Movement of the Week: Baby Liv

I write a lot on this blog about the value of moving slowly, mindfully, gently and playfully as an excellent way to develop efficient and pain free movement. If you want to know what that looks like, watch a baby move. Babies learn movement at an amazing rate with no instruction at all. Moshe Feldenkrais developed his method for teaching efficient movement in part by studying how babies learn to move. Frank Wildman, one of the world’s leading teachers of the Feldenkrais method, stated that Feldenkrais movement lessons are basically structured baby play.

With that in mind, the Movement of the Week (maybe I should start calling this the Movement of the Month) is a video of “Baby Liv” learning to roll over. The video was done by Irene Gutteridge, a Feldenkrais practitioner and filmmaker. Irene interspersed various stages of Liv’s learning process with written instructions you might hear in a Feldenkrais class. It’s really a beautiful video:

http://youtu.be/D9Ko7U1pLlg

The point of this video is not just that babies are cute, although it does provide some excellent evidence of that fact. The point for me is that our bodies and movements are a huge playground for curious exploration. Even in adulthood.

If you want to try a free Feldenkrais lesson, click here.