So what if you just lie on the floor for 2 hours?

Feldenkrais observes, if you just let people lie on the floor for 2 hours, dramatic changes will happen. The body begins to integrate itself. What’s different between this and Functional Integration?

I’ve been reviewing the eye lessons of June 18-19 in search of the state of deep calm and freedom, trying to access it again and asking, what’s the difference? What’s so compelling about it anyway? So what if he eyes move smoothly or not? So what if the breathing isn’t what it could be?

It’s like watching a movie in blue ray high-def and then going back to the old screen. The fuzzy image doesn’t satisfy anymore.

But more than that, what I realized in the clarity of functionalized eyes and reduced anxiety was two things:

1. What I wanted at the moment became clear.
2. Taking action or not was no longer so important.

This seems paradoxical. After all, wouldn’t knowing what you want propel you towards action? The mantra Feldenkrais repeats is “When you know what you’re doing you can do what you want.” But for me, it’s “Know what you’re doing so you can know what you want.” When you can’t even feel how to act under the layers of anxiety and compensation patterns, it’s hard to even conceive of possibilities of action.

When action is effortless, it feels as if you’re just joining into an intention that originates from elsewhere. It’s inspired. You’re a conduit for something bigger than yourself.

So the premise is that the clearer the self-image, the truer the actions are to moment-to-moment motivation, the more others can access this clarity in themselves. More people, more quickly. Hundreds in one lifetime vs. a few.

“How can I get that feeling again?”

OK, so having been asked this by my students countless times, here I am pondering it myself. The marvelous feeling of the day before did not last. Buttons were pushed by an unwelcome email, and “poof.” Having been blessed and cursed with a sensitive, kinesthetically-oriented system, I am not satisfied with a low back over-working, eyes fixed or darting around, and breathing all screwy (which, btw, all go together.)

The lesson I continued incorporated movements of the feet and turning the head. Inside, I protest “NO, it’s the eyes! I need to move my eyes again to get that feeling back. The fleeting, relaxed-yet-stimulated nirvana…”

I ignore Moshe and move my eyes instead of feet, knowing that my child-care time is precious.

But he says something interesting. As a person of age and experience, he knows now not to do things. He teaches in a certain order for a reason. All in good time. I am again striving for something that I came upon without even knowing what it is, doing small movements over and over again while listening to all sorts of stories to distract/instruct.

Each story he tells is worthy of a day’s consideration. I want to hold on to the stories, as well. But he says, when you have yourself organized you can see the whole and the parts all perfectly, without reaching for them. You could detect, at a glance, in an entire page of text, a difference in one letter’s font. It's not in what you do, but HOW YOU DO IT.

I am simultaneously rebuilding my training in non-duality through meditation. Starting quite humbly with 5 minutes.

New Years' Routine Begins

I’m on day 9 of the Amherst training. Another front-lying lesson, turning the head with the hands. The elbow in back is lifted off the floor, in this case the left one, which is very difficult for me. Antidote to all the time I spend holding a now 14-pound baby on the left hip. Here she is, making rolling over moves:

There is so much optimism in this training—the beginning of a new and wonderful method. And such a glow in Feldenkrais’ voice when he mentions “people of the guild.” I wonder what he would think of the state of things now. Most practitioners I talk to seem consumed with the difficult task of building a business and quite dissolusioned with the guild. Things are more of a survival mentality.

June 19 AM, part 2. Day two of my new routine, though I’ve been studying over the holiday break and before. This is potent stuff. I feel so fortunate to have these materials. One hour five days a week is about the right pace, as Feldenkrais says himself at one point. The 4-5 hours/day schedule of the training is just for convenience’s sake, but real human learning is optimal 1-2 hours daily.

