For information about how to set up
this extraordinarily adaptable support-system see Resources:
Constructing your own versatile Air-Table
In Functional Integration an Air-Table can serve
as a valuable alternative to the regular Feldenkrais table,
providing clients with highly sensitive and secure support,
constant global feedback, and such interesting experiences
as feeling the supporting surface respond when their shoulder,
head, or hip go backwards.
The practitioner will find it very easy to get one or both
hands behind – even the heaviest - pelvis,back, or
shoulder girdle without disturbance to the person. All you
have to do is gently lean into the yielding surface and slide
your hand wherever you want it to be.
While working ‘with themselves’ (for instance
trying to clarify internal connections – proprioceptively,
kinesthetically, and mentally – when preparing an ATM),
practitioners may find the air-table invaluable. Its responsive
surface has the capacity of enhancing clarity of perception
much beyond what is normally possible.
Two things should be pointed out:
a) The air-table consists of segments - supporting head and
shoulders, back, pelvis, and legs separately and yet in
a unified way – and therefore allows extremely subtle
and precise Functional Integration work. This easily constructed
device is not to be compared to a waterbed or an air-mattress.
b) The whole secret of effective use of an air-table lies
in the following:
-
The correct amount of air or pressure – not
too firm (full), not too floppy (insufficiently inflated),
but just right to match the human nervous system’s
acute sense for appropriate overall muscle tonus in rest
and activity.
Complete confidence on the part of the
practitioner. This can only be acquired through practice
and experience – especially
with regard to skilfully using one’s own body in the
gravitational field. This also means organising oneself always
in relation to the floor as main reference, using it as a
secure foundation and one’s
own skeleton for occasional extra support (for instance placing
an elbow on a knee) while working with somebody lying on
the somewhat mobile air-table.
With sufficient practice in gently mobilising this mobile
structure with one’s own body in order to assist whatever
one’s hands are doing becomes
second nature.
- The practitioner acquires new skills and agility in
using her/his own body in relation to the person lying on a
highly responsive, mobile surface, while learning to rely totally
on the floor as the ultimate provider of stability.
The first prototype of the Air-Table
- With the entire body gently, yet firmly and securely, supported,
the learner’s nervous system almost instantly becomes
calm and attentive to the smallest movements - subtly transmitted
from foot to head and vice versa, no matter where they
are initiated. Speed and quality of learning can be phenomenal
when the learner’s system is no longer shocked or
inhibited by the sense of harsh resistance created by an
unyielding surface. With the entire body at least subliminally
participating all the time, integration of surprisingly
quickly emergent, more highly functional, movement-patterns
happens spontaneously. Once the person is back on her/his
feet this can then be confirmed in simple everyday movements
according to needs.
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