we and other animals have been learning to move, based upon sensation, without a teacher to tell us right from wrong for ever. The Feldenkrais Method is so effective and so exciting to do because everything is allowed to join up. In Feldenkrais the instructions are guiding but not controlling, which creates „the learning space“ whereby the body finds an organic solution based upon sensation, not upon an external idea of right and wrong.
It feels great to be in a team with two female colleagues presenting exercises for improving the pelvic function from all its many angles.
Banner photo by Matthias Schröder on Unsplash
Potsdam Feldenkrais 