The Feldenkrais Journal #12 General Issue

Citation preview

1997 /'1998 NO, l2

THE FELDENKRAIS ]OIJRNAL

The Feldenkrais Journal is published annuallybyThe FsrosNrnars Gurr.o@ for its members. Inquiries regarding this publication should be directed to: The Ftronivrnars Gurr,n, PO. Box +89, Albany, OR 9732r. Material for publication can be sent directly to the editor, Dennis Leri, z3e MesaAvenue, MillValley CA 949+r use.

Additional copies of the Journal are available through the Guild office for $6 to Guild members and $ro to non-members (includes postage and handling). Bulk rate fees are available on request.

Subscriptions to the Journal are now available' These are designed for people who are not currently receiving the Iournal through their Guild. A three-issue subscription is $25 for North American residents and $35 for overseas subscribers. A five-issue subscription is $4o and $5o, respectively. Please send your payment in U.S. dollars directly to the Guild office. If you have an article, poem, drawing or letter to the editor to submit to the Journal, please contact the editor, Dennis Leri. The editorial committee is happy to comment on flrst drafts or works in progress. Final versions of accepted articles must be submitted on a computer disk in a text-only format. The deadline for submissions is February r, 1999. For more information about format, length, computer compatibility, etc., please urite to the editor for a copy of our,,tryiters' guidelines. rnrogNrn-A.rs@, FELDENKRAIS l.ttruoo@, FUNCTToNAL rr'IrrcRATroN@ and awensxnss rHRoucH uovEl.lENr@ are registered servicemarks of

The FETonNKRAIS Guno.

Editor: Editorial

Board:

Paul Rubin I-au,T ence Goldfarb, Jack Heggie' Paul Rubin, GaY Scott, ArlYn Zones

Desigr-r:

Margerv Cantor Production Manager: Amanda NtlcColt Proofreading Carol Kress, Patricia Parker, Elizabeth Weiss a copyediting:

li; rI

BACK ISSUES Journal no. r Journal no. z Journal no. 3 Journal no. 4 Journal no. Iournal no. lournal no. Iournal no. Iournal no. Journal no. Journal no.

General Issue (xerox copy)

5

Martial Arts Special Interest Groups Emotions The Arts

6

Stories

7

Conceptual Models

9

General Issue Parallel Developments

ro

Children

t

More Children

8

All back issues are available through The Fnlopurnars Gurr,o office. Price to Guild members is 56, to non-members $1o per copy. OCopvright rgg8 The FrloENrReIs Gutt-o tlt' NonrH AuPnIc.l A11 rights revert to the authors upon publication

The Feldenkrais Iournal nurnber rz

Thble of Contents 2

A Letter from the

3

Response to Awareness &

Energy

5

Response to Awareness &

Energy fack

6

Replies to

I

Toolsforthelntegrationof the

14

Twisted

fG

The GrowingWorld of the

32

Learning to

34

The pErouuKRArs MErHoD, Arnn, and Healing the

37

On Language and Functional

48

Book

52

Contributors

Editor Carl Ginsberg Heggie

letters AndrewWright FELDENKRATs

METHoD@intoEverydayLife BulentTuran

Coyote Dan Clurman

Walk

Child

Roger Russell and Ulla Schiifke

Chris Lambert

Thinking

Heart

Ken Chase

Steven Shafarman

Review Bernstein and Feldenkrak: Fathers of Mouement Science Carl Ginsberg

TIIF FELDENKRAIS JOURNAT- No.

12

A Letter from the

r997 / r99B

Editor

Dear Readers, This issue contains a dir.ersity of offerings r'vhich r,r,e hope rvill stimtrlate and inspire you in as manv ways. From articles describing the contribution of our Method to hospital-run program of cardiac care to a revier,v of the scientiflc life of Nikolai Bernstein; from poetic accounts of personal arvakening to a variety of theoretical speculations and analysis-the range of approaches to working rvithin our Method and to r,r,ays of thinking about it are quite broad. Perhaps one of greatest practical attributes of our i,r,ork is that is so r.ery reler.,anl across such a broad range of human activity. And of course, this is no accident. N'Ioshe Feldenkrais clearlv intended that it be so. One of the reasons he gar,,e in rg75 for begiruting the training progratn in San Francisco r,vas that he wanted the Method to be taken into education, performing arts, medicine, ps-vchologv, and sports. Among his most often repeated ideas r,r,ere that movernent is the fundarnent of 1ife, that it is the most irreducible indication of life, and that movement is at the core of its highest and deepest levels of expression. NIy own view is that r,r,.e are prir..ileged to do this work. Furtirer, I believe that our Method moves ibrward most not so much in programs of training but in the day to day practice ofits teachers. The descriptions ofdiscovery and relevant rvays of thinking about the rvork contained herein are reflections of the experience of individual teachers. We invite.vou to contribute vours. For the first time, in this issue, l,r,e are printing a discussion betrveen the author of a prer.iously published article and tr,vo teachers rvho wrote to offer critique. From such discussion and debate there can come clarification-or perhaps sorne nerv confusion to wrestie with and thereby learn from. In this uray, this kind of communication can be fertile, and I am pleased to rtreicome it to the Journal. I r,r,ish to acknorvledge and to thank Eiizabeth Beringer, flrst eclitor of this Journal-the first and oldest periodical publication der.,oted to the r,rr-IeNKRAIS N{ErHoD. She gave untold hours not only to editing and production of man1, issues, but also in conceiving and bringing into being a vehicle for communication among Teachers of the pnrorNKRA.IS METHoD n here none like it existed before. I suggest that the reader take a moment to look at the n-rasthead and the table of contents for the names of the individual authors and of those rt ho have served as the volunteer staff of editors, proof readers and designers. As sucl.r they have given l-reely and generously of their time and talent, and are due our thanks. A special thank you goes to Amanda McCoy, our managing editor, for her assistance, patience and persistence in bringing this issue to press. Sir.rcerelv,

Paul Rubin,

Editor

,

1997

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r99B

IHE FELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL NO,

AWARENESS

&

12

ENERGY:

A RESPONSE TO ANDREW WRIGHT

Carl Ginsburg ndrer,r,,\\rright, in his article "Awareness and Energy," (Feldenkr.ais Iournal No. tr), provides some lvorrderful descriptions of the a\,\rareness possible in our r,r,ork r,r,ith people. I thir-rk it important that r,i,e emphasize this aspect of -"vhat rve do and promote the notion of awareness as the very essence of our rutoeNKRAIS r,rrork. Andrew seems \.ery attracted to the notion of working at the "energetic levei. " I do not begrudge him his belief in a non-material understanding of r,l,hat he n,as erperiencing, nor do I n ish to get into a debate about such philosophical issues as materialism. Hor,vever, I do believe that he misrepresents the viervs of Feldenkrais when he enlists him in support of the notion of "energv n ork. " For Moshe, the esoteric notion of energr, u,as not ar1 erplanation of anything at all. On the contrary, he thought of sucl-r notions as mrrstifications that misled people into thinking that thev -,vere going ber.ond the sensory and immediately synils[le human ski]ls of attending at a high level of ar,r,areness. Moshe rvas fuil1, cognisant of esoteric phenomenon and n ould agree r,r,ith mr-rch of what Andrew savs about the experience of this, and the connection of our r^n ork r,vith other disciplines such as acupuncture, etc. On the other hancl, Feldenkrais sarv his life mission in very different terms. I{is intention rt as clear to those rl.ho iistened to him. He rvanted to bring the esoteric down to earth. to make it sensorlr and physical in a brclad sense, concrete and repeatable

in a r,en, direct sense. Tirere are trvo speciflc n.risinterpretations in "Arvareness and Energv. " I will deal rvith the second one flrst since I have access to the actual r,lrords of Felclenkrais in his lesson of August 5, rgBr in Amherst, called "lrradiating the Knee." A lot of practitioners think that somehorv in this lesson NIoshe changed his thinking about "energ\.,." This is ver1, fn. frorn the case. Holrrerrer, it requires very carefui listening to find ollt exactly \r,hat his intention r,'",as. The lesson begins r'r,ith erploring a simple movement holding the right knee rvith t]-re right l-rand lying on the back. Moshe asks the class to take the knee a little right and left. Hls issue is the qualitv of lr,hat you clo r,r,,ith yourself. It is ',far fron.r beingu.ell done," hesa\,s, andadds, "Welldonefromyourpointofvieur, notmine." He lies on a table and says, "Watch what I do. \\hat stops ine frorn going on a little bit more, and I think this is the smallest, easiest thing I can do...." He asks peoprle to hold the left hand facing the right knee, "as if every flnger connects to some part ol this leg rnor,,ing... as if from each tip of the the finger comes a r,varmth, an irraduatior-r of heat, or anl.thing vou like, or light, or illuminating iust like a torch-

ill-rn'rinatirrg mY knee. " \\-ith all the "as if's" it is obvious he is asking people to imagine, and he suggesrs certair-r metaphors. He is speciflc about heat, however. "\&rhen I do that and I bring the rr-armth of mv hand nearer, I can actually feel it." "To mv face I can feei the radiations of heat and mal,be some other radiations -"vhich we don't knor,r,,, u,,hich some people u,ould give names even now, though thev are completely unjustifled.,' At this point there r,r,as laughter, the class recognizing Nloshe's classic stance on " enerEl-. " \Ioshe opens to the possibility of these possible other radiations. He ner-er closes his tirinking to any possibilitv and then he brings the class back to

