bodymind.space

These are stressful times. Body-mind learning can help.
https://www.bodymind.space/blog/the-path-to-tranquility

The path to tranquility — bodymind.space Stress can cause long-lasting tensions that we hold inside. How to learn to let go?

Healthy joints... not as medical theory but practical ways to look after yourself

https://www.bodymind.space/blog/maintaining-healthy-joints

Maintaining healthy joints — bodymind.space We all want to continue to be able to move as we age. Human joints suffer wear and tear. How can we minimise damage and the risk of injury? Picture credit: Funkcines Terapijos Centras on pexels.com

Want to dance with more freedom, more ease, and less pain?

Most training teaches us to push harder—but real elegance comes from doing less.

Feldenkrais lessons help you discover effortless movement by improving how your skeleton organizes itself. When your bones support you efficiently, everything feels lighter.

This isn’t about drilling steps or hitting the gym. It’s about learning to sense yourself so your nervous system can let go of old habits and create new patterns—naturally, without force.

Over time, you’ll find more clarity and calm, and more space for creativity and connection with your partner.

✨ Free trial sessions available in person in Amsterdam, or online.
Message Simon Brod to reserve your spot!

Online (in English) Feldenkrais ATM lesson with Simon online lesson - the organiser will send a zoom link for questions contact simon...

Feldenkrais groepsles met Simon Koop tickets voor het evenement van bodymind.space

2026 is just around the corner... join on Saturdays at 09:00 in Praktijk Lijnbaansgracht Amsterdam or Mondays at 20:00 CET online. Calm your nervous system, reconnect with your body, hone your senses, become more capable physically and mentally.

For info contact Simon Brod

Starting September 1st - online Feldenkrais Method classes in English, guided by Simon Brod. Join us to hone your awareness, find greater ease in movement, and become more capable!

Do you spend a lot of time looking at a screen? You may be forming habits that limit not only your eyesight but also your freedom and precision in movement.

We humans are visual creatures. Over 70% of the information received by our senses is through the eyes, and as much as 50% of our brain is dedicated to vision - interpreting what the eyes are seeing, and controlling movement such that we can look at what we want to look at.

Our eyes are amazing - we can distinguish fine detail, focus close-up or at the far horizon, take in a very wide field of view at once, and do this in a wide variety of light conditions from bright sunlight to dark night.

Eyes are more than just sensors. The eyes are controlled by muscles which swivel and position our eyeballs in their sockets - the extraocular muscles. Focus is adjusted mostly by the ciliary muscle, part of the lens of the eye, and also partly by the extraocular muscles. So the brain both receives information through the eyes and also sends signals to the muscles to control where and how we look. The brain's way of sending instructions to the muscles of the eye is just the same as for any other muscle. This means that, just as we form habits in how we move, we also form habits of how we use our eyes.

But how we use our eyes is also intimately connected with how we move. Every movement we make involves our eyes, whether the eyes are being used to see where we are going, or to look at something else while we move. And many movements we make are solely or primarily intended to allow us to look at what we want to look at.

The ability to look in different directions as we move, and to move so as to direct our eyes in certain ways, is fundamental to how we use ourself, to how our brain gives instructions to our muscles and to how we position ourselves in our surroundings.

The muscles that control the eyeballs, like any muscle, can get tired from overuse; or if we don't use them in a particular way we can forget how to use them in that particular way. For example, if we spend all day with our eyes looking at a screen a fixed distance away, we may need more time to change focus to look at the horizon, or even lose completely the ability to adjust to a long focal distance. The ability to take in the edges of our visual field may also be impaired. Light is still arriving in the eye from the periphery, but the brain no longer knows how to process parts of the information it receives, as it's acquired the habit of not doing so.

Because eyesight is so tightly connected with movement, losing agility and flexibility in our eyes affects how we move more generally. For example, if we want to turn an look over our shoulder, then it helps if the eyeballs have a wide range of movement. Without that, we need to do more work in twisting our spine so that we can face backwards. If we want to be able to take in as much as possible of our surroundings, we need our eyes to be good at scanning the field of vision evenly, not jumping from point to point, and this ability gives us more precision and control in how we move.

