Lifting Real Weight Intelligently

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNmrPcZ1mg

Many don’t realize that Moshe Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais Method was at one point a very talented athlete, laborer and martial arts expert.

He understood what it meant to lift weight. REAL WEIGHT.

Proportional distribution of muscular tone, optional transmission of force through the skeleton, finding appropriate skeletal support and proper counterbalance within the body during action are some of the main principles within his work which are paramount when lifting really heavy weight. He understood such principles from the inside out.

He lived and breathe it. It was not just conceptual to him; it was his life!

These practitioners in the video clip are being taught a Power Clean exercise. This is an exercise often reserved for high level athletics to train and condition the entire body. When done well and most importantly taught well, the individual experiences in their action many, if not most of the main core principles that pepper the work of Feldenkrais.

Peter Shmock (in the video clip) of ZUM Fitness in Seattle WA, was a guest at this advanced Feldenkrais training, teaching the practitioners how to do a Power Clean. This clip is the end of a series leading up to the final movement you see here. Everyone caught on very quickly!

Although a Feldenkrais practitioner may never work with an athlete, or do a power clean themselves, the act within the power clean involves a basic squatting movement, or a sit-to-stand movement, which is a classic movement and lesson taught in Feldenkrais Studies. The classic lesson that I am writing about is titled “What is good posture.” It is lesson #1 in Moshe Feldenkrais’ Awareness Through Movement book and it takes the reader through this act of going from sitting to standing and it is said to be, as the name implies, how to find ‘Good Posture‘.

Recently I wrote a post on “Sitting” and this idea of “Good Posture” HERE.

This video clip above was recorded at the Dumas Centre, Federal Way, WA at a 5-day Feldenkrais Advanced Training titled “The Roots of Internal Strength” taught by Feldenkrais Trainer Jeff Haller, November 13-17, 2010.