Finding Moshe: Historical Journeys into the life of Feldenkrais

A special guest post by Irene Gutteridge

In February of 2009 I (Irene Gutteridge) embarked on a project that I named “The Next 25 Years”. What it is you may ask? Simply put, the purpose of this project is to bring savvy (dare I say sexy?!), succinct and professionally produced video clips together that serve to educate people on Feldenkrais.

Why ‘25’? The “25” is because it was ~25 years since Moshe’s passing when this project got going. I believe that such a project is missing from our Feldenkrais community, so last year I decided to do something about it. Interestingly enough, at about the same time that I began, I had the pleasure of meeting Feldenkrais Trainer Dennis Leri. I told him about my ambitious project. This is what he said to me,

“Great, and good you haven’t asked for permission to do so because if you did there’d be people who’d tell you it can’t be done.

Well I am doing it. No one hired me. I hired myself. Perhaps foolishly, because now that I am doing it, I realize why no one has done it.  It isn’t easy and it requires work – hard work – and tears at times and effort, the kind of effort that requires pushing even when you are beyond your comfort zone and completely in foreign territory.

Never have I wanted to quit something so many times. Never have I learned so much. And even with all the challenging bits, such as cutting back on my private practice, I still want to do it. I still wake up each morning and say, “what needs to be done, whom must I contact?” Why do I forge on when the personal sacrifice has been quite high? I do it because this work is too precious to NOT do it, and in my opinion someone does have to do it. A sigh of relief comes when I find emails like this one patiently awaiting in my inbox:

“Hello. I just heard about your project. I am just a simple practitioner but I would love to make this site be more visible. Is it possible to have a translation in french for our students here? Thanks a lot for your work. When I got my certificate I said : “this training was a miracle from the beginning to the end”. Now, I hope to go on for the next 25 years! Greetings from France, near by the sea side on a soft grey day.”

I hold on to such emails as sanity reminders, knowing that there are others across the globe that think the same way and want the same things. The generosity given to me in stories, words and support have outweighed the sticky red tap and political ‘yuk’ that seems to pepper the work and cause devastating gridlock on furthering Feldenkrais towards its much deserved mainstream future.

Finding Moshe: Historical Pictures of Feldenkrais

One of the most generous happenings from my movie project came from a recent contact I made while visiting the Curie Museum in Paris, November, 2009. This museum is where the esteemed Curie’s did their laboratory work. Now it houses photos and antique equipment used during their era. I spoke to a lady working there, told her about my movie project and wondered if there were archival photos taken during the time when Moshe would’ve been floating around the Curie lab as a young graduate student. She instantly handed me the contact of the person who would know about any photos.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago……..

I have been painstakingly trying to acquire a decent high-resolution shot of Moshe that would be usable for high definition film. I have not had any luck within the Feldenkrais community, so I made use of my Paris connection. Within 24 hours (!) I had an email from the photo person asking me if I could pick out Moshe from a group photo taken on February 10, 1939. The inscription is the best part – be sure to read it!

The next day she told me she couldn’t find any photos of Moshe in a science position. But if he was studying under Paul Langevin, which he was, the photos would be in the ESPCI (Ecole supérieur de physique chimie industrielles). But she did remind me that he,  “[Moshe]…built the Jiu-Jitsu Club de France. Frederic and Irène Joliot made judo in this Club and we have a lot of photos of club.”

Magnifique!

She gave me four beautiful, clear, crisp images of our man in his element from his younger years. One image I’ve already seen, but I like the fact that there are still inscriptions on three of them. For me, this gives context and puts you into imagination of what that time may have been like, something I have yet to see in our own archival photos.

It is quite possible that these photos are already in our IFF archive, but the biggest message I learned from this interaction was the ease of sharing historical “stuff”.  I revel in knowing that such graciousness and ease of transmission still exists. Not to mention the long lost art of punctuality.

The Historical Present: Moving the Feldenkrais Community Forward

To end this post, I recently had the fortune of attending a speaking engagement with the author Malcolm Gladwell. He spoke of revolutions and change, and what it takes for something to reach a tipping point. He used examples ranging from the rise of Fidel Castro to the fall of the Berlin Wall. What he found in his research is that it isn’t just having passion and belief that drives people to show up, to create a movement, to fight for a revolution and create a tipping point. Yes, those thing are important factors. But what REALLY determines if you show up the next day, the next week, the next year, is to have a GOOD FRIEND who will also show up alongside of you.  A good friend who believes in the same things and will join you on your quest that goes beyond the occasional emails and short pleasantries. Tipping points need community.

Thanks Ryan for being one of those friends. Thanks for handing over your baby (your blog) to a guest writer and to giving me an arena to showcase “The Next 25 Years” project and to post some of the little rubies I’ve come across. There are many more! Keep pushing the envelope, keep up the passion and the belief that this work IS needed and IS important. Let’s keep the revolution rolling.

- Irene Gutteridge.

Thanks for reading! (ps. Those last two sentences are addressed to ALL practitioners reading this, and Ryan too.)

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Tags: Feldenkrais Photos, moshe feldenkrais