STUDY WITH ALFONS

In the previous video we were lying on the belly, and rolled the pelvis a little bit to the left and to the right. Here’s a screenshot from one of my prep sessions:

How your pelvis connects to your head (UP9.1), youtube.com/watch?v=XOxG5hDnstk

A fairly simple move, yet my video for this movement is half an hour long. And I would think it could be much longer than that. It could be an entire workshop. This movement looks simple, but it’s quite complex. Just for example: during pregnancy women should feel their baby move at month 5 at the latest. The baby is starting to use its legs to push against the inner lining of the womb (which she might feel as kicking), and in this way the baby starts to learn how to use its legs to change position. In movement classes we can mimic this developmental stage by, for example, by lying on the back and pushing with one foot (or both feet) on the floor (or on a wall, or ball or anything really) to roll or lift the pelvis and change position. However, when we are lying on the belly, we can’t make use of our feet and legs in this sense. It’s a more challenging situation that reflects a later stage in our developmental and movement learning process.

Now, for my next video. First of all, I was browsing through my personal notes and got inspired by one of Moshé Feldenkrais original lessons, AY385, Increasing the spreading of the knees (which could be tagged #scout series, and snapshots of some movements thereof would resemble the Yoga Pigeon pose). Here’s a screenshot from one of my prep sessions:

It’s basically the same movement as in the previous video, rolling the pelvis a little bit to the left and to the right in prone position, however, with one leg bent (which we need in the „From The Ground Up” series).

And yet, it’s such an utterly different situation that it completely changes the lesson and how I need (to learn and) to teach it. Well, maybe not for everyone. But if you are like me, and your legs and body in general is not in mint condition anymore, which is to say does not provide normal service anymore (to paraphrase Moshé Feldenkrais), which is to say that you can’t do every humanly possible movement with ease and a complete sense of taken-for-grantedness anymore (like a duck takes to water), then it’s an utterly different situation.

Well, who is.

So, for my next video, I spent the last two weeks trying to learn this movement, and moreover, trying to figure out a way how to teach it. For most of the time it didn’t look like I will succeed. I had issues with my knees, and I had difficulties getting to the bottom of the lesson, and I had somewhat of an existential crisis (which is probably less because of this movement lesson, and more due to two years of ongoing lockdowns and living in a foreign country with little to no chance to ever learning the local language or becoming fully integrated in society, and yet no way I’m going back to the mess my home country Austria has become).

But at last, finally, after two weeks of approximations and pursue, it looks like as if I’m successful in this process of creating a new lesson. I finally have a clear understanding of the movements and how they fit in the overall pattern of the series. And I found a way to prime and protect the knees, which I think is a rather big insight. It might change how I will teach most classes in the future, and how I understand movement learning in general. And I’ve already taught the movements to two very different students, which yielded important insights on how to teach this particular lesson on Youtube. I think I will soon be able to film the video.

This post originally aired as a patron-only post on patreon.com – Support your teacher, become a patron.

During the past week or two (or three?) I got almost depressed. Maybe I really was. The reason being: I couldn’t see how I could go on with my „From The Ground Up” series.

The reason being, from the comments on the videos I could see the difficulties some viewers have with the folding of their legs, with the loading of the folded legs, and with folding the knees in combination with extending the hip joints (talk about strong opposites). I read how even some long term students got into pain instead of wellbeing. And for me, the same. Click click went my knees. Don’t do that to us, said my knees.

I couldn’t see a way.

I feared, and frowned upon, that I may need to revert to regular, saver, more innocent movement sequences. The like you would find anywhere. Good, honest movement combinations, the sequences you would find in most public Feldenkrais-inspired courses. Nothing wrong with that, I love those movements. But after all I have been trough, what I’ve created and done, what I’ve published on Youtube so far… I don’t want to go back. I want to go on, go further, I want to progress.

And then, at last, just yesterday, I found a way.

The thing is… our movement problems don’t only come from sitting on chairs. Yes, sitting on chairs for extended periods of time is bad. Even if we sit as recommended in so called ergonomic guidelines; or maybe sitting in chairs is bad because of such ergonomic guidelines.

And it’s not just because we might sleep like Count Dracula. Yes, sleeping like a log for the whole night is bad—with both legs extended downwards—the position they put us in for our last rest in a coffin.

However, the worst things we do in terms of movement, I think, is the things we don’t do. The lack of sitting crossed legged, the absence of sitting and lying with folded legs, bent, twisted; the lack of sitting and working in the many squat positions; the thousands, maybe millions of movements we don’t do, that’s the problem.

And then there’s strengthening exercises.

I don’t think that the good thing about strengthening exercises is the actual strengthening. How many repetitions of Toe raises and Toe curls and one legged heel raises with bent forward knees do we need to perform? How many Roundhouse squats? How many of these fun and beneficial knee and leg exercises do we have to do for how many times? Personal trainers are done with counting single repetitions, nowadays they count the hours („I tried exercise X for Y weeks and this is what happened”).

