STUDY WITH ALFONS

I’m invited to present at the La Pelvis Project Presents: “Live with LULU”, a project made possible with the support of the Gluck Fellows Program of the Arts, Interior Beauty Salon, and the University of California Riverside Dance Department. Date: Thursday, March 31, 2022. All sessions are free and open to the public upon RSVPing. More info here: interiorbeautysalon.com/in-motion

Priscilla, the organiser, asked me to write 2-3 sentences on what I will be presenting. I typed down the following, as I find this could be quite interesting. I just sent it out right now, therefore I don’t know what she will make of four paragraphs, it’s certainly more than 2-3 sentences. Just for the archive, here’s my original proposal:

Why don’t you just say what you want to say? How can we ever find the right words within the infinite possible combinations of words and sounds of spoken language?

And furthermore: Can we compare spoken language to physical movement? For example, in spoken language, would the repeated shouting of a single word be the equivalent to the repeated execution of a single motion? And consequently, would telling a longer story be the equivalent to a longer movement sequence? In movement, what would constitute a congruent story? What makes or breaks the grammar of movement?

In this context I will present a selection of movement sequences from Somatic Education, inspired by Moshé Feldenkrais, to experience the pelvis like we might experience the subject, object or verb in a sentence, or the agonist, or antagonist, or a side character, or maybe even the setting in a story. Does any of this make any sense?

What do we need to make sense of movement? In popular media we see famous clinical psychologists and cognitive neuroscientists produce a lot of very elaborate and complex spoken language, but why don’t we see them teach equally sophisticated movement classes? Let’s find out!

It’s been a year, maybe longer, since I’ve taught classes in person. Instead, I find myself more and more often thinking about past experiences. Is this a function of the brain? Thinking about the past? Like flashbacks that happen while walking through a tunnel towards the light? Why does this happen?

The highest paid (by a long shot) class I’ve ever taught was in China. It was also the worst class I’ve ever taught. I recall the details with horror. A beautiful, large studio, but a cold setting. Hard plastic mats on a wooden floor. Students all dressed in the latest Lululemon gear, a hundred slim, fit and very flexible fitness instructors. Sitting perfectly cross-legged and well behaved, like good students trained by a master with a stick. Waiting for me, the odd Westerner, to teach them highly efficient tricks they can use with their own clients to make more money. And a translator with an unemphatic voice. I didn’t have a chance. Maybe I was still too inexperienced, or too unprepared, or maybe I was not strong enough mentally or not strong enough with my framing, or maybe I lacked the intellectual tools, maybe I should have gone full extremist myself, into my direction not theirs. Maybe that would have taught them something. It was a painful 6 hours. Now, that’s all in the past, and the money’s gone, too. I think I spent it on expensive food, luxury hotels and shady massages. Yet, the memories still haunt me.

When I think of fitness classes, or maybe even some Feldenkrais classes, I also think of John Taylor Gatto’s essay, The Seven Lesson Schoolteacher. An essay on meta-themes, about the structure of classes. He describes what students learn through the setting, through how a school (or class) is set up and what students acquire through the social dynamics and rules, rather than the content. Gatto brings attention to the fact that it’s not just the content that is taught in schools, but that the setting is the teaching as well.

For example, Gatto writes, “by stars and red checks, smiles and frowns, prizes, honors and disgraces I teach kids to surrender their will to the predestined chain of command. Rights may be granted or withheld by any authority without appeal, because rights do not exist inside a school [..] children sneak away for a private moment in the toilet on the pretext of moving their bowels, or they steal a private instant in the hallway on the grounds they need water. I know they don’t, but I allow them to deceive me because this conditions them to depend on my favors.”

That day in China, maybe it was a low-point in my career. To be perfectly honest, I was greatly dismayed by the view of a hundred perfectly trained, perfectly dressed, perfectly seated fitness instructors. Those expensive, same color-theme Lululemon clothes were not mere clothes, they were a uniform. And those perfectly toned muscles, the flexible bodies, those were not free people, those were soldiers. They were a combat division of the fitness industry.

I said, “Please come to rest on your backs, stand your feet, put your right hand behind your head, catch and hold your left knee with your left hand, bring your right elbow and your left knee towards each other. And they all followed as if I had typed that into Microsoft Visual Code Studio and ran my commands like a computer code.”

