In November 2017 (for the record) I attended The Comedy Workshop with Leanne Davis, at the formidable Youtube Space London. These studios are located directly under Google, in the same shiny new building. High security measures upon entering. For pre-registered, background-checked attendees with 10k+ subscribers only. Gave it kind of a VIP feeling. Cheerful crowd of Youtube professionals and high performers. Made me feel 10% VIP and 90% unbaked cookie dough.

One of the assignments was to create some funny sketches, and then perform them for the other participants. I preferred just to watch and cheer, because for my life I wouldn’t be able to come up with an impromptu sketch.

Three weeks later, in the safety of my home, inspiration finally came upon me. This is what I wrote (again, for the record):

Scene 1. Fisherman I

A fisherman at a small lake, sitting on a mini-chair, fishing. He’s waiting patiently, when suddenly the line catches. He howls in his catch: a small fish. Carefully, not to hurt the fish, he removes the hook. While throwing the fish back into the lake he says: “I let you off the hook this time”.

Scene 2. At a market

Someone strolling by a small fruits & veggies market stand. She looks at a bowl of apples. She likes what she sees. Next her gaze falls onto some oranges. However, the oranges do not look fresh, one even has a mouldy patch on it. She complains to the shop owner: „Why do these [pointing at the apples] look so fresh when those [pointing at the oranges] look so old?”. The shop owner replies: “Sorry madam, you can’t compare apples to oranges”.

Scene 3. In an apartment

A home-owner type of guy comes home with a big bag flung over his shoulder. He walks through the living room and passes by his wife. They kiss Hello. She asks him about the bag over his shoulder, “What’s in there?” she asks, „Nothing really”, he answers, „just a couple of sports clothes”, he lies. He seems to be relieved when she lets him go and he continues his way into the bedroom. He closes the door. He sits down onto the bed.  He opens up the bag and there it is: a very cute, little kitten. Meow. The guy says: „I let you out of the bag now”.

Scene 4. Fisherman II

A fisherman at a small lake, sitting on a mini-chair, fishing (just like in the previous fisherman scene). He’s waiting patiently, when suddenly the line catches. He howls in his catch: a small fish. Disappointedly he looks at the fish in his hands, then the camera zooms out and we can see two more people: a bystander, and another fisherman, a few feet away, who just pulled out a much bigger fish. The bystander points his finger at the other fisherman and comments: „He has a much bigger fish to fry”.

Scene 5. Ice skating on a lake

Close-up of a woman’s face. She’s shouting: „I told you once and I told you twice. If that happens again there will be trouble! Just think about what your father would say. It’s really time to pull yourself together! Take this as a warning! …” While the shouting continues the camera zooms out further. Now we can see her shouting at her little boy, who’s in skating shoes in front of her on a frozen lake. Camera zooms out some more and a sign becomes visible, saying „Danger – Thin Ice”.

„The job isn’t to catch up to the status quo; the job is to invent the status quo.” – Seth Godin

In my hometown, Vienna, Austria, there’s a particularly beautiful building, a pavilion with a golden leaf dome. It’s located just a short walk afar from the very center of the city. The building’s name is The Secession Building (Secessionsgebäude). Inside, on permanent display in a specially built, climate-controlled basement room, it features the Beethoven Frieze by Gustav Klimt, one of the most widely recognized artworks of Secession style (a branch of Art Nouveau, also known as Jugendstil). The building was financed by Karl Wittgenstein, the father of Ludwig Wittgenstein (the philosopher).

The motto of the Secessionist movement is written above the entrance of the pavilion: “To every age its art, to every art its freedom.” Der Zeit ihre Kunst. Der Kunst ihre Freiheit.

Okay. Now. This blog post is a string, woven into a quilt, a puzzle piece in my blog, and as such part of my previous and future blog posts. I need to think and talk more about language and reality. When I lie awake at night I often think about language, and how we use it in reality. It’s genetic. Being Viennese, an Austrian born human, language skepticism is part of myself just like the wings are part of a chicken, or the appendix is part of the human intestines.

Language skepticism is a form of doubt. To the philosophers rooting for it, it’s the deeply seated doubt that reality can be represented with linguistic and literary means. The traditional role of language is put on trial.

