Client, 45f, wealthy looking of Asian descent, with a sharp pain running from the back of her neck down the outside of her left arm. She’d already seen a number of massage therapists, including chiropractic services. She seemed somewhat disoriented, besides herself. She donned a light and short summer dress of black silk despite having come in for a movement lesson – which is just as inappropriate as showing up in Scuba diving gear for a Gala dinner. 

She did not have prior experience with Somatic Education, or anything of the psychological realm. I allowed her two hours, even though she only paid for one hour. After 20 minutes of conversation I guided her through movement explorations and sensory awareness exercises for the better part of 90 minutes. At first she couldn’t lie comfortably on her back at all, so I asked her to assume her favoured sleeping position, which was in side-lying on her left side. 

Within the lesson the tight muscles in her neck and upper back, some of them at first hard like the tires of a bicycle, became soft like the flesh of a baby. Her range of motion in her neck and shoulders increased considerably, I would say in some parts by as much as 45 degrees. Step by step the isolated movements of her shoulders connected to the movements of her spine, chest, pelvis and knees. A strained, isolated movement of a shoulder became a movement supported by and presented in her whole self. “Can you feel the difference?” And last, but not least, her inability to let go of her shoulders was replaced with the ability to confide her shoulders to the pull of gravity. “Now hold your shoulder deliberately, and now let it go. Do you notice how well you can distinguish between the two now?”

However, what would have been an epic session with someone well embodied turned out to make no impression on her at all. The discoveries we made, the views that I shared, the difference the lesson made should have struck her as nothing less than monumental. Yet, she felt nothing special has happened, and perceived no differences.

“How would you describe what you sense right now?” I was sitting behind her, at the head end, like good old Sigmund Freud. She was lying comfortably on her back, with arms and legs spread, needing only half the cushioning she asked for at the start of the lesson. I had to rephrase my questions several times, until an answer came.

“The right arm feels normal, healthy, like it should. The left arm feels painful, not normal.” She was resting unwavering, her answer showing a surprising lack of compassion and sensitivity towards herself. I was not able to get any details, no description with adjectives, no sensory cues, nothing. The game of questions, storytelling and waiting for answers went on for a couple of minutes. I tried many different ways, but it all came down to “the right arm feels normal and the left arm feels not normal.” I asked her if she can sense anything at all, anything, to which she answered, “if someone would pour hot water on my right arm or pinch it, of course I would feel it”.

The situation occurred to me as if her body was some sort of device or machine, like a car with a faulty door she would drive in to a garage and have it fixed. All the while she was sitting in that car and waiting. She had no hurry to drive off. I wasn’t sure if she enjoyed my care, teachings and attention, or if she was merely waiting to finally get her money’s worth.

I’m not sure if she’s done her homework either. After the session I gave her a link to my video, “Good night shoulder circles”, and before the session I urged her to have a look at my Youtube series “Tight Neck? Here’s Help!”, which she did not. She did not look up anything about Feldenkrais or Somatic Education either. I’m still wondering how she found me on Facebook, and why she insisted on having a session with me.

This session made me realise, once again, how very different we humans are from each other. How far apart our ability to learn and differentiate can take us. It made me realise, once again, that we cannot assume anything about another person’s state or abilities. It made me think of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. We practitioners think of mindfulness and embodiment, of movement and culture, of meditation and dreaming and feeling and sensing, we say “people are like this, people are like that”, but are they?

She asked me if she will need another session. I said I leave that up to her. I was thinking, “I’m not going to sell you sessions like the chiropractor you were telling me about.” Besides, why should I tell a grown up person what to do or what to buy? “If you liked it, if you found it interesting or even slightly helpful, come again, why not?” Usually people who seek me know what they want, and have at least some knowledge of developmental psychology… or have read some of the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, FM Alexander, Ida Rolf… or at least have read some articles from the realm of psychotherapy… Freud, Reich, Jung… Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Elsa Gindler, Charlotte Selver, anything really.

A few hours after the session I was thinking: the way she was describing the pain in her left arm, at the beginning of the session, made it sound like a problem of tension and posture, or a nerve impingement from a lump in her neck (which was already ruled out via medical imaging.) But was it? Why could she not feel a difference after my session? My work as a movement teacher is as good as it gets, she will not find any better. Therefore I was thinking, “Maybe her way of sensing and describing her pain was inaccurate?” I recalled that at the very end of the session she lifted her left arm and said, “Stretching the left side eases the pain.” In light of this and her general disorientation I sent her a last message, and advised her to go get a proper cardiovascular checkup. “Or maybe she should get another X-ray or MRI and have it read by a doctor, not a chiropractor,” I was thinking.

Disengage your parking brake before you drive off the ramp, and drive carefully. I will post again if there’s new tidings.

“Interviewer: How do you know where to go on each person? Moshé Feldenkrais: When you will have my experience and knowledge you will also know. Interviewer: Obviously it comes from your experience and years of work with this. Moshé Feldenkrais: No, it comes from the theory, first of all. Many people work with bodies; why don’t they do the same thing? Nobody does what I do. Obviously it doesn’t come from working with people.” Quote from Embodied Wisdom, the collected papers of Moshé Feldenkrais.

