pauldoron@googlemail.com

Kathy – I’m pretty sure that Roger and the conference committee will read this…let’s hope they are staying apprised of what is going on. Your question speaks to the larger issue of making sure that members communicate (and the “guild” finds out) what practitioners and the public want and need. Roger and the rest of the guild conference are passionate people and want the conferences to succeed – to do that they’ve got to get buy in from enough practitioners and give them what they want. And to do that…? I think they have to ask….

Elinor – I will likely submit a proposal for this conference. And I’m in the process of creating a group to develop another conference around sharing Moshe’s legacy. Off the top of my head, for this one, I’d say, “Neuroscience and Growing Your Practice: How The Research Can Help You To Reach More People and Become More Powerful as a Practitioner.”

I just made that up and have no idea if I can pull it off. But the research is there and someone can certainly do it.

- Ryan

- Ryan

A newly graduated lawyer and a senior citizen are sitting next to each other on a 6-hour flight.
The lawyer is thinking that seniors are so out of touch and/or senile, that he could get one over on any of them easily, and make the money to pay for his cocktails on the flight at least.

So, as the plane takes off, the lawyer asks if the senior would like to play a fun game. The senior is tired and just wants to take a nap, so he politely declines and tries to catch a few winks..

The lawyer persists, saying that the game is a lot of fun, and explains….

“I ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me only $5.00. Then you ask me one, and if I don’t know the answer, I will pay you $500.00,” he says.

This catches the senior’s attention and, figuring he’d play a bit just to pacify the lawyer so he could sleep the rest of the flight, he agrees to play the game.

The lawyer asks the first question.. “What’s the distance from the Earth to the Moon?”

The senior doesn’t say a word, just reaches into his pocket, pulls out a five-dollar bill, and hands it to the lawyer.

Now, it’s the senior’s turn. He asks the lawyer, “What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?”

The lawyer, befuddled and annoyed, asks for time to research it.

The senior citizen happily agrees and dozes off… while the lawyer uses his laptop to search all references he can find on the Net. He sends E-mails to all the smart friends he knows; all to no avail.

After an hour of searching, he finally gives up. He wakes the senior and hands him $500.00.

The senior pockets the $500.00 and goes right back to sleep. The lawyer is now upset though, and going nuts not knowing the answer.

He awakens the senior and asks, “Well, so what DOES go up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?”

The senior reaches into his pocket, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

“fascinating – too much too soon? Transformation isn’t for everyone, I guess. Incremental changes can be easier. I’ve noticed that fear is the emotion of change, and so massive change can produce overwhelming fear, which may be what triggered the aggression in the participants. ” The above is from a former medical doctor and current therapist and trainer of Ericksonian Hypnosis.

And from Irene Gutteridge, Feldenkrais Practitioner in Canada:

“As I may have written to you before, there are definite, in my opinion at least, holes in the way ATM is taught. THis especially when you take a bunch of people who are totally new to the work and essentially “rock their worlds and bodies and psyches” in a weekend workshop and have no space or time for emotional processing that parallels the huge changes in movement and motility etc. “

the iPhone was also there all along … but it took a very long cultural development before it could actually be produced, millions and millions of people involved in this process (starting from the invention of glass, to production of computer chips, supply of manufacturing machines, transportation etc etc etc). Same is for Feldenkrais, it was possible all along, but needed thousands of years of development of the societies before someone was able to verbalize it.

(this is an idea/extract from a speech about Feldenkrais I’m working on)

Now, couple of years into my private practice, I can see and understand and appreciate much more. Now I would really like to “hang out” with Mosh Feldenkrais (or someone equally cool), and study with him/her in a proper master-apprentice model, like the holy 13 did.

Ruthy like Mia, Yochanan, Eli Wadler, and Chava Shelhav, all of whom were trained by Moshe before the San Francisco training, felt that they had no choice but to teach as their experience demanded, as opposed to how the Feldenkrais bureaucracy demanded.

The TABs rationalized what they did as necessary to create a unified body of knowledge with standards of curiculum so that when people came to get a Feldenkrais ATM or FI, they would know that the person had graduated from an accredited training program. It sounds good, but I think that by creating unacceptable conditions for many of the most senior people in the method, this action badly stilted the growth of the work, both as a discipline and in its acceptance in the world.

Moshe often said that each person would develop their own handwriting in the work. Each of the trainings that he taught were radically different from each other. How was it representative of his work to codify rules as to how trainings must be taught to be accredited? Accredited by whom and for what? To protect the public? To protect Feldenkrais practitioners from competition of those who were minimally or poorly trained? Experience shows that anyone who does bad work will not succeed in building a practice, so what are they afraid of? I’m afraid that controlling the work will continue to result in this marvelous resource for humanity effectively remaining stillborn.

Thanks for sharing this Ryan!

- Ryan

Honestly I can’t see there being ANY OTHER WAY to proceed and keep evolving what Moshe “codified” over 30 years ago.

I’ve been encouraged by my main mentor to do EXACTLY what you mention above.

As Prisca noted, Moshe started with people who had had already a lot of ATM experience. For myself, I know of at least 1/2 dozen people – be it dedicated clients of mine, or other movement-mind-body-based colleagues who aren’t Feldies, but who would like to access and learn more about Moshe’s main principles of movement and higher learning for either their own personal development, or in order to enhance their own teachings in the movement disciplines.

We forget that what Moshe was teaching was there all along – it was just invisible (i think) to our very industrialized and dualistic way of treating and taking care of our bodies. This reminds me of Simon Sinek who codified what he calls “The Golden Circle” and is now teaching to org’s and making a fortune doing so!

(as I see it) Moshe codified and created an immense amount of content and resource to fully explore what is in each of us. After all we always use babies and young infants as a primary example of “good movement”, should this birthright be trademarked in the way it has been? Even though I’m a member of FGNA, I choose to not use the service marks in my marketing. (for me) the trademarks make “feldenkrais” look like a fad and a ‘prescriptive’ method, as opposed to a model of learning that can improve all aspects and qualities of a human being and how they interact with their world.

Good post Ryan. Irene.

My training will be according to the laws of the organic learning in opposition to the rules in an accademic learning. These laws of the organic learning can be summerized in one single word: S E L F – E X P E R I E N C E.
Every lesson in awareness through mevement taught by Moshe Feldenkrais was first experienced by himself many, many times before he gave it to the public. Feldenkrais was, so to say, his first pupil and evolved his method through his own self-education during the creation of his lessons and of his method as a whole.
Self-education through self-experience determinated the creation of the Feldenkrais method by Moshe Feldenkrais and was the way Feldenkrais wanted his teaching will assist the others to learn and understand his method.
In this training you will not be instructed, but you will have the opportunity to learn through self-experience, the same way a new-born learns his mother-tongue.
Through more than eight hundreds group-lessons in Awareness Through Movement of Moshe Feldenkrais and 10 sessions in Functional Integration given by myself to every participant during the Training you will get the necessary experience for the practice part in the last segment of the training which will be dedicated only to the practice of the trainees under my suppervision. In this last part of the training dedicated only to the practice of the Feldenkrais Method in its both forms, ATM and FI, you will have the opportunity to prove to yourself your own ability for a mature, competent and creativ application of the Feldenkrais Method suiting the necessities of the client you work with.
“Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.”
“All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
“I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do.”
Leonardo da Vinci
___________________________________________________________

“Your participation in the course of Ruth Bar made it to an unforgettable event. You did a great impression on us all and opened new and important aspects of the method. We will be happy to attend your workshop in September.”
Natalia

“I have been in the sessions at kibbutz Izreel, and learned a lot both technically, emotionally and theoretically.”
Jonathan

http://alt.feldenkrais-training.de/index.php?language=2&topic=8&page=12

For more information, please, contact me at info@feldenkrais-training.de

“…it took me some years to understand how much we need each other to understand ourselves and the method… but at the time i was thinking of facing everything alone.. well that time was really really harder…”

I agree. Many of the people who became skilled quickly at this work had a strategy of working with others in a study group. That wasn’t quite possible for me in the beginning (I was too out of touch with myself). I think many of us start out there. And perhaps all of that time on the floor, sensing and moving can lead some of us to isolation?

- Ryan

Be well – Ryan

- Ryan

For example take a string of ATM’s:

say, 4-point, with spider walk, with flipping the heels to squat with a judo roll thrown in here and there, along with some basic rolling ATM’s, and speed it up a tad and you have a full on workout that is sensory based (granted you begin slow…and build) and gets every single orientation, body part and movement possibility jiving.[i did this this summer and it was brilliant!] you could call it dance, or CI, or fitness class, or simply human movement.

I’m finding that the “labelling” of our activities, Feldenkrais included, can become hazardous if we are not careful.

thanks for posting this Ryan. It’s about to become a post on the human groove tonight!

I’ve only done a little bit of contact improv. I enjoyed it. I think it’s wonderful and can be an amazing complement to the Feldenkrais Method. But like you, I don’t think it can directly teach us to move better or differently. Well, perhaps it can, but not with the specificity and power of Feldenkrais.

Thanks for joining the conversation! – Ryan

Robbie – Thanks. I too, found a disconnect between Paxton’s words and his nonverbal behavior. However, it’s only one snippet of his life and I don’t want to read too much into it. I could relate to him and other’s like him as people looking for more choices. Looking but perhaps not actualizing. Not having a way out.

My view on city life is that it has the possibility to save us. They are more energy efficient and can potentially have a lower footprint than living in the country. Actually, they already do, but the efficiencies can improve dramatically. I don’t think he was looking for a return to a previous was of life. But again, I don’t know much about the man.

cheers – Ryan

http://www.musclemanagement.com/berrymethod/

I will try and remember.

- Ryan

I like the scurvy piece too.

Irene.