Historically (and theoretically), language skepticism is based on the theories of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Fritz Mauthner. Friedrich Nietzsche (although not Austrian) also played a role in this, above all with comprehensive critique of perception and knowledge.

When language skepticism first became a thing it was so profound and serious, that consequently some of the great poets and writers of the 18th and 19th century gave up writing literature altogether.

Now, almost 100 years later, the great marketeer and cultural icon Seth Godin – and his millions of followers – swung in the opposite direction: They use language as a tool to describe the world. Seth Godin very obviously took language literally as what he found it: something he can work with. To identify, name, and talk about things we find remarkable. Seth Godin, and many modern marketeers alike, make the elusive obvious. With their particular use of language they enable us to see cultural trends, better, to navigate the world, better, to survive and to thrive, better. Seth Godin observed, critically: „Never in doubt is more important than being right.” Quoted from Seths.blog, March 24, 2021 „Certainty, accuracy and leadership”

We, the people, we humans, as a cultural whole, thus went through two extremes: Language Skepticism on one end and Language Ultra-no-doubtism (or whatever future historians will call this) on the other end.

And thus we defined the middle grounds.

It’s almost poetic, beautiful.

But I won’t end today’s writing just yet. Here’s to language skepticism, my translation of Rainer Maria Rielke’s poem „Ich fürchte mich so vor der Menschen Wort”:

I’m deeply scared of how they use their words 

I’m deeply scared of how they use their words.
They’re too certain in how they make them sound:
This they call house and that they call hound,
This is the start, and that is the end, their precision almost hurts.

I’m scared of their intentions, the contempt they maintain,
They know it all, the past and all things that will be.
To them no mountaintop is mysterious to see;
Their possessions are much alike God’s own domain.

Pay heed to my warning: from this do retreat.
The real things, not words, they are what’s sweet.
Through being defined they become mute, rigid and grey,
their spirit crushed, murdered and drained away.

Rainer Maria Rilke, November 1898, translation by Alfons Grabher in 2021

Jay Heinrichs book „Thank You for Arguing” has been translated into eleven languages. It has become standard reading in high school AP English Language classes, gets taught in thousands of college and law school courses, and became a New York Times education bestseller. Yet, Jay Heinrichs’s videos on Youtube, in which he teaches how to write winning essays, are getting a mere few hundred views.

Meanwhile, some college students and uni grads, eloquent with great hair, thick eyebrows and winning smiles, even though new to the field, are getting millions of views on their videos on the same topic. Some of these young entrepreneurs make 7 figure incomes from it. Mind-blowing, to my mind.

Why does a renowned expert get such low views, and a newcomer millions? Why is that?

Thinking about it, the original reason might not be a lack of marketing bells-and-whistles, but utterly human: maybe a lot of children didn’t get the attention, space, environment, emotional nutrition, and love they needed. And thus – maybe – they spend a lifetime trying to make up for what they have been missing (or have been denied) in their first years.

Maybe one kind of „therapy”, or a way to make up for what was missing,  is finding a colourful thumbnail on Youtube. With a man or a woman who looks friendly and healthy. In just the right age the parents could have been in the past. Someone who leans into the camera just like mama (or papa) never did – or failed to do so often. And makes a funny face. Or a laughing face. Or a peek-a-boo face. Or looks like she’s about to sing a song. Or tell a story. Or eat a big dinner together. And maybe the friend on the screen is then explaining the world. In very simple terms. Very colorful. She explains how to be beautiful. He explains how to be successful. She encourages. He comforts. She sings. He tells. She. He. They. We.

I. feel. accepted. I. deserve. to be. loved.

These marketeers, actors, singers, content-creators, funnel-managers have a gentle, calming effect on the inner child. For a moment the pain, the discomfort, the scariness of life is reduced. Maybe even the loneliness disappeared, for a moment.

That’s pretty good actually. Self-selected micro-therapy, free of cost (and commitment).

But: How much of this do people need? When can they finally move on, and live their adult lives?

