Talking Joint Hypermobility & Feldenkrais

Ira Feinstein: What led you to want to teach a Feldenkrais series for those with joint hypermobility?

Maggy Burrowes: Like many people with hypermobile joints, as a child I didn’t realize that I had a condition. I just knew that I was different in a way that was hard to pin down. I couldn't catch or throw a ball, or skip without tripping over the rope. I wasn't completely physically incapable; I had rhythm. I loved to dance spontaneously to music, but not if I was trying to follow instructions. However, I didn't imagine it as being a ‘thing;’ I simply thought I was physically incompetent.

During puberty the hormonal changes I was going through intensified my symptoms. I developed weird pains: my left knee would hurt one day, and the next day it would be my right knee. I had experienced random pains from an early age. My mother called these aches ‘growing pains’, but, as with rheumatism, the pains seemed to be worsened by damp weather, and they also responded to the same remedies. As the years passed, I explored various movement activities. I attended dance classes, until I injured myself so badly that I had to stop. I switched to Tai Chi, which was wonderful; my coordination improved, however my knees did not. Of all the things I tried, the Feldenkrais Method was the best. Suddenly, issues that I once had no control over began to improve. As I continued to immerse myself in Feldenkrais, I realized how much of my chronic pain was due to not knowing how to take care of myself. 

Years later, a friend loaned me a book about hypermobility, and I learned about Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and hypermobility spectrum disorders. As I read through the list of potential symptoms, including fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, asthma, dermatographia, swallowing issues, breathing issues, digestive issues, being able to dislocate joints easily, and issues with one’s menstrual cycle, I thought, “This sounds like me.” I learned that all of these symptoms can be the result of having dysfunctional collagen. Suddenly my life started to make sense.

Ira: How old were you when you had this moment of realization?

Maggy: My early fifties! Until then, I didn’t know that many of my ailments could be attributed to one cause. Afterwards, I had the diagnosis confirmed by an osteopath.

Ira: Since then, what have you learned about how the Feldenkrais Method can help people with hypermobility?

Maggy: Feldenkrais can help you manage it much better. It can help you learn to live within the structure you have, with all its unusual movement behaviors. Additionally, Feldenkrais lessons can help you recognize your natural human physical boundaries and learn to work within them.

Ira: I imagine that learning those boundaries could help people with hypermobility have fewer accidents, lessen their pain, and enjoy moving even more.

Maggy: Definitely. People with hypermobility have a great deal of capacity to move with freedom and joy. We often become gymnasts, dancers, and acrobats! However, because we often don't know how to protect ourselves physically, we can end up with acute or long-term injuries. With the help of the Feldenkrais Method, people can really see improvement. There’s great potential to experience a lot of joy from how mobile and free they feel, once they learn how to prevent themselves from entering into a state of discomfort and avoid aggravating their joints. A ‘normal’ skeleton has a naturally limited range of motion, and sensing those limitations clearly is fundamental to how we learn to move well as children. Without clear signals from your joints, you can end up feeling more like a wooden puppet on strings. When our joints move both too far, and in the wrong direction, we end up feeling wobbly, and unsteady on our feet.

Ira: Could you share a bit about your upcoming weekly series, Well-Connected: A Feldenkrais Approach to Managing Joint Hypermobility?

Maggy: I've designed the series around eight lessons which are ideal for finding clear connections through all the joints in every part of our skeleton; these lessons have all made a huge difference to myself, and to the hypermobile people I have worked with over the years. We will be learning to be gentle with ourselves, to find creative solutions, and how not to make extreme movements, even when we are naturally able to. We will be learning how to maintain a more self-aware, mindful state without compromising our freedom to move. These lessons will help us understand the different elements that enable us to move in a whole-self, well-connected way in our daily lives. 

With hypermobility it is easy to do too much without even realizing it, until afterwards, when the pain comes. So, I will emphasize the importance of finding healthy boundaries within larger ranges of motion, so that whatever you're doing, you can keep yourself safe. And because many people with joint hypermobility have problems with the way that our eyes converge on the midline, we’ll also be exploring the vital relationship between eyes, balance, and better movement coordination.

Ira: Thanks for talking with us. I am so excited for people to experience this series.

If you’re curious about Well-Connected, please join us live for the first free class on Thursday, May 29, at 12 PM EDT, or via the recording.