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 12

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feeling. "l'here may be some radiations that ure don't knor'rr-it's possiblebut 1,ou try to feel that. .. as if ra-vs of heat. . . soilleone says a flashbulb, flash bulb? It can be anything tirat vou imagine; you can imagine that you put life into -vourself-but that's unimportant." He goes back then to gror-rnditrg the experience to the feeling and allorving people to free pla-y in their imagitlation. "I rvarm my o\\m knee rvith mv o\\rn heat, my or'r''n illurnination, rvhatever it is-mvstic or non-mYstic-br,rt it is the feeiiirg of that aud -vou rvill see... it is actually the nrarmth of vour hand lr'hich is absolutelv clear' Nl the " other racliations, I don't mind if -vor.r think of them, if vou like them ' ' ' ' He feeiing quaiitv of returns then to ulhat really concerns him and that is the and mor,ement. "If I want to toucl-r mY knee cap rvith the sarne quaiitv, it's not what l,ou did betbre." And then he sa1's, "It goes beyond, because -vou feel it r,r,'ith your entire being, in r,rravs that you usuallv can't." It's a r,r,onderful lesson. Moshe itrvites peopie to let their imagination roam. Then he brings eventhing dor'vn to the concrete, to heat, "t'hich is ti-re classical energl' of phvsics, to feeling, rvhich changes not by becoming l1on-senson', br-rt bv rvidening out to involve the "entire being." Mv other issue is rvith the characterization of Moshe's lecture on grades of energv. Here i must relY on memory-Moshe gave a lecture based on classical and modern thermodvnamics, in lrthich he meant by energy exactiy u,h at a phvsicist means by energv. 'Ihe centerpiece of the lecture rvas about entropy, r,l4rich increases when a system goes to more disorder, and decreases r,r,hen & sy51s11 becomes tnore ordered. Moshe's point "tras that the energy processes of life lead to lor,vering entrop-Y in the living system and thus evoiving high degrees of complex order. The brain for him hacl as its priinarr, function the ordering of chaos, and he spoke of it as the most complex thing in the unirrerse. l'hus for Moshe, order and meaning do not cone front some mysterious fields external to oneself, but from the self-organizinEl processes of living systems in interaction rvith their environrrents. Thus his characterization of high-grade energl'-, meaning high states of order, flts u,ith his understandiug of themrodvnamics. I remember too Nloshe speaking of Ki or Chi. He r'vas dissatisfled with the translation clf these terms to the English eqr-rirralent, energv or lif'e -"rtas able to short' that energ\'. In his or,vn investigations of martial arts, he "throrving the sirnple ph-vsics was his Chi" the phvsical basis of the master rvay. A master non-obvioris and of using the porver of the peh,is in a sr.rbtie using seeniingly rtrithot-tt opponents could thereblr knock dou,n a number of his lrtith Iudo Iapanese anlr effort. He also reportecl to us conversations teachers in r'r,hich "life organizilrg principle" n'as tbund to be a better

4

Engiish equivarlent of Ki. Let me conciude r,i.ith a story of my orvn. Some years ago a number of TTELDENKRAIs practitiollers, including myself, attended a r'rtorkshop rvith the American master Nexander teacher, Ntarjorie Barstorv. Nlarge asked us to bring our n ork equiprnent so that she could guide us u'hile u'e $Iere practicing our profession. At one point I \\ras to be guided br '\'Iarge rvhile I rvas iitling the head of Jack i{eggie who rvas lying on the table. N'lv impression r,rias that Jack lr,as holciing his neck stiffiy' N{arge stood behind me an d touched the back of m1' neck. hnmediatel-v iack let go of his neck and his head r,r,as free in mv hands. We haci a discussion aftent ards and soirreone suggested that NIarge's energT travellecl through me to Iack's neck. It r'r'as a possible explanation' i ,nvas not satisfled. I asked Jack urhat he had expelienced" He said that rvhen N{arge touched me he felt rnv hancls soften and suddenh'become more supportive. There rvas norv nothing to defend etgainst and he could let his neck go. It rvas iike an inciclent at tlle San Francisco training urhen l\Toshe askecl a student to iift his heac1. N{ostre had his eves ciosed. The student

1997

,1'HE

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FELDENKRAIS IOI]RNAI- NO. I2

started to lift his head and Moshe blurted out, "Put your heels down. You don't have your feet on the floor." In other words the state of organization of the practitioner has a profound consequence on the outcome of the interaction.

If I had stuck to the energy explanation, I would never have come so clearly to the above insight. But I went a step further. \.\hat made Marge Barstow's hands so effective? She did indeed get me to shift what I was doing with a very gentle touch. I watched her more carefully. At flrst I could not see an),,thing. Then I saw that she did something with herself, not with her hands. She very subtly, and effectively lengthened herself through her thinking as she touched. I began to try that with my clients. It was effective beyond what I could imagine. I could feel my clients shift easily. Moshe once said that there was nothing that he did that people had not done at one time or another throughout history. It was his intention, however, to make it systematic and understandable so that it could be easily taught to people. I would like to encourage the r,BrtsNrners community to continue this intention. The effectiveness that Andrew Wright reports in his ability to contact the person he is working with is, I believe, a testament to the training process based on Moshe's intention. We are continuing the tradition of our practice.

AWARENESS A FURTHER

A

RESPONSE

ndrewWright's article in the latest Iournal (FI-rr, pp 4z-49) raises

& ENERGY:

TO ANDREW WRIGHT fack Heggie

some interesting questions, but the answers he gives fail to satisfy on at least three counts. First, his idea that something physicist David Bohm called the "implicate order" has something to do with an pr lesson. This violates one of the most accepted practical laws used by scientists: Occam's Razor. Occam's Razor is named afterWilliam of Occam (ca. rz85-1349). The idea is that the simplest explanation for some phenomenon is most likely to be correct. The idea that Bohm's implicate order has something to do with whatever kinds of interactions occur between two people during a lesson violates the principle of Occam's Razor. Surely there are simpler explanations available. Second is something that I call "confusion of levels of organization." The only place I have ever seen this idea expressed is in the work of G.I. Gurdjieff, a teacher from the eastern traditions. The idea is that the rules and Iaws that govern one level of organization do not apply to other levels. For example, the ideas of quantum mechanics, which apply at the very small levels of organization of atoms, do not apply at the level of organization of the ordinary, everyday objects that make up our world, such as houses, cars and other people. At the other end ofthe scale, the ideas of Einstein's general relativity, which govern the behavior of the universe as a whole, also do not apply at the level of everyday objects. The chance that some kind of quantum mechanical concept, such as Bohm's implicate order, has an],thing to do with the kind of interactions between people that occur during an rr lesson thus seems very remote. Third, Andrew's idea has no predictive quality. In science, simply explaining one thing in terms of something else (A is caused by B) doesn't get many points. Much better is a prediction of some previously unobserved

phenomenon.

:,

rg97 '1998

THE FELDENKRAIS JOTIRNAL NO. I2

Einstein's general relativitv, mentioned above, with its seeminglv bizarre ideas of cun ed space, made the unusual prediction that stariight r't-ould be bent while passing near the sun. When this was observed, much of the opposition to the theory dissipated. Andrer'r"s idea is not predictive or useful in this wa-v. After Marge had helped Carl, he felt as if mv neck had loosened, rvhereas I f'elt that his arm had become lighter and looser. The net result rvas that rue both moved much more easii-v. This is the most powerful erperience I have ever had of the idea that, as Cari (echoing Moshe) says, ". . . the state of organization of the practitioner " has a profound consequence on the outconle of the interaction. I believe that these are the tr,pes of interactions and expianations that rvill lead to greater r.rnderstanding and proficiency in our work, not farfetched ideas drawn from the esoteric realms of quantum mechanics'

TO

TC CARL CINSBERC'S

RESPONSE 'AWARENESS AND ENERCY" NAY ARTICLE

REPLY

Andrew Wright I have appreciatecl tl-ie respotrses I have received to my article in the rvinter rgg6 Journal. An erchange of vie'n'r,s on any subject can only be fruitful' Carl's response ."r,arranted a ptrblic repl-v not onl\t because it rt'as comprehensive

and thoughtftrl, but because he raised some dissenting points-some valid' some erroneous. \\hiie Cari and I both seem to share the belief that a\'vareness is at the core of the method, Carl's objection to mv article is over what he perceives as mv misinterpretation and misrepresentation of Moshe. I am not claiming to speak for Moshe's l'ielt on enerS)'or anr'thing else; in fact I suspect I disagree with Moshe on certain issues. \\4-rat I do maintain, hor'rrevet, is that my interpretation of the tr,vo lessons in question, r'vhile not the only possibility, is accurate anci makes sense' \'\4liie Carl is more qualiiied than I to

talk about Moshe-having studied r'r'ith him directly for several )'ears and edited one of Moshe's books, The Nlaster Moues, nobody can sa-v for certain w,hat another person, in this case \4oshe, thought or felt. Much as I respect Carl's commitment to defending the integrity of the rrrorxKR-AIS N{ErHoD, to sliggest that I am misinterpreting Moshe is missing the point-namely that each of us should and r,-ili interpret Moshe's rvork in our own \'vaY' With regards to the "lrradiating the Knee" lesson: Carl's recount of the flrst ten minutes of this one-hour lesson reveals that there is more than one meaning contained in the lesson; it seems that Carl is en'rphasizirlg one of these possibilities, and I another. Nliv vierv came not from any preconceived notion I had, but tiom horv the lesson affected me. For me, thinking in terms of energY opened Llp a ne\'v spectrum of concrete experience. \\hether this energv is real or imagined is a secondarn issue. I literalll' could feel my hands conllecting \vith different parts of myself, r'r'hich got me -'t'hen thiirking about whether I could project mv a\^/areness in a similar rval' doing rurucuoNAL INTEGRATIoN. The lecture I referred to, lr'hich, lr'ith the advent of the Video Library Catalog I can nor,n"'speci['as Iull'23, 1980, has alrt'avs stuck in mv mind because of N{oshe's joke about tomatoes and health food being a low grade of energv. If r,r.e follor,r. rvhat NIoshe actuailv said in the lecture and follou'' the context in r,vhich he talks about energy, rather than "rely on melnory," perhaps \ve can get some idea of rvhat he meant. The lecture begins r't'ith