He continues this segment with movements of the eyes to the right, and from there up and down. In the training he says to sit, but I chose to lie down and really let my neck relax. The lesson is predominantly to the right and adds the left direction, completing a circle, only at the end. He mentions nausea and the tonic neck reflex, as influenced by the eyes. Blind spots, and how much our overall self-use is dictated by our gaps in skill using the eyes. Myopia and its origins is mentioned in an earlier recording, as most often in school in an unfamiliar/threatening environment. Then we get glasses and our eyes are “ruined for life.” I don’t have my weaker prescription glasses here to try out but my vision does seem richer. The jewel-like colors in my office--house where I study hit relaxed eyes. Eyes that are ready to look out gently at any distance with a smooth quality, actually are reluctant to fix on the computer screen.

Channukah-arms pattern in front-lying round out the lesson. I feel amazing—relaxed enough to nap, but too interested in life and the next thing! There is a lot I meant to have written up to now, being as I am at the end of the second week of videos, but I'm letting that go and moving on. NEW YEAR

Post-Thanksgiving Feast Flexors Lesson

Today I took over my parents' living room, handed a fussy baby to my husband, and proceeded with my new discipline. June 9, 1980--day 2 and still audio only of the Amhearst Training. Moshe begins by explaining what this Functional Integration business is, and why a change in body only, not self-image, is incomplete. Anecdotes of a woman who recovered completely from MS symptoms until going back to her life where everyone knew her as a handicapped person. "But...my disease!"

The ATM from this day is the first of a series of flexion (elbows to knees) lessons. Having done dozens of them over the last 10 years, I am still astounded by the results. Not feeling so great myself at the beginning of the day--sleep-deprived and tense--this lesson more than met my needs to recover ease, uprightness, length both front and back. I've grown used to the phenomenon that after an hour spent folding--gently, NOT with the aim of touching knees to elbows, NOT with willpower, which really is "idiotic," results in 1.) the ability to fold easily and 2.) feeling more extended.

I taught what I remembered to my mother, who finds Moshe hard to understand and annoying. Repeating the lesson shows the gaps in my memory and is my favorite way to study. My language is different from Moshe's and feels to me clunky. Nonetheless, here are results--despite her protests--not strong enough, too much in the way in the belly--what was only possible through will became effortless. And she too stood taller, could lie flat on the floor comfortably, etc.

BANG--elbow hits the knee and you can't comprehend how it didn't do it before. Now I say that calls for a serving of ice cream!

The Project

In 1980, Moshe Feldenkrais was beginning his last professional teacher training in Amhearst MA. It was videotaped and just now made available in DVD format for Feldenkrais Practitioners. 6 years out of my own training, I need another immersion and am ready to dive into these materials. My goal is to make daily contact with primary materials--transcripts and recordings of Feldenkrais himself--for a year. I have in my posession the 11 volumes of transcripts from his teaching on Alexander Yanai  St. in Tel Aviv, his books, some of the public lessons taught in San Francisco. But really the pinacle of his teaching was in Amhearst, so I will start there and work my way backwards (I have already used the Alexander Yanai materials extensively in my teaching.)

My own training was with 1st generation FELDENKRAIS Trainers Paul and Julie Rubin.

Is this project a bit extreme and arbitrary? Yes! But it excites me, and that's what counts. It is my way of carving out time for myself and continuing to grow as a practitioner and human being, while facing the physical and phychic challenges of parenthood. Blogging is an admittedly narcicistic form of public accountability and a chance to record my impressions. Checking in, and articulating my understanding of the method.

My constraint:  a 4-month-old daughter. Sometimes she will join me on the floor.
She is riveted by Moshe's voice!

She is also better "organized" than I am. Look at how her feet point towards the ceiling when mine point out straight, indicating more tonus in my extensors.

Feldenkrais comments that people with a lot of extensor tonus have studied something a long time that they feel is really important. For me, this was the viola (25+ years!) It is exacerbated by baby-carrying, habit, personality, who knows... I am excited to see what Awareness Through Movement (r), practiced daily, does to my form over the next 12 months. I am giving myself a slight head start by beginning before Jan 1.