Newsletter #129 – Learning, Language, and Living Systems

Highlights

1. Announcement
• NEW: The Neurosomatic Platform is now available as an App
• NEW: Online Masterclass - Feldenkrais & Sports
2. Did you know? …
3. Book recommendation
• Don’t believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning & End of Suffering, by Joseph Nguyen
4. Quote of the week
5. Student corner
• A section to respond to students’ questions

1. Announcement

The Neurosomatic Platform App

We’re glad to announce that the first version of the mobile application of the Neurosomatic Platform is now available.

This initial release was designed to give you simple, direct access to the Platform through a single app, making it easier to explore content, return to lessons, and integrate the Platform into your regular practice.

How to access the app?

To download the app, head over to:
https://learn.feldenkrais-education.com/get-app?lang=en

The Android version is ready to be downloaded with a single click.
For iOS, a short guide explains how to create a shortcut icon on your iPhone.
In the meantime, we are developing a newer version that will also be available on the App Store.

Let us know if you need technical assistance!

If you’re not yet familiar with the Neurosomatic Platform, you can find an overview of its content and structure here:

👉 Discover the Neurosomatic Platform: https://feldenkrais-education.com/en/platform/

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New online masterclass available

Feldenkrais & Sports - by Choune Ostorero

(French only, and for practitioners and training students only, if interested in translation, let us know)

This specialized workshop, Feldenkrais for Sports bridges the gap between the somatic world of Feldenkrais and the results-driven world of high-performance sports. Led by Choune Ostorero, former gymnast and certified Feldenkrais practitioner, the course adapts the traditional Feldenkrais approach to the specific demands of athletes and sports clubs.

The workshop focuses on communication, intervention, and performance. Participants learn how to replace “somatic language” with performance vocabulary, how to lead Active Recovery sessions to manage muscle tonus, and how to deliver short, high-impact 15-minute interventions. Through roleplay, demonstrations, and practical exercises, practitioners learn to position themselves as specialists in movement efficiency and injury prevention.

Course details
- Teacher: Choune Ostorero
- Duration: approx. 12–16 hours (3-day workshop)
- Language: French
- Format: Online · Lifetime access
- Price: 140 €
- One-time purchase · 14-day money-back guarantee

For whom
-Feldenkrais practitioners
-Students in Feldenkrais professional training

👉 Available here: https://feldenkrais-education.com/en/masterclass/feldenkrais-for-sports/

2. Did you know ?

Your skeleton is alive and constantly rebuilding itself!

Your bones are not static scaffolding; they are living tissue in continuous renewal. About 10% of your skeleton remodels each year, responding to movement, pressure, hormones, and even neural signals. Over roughly a decade, nearly all your bone tissue is replaced. Every step, breath, and thought subtly shapes this living architecture. Your bones are not things you have, they are processes you are living.

3. Book recommandation

- Awareness beyond thought

Don’t believe Everything You Think: Why Your Thinking Is the Beginning & End of Suffering - by Joseph Nguyen

Joseph Nguyen’s Don’t Believe Everything You Think offers a simple yet radical message: most of our inner suffering comes not from life itself, but from believing the thoughts we have about it. The book is a gentle guide toward seeing that peace is not something we achieve by fixing ourselves, but something we uncover when we stop identifying with every idea the mind produces.

Nguyen reminds us that the human mind is a storyteller, constantly interpreting, labeling, and judging experience. These thoughts can be useful, but when we mistake them for truth, we become trapped in anxiety, self-criticism, or the endless search for control. The shift begins when we learn to witness thought rather than fight or follow it.
Thoughts will continue to arise, but they lose their power when we no longer take them as commands. Nguyen defines "Thoughts" as the raw creative energy (neutral or divine) and "Thinking" as the active, manual processing of those thoughts (which can cause suffering)

For students of the Feldenkrais Method, this parallels what happens in movement learning. Many of us come to a lesson with ideas about how we “should” move, what’s right or wrong, efficient or clumsy. These ideas, like mental noise, often block our ability to feel. When we drop them, even briefly, we begin to notice what’s actually happening: how we’re organizing effort, how breath flows, how gravity supports us.
Nguyen’s message and Feldenkrais teaching both point to a similar truth: awareness is not something we create, but something we return to. The body, like the mind, doesn’t need fixing, it needs listening. The moment we stop trying to force an outcome and simply sense, clarity appears.

In that state, thought becomes lighter, movement freer, and learning more fluid. The mind can think, the body can move, and awareness, the quiet observer behind both, can rest. As Nguyen writes, “Peace was never lost; it was only covered by thought.”

4. Quote of the week

"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift."

- Albert Einstein

5. The student corner

The "Mystery" of the Cramp: A Note for Jenna

Jenna from Köln in Germany asked me: « Why do I sometimes feel cramps coming up in my leg during an ATM lesson? Is it because I don’t drink enough? »

Well, hydration certainly matters, but it is rarely the main reason for cramping during an Awareness Through Movement lesson.

What we now understand is that most common cramps are less about a lack of water or minerals and more about how the nervous system is organizing muscle tone. A cramp is a sudden, involuntary contraction that doesn’t let go because the motor neurons supplying that muscle have become temporarily over-excited.

This often happens when a muscle is fatigued, used in an unfamiliar way, or repeatedly recruited at a "short length" (even in very small movements).

A Different Perspective

From a Feldenkrais perspective, a cramp is not a mistake or a sign that something has gone wrong. It is useful information.

It often indicates that effort has become very local, that a familiar holding pattern has taken over, or that parts of the body are not yet sharing the work. When movements are slow and attention is refined, these habits come into awareness clearly, and occasionally, the nervous system responds with a cramp.

What Helps? The Art of Reciprocal Inhibition

Usually, the answer is not to stretch through it, but to stop and rest. However, if the cramp persists, we can use a beautiful neurological principle to invite release without force: Reciprocal Inhibition.

In the logic of our nervous system, for a muscle to contract, its opposite must receive a signal to lengthen. If the calf (the back) is seizing, it often means the relationship with the shin (the front) has become "muddy."

Instead of fighting the cramp, you can gently clarify the intention of the opposite side.
If the back of your leg cramps, try softly activating the front by lifting your toes toward your knee.
By engaging the antagonist muscle, you send a direct, biological signal to the cramping muscle to switch off.
This isn't about overpowering the cramp; it is about reminding the nervous system of the relationship between front and back.

Seen this way, a cramp is not an enemy. It is a signal, an invitation to reduce effort, clarify the relationship between opposing muscles, and let the organization change rather than trying to force it.

- Yvo Mentens, Feldenkrais Trainer