From Movement Struggle to Movement Strategy
I’d like to start with my own journey—from struggle to strategy. For me, it was with my emotions.
I remember feeling so angry one time, and I didn’t know why. I was sitting on the sofa, hands clenched into fists, face screwed up, tears in my eyes—shaking with rage. I was at an utter loss as to what to do.
I knew how I would usually manage my emotions:
Move
Go for a walk, run, swim
Stretch
Play loud music
Drink
Dance
Anything to distract myself and move past the feeling. I would use movement to tell my brain, “It will be fine,” “Don’t worry,” “Just let it go.” Eventually, the emotion would pass and I would stabilise. And that strategy worked well for a while—until it didn’t. I was swallowing everything, and it was just getting harder to hold.
On this particular occasion, I was full of rage and it didn’t stop for days. I was furious, moody, frustrated with everyone—my family, my clients. This time I did something different. I called a friend, and she gave me the most incredible advice, which I have lived by ever since.
“The only way out is through.”
What she didn’t say was:
“Just relax.”
“Let it go.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Give it time.”
What she did say was this:
You are not broken. You just need a new strategy to manage your emotions. You actually have to feel them and stop running away from them.
If it were that simple to just let go of our emotions or our physical sensations, we’d all be moving freely, without pain, without tension, without that familiar sense of pushing through.
But the truth is, struggle in movement—like struggle in managing our emotions—is not a mistake. It’s not something to get rid of. It’s something that made sense at some point so we made it a habit.
These habits often become automatic, shaping how we move or behave without us even realising it—something I explore more in my blog on movement habits.
Struggle is a strategy.
For many of us, it developed in response to stress, injury, pressure, or simply the need to function in a demanding world. I can certainly trace my own struggle with managing my feelings back to childhood. I learned to tighten, brace, push, and override subtle signals from the body because it helped me cope. It got me through.
So when we’re told to “let go of the struggle,” it can create an internal conflict. The brain doesn’t easily release something that once felt essential. We’ve made it an automatic response.
Trying to force relaxation often creates more tension. So how do we move from the strategy of struggle to a strategy of ease? Let me put this into a movement context.
You Are Not Broken – You Just Learned a Different Rule Book
One of the most important shifts is this:
You are not broken. You are organised according to a set of rules that once worked.
Many of my clients come to me with a movement problem of some kind—a balance issue, chronic stiffness in the back, or discomfort and limitation—and the idea that something is wrong with them.
“My hamstrings are too tight.”
“My core is weak.”
“My posture is bad.”
So the strategy becomes:
Stretch the hamstrings
Strengthen the abs
Hold yourself upright
And sometimes this helps. In the same way, I could exercise all day and night and the feeling would pass. But for some, like me, it’s not a sustainable strategy. I end up exhausted, and the problem just keeps coming back.
That’s only one rule book. There are many movement methods out there—why only trust one?
A Feldenkrais or Pilates approach to a movement problem is to open up your awareness to the whole body and use a sense of connection through the whole self to make things easier, rather than taking a more reductive approach of “stretch this” or “tighten that.” That approach isn’t wrong or bad, but for some people it isn’t sustainable. If you’re new to this way of thinking, I explore it more in my blog “Felden-what?”, where I explain what the Feldenkrais Method is and how it works.
A different approach might be:
Feel how your feet meet the floor
Notice how pushing the floor sends force up through your skeleton
Sense how that force can travel through your spine and out through your head
Allow that to organise you in space with less effort
This isn’t about right or wrong. It’s about options.
Both approaches might reduce pain when walking.
Both might improve how you move.
But they are based on very different strategies.
The Problem Isn’t the Old Strategy – It’s Having Only One
If you only have one way of approaching movement, you’re limited—even if that one way sometimes works.
The real issue isn’t that your current habits are bad. It’s that they are dominant.
So rather than trying to replace one idea with another, the aim is to expand your repertoire:
You can stretch your hamstrings and explore how force travels through your body
You can strengthen your abs and learn how to distribute effort more evenly
You can use structure and develop sensitivity
You don’t have to eliminate one strategy to learn another. You develop the ability to choose.
From Effort to Skill
Ease in movement comes from doing things differently.
Instead of focusing on trying harder or trying to relax, the invitation is to become curious:
How am I actually moving right now?
Where am I using more effort than needed?
What happens if I do it more slowly?
Can I sense the difference between effort and efficiency?
This is where movement becomes a skill, not a task.
By paying attention to the details—how weight shifts, how joints coordinate, how breath responds—you begin to discover options. And options are what reduce strain.
Less Panic, More Strategy
When something feels difficult or uncomfortable in the body, it’s easy to react with urgency:
“I need to fix this.”
“I need to push through.”
“I need to stretch more.”
This is where struggle intensifies.
A different approach is to slow things down and introduce strategy:
Break movements into smaller parts
Reduce the range or intensity
Change position (lying, sitting, supported)
Rest more frequently
Compare variations rather than repeating the same effort
Strategy creates space. And in that space, the brain can begin to reorganise.
Developing Self-Trust Through Experience
Sadly we don’t learn ease by being told how to move. We learn it by experiencing differences. This is a unique feature of the Feldenkrais method. The instructions are designed to give you the opportunity to find out how you do things, then the variations will offer alternatives. That’s not to say that your way is wrong but it offers you different options and possibilities.
Each time you notice that something feels lighter, smoother, or more coordinated, you build evidence:
“I can find a better way.”
This is where confidence comes from—not from achieving a perfect movement, but from knowing you can explore and adapt.
Over time, this becomes a quiet kind of trust:
That you can sense what’s useful
That you can adjust when something isn’t working
That you can choose the strategy that fits the moment
Support Systems Matter
That day I met my friend and she gave me this new insight into managing my emotions, I knew my old strategy of struggling with them was beginning to change.
With support, I discovered a new strategy:
To actually allow myself to feel
To soften my body
To listen to my thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations
To allow them to do what they needed to do
So I did. I cried and I shook—harder than I think I’ve ever cried in my life. It felt like a lifetime of tears just waiting to flow. It was intense and exhausting, and I instantly felt easier.
My next concern was whether feeling like this would be constant. With support, my friend reassured me that this was a rare shift. But I did need a consistent practice to manage my emotions.
Now I sit with them daily, even if just for ten minutes, and check in.
A practice of Feldenkrais and meditation works well for me
I still exercise and dance, but I do it for joy rather than escapism
The effort I put into my workouts now is organised and efficient, not driven by tension, urgency, or habit
Trying to change movement habits on your own can be challenging, especially when they are deeply ingrained.
Good support systems make a difference:
Structured classes that prioritise awareness over performance
One-to-one guidance that helps you feel what you can’t yet sense alone
A consistent practice that reinforces new patterns over time
Support reduces the need for struggle because you’re not relying solely on willpower.
Growing Around the Struggle
The old pattern of struggle may still appear. But as awareness, skill, and options grow, it becomes smaller—less dominant, less convincing.
We don’t have to get rid of it
We simply stop letting it be the only choice
Just like with emotions, we don’t need to get rid of the old strategy—we just need more choice in how we respond.
And in its place, something more useful begins to emerge:
Living and moving with options, adaptability, and far less strain.