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. T2

Nloshe talking about how- the initial response to his manuscript of Body and X,[rrture Behauiorwas so lukervarm that he began doubting himse]fl until one or two highly respected people encouraged him. This leads to the importance of having a clear sense of self, and that the path to really knor,ving oneself lies in understanding how r,t e do things. He talks about how often peopie are disconnected from their feelings, and their rvants, and says that r't e need as a precise uray of understanding things as they have in physics and mathematics. He emphasizes that rve shouldn't mix up the rELDENKF-A.rs NrErHoD with other discipiines that mav appear to be similar. Moshe then says that "actuailv, it is easier to die sillv than to be inteliigent." Expanding this point, he salrs "to be health-v, \,ou need an enormous amount of lhe hesitates] I rvouldn't say energy, because you -'r,ou]d think something that cornes, flor,t s and vou can pour it from one glass into the other, or a bottle, or have it flor'r,ing or stop florving or something like that. So it's not energ,y, it's onl1, r,t'hat energy is supposed to mean. Nor,r, I have lost the thread of r'rrhat I rvas saying...oh yeah, so to be intelligent you need a lot of energv, a lot of por,ver. . . . So vou must knor,r, there are different grades of energy. And unless lasl in mathematics aird physics vou assign. .. a certain value to each thing"...vou cannot appreciate rvhat is important and r,r,hat is not... . You can think more clearl.v... . Energy is graded in terms of its ability to raise potentiai . . . . Heat is the lowest grade of energy. " He talks about entropy and the tendency of heat to be Iost from a ciosed s-vstem. "The highest grade of rnechanical energy is the explosion of the atomic bomb. But tl-ris energ\,. is still lor,rr-graded in comparison to .,t hat you have in vour safe here." He touches a student's head. This is the highest grade of energv possible, capable of understanding hor,v r,r,e function. . . . Whv is it highest?" He explains that a living thing can take lor,v-graded energl'positir,,e entrop\,-and raise it to a higher potential-negative entropy. He proposes that humans have the greatest capacity to raise energ_V, "to make negative entropv." Moshe is norv readv to read and answer a letter he had blought that asked r,vhy it is more difTicult to imagine a movement than to actuallv do it. l'he questioner rvondered if it r,vas due to limited concentration. N'Ioshe explains that habitual action uses the lor,r,'er centers olthe nervous slrstem and onl1, requires a lorv grade of energy. He linked the highest lbrn of energ\. to the higher centers of the brain that can produce imagination that is ner,rr, free of r,r,ords, and grounded in a sense of self and space. He talks about eating food from "rvhich I have extracted lor"u--graded energ\and raised it to a level that is capable of talking to you nor,v and explaining

that that is a fact. " In this lecture Nloshe uses energv as an explanatory principle to disctiss hor'rr,"ve can think, sense, f'eel and act-authenticall_v and eff'ectiveiy. Admittedlv, my description of N.4oshe's lecture detaiis hor,v he talked about energy; but in the lecture Nloshe used the u,ord enertry- probablv ten times as fiequentl-v as entropv, r,r,,hich Cari's description overemphasizes. Carl also introduces a number of terms that Moshe didn't use in his lecture, such as: disorder, chaos, order, complexitv, self-organizing processes and t1-rermodt,namics. The question of "chi" is a complicated one. After reading my article, ser,eral FELDENKRATs practitioners have reminded me of lt'loshe's position on chi (uritir r,vhich I was already familiar), linking it to the use of the pelvis. Certainl)/ the pelvis is involved, but I think it is a mistake to stop there. it is also interesting to consider urhat distinctions a martial artist is making when she thror,r,s somebody, instead of halting once \,ve can explain rvhat she does in terms \Me are alread-v farniliar r,r,ith, i have studied some martial arts, enough to uronder if thinking-or more accurately intending-in terms

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OURNT\L I'O. 12

/1998

of chi flowing, or the dantien rotating, or whatever, is more effective in some (combat) situations than limiting our intention to the skeleton, or the pelvis. Moshe's quote of "life organizing principle" for ki that Carl cites gives a different perspective. The difffrcultywith understanding chi, ki or other references to energy, is that they spring out of cultures whose rationale often doesn't easily translate into western thought. Carl's story of his discovery in Marjorie Barstow's workshop is wonderfuI, and illustrates how the notion of "energy," Iike anyhing else, can be detrimental if used inappropriately. Explaining things we don't understand in terms of energy can easily lead to becoming less concrete or even serve as an excuse not to think at all. I certainly am not suggesting that we should explain ever),'thing (or even anything) in terms of energy transfer, auras, chakras or an1'thing else like that. I am not advocating that the perpsNrRArs METHoD or any practitioner would beneflt by becoming more esoteric or new age. In fact, I believe that our ability to sense and think is distortedso that part of what appears to be concrete actually isn't, and some of what appears to be esoteric and mysterious could actually be accessible if we broadened the waywe Iook at things.

ADDENDUM I would like to thank Jack Heggie for his response. He presents some useful tools for examining the validity of a theory. I would like to respond to some of his concerns, and to make some clariflcations. "Awareness and Energy" was not an attempt to redefine the reroEurnars METHoD using a model based on quantum mechanics. The work of Dr.

Bohm was not the central theme of my proposal' Examining the practical consequences of how I do pI is my intent, not providing an empirical or

I

philosophical proof that my assumptions are valid. Simplicity is a good yardstick to use in judging an explanation. It is also important that an explanation help us access a more elegant and aesthetically pleasing experience (see Moshe). In many situations, relying on the criteria of simplicity too soon can be limiting. Learning is by nature unpredictable. Amplifying that, I am addressing those events in an nr that are most unconscious and unpredictable. The way that scientiflcallyveriflable phenomena, such as light bending near a star, can be measured is different than for an rr, which is inherently far more subjective. The best way to gauge whether my proposal has value is by applying it. It is suggested that I am attempting to take rules and laws from one level of organization and transfer them to another. I was not being that literal. Rather, it is about taking an idea from another discipline and applying it in a concrete way to FI. For example, one of the ideas that Dr. Bohm proposes is that meaning connects the mental (thoughts, feelings and sensation) and the physical. This has relevance foreru and n. Dr. Bohm's notion invites the question: can meaning be sensed? There are many ways of exploring how the state of the practitioner influences the outcome of a lesson. One example is the use of the self-for instance lengthening the neck fonrrard and up. Another is sensing somebody energetically. These are both valid approaches and not mutually exclusive. I too am still processing and affected by what I learned with Marjorie Barstow about lengthening in the fleld of gravity. My understanding and expertise in these matters is still developing. Although I cannot connect energeticallywith my students all the time, or detect normally hidden things at wil1, I do pick up more than chance rt'ouid indicate. I have noticed that when I am able to do this, my lessons are more effective. This stimulates me to keep looking and to stay open minded'

r997 /'r998

TFIE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 12

Bulent Turan

TOOLS FOR THE INTEGR.ATION OF THE FEI,DENKRAIS AAETHOD

INTO EVERYDAY I,IFE A PHOBIA CASE STUDY

-f- " this article i rvill describe how I used the FELDENKRATs \rErlioD to I help a rvoman overcolne her phobia of cats. I r,r,ill also cliscuss tire I theoretical basis for the approach i took, r,r4.rici'r is partiallv based on I the concept of s1r51gm.1i. desensitizatiol used in psvchologr.. Finallr., lrrill discusstheimplicatiorrsoItlriskindol thinkinglbi'rhetranstcr -lof learnir-rg achier.ed in ar leloe NrR-rrs session into er.erydarr lil'e situaticlns. THE SESSIONS Recently I had a client u,ho came to see me because of cat phobia. Fifteen \rears .rgo sl're had rvoker.r up from her sleep to find a cat sieeping on the left side olher chest. It $.as interesting to note that rvhenever I had her remember a scene u,ith cats she tensed and lifted her leit shoulder. \&'hen 1.ounger, her brother u,ould try to scare her bv rubbing his jacket to her legs, naking her think that a cat \,\,as touching her legs. As a consequencer the other bodi1r'reaction she had to remembering cat scenes uras to tense and lift her 1egs, especiailr,,her right leg. She may also have assumed this pattern of tensing every lime she sau, cats. In r,r'orking."rrith her I used a technique that combines FUNCTToNAL rNTEGR{rIoN rvith imagery. The theoreticai backgrournd olm_v approach rvas inspired b1, lqre techniques used in psychotherapy: s-vstematic desensitization and E\re Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (Errta). tr,ron (Shapiro, rggS) is a nerv technique for i,r,orking rvith traumas. T'he client is asked to form an irnage of the trauma (e.9., an accident), identify the negative cognition associated r,r,ith the trauma (e.g., I cannot protect mvsel0, and to identifi, the accornpan-r,ing bodil-V sensations that go r,rritir tl.re e.xperience of tl.re trauma. Then the client is asked to hold in mintl all three aspects (image, cognition, bodil-v sensations) lr,hile the facilitator nloves his or her fingers rhlthmically liom side to side, leading the client's e-ves in a 1e11 to right moticln rather rapidlr,. This process continries (usually for about So seconds) until the irnzrge or cognition or bodily sensations cl.range. At that