The most priceless Moshe humour is in B&MB in chapter 17 on the upright two-person reflex sexual orgasm…Most of Moshe’s work has a big effect on the flexibility of the hips and pelvis, but the sexual benefits are not emphasized by Feldenkrais people.
Moshe says something to the effect that if one has a “female” (sic!) partner that is “affectionately disposed”!
It’s page 177-178. He even mentions that one would probably have 5000 coiti (coitus) acts in one’s life! These two pages are probably the most radical of Feldenkrais’ writings that have been ignored. Imagine a demo on the Oprah Show! How many people have even experienced or seen a mature complete reflex discharge of the sex act while standing! One needs to be erect ( sic!) in the standing position in order for the reflex to be triggered thru the feet and gravity components….
Not to mention the gross lack of apprenticeship offered to ourselves in education!

http://utahfeldenkrais.org/blog/podcasts/edward%20_yu_1.mp3

- Ryan

It is not just our responsibility to make clear what we do and why we do it, but also to defend it when it is questioned.

Some can’t do this.

Avoid

let me know if you can pull it up,
Stacy

Stacy – The link you sent me does not resolve. I looked it up and google and the link is correct. Perhaps the website is down?

- Ryan

They want to kill him even after his death by hiding what they can still hide from the public (David Berzin being one of the champions in hiding Feldenkras materials together with Anat Baniel, Jeremy Karzen and some other I will not mention here).
I am not the rabbit and the IFFFFFFFF are not the cat. And I will soon give my own PROFESSIONAL Trainings in the Feldenkrais Method for people who will not need to wait for a “competency” passport which they will get only if they will learn to be a “brave boy” and a “brave girl” and stay on their tail waiting for the piece of paper given by some selfmade and selfnamed Feldenkrais Police, trainings for those who are not ready to wait for 20 years to be labeled as “competent” in order to give trainings which will create another group of incompetent people for another 20 years.
Feldenkrais method has to be spread as free and authentically as Chi Gong, Tai Chi and many other far east systhems have spread in all their different forms have spread in the world.

I for one and moving on. I only have a few more posts and I am moving to a new website and way of disseminating the work where I can breathe more freely.

- Ryan

I’ve been quietly assessing the inner and outer workings of this amazing work for the past few years, and it is quite apparent, for me at least, that until some new blood and new ideas on how to better further and enhance, not only the training model, but Moshe’s teaching, will his work survive and rise to the next level.

I was trained incredibly soundly and had great resource and education going into the training, and have beefed up my knowledge in other areas post-training (especially marketing), and even with this, there are, again in my opinion, huge holes in the Moshe’s teaching. (There I said it!)

Hope everyone is doing well this summer! IRene.

Where is good old irony and funny talk? Wasn’t Moshe teaching his beloved students to rid themselves of feelings of inferiority? Didn’t David succeed in doing so?

Also revisit the talking .. some pracs quote Moshe often enough (always the same quotes though) for making their audience believe this actually must be Moshe in the room, or at least the best organic playback one can get …

I’m upset because Marty did obviously not know how important he was.

In 1933 we witnessed the books burning by the nazis, in 1956 the FDA burned the books of Wilhelm Reich, in 1958 Viktor Schauberger his works were confiscated by “US intelligence agents” and he was kept in custody, died few days later. In 1975 we witnessed how the Red Khmer killed most educated people in Cambodia. Just a few examples. Most people still live in a trauma after this kind of events.

But actually, now, we live in very interesting times: for the first time in history it seems that educated, highly evolved people are alive, and have a chance to survive and to propel humanity forwards, to make a big change: from uneducated and stupid to highly evolved and intelligent.

I don’t think Marty knew what he was up against. Thousands of years of history pressing against him. Not aware of this, it was just to tempting to give way to “psychological burdens”.

I hope his death is an alert signal for all living genius, for everyone reading this, for putting up against the forces of destruction and to say heil to life itself, to celebrate knowledge, wisdom and refinement of character. We need to survive!

http://catself.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/marty-remembered/

Thank you, Anita Schnee

“It is one thing to study war, and another to live the warrior’s life.” Telamon of Acadia, Mercenary, 5th Century B.C.

When I heard the news of Marty’s death, I grieved deeply the loss of this exceptional man, whom I had loved dearly, and who had been my life partner for 9 years.

My heart broke sensing what I felt might have been his final moments of anguish and fear, and with the realization that my last moments with him were to be those gray and painful ones that I had spent preparing to leave our temple home for the last time.

For the moment, I had forgotten the central point of his brilliant philosophy of life, and healing, and art.

As most of you know, in addition to being an artist, Marty was a teacher and practitioner of a unique hands-on healing method, as well as a philosophy of conscious experience.

His approach to healing the bodies, minds and spirits of others is perhaps best captured by a beautiful Galway Kinnell poem, which he kept framed in his treatment room. It is called “St. Francis and the Sow”:

The bud
stands for all things,
even those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as St. Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of
the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking
and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

Marty saw everyone he touched as a beautiful and whole work of art – regardless of their medically-diagnosed conditions or personal sense of imperfection, and his lessons showed us new and more expansive ways of being, of experiencing our own wholeness.

To hear the words he told us, about us and to be held in his healing hands was to be ‘reminded’ of our own perfect loveliness, to feel our own ‘self-blessing’, perhaps for the first time.

But it was his private sense of irreversible imperfection and its attendant anguish that fueled his genius and every aspect of his life’s work.

At the age of 6, Marty was diagnosed with a spinal tumor and admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital for a series of radiation treatments that would disintegrate his vertebrae in the region of the lesion, and require him to be in a full-body cast for six months, and on crutches for another year.

His parents lived across the city from the hospital and didn’t have a car. They had four children, all told, with another small child at home to care for, and jobs to do . . . And so Marty was left alone, sometimes for days and nights at a time, in a dreary ward (which was characteristic of large municipal hospitals in the 1940s), with only rare visits from the professional-but-impersonal medical staff – left alone with his extreme physical pain, and his absolute immobility, and an excruciating sense of his own imperfection.

This nightmarish experience was the seed of the bud that blossomed fully into Marty’s extraordinary healing talent, a talent that touched the lives of heads of state and industry, celebrities and star athletes, homeless persons and immigrant children with equal tenderness and love.

The demons of his early experiences never left him; rather, they remained as his ever-present teachers, and his private struggle with them continued to fuel his powerful healing talents, his art, and his philosophy of life until he made the decision to end his own.

Now, as I remember Marty and his core teachings, I see clearly the whole masterwork of impressionistic art that was his life.

We can neither appreciate it, nor understand it by stepping in close and focusing on any one moment, dark or bright,

and it is not in anyway diminished because the last dab of paint applied to the canvas appears to us gray rather than robins-egg blue.

For us to see Marty’s last moment as a ‘senseless tragedy’,
or his life as ‘imperfect’ or ‘distorted’ because of it, would be to miss the genius of his central teaching and the exquisite beauty and absolute perfection of the whole being that was, and is, Marty Weiner.

I struggle with the term myself, but the culture seems to like it, and, I’ve found it harmless – if not meaningless.

I am fascinated by the fact that I still habitually push my tongue into my teeth and that I am rarely aware of doing so. It seems to me – I think – that it contributes to some stress and discomfort in my mouth. I may need to invent or adapt some ATM’s to deal with it….

cheers! – Ryan

Curious – Ryan

Awareness Through Movement can be considered choreographed movement when one is following the movements prescriptively and doing them by rote with little attention or awareness. I think many Feldenkrais practitioners have noted times in which they fell into a kind of automatic performance of a Feldenkrais session. As choreography they CAN be effective at times.

But the potential magic and deep changes comes when one uses Feldenkrais as a tool to discover what one doesn’t know what doesn’t know. When you go slowly and attend to your own movement details and moving/thinking/feeling/experiencing you can discover where you are enacting something habitually and unnecessarily and then let it go. That learning cannot be choreographed as human beings are too complex and have too many degrees of freedom…

Just some quick thoughts.

- Ryan

I can’t disagree with you at all. Wouldn’t you say that there are degrees of choreography? In my experience, a marching band must adhere to a script but the various forms allow for strict attention to every movement (corps bands) or individualized flares of unique expression (swing bands).

I would categorize ATM as a “swing band” movement.

I work with a lot of athletes so integrating IDEOMOTION into there programs has been quite a challenge, but a great one. This is one of the gaps I’m trying to fill.

Keep up the great work.

Please look for more videos coming up. I’m working on at least 2 per week, sometimes 3.

Best,

Will

I appreciate this. More short videos are now on YouTube. Just search my name.

I have always struggled to begin a meaningful dialogue with the Feldenkrais community. Meeting Todd personally and my brief correspondence with you may change that. I also just heard from Francesco in Italy.

We have much to offer each other, and I knew that the momoent I heard Feldenkrais himself lecture and demonstrate in 1980. Just 31 years ago

I went to see Barrett talk in Vancouver a few weeks ago. He teaches ideomotion, which is a non voluntary movement produced by a dominant mental state. I wrote a few posts about it if anyone is interested.

http://toddhargrove.wordpress.com/category/ideomotion/

He is huge fan of Feldenkrais by the way, he mentioned it often during his seminar.

Actually, it is a pretty stupit idea that immobilizing the mouth at night during sleep time can curtail teeth grinding, admitably an serious problem, both physically and, you should excuse the expression, mentally. There are a lot of tough jaws in our society (and in others’?). From whence comes this twisted form of aggression, teeth grinding? Are we trying to chew ourselves to death?

Of course, if the dentists and the oral surgeons and the TMJ specialists are all there to close the proverbial barn door a little too late, well there’s a lot of gold in them thar nightgaurds. And if infection and disfigurement and unbearable pain follow hard upon, well it keeps the industry going and pains must needs pills.

It is the grinding must be caught at the pass. Of course some grinders don’t even know they are grinding. When I was studying Gindler and Stanislovski (the Method), avant de la deluge, we were interested in faces and visages, and we could spot hard jaws coming down de road.There’s the time for intervention.

