What if the biggest obstacles to easier movement aren't your age, arthritis, or an old injury?

In this episode, I share five surprisingly common habits that can quietly interfere with comfortable, coordinated movement for both people and animals.

You'll discover why slowing down helps your nervous system learn, why comfort deserves your attention, and why trying harder often creates more strain instead of better results.

Whether you work with horses, dogs, or simply want to move more comfortably yourself, these simple shifts can make a remarkable difference.

You'll learn:

• Why comfort is something many people stop noticing
  • How rushing causes you to miss valuable information
  • Why "trying harder" often backfires
  • How repetitive movement patterns create unnecessary tension
  • Why thinking about the whole body leads to better movement than trying to fix individual parts

This episode also includes an easy experiment you can begin using today.

Key Takeaways

• Comfort isn't a luxury. It's valuable information your nervous system uses for learning.
• Moving slowly allows you to notice important differences that fast movement hides.
• Trying harder often increases compensation rather than improving movement.
• Small variations in everyday activities help keep your nervous system adaptable.
• The body works as an integrated system. Improving coordination often solves problems more effectively than focusing on one painful area.
• Asking yourself, "How can this feel easier?" is a powerful question for movement, work, relationships, and life.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi. Did you know that some of the biggest obstacles to easier, more fluid movement aren't age, arthritis, or even old injuries. They're actually the small things you do over and over again every day, every single day. And the same is true for your horse or your dog. But here's the best part. Once you become aware of them, you can change them surprisingly quickly. So let's talk about what the first one is.

The first one is not noticing if you're comfortable or not. Like, not being able to say, yes, this is comfortable, or no, it's not comfortable. It's like you just ignore comfort. You just overlook it. And the reason we do that is because we feel the same way over and over whether that's comfortable or not. And so it just becomes normal. Our nervous system doesn't register that we're uncomfortable, and it's just familiar.

And the nervous system tends to repeat what feels familiar. So, yeah, you kind of ignore comfort. It's like you don't even think about whether a position or a movement is comfortable or not. You just do it. Okay, so that's number one. Number two is you're moving too fast, right? It's very difficult to notice subtle, important differences when you're moving too fast. You know, as a matter of fact, here.

Let's do this. Don't do this if you're listening to this while you're driving a car or a tractor or something. But if you're in a place to do this, just very slowly turn your head just a little bit from side to side and notice if one direction feels a little freer, a little easier, maybe you just naturally go a little further in that direction than the other. Now, if you did, and then just let that go.

Now if you did that quickly, which I don't recommend, if you did it quickly, your brain wouldn't have time and space to notice whether one direction was easier or. Or not. And it's important that we do notice differences because that's how we learn and we can start to you. You'll see as. As I go through the episode today, that there's other ways then of helping the more challenging side feel more like the freer side.

So hidden habit number three is trying harder instead of noticing more. Okay, so let's use our head turning example. Maybe you notice that one direction was easier than the other. Some people would tell you you need to stretch and strain, so both sides are equal. I would discourage you from doing that because trying harder. What you're probably doing is you're just creating more Strain in your system, more things to compensate for, more things your nervous system has to protect against, and it ends up backfiring.

So that is not, in my opinion, a good strategy at all. Just to simply push through and try harder. That backfires instead. Again, if you slow down, do less, do smaller movements, you'll notice more. And that's when you can say, oh, wait a minute, that's not quite comfortable. And then, and this is what I teach in my. In my. Both in my horse programs and my dog programs, right?

We put a lot of emphasis on the human portion of it for you because improving your movement will help you help your horse or your dog more effectively. So this is why you need to slow down. Don't just go rushing through life pushing and straining, okay? You already know how to strain. You're really good at stressing and straining. What we want to do is slow down and do less and do it more mindfully.