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point the same process is repeated r'r'ith the nervly emerged or charlgeci cornponent. in addition to Ieft to right movements, the therapist also uses up and do\,r,n, circular, or ligure eight kind of movetnents. The purpr-rse is to help the person to overcome the negatir,e effects of the trauma. I r'viil give detailed information about systematic desensitization later in this paper. In r,r,orking rvith m-v client lr,ho u'as af}aid of cats I started by using ciassic Euon technique. During the Ei"rnn process I noticed the diagonal pattern mentioned above: she lifted her left shoulder and right leg r,r'henever she thought of cats. So I tried moving rn--v finger diagonallv from upper-right to lor,ver-left. When I changed to the other diagonal (the one that resembled her pattern of left shoulder-right leg) her shoulder dlopped dor,r'n noticeab1-v as I morred my flnger dorvn tor,vards her right leg. The ne-"v organization in her left shoulder continued aftenvards until the end of the session. Then I had her lie or-r the table and did a short FUNCTIoNAL INTEGRA.TIoN lesson on diagonerls, Iifting her right shoulder and aiming at her left hip, pushing the sole of the fbot to establish a diagonal connectiot-t, etc. She left saying that she n as r,en'relaxed, botir physicallv and psychologically, r,vith respect to cats. 1n the beginning ofthe session I had asked her to rate her f'ear of cats. Sire had rated her a\rerage fear [i5 out of too. The rating had jumped to go lr,hen she vistialized the scene in r,r,hich she r,voke up flnding a cat on the left side of her chest. At tl.re end of the session her fear r,r'hen she r,r,as visualizing this same memoq'had dropped to 3o. In the next sessiot-i she said that she had less anxiety related to cats (average fear rating r,r,'as 5o). Horvever, u,heu I asked her to visualize a stronger image of a cat looking directlv into irer eyes and approaching her she felt Very uncomfortable. The Erron procedure did not help to reduce this anxiet-v. Then I asked her to lie on her side and did a ruucrtoNAr- INTEGRT\rIoN lesson again i,vorking r,vith her habitual diagonal pattern associated r,vith cats. After this habitual organization of her bod-v had changed considerably I asked her to r,isualize the same scene. \Vl'rile she did this I continued the FUNCTToNAL INTEGRATIoN lesson to rernind her of the new organizatiorl in her bod-v. This tirne she experienced no anxiety at all. I gave her an AwARENESS rFrRorrGH \{ovEN,rENr tape that I thought rvould help her to firrther explore this nerv organization and make it more lamiliar. In the nert session her average fear rating rvas dorvn to 25. In the previous sessions I had noticed that slre tends to hold ]rer heacl fired, not a11on'ing anv mo\rement of her head r'rrith respect to her cervical spine. I had ller visualize more disturbing cat scenes (for her these consisted of touching different parts of a cat) rvhile I rn,as holding her head in my hands. This proved to be a great calibration too1. I could sense exactly rvhen she felt anxious and r,r,hen she rvas comfbrtable. At one point her neck got quite stiff and immobile. I asked her rvhat she r,vas visualizing. She said that she lr,as thinking of touching the par,vs of the cat, rvhich r,t as the most terrifying thing for her to do (or to visualize for that matter). She did not even notice the tensing in her neck becarise her attentior.r \\Ias predominantlv on her f'ear. I immediateiy noticed it becar-rse it l'r.as a strong reaction. I asked her to stop visualizing this image and not to colxe back to it until the etrd of the ruucrtoxet. TNTEGR-{TroN lesson. In this lesson she became familiar r,r,ith a ner,r, organization of her body that allor,r,ecl a responsive head. Her anriety related to the image of ]rel touching the pa'"r,s of a cat \vas nort, dorvn to zero. In tire fourth and last session I asked her to lie on her back and visr-ralize progressivelv more anriet\, provoking scenes r,vhile I rolled her head. By the end of the session she rated even the images that had been extremelv flitturbing for her previouslv as producing zero auriety. The images r,r,ere of different cats touching her or even scratching her.

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After each lesson I gave her homer,r,ork assignments. These consisted of progressivelv more dillcult approach behaviors related to cats. These assignments were not gir.en in a verJr speciflc r,vay; they rvere more like indirect suggestions. I also told her not to force herself to do anything that she found uncomfbrtabie. This technique puts the responsibility of horv much to try on the shoulders of the client. It also reduces the sense of faih,rre if the client is unabie to carry out a task, since there are no deflnite goais. The other kind of assignment that I gave her was doing specific AwARENESS THRouGH N,ro\rEr,tpnr lessons using tapes. In each case, the lesson that I chose for this purpose was related to her most recent FUNCTToNAL TNTEGRATToN lesson. Approximately eight months have passed since this last session and she still is much more comfortable in the presence of cats than she rvas before we started working. She now rates her general fear of cats as zero, compared with 65 at the beginning of the flrst session. She reports that she can let cats come near to her, even into her house without panicking. In fact, she can norv touch, even pet cats, which she could not do before. \Vhat used to be even more horrifiring for her r,r,as a cat touching her. Even this has happened many times; a fact that makes it possible for her to go to outdoor restaurants comfortably norr,,. All this inforrnation was conlirmed by her husband. Her husband says that she does not have any problems with cats an\r more and that "It's over." SYSTEMATIC DESENSITIZATION I rnentioned that my approach to \Morking \{ith this client r,vas inspired by tu-o techniques, one of them being Ernron. The other technique is systematic desensitization. Svstematic desensitization is a technique that is used u,ide1r,-i,vith phobias. First the client is taught muscular relaxation. Then a 1-rierarchv of fear-evoking stimuli is determined. This is done by making

list ol situations that evoke fear and then putting them in an order of increasing anxiety that the.v create in the person. The next step is asking the person to imagine these situations while he or she is completely relaxed. The first image that is used is alr,l,ays the easiest to deal udth. lVhen the clierrt has successfully imagined the easiest situation, progressively more anxietv pro\roking situations are imagined. "Successfully" in this context means "r,r,hile remaining relaxed. " If at anv point the person gets too tense and uncomfortable the image is inmediateiy abandoned and relaxation regained, using again the muscle relaxation technique. Only after the person is relared again is the exposure to progressively more diflicult situations a

resu[red t\A'olpe, rg8zt. The idea is to connect the stimuli that evoke fear to a new response that is incompatible r,vith fear. Since one cannot experience fear and rela_ration at the same time, the fear-evoking situation cannot evoke that fear anymore. The person had originally been conditioned to feel fear when erposed to certain situations. Svstematic desensitization is thought to estabiish counter-conditioning. During the desensitization process, as,,vell as in studies evaluating the effectiveness of this technique, self-ratings of fear are routinelv used. Other u,,ays of measuring the severity of a phobia are behavioral measures (i.e., how near can one let a particular cat come), fear inventories, therapist or independent assessor ratings, and measures of phl,siological activity (i.e., heart rate). Studies comparing self-ratings with the ratings of therapists and independent assessors have found veSr high agreement among these (Agras and Jacob, rgBi). Further, having anallr2sd the data of phobia studies, Agras and

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOI]RNAI, NO. 12

Jacob conclude that self-report is one of the most sensitive measures of phobia, even though it has the disadvantage of being highl,v subjective' In m1, approach I use the self-rating system r'r''ith two pllrposes' One is for me to monitor the client's progress and determine lvhat r'vorks for him or her' The second goal is for the client to get feedback about the fear, which in

itself is therapeutic. S-ystematic desensitization is one of the most researched techniques in psychotherapv. \\,'l-rat this bodv of research reveals is that it rvorks. \Nhat it does not reveal is horv it rvorks. Some claim that a review of literature reveals that neither rela-ration nor gracleci exposure is crucial in the effectiveness of s\rstematic desensitization and the only crucial element is exposure to the f'ear-evoking stirnuli (Kazclin and \Vilcoxon, t976). Others propose that cognitive restructuring (specificallv the change in the person's sense of abilifi,' to cope r,r.ith ciifficult situations) that takes place during the desensitization process is responsible for the effect (Williants, Turner, and Peer, tgBs) ' As I mentioned aborre, the controrrersY over the mechanism of action through which systematic desensitization r'r'orks has not vet been resoived' HOW DOES THIS NEW APPROACH WORK? In the technique that I used ll'ith m-v client I used somatic reorganization instead of relaxation. I found out what her usual pattern of using her bodv ."l as when she experienced (in imaginatiotl or in realit-v: these tr'rro correlate highl-vrtith each other) fear of cats. Then using FUNCTIoN.IL INTEGRA'rror+ I helpecl her to change this r,vaY of organizing her body and to keep this fear-free organization r,vhile imagining cat-related scenes. One might therefore say that I replaced reiaxation rvith sornatic reorganization as the response incompatible rvith fear. In other r'l-ords, I put her in a somatic organizationrvhere she could not possibivhave a fear ofcats' Ho.,vever, i prefer not to think about this technique in this rvay' I do not see it as a battle between fear and the new somatic organization. The r't'ay I think about it is as follor,r,s: r,r'hen the client is experiencing fear-el'oking stimuli in this nerv somatic organization it becomes possible for irer to start a process of psychological reorganization. It.,tras the previous psvchological organization that led her to experience fear. The previous organization rvas caused by events in her past as lr,ell as her cogniti'"'e and emotional reat:tions to these events. Instead of the term "ps,-vchoiogicai reorganization," one could also use the term "integration." The erperience ofcats is integrated in a newway to the rest of her psvchological make up. One could even saY that the client coulcl not do this integration befole because she.urtas frozen at the time r,^nhen the flrst incident in her life related to cats happened. Not onl1' does this rvav of thinking sound better to me, I also believe it is much more

in accord

r,r,,ith

the general philosoph--v of the TELDENKP.AIS NIErI{oD'

IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSFERRING THE LEARNING INTO EVERYDAY LIFE SITUATIONS Of course this approach cloes not have to be limited to phobias. It car.r be used with an1, kind of fear, or other Pslchological issue. As an example I am nor,r,u'orkingwith someone on a f'ear of failure. This is a much less focused kind of fear. The stimuli that triSger this fear are much more diverse and the fear is much more a part of the personality of the person. Consequently our rvork is taking much longer. The rervards, hor'r'ever, rvill be evetr more satisf.ving than being able to eat in outdoor restaurants.

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Most rErouNKRArs teachers'ur.itness unexpected psychological changes in their ciients from time to time as a result of er,l,enpr,rrss rHRoucH MovEN{ENT or FUNCTToNAL rNTEGRATIor,r lessons. These psychological issues usually are not even mentioned in the lesson that made the change possible. The teacher helps the person to achierre the kind of somatic reorganization that makes it possible to integrate parts of his or her psychological make-up in a ner,v lrray. However, in my experience, if the reorganization does not address the specific psychological issue or situations that trigger this issue, the person sometimes goes back to his or her previous organization once faced n ith the speciflc situations that trigger the oid pattern. This is like giving a FUNCTToNAL rNrEGRArroN lesson about the foot and not paving attention to the head or the eyes. If psvchological issues as rl,ell as situations triggering these are included in a ruNcuoNAL TNTEGRAuoN lesson the integration r,r,,i11 be more complete and the effects more stable. Of course everv FELDENKR{rs teacher does this to some extent, since the concept of puNcrrONAL TNTEGRATTON includes the integration of all the elements of a function; including psvchological aspects. The approach I describe provides a basis for a more systematic way of accomplishing it. The same issue comes up during reiaxation training. Imagine a person lr,ho is taught onlv horv to relax, but is not taken through the desensitization process (r,r,hich r,vould involve exposure to the feared situation while in deep relaxation). Sornetimes he or she u,,ill transfer this learning into anxiet-ver,oking situations. As a result the person rvill, for example, overcome his or hel fear of speaking in public. Hoi,vever, this transfer is much more likelv to happerr if relaration is coupled rvith imagining these situations, ."l,hich is exactiv u,hat svstematic desensitization does. One could also applv this way of thinking to A\vARENESS rHRoucH MovEN,rENr lessons and ask the students to imagine the rest of their day or sorne difficult situation rvhile exper iencing their ner'r, organization created with the help of the lesson. Betrer yet, the teacher can ask them to get in toucir r,r,ith horv they are feeling and when or r,r,here in their lirres ti-rev think it r,vould be useful for them to feel this ivay. Subsequentlr.the teacher can ask the stlldents to irnagine that time or place u,hile remaining in tor,rch with their bodies and their current feeling. This r,rrill make it easier for them to transfer their learning into their evervday iives.

