STUDY WITH ALFONS

I pulled six quotes from the Introduction of Frank Smith’s „Comprehension and Learning: A Conceptual Framework for Teachers.” Frank Smith had those sentences arranged into one all congruent, fluent line of thought. However, as a numbered list they read more like the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of Ludwig Wittengenstein. While some fellow Austrian’s might giggle at the geekiness, it’s better than nothing, since Frank Smith’s books are either outrageously priced, or not available for purchase at all. So here are my self-selected nuggets, er, quotes:

1. Children at school are not a special race of animal, nor do their capacities change the moment they cross the threshold of the classroom.
2. The basic assertion is that the only effective and meaningful way in which anyone can learn is by attempting to relate new experiences to what she believes already.
3. The task of education is not to create or even develop the ability to learn, but to understand and respect its nature, thereby facilitating its operation.
4. Children are not empty vessels into which teachers pour selected skills and nuggets of knowledge. Rather, it is in the child’s nature to express and develop innate intellectual capacities, integrating all experience into an intricate view of life that includes hopes and fears, loves and hates, beliefs and expectations, and attitudes towards other people and towards himself.
5. A fundamental problem for any instructor is to avoid interfering with natural processes of comprehension and learning.

At large I keep myself distanced from „the system”, compulsory schooling and its metastases, but I do acknowledge that academia has all these immense treasures and developments. I often peek over the end of my small garden into the big world, in awe, with pleasure, and with a bit of envy, and regret.

(The sixth quote is the title of today’s blog post)

„There’s many ways you communicate. With colour, texture, sound… even words can communicate.” – David Carson

The coffee shop was too crowded. All good seats taken. Noisy. People busy walking in and out. But there’s very good bagels, and good tea. So I took a seat at the window, looking out onto the street, my back to the room, and a few seconds later I was one of them.

I spent half an hour on Instagram, which I found very unusual for me. But David Carson. Five days ago I’ve stumbled upon his intro for MasterClass, I remember him pointing, speaking, showing, smiling. His record cover design for John Coltrane, 1963, New Directions, took one of the good seats in my memory. Three days ago I did a first, inspired sketch. Had it fermenting. And this coffee shop was too loud for writing today’s blog post anyways.

I liked the feeling when I reached into my bag. I had the feeling I’m going to do good work. Then I spent two hours moving text around, layering images. Tearing my invoice in half. Trying to get Airdrop to work from my iPhone to my MacBook. Google. Restart. Google. Update. More Google. Then adding more images, more text.

Then there was a power outage. Another half hour later all guests have left, except for me and a woman at the other side of the room. Without the loud humming from the appliances and without the bright lights the coffee shop was wonderfully quiet. I didn’t look at her face directly, but the sudden silence did something for us. The pleasant natural sunlight falling through the tree from outside, mixed with the dim shadows from the wooden interior. I filled my glass with fresh water from the service desk. The ice cubes falling into the glass, the sounds of my footsteps through the silence. One of those rare moments that pull us into mindfulness, that carry on with us, that take a special seat in our hearts. But my eyes were already tired, my MacBook battery almost empty, so I packed up.

Later, at home, I took more pictures, added shadows, changed text, changed images, removed shadows, added more pictures, added more layers. Removed some again.

And it’s bedtime again. I don’t know about time these days. Someone should check the universe if it’s still working. Face masks. Morning, lunch, skipping dinner, bedtime. But I have a first version of a book cover now.

„Working titles are used when the official title has not yet been decided upon.” – Wikipedia

I’ve transcribed a few minutes from an audio recording by Moshé Feldenkrais, for writing a commentary. A mental as well as a writing exercise. A strategy to solidify the thoughts of my supersaturated soul. A pathway to equilibrium.

The commentaries crystallized effectively. Sentence by sentence. Minute details. Each word is a sponge that soaks up time. Three days in, no end in sight.

My first idea for a working title was „An autopsy of Shoulder Circles.” The wording. An emotional derailing, a critique to the fact that most of Moshé Feldenkrais’s live works (audio, video, and transcriptions thereof) are „buried” on private grounds (unfunny pun here); only purchasable under certain conditions, with usage restrictions, and for these reasons „dead” to the general public. Excluded from popular culture. Cut off from the blood stream. His books and recordings like driftwood: although impasse, some people can see something in it, find inspiration, some even build furniture from it.