For who would fardels bear? The whips and scorns of time? The proud man’s contumely? The law’s delay?

I don’t hear any sage Feldenkrais advise. Cats got your tongues? At least say # 23 or something. Is there some kind of boycott going on…the unkindest cut of all?

Tch, tch, tch…

John Quinn
GCFP, BFL(T). SOUNDER SLEEP, AEA, SAG, AFTRA, QDE (Qualified Designated Entity, Ret.)

Anyway, thanks for keeping me posted. Testimonials are great. I sometimes forget how powerful the work is until a client reminds me by sending an email saying that they aren’t getting surgery because Feldenkrais “cured” them.

cheers!!! – Ryan

Funny you should bring up this TMJ thang now. I had an steady ATM and FI client had to drop out this past summer due to her buying an house with her husband and two kids

This must have been stressful for her and demanding of more work in their business. About a month ago she called me after this long summer and winter absence, complaining that she was having ‘Jaw problems’.. and requested some new FIs from me.

In the first FI visit she ‘presented with an swollen left side of her face and jaw.

TMJ cases often happen to People who grind their teeth at night when sleeping, To counter- act the teeth grinding most dentists will immediately prescribe an TOOTHGAURD to be worm in the mouth when sleeping . The Dental patients are told not to sleep without it. After having worn said Tooothgaurd for some time she had developed some severe pain in some upper left teeth and said pain radiated to her left ear, and her left face was markedly swollen.

In the first meeting I did some general and pelvic FI work and then some very gentle face work ala Gindler, Feldenkrais, Berenger and myself.

A week later we met again. She said that she felt better after the FI including her face, but she said her her face developed an soreness, later. This was alarming to me.

After two more FIs weekly, with her face still being swollen and her tooth pain increasing so that she could hardly eat, I advised the client to see her general practitioner (MD) right away and ask him if there were some infection. Her dentist had såid he should see an TMJ specialist.:}}

A week later she sent me the following note:

Hi John-

Hope this finds you well.

I wanted to update you on how my jaw’s been feeling.

Last week I saw an Ear, Nose, Throat Dr who said my ears were clear–so he recommended seeing an oral surgeon.

I went to an oral surgeon, the head of oral surgery at (such and such big)sic
Hospital, who did some tests (palpating muscles around jaw etc) and diagnosed classic TMJ Disorder. Tendinitis of the jaw muscles.

I am supposed to wear my mouth guard at all times except eating (hard to do), eat only soft foods for 3 months, put warm compresses on my jaw 3x a day, and take an prescription strength Naproxen (Aleve), and a muscle relaxer at night. I have a follow up appointment a week from Friday. Not sure how long I can take the medication, but it does seem to help the pain.

{I had asked her to keep me informed re this Medical Oral Surgical treatment.}

This evening I received this note:…..

No worries, John. I’m going for a follow-up appt next Friday, so will let you know how it goes.

The medication is relieving some pain; I’m wearing the nightguard, and sleeping well as a result of taking the muscle relaxer.

Hope to see you over the summer.

{I guess some times we need an oral surgeon, as well as a hole in the head.}

Certainly the pain must be treated, before anything else can be done.

Perhaps when the pain goes away, better things can be done. I’m not stupid at face work neither. I have been doing it since the sixties (that’s the 1960′s), when I studied Gindler work. Maybe I’ll learn it to you sometime.

I downloaded your materials too. Thanks. This TMJ stuff is a horrible affliction.

I knew a lady once i the 911 trauma area, who used to wake up screaming from her Night Gaurd.

This is an factual, confidential, report.
best wishes,
John Quinn

(We would welcome further advise that FM practitioners and others might have re this matter and the TMJ syndrome.)

I like how MF is talking about acting appropriate in a given situation. Even with such abstract actions as thinking. Or actually explicitly with such abstract actions, and how they can convert into something concrete.

Are they therefore shaping and pushing our thoughts and opening us up to other ways of seeing the world?

But, somewhat off topic . . . something that comes to my mind is a wondering about language today. Not in the way of attempting to be very precise and describing with exactness, but with regard to the inexactness found in teenagers and young adults. The number of new words and part words and sounds and acronyms and substitutions for the actual word are astounding. Just sit around and listen to them for an hour. It’s amazing. We could lament that they don’t know proper English, or recognize the art of the communication that is going on between them. They are using feeling and tone and prosodic distinctions and pacing and pauses or no pauses all in such a seemless way without having to stop and explain it to the other person. It’s really like watching an improv take place. I wonder if it’s an audible representation of the very deep firing of their nervous systems. There are the vestiges of disinhibition in this rambling and it seems meaningless to most adults I know, but it is very meaningful to these teens. And, interestingly, they are shaping and pushing the language we use to describe our thoughts. Are they therefore shaping and pushing our thoughts and opening us up to other ways of seeing the word.

Fascinates me. Thanks for the quotes…..nice way to start the week!

Lisa

Thank you. I appreciate the companionship with you, in my own struggle to integrate this shocking loss.

In touch, Anita.

[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The poster sent us ’0 which is not a hashcash value.

I donknow nuthing!

John Quinn

“Brad Beldner breaks out of this Felderbinden und reaches a wonderful creativity and excitement in this ‘experimental’ movie above. Note the beauty of his fast flowing FI
moves with clients. He doesn’t linger, tediously, parce que he has something of his own to say, to express. Some other small video Dance-Feldy operations never break out.. It’s just another boring Feldenkrais class.. sort of gussied up, but still imprizoned. Even a plain Feldenkrais movement is not supposed to be imprizoned.”

Thanks for posting. – Ryan

Yeah, sure, you can reprint it under your video.

John Quinn

Brad Beldner breaks out of this Felderbinden und reaches a wonderful creativity and excitement in this ‘experimental’ movie above. Note the beauty of his fast flowing FI
moves with clients. He doesn’t linger, tediously, parce que he has something of his own to say, to express. Some other small video Dance-Feldy operations never break out.. It’s just another boring Feldenkrais class.. sort of gussied up, but still imprizoned. Even a plain Feldenkrais movement is not supposed to be imprizoned.

I guess there if a difference between Feldenkrais and Art, but sometimes they connect.”There’s the thing by which we’ll catch the conscious of the King! ”

Beldner seems to have broken out of every prizon. It is nice to see this, on the rode out of town. I was an Actor, an Smacta, and this and that, a playwright, a Director, myself, in life, thus the Gindler and thus the Feldenkrais; but I broke out from time to time.

John Quinn

Learning, like in Feldenkrais, looks and feels very different from exploring dance moves, or expressive dancing … I mean once you know the difference .. between learning and reproducing … it’s like day and night …

Envoking Emotions: Ron Kurts-Hakomi Method founder, from a talk on youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePb5Anhyeqo).

Imitating means not knowing what one is doing, but doing what others are doing. This is the diametral opposite of what Feldenkrais intended with his method.

And now, we finished our discussion. I will no more react to any of your answers.

An addenda to my last comment: Take a look at Daniel Stern, The Present Moment in Psychotherapy and Daily Life, Norton, 2004 for other research alternatives and some description of intersubjectivity and attunement which are processes involved in the work with the participents of the project.
While intersubjectivity is not yet mainstream science yet there are a number of
people in cognitive science, phenomenolgy, psychology, and even movement research considering the validity of such concepts that stretch the traditions of hard science.
Reviewer 1 gives at least some clues as to what needs to be described for his consideration. It could have been possible to get participants to describe experiences. The other problen is replication. It is a hallmark for scientific studies. Problem is that as you point out you cannot replicate the intervention. But the practitioners can replicate how they go about making contact, how they touch, how they contact a person, how they move the person in relation to what they detect and feel. This is general in the FM even with the difficulties of autism, etc.
Reviewer 2 reveals his bias by using the word motoric, rarely used by Feldenkrais which he assumes is a separate entity in the nervous system. There are now some very high powered neuroscientists abandoning such assumptions and are beginning to consider that the NS is a huge interlocking network where there is constant activity and inter-relating processing.

A few years ago at a science – Feldenkrais symposium in Seattle Alan Fogel showed some videos made from your research project with adult people suffering with autism.
The videos were direct and dramatic evidence that the interventions by the Feldenkrais practitioners were successful in evoking improvement for the subjects in the study. The subjects, all of whom showed some degree of disturbance in their movement and ability to stay in contact with other people in the initial lessons made significant progress. Many improved their coordination in daily movement, improved their ability to make eye contact with the practitioners, and began to communicate verbally. What was the source of these changes? I doubted that the movements, improved as they were, were causally involved with the changes that were seen on the videos. One had to look further to detect what could be causally involved. What in fact was the importance of the use of the Feldenkrais Method in the study? There are very few interventions that could bring about the results that were shown. Watching the actions of the practitioners gives a clue. The lessons always involved a slow and careful approaching to the subjects by the practitioners while attending to the immediate reactions of the person involved. The possibility of touch was postponed often until the autistic subject could tolerate and accept the contact. Support and safety were primary concerns. There was no attempt to force the issue. When contact was made communication was possible. Then neurological change was possible. To explain all that would involve much more space here.
It is a shame that the reviewers of the research had some different ideas about what was involved and discounted the evidence of the videos, if indeed they had seen them, or if they had seen them, understood what they saw. Also the difficulty in trying to describe the Feldenkrais Method did not help the reviewers understand how the method made the difference.
It is here also where standard research falls down in documenting what it is that
makes for the effectiveness of the work. The data doesn’t reveal what happened except as some evidence of physical and testable psychological change. This is why
in my Epistemology for the Feldenkrais Method paper, I was attracted to Gendlin’s notion of the responsive order. If you go to Heinz von Foerster’s book, Understanding Systems: Coversations on Epistemology and Ethics, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, 2002, he explains some of the difficulties that lead to other models of research and scepticism about normal science in elucidating systems. I don’t know what happened beyond this and would hope some day the project would be revived again.