REFERENCES Agras, \V.S. and Jacob, R.Ci. (rg8r). Phobia: Nature and measurement. In NI. Mavissakalian arrd D. H. 9u116i1, (Eds.), PhoLtia: Psycltological and Plmrnrtcological Treatillent (pp.356z). Nerr \-ork: Guilford Press.

Kazdin, A.E. and \\tilcoxon, L.A. (r976). "strsten'ratic desensitization and nonspecific treatment efl'ects: a methodological evaluation". Psychological Bulletirr, 83, 729-758. Shapiro, F.S. (rSgS). EyeL[ouernertt Desettsitizcrtiort arrcl Reprocessiizg Nenryork:

Guilford Press. \\rilliarns, S.L.; Turner, S.M.; Peer, D.F. (r985). "Guided mastery and performance desensitization treatnlents for serrere acrophobia". Journal of Counseling and Clinical Psychologl,, s3,

237 -247.

\\tolpe, J. ig1z). fhe Practice

o.f

BehauiorTherapy. Ner,vYork: Pergamon Press.

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12

Dan Clurman

TWISTED COYOTE To theBerkeley FPTP'97 Can vou imagine a movement deep rvithin your lumbar spine emerging full blorvn from a vou'ling co.vote? No? Ok'

Then, u,hat r,r,ould be the smoothest movement for your head r,vhen it's busv considering the fate of humanity at the end of the millennium? Pause and sense that vou are actuallv standing on planet earth right

now. slor,r4-v around to the left and check to make sure that, given the rrariations rve just did,

Twist

you are still an embodied creature with a slightly different tonus than yor-rr grandfather had during Prohibition' Rest. Then stand.

Continue breathing the breath of your ancestors. Now, tr,rristed in the opposite direction, aren't you always looking out tor,vards otherness, not noticing vour transparent absence right here? Within this constraint, with just a little Inore movement, you might figure out that there's nothing to flgure out. OK. Let your ribs be foided into unfamiliar shapes.

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p

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Of course, you \,vant all aspects of the movement to be smooth. But are they ever smooth enough? N{avbe for the coyote, no-ur, deeply receding in your pelvis, trotting home at dusk. You can be r.igilant nhile vou breathe in the pointless rotation of it ali. Then rvhere do 1re11 tend to Iook? i\ pinpointed gaze? Or diffused?

Reinember, God Iooks through those as r,r-ell as those rvho rotate a lot.

{i

b

r,"-ho

rotate

a

)

(t

)r

little

If vou respect sta-ying within that range that you've come to knorv and love, -vou'11 notice a very interesting lengthening of rvho you are and i,vho vou are not. This can give you an extra asvmmetrical bounce n hen cooking breakfast for your lover at dar,rrn. And don't forget that limits aren't something )rou "get" and tl.ren they're gone. No, \,our biggest blind spot in this rotation is not knorving who you are. But thank God that turns out to be r,r,ho you are, I guess. Just remember, r,r,hen going down, you're going down.

And

r'r,,hen

going

up-well

baby, you're going all the way up,

just one more time, going up beyond belief. Just keep going up one last time.

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r99B

Roger Russell and Ulla Schliifke

GROWING WORLD OF TFIE CFIILD The Development of Movement, Action and the Self PART 2

INTRODUCTION ..ROTATIONAL SPACE,, AND THE CHILD,S GROWING WORLD "We see a ptogressive organization of a biological space in rvhich every event proceeds at a moment and in a tegion that n]ake it possible for the process to be coordinated as a r,r,hole. The space is functional,

not

g'eometrical' PRIL(,(;r\r

'tg'o'

"The r,r,orld doesn't rel oh,e around voul"

Horv many times have r,ve heard this as \ve \\rere growing up? Hor'r'ever, our parents and teachers \\rere t\.rongl The private, subjective, personal lr'orld that each of us inhabits, and shares u,ith others, is one that does indeed revolr,e around us. Our rvorld is centered around our ability to move' This world changes and gro\,\'s as our abilitv to organize our action develops. Our action has a concrete orientation in our skeleton moving in space, and these movements relate to and turn around a rotational axis that integrates the perceptual activities of the sensoryr sYstems in the head (the vestibular, rrisual, auditorv systems) rvith the movements of the head, spine and hips in relation to the grouird. This makes our growing rvorld of sensing, perceiving, knor,ving and acting one that revoives around this central axis of our strlrcture. Horv our world develops around this core nlovement experience r'r'ill be the topic of this article. We ivill include some literature from the fleld of development, our obsen ations of infat-rts as they learn to function irl increasingly cornplex and independent rvaYs, FELDENKR-{IS Iessons that are \.ery similar to these deveiopmental activities of infants, and some admittedly fairl-v rvild specr-rlation to n'eave them together.

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Ifyou have taken the opportunify to observe children as thev discover themselves and their r,rrorld it is hard to resist the impression that they inhabit a growing r,',,orid. A very young infant (tu,o to six rveeks old) can focus on and follow an object in her r,isual fie1d that is at close range, sav thirty to sixty centimeters, and n1o\res directlr, in front of her. Bv tl.rree to months months this has changed. People and objects i,r,rill be r,vatched with rapt attention as they rnor.e about the entile room. The chiid r,vill actively tilrn her eyes, head and sell to follou' anr. interesting event. Within another three or four months (at approrirnateh'seven months) the child has discovered tr,vo nei,v skills that are integrated u,ith looking and taken together will be the central activities olthe rest ollier life: grasping and turning around lhe movement a\is ol her spine. At about four months, the child learns to reach fbr, to grasp, to explore and to manipr-rlate e\.en.thing she sees or touches, inciuding her or,r,n body. The emergence of this ski1l seems to har.e an almost magical meaning for ali of the child's future activities. It seems to dri-".e all other der,elopment along. Parents learn that the child rvill grasp, explore, bang, drop or eat anlthing she can get her hands on. This r,r,i1l lead her to erpiore larger parts of the space she inhabits to pull books off the bookcase, pans from the shell and the tablecloth from under the Thanksgir-ing dinnerl As the child is drar'l,n to iook and reach, she rvill learn to coordinate the entire skeletor-r to srlpport this activitv. She rviil carrf,.the head upright related to a rnobile contact urith the ground. This is not just "holding the head upright." It involr,es moving the entire skeleton to maintain a functional relationship of the head and eves to the space around her in all possible positions. It includes a large repertoire of movements that result in the ability to ro11 around completely and reversibl-v on the floor rt ith the spine affording a smooth extension and rotation that captures all of the skeleton's potential nlovements in a single coordinated pattern. Observing this process of exploration, emergence and integration of ner,v patterns of action, we can see the child moving in a larger rr,or1d, indeed a gror,ving world, as she sees, grasps, rolls, crar,vls and u,alks, erpanding her horizons ancl her field of action. THE BIOMECHANICS OF ROTATIONAL MOVEMENTS Nlor,ement anah.sis is done in the domains of kinetics and kinernatics. Irinetics is the understanding of the interpiay of forces inr,olved in a movenent including the so-called actir,,e forces: the development of muscle force and the translation of these forces through the skeleton and the passive (or reactive) forces of inertia and gravity. Kinernatics describes the spatial and temporal lelationships of a movement. \A/hen the inlants learn all of the elenlents and .u.arieties of the rolling movernents on the floor, they have succeeded in a seiection process. This process consists of trying out all of the possible combinations of spatial, temporal and force eiements that are available in their repertoire. They discover those patterns of the use of the skeleton that allor,v them to maintain their balance as r,r,ell as their visual contact rvith the world while using the minimum of force to do so. Their brain makes this possible in two lr,ays: first, by being able to recognize the combinations of movements that are functionally optimai for relating to their growing r,r,orld, inciuding the quality of reversibility; and secondllr, bv generating tile repertoire of variations that are necessary to make this seiection. The rolling movements are the first patterns of movement that the child rnasters, r,r,hereby the entire range of space around her is available for her investigation b.v her orvn activity. Our obsen ations convinced us that the child's space llas now become a continuous, unilied rvhole. Befbre

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 12

this development, she was dependent on her mother to place her on her belly or back. This limited her perception and her range of activitY to an "on the belllr" space and an "on the back" space. Now tire child can turll around in space as she pleases, and rve have called this her "rotationai space. " It inade sense for us to see it in this light since it relates the shape of her space to her abilitr- to act in it. \,Ve consider this to be a meaningful understanding of space that is clifferent from the nonnal Euclidean vieu' of three dimensional space. For an interesting discussiotl of the importance of spatial perception in development see Thelen and Smith (r994) and a fascinating article bv Neu,ell arrd \lcDor-rald in Sar-elsburgh (tggS). We are a."tare that our obsen'ations are speci{ic to children in GermanY. Reed aud Bril (igg6) har,e obserted tilat cl'rildren in other cultures, especiall1, in Africa, spend most of t]-reir filst vear on their mother's back' Horv these children develop their t-nor-enlent during this period is apparentl-v not .,r,e11 documented. The rotational space ofthe child gro\vs as she Iearns to crarvl, sit, stand and r,r,alk. Throughout her developmental period the affordances and constraints of her structure r'r,ill determine her action and self-image. In her adult action, she ivill continue to live in a world that is based on this pattern. \A{ren she looks, sits, reaches, stands and r'va1ks she rvill coordinate the spatial, temporal and force elements of her activitv around the developmentally anchored activities of manual skills, spatial irnagination and upright orientation, all of which are grounded in the concrete loundation of the rotational euxis of her skeleton.

