An article by Herbert Wray recently suggested that movement enhances creative thinking. Imagine that J. It cited a number of very serious studies, including one where they told people to gesture with their hands as they spoke. The people who literally embodied “on the other hand,” by using both hands to solve a problem, came up with more creative solutions than the people who only gestured with one hand.
I’m guessing Mr. Wray never read any of Moshe Feldenkrais’ writing, or he would have known that movement and creativity have been linked for over 50 years. In developing Awareness Through Movement® lessons, Feldenkrais often said, “It’s not flexible bodies, it’s flexible minds I’m after.” He understood the link between movement and thinking in ways that modern science is only now beginning to verify.
When people regularly attend Feldenkrais classes, perceived limitations and obstacles become opportunities for seeing in a completely new way. In Wray’s article, he speaks about people literally thinking “outside the box” by walking around the outside of a box. In Feldenkrais classes, we can go beyond that and realize that even the box is a perception. We can think through and around the box. In the movie The Matrix, the hero encounters a child bending a spoon with her mind. The child says, “The secret is, there is no spoon.” Instead of struggling with challenges in a habitual way, the challenges transform and disappear, like the spoon. Feldenkrais students don’t just think outside the box; they learn that indeed, there is no box.