Well, whether you’ve earned a Ph.D. or just a lot of knowledge, it makes no difference what you conceive if you cannot achieve your intentions by communicating it. For the purposes of pedagogy and research, communication through graphical representation is worthwhile, but of course it has limits, people who use it have to use it carefully and thoroughly.

If Labanotation of Feldenkrais encouraged imitation that is tested by how well the imitating trainee produces the same results as their model, great! However, I think it would instead let people avoid imitation, and just treat the dance steps as a recipe. If that produced the same results as careful imitation, great! If not, that shows the limits of following instructions without direct observation and imitation.

Would I rather:
1. follow a labanotation example.
2. imitate a trainer.
3. follow verbal instructions.
4. do 1,2,or 3 covertly or unconsciously.

I would want the opportunity to choose.

By the way, actual imitation is better achieved by someone like you, with years of experience of a skilled source (Mr. Feldenkrais), and more direct imitative knowledge of his behaviors. Following a labanotation transcript of a Feldenkrais movement is a different approach than imitation.

Your point about language is interesting, however, I don’t think the analogy is accurate. Potential Feldenkrais movements do not have the same generative ability as human language, I don’t think. In particular, non-redundant Feldenkrais movements that contribute to a successful outcome have a finite number of forms, I believe, but this would not become evident until necessary versus sufficient versus redundant movements to produce change were distinguished from each other. Cataloging successful Feldenkrais movements could start that analysis.

The value of notating Feldenkrais for research could come from original dance designs, original Feldenkrais movements, that produce positive change for (or in) clients. A thoroughly-employed notation system and a library of Feldenkrais method movements could speed that research. In fact, a properly programmed expert system could speed exploration of bodily movement possibilities with the added advantage that it would never fail to explore what it knew. Humans are good at that too, though, and have a better grasp of relevancy than many machines.

Consider the list of topics raised here:
* developing graphical representations (Of Feldenkrais moves)
* learning through imitation (by copying)
* learning through instruction (following graphical or verbal instruction)
* learning by introspection (by following instructions such as “sense, feel, and think”)
* researching through game representations (of Feldenkrais moves)

those are all separate topics, with their own implications.

Thank you, Mr. Doron, for sharing your thoughts. If you read this far, thank you for that also. This ends our conversation. Goodbye.

-Noah

can you learn a language only by imitating the movements of the lips of the others?
What do you need first, in order to learn to speak a languge, if not its perception?
And though which organs, through the eyes or through the ears?

Thisd is how the Feldenkrais Method is completely ruined today.

This cannot be any “model for trainingFeldenkrais” because it is just an encouraging for IMITATION!!!!!!!. human beings are more than imitating primates!!!!!!!!!!
Feldenkrais himself avoided his tainees to look at his FI’s just in order to learn to handle out of their OWN EXPERIENCE n the method, AND NOT!!!!!!!! by studying the follows of some kind of movements.
The movementso ne is doing during an FI is absolutely irrelevant. Relevant is that one senses, feels and thinks. The trainees have to make a complex experience with THEMSELVES in the Feldenkrais methode in order to be capable to practice it not as apes, but as mature, creative and responsible human beings.

“Living by imitation is the most poor way of living.” (Moshe Feldenkrais in one of his workshops which are no more available. . .)

The power of awareness to enact change is not domain specific – it’s not just about movement and self. We can add political awareness, guild awareness, awareness of where we have been and where we are going.

We can know where we stand in the physical sense, in the emotional sense, in the legal sense, the organizational sense…

and re-organize for greater efficiency in all areas.

Those days are coming. That’s my belief.

———————————————————————

Paul Doron

Let me clarify a statement I made “Having watched Mr. Feldenkrais work”, when I did, it was on tape, and my thought at the time was that he was receiving information through his senses, his hands, etc. That is why I mentioned seeing him work, it was not a claim to insider knowledge of the method or something pretentious or buffoonish of that nature.

Mr. Nagy is the person versed in Feldenkrais, my idea was speculative, and meant for him. Your opinion about trends that encourage codification, and in particular, your belief that somehow knowledge of another person’s changes is objectively possible through sensing internal changes, is just a belief.

internal experience of practitioner sensory experience of practitioner sensory experience of client internal experience of client

is how I see the internal of a client and practitioner. The codification idea I proposed (and it was just an idea), is based on my belief that causal relations created and noticeable in the sensory experience of the practitioner and of the client can be reduced to causal relations noticeable through visual observation (as a choreographer might see) without the benefit of physical contact with the client or practitioner, but reduced for a purpose, to provide a pedagogical model for training in Feldenkrais, or for another purpose, to research changes that Feldenkrais practice succeeds in making.

Whether my beliefs or proposals succeed or fail is not worth your time to argue. They certainly don’t fit into any trend in Feldenkrais that I know of, and I’m afraid I don’t know of many. I’m not a Feldenkrais practitioner.

Mr. Nagy is a sharp fellow with good intentions and a research bent, which is why I made my suggestions to him. He has not made a statement about whether they might be worthwhile, and so what. I’ll live without that reassurance.

I’m sure your approaches to research and pedagogy will fulfill your needs however you warrant they should, particularly given your presented background knowledge, it should be easy for you. But it might not be. Goodbye.

The Feldenkrais method is in the first place not mouvement, but self perception, sensing and imaging.-

Till another time
sincerely,
Paul

- Ryan

Anat did seem to get a good deal of what she wanted. She was able to conduct her trainings under the relaxed guidelines that she wanted and such. And – in my view – the guild left a big gaping hole regarding the service marks. If they did truly own them and could prove so, why settle at all?

I’m mainly asking rhetorical questions based on my layman’s reading of some of the court documents.

I think the guild will be stronger and better served when the marks are used more equitably (or modified) and when the primary focus in not legal restrictions but community – when we welcome all our “family” and yes, their “children” into the fold – even the black sheep. To that end I will do my best to know exactly what happened and publish it widely.

The power of awareness to enact change is not domain specific – it’s not just about movement and self. We can add political awareness, guild awareness, awareness of where we have been and where we are going.

We can know where we stand in the physical sense, in the emotional sense, in the legal sense, the organizational sense…

and re-organize for greater efficiency in all areas.

Those days are coming. That’s my belief.

Be well – Ryan

My comment about trainers not being certified is largely statistical – there are a few new ones – you, Aliza….and I presume a few others? But compared to the number of Assistant trainers and others who are qualified to train…the number is quite low?

That was my main point – new trainers, new training programs and a clear pathway to both would be quite a boon in my opinion.

Just a few quick thoughts. Would like to know how accurate my thoughts are in your view.

cheers! – Ryan

Moshe authorized Jerry Karzen & Anat to be trainers within a very short period post their training. His criteria, I presume, were based upon quality. He saw in each of them the ability to be trainers, (this is aside from whatever personal considerations he may have had in his relationships with both of them, respectively. Also, he had authorized Mia to run training programs earlier, but then again, he was the committee of one…
Robbie

Be well!

I have no idea if he practiced medicine. He’s not a Feldenkrais practitioner. Though, my comments aside, I am glad that he is promoting the work.

The big Santa Clause beard and picture doesn’t work for me….but perhaps a certain part of the population likes that type of think? It’s a badge of honor and acceptance? Who knows.

I hope you are doing well.

- Ryan

I know “Dr.” Weil finished medical school. And that he has a lot of opinions about the failings of medicine and a lot of opinions and suggestions about what he thinks is good and true and natural.

And I know he offers many opportunities for me, one of the masses of people he markets to, to improve my imperfections by subscribing to his offers and buying his product(s).

It could be a CD, a magazine, a spiritually-evolved form of ancient Hopi footwear, a $100 an ounce natural soap, or some other “must-have” to make me young, slim, natural, and to cure my yearning heart, Lupus, fibromyalgia, burning feet, dementia, or widely metastatic lung cancer.

But did he ever practice medicine?

And is he a Feldenkrais practitioner?

And two other questions I have. And I apologize in advance for being so direct, but I’ve always wondered and finally I have a chance to ask….

Why does he post his picture everywhere? and…

Shouldn’t he lose about 75 pounds?

I’d be more psychologically motivated to charge my credit card and
“buy” the soap if he looked healthier.

Have you considered creating a page that uses his last paragraph? I think it could be a powerful testimonial.

My last point still stands: Most powerful association will be the article on you: “Anita Noone Achieved What Medicine Could Not.” (Or something similar.

Be Well – Ryan

So you would have pairs of acts, defined as occurring over multiple time intervals, and in cases where the behavior is not as anticipated, you simply have a different dance.

The benefit to describing a healing modality using a notation system is the possibility of representing the dance as a game, one with a goal state, different moves by each player, and a final set of moves (e.g., the practitioner sitting quietly while the client rolls over on its belly) considered to be a “win”.

Arbitrary pairings of moves (possibly constrained by some quantity of time they should occur in), could provide multiple wins. Successful Feldenkrais operations could be described as certain kinds of dances (e.g., the patient begins with a standing stretch toward the ground, and ends with a standing stretch that includes the patients palms flat on the ground).

Just an idea, Dr. Nagy, if you want to pursue it further….

Keep in mind that Ed is just putting up a short clip to share some of his ideas and help get people interested in his work. He’s not putting up all of his ideas. For the purpose of promotion it has worked quite well – his various videos have several thousand views. Not mentioning Feldenkrais helps people to stay focused on the ideas and not get caught up in the “Felden-what???” phenomena. That seems like a wise idea to me.

I don’t think he is invalidating other ideas about exercise and physical education but giving people a new lens with which to view what they are doing…or conversely not doing.