What we call our coffee drinks says a lot about us. Cappuccino. Espresso. Caffè Cortado. Is your coffee order still beholden to the Italian craftspeople who invented espresso technology? Or do you prefer your cup of Java in a more historical built, for example in form of a true Arabian Mocha, which has its roots in Yemen? Or is it a Short Black, a Flat White, or a Skinny you pick up on your way to work?

„Nothing is neutral; there is no room for free or idiosyncratic variation. With language every difference makes a difference. And it all has to be learned. There is only one way to say anything, both verbally and nonverbally, in writing as well as in speech, and to say anything differently is, in effect, to say a different thing. Synonyms and paraphrases are not substitutable for each other. Choice of a particular synonym always says something about the speaker (or the speaker’s perception of the listener). Petrol and gasoline may refer to the same thing, but I reveal something of myself if I use one term rather than the other. Dogs chase cats cannot replace cats are chased by dogs in any meaningful context. The first is a statement about dogs and the second about cats.” – Frank Smith, Landmarks in Literacy

The same extends to movement. Not just to the obvious cultural dances, gestures and postures, but to all movement. Moving your face in your very particular, iconic way – which each and every of your close friends and relatives could identify as being „you” – is movement. Yes. Also how you hold your shoulders, when and how you rotate your arm through which trajectory, through space, in response to or as requirement to which situation. How you guide your leg in taking a step, and so forth… all is movement. Movement is not just how you are used to do these things. How you learned them once, by chance, or culture and deeply invested into a certain way of doing them. Movement is much more. It is a play of options and understanding.

From my perspective this needs to be addressed when people look for Mindfulness, Self Initiation, or „The embodiment of the full blueprint of being.” And such things. It needs to be addressed through movement. Not merely in form of non-judgmental observation, not merely in form of conscious breath-work, and not merely in form of Mindfulness Meditation. The brain is made for movement and learning. Move and learn we must.

50 years ago chasing the The Embodied Self was as simple as getting a few people together in a safe setting and to scream all fears off the hearts, or to follow breathing techniques for long enough periods of time until the divine came knocking. Some people still invest in and also market such settings nowadays. I guess because they have not found anything better just yet (or it makes them sooo much money that there’s simply no incentive to look any further). To me it looks like as if some of them are teaching to rewind a Swiss wrist watch with the help of a pneumatic jackhammer.

In January I was convinced that 2021 will be the year in which I will build an innovative online training course. A ground setting new way of movement learning, movement quality acquisition, and community building. I was highly motivated to make my ideas available to a larger public. I wanted to provide options, insight, upwards drift, progress, content generation, and set new landmarks in movement literacy. But it’s too big of a task for me alone. No funding, no team, no marketing department, too much work to produce the required content. Therefore: probably no online training course this year.

Now, by the end of March, it became apparent that my main focus in 2021 is on something very different. This is the year of extensive – and intensive – reading, listening, and writing for me.

„Few people now talk about the relationship between thoughts feelings and behaviour as a linear process. In CBT the therapist sees thoughts, feelings and behaviours as reflecting a coherent system.” – Laroxe, forum comment at unk.com

Once a month (or so) I surf Youtube to see what others are doing, what channels became popular, and what I can learn from them. This is how I stumbled upon Mark Tyrell’s channel „Uncommon Practitioners”. As a next step I found the above comment under one of his articles.

Two thoughts came up. One statement, and one question:

• Blog posts are different from articles (much to my relief)
• What is behaviour in the context of movement?

At a first think-about-it „behaviour” appears to me like „movements in the wild”. Best observed by anthropologists and behavioural psychologists. And therapists trying to catch, study, alter or eradicate specifically undesirable specimens of behaviour, and enforce and grow the good ones.

Funny way to look at it, I know. Removes the actual person, the one who is behaving, from the picture.

To put that last thought into Abraham Fuk’s words: „This shift of attention is exacerbated by contemporary imaging methodologies, and patients, who in Foucault’s clinic became open to the medical gaze, are rendered totally transparent, perhaps virtual. Diagnostics becomes centred on the putative agent and therapeutics revolves around extirpation and conquest. Arguably, the most important effect of this framing of medicine is the eradication of the patient’s voice from the narrative.” – quote from Military Metaphors of Modern Medicine.

