Did I fall away from time, or did I merely become more aware of the time that has passed? It’s morning, then mid-day, then evening. Then suddenly, it’s too late at night, and then it’s morning again. A rhythm of beats as fleeting as breathing.

At 7pm it’s already dark outside here in Ho Chi Minh City, in the South of Vietnam. And it’s silent. O for a muse did I miss the silence. I didn’t know how much I missed the silence until suddenly, at the first day of the total lockdown some weeks ago – or was it months? – I heard the sound of the the wind, and the night resting on the land. In  my mind I heard the absence of daylight, the absence of car horns, of reckless driving, of speeding, of broken mufflers on motorbikes; the absence of the sound people make when they hustle to earn a living at all costs, grinding, grinding.

Silence.

Then usually some reading. „Paths are the habits of a landscape. They are acts of consensual making. It’s hard to create a footpath on your own. The artist Richard Long did it once, treading a dead-straight line into desert sand by turning and turning about dozens of times. But this was a footmark not a footpath: it led nowhere except to its own end, and by walking it Long became a tiger pacing its cage or a swimmer doing lengths. With no promise of extension, his line was to a path what a snapped twig is to a tree. Paths connect. This is their first duty and their chief reason for being.” I read in Robert Macfarlane’s „The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot”.

I set the book aside. While reading about the caged-up tiger and the Icknield Way, old routes criss-crossing the British landscapes and waters, I started to think about Kegels and pelvic floor exercises. Isometric contractions of muscles that span from bone to bone without a joint in between. I recalled a short Youtube clip with Arnold Schwarzenegger, where he let his pecs dance on their own, one by one. Isometric contractions. His audience was laughing, he was laughing.

„Before my first [swimming] practice, I put swimming in the same category as walking and riding a bike: things one did to get from place to place. I never thought of how well I was doing them.” I read in David Sedaris’ book „Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls”, in a story called „Memory Laps.”

These days most of my walking is comprised by walking from the kitchen counter to the kitchen table, or from the kitchen table to the bathroom, or all the way from the kitchen to the living room area. These stations of my small, one bedroom apartment probably do not compare to Inns and B&B’s in the Great Plains or Scottish Highlands, but I still consider my walking as functional. Meaningful walking, real footpaths. But my walking is not long enough, not outdoors enough, to get much of anything from it.

Therefore I think of what’s available to me: my lower arm and my upper arm. They connect over what we call the elbow. A noun. To elbow. A verb. The elbow is not a thing on its own. It’s not a bone, not a muscle. It’s something that is created by using it, through its function: it’s a joint. The elbow joint. It starts to exist when we move the upper arm and lower arm in relation to each other. We also can lean on it.

There’s a big muscle, the Musculus Brachialis. That’s an old name. It’s from Latin, bracchium, and means just „arm” in modern English. So it’s the arm muscle. Interestingly the arm muscle doesn’t own the entire arm: it spans from the middle half of the upper arm down to the beginning of the lower arm, the outside bone of the lower arm to be more specific, the ulna. The arm muscle „is the prime mover of elbow flexion”, says Wikipedia, up to fifty percent more dedicated to elbow flexion than its prominent upstairs neighbours, the biceps.

„The (metaphysical) elbow joint springs into being only when we move through pathways that include arm flexion and extension”, I write, I can see a point, I think, „I’m listening, go on…”

I go on: there must be a whole lot of things in this world that only come into being through movement, through walking meaningful pathways. Friendship, love, like-mindedness come to mind. „It’s hard to create a footpath on your own”, I read Robert Macfarlane one more time. In this sense, for example, it’s hard to create kindness on your own. The possibility for kindness might exist just like a physical elbow might exist, but it must be exercised to actually spring into being. Kindness is only created by being kind—to someone else, or at least, to oneself.

I used to step out of the house at 9am and to walk over to one of the coffee shops that I discovered as my writing places. Mondays through Sundays. And I would return some time after noon, either when my writing was done or when I was feeling hungry, whichever turned up first. Now this rhythm, these pathways, are lost. But as long as I keep moving between places, no matter how close or far apart, new pathways are created. What will they be?

Thank you for reading, my dear.

Ok, I don’t want COVID-19 politics to eat into my blog, at least not too much. Therefore, today I will write out the opening speech for my next video. Usually I speak everything completely free from my heart, without teleprompter or script or anything like that. But I figure if I don’t pull myself together (literally) this video will just linger about and the month will pass, and how will I pay my rent then? So here is my writeup for the intro.

