Patterns of physical anxiety and the connection between the mental sphere and the movement system, equilibrium, spatial orientation and healthy social functioning abilities.

In his book, The Body and Mature Behaviour, Moshe Feldenkrais coined the term "the pattern of physical anxiety". People's first reaction to a frightening stimulus is to forcefully clench the flexor muscles (those in the front of the body), especially the ones around the stomach and diaphragm. They hold their breath, which is immediately followed by a whole range of disorders in the blood vessels, such as rapid pulse, sweating and so on.

If we assume that people react to the emotional shocks, fears and anxieties which occur in everyday life, we find that in the healthy human system, changes take place in posture and the form of movement, in reaction to extreme events.

It is unreasonable to expect that people who have undergone a trauma like the death of a relative or someone close to them, incidents of violence, or any other major life-event, will continue to stand straight and organised upright in terms of movement. In a healthy system, there must be adaptation between the current mental structure and posture.

Lowered head, a bowed back, slumped shoulders and bent knees, all of these are typical of posture patterns in anxiety. They give people a sense of security and retreating inwards, enabling them to continue functioning in a reasonable way in difficult periods until they can return to balanced functioning. If it remains unchanged, these posture patterns are liable to become fixed and cause severe pain and constraints to movement. In many cases, people do not perceive the link between emotional and mental incidents and problems in posture and movement. The fact of raising the possibility of such a link leads to a new, therapeutic learning dynamic.

Very often, after people undergo crises in their lives, or enter psychological or psychiatric therapy, their mental condition improves, but the physical/muscular pattern remains unchanged. It is likely that this pattern, which stems from previous events, unconsciously reminds the system of those unpleasant experiences, and connects them with current life.

Movement lessons, therefore, organise movement and posture ability and? enable people to function differently in an improved, pleasanter way, with new behavioural options. They become more capable of listening to the body, awareness improves and self-perception grows. That is, the attention shifts from mental difficulties to the physical picture - joints, muscles and skeleton - towards the new capacities for movement. Self-perception is improved. And so, together with the movement diagnoses, we try to get to know people's personalities and how they think - all without psychological talks - but by getting to know the way they move. As a result of improved breathing, posture and movement, people can take a glimpse into their interior world and can derive tremendous benefits from these contexts.