THE LITERATURE OF INFANT DEVELOPMENT We r,r,ant to take vou on a short tour of ho'"lt r'r'e harte approached development as we looked for a thread through the process of n-iovement develop-

ment that r,r,e observed in "our" children. In our FELDENKRA.IS communit-Y, \\'e use the concept of seif-image rvhen we describe our rvork, br,rt rvhat does this mean and hor'r', in detail, does it develop? A reviel of the literature makes it clear that there is confusion about r,r,'hat is meant bv sense of self, body i6ng", body scireme, etc' AII are deflned in rvays that seem to impl-v different entities that need to be reintegrated in some kind of " super self-image. " There is a rvide bod-v of literature relating to this question including Schilder (rgso), Fischer(rg86), Cash and Pruzinsk-v (rggo) and others. The varieties of theories and viewpoints in developmental ps1'chology include Freud, Mahler, Stern, Erikson, Piaget, Bronfenbrenner and manY others. (See Miller, r993 and Flammer, r996, for revier"u's)' In this literature we discover that the question of how our movelnent activities are related to our thinking, feeling and sensing is fraught rvith difficulties. NIost theories of deveiopmental psvchology lose sight of movement behavior as soon as language develops. In phvsical education, lnovement developrnent is in the foreground, but the psychological and cognitive aspects of our activities tend to be ignored. It is a very complex undertaking to understand hor'r' these four elements of action develop as an integrated rvhole over the life-span. To explicitly relate this development to the FELDENKRAIS N{ErHoD increases the complexity of the task by another dimension' Nevertheless, it is necessary to do, fascinating and just plain fun to give it a trv. One of the logical places to begin rvas the literature about the development of movement in infancy. This led us first to several texts about nlove-

ment development written for ph-vsical thelapists, incltiding: Bobath (r977), Vojta (rgBB), Flehmig (rsBs), Crutchfleld and Barnes (r993), Fiorentino (r9Br)

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and others. These are usually secondary rerder,vs of primaw research literature, and follor,ving the line backr,r,ards \,ve came to \,IcGrarv and Gesell. These trvo researchers made ven,detailed obseruations of ir-rfant development between the rgzo's and the 195o's. Their books include: N,IcGralr, The ltleurontuscu.lar Mattffation of tlrc Hunan In.fant (19.15) and Gese11, An Atlas of InJant Behauior i93il. Their r,r,ork is stil1 the basis for mau. of the descriptions of infant der,elopntent, although their "N{aturational" vier,vpoint is nor,r,. seen as too narro\\,. Trvo other researchers that stand out are Pikler (r9BB) and Saint-,hne Dargassies (rgB6). From here our search

included academic and clinical der,elopmental psychology, pediatric pathologv and the neurologr. of the newborn infant. There are many authors, books, research articles and numerous controversies in these fields. We r,von't revielv thern here. Instead, we have listed some of thern in Appendix r. "The Central Questiorr of Consciousness is: Ho,"v does the Brain build a Sense of Self?" lNTO\lO DA\[,\SIO, tl

g

g;.1

This is indeed the central question and u,e believe that in rhe rernrxKR{rs N{ETHoo we have a tool that can help Damasio ans\ver his qr_restionl ln his book Descarte's Error 1gg4'), he discusses the relationships betn,een ernotion, reason and the sense of the bodr-. To quote Damasio (p. xr.i):

"...the body, as represented in the brain, n1o1, csnr,i,rte the indispensable frame of reference for the neural processes that n e experience as the mind.,, Horv does The Body irt the Mind, r,r,hich is the title of an interesting book by MarkJohnson, come to be'.2 In our reading of the developmental literature we found three authors r,vho r,vere particularly interesting since they rt ere helpful in ansr,r,ering two specific questions. First, we noticed that in rnany of the descriptions of the miiestones of der.elopmental movement there -was not a satisfying description of the process by which the child moved from one pattern to the next. This is frustrating since the process of the peroENKR.\rs NlErHoD is central to its pedagogy of reorganizing mo\rement patterns. Esther Thelen and Linda Smith's research of infant development in the context of dynamic systems theow helped f;Il in this gap rvith an understanding of the deveiopmentai process that is strikingly similar to our understanding of the rrrnnNKR_{rs NrErHoD. Second, the puzzling qliestiorl of relating movement development and the development of our personality is a challenging one. Here, Daniel Stern and his ideas about the development of the "sense of self" have been r.erv valtiabie. These three ar,rthors helped us form an understanding of horv an infant organizes a kinesthetic-based sense of self. Relating these ideas to our films of lr,hat a child does along the developmental path, we found a framer,r,ork for comparing the cievelopment of children to the growth processes that are at the heart olthe peroEi\-KRArs N{ETHOD. Dar-riel Stern is professoi: of psychologv at the Universitv of Geneva. His book, Th.e lttterpersonalWorld of the Infant, is based on his backgrouncl as a psychiatrist and a developmental psychoiogist. His outline of the development of four " senses of self" rvas rrery interesting and inspiring fbr us. Stern proposes that the child is both active and autonomous in her exploration of herself and the world aroilnd her. This activitv leads to the enlergence and integration of four senses of self: r) The sense of the emergent self: during the first tlvo months of life the child discovers that she is able to organize her or,r,rn perception and action. z) The sense of core seit betr,r,een three and seven months the cliild creates a sense of core seif ttrat is based on her experience of being a rvell defined and bounded bocly. 3) The sense of a sr,rbjectirre self: at the age of eight to fifteen months the

t

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child discovers that she has subjectirre experience, that others also have

a

similar experience and that this can be shared. +) The sense of a verbal self: beginning at about fifteen months the child discovers language which both enriches and constrains her interaction with the world. Stern proposes that these senses of self are not stages that end as soon as the next one emerges. instead each sense of self is a domain of experience that continues to be part of our lir.es. \Ve are constantl,v moving from one domain to the other r,r,ith ease in our dailr' life rvithout being particularly ar'vare of it. We har,e been especiallv intrigued bv the sense of core self. The reasons seem compelling: F The sense of core self has a central place in Stern's developmental

sequence. Br The core self inrrariants that he postulates are intimately related to the kinesthetic experiences of the infant' ir The movement development occurring during the time in lt'hich this sense of self emerges is fundamental to all future functioning.

In Stern's theory the core self is a keystone that supports the developmentai processes that follow. To quote Stern: The children act, "as if there is now an integrated sense of themselves as distinct and coherent bodies, i,tith control over their own actions, ownership of their own affectivity, a sense of continuitl' and a sense of other people as distinct and separate interactants." (p. 69)

Speaking about research in infant development he says, "These nert'flnditrgs support the vier'rr that the infant's flrst order of business, in creating an interpersonal rvorld, is to form the sense of a core self and core others. The evidence also supports the notion that this task is iargelv accomplished during the period betr,r'een ti,vo and seven months." (p. zo).

Obviousl-v this sense of self is critically important, and this led us to look more ciosely at the experiences that are involved in the process of core selfdevelopment at this age. For our rvork, and our interest in self-image, this is

very intriguingl Stern describes four experiences rvhich constitute the sense of core self. Again to quote Stern directly: "r) Self-agency, in the sense ofauthorship ofone's orvn actions and nonauthorship of the actions of others: having volition, having control over self-generated action (your arm moves r,vhen you rvant it to), and expecting consequences of one's actions (r,r,hen you shut vour e-ves it gets dark); z) Self-coherence, having a sense of being a non-fragmented, physical whole, with boundaries and a locus of integrated action, both while moving (behaving) and r,r,hen still: g) Self-affectiviq', experiencing patterned inner qualities of feeling (affects) that beiong r'r'ith other experiences of self: and +) Self-history, having the sense of enduring, of a continuity r,rrith one's ou'n past so that one 'goes or.r being' and can even change u,hile remaining the same." (p. zt)

During this developmental period the infant is engaged by her social world in a manner that allorvs her to identiff in her ongoing experience the invariants that coaiesce to form this core sense of self. Self-agency is considered b-v Stern to " be the most fundamental inr,ariant of core self-experience. " Stern r'rryites, "Agency, or authorship of action, can be bi'oken dor'r'n into three possible

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invariants of experience: r) The sense of volition that precedes a motor act, z) The proprioceptive f'eedback that does or does not occur during the act and 3) 1'he predictability of consequences that follou, the act." (p.26) T'hat these are based in our kinesthetic experience needs no further

comment. Self-coherence involves the experience of our sensations being interrelated and unified. Stern names five features of erperience that contribllte to this integration of action and sensation: t. Unity of locus. By this he means that all of the child's sensations and actiolts are related to one location, that being the bodr-of the infant. z. Coherence of motion. Of this concept he sar-s "Things that mor.e coherently in time belong together. " (p. aSi this is a compiex experience of the relationships of mor.emerrt, both seen and sensed, that are moving simultaneouslv. 3. Closelv related to coherence of motion is " Coherence of terlporal structure. Time provides an organizing structure that helps identify different entities. The many behaviors that are invariably performed simultaneously by one person share a cornmon temporal structure." (p. Bs)

He quotes research brr Condon and Ogston that have named this selfsl.nchronv and continues: "Self-svnchron\-refers to the fact that separate parts of the body such as limbs, torso, and face tend to ntor.e-in fact, must move-together synchronouslv to a split second, in the sense that starts, stops, and changes in direction and speed in one muscle grotip will occur synchronously rvith starts, stops, and changes in other muscle groups. " (p.as) 4. Coherence of intensitv structure. By this he means that the internallr, experiencerl intensity of sensation related to the infant's selfgenerated actions rvill l-rave both common intensity and match in hour this intensity is rnodulated over time. 5. Coherence of form. This allorvs the inlant to experience that an object, as rvell as the seli remains the same despite changes in its appearance, position, distance, etc. llhis involrres one's oltn body as nell as all other objects and persons. A closer examination ol these five erperiences shorvs that rvhile the experiences are multi-sensory, thev alrvays involve a background of kinesthetic sensation. A more detailed discussion can be found in the first chapters of Stern's book. In Chapter 7 of A Dyrrumic S1arenzs ApTtrocLch to tlte Deuelopntent of Cogrtitiort antl Action, bv Esther Thelen and Lincla B. Smith, the authors discuss time binding, the integration of multi-modal sensations and "mor,ement as a perceptual s,vstem." These processes are very reievant for understanding hor,r, seif-coherence can function. Self-affectir,ity is the third feature of core self that Stern describes. This

includes: "t) The proprioceptive feedback frorn pariicular motor orr11oia, patterns, to the face, respiration and rrocal apparatus; z) Internaily patterned sensations of arousal or activation; and 3) Emotion-speci{ic qualities of feeling. These three self-invariants, taken together, become a higher order inrrariant, a constellation of inr.ariants beioriging to the self and specifl,ing one categon, of emorion. " (p.Sg) this description can be i:elated to the element of self-image and acrion that Feidenkrais narles feeling.