„An autopsy”, this title never saw the light of day. Of course. I never called it like that.

Sometimes a question might be as weighty as a statement, but not as dangerous as a statement. When a question is stupid, it’s just a stupid question, but when a statement is stupid, people might hold you accountable and next thing you know is you’re hanging by your neck from a tree, looking at the tips of pitchforks.

Physical movement is like the structure of written text. The letters itself, the straight lines and curves, and how these are arranged into groups, and written line by line, they might even be visually appealing, but for the large part the inking itself is meaningless.

The meaning is somehow connect to, evoked, triggered by the structure. Only known to the writer and the reader. As humans we are constantly searching for meaning. Our souls are searching-for-meaning supercomputers.

The same could be said for spoken words. Even though the sound of someone’s voice might be pleasing, soothing, wonderful to hear, if they are speaking in a language we don’t understand their voice is more or less meaningless. But THERE IS meaning behind the actual sounds. We use speech as a vehicle for meaning.

I close the loop: some Feldenkrais teachers sometimes make it sound like as if there was some sort of mysterious magic behind all those movements. And that the movements themselves are not at all that important. Is that 70ties-style marketing talk? Or is that a way of saying that, much like text and speech, movement has BOTH structure AND meaning?

Garfield, the cat from the American comic strip created by Jim Davis, once said: „There’s no cat behind the cat.” What did he mean by that?

Maybe there’s nothing deeper, nothing more powerful, nothing more important to any person than being able to move well, without discomfort, without pain?

„Movement” as in the vigorous movements of playing sports, in the minimal movements of sleep, the moving in unison with another person, or the pleasures of taking a walk in a group, the movements necessary for your work, for leisure, the movements for chewing food, or the movements for passing stool, or the movements necessary for visual perception, or rolling the eyes, throwing the hands up, speaking, laughing, sending flowers to your mother, or sending a kiss, all the thinkable and unthinkable movements.

Maybe there’s nothing deeper, nothing more powerful, nothing more important to any person than being able to use movement smoothly, as a vehicle for purpose and meaning?

Does movement have both structure and meaning? If true, I could say this: Improve the way you move… and let me throw this one in too: „improve the way you think about movement”, and you will improve your life. True or not?

„The meaning and value [of a Feldenkrais Functional Integration lesson] may have nothing to do with the improvement of movement, but with something much deeper, more powerful, and more important to the person.” – David Zemach-Bersin

Live classes

A teacher of Somatic Education provides an environment where everyone – including the teacher – can learn to be comfortable, explore and study without rushing towards defining processes, pinning down explanations or fixings things rather than acknowledge and live in the process. With the process being „all that is and that occurs in the time of a lesson.”

Video recordings

I don’t know of any recording where Moshé Feldenkrais was teaching without speaking to a specific person directly. He alone on his own, solitary with a video camera or microphone – such probably never happened.

He seemed to always have at least half a dozen people around him, at least, either for support, or to learn from him, or to be with him in some sort of master-apprentice sort of way. 

Moshé Feldenkrais always seemed to teach in group settings, and therefore there were always group dynamics. And even though „Awareness Through Movement” classes were audio only spoken instructions, students in class would get plenty of visual cues – either from gestures of Moshé Feldenkrais himself, or by looking at fellow students. 

And as it is with visual information competing with auditory information, some spoken instructions probably have been skipped or omitted, and neither the camera nor the microphone could catch all the things going on in the room.

Audio recordings

While most sensory information is lost – like temperature, scents and smells, air pressure, the energy of the room, moisture, and all visual information – audio recordings still can capture a lot. You could probably reconstruct a fair bit of the mentioned sensory impressions just by listening deeply, by immersing yourself in an audio recording.