That’s my two cents. I’m speaking for myself, not Edward or anyone else.

cheers – Ryan

I have no need to contact you anonymously. I don’t find a link
to join a discussion and since you decided to dimiss me
without contacting me to get my reaction to your screed you
obviously don’t want answers to your questions. Frankly the
epistimolgy piece was not intended either for the public at
large, nor was directed at scientists. It was part of an
invited discussion at the 2008 guild conference between Jim Stevens,
Ralph Straugh, and myself. Jim is head of the FGNA
research committee who is a ‘realist’ and Ph.D. PT was defending
his notion that we can only use what he called gold standard
research methods. Ralph took the position of postmodernism,
and I opposed both with my polemic against statistical research
in areas where I believe it is inappropriate. I assumed I was
talking to practitioners who understood through their training
what precision means in making contact in FI. It was a major
theme of Moshe in teaching us FI as a human and humane
practice. I have nothing to do with the publication of my
piece on FeldSci, the editors decided to publish it after it
was published in the IFF Research Journal and if they took it out
I had no knowledge of that. There are many other incorrect
statemets about myself in your piece. As for Paul Doron, he has always
assumed that he is the only person in the world to understand MF.
MF, was the only person in his life who helped him with his
diffiulties from birth injury and thus I forgive him his worship
of MF and denunciations of everyone he decides is a heretic.
He is beyond dialog. As for you it would have been nice to dialog with me before
you mis-characterized me in your blog. We have more in common
than you think other than you wish to limit the designation ‘scientific’
and I wish to expand it to use of first person material. Gendlin intrigued
me with his notion of the responsive order for such investigations. I am in no
position at my age to get involved in research. I was trying to intrigue someone else
to figure out how to use the responsive order to develop a first person approach.
I have just finished a book with my wife Lucia Schuette-Ginsburg called The Intelligence of Moving Bodies which is a much more complete statement of where I stand – will be obtainable from Feldenkrais Resources.
Francisco Varela invited me to contribute my article to The View from Within and was exactly on the track of bringing first person experience in neuroscience. Moshe like my writing so much he asked me to edit the Master Moves for him, which I did. Last and not least my knowledge of traditional scientific methods was honed in getting a Ph.D. in inorganic-physical chemistry.
This reply is sitting in my computer until I find a contact possibility.

Carl Ginsburg csginsburg@hotmail.com

cheers! – Ryan

thanks

Donata

You have put some things in language that will make it easier for me to talk about what the Feldenkrais Method is!

You also said that you trained with him awhile, if his focus was rolf and that is what was being taught to you, what spurned the desire to go for GCFP? How has that now comp-limented your practice? Do you have a focus on the Rolf side or the Feldenkrais side and why? I think many of the readers here would be most curious of a well thought out answer.

I myself am particularly interested. I don’t do any type of soft tissue manipulation save it be through energy or Feldenkrais FI principles. I have become most intrigued by what I have read on Dub and his Zentherapy class and will be attending in person a 2 hr info seminar this weekend with the author of this article: http://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/index.php/article_id/327/Zen-Bodytherapy

Wherever this comes from it summerize a huge problem in “teaching” a method like FI in feldenkrais (and others of course). Leigh says it is vital energy but it might as well been a know how of the principles of FI and how to apply them. “Knowing” them is more than duplication. …

now there is two copies there!!
since I started this post!

Leigh is the only person in the world to be trained and certified to teach by both Ida Rolf and Moshe Feldenkrais. After an initially rocky start with both Rolf and Feldenkrais, Leigh trained with them for 12 and 10 years respectively. He helped establish the Rolf Institute and the Feldenkrais Guild in America. He has also studied with Dr. Raymond Nimmo, Lauren Berry and Milton Trager. Out of this experience, “Dubbing” was created.
http://www.massagetherapy.com/articles/index.php/article_id/327/Zen-Bodytherapy

Audrey Nakamura was Dub’s partner, he died a few years ago, haven’t spoken to her in quite a while but she’d be the one to turn to regarding any formal statements, last I heard she was to be running the show after Dub died. The first time I met Dub and asked his opinion about taking the Feldenkrais training that I was just getting interested in, his exact words: “Moshe’s probably rolling in his grave, those fuckers take four years to cover what he could do in four weeks, and they don’t do it as well.” I don’t have as harsh an opinion, but have found everything seems to become watered down the further from the originator it gets, some people just seem to add a bigger bucketful along the way. Dub was a remarkable man, that’s for sure.

Your welcome bud

- Ryan Nagy

I’ll skip any detailed commentary for now other than to say that I have always been confused by many modern incarnations of Moshe’s work which seem to view the work as a method to train people to do the work. It seems like an incredible waste. Teaching someone to liberate themselves and become free is much different than teaching someone to become a practitioner or to give table sessions and awareness through movement.

Ryan,

You have o consider that the modern feldenkraiz movement was started by a bunch of liberated ‘ people who were looking for, aside from a good bowel movement upon and the complete dehumanization of ‘other ‘ lower humans…were looking for a quick easy racket to make a easy living so they wouldn’t have to woik and sicken and die to survive like the other poor fools on the planet… Now we have coming up the second generation of said liberated founders of this great racket who also want the quick easy buck and they will literally kill to get it.

That is why we have a population of pracs who can’t complete an whole sentence withouten it containing five or more genuflections to the great almighty founder. These are the testimonial people.. the followers… They know a good racket when they find one.

I always had the strange idea that the Feldenkrais was to make people more human and free, not to produce a bunch of followers.

There is an old saying: “if you meet your Teacher in the road…kill him./

Occasionally even on de Feldy-Forum (our ‘commumnity’ Yuk yuk!) we will, quite by chance, have someone who will express some clear human and humane ideas without mentioning Feldenkrais even once! That is a free person. But that person who is free will soon feel the wrath of the dolts for not genuflecting every three beats at least to the furher who never wanted to be the Furher! How dare that person, that vile misfit who fails to testify to US and to HIM. The wrath of der dolts will be upon you!

Out job is to be human, to have a clear existence not to be Feldenkrais or cheap imitations thereof.. However the pracs are just slaves to this cheap sixties’, or is it seventies’, racket.

I really don’t think then even he wanted is to make of him some goddamn cheap struting furher. Sig Feldi!

Listen again:

“If you are a skater and you know this [Moshe's work] you will be a better skater. If you are a runner, you will be a better runner. If you are a writer, you will be a better writer because you get a new entire being. Why? Because you harmonize yourself. You eliminate those things which destroy your vitality and attention.”

John Quinn

First, thank you for posting the lecture from Moshe which accompanyed his whiplash demo at CERN. There seems to be a sizeable gap between the end of part 3 and the short talk on touch. Do you have any knowledge on how much of the talk is missing or where it could be accessed?

Thanks,
Rob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLj9tsoxRkM
Please, replace the real paart three.

Best wisches
Paul

And here again part THREE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLj9tsoxRkM

Although google places is not available (yet) in Israel
A

I just want to add one small comment. You wrote that:

“same ardor Rob asserts that “every sentence (of Feldenkrais)could be torn apart and ridiculed”

Rob is not saying the criticism of Moshe would be valid or sensible. Only that a person with a certain world view could make them and believe them. People believe all kinds of crazy things, even scientists. At times, I was amazed at some of the complete nonsense (literally non sense, no basis in physical reality) that some of my former colleagues at the University of Utah believed and even got published!

Be well! – Ryan

cheers! – Ryan

That’s pretty funny! Thanks – Ryan

Great that you’ve benefited from the Feldenkrais work. Without burdening myself with excessive research I would expect it to be legal saying “…. workshop, inspired by the work of Moshe Feldenkrais.” Perhaps I am naive; lawyers might compare it to saying “facilitative setting of broken bones, inspired by modern medical practices.”

(btw I actually studied with a healer in Japan who taught principles and techniques for setting commonly broken bones — collar-bone, finger, wrist.)

Have fun,

My perspective is somewhat different from both of you.

My understanding of ‘learning to learn’ is that the learning process is not linear.

It also means that we must learn to learn outside of rigid institutional contexts.

And it also means that we build social capital by participating in the wider community, build social capital …

… take workshops, give workshops, don’t charge hundreds of dollars and bully people with trademarks.

This is facilitated by an eclectic approach … inter-penetration and inter-pollination

Learn some modern dance, some CI, some capoeira, some tango, some language, … something … establish yourself as the local FM person.

Topheavy institutional structures and trademarks constitute psychological blockages, promote in-talk, and don’t help creativity or connectedness.

Need small movements in a variety of directions.

Tom

People aren’t going to listen to you simply because you create a Facebook page or post a comment on a blog. Anyone can do that. It’s not noteworthy. On the other hand if you went to Haiti and began giving FI and filmed your lessons and put them online you would be – by definition – someone that people would take note of and listen to. You would earn the right to be heard and the suggestions that you have would carry more weight….

Let our method become transparent and the world will gather to the brightness of the knowledge of a wellness revolution.

Moshe Feldenkrais grasped the hand of many of the current trainers on his deathbed and said “It is my dream that ATM lessons will be broadcast via satellite twice daily around the world. Promise me you will do all you can to make this happen.”

If Moshe lived in todays world what would he advocate? I believe that he would want a website like youtube where people could see any lesson they want and comment how it helped them like people do in a training. I believe he would want for people to be able to search for relief of common ailments in localized areas of the bodyby the amount of thumbs up “heythis helped me.”

People there are so many ways this work can spread awareness and help people. The more people that understand the work and are benefited by it the more will be lining up at your professional practice, or your training.

