I grew up in Ukraine and began rhythmic gymnastics at the age of four. I trained professionally for many years, and by the age of 16, rhythmic gymnastics had become such a fundamental part of my life that it was difficult to imagine who I was without it.
When I stopped competing and went to university, everything changed. The intense movement, flexibility, and physical demands that had been part of my everyday life suddenly disappeared.
That was when I began experiencing chronic pain.
I couldn't sit for very long. Walking or working for extended periods became difficult. I often felt that I needed to crack my back just to feel some relief. For years, I tried different things, including stretching, massage, and exercise. They could help temporarily, but the discomfort and tension would eventually return.
For me, gymnastics wasn't simply an activity I did. I had been practicing it since I was four years old. My body had spent thousands of hours learning extreme flexibility and highly coordinated movements.
Then, almost overnight, I stopped doing them.
I began thinking about how stopping an activity does not necessarily mean that the movement patterns we have learned simply disappear. Our nervous system is constantly adapting to our experiences, and the way we move can become deeply familiar and habitual.
This is one of the reasons I became so interested in the Feldenkrais Method®.
How I discovered Feldenkrais
Before discovering Feldenkrais, I had already noticed some relief through Pilates. What I didn't know at the time was that some of the movement ideas and principles I was responding to overlapped with, or had been influenced by, the Feldenkrais Method.
Later, after moving to the United States, my mom told me about the Feldenkrais Method and suggested that I try it. I decided to give it a chance, hoping it might help reduce my pain.
I attended a two-week in-person training segment, and something began to shift. My pain decreased significantly, and I started experiencing my body and movement in a completely different way.
Movement felt less like something I had to force and more like something I could explore.
I became curious.
That curiosity eventually led me to begin professional Feldenkrais training.
During my first year of training, I practiced Awareness Through Movement regularly. Gradually, I realized something I had almost stopped believing was possible: the chronic pain that had been part of my life for years was no longer a regular part of my day.
That experience changed the direction of my life.
What I learned
One of the things I love about the Feldenkrais Method is that it doesn't simply ask us to stretch harder, strengthen more, or force our bodies into a particular position.
Instead, it allows us to learn.
Through slow, gentle movement and attention, we can become more aware of our habitual ways of moving. We can begin to notice where we use more effort than necessary and discover other possibilities.
Our nervous system is capable of learning throughout our lives. When we give ourselves new sensory information and explore movement differently, we can develop new options for how we organize ourselves.
This idea is especially meaningful to me because I know what it feels like to have a movement identity so deeply connected to an activity that you don't realize how much of it you carry with you.
And it isn't only athletes.
Any activity or way of moving that we repeat for years can become deeply familiar. A musician who has spent decades playing an instrument, someone who spends hours working at a computer, a dancer, a runner, or someone who has developed a particular way of sitting or walking can all develop familiar movement patterns without realizing it.
The same is true as we get older. After many years of living with the same habits, the way we sit, stand, walk, and move can feel so natural that we may not even notice that there are other possibilities.
These patterns aren't necessarily “bad.” They are simply familiar ways our nervous system has learned to organize movement.
That is what I love about Awareness Through Movement. It allows us to become curious about ourselves, to notice what we normally don't notice, and to discover movement possibilities that may have been hidden by habit.
And that is what I hope to share with the people who come to my sessions.