Anat Baniel Method®
Anat Baniel Method® (ABM) NeuroMovement® is a holistic approach to human functioning and action, based on the understanding that movement is the language of the brain. Movement provides information the brain needs to grow and organize itself. And, in return, the brain organizes all movement, thought, feelings, and action.
Thinking, emotion, and feelings are also considered movement, not only the movement of the body in space.
With NeuroMovement, the person is seen as a whole very complex system. The movement is intended as the language of the brain but also as the mechanism through which we function. In classical therapies, classical methods, the approach tends to separate the movement of the body from the thinking. In ABM they are a whole. Thinking, moving, feeling are all part of one whole system. Stimulating through movement one can enhance the thinking and the feelings and vice-versa. As a baby, movements are random and involuntary and bring experiences which feed the brain with information. the information is used to form recognizable patterns, to organize and to control the movement.
The Nine Essentials
The Nine Essentials form the core of the Anat Baniel Method Neuromovement; each of them describes one of the brain’s requirements for waking up and doing its job well. They are validated by the latest discoveries in neuroplasticity (the ability of the brain to change and grow new neurological pathways and connections throughout life). The Nine Essentials offer you concrete, effective, and immediate ways to easily tap into your brain’s enormous potential.
Essential 1 – Movement with Attention
Movement is Life. Movement helps the brain grow and form. The brain is organized through movement. In turn, it is the brain that organizes all movement: the movement of our body, our thinking, our feelings, and our emotions. But movement alone is not enough. Automatic movement—movement done without attention—only grooves in the already existing patterns. When we bring attention to what we feel as we move, the brain immediately starts building billions of new neurological connections that usher in changes, learning, and transformation.
Essential 2 – Slow
Fast, we can only do what we already know. This is how the brain works. To learn and master new skills and overcome limitation, the first thing to do is slow way down. Slow actually gets the brain’s attention and stimulates the formation of rich new neural patterns. Slow gets us out of the automatic mode in our movements, speech, thoughts, and social interactions. Slow lets us feel and experience life at a deeper, more profound level.
Essential 3 – Variation
Variation is everywhere and is more than just the spice of life. It’s a necessity for optimum health. Variation provides your brain with the richness of information it needs to create new possibilities in your movements, feelings, thoughts, and actions. It helps increase your awareness and lifts you out of rigidity and “stuckness.”
By introducing variation and playfulness into everything you do, you awaken all your senses. New ideas occur and new possibilities emerge in your life.
Essential 4 – Subtlety
We have all heard the expressions “no pain, no gain” and “try harder .” However, in order to overcome pain and limitation and thrive, the brain needs the exact opposite—less force. For the brain to receive new information, it needs to perceive differences. By reducing the force with which we move and think, we increase our sensitivity. With the resulting increased sensitivity, we greatly enhance our brain’s ability to perceive the finest of differences. These
perceptions give the brain the new information it needs to organize successful action and become more alive and vital in both body and mind.
Essential 5 – Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm is self-generated; it is a skill you can develop, choose to do and become good at. Enthusiasm tells your brain what is important to you, amplifying whatever that is, making it stand out, infusing it with energy to grow more. It is a powerful energy that lifts you up and inspires you and others.
Enthusiasm lights up your brain, helping to usher in changes, transforming the most mundane situation or task, adding meaning and generating delight. Enthusiasm helps make the impossible possible.
Essential 6 – Flexible Goals
“Keeping your eyes on the prize” is a great way for most people to fail. Freeing yourself from the compulsion to achieve a goal in a certain way and at a certain time keeps you open-minded. You are available to recognize opportunities you might never have noticed had you been fixed on a too rigidly set course. There is no way to know in advance the path that will lead you to achieve your goal. Know your goal and embrace all the unexpected steps, missteps, and re-routes. They are a rich source of valuable information for your brain to lead you to your goal. Flexible goals will reduce your anxiety and increase your creativity, resulting in greater success, vitality, and joy.
Essential 7 – The Learning Switch
The brain is either in a learning mode—the learning switch is on—or not. Healthy young children have their learning switch on and the dial turned on “high.” Their eyes are bright, their movement lithe, and they are full of energy. Repetition, drills, and everyday stresses, as well as habitual patterns of thought, exercise, and emotions, all tend to turn the learning switch off. The same happens when a child has special challenges, or a person has suffered trauma or injury.
For the brain to properly do its job, the learning switch needs to be on. Once on, at any age, life becomes a wonderful new adventure, filled with movement, creativity, and new possibilities.
Essential 8 – Imagination & Dreams
Einstein said: “Imagination is everything. It is the preview to life’s coming attractions .” Through imagination your brain figures out new possibilities before actually having to perform. When imagining, the brain grows new neural connections. Our dreams call upon us from our future. They give us our unique life path to follow and guide our brains to continue growing and developing.
Your imagination and dreams give you the ability to create something that has never been there before, transcending your current limitations and leading you to develop your authentic life path.
Essential 9 – Awareness
Awaring—the action of generating awareness—is to be knowledgeable about what you are doing, sensing, thinking, and experiencing at any given moment. Awaring is the opposite of automaticity and compulsion. It is a unique human capacity that can catapult us to remarkable heights. When you are aware, you are fully alive and present. Your brain is working at its highest level, noticing subtle nuances of what is going on around and within you, revealing options and potentials, greatly accelerating learning. You are enlivened and joyful, contributing to others, becoming more enlightened, and fulfilling more and more of your human destiny. Your human potential for peak performance, for healing and transformation, is far greater than anything previously believed possible.
Why? Because instead of being limited by muscle performance you are freed up to use the growth potential of your unlimited brain as the tool for your body’s and mind’s healing, rehabilitation, and development.
The Anat Baniel Method provides the conditions that give the brain the ability to perceive differences in all dimensions, giving it the information it needs to map the body and evolve a person’s ability to think, feel, and move once again. The other principle of the Anat Baniel Method is that the human being always works as one system.
When you want to improve, you have to address all aspects of yourself and provide the information for the brain to map and organize on an increasingly more complex and skillful level your movement, thinking, feeling and emotions. If you want to improve your fitness in one area—say the ability to tie your own shoelaces again—it is
important to bring your whole body and the rest of the self into the action to access more fully the remarkable capacities for healing learning and growth we all possess. If you just work at trying to bend over, most likely you’ll find your improvement to be limited and you might begin experiencing pain in the process. You have to do a wide variety of gentle movements that include all the body. You have to consciously become aware of your entire body and how it feels and moves. You have to follow the other Essentials. Then, when you have the brain perceiving differences and integrating more parts of yourself, the improvement is fast and transformational.