I said, “Ok, forget about that, please come to lie on your front side”, and I started again there, and then re-started again, and again, and after two hours I’ve cut through their great walls and I had them act like humans. And I could see that they would feel, sense, ask questions. And I think I achieved something in terms of helping them connect with themselves on an emotional level, to bring some life and love into their bones, to allow them to feel… but there were no happy faces. The organiser explained to me later on, “That’s not what they were looking for. Most of them were not here for themselves.” They wanted to learn some well defined routines, and some new tricks they could use with their own clients to make more money. They wanted to learn how to fix knee pain faster, or back pain, or become more flexible faster, anything that helps with the business.

In a recent Youtube comment Amurg Codru asked, “Trauma.. complex things. Could this be solved entirely through Feldenkrais?” It’s an interesting question, I have not answered, yet. Maybe one would need to define the scope of the term Trauma first. But generally speaking, I don’t think so. For example, in regard to the atrocities committed in compulsory schooling, when I look at my fellow certified FELDENKRAIS® colleagues, the teachers, many don’t seem to have resolved their own trauma… despite the hundreds (if not thousands) of hours they’ve studied Feldenkrais lessons themselves. In and through their classes, many of them seem to recreate the very conditions needed to not only uphold, but to create trauma. So, there’s the reason I didn’t pursue a career as Feldenkrais Trainer in Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs. The mere thought of having to submit to the stern rules and regulations of that system of indoctrination is driving me away. How could I teach in a setting that by its definition is a place of authoritarian discipline, class position, emotional, intellectual and brand-license dependency, and many more such monstrosities?

What is »human«? What does it take to become human? Maybe compassion would be a good start. Are there any efforts to create Artificial Compassion parallel to Artificial Intelligence? Because I don’t think that intelligence is the defining trait here. But in order to feel compassionate, one would need to be able to feel first. And who will grant permission for that, if not each person themselves? And who will catch you when you encounter what you will find? Whom will you share your horrors with, as well as your joys and triumphs? Who will listen compassionately? Who will help to make things better? Who will understand?

When we grew up, my mother always found it important to have a piano in the house. Therefore we always had a piano sitting in a corner, mostly unused.

From time to time my mother would tell me how adorable I was as a preschooler, when I took piano lessons with that Japanese teacher in Vienna. She said I was hitting the keys already quite joyfully, and that I loved the classes so much. They were all about exploration, being playful, and enjoying getting to know music, and at the same time making progress and learning something.

My mom’s story about me taking piano lessons ends with what happened next: we moved to the other side of Austria and my new teacher unfortunately was no good, he killed any interest I had in music. She always adds that she didn’t know at the time, and that she’s sorry for that poor choice of a teacher.

I’m now grown up, 47 years old. In a recent videocall with my mom we talked about her newfound joy for playing the piano herself, and she said that if I would like to pick up learning piano again, too, and therefore needed a piano, she would like to invite me to one. I just need to chose the one I like best, she’d send me the money, her treat. I didn’t accept, yet, but it’s safe to say that this was the most adorable offer. We all like to grow and unfold, heal and progress. I love my mom so much.

I asked her, “How often will I need to practice squatting per day in order to be able to squat as well as you do?”

She said, “That’s not how it works.”

I might need to mention that I currently live in the South of Vietnam, where seemingly everyone seems to be rather flexible and well able to squat. And for the girl I asked, she’s Vietnamese as well.

And therefore, I want to look at what people here in Vietnam do differently than people in other places (and cultures) where people in general are not flexible and not able to squat well; not able to fold their legs with ease and for extended periods of time.

Now, if you don’t live in a country like Vietnam yourself, it might be difficult to look for such differences. And furthermore, difficult to verify my thinking. However, I think it would be necessary to see for yourself, in order to even consider making the bold changes I’m suggesting in this post.

For example, I often see people here in Vietnam sit on chairs in Indian fashion, with both legs up and crossed on the seating platform, or in variations thereof (for example with one or both feet on the seating platform and the knees in front or to the side of their chest.) Or they sit on very low chairs, chairs that look like LEGO-versions of chairs, as low as a couple of books stacked on top of each other. Or they literally use a brick or small block of wood as a chair. That’s how low they often sit and they fold their legs, that is they fully bend their knees and hip joints. In Vietnam you might see people squat frequently and everywhere. They often squat when they wait (instead of standing up straight or leaning against a wall), and they even squat on top of benches, curbs and walls. Or they sit on the floor altogether, maybe on a piece of cardboard on a sidewalk, or on a thin cushion at home. Some even take lunchtime naps on top of their motorbikes on the side of the road, with their legs somehow pretzeled up to fit on the seat of their ride. And all that looks perfectly normal.

Here in Vietnam, in public, I see people fold their legs frequently. Whereas back home in Austria, Europe, I hardly ever (close to never) saw anyone fold their legs like that in public.

