Feldenkrais on Gurdjieff on Waking Sleep
Gurdjieff
Thanks to a comment by Deborah Elizabeth Lotus on my post yesterday, Feldenkrais on Waking Sleep Walking, I was provoked to see if I could find references of Moshe speaking to similar ideas from Gurdjieff. Though I do not yet have the full corpus of Moshe’s work digitized and on my computer, I was able to find one reference from the San Francisco training.
The first paragraph will be familiar to you if you have either done or taught the work. It’s a common phenomenon. You hear a particular direction and think you following it but are not:
“Somebody put his foot on the floor there, it’s not the same movement [that Moshe asked for]. Would you please look at that gentleman there. He has his knee bent, he doesn’t realize that foot stops participating in the movement of the hand. And I’m talking to him, you can hear — don’t bend your knee. Aha! Now, can you see what you need in order to wake somebody up when he’s consciously asleep.”
“That’s what Gurdjieff used to teach. You say they are in a waking state, but they are asleep, and that’s what it means. It’s not only that you tell it — you say five times, and until everybody stops and you make it clear to him, it’s only then that he realizes that his leg was acting by itself. He had no say in it. And that’s — what do you call it in psychology — alienation, schizophrenia? A person is not whole in himself. He’s divided in bits and one bit doesn’t know the other. Give it a name, and then you will never get rid of it! All right.”
(Moshe Feldenkrais, June 16, 1975; Monday Afternoon, Tape 1A).
I know little of Gurdjieff’s ideas on the subject and I was not able to find a direct quote from him. From what I can tell he prefered to write about his ideas metaphorically or within the body of story (?). I don’t know enough about him to say, that’s just my first impression. But I was able to find one quote from his student P. D. Ouspensky:
“…we are really asleep. We only imagine that we are awake. So when we try to remember ourselves it means only one thing—we try to awake. And we do awake for a second but then we fall asleep again. This is our state of being, so actually we are asleep. We can awake only if we correct many things in the machine and if we work very persistently on this idea of awaking…” (The Fourth Way, Peter Ouspensky
I have no commentary for now. Just though I’d put the ideas out there.
Thanks Ryan, that was a great response to my challenge. I believe on Dennis Leri’s web-site he has an article about Gurdjieff’s influence on Moshe…also read “Meetings With Remarkable Men” for a very entertaining intro. to Mr. G. or better yet see the movie, most excellent and you can also find a wonderful movment exerpt on YouTube, I think it is called ín the monastary”…the book Moshe referenced most often was Mr. G’s Äll and Everything, Beelzebub’s Tales for his Grandson”. Yes what you said is true he embedded his teachings in tales and stories, similar to Moshe, actually although that comes from the Hasidic tradition of his ancestor Rabbi Pinhas also. Have you read David Kaitz book? Well worth reading, although it over-simplifies the ‘roots of Feldenkrais’ which are multi-farious.
All the zest,
Deborah
Thanks for this post, Ryan. I’m interested in learning about any connection between Gurdjieff, Ouspensky et al., the ideas and Dr. Feldenkrais. Was guessing MF may have had some sort of encounter with someone in the Gurdjieff work during his time in Britain during the war? Or perhaps earlier in France? Intriguing, in any case. Point taken from your post is that its not so easy to see our sleep, or believe that we are not in control–partly because we are so seldom conscious of being in our bodies. Feldenkrais helps very much with this.
Moshe wrote:
And that’s — what do you call it in psychology — alienation, schizophrenia? A person is not whole in himself. He’s divided in bits and one bit doesn’t know the other.
Ospenceky’ s yaking about ‘awake’..
—————————————–
meine drei Groschen:
We are not awake to parts of ourselves. Why is that an Riding master might scream at his Riding Student: “Keep your heels down!” or “Sit back!” But the riding student doesn’t do it. It seems it might be an easy thing to do. But verbal instructions are useless to the fragmented consciousness. The student doesn’t know how to keep his heels down …doesn’t know how to sit back. Is he deaf? No, he is just dumb to the movements. It is no good screaming! The Riding Master will complain , “You’ve forced me to scream at you?. Is that what you call communication?
Well, the fact is that communication between human beings is not an verbal thing. You know: “Love is a many splendid thing!” and all that sort of horseshite…
John Quinn
Carol, story is Moshe would have his strong turkish coffee and pastry every day at “Deux Maggots” near La Sorbonne as he would study his books….a few tables away was Gurdjieff holding forth to his formal students. Moshe eavesdropped. Mr. G. knew he was eavesdropping and directed his comments in his direction sometimes, but story is also there was not more than a nod of acknowledgement that passed between them on occasion. Later, Moshe also followed and perhaps met or corresponded with Ouspensky and J.G. Bennett. Moshe also followed the Gurdjieffian teaching device of making one or two people in a study group the ‘scapegoat’–that is the student who always asked the “idiotic questions” became the group receptacle of scorn and disdain, a stand in for all the idiotic questions everyone on had, but was too afraid to ask! In Moshe’s case, he chose, or they chose themselves 3 people in the first USA training of which i was a part for this role, now one of them has passed away and her brilliance is only begun to be known, one became a ‘big trainer’ and the other has struck out on his own. Mr. G. must be smiling….sardonically … Moshe did not wish to be associatied with anything mystical, this is why he did not acknowledge that much influence from Mr. G., but he was profoundly affected by his ‘psychology’ and his use of movement to change conscioussness.
I’m speechless! Carol, thanks for the question. And Deborah, thanks for the answer. Virtually everything that you wrote above is new to me. Much appreciated! – Ryan
Here I continue to find many missing pieces to the jigsaw of my own practice as it is now forming itself. Since I’m not a Feldy and can no longer define myself as a Tai chi player or even a martial artist, I’ll have to strike out on my own like the chap Moshe used to pick on. Thanks Ryan, Deborah et al for this inspiring discussion.
Ryan, this story is not substantiated but totally ‘true’ in the apocryphal sense, but please don’t quote me as gospel…it came from third hand but a reliable source…. of course if you have ever read the at least three different versions of what happened when Feldenkrais met Professor Kano, all narrated by Moshe, one has to value his telling of tales for teaching purposes and perhaps not the literal truth, and perhaps a touch of self-aggrandizement!
Do read “Meetings with Remarkable Men”! and see the movie, I always wanted a similar movie to be made about Moshe, and Terrance stamp could have played him….the movement sequences are fabulous, here’s a clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jbdj5KjDuM
DEL
and you think it’s fun to wake up in a world where everybody is asleep? i would avoid it like the devil, if I were you …