In a Youtube comment on one of my videos I was asked if there’s a video series on the movements from Moshé Feldenkrais’s book The Potent Self. I answered, “Not that I know of, but interesting idea,” and then went to flip through the book to see what the movements are.

And while flipping the pages, once again I was thinking, “Say what you want but this man knew how to put thoughts in a row.” What I did not find, however, was an explanation of his process of how he put his ideas into practice. How did he go from thoughts, theories and hypotheses to movement instructions?

In his book The Case Of Nora, Moshé Feldenkrais writes “The freedom to learn is a great liability, and a restriction from the start. There is no freedom of choice or free will where there is only one way of acting. Learning makes it possible to choose among alternative ways of acting. The ability to learn is synonymous with free choice and free will. But once learned, the choice is made, the die is cast, and the tabula rasa is no more. Herein lie the liabilities as the restrictions.” How did he turn that thought into a lesson? I mean, of course, I can see it in hindsight, it’s in every lesson. He put this thought to practice in literally every lesson. To loosely quote Peter Elbow again “Experience is what you end up with, not what you start out with.” So how did he come up with his theory, and how did he turn that into his lessons?

I exaggerate: Unlike EVERYONE else, I have ALWAYS left it to my clients to make up their own minds. I’ve NEVER told them what it is they are experiencing. But as of lately I wonder if that’s actually a good thing. Maybe people NEED guidance. Maybe they NEED someone to tell them what it is they are experiencing and looking at. Well, maybe not people in general… maybe it’s my business who is in urgent need of something like that.

At least, that’s what I have been thinking about yesterday night, shortly before falling asleep. And in my mind’s eye I have seen two apples:

Both apples were EXACTLY the same, but the second was labeled, “A juicy, sweet, delicious apple.” Which one would you pick? To what degree would the label influence your experience of picking, handling, smelling and tasting the apple? To what degree would the label influence, soften or strengthen your final judgement of the apple?

Oh, and while you’re at it: Right now you are reading the GREATEST blog there is in the whole wide world about Feldenkrais and Somatic Education. It’s an ABSOLUTE delight to read it. It’s a joy and almost feels like a privilege to peek into the mind of one of the MOST talented and MOST congenial teachers in the world, Alfons. You reading here is not just serendipity, but a definite sign of how bright, quick-witted and perceptive you are. You can tell something beautiful and of value when you see it. You are marvellous. Enjoy your day, my dear!

Idea for a long video, part 2 of my new hip joint series: gripping with the toes, stomping the feet, extending the pelvis. 

So I was lying on the japanese rug in my living room, trying to figure out the next best moves to add to my new Hip Joints series. I was, like, staring at the ceiling, I mean, not like staring staring, but gazing. So I was gazing at the ceiling and thinking, “Oh boy”, and, “Oh boy this is all so complicated, how am I going to break this down into components”. And so I was bending a bit left and right, and had my legs like this and like that, and…

…and you need to know that I made it reading into the third book of George RR Martin’s book series A Song Of Ice And Fire. In the second book (which has 1009 pages) there was a really big battle fought at land and at sea, with words and with swords, with great trebuchets, gauntlets, warhorses, spears, arrows, men-at-arms and galleys and all that. And the battle ended at the end of the second book. But then two years later George RR Martin released his third book of the series, and it seemed strange but there was an introduction in which he wrote

A Note On Chronology

“A Song of Ice and Fire is told through the eyes of characters who are sometimes hundreds or even thousands of miles apart from one another. Some chapters cover a day, some only an hour; others might span a fortnight, a month, half a year. With such a structure, the narrative cannot be strictly sequential; sometimes important things are happening simultaneously, a thousand leagues apart.

In the case of the volume now in hand, the reader should realize that the opening chapters of A Storm of Swords do not follow the closing chapters of A Clash of Kings so much as overlap them. I open with a look at some of the things that were happening on the Fist of the First Men, at Riverrun, Harrenhal, and on the Trident while the Battle of the Blackwater was being fought at King’s Landing, and during its aftermath…” – GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

It occurred to me, what George RR Martin wanted to say is this: there was a lot more to be said about that time and that battle than what went into the second book (which has 1009 pages). Turns out his third book ended up having 1216 pages and had to be split up into two books. And for the hip joint series it’s just the same. I have uploaded a whole lot of videos already, but there’s a lot more to be said.

So I was gazing and thinking, and pushing a little bit with my foot against the floor, thinking “we already did that“, and rolling the pelvis “we already did that too“, and tapping the foot, “we already had that as well”, when I started gripping my toes, and stomping the foot, and lifting my pelvis on one side. “Oh that’s interesting. A novel approach to the carp jump.” And then discovered the connection between gripping the toes and extending the knee. The good old flexion-extension cycle in a completely new light!

