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.