The good news is that eyes generally respond well to Awareness Through Movement lessons, (re-)gaining agility. Specially-designed lessons bring attention to how our eyes move. We discover from the inside how our eyes are connected with our movements; how we can use our eyes calmly and without strain; and how we can recover after exerting our eyes.

Interested to know more? Please contact Simon Brod

www.bodymind.space

Bodymind learning makes you more confident and capable, and helps you perform better.

To find out more and book a free trial session in Amsterdam, contact Simon Brod

www.bodymind.space

How are you breathing as you read this? Bring your attention to air flowing in through your nostrils, past the back of your mouth, your throat, your windpipe, and into your lungs. Which parts of you get larger as you breathe in? Which parts get smaller? What about as you breathe out?

Were you able simply to observe yourself in the act of breathing, or did you find yourself changing something once you started observing? Often we have some pre-conceived notion of what 'good' breathing is. It pays to spend time simply observing, to know yourself as well as possible, before making any change.

Go back to paying attention to your breathing. Is more air flowing in your left or your right nostril? Are you expanding your belly or your chest more? Which ribs are participating in the movement, and which parts of those ribs - back, side, front?

All breathing is movement. Even if it's a tiny, shallow breath that's invisible to an observer, the movement is still discernable from within. As a principle, breathing is most efficient when the work of breathing is generalized - not constrained to one part (for example, the upper chest) but using all directions for the lungs to expand - up, down, front, back, and sideways. We don't have nerves in our lungs but we do feel their movement from the nerves we have in the fascia and muscles that surround them. Notice as you breathe which parts of your lungs are more mobile and less mobile.

Breathing is complex. When we're not paying attention, it carries on as an involuntary function. When we want, our conscious mind can take over and regulate breathing.

Breathing also operates on different levels:

-- It has a physiological function - to bring air into the lungs so that oxygen van be absorbed into the blood and CO2 expelled. The lungs are elastic, and the more we can expand and contract them the greater our system's capacity to do physical work.

-- It has a biomechanical function, because the muscles that enable expansion and contraction of the lungs - chiefly muscles of the diaphragm, the intercostals, and muscles of the back, the belly, the chest - also serve functional movements we make in life. For example, turning your head and shoulders to face the side requires a different internal organization if you do it while breathing in than while breathing out.

-- It has a function in emotional regulation, because of the close connection between the action of breathing and the autonomic (unconscious) nervous system. When we are fully present and 'in flow', our breathing is unimpeded. But the slightest stress can cause a change. Even the act of concentrating on a delicate task - think of threading a needle - can cause us to hold our breath. The higher the stress, the more it affects breathing, reducing mobility in face, neck, chest, back, and belly.

Particular problems arise if through habitual stress or anxiety we keep certain parts of ourself immobile over long period of time. Then we lose the knowledge of how to move in those places. This impedes our performance in movement. When it comes to breathing, that means not using our lungs fully, which can have knock-on on our whole system.

The good news is we can break long-held patterns which limit us, and re-discover a wider range of movement. Practicing the Feldenkrais Method (or other bodywork discipline with the emphasis on paying detailed attention to yourself) is a great start. The Feldenkrais Method is not specifically focused on breathing but includes breathing in its complete view of human feeling, sensing, moving and doing. Almost every lesson includes attention to how breathing influences movement, so we can re-learn how breathing can work in support of whatever action we want to take in the world.

Two upcoming Feldenkrais workshops on Thursday evenings in November, which I will be giving with my wonderful colleague Nicoline van der Pas
- Thursday 7 November from 19:00 to 21:00 - lower back
- Thursday 14 November from 19:00 to 21:00 - neck

Join us to discover how we can relieve tension and pain.

The workshops take place at Praktijk Lijnbaansgracht Amsterdam. Price is Eur 35,--

Interested? Please contact Simon Brod