Okay? Number four, repeating the same patterns over and over again. Yes. The way you sit, the way you stand, the way you breathe, the way you walk, all the things, right? You have certain movement patterns. Now, many of them are helpful, right? You don't want to have to think about how you walk across the room. However, sometimes stopping and thinking about how you cross the room will let you know that, oh, wait, the way I'm waiting.

My right leg is different than my left, right? And you can start to troubleshoot. You can start to avoid small issues from becoming major issues later on. So the nervous system thrives on variation when we. That's what gets its attention when we do the same things over and over and over again. First of all, they create a lot of stress and strain and compensations on the body. And the nervous system just kind of tunes everything out because it's not new, it's just familiar.

So think about this. Maybe you can do simple things in your day, even something like using your non dominant hand to open your door or reach for a mug or whatever it is you do, right? Start to change things up a little bit. Vary your routine, kind of get out of the rut that we're often in. Think about how you're sitting in a chair. Are you always leaning to one side?

Right? Or how you drive your car. Think about how you can slow down, really feel what you're doing and make it more comfortable and break out of those repetitive patterns that may actually be harming you. And then number five is that we're always. We often think of trying to fix things instead of connecting like in other Words. Maybe you're having an issue with a shoulder and you're thinking, how can I fix this?

How can I fix this? And you're just thinking about, like a localized part instead of thinking about how you organize and coordinate your entire movement, like all the parts of you. And by doing that, then your shoulder will be able to heal. So, for example, I always remember this, one of my wonderful teachers in the Feldenkrais method, the Late Mark Rees, Dr. Mark Reese, he used to say, the pelvis is the foundation for the shoulder.

And so often when people come to me with shoulder issues, what I find is not really about the shoulder. Yeah, the shoulder may be where there's limitation right now. You know, things like that. However, you know, if I can help the person coordinate their part so that the pelvis is now a stable foundation for the shoulder, the nervous system can let go of protective armoring or tightening around the shoulder.

And this is also true, you know, with helping the ribs get freer and the sternum and all these things and of course the thoracic spine, right? All those things will help the shoulder. So instead of, again, instead of trying to fix parts, think more globally. Think about how you can have this lovely coordination of all your parts. And again, all these, these concepts hold true for horses and dogs.

So I, I teach hands on work called Dibona moves that's strongly informed by the Feldenkrais method. And we follow the same strategies that we're helping the horse or the dog, say, for example, free up a shoulder or use their hind legs more easily or help them use their back in a more comfortable, supple way. It's all about how the whole, you know, the whole body, all the parts can contribute to freer movement.

So, okay, so, so this week, here's a little homework. If you'd like, just pick one habit. Maybe you find that you rush through things. You're busy, you just rush through. What if you tried slowing down and whatever you're doing and ask yourself, how can this feel easier, A little bit easier? What can you do? Can you take a breath? Can you let your shoulders down, right? Can you relax your back or your belly?

Just notice something you can do, right? You know, see where you're holding unnecessary tension? Often, again, that's a habit that you've gotten into. And now just draw your attention to it and say, well, can I let go? Can I let go a little bit more, right? So maybe you slow down more or you stop trying so hard, right? And you think more globally about how, like just Whatever, whatever issue, whatever challenge you're facing, maybe it's with your horse or your dog, or maybe it's something you know in your personal life or your business life.

Can you think more globally about it instead of fixating on one issue that you think is the problem and that you want to fix that issue? But ask yourself, how can this feel easier? What can I do to let go of unnecessary tension, stop straining, and have this feel easier, whatever this happens to be? You know, that one question I find is so powerful. It's so powerful for me personally and I've shared it with so many clients and students over the years and some of them have told me they actually put it on a post it note and post it in different places so that they can be reminded of this, that how can this feel easier, whatever this, you know, happens to be.

So hope that gives you some food for thought, some food for movement, actually, I should say, as well, and apply it for yourself as well as your animals in your life. So thank you so much for being here. I love sharing this work with you and I look forward to talking to you again soon. Bye for now.

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