STUDY WITH ALFONS

Never arrive fully fed and with detailed expectations to dinner invitations. Do not pre-load your mind with exact ideas about the evening’s exact looks and tastes, my dear. Such a strategy is not only crappy, but will make both the cook and the host unhappy; and you might not only find yourself well disappointed, but also your good spirits abidingly disjointed.

Instead, arrive with one main thought, or one idea, and with an appetite that wants to be fed, just to be clear. On entrance quickly jot down your idea, like a passing drift, in just a few words, just like you would hand over your dinner party gift, or just like you would drop off your overcoat vest, and then play—with whatever conversations thereinafter manifest.

„But I’m not good at dinner parties.”

„Then your problem isn’t writer’s block. Then it might be the people, the type of parties, the type of place or setting, maybe even the language. How do you feel about going for a walk through a beautiful park?”

I find trimming down sentences—for the sole purpose of fitting them into a certain space—extraordinarily draining. But shouldn’t the practice of writing be uplifting, inspiring, invigorating? Therefore, when I started to write out the movements for my next video (From the ground up #3), I decided for expressible sentences, even if they might take up more space. Turns out they don’t even take up that much more space. All good.

Also today:  I’ve stumbled upon two workers who were trimming plants. I took a few pictures because they were doing a whole lot of things I teach in my “From the ground up” series:  kneeling, squatting, sitting on their feet, heels under the pelvis, in many different ways. Much to my delight (and amazement) they were extraordinarily skilful at it. I teach these movements as something special, but for these two men these movements are extraordinarily ordinary. They squat and kneel often, o! so often, minutes at a time, totalling hours per day, day after day. And despite all that kneeling and squatting, whenever they get up they seem to stand up so straight, and stand up at so much ease, that I wonder if I should cry out in delight or envy.

When I was back up in my apartment I was still thinking about these two workers. I was standing in front of my window, which is overlooking the city, and was drowning deeply in my thoughts. I was thinking about how people back home in Austria move. If no one does a certain kind of thing, how can we know of its existence? And likewise, if everyone does a certain kind of thing, how can we become aware of its value?

Finally I pulled myself away from my pondering and concluded: „That’s what poems are for. To capture the essence of things that are remarkable, so they can be passed on.” Turns out—when I was looking at the last sentence of today’s blog post—that today I was able to create something slightly remarkable myself, I wrote a blog post that bore a poem as fruit (for you to pick):

In poems
sentences don’t need to be trimmed.
They need to be seeded;
briefly sprouted at most.

The day before yesterday I completed a recent pet project of mine: I narrated a  story in my mother tongue, Austrian-German language, and uploaded it into Youtube [link]. I didn’t know what the story was about when I started. Turned out to be an old, eerie fairy tale. A tale from the old days, a tale about the enchantments of the forests; the entanglements of knights and heroes with the mysterious and shockingly beautiful beings of the spirit world; a tale about friendship, passion, the seasons of nature… and madness.

„So once again I sat with good grace—for a short rest—by a forest stream. Crystalline, its fresh waters leaping through deep ravines, into the valley. Golden flashes, a glitter from its grounds, produced by pebbles rubbing against each other. Trouts standing, floating, motionless, effortless. So once again I sat by this enigmatic being we call water, which modern science calls a chemically dead substance”, wrote Viktor Schauberger, the Austrian naturalist in deep appreciation of nature, and gushing worry about the times to come, in the year 1939.

In my country, Austria, these kind of rivers and forests don’t exist anymore. At the moment peeps are very busy chopping down the last natural forests of Europe, in Romania. Merely the old tales remain. But now we have smartphones and tablets to read them from, and eco-friendly furniture for our indoor living spaces. Many years from now, when folks will be sitting cozily together, next to a fire, telling each other tales of these times past, they will tell of our knights and of our heroes who were entangled with the mysterious and shockingly frightening beings of our spirit world; of friendship, trauma, rage and natural disasters… and how we overcame our madness.

I have, I guess—my estimate—something like 200 videos with movement lessons on Youtube, all free to watch. Some are experiments in film making, some are experiments in teaching online through video, some I consider properly done proper lessons. Each video lesson has (let me guess) something in between – I cannot say for sure – but maybe ten, maybe one hundred mostly favourable comments, some most favourable.

Update: a total of 5613 comments, as of 9th October 2021

”Alfons, you were the subject of a conversation I had with a physical therapist yesterday. I was attending a class for senior citizens on enhancing balance, and I mentioned doing the Feldenkrais Method to heal and balance my body after having injured it doing excessive yoga. It turned out that she, too, does this practice. Your name came up. We both agreed that we loved your work and that we find your presentations to be concise and FUN! Just know that you are loved and appreciated by two people in Las Cruces, New Mexico in the U.S…” wrote Dee Davis on my Hip Joints video #5.

Now, usually I read all of them. The latest ones first thing in the morning. But I’ve not done anything much with them. There must be thousand and thousands of comments and short stories. Thousands of favourable, loving, thoughtfully written sharings.

”Thank you so much. A brilliant exercise. I’ve begun to follow your work on Youtube and it is changing my life. I worked with Moshe Feldenkrais at Esalen and Berkley for a couple of years and actually a bit in Israel… and your work is bringing me home to the gift of his genius in FRESH ways.. I’m deeply grateful.” wrote Christine King on my Neck and Shoulders video #1.

”Your lessons have helped me overcome many years of crippling pain – in about 2 weeks. Now, I can walk without pain. No Doctor ever got close to helping me. Thank you so much!” wrote Anthony Charles on my Pelvic Floor Priming And Improved Walking video.

And marcanello wrote, ”I loved this lesson, Alfons, it was great for my back, and it cheered me up!!! I used to do your lessons with my 92-year-old mom. She passed a month ago, and now I think of her whenever I am with you.”

At the end of her/his comment marcanello penned an emoji, 💟. And I took a day, more like two, to design a card… a container, a basket, a display to hold, to copy/paste, some of those miraculous, wonderful, some very touching, some very cheerful, all uplifting comments. Not sure what to do with them exactly, but I intend to create one card per day and upload it to Facebook [link], of all places. I should collect them. I put a number on each card. Maybe I should create a gallery page next to my blog, just for the cards, just for me, just for us.

I’m outside. Outside of the medical establishment, outside of the schooling system, outside of the draconian rule of politics in therapy. I’m a private teacher outside of the strangling grip of hierarchy, compulsion, oppression. I’m outside, come find me. Within your movement practice, within your thoughts, in your heart. Let’s move together. Let’s move our worlds, together, up. Up.