Somewhat contrariwise, the movement sequences and movement qualities I teach, as inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais, are very human-focused. We play with movement, its properties, connections, implications… we seed new knowledge and qualities… before releasing ourselves into the wild again.

May my eclectic thinking linger in your mind (or heart) for a little while, and allow me to imagine that they find fertile soil. Sprouting into something beautiful, rich, own-able, loveable. While you fly off into the wild.

Let’s say you’re sitting.

What could we say about this position? What do we know about it, generally speaking? Even if you would confirm that you’re sitting, what would your „configuration” have in common with everyone else who would confirm that they are indeed sitting?

Your hands could be almost anywhere. Your right hand could be on the top of your head, and you could be sitting on your left hand, and it would still be called sitting.

Your feet and legs could be in a whole lot of positions too, especially if you’re sitting on a chair. Your right foot could be on your left knee. Like this your knees are not close enough to call that „sitting cross-legged” just yet. And your left foot, you could sit on it, and it would still be called sitting.

What official definitions (and deviations) are there for sitting, for any position, in English… in any language?

And what does „sitting” say about its possibilities? What can you do in your specific way of sitting, that someone else in her/his way of sitting cannot do. Or can do just as well?

And what does „sitting” say about the feelings it may provoke? Maybe one way of sitting makes you tired, one way makes you more alert, one way makes you strong and happy, and another way of sitting makes you feel weak.

It gets even more elaborate with movements: How would a rotation (in which direction?) of a hand be described as it (may or may not) responds to the movements of the arm, shoulder girdle, neck, chest, ribs, eyes, breathing, weight shifting over one foot, etc… ?

And how could we commoners benefit from the Terminologia Anatomica for corpses? „Supinated” is well defined, but the movement of „supination” allows for ambiguity.  „Could you hand me that glass over there please?” I would like to hear someone ask that question in precise, conclusive, anatomical terms.

So far modern Sports and Dance seem to yield the most and best words and definitions. Robotics and Cybernetics may be something to look into as well. Let’s keep those words coming.

One of the first question patients ask when they wake up from a coma is not „How long have I been gone”, but: „Where am I?” At least that’s what I have read in a medical journal, years ago. I guess it’s still true today. Establishing a point of reference, context, knowing where we are is very important to us.

I’ve read the same thing about story telling. Every story needs to introduce these three things: 1. Location, 2. Main actors, 3. Plot. Some authors go straight forward in introducing these three components, some beat around the bush for a little while, but eventually all three are revealed.

“The buzz in the street was like the humming of flies. Photographers stood massed behind barriers patrolled by police, their long-snouted cameras poised, their breath rising like steam. Snow fell steadily on to hats and shoulders; gloved fingers wiped lenses clear. From time to time there came outbreaks of desultory clicking, as the watchers filled the waiting time by snapping the white canvas tent in the middle of the road, the entrance to the tall red-brick apartment block behind it, and the balcony on the top floor from which the body had fallen.” … … … 13 pages later … … … „Are you M-Mr Strike?” – excerpt from Robert Galbraith, J.K. Rowling, The Cuckoo’s Calling 

When a story does not have the real estate of a full book to unfold itself, experienced writers like David Sedaris may pull all three things together in one short opening sentence:

„A year after my graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a terrible mistake was made and I was offered a position teaching a writing workshop.” – the first sentence of „The Learning Curve”, from David Sedaris.

„It was Easter Sunday in Chicago, and my sister Amy and I were attending an afternoon dinner at the home of our friend John. ” – the first sentence of „Big Boy”, from David Sedaris.

That’s also how dreams work.

If you’re into lucid dreaming, in any dream you will know 1. Where you are, or at least be informed about the set, even if it is minimalist – or kafkaesque in case you ate too much before going to sleep. 2. Who is interacting (and with whom), and 3. What the dream is about.

It could be similar with movement. There’s questions. Or at least: there should be questions. We could have these kind of questions:

1. What is your starting position?
2. What are you moving? Where to?
3. How is the movement quality – fast, slow, rhythmical, choppy, tense, smooth, laboured, accelerating, slowing, … ?
4. What is moving along with it? What isn’t?
5. What are we trying to achieve?

With these questions in mind there’s suddenly a lot to observe in the physical world, and by collecting answers, we build understanding.