Historically mentorship has always produced the highest degree of competency. So empowering people to learn at home how to take care of their loved ones via web trainings and coming to a expert practitioner for mentored FI’s will empower more people to help themselves and help others and build professional practices (both yours and the people you help). If you want to turn the current medical model upside down (come to me (AMA) I am the expert and for your insurance you will be treated. No you can’t see a Feldenkrais Practitioner they are not covered under your plan because the Physical therapy association has too much power we are what you need anyway)

You will need to create a massive awareness campaign so that the people know where to turn to experience benefits and therefor request that their insurance plan cover a true benefit of seeing a Practitioner that is proven competent. IE some GCFP

If a website was created that showed the real video profiles of clients with certain conditions and some of their FI that created a certain benefit and that was combined with the open source ATM project that could be user commented and this website had a way to learn to connect to others via FI online training We could truly empower people to turn the whole physical therapy system right side up.

I GET SICK TO MY STOMACH when I see people that have had every AMA recommendation and physical therapy practice fail them and have lived in pain for years! Do you? Are you tired of seeing these people get better so fast with you and saying “I wish I woulda known about this 10 years ago I might have had a life!” Would you rather a future where they come to you first and get better and live a full rewarding life?

Then lets work together to educate the public.
In todays everything is free on the internet pay it forward world we can spread our work like wildfire. Don’t be afraid that you can’t make a living doing that. You will be in the spotlight and have more referrals than you can handle!

I’m sure some at the top of the information totem pole and are making 20,000 for four years of education would be concerned that all this would threaten their buisness model.

Well I say if there are chiropractic colleges springing up everywhere with thousands of students, and the medical schools are full and turning away people, why can’t you attract a huge following of people that would love to learn to help people the way Moshe Feldenkrais taught us to? Why? Because your system of information dissemination is holding you back. Educate the public, begin real school recruitment tactics and see our method flourish!

How many out there are leading a training that has no more than 60 people? How many complete their training? How many go on to practice professionally? How many succeed and are practicing professionally 5 years later?

So far it would seem “The recruitment efforts have centered around middle aged people who have had an injury and benefited from Feldenkrais lessons”
Many of those people are on “their” journey for self healing.

We need recruitment efforts for School age individuals that have
A: the desire to help people
B: the desire to develop a vocation
C: the time to study full time
D: the money to attend a training or show an aptitude for mentorship that can have them as an employee in your practice. What your practice isn’t that full? Make it! Pay it forward and you will be blessed in ways too numerable to mention!

This is a formula to fill trainings. I share because I care this work needs to go forward!

- Ryan Nagy

Thanks for the comments and ideas. It is so NICE to hear some new opinions that are not-informed by a Feldenkrais training and guild membership. I wonder what would happen if some practitioners realized how predictable their response are and how much they are learned within training programs. Monkey see, monkey do.

I’m of the opinion that in the internet age the main variable is attention and with that attention having a compelling narrative to share with people and also having the required permission to contact them. This little blog has about 400 people subscribed and they get regular updates. If you can create a group like that (blog, email etc) around a specific topic (tango, contact improv, free feldenkrais etc) and give people useful information, your own method and business or movement can come out of that.

The stronger the bond and the more useful your information and approach, the less you need a certification or professional backing.

Just my quick 2 cents. – Ryan Nagy

Not sure what you mean by “you’ll enjoy this” unless you were being ironic … grist to my mill … “failure to learn … to learn?” here comes the topheavy institutional apparatus of the Feldenkrais industry to your aid after you’ve thrown 20 grand and four years into this.

I welcome your encouragement and agree that I probably need to get creative with some names.

But, in response to your other suggestion, my impression is that Feldenkrais practice is self-consciously moving into the existing rigid vocational structures and categories, and shows little interest in being a progressive and critical practice.

Compare: Steve Paxton made the conscious decision to not copyright contact improvisation and leave it open-ended, which he reiterates enough times just so people don’t forget.

Thus, there are constant moves by faculty trained career dancers/artists to turn it into an elite quasi-professional discipline, as I discuss in my blog post:

http://criticalsomaesthetics.com/2010/11/30/further-thoughts-alternative-qualities-and-dimensions-in-contact-improvisation/

But the fact that he made that decision in an explicit way has, arguably, contributed to its survival and development

Although there has been a down period and some angst, it seems that it’s experiencing a revival and is now in the process of positive growth and transformation through inter-penetration with a variety of modalities.

By moving into the monolithic profession system Feldenkrais is going along with career artists and moving into a sort of ‘workplace therapy’ business.

It’s interesting that artists are having a lot of trouble rationalising their work, that is, specifying what exactly is the social value of their work in the era of postmodernism.

See eg. the following therapeutic approach to art:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://culturalcreativeindustries.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/jeffrey-gormly-editor%40choreograph.net-response-to-green-paper.pdf

It seems that therapy, psychological trauma, RSI, etc. can be utilised to rationalise and gain social acceptance for a practice, whereas ‘pure pleasure’ instantly relegates something either to the consumer market or elite art.

That’s why I propose the discipline of somaesthetics, or body aesthetics, as the unrationalised pursuit of sensual pleasure.

I mean, I don’t mind if you need to get people into it by way of RSI but in the end it’s about body aesthetics. I’m a somaestheticist!

If you enjoyed that I’m sure you’ll enjoy this: http://feldenkrais-method.org/files/IFFCompetencyProfile.pdf

To hopefully help you here is an idea or two to answer your question.

“My options are either have a flyer on hand for the nearest Feldenkrais teacher on hand, or get certified and run Feldenkrais Tango. What if there is no teacher, or as is the case for me either I can’t endorse them or they don’t run classes in English?”

For your students create a flier for your own awareness class if you feel comfortable teaching.

Call it “Connecting Skeletons” the art of joy in your comfortable connecting to another.

Or collaberate with a Feldenkrais Practitioner on your clients needs and create a workshop together, split the profits. Ask for him to devise ideas to help your clients.
When I worked at a dance studio we had visiting private lesson teachers that we the primary private teachers upsold our clientelle to. You could build up how amazing this guy is and refer clients to him and ask that the practitioner mentor you on the benefits he is giving your clients so that you can better help your own clients. I would try to keep this on a strictly in house basis. You run a professional somatic school and are hiring an outside expert to service your clients in house and mentor you on how to better teach the benefits he feels his expertise lends to your training of your art.

If you teach yourself I would teach them a few excercises in each common position of contact improv using hip, ankle steering, head steering learned in the lowest possible stress environment. Gradually turn up the stress environment till they are comfortable in a normal ci session.

You have a fabulous market people that are out of their element, know it and want to improve it! I sold $140 an hour all day long for 40 minute private ballroom dance lessons at Arthur Murray Dance Academy. I know that people when they come to dance want to have someone take them by the hand review why their here, what they want to get out of it, and create a plan to get them to their goal.

Hope this helps.

I think that dancers are in a specific situation with respect to the idea of ‘monolithic profession’.

- It is standard to have some sort of ‘technique’ that influences the teacher or that the particular class/course is built around, whether it’s Body-Mind Centering, Laban, or Feldenkrais.

- Dancers tend to have a very eclectic approach to their training because, well, they’re creatives, they need to learn a variety of things, and are typically freelancers which means that they don’t have a business with an established clientele.

- More and more people with no dance background are attracted to things like Contact Improv (and of course tango is big business now), which officially anyone can do, but in reality you’re dealing with large numbers of people with no other prior practice, and low body awareness. My options are either have a flyer on hand for the nearest Feldenkrais teacher on hand, or get certified and run Feldenkrais Tango. What if there is no teacher, or as is the case for me either I can’t endorse them or they don’t run classes in English?

This brings up the issue of the ‘established monolithic profession’ that seems to be the agenda behind certification and copywriting.

I came across an interesting document (I copied it but can’t locate it on the net now), which is the “Vocational Profile” by Barbara Pieper and Sylvia Weise written in Germany in 1996:

“Publication of a vocational profile in the officially required form constitutes a step towards institutionalization of the Feldenkrais Method in Germany. Nevertheless continuing freedom from all regulations would be closer to Moshe Feldenkrais’s way of thinking. We therefore understand and share some of the misgivings of our colleagues who were against a vocational profile.”

“While writing this text we experienced ambivalence over a number of issues:
…
- How can we present a vocation that both requires freedom for independent creative activity and at the same time seeks institutional integration wihtin society?

- A professional profile defines the respective activity more or less statically. Feldenkrais work, however, by its very nature aims at ongoing development. How can these requirements be combined?

- How can learning a method be vocationally defined if its essential aspects cannot be confined to current professional categories? For example, there is a clear-cut distinction in Germany between professions concerned with teaching (Education) and those concerned with healing (Health).

We see a way out of this dilemma in current social developments. In Germany education, occupation, and labour market trends are increasingly drifting apart. Jobs are less and less what they used to be. They no longer constitute fixed reference points securing work, income, and social status. Nowadays people’s lives tend to be characterized by a series of jobs, short-term participation in different projects, partial exploitation of qualifications, phases of unemployment, etc. Education and training, however, continue to be oriented towards vocational profiles, regardless of whether such jobs are still in demand on the labour market. Occupations continue to serve as ‘entrance tickets’ to gainful employment, but they are less important for individual biographies. At the same time changes are also occurring both within various occupations and in their relations with each other (Beckenbach and Treeck, 1994)

In this situation we are employing the form of the professional profile in order to enable the Feldenkrais Method to gain social acceptance. We are aware of using a structural pattern that is on its way out yet continues to be socially valid. In other words: We are using a ‘currency’ which is still in circulation while at the same time preparing for a possible change (Note: it is also conceivable that the FM will gain social and governmental recognition wihtin a more widely defined, broader vocational field as out colleague Micheal Schrunder advocates). We therefore consider the present version of this vocational profile to be the starting point, a contribution intended to encourage people to participate in discussion and further development of Feldenkrais work in Germany”

Two points of interest in this:

- Both, the realities of the labour market and change in work preferences, the need and desire for flexibility, put into question the idea that the concept of a monolithic profession with a burdensome and fixed training, criteria, objectives, etc.

- The problem is one of legitimacy and acceptance of the practice by rendering it a ‘profession’ in the above sense, and of gaining ‘entrance tickets’.

