Awakening the Toes in Your Favorite Dressage Boots, Part I

A Surprising Gateway towards Improving Rider Position, Balance, Effectiveness and Losgelassenheit through the Feldenkrais Method®

“Many people have never made any but the most basic use of their feet. As a result, the only use and idea associated with them is that of a plate-like support to the body.” Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais

In the intricate dance of human movement, our toes, and even the whole foot, often play a silent yet vital role. However, in the modern world, many of us experience a degree of foot atrophy, hampering our toe and foot movement potential. This diminished awareness and movement capacity are largely attributed to our footwear and a lack of barefoot interaction with diverse terrains, leading to a sort of amnesia regarding our feet.

The benefits of improving toe function are manifold, with direct impacts on ankle, knee, hip, pelvic, and lumbar function and even mood. Additionally, an awakened vitality of individual digits and foot function can aid in managing anxiety as well as improving one’s ability to breath better. This is done by rectifying issues associated with contracted feet and poor function by restoring ideal relationships to many other seemingly unrelated body parts such as the pelvic floor and diaphragm. Ultimately creating flow within the nervous system, reducing noise and triggers to the sympathetic nervous system (flight, fight, freeze), which we know affects our riding, and directly influences our horses.

Engaging in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons specifically designed to awaken the toes and their related functions can open an entirely new realm of movement potential and structural organization. These lessons act as a reset button, to restore primal and ideal connections hardwired into our nervous system through evolution. By unscrambling and restoring these connections, we enhance function that is further up the ladder, as well as general nervous system function.

Through specific Awareness Through Movement lessons we delve into a journey, an evolutionary journey and a journey back to our childhood during the developmental stages of our feet. Through the Feldenkrais method, we unlock this latent potential, thereby enhancing our balance, stability, and overall function.

Pausing to spend some time on this subject is especially pertinent to dressage riders. Coming soon, The DTM "Fall Wheel Alignment" is a series of classes devoted to creating a reset, on a foundational level. The first of six lessons is devoted to today’s subject.

Lesson 1 Ground-Up Improvement: This lesson focuses on enhancing support, comfort, and stability from the ground up, starting with your toes, ultimately leading to inexplicable improvements in your overall function. This lesson will improve every rider’s hip function!

We are excited about how many riders have shown interest by their early registration. Early registration is now closed, but there is still room! https://www.davethindmethod.com/zoom

From a top GP rider after doing this same, privately online just a few weeks ago:

"My hips feel super, I'm sitting much better and I'm riding so much better. So great! It helped so much I can't even describe! You know Feldenkrais, not describable."

Dr. Feldenkrais told us that “we can only move as well as we have learned” and that “In order to change our mode of action, we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.” He also optimistically pointed out that “Nothing is permanent about our behavior (movement) patterns except our belief that they are so.”

Now, please think of a puppet:

Its strings and the puppeteer. In our case, the strings are organized by the brain. The brain uses a blue-print of sorts (our self-image) for spontaneous and hopefully ideal function in and out of the saddle.

Feldenkrais aptly noted, "We act in accordance with our self-image," this can be clarified and improved through movement lessons, which brings us to the intriguing concept of the homunculus.

Continued in part II, "The “Little Person” in the Brain Who Helps Direct Our Movement" https://www.davethindmethod.com/blog/homunculus