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THE FEI,DENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 12

The fourth element of core seif is self-histoly, or quite simply, memory' Stern quotes Winnicott in pointing out that the intant must have the sense of "going on being," and bases much of the self-memory at this age as being based in "motor memory." Again Stern urrites:

Ihe point is that cued recall for motor experiences can be experimentalll' demonstrated, as lr,el1 as inferred from natural behavior, and that these motor memories assure self-continuitv in time Thev thus constiture another set of self-invariants, part of the 'motor se1i.'" (p.gz)

"

Stern's descriptions ofthese erperiences of core self, and the research behind his arguments, make the kinestl-ietic experierrce of the child central to the sense of core se1l. \\'e can also see that these core self erperiences r't'ill inclucle the necessan-ten-rpora1, spatial arld lorce elements olthe child's movements for her to establish the "ir-rdispensable frame of relerence tbr" ' the mind" that Damasio describes in l-ris book. This Ieads us directlv to the next issue, n hich is to ask u hat are the functional mortement developments that are going on at the time that this core self emerges. The domain of core self emerges bet',veen the ages of approxin'ratelv three to seven months. This is an active and complex time in the mor''ement development of the infant. Furthermore, many of these developmental activities have an intriguing similariw to the arru and rI lessons of the FELDENKRA'IS MErHoD. Among many other developments, we r'r'ill see the clrild: ir Continue to perfect the coordination of her eyes and vision that is already r,r,'ell established by the age of three months. d Discover that she can use her hands for grasping, both singl-v and together, and that this can be gr,rided by vision. d Able to bring her head to an upright position rvhere the inner ear has a very particular relationship to the field of gravity. This is flrst perfected during this core self period, and rt'ill piay a central role in orientation and action throughout the life span. F Discover that she can ro11 betureen the be1ly and the back in a reversible r,r,'ay, and shou'a range of variations in how this is done' Br Flnd some combination of movements that leads to a primitive lbrmof locomotion-this can be rolling, creeping, "propeller turning," and a few have found themselves on their hands and knees.

Our attention was drawn to the fact that Stern's sense of core self seems to coincicie rvith the perfection of the turning movements on tl-re floor that allolt the child to complete her/his "rotational" space. This rvas not onlr' our observation, it r,vas similar to the findings of Doudlah (1981) and Touu'en (rgzs) . Coutd it be that with the core sense of self the child nou' has organized her sensation and action into a pattern of activities that integrates the spatial, temporal and force elements of her movements around the rotational axis of the boclv? From Stern's description it seems likelr', and

it makes intuitive sense. There',vas one part of Stern's book thal'.vas unsatisfuing. His description of the process of development is not enlightening for us as to hon' the child integrates these actir.ities and hor,rr her activity leads 16 nglv patterns' At this poir-rt Smith and Thelen (rg93, rgg+) offer us a very attracti'u'e model of holr' the ongoing behavior of the child leads to the creation of nen', functional patterns of acting in her growing u'orld. Thelen gives an exceiient ovetwiet't' of their book in her video lectures of the rvorkshop she gave at the Reese

Movement institute in r996.

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For our purposes trvo ideas from 'Ihelen and Smitir's book are of fundamental importance. First, the ongoing activitv of a child leads to shifts in patterns of action thal can be as unexpected as they n1s functionalll, useful. Second, these shifts are evoked by making variations in certair-r relationships of the movement system that lead to a rvide varien. ol neu, movement combinations. This variety contributes to the instabilitv of the ongoing behavior and enables the nervous svstem to shift to a ne\r mo\.ement pattern. New patterns of mo\.ement that 1-relp the child act more effectively are selected and integrated into the child's behar,ior. Their description of how novelty can grow out of ongoing activity is an attractive and elegant solution to a challenging problem of development. It also makes a lot of sense when we think about our ArN,r and pr lessons. In the lessons that N4oshe Feldenkrais developed, the fundamental strategy is to enable the nelous system to experience a variety of new movements and sensations. The intention in the lessons is not to demand a specific correct movement, but to utilize the process that Theien and Sn'rith have described to evoke varietl,and instabilitr.tbr the emergence and selection of new patterns. Feldenkrais structured the lessorrs arourrd a fur-rctional pattern of activity that we use in our interactions rrith our u'orld. \lost of them correspond to the actions that help creare our rorational space; thar is, they relate to the movements of the spirre. ,\s a resr:h, rr-e often erperience a surprising shift in hor,r, we move u.hen \re return to our dailv acti\ities. if this change is functionallv preferable to our habit, rr e selecr it to be integrated into a new habit. Our sense of seif has become more complex, flexible and realistic. Our r,vorld has grorvnl The structure of horv this process of variation and selection is guided in a FELDENKRATs lesson can also be compared the three stages of rnotor learning that Bemstein proposed, which is summarized in a chapter bv Ner,vell entitled: "Change in Movement and Skill: Learning, Retention, and Transfer" in Dexterity and Its Deuelopment, by Mark Latash and Michael Turvey. In stage one, "Freezing of Degrees of Freedom," Bernstein suggests that the freedom to move every joint of the skeleton is reduced by limiting some of the possible movements that can be done. In a rerpEurrucis lesson we do this by using certain positions, "primitive movements," and other strategies that constrain the degrees of freedom of our movement system. This evokes stage two of Bernstein's process of iearning: the "Release of Degrees of Freedom." In an ernr lesson we use the "freeze" strategies to rnake the habitual pattern impossible. Guided bv the lesson structure the nenous system begins a search process for new variations of the use of the skeleton that wiil allow us to do the movement. The repetition of the movements r,t ith small r,ariations during the iesson are important for this to succeed. Nerv rraliations evoke new sensations of movement rvhich are coordinated in the progression of the lesson to fbrm a functional movement pattern. The third stage, "Use of Reactir.e Phenomena," is reflected in focusing our attention on tire reversible quality of the emerging movement patterns. Carl Ginsburg rvas the flrst to point out that $,hat Bernstein describes as the ner\rous system's learning to balance the use of active and reactive (or passive) forces to coordinate a movement for rninimal energy use, matches Feidenkrais's idea of reversibiiity in movement qualitv. As r,ve finish fhe lesson, get up, walk around and continue our daily lives rvhile sensing the changes, our brain is still activelv selecting the elements and patterns that enable us to flnd a more functionally useful way of acting in our growingworld.

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A CLOSER LOOK AT HO\^/ INFANTS ROLL \.\hat clo the children do as they clevelop their first rotational space? Let's Iook in more detail at a few of the movements that the chilcl is engaged in that lead to turning around on the floor in a reversible way' Belor'l' are dra-,t'ings we took from our video films at various times betr'veen tulo and eight months. We found that rve cotrid categorize the w-ay the child turns in trvo main patterns. One, and as a rule the first strategv that the child develops, is what lve call the "flexion" pattern of roiling. It is easier to recognize r'vhen she rolls from her back to her belly. A simiiar strategy can be seen when she rolls from belly to back, but is not so easily recognizable. The second strategy is the "extension" pattern. It usuallY deveiops later, as the child develops a large nlimber of differentiations of the flrst pattern n'hile lying on the side, bellv or back. One thing is important to note before lve look closer at the child's movements. \Vhile the child is exploring her rr-orld she generates an enormous r.arietv ol ntor,entents. There is reason to believe that these are not random variations. Robeltson, Coher-r arrd ]1ar-er-Kress (rg93) and Kelso (r995) describe processes br-rrhich a dr tlatnic s\-stelr creates variet,v that has either a stochastic or a chaotic strlLctllre. \-aliations that are not random have certain advantages for the der-eloptletlt olnerr patterns. First, they give the nervous s-vstem enorrloLls fleribilin ir"r hnding nert'com.binations that can be functionaily useful. Second, this carr be dorre rvith a greater chance that the variations rvill lead to r-rseful cornbir-ratiorrs. The centrai nelvous slrstem provides not onh'the necessary resources to select the most valuable new patterns, it also creates the combinations in an ordered lt'aY. This may be a lifelong qualitv of our brains, to create and test neltr vatiations of movement. A health-v brain rnay continuallv keep knocking us slightly oft balance in order to flnd a ner,v balance that is more useful to us. if r,r.e stand on a force plate, rtrhich is used in a movement laboratory to measure the forces involved in standing or moving on tire floor, r've discover that we are alr,vays i,,r,obbling around a little rvhen nre stand. Riccio (rggS) has r,r,ritten an itrteresting article concerning these movements. This instabilitl' is the source of development and creativitrrl in the ler-or, NKRAIS NIETHoD \,tre take actrantage ol this actir,'ilv of the brain in order to create and select ne\'v patterns of rlovement in everyr lesson that rve do' As part of her Ph.D. r,vork, Thelen (r9;9) describes more than forty rhythmical movements of the child that appear and again vanish in the course of development. We harre also obsen,ed many different movements of the child that can be described as either rocking, lvobbling, etc. In our filn-rs, this rhythmical activity is verl' characteristic during the flr:st months of the child's life. In these "unstable" rh-vthmicai movements' the child is exploring the flne .iariations of the kinetic and kinematic structure of the evolving movement pattern. The child evokes a small difference in her sensaliotr of the morrernent and utilizes the feedback of this variation to fine-tune the coordination of horv it r^,,ill be done in the future. The "maps of rolling" in the follor,r,ing figures give an svgJvjsllr of some of the obsen'ations lr'e made of tlie children as this actirdtY developed. Please keep in mind tJrat these rhythmical rrariations calfnot be shon'n in a diagratn, but the-v are an important and integrai part oithe der.eloping action. These mor.ements are general patterlls. There are inflnite varieties and interrelationships among these movernents rvithin this general or'rtline. Rather than make this articie any longer br'listing the,rrrr tressons that are similar or related to these movements, u'e inr-ite the reader to find at least t\,vo arr't iessons that invttlr.e each of these movenlents.