But, notice some of the following that I have observed:

- faculty trained dancers earn money teaching yoga: the structure they learn at school is no good on the current ‘eclectic’ dance market but great for yoga

- faculty trained tango dancers (there is a Tango University!) directing movies: their high level dance ability makes them impatient with the typical dance neophyte with two left feet

- IT people teaching tango: I’m sure there’s an explanation, something to do with ‘dance neophyte’

Here’s my proposal for certification: if you can get students, you can teach.

Tom

Imagine the ghetto in some 3rd world country that sent a few select people to a neighboring village that has the internet and they studied online how to help the people. Imagine the benefits they can go back and share?

Where are you building your treasure? Is it just within a stones throw? Are you willing to reach out and bless humanity?

For those of you that have not experienced or read about Cranio-Sacral therapy know that a confident CST like a Feldenkrais practitioner can do things that conventional modalities could never come close too. Because of how wonderful it is there is a compassionate individual that has created http://www.open-source-cranio.com/ to teach people at home or in 3rd world countries how to use a healing art that can be done without technology and is Evolutionary in it’s science and benefits. This is a work in progress and I believe soon there will be a wonderful compassionate GCFP or another that will teach our way online.

There is a Capoiera app for I-phone http://www.beautifulcapoeira.com/
what about a Feldenkrais app that you can search for excercises for relief of common ailments? Then the people will know who to turn to for advanced relief.

As long as the GCFP seeks to hide under a rock Moshe’s FI teachings from Fathers that want to know ow to help their hurt child we will need to call the work something else because of their service trademarks. That is a pity because it won’t bring buisness their way as effectively as would be nice to help them to help people.

My question to the people is: What shall we call this work of bringing the knowledge of how to heal to the people?

Rather than go to the ER using FI techniques I Instead played advanced little piggies rolling and connecting her fingers to her wrist spreading awareness through the wrist to the elbow. After 30 minutes the swelling was gone coloration normal, pain gone and she declared “I’m healed” and ran off and played! All parents love their children some more than others and would love to prepare themselves to be able to heal them in the home. Most of these people would never attend a full training, though they might in their searching for truth online of how to heal their loved one come across a Feldenkrais website that gives them some relief and then they come see an “expert Feldenkrais therapist” and pay you and get turned onto it and study more at home. They send the facebook group to friends and they start practicing at home and seeking out mentorship from you. The work will spread and change lives.

I have found that Feldenkrais FI techniques to a fresh injury in many cases rewinds the injury making it almost as if it didn’t happen. I think that most people get injuries and would like to know how to do that. Shall we persist in perpetuating a training system that has produced 3000 something people worldwide currently in how many years when there are over 170,000 physical therapists in the USA alone that can’t do what we do? I say empower the people! Let there be a learning resource online for all aspects of Feldenkrais work not just open source atm, but also FI techniques to unite families, heal in the home, take care of your aging loved one, unite teams in revolutionary evolutionary new partner training. If we collectively decide we love people it is time to stop limiting our practice to “come to me and for your money I will help heal you” is that the legacy you want to be remembered for? With the availibility of the internet we have the oppurtunity to help fascilitate a change in the way people connect to themselves, their families and the world. Think of this a website that has you teaching others how to connect to each other to create positive benefits think of you being remembered forever for your contribution to mankind.

What if you were not rich? You are rich to have been able to pay for Feldenkrais lessons or a full blown training and now teach. Well at least compared to the rest of the world you are rich. What if that ache or pain that drove you to learn of Feldenkrais was still there because you could not afford a feldenkrais lesson?
Imagine over the years the toll it has taken on your body the degeneration, the compensating patterns, the pain, can you feel it? Go deeper and really feel how that has limited your life.

Now I speak to you who are hurting I’m sorry you are in pain that sucks! Hey there is a way that you can get rid of probably alot of that pain your experiancing through studying the works of Moshe Feldenkrais.

Your response “oh that would be nice I heard about that 10 years ago from a friend that got better through it he is flourishing! Unfortunatly I can’t afford lessons. I go to physical therapy because insurance pays for it but I just feel worse afterwards!

There is hope my friend! There is a website to learn Feldenkrais at home and you and a loved one can learn to take care of each other.

Oh well me and my wife live alone and we don’t get along well enough to cooperate on something like that her gently touch me hah!

Thats the beauty of it it’s life changing on every level and it will probably breathe new life into your marriage.

Well I’ll give it a try.

Now imagine on this website you learn to not force, to be inquisitive and explorative celebrating enjoying learning and reducing alot of your pain your marriage learns cooperation and connection in a way never before known. Now you are doing things with your Grandkids you haven’t done in 30 years and guess what one fell on the playground and you healed him! You are so excited about your progress that you befriend a Feldenkrais practitioner through the community awareness link on the site and begin to go visit for advanced relief of your aches and pains. You found a way to afford lessons because you saw the value. You tell all your friends how wonderful Feldenkrais is and they study too.

This is the story of an alternate reality that you could have faced and many in the future will face. my question remains what will you be remembered for?

PAY IT FORWARD!!! Get in touch with me and lets do this!

Have the best year ever in 2011 Ryan!!

http://www.feldenkrais.com/profession/us_service_mark_guidelines/

For now, the phrases that you wrote would be violating the service mark:

Feldenkrais for Contact Improvisation” or “Contact Improvisation with Feldenkrais” is the same as “Feldenkrais”.

Though practically speaking will the Feldenkrais Guild or anyone else come after you for using it on a brochure? I doubt it. But it’s always a possibility. It depends on what your tolerance for risk is….

cheers! – Ryan

Sounds as if you can sell Coke just so long as you don’t call it Coke but ‘Based on Coke”.

The phrase you provided is good but can be cumbersome if you’re trying to put that into your title or there isn’t much space, eg., on a calendar.

I can call it something like ‘Awareness for CI”, but I’m still curious whether “Feldenkrais for Contact Improvisation” or “Contact Improvisation with Feldenkrais” is the same as “Feldenkrais”.

The dance teacher who introduced me to FM wrote something similar to your suggestion into her description, but I recall that she used his surname without his first name, so I just wonder what the exact rule is, or whether there is an exact rule.

-t

You can teach any lesson that you want and that you can get your hands on. Legally you can’t call it “Feldenkrais” nor “The Feldenkrais Method.” The easiest thing to say is that your session or work is “Based on the Work of Moshe Feldenkrais.” You are entitled to write and say that.

- Ryan

To put it specifically, I teach dance improvisation, and I want to teach specific classes that use Feldenkrais for improvisation.

Now, I do Feldenkrais, and I do dance. I’m not qualified to teach Feld. But I think my Feldenkrais is still better than some ‘qualified’ teachers that I’ve seen out there.

Anyway, I don’t know what it is that I don’t know, but I basically am not going to spend the effort and money to find out what it is that I don’t know, esp. since these trainings seem so opaque in terms of their content and are so inflexible in terms of qualification (it’s a 1 or a 0 with not between stages).

So my understanding is that I cannot use the name “Feldenkrais”.

I mean, I can start tango classes and call them “Argentine tango”, or contact improv classes and call them “Contact Improvisation”, but apparently this is not so for Feldenkrais.

And also, I cannot use that on any material that I might put out.

I MUST be certified even if I’ve got years of dance teaching experience, ATM lessons, and read just about every book there is on the subject to call that lesson “Feldenkrais exercises for Contact Improvisation” and either teach it or sell it on the internet.

Is that right?

cheers!! – Ryan

…nice holidays for all

I discuss this at length on my blog which I know is rife with academic verbiage something I hope to deal with over time.

It’s one the theoretical issues that Feldenkrais is trying to deal wit vis-a-vis psychoanalysis because he draws heavily on that but his psychology is more ‘motor psychology’ of the pragmatists (John Dewey) and his teacher F. M. Alexander. Interestingly, he really gets stuck on this point.

Levine is a body psychotherapists and seems to be in the lineage from Reich, perhaps via Lowen.

I don’t know how literally Lowen and Levine take the energy metaphor. If I recall, Reich later reworked it in terms of ‘vibration’ as a kind of universal force that he could utilise to make rain etc.

In my own case, I’m not totally convinced that you can simply dispense with it in favour of muscular tension the way that Feldenkrais does.

First, Feldenkrais follows Alexander in viewing sexual dysfunction in terms of poor learning, lack of expertise, anxiety and impotence. For Reich the ‘body armour’ was muscular tension that ‘locks in’ the emotional ‘energy’, and so getting rid of the muscular tension/body armour aims at rebalancing the energy.

In dealing with sex Feldenkrais takes the F.M. Alexander’s route and sees better body coordination, including in sex, as a way of dealing with anxiety. Problem is: what is ‘anxiety’? Well, it’s basically the fear of falling down. Everything is ‘reduced’ to poor co-ordination and inappropriate response that then locks-in muscular tension and leads to impotence and regressive behaviour. In Reichian body psychotherapy on the other hand ‘energy’ is a way of talking about emotions as being causally distinct from muscular tension. Otherwise there is no ‘causal relation’ which needs ontologically distinct processes. You use body tension to repress strong emotion. But body tension and strong emotion are separate processes.

Second, experientially speaking I think that the energy metaphor works better in cases of certain therapeutic or aesthetic experiences. You experience that there is dammed up energy (as Reich would put it); or that energy flows through your body; or that it is released or balanced or whatever. So in sex this will manifest in the quality of the orgasm and how ‘energetically balanced’ you feel. Also, in doing certain kinds of exercises like certain yoga postures or Katsugen Undo you feel an emotional release which has the vibration effect that he’s talking about in this video.