However, I do confirm, yesterday I verified and concluded for myself that in order to restore function we need strengthening exercises. In places where they aren’t yet, we do need to build them into our Feldenkrais-inspired movement practice as safety and priming movements, in order to be able to recover from all the harm and damage done, and in order to be able to progress.

We need the repetitions. But I might not think of these exercises as strengthening exercises. Instead, I think they are a practice of repentance. They are prayers for redemption. They are a way of making up for all the things we didn’t do. For all the years we didn’t squat down, for all the times we sat stiffly on a chair like a good girl or good boy or good office worker, without pulling our legs up into all those forbidden postures like cross legged sitting or sitting with one foot on the sitting platform and one foot on the ground.

Now. Oremus in motu. Let us pray in movement. Let’s make it up to ourselves.

I was looking at trending Youtubers teaching functional fitness exercises. The pinnacle of the movement movement.

Strengthening, stretching, conditioning,
greasing the groove.
Assessing, adjusting, correcting,
coaches approve.
Collecting certificates,
signing certificates.
Performing, competing, teaching,
improve.

My gosh, in some of these exercises they really make it hard for themselves. They deflate their tires, pull their parking brakes, pack on some weight, and then try to drive as hard as they can. I wonder: »Must we always suffer in order to have lightness and ease some time later?«

And on that same note, putting ourselves under pressure in order to get things moving, is that a good idea? (it might, it might not be) Where do these ideas even come from?

We come to this world and we learn. There’s things we learn and things we don’t learn. There’s environments that are more supportive, others less. There’s ideas we’re exposed to. And once we can speak and listen and read, and once we’re able to move on our own, it’s our own responsibility to expose ourselves to new and better ideas, better environments.

Mistakes happen. All along the way.

I don’t think that childhood trauma is immutable, permanent damage. I think it’s a problem about learning. A problem about our immediate environment and the ideas and sentiments we have been (or have not been) and continue to be exposed to. And about which thoughts and views we feel comfortable going with.

So, let’s say someone was never exposed to the ideas of

Moshé Feldenkrais,
Charlotte Selver,
Alice Miller,
John Taylor Gatto,
Stephen Krashen or Frank Smith (the psycholinguists).

Just for example. These are my examples. I could as well say, say, Maria Montessori, Viktor Schauberger, Bert Hellinger, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ignaz Semmelweis, Jim Davis’s Garfield. What of it?

Who are your favourite teachers, what are your favourite ideas? What are the conditions for learning? What makes us go look for more? What makes us stay with what we already have? What is the difference between movement learning in the sense of „Personal Coaching” and in the sense of „Somatic Education”?

I dissolved a couple of fairy tales in hard acid. This removed most of the entertaining embellishments for sure, but also the Poisonous Pedagogy. Kind of reminds me of what we might see in Bert Hellinger’s Family Constellations, once all the relevant members have been placed on the playing field. Or, in a movement based sense, when we clearly perceive the structure of a movement. So. Without further ado, here’s what I’ve found at the bottom of the bucket:

Little Red Riding Hood

A little girl, whose father is not mentioned, was sent away by her mother (into territory where a dangerous predator roams around.) Next thing we know, the little girl was—or was almost—killed, and so was her grandmother.

The Three Little Pigs

A mother sent her three little ones away (into territory where a dangerous predator roams around.) Within mere days two of them were killed, whilst the third one became a killer himself.

Cinderella

The girl Cinderella lost her mother in early childhood. Her father remarried. However, Cinderella’s own father, her new stepmother, and her two new stepsisters all reject her. Finally, Cinderella finds a strong man who fancies her and leaves to marry him.

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Snow White’s mother died during her birth. Her father remarried. However, her father’s second wife, her stepmother, is deeply jealous of her and drives a wedge in between Snow White and her father. Next thing we know, Snow White is in a coma because of her stepmother. Finally, a strong man wakes Snow White from her coma, they get married, and all clears up.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack, a poor country boy, made it big and yet didn’t forget his family.

I’m not sure if I can sustain reading about psychology and specifically about Poisonous Pedagogy any longer. Important insights, big revelations, but oh so dark. My reading speed did almost grind to a halt. Maybe one last quote:

“Pedagogy Fills the Needs of Parents, Not of Children” — Alice Miller, from her book “For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence”

Actually that was a chapter title, but… indeed.

Now on to something else, something that delights me beyond measure. A poem a viewer left as comment on one of my Youtube videos:

LOWERING MY BODY WITH THE SPIRAL AND FEELING ECSTASY

Life offers me fluidity
As I spiral
Un
To
Ecstasy,
First from standing,
Then to the floor,
I twist my hips
And so explore,
The joy
Of fluid movement.
What utter grace,
Can be.
As I lower
Of my body
Why it’s all
So
Heav…en-ly.

Poem by Martin Mittelmark, as a comment on my video “Move smoothly from standing to sitting on the floor”, youtu.be/fftXkm6Mlu0

Oh so wonderful! I don’t know if Martin is a reader of my blog, but somehow he must be in the know…

Please (continue to) practice your own creativity, open the flood gates, whether your favourite medium of expression is drawing, writing, singing, dancing, garden work, flower arranging or … good question, which are the ways?