I noticed something quite extraordinary about the core and the core muscles:

As you can see a light press against the right side of the belly makes the skin on the same side right next to the belly button bulge up.

This means that even the slightest compression of the right side is pushing so much against the midline, that it causes the skin, the soft tissue, the superficial muscles, and probably even the deeper muscles to be pressed together and being bulged up against the midline.

This made me realise that we can use this to address conditions such as diastasis recti, lower back pain, pelvic alignment, and upright posture.

And even better, I know the perfect exercise just for that. In fact, I will show you an exercise sequence that is so nice, you will feel almost ecstatic.

We will start in side-lying on the left side, and

[On screen bullet points]

1. Activate the right side
2. Activate the left side
3. Buttonhole stitch
4. Upright posture and walking

• first activate the right side in a way that uses the full body, including your breathing,
• then secondly, we will activate the left side with an unusual, surprising, slightly different strategy,
• then as a third step we will turn around to side-lying on the right side, and improve on what we already did, almost as with the extra loop in a buttonhole stitch to secure fabric more firmly,
• and lastly we will observe how all this can be used in sitting, standing, and walking.

Alright, so we will start in side-lying, please come to lie on your right side.

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.

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 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.

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?”

Concerning spoken lessons, I clearly feel that working with a single person – as opposed to a group – somehow feels more immediate, as if there were less joints in between us.

From my teachers point of view, being in a class with one person only, feels like sitting in an agile little canoe, or a rowboat; every little ripple in the sea becomes noticeable, every small bump in the road, every speckle of dust on the bonnet, every flower and tree on the roadside… „Everything is open to view, nothing is hidden”, to quote Ludwig Wittgenstein, the Austrian Philosopher.

A lesson, despite being a series of movement instructions, the movements themselves feel like the chassis, the innermost or lowermost layer of what I am saying. On top of that are a number of layers and linings that respond to the other person’s physical prowess, emotional readiness and composition – and to my own versions thereof. A spoken lesson is like a conversation you would have with someone over a cup of tea or a piece of paper, with movement instructions as the agreed upon elements of scaffolding, woven into the fabric of the many-layered and friendly-natured interaction.

Contrariwise, group lessons feel more like trying to read a paragraph in unison. Do you recall? Two or more people reading the same text out loud is considerably slower and more generic sounding than just one person reading the same text. But oh-my-gosh can a chorus sound well, it’s a whole different experience altogether. The whole is bigger than the sum of its parts. Yet, sudden changes of direction, spontaneous chime-ins, fill-ins and solos, as brilliant as they may be, are not to be taken lightly because they can change the whole song for the better, or can make it fall apart. 

Side-Note: Surprisingly, when turned around and looked at from a students point of view, as I often am a student myself, the difference between me being one-on-one with a teacher, or me being in a group class, is much less pronounced, and in both settings I have the feeling the teacher is talking to me directly. Maybe the biggest difference, for me as a student, is that in a group I have the feeling I can hide better; and it’s more difficult to ask questions. And there’s this whole annoying thing about hierarchy and students who are lying next to me passing gas. But that’s another story and shall be told another time.

When I started out as a teacher I was scared of teaching groups, and loved the confidentiality, the private atmosphere, the immediacy of one-on-ones, which always felt more safe to me. In fact, when I started out as a teacher, for 2-3 years I mostly taught only one-on-ones. Then, at some point, I was hungry for groups, for the challenge, the changed dynamics, the thrill of it, for large rooms filled with students, for students lining up to study with me, for me to learn how to work with many people at the same time, and to experience how it is to walk in a sea of devoted practitioners while talking ourselves through a lesson.

As my practice grew so grew my experience with ever bigger groups. And then, after an interesting one and a half decades, and after having taught groups of 10, 50, 100 people at a time, I have had enough of teaching groups. Now I most enjoy one-on-ones again.

Life is a funny sort of thing. At first we look forward with big appetite and aspiration and hope and fear and there’s so much room for failure, drama, trauma, growth, success, and triumph. But strangely enough, one day there comes a moment for each one of us, there we are, fully present, and give it enough distance (from the start) and closeness (to the end), after the sorrow, the regrets, the exaltation… … …there’s comfort, solace, consolation. And really no matter how good or bad everything went—there’s peace. At last, all is well.