Also, libidinal energy functions in psychoanalysis to explain aesthetic experience. I discuss movement practices like Contact Improvisation and Tango which experientially for me are more ‘energetic’ practices and involve sensual and/or sexual pleasure. It is hard for me to apply Feldenkrais concepts of expertise, although they are definitely helpful: eg., you want good coordination when doing tango, and CI is in a sense just Feldenkrais with a partner. But the partner does make a difference to the ‘energetics’ of it.

Finally, I know that Thomas Hanna in one of his papers expresses opposition to Reichian Therapy, and sees somatics as preferable. But this is a different issue. ‘Energy’ seems to be more of a theoretical issue than anything else. If we speak of ‘vibration’ its perhaps makes more sense. The question is whether, when talking perhaps metaphorically about energy or vibration, you’re dealing with a separate set of emotional, aesthetic and sexual phenomena, with emotion and pleasure.

So I’m not sure that I agree with Feldenkrais and Hanna and would see somatics and bioenergetics as complementary.

- Ryan

(I’ve given a brief explain of SE and energy, and then some personal tales of why I decided to add SE to my bag of tricks)…Long comment but for those interested in how to work with trauma in your practice, keep reading)

I’ve just completed my SE training, even has the pleasure of working one-on-one with Peter Levine this past October. The man, like Moshe was, is a genius of the human system and how to navigate it so it can heal and restore itself.

The “energy” question is hard to answer, but you are not correct in what you write about compulsive inhibitions that doesn’t allow proper functioning. A little history…

Peter’s original work, his thesis (which you can download here http://www.somaticexperiencing.com/) is about accumulated stress in the body and the consequences on the nervous system, therefore whole body functioning.

What he came across while seeing people as a grad student, doing ‘mind-body’ relaxation exercises before they even has a name, is that Humans, just like animals in the wild need to ‘discharge’ and resolve movement patterns that were suppressed and not acted out after traumatic events. i.e., if a deer is hit by a car, and is knocked out, but not dead, when its body is back online, just before it gets up, it will ‘shake’, tremble and discharge “energy” that was trapped in the body from the insult/injury. This release of energy is necessary for the body to return back to normal nervous system functioning – animals in the wild do this, the recover, they are not traumatized, the don’t develop PTSD, they either live, or they die from injuries.

Humans need to go thru this process when injured, attacked etc., but their higher brain centres and social ‘decency’ screws up these motor acts and discharge needs – our emergency response measures and comforting that often happens after injury, or the ‘oh I am OK’, get up and bounce back before the severity of the injury is processed – have thwarted our bodies, natural animalistic needs for self-negotiation and completion of traumatic events, which then leads to ALL sorts of nervous system dysregulation, and from what Dr. Levine and his colleagues are seeing, many of the psychosomatic and syndromal, autoimmune disorders, not to mention PTSD that are so prevalent in our culture. Even the simple lack of properly orientating back to the environment after trauma – a key element in his work – is very rarely encouraged in many settings that deal with trauma. As Feldenkrais practitioners this basic piece of orienting back to the here and now and to the environment, I think, is a key piece that we don’t press upon enough in our classes and FI’s. I actually firmly believe that if we brought a person to orientation multiple times during a lesson the lesson would ‘stick’ better and the effects better received. (just a hunch on my part)

One thing that is interesting is that animals, when held in zoos, do get traumatized. Humans are kind of in this predicament – we aren’t in our natural environments anymore, we can’t emit bodily processes that are natural (passing gas, belching, sneezing) without needing to be excused or hiding ourselves. Our natural rhythm is messed up with our work schedules, our needs for rest and exercise are rarely met, the list goes on.

From a blending of Feldenkrais perspective, I decided to take the training when I realized that a big piece was missing in working with people, especially people with multiple injuries, and especially those who have suffered from sexual abuse. Just having them lie down on a table, or floor, and have their fronts exposed to a ‘stranger’, no matter how caring and empathetic I am, still caused them to freeze up and in many ways dissociate from their body. I only realize this now, after doing the training and learning about the nervous system and trauma. Now, when I practice I quickly assess, based on observation, affect and history how to best start, we may not lie down for 4 sessions, we may work in standing (because you can’t dissociate to the same extent when your anti-gravity muscles are needing to keep you up), many things have changed in my practice and the results are glaringly different from a positive and successful perspective.

I firmly believe that not understanding some of the principles and theories that Dr.Levine has brought to the study of trauma and working with trauma is doing a disservice to our clients. We end up being the chiro or Physio that keeps manipulation the same joints without really understanding the root cause. I know we go much deeper into looking at the whole body, but the nervous system and how it responds to present day ‘stimuli’ as a result of past trauma is a necessary to understand – afterall, we say we work with people’s nervous systems but how many of us actually truly understand how the nervous system works.

Dr. Levine just published a book of his 40 years of work called “In an unspoken voice” I highly recommend all Feldies pick it up. If anything it is worth it for the run down of the nervous system, the branches of the vagus nerve and their importance, and then the case studies. One case study in particular, which deals with frozen shoulder is a MUST read for Feldenkrais practitioners and any health care provider who is stumped with really complicated injuries that don’t seem to respond to anything…..

Irene.
I wrote a blog post on the viscera and SE on my old blog here http://pure-feldenkrais-whistler.blogspot.com/2010/10/kids-will-go-bananas-when-adults-fake.html

I’ll be writing more about the nervous system, SE and Feldenkrais at my new blog, http://www.thehumangroove.com. (subscribe if you want to get updates!)

But I have picked up from Walking the Tiger – but it really annoys that in that and other such books when their path to solution is another god damned exercise. Give us a break! The overwhelming sadness of s/p trauma victims,such as incessent childhood beatings and molestation by one or more parents, that life has become an living hell, and I agree that their problem is that they cannot get aggression out. They become frightened creatures. they cannot lay claim to anything in life.

So Levine’s ‘energy’ is really aggression, or aggression constipated.
But I find Levine’s clenched hand swqueezing actually old hat and passe, He would do well to sudy the better fdenkrais solutions. AYs or ATMs.. Maybe Mr Levine’s pain books make more sense.

I think that these ‘helpers’ help others so that they themselves might be helped by someone or some others, some day. Of course that day when they are helped, might never come. It takes some subtlety to get help from others and to realize that one might actually be loved someday, by others. Stranger things have happenned.This might involve an transformation of energy into love?.As one moves through life there are people we might love. even if we never see them again.

{Writing is really hard.}

Guten nacht already.
John Quinn

http://openatm.org

All of the zest,

Deborah Elizabeth Lotus
Certified Bones for Life Teacher/Trainer(MA & Mexico)

cheers – Ryan

(Itsvan – I will definitely link back to you.)

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“We go to the father of souls, but it is necessary to pass by the Dragon!”
St Cyril of Jerusalem..JQ

I do get tired of the constant genuflecting to the great Feldenkrais. Thought thus becomes not thought but testament, which makes me cringe in my soul… and after alles den bullshite one doesn’t believe anything any more, in the temple with the money changers.

Of course on the other hand maybe you are all sincere and just and self sacrificing. and that that two legged freak called mamunkind, that moves and functions, really is both the beginning and the end.

Are you setting me up for the firing squad, Paul? Are you and Dreucker going to come around and re-educate us?

Actually, in re-reading Karl’s article which I cited above in the thread from “The view from within” Cognition journal, re his theory about the primacy of movement.. he begins to make sense. This again makes us two-legged freaks important. Who would have thunk it?

Where I come from we takes every side to an argument, which is where I’ll take my stand at the moment.

Somewhere along the way Love enters in. It would certainly have to, in a world like this.

More, anon,
John Quinn

See: The View from Within, edited by the late Francisco Varela in collaboration with Jonathan Shear, was published in 1999 and has proved a major stimulus to the scientific investigation of first-person methodologies in psychology and philosophy of mind.

Ten years on, Claire Petitmengin has organized a collection of essays that examine and refine the research program on first-person methods defined in The View from Within, with contributions based on empirical research. She has kept close to the spirit of the earlier book, in which Varela encouraged a precise description of the very process of becoming aware of one’s experience and describing it, by gathering the contributions of researchers who not only propose first-person descriptions, but who also try to describe the process of description itself, in order to make the description reproducible — a necessary condition for any scientific undertaking.

Search inside View from Within
First-person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness
(Paperback – 1 Sep 1999)

Edited By Francisco J Varela and Jonathan Shear
ISBN 9780907845256
Imprint Academic

ON pp 79 through 91 , There is an Article by Carl Ginsburg, entitled “Body-image. Movement and Consciousness: Examples from a Somatic Practise in The Feldenkrais Method.”

It seems to me that Carl attributes lot of power to the Feldenkrais Method including its’ FIs and its’ ATMs, However, he never explains what it is. It would take another kind of Artist to do that, and therein, this artist, might not even mention Feldenkrais, because power has to be found in life, not in Feldenkrais , which in the last analysis is but a thing.

in in the “Titles” search box, type: “The View from Within” wherein you’ll find Carl’s article listed. They charge $14.00 for it. I just happen to have an hard copy of the “View from Within.”

PS: In another article in this journal lies my favorite quote, by Gregory Dixon (“A Hermeneutic Objection: Language and the Inner View. “, page 265…………………
“Existence then, is for us a suspension over the abyss.”

John Quinn

Thanks Ryan

The “unavoidable role of subjective human judgements…” is right up my alley..

Actually , I had dipped into Ralph’s article before and liked it, but then lost track of it. Now, thus found, I must peruse it more closely. Maybe it was Ralph’s article I was referring to. Can’t remember : Maybe Carl just posted something about Fuzzy Logic… perhaps not a big article. Or maybe this has been one of them infinitely rare times when I have made a mistake, or mixed something up. Stranger things have happened…

I’ve ratcheted up Ralph’s article, the links to which you kindly sent, to 200% zoom, mit an blue background. It’s only 121 pages (: easier on the augen.

All this bears some slow study, even to just figuring who said whut…:}}

Happy Danken day…
John Quinn