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1

\

/ 2

I

3

4

I

I 5

/ 6

W 7

8

(-) rp ,/ x--.fll.\

9JJ-5

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THE FELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL NO. 12

from side to side, at first without rolling to the side Iying position, usually by flexion and lateral flerion of the spine. (Overr. The chiid rolls

head

vier,r,,)

z. Using the flexion strategy, the child rolls to the side.(Or,erhead

rrielll

From the side, the child rvill try various movements to reach. look or balance i,vith her head lifted frclm the floor, sometimes returning to the back. She usually has trouble flnding her balance as she roils over the arm that is underneath the chest. Using the flexion of the spine, she lifts her head while looking at the floor. \Vhen she does this she cannot look at the space around her rvhile organizir-rg the balance of the head on the spine. Only in the last moments of turning, does she lift her head and ertend her spine to look and lies on the belly with her head lifted. Notice the lateral flexion during these movements. (Over-

3.

head vier'v) 4. From the back the child turns onto the side rvhile she extends the spine, usuallv looking s1 lgsching to the space above her head on the floor. One leg u'il1 often be used to push on the floor. Most children learn this after ther-l'rave been using the flexiou movements to roll for some time. This extensioll strategv for rolling often corresponds to the movements that are seen in number ro rvhile on the bel1v. Some children, hon er.er, prefer this rrar- of roliing frorn the beginning. Notice that this pattern of mor-ing allorvs the child to maintain visual contact with the space around her. (Or-erhead vieu') 5. At this point in her developrnent, the child can usuallv come to the side lying position using either strate€I'. She n ill spend considerable tiine exploring many differentiations of tr-rrning, moving the hips opposite io the head and arm. She can do this rvith various degrees of flexion or extension of the spine. These mor,'ements involve looking at the hand as it moves in space, or r,vatching the rvorld around her. (Overhead vierv) 6. The child begins to turn by extending the spine. However, in order to maintain her balance as she lifts her head over the arm under her, she nods her head fonvards, flexes her back, and looks again at the floor. As she balances her head rvith the pelvis and legs she can again Iift her head to look around, roliing onto the bellv. (Or,,erhead vien ) z. The child has norv discovered hor,r, she can tlraintain the extension of the back while lifting her head over the arm. She takes her head farther backrvards on the floor as she turns the pelvis as much as go degrees relative to the position of the head. Usiitg this movement the child is able to rnaintain her visual contact with the space around her at all times during the movement. In these drawings, \\'e see that she jooks at the floor for just an instant as she lifts the head. (Side viervJ B. Finally, she is able to maintain the upright position of the head while looking in the full g0o degree range of her rotational space. (Side viettr) 9. Beginning on lhe belly, the child spends several Inonths making a

wide variety of r.ery unstabie movelnents, learning to sense her balance. At first all of the movemer-rts of the head remain inside of the shoulders. If she takes her head outside of tire shoulders, she falis over onto her back and is surprised. (Side vielr,) 1o. Later, she learns to take her head outside of the support of the shoulders without falling. The head makes a large circuiar moventent in space as she extends and turns the spine to returll to the balanced position on the bell-v. Some of the "mobility cf the heaci" iessoirs from

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/

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/ 11

12

the first vear of the Amherst training include these movements. (Overhead view) u. If you look carefully, you will flnd that there is a difference between this movement and number ro. In this one the face sinks towards the floor as the head goes to the floor outside of the shoulder. The child has the option of taking the tace or the back of the head to the floor as if she lays the head on the floor outside of the shouider. In this movement she takes the face to the floor and continues to turn to roll to her back. Once the face is near the floor she may aiso flex her spine and hips, roliing onto the back as if going through numbers 3, z, r in the reverse order of our drawings. (Side view) rz. The further development of number ro is to lower the back of the head to the floor outside of the shoulder with the spine extended and turning until she rolls onto her back. She can now roll onto her back

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u,ithout losing her visual contact with the world. Compare this mo'u'ement with number 7. (Overhead view)

ROLLING, THE USE OF THE SPINE' AND FELDENKRAIS LESSONS A careful study of the movement dynamics of the spine during these rolling movements shows

Lls

some interesting things. The spine is not straight, tire

joints of the ir,rmbar, thoracic and cervical spine afford very different movements among the individual spinal segments, and the ribs and sternum constrain these movement possibilities el'en more. Hor'r' can we turn around the rotational a--ris of the spine rvith the most efficiency? In order to keep our perceptual contact rvith our r'r'orld, the multiple joints of the spine make some very complex movements to coordinate this a-rds. The prirnarlcharacteristic of these movements is that optimal rotation is afforded "l'hen the spine is ideally extended, and that the pure rotation of the e-ves and head relative to the horizon can only be achieved rvhen the spine bends to the side somewhat in its various segments during the turning movements. For a more detailed discussion of these movement dynamics see Gracovetsky (rsBB) and Kapandji (tggz). If vou are willing to get down on the floor to explore these developmentai movements you rvill discover that all of the variations of turning depicted in the figures are accompanied b-v lateral flexion of the spine. If you use the flexion strategy of rolling vou u'ill discover that you bend the spine sidewa-vs to make the side to rvhich t'ou are turning shorter while you roll' If you use the extension strategY )'ou rvill find that -vou are bending to make the other side, the side au,a)- from the direction to r,vhich vou are turning, shorter. You are exploring combinations of rotation, side bending and flexion or extension of the spine. All of these patterns of developmental movement can be found in the arln lessons from Amherst, San Francisco or Alexander Yanai. This makes the relationships behveen the developmental movements of the child and the eru lessons very interesting to study more carefully. In these lessons rve experience a real change in our sense of self. Our image of ourselves not only shifts regarding our sensation and the ease of our movements, \ve also experience a change in our sense of ourselves in the r,l'orld. This makes sense if we consider the possibility that these ner,v movement patterns reflect the clariflcation and refinement of our core sense of self' We also discover that the sense ofthe "rotational space" around us has changed too. (At this time you might rvant to try the experirnent thtrt we suggest in Appendix z.)

CONCLUSION \A,rhere does this lead us? Quite a ways actuallv, as long as we are

n'illing

to admit that our ideas for relating development to action and to the seifimage are speculative and need to be fllied out. We ha'u'e found a \\rav to relate the details of how children roll on the floor to a general developmental pattern. This pattern can be related to the development of a core sense of self which is the basis of our image of all of our actions in our rotational space. This space is not objective or constant. It is created by our actions, and grows as our actions become more effective and functional. Our rvorld grows as we create variety and instability in our actions, trusting that nre will find the self-organizational skills (remember Stern's sense of emergent self l) to sense the more useful patterns. Our task is to generate these r-aria2A

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tions in a safe situation to give our nervous system the chance to make r,r,,e do in the lessons of the

the necessary choices. This is exactly rvhat FELDENKRAIS METHOD.

Of course, the turning movements that rve have erplored in this article are not the only developmental movements that can be found in the lessons of the rnrorNKruc.rs METHoD. We have begun to sllggest a \va\. to \\reave a developmental threaci through the reroesrR{rs }.rErHoD. We have cast a r,vide net, catching some of the pieces of the puzzle, lear.ing others out. To bring all of the pieces into the picture is still a challenging task. \\re have the opportunity to speculate further and to explore the reiationship of the entire range of our life span derrelopment to the rrrorxraA.rs iessons that have touched our lives. A11 ol this points to placing the rpronNxn{rs rrErHoD in a conceptual context that is much larger than movement education, motor control or movement science. We need to describe the bod-v of work that Moshe Feldenkrais created as belonging to the fleld of human development. We can take adr,antage of the wide range of knowledge in such fields as developmental psvcholop', anthropology, movement science, and neuroscience, among others, rvhile keeping our concrete and very real methods of making thinking lead to netv ways of action.

APPENDIX

1

Bobath, B. and Bobath, K. (rgZZJ, Die Nlotorisclrc Ettttlickbutgbei Zerebralptnresert. Stuttgart, Thierne Verlag. Reed. E.S. and Bril, B. (1996), "The Primacv of Action in Deveiopment." In Latash, M.L., anci Turler', \LT. Detteri4, and lts Deuelopmerzl, Nlahr,r'ah, Nl., Larvrence Erlbaum. Cash, 1'.F,, and Pruzinskl,, T. (rggo), Netl York, Guiiford Press.

Bodl lmages: Deuelopntent, Deuiartce, and

Crutchfieid, C.A., and Barnes, M.R. (tgg3), Motor Control nnd llotor Leaning rrirlol?. .\tlanta, Stokesr.ille Publishing Co.

Cltang,e.

i.tt

Rehabili-

Danrasio, -\.R. (rgg+), Descartes' Error. Ner,vYork, Grosset/Putnam. Darnasio, A.R. (rSg;), quoted from "A Clear Consciousness, " p. 90 in Time Special Issue: The \en -\ge of Discoverv, 0rVintel rggT/r9gBJ, Amsterdam, Time-Warner. Fiorentir-ro, }.1.R. (rgBr), A Basis for Sensorintotor Deuelopntent-NorrnaL and Abnonnal. Springfi eld, Charles Thornas Fisclrer, S. (1986), Deuelopment and Structure of the Bodl'Image. Hillsdale, NJ, Larvrence Erlbaun'r.

Flammer, A. (rsg6), Ennuickhutgstheorien. Bern, Sr,vitzerland, Hand Huber Verlag. Flar.ell, J.H. (rg6il,

L-he

DeuelopmentaL Psycltologt of lean Piaget.Ptitlceton, Van Nostrand.

Flehmig, I. (1983), Nonnale Erfituicklung des Stittglings und ihre Abweicltungen. Stlrttgart, Thienie Verlag. Gesell, A. (tg3g,

An. AtLas o.f

Infant Behar.,