On difficulty

Anything the human skeleton can do can be done effortlessly. That's one of the more provocative claims that is made in the Feldenkrais Method!

In the midst of a challenging lesson, you may pause to recall that, if it weren't for the effort of various muscles getting in the way, your skeleton could easily be configured in the position you're looking for.

Of course without those very same muscles you couldn't perform the action in question or any other action. So it's all a matter of coordination. But The surprising thing is that the limitations, far more often than we imagine, are in our brains, not our joints - and not The muscles themselves, which generally do no more or less than the brain tells them to do.

But what we label (understand, feel) as effort is precisely that part of the muscular work going into the action that is counterproductive. Holding the breath, clenching the jaw or fists (or toes!). Tightening the chest and shoulders.

If we can get rid of the feeling that something is difficult, we can get rid of a great deal of the difficulty itself.