The rest of the movements came together pretty quickly, within an hour, and then I filmed myself in a quick run through, which took 7 minutes, and so I think I might be able to squeeze that into a sub-thirty minutes video. I guess. I hope. It’s amazing. I was absolutely stocked and thrilled what I came up with.

When we were in the foetus stage, almost all the way back at the beginning of our lives, still in the womb, our first movement was flexion (or so they say), and then there was extension and stomping and pushing (much to the surprise and maybe dismay of our mothers). I think this movement sequence will match our physical development like a tailor made glove, and will make our hip joints and pelvis area feel so much better, and thus give us a wonderful feeling and satisfying experience overall.

What I have so far:

• Part 1: bringing the foot to stand, gripping with the toes, stomping the heels and feet
• Part 2: exploring the bony parts of the pelvis and the leg
• Part 3: pushing the floor with the foot and hip extension
• Feel the difference in standing. Stomping and pushing in standing.
• Part 4: same with the other leg
• Part 5: symmetrical movements

This is never gonna fit into 30 minutes. Never.

So I was watching a couple of dancers on Youtube, a movement exploration lab, and couldn’t help but wonder: Are they mentally present? Or did they wander off and have completely lost themselves in a world of mindless senses?

I sometimes see this in my classes too, especially with new students. Instead of following my teaching, they would wander off into another modus operandi. I would usually not let them fall astray too far, by feeding them with new tasks and challenges which require them to become fully present again and get their components of action together again: thinking, feeling, sensing, moving. Being aware of trajectory, speed and easing, movement initiation, distribution of work, becoming aware of the overall picture, etc.

Years ago, I got advise from a famous Feldenkrais Trainer from Montreal, Canada. He told me that he took coaching sessions which went like this: he would teach a class, and just like in a game of Musical Chairs (also known as Trip to Jerusalem) his coach would say “STOP” from time to time, and ask him: What are you thinking right now? What are you doing right now? What is your strategy? What have you accomplished? What have you failed at? What did you plan to do next? In this way he learned to be fully present and conscious of his every step as a teacher, whenever he choses to be so.

Another time I was studying with a famous Feldenkrais Trainer from New York, and I observed the same thing happening in his classes: students trailing off and loosing themselves in a world of mindless senses. Then he would clap his hands, loudly, “ok ok ok”, sometimes he would even get genuinely upset. But shortly after he would crack a smile again, and ever so compassionately change from ATM to group demo or FI demo or story telling, something that would bring his students back to be fully present again.

Hm, how can I explain this better… Did you ever read a flight of text only to notice that your mind has wandered off and you have no idea what you have just read? You KNOW that you have been reading, especially if you read out loud – but you have been so absorbed by the process of reading that you missed to pay attention to the meaning of the words, or maybe your mind has really wandered off to think about something completely else, while your lips kept moving and your voice kept speaking. Something like this.

The same can happen with movement. I guess that’s what Moshé Feldenkrais meant when he said things like, “Unless one looks for meaning in sensory stimulation, there is none.” or “Learning is turning darkness into light, obtaining something out of nothing, it is creative.” or sometimes he said something like, “The movements themselves are stupid, they have no meaning”.

Lastly for todays writing, I will copy-paste a paragraph from one of the strictly protected texts, a text the International Feldenkrais Guild acquired from Moshé Feldenkrais’s estate, but they never published it to the general public, likely never will. A text the International Feldenkrais Guild sells only to its paying and EULA (End User License Agreement) abiding members. A minute of Moshé Feldenkrais lecturing in Amherst, June 26, 1980:

“For instance, if you think, how did Goethe live? How did Bach live? How did Michelangelo live? How did da Vinci live? How does anybody … how does Einstein live? How does Mohammed Ali live? How do they live? With what do they get busy? What do they do all the day with themselves? Well, to achieve that quality of ability of mobilization that they have, that way of acting that these people have, they pass a lifetime doing what we do now, trying to concretize ideas that come to their mind. If you want to be a Picasso, which is not necessary because since Picasso there are already and before him and afterwards there will be better and worse painters and it doesn’t really matter if you are like Morot or like David or like Rembrandt and not like Picasso. Doesn’t matter. There is room for everyone to become himself, like these people became. You see they are so characteristic that whatever they did, they did it in that peculiar way which is feasible only to an individual who feels himself, has an aesthetic feeling that fits his own make-up and his own way of doing and his way of doing takes him years. Picasso, took him thirty, forty years before he worked out his own way of doing in such a way that the right eye could be on the ass. See, that’s a very clever way of doing it, but he did not do it at the beginning. So, this is not work. But this is what you call creative work, what we did this morning. And that, of course, doesn’t mean work. And the people I mentioned, none of them worked. They enjoyed themselves all their life, doing more work than any one of us does, without going to the pictures. They did. They did everything. And Picasso and Michelangelo and da Vinci and Bach, if you only see what they left after themselves, you could think that our life would not be sufficient because we are unable to produce so much work today as they did. But to them it wasn’t work; it was living.”