In Austria, a western country, we have Yoga and stretching classes, and fitness and movement classes, with very clever exercises to learn and maintain how to fold the legs, and twist, and stretch and extend ones spine. However, these classes are attended only by a small portion of the general population. And even for the few who care about folding their legs and getting into unusual postures, they don’t—and can’t—use these movements and postures much when they are outside of class.

I just wrote »unusual postures«. But, unusual for whom?

Culture is strong. Going against one’s culture does not only mean NOT to carry on one’s culture, but to betray one’s culture. We’re asked to uphold and maintain our own cultures, but to whose benefit? At what cost? To what ends!

Side-Note: I recently saw a Youtube video by Ben Patrick, a famous fitness coach in the US, famous for his bending-the-knees workout system. In that particular Youtube video he filmed himself stopping his car while on a long commute, getting out of his car, and exercising with weights next to the highway, in order to maintain his leg’s flexibility and strength. This was such an odd behaviour (albeit perfectly rational and relate-able) that I’m still thinking about it often. Why do we Westerners have to resort to such extreme measures?

So, the next time you’re invited to dinner with your grandparents or parents, or your boss maybe, you might not want to place your feet on your seat, nor stick your knees in between your torso and the table… in order to respect THEIR culture and THEIR upbringing — and all the things THEIR parents told them over and over and over (and over and over) again what to do and what not to do.

Sit straight,
don’t put your feet on the seat,
don’t lean with your elbows on the table,
don’t slouch,
put both feet down on the floor,
stop shaking your leg,
sit still,
make a friendly face,
answer me: “How was your day?”
and be surprised when all they get is, “It was ok”.

And finally, the ones who complied and learned all the rules expect that everyone else does the same as well. This is how a culture teaches itself and maintains the behaviour of its members.

But if you want to attain and maintain normal function of your knees and legs… when you’re on your own, or amongst your own (to say it harshly), you might want to think about creating your own branch of culture, and form habits that are in alignment with your own goals and your own thinking.

“Now you start to sit like me”, she observed.

“I try to”, I replied.

I once asked Moshé Feldenkrais, “What are you going to teach today?” He replied, “I always teach the same movement—only with a different sauce.” – paraphrased from the book “Bone, Breath and Gesture” by Don Hanlon Johnson

So I was writing a new set of cards, and the first card went like this: „Lie on your belly, in prone position, with your legs extended, your toes standing, your hands standing next to your shoulders. Bend and extend your ankles to create a push up your spine towards your head. Rock your head with your feet.”

And I was thinking, „Hm, that’s odd. What is a push?” Here’s that first paragraph as an animated image:

Is a push something like „wind”? Something fleeting, invisible? Something that becomes visible only through the things that are being pushed?

I can’t quite see it in the image though. It looks more like a rocking, the rocking of the legs and entire spine, with the help of the ankles and… arms… somehow, innit? What is it?

I recalled a series of animated images I created years ago, a by-product of me studying the Feldenkrais Method, something to help myself to understand David Zemach-Bersin’s hands-on work. I never published these images due to copyright reasons, but to give you an idea, they looked like this:

I insert one of these animated images here just for the sake of illustration, I guess that should be covered under Fair Use (this specific video of David has been published on Youtube and has been visible to the general public for some time in 2012, even though it has been unlisted since then and now seems to be a purchasable on his website).

In this animated image the push is generated by David (as it looks like by his arms, which push against his stabilised trunk) and then travels into his student’s right foot up through her right leg and her pelvis and further up into her left upper rib cage. And it does all the things a push does, including pushing some parts closer together while pushing some other parts further apart from each other, which looks like rotation and side-bending and that sort of things. And then David spends half an hour with all sorts of other movements, which eventually all sum up to improve the push… which actually aren’t about the push at all. They are about a useful thing: the ability to better lift the right arm on up. No pain, just joy, whoops there it goes up!

Of course, returning to the first picture, we could self-push ourselves asymmetrically too, for example only bend and extend the right ankle, maybe place the foot a bit out to the right to have a more pronounced push vector, and then let that push go from only one foot up on upwards, wherever it goes. Where does it go? What does it do, what does it do? What does it move, what pieces will it take up? And which areas will go untouched, like a cut off branch of a river or a dead architectural space where no wind will ever go in? Is it the push that brings life to our bodies, or is the push proof that we are alive?

On the other foot, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone create a push for us? Would that be easier to feel, to understand, to integrate? Wouldn’t that be wonderful?