Feldenkrais Panther Tread Short Description:
Glide with grace, power and dexterity
Feldenkrais Panther Tread Long Description:
Feldenkrais Panther Tread
This Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson is designed to assist with mobilizing your feet and developing more sensitivity with footwork and movement. Remember, Moshe Feldenkrais was one of the first Judo exponents in the West. This is one of the Feldenkrais exercises that would be very good for anyone who relies on fast moving and agility - dancers, sports people, martial artists etc. It is a Feldenkrais lesson that is also of value to everyone else as a lot of the physical tensions that people experience begin with the way they walk and stand. It all starts with the contact of the feet with the ground.
I have found, since I become a Feldenkrais Practitioner, that most people are totally unaware of how they make contact with the ground - none more so than me before I began the Feldenkrais Training. In our trainings I can usually identify people by how heavy they are making contact with the floor. Everything from thumping to the floor actually shaking - no matter the size of the person. It is like your own personal signature. Interestingly, a heavier tread is often a sign the person is under stress. This is why the Feldenkrais Method can so often be of value to a person under physical and emotional stress.
For your information, another function that can reveal how well organised and aware a person is, from a Feldenkrais perspective, is how they sit in a chair. You are more likely to see the Kamikaze crash landing method than the 'arrive as light as a feather version'. In Feldenkrais we often talk about the concept of 'reversible movement'. Can you stop at any point and easily and effortlessly return or reverse the movement. This should be so with both walking and sitting (again from a Feldenkrais perspective).
It is quite striking when you come across someone who literally 'treads lightly on the earth'. More often than not this is also a metaphor for how they live life. You can't have that level of awareness and not have it be of benefit to you elsewhere in life - in my humble opinion. This Feldenkrais lesson can help you develop this awareness.