Feldenkrais Guild Service Mark Application (and Conformity Guidelines)

 

“…the thinking that people do when they create their own ideology – their own vision for society – is broader than the thinking involved in following a perspective that is given.” Jeff Schmidt, Disciplined Minds

Someone sent me a pdf of the entire Feldenkrais Guild Service Mark registration (Download 3.1 mb) registered December 3, 1985. Now that I have that date, I am going to mark it in my calendar as a day of mourning and warning.

My view of the service marks is that people used them to simultaneously limit access to Moshe’s work while destroying their own pathway to organic development, developing a religious hierarchy in the process. They created social categories such as “practitioner” and “trainer” and “educational director” busying themselves with legal and semantic definitions – not noticing how year after year they slowly became caricatures of Moshe Feldenkrais – caricatures of themselves. What a waste.

But how could it have been otherwise? When you let lawyers define your reality, when you look to and imitate the past, when you look only for external social and legal support for your actions – what else is possible? The Guilds currently have a legal basis for the work, but not a moral or ethical one. As for an organic and developmental basis? Nowhere to be seen.

If you want to understand what has happened in this community look no further than the writings of Moshe Feldenkrais:

“The education provided by society [In this case the Guild] operates in two directions at once. It suppresses every noncomformist tendency through penalties of withdrawal of support and simultaneously imbues the individual with values that force him to overcome and discard spontaneous desires.

These conditions cause the majority of adults today [some practitioners and nearly all trainers} to live behind a mask, a mask of personality that the individual tries to present to others and to himself. Every aspiration and spontaneous desire is subjected to stringent internal criticism lest they reveal the individual’s organic nature. Such aspirations and desires arouse anxiety and remorse and the individual seeks to suppress the urge to realize them. The only compensation that makes life durable despite these sacrifices is the satisfaction derived from society’s recognition of the individual who achieves its definition of success.” (Moshe Feldenkrais quote from, Awareness Through Movement, 1976, p6)

For examples in your life of what Moshe is speaking to, I will simply ask you to look inside your own heart and your own experience. No one can do it for you. It is the road less traveled. Available to all, used by few. But as the ancient mariner maps show at the edge of the unknown: “There be dragons.” Indeed there are. But they are your dragons.

More examples can be seen in other’s actions. How many in the community do you know that are willing to fight to the death – psychological, intellectual and emotional death – to keep their masks? These are the people that find it easier to follow the habitual, to create and follow restrictions to hide from those areas. Legal restrictions and definitions that lead to a lack of awareness that helps force people to change their behavior to conform – force them to overcome and discard their spontaneous desires.

Feldenkrais Conformity Guidelines

Do you know much about the Feldenkrais conformity guidelines? Also known as selling your soul in exchange for a “trainer mask.” The mask, that Moshe noted, a person can use to “convince himself that society’s recognition of his success should and does give him organic contentment.”

The first step in this process is to give your sense of self-worth and social acceptance to some type of external authority. For one small example, take a look at the EuroTab “trainer guidelines.” It’s stunning. It has the requirements for becoming a “Feldenkrais Trainer”. Here are some of the supposed core competencies that you must have and what they consist of:

Got that? You must demonstrate high proficiency as evidenced by your highly skilled lessons and high level teaching. High proficiency as demonstrated by your high proficiency! Are you familiar with the idea of a circular definition?

There is also this:

(Screenshots taken on 7/19/10 from http://www.eurotab.org/ttcguide2.html)

In other words, you must have the ability to develop curriculum as evidenced by your ability to develop curriculum. Holy cow! Sometimes I wish I was making this stuff up. Do people put that kind of stuff online because they think we are blind and will not see it? Or are they themselves blind?

Historically many people have gone through the process of becoming a trainer (it can take over 20 years) only to be told that they do not qualify and cannot be trainers. I am sure that they are given some reasonable excuse. But lets keep in mind, when all is said and done, it is the trainers themselves who have ultimate authority to certify other trainers. And given that many of them can barely fill their own trainings – why should they certify others? What reason could he have for certifying another trainer?

True Feldenkrais

The trainer certification process, built on top of the service marks, is designed to ensure that a small group of people control the financial and ideological aspects of Moshe’s work. It fits both the form and function of a monopoly, if not a religion. It has been over 25 years since Moshe Feldenkrais death and there are only 60 trainers. Sixty trainers out of the thousands of people who have been through the training programs?!

What happens if you don’t get certified to be a trainer or decide not to be one? Not much. There is no other road for advancement within the community. The sensible thing would be not to engage in the process at all. Some people take this route. But as they cannot use the service mark terms they become “other.” They are “doing their own thing.” While others using the service marked terms present themselves as doing “true feldenkrais.” True Feldenkrais based on what again? A legal opinion on who “owns” the service marks? Not much of a basis.

Tags: feldenkrais, Feldenkrais Trainer, Feldenkrais Training