In fact, as Fritz Perls and audiobooks are proof, audio is a powerful category on its own. I can’t believe I just threw Fritz Perls and audiobooks randomly together. The hour is getting late, I already did 8+ hours of writing today. #jollies

Transcripts

Written text, the language of those not present. Lost in transcription. Things that don’t lend themselves easily to transcripts:

• Much of the quality of speaking (warm, cold, rushed, laboured, enthusiastic, bored, cheerful, encouraging, compassionate, …),
• Much of the pacing and rhythm
• Other things I can’t think of right now

Benefits and USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of transcripts:

• Highlight-able,
• Searchable,
• Can be revised many times over before being published; the same could be said about blog posts #tongue-in-cheek

Summaries

This is a good one, could be a blog post on its own, bear with me. Here it comes: hardly anyone would summarise, for example, the Shoulder Circles lesson into something like this: 

„In this lesson you will learn that about thirty slow, light, and short movements with your left shoulder are sufficient to change the fundamental tonus of the muscles, which then will spread to the entire left half of the body. Thus the action becomes easy to perform and the movement becomes light.” – inspired by the book ”Awareness Through Movement”, Lesson 3, by Moshé Feldenkrais

In short: people usually don’t summarise on such an abstract level. It would take quite a bit of experience and/or training to understand. That’s why people will more likely summarise on a lower abstraction level, like this: 

„In this lesson you will be side-lying on your right side, and move your left shoulder forwards, backwards, up, down, make clockwise circles, and lastly counter-clockwise circles.”

Which is very different, and in turn lacks the abstract layer of insights and effects.

Maybe I would need to distinguish between descriptions and summaries.

(10 mins) In side-lying on your right side, move your left shoulder 

• forwards,
• backwards,
• forwards-and-backwards, 
• up, 
• differentiation: while shoulder up towards your head, your left ear down towards your shoulder (lift head), 
• down,
• up-and-down, 
• clockwise circles, 
• counter-clockwise circles,

Rest on your back, feel and observe. Which shoulder feels better, which one feels more like you would like it to be?

Which one sparks joy?

„And, by the way, can you feel any difference in your face between the right side and the left side? And your hip joint, doesn’t the left side, in general, feel different from the right one?” – Moshé Feldenkrais

Stories can be presented from various narrative points of view, in various timelines and structures, and in various styles, such as ornamented or plain. 

Could similar things be said for movement sequences?

Almost two decades ago, when I first studied the works of Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais in a professional training program, most of my teachers and fellow students didn’t seem to worry much about it, but I think how you address people makes a huge difference. Not just in terms of social class, but also on a psychological level in regards to how well a lesson will work to inspire, empower, and „restore each person to their human dignity.”

When I’m giving movement instructions, not making observations, but giving actual instructions, and I instruct you to „The shoulder moves forwards”, instead of „move your shoulder forwards”, what does that make you? What does that make me? Did you ever think about that?

„The shoulder moves forwards”, the disembodied shoulder moves on its own, and you as the owner of that shoulder are a mere witness, a silent observer. Who am I to support, maybe even create, this kind of silent disfranchisement? Did you sign a consent form before class that would allow me to subliminally objectify your shoulder?

Well, maybe, it’s a small thing. But keep your eyes peeled. When teaching I might make such statements too. And you, as my student, on that occasion, should remember to actively choose if you let that shoulder run like some young dog in a park, or would rather slide your shoulder around your ribcage.

Also.

In Austria, speaking ze German language, when we teach to groups, we need to choose between the singular thee and the plural y’all. 

When I would say to the group „Please move your shoulders forwards”, I would address all of them as a whole, like a flock of birds. Ontogeny, Phylogeny, boy scouts and classes, to-may-to, to-mah-to. 

People come to me on their individual paths. And even though they are all in the same room, flocked together, in mutual respect, and likely making new friends all along, they didn’t come for the purpose of forming a formation. I’m not training fitness nation, not a military platoon. This is why in teaching to groups I prefer the second-person singular over the plural you.

In a group class I can still see each person as an individual. I can see each student learning, I can see her (or his) physical movements, and to some extend even her (or his) mental activity and emotional state – as reflected through her (or his) movements and physical expressions. And through that strange thing that has no better name than „her (or his) energy”. 

And even though there might be 20 people in the room, and even though you might have chosen to lie down in the row furthest away from me, cozily curled up behind that support beam, next to the wall heater… „Please move your shoulder forwards”, or maybe even better: „Please move thy shoulder forwards”, I may not disturb nor judge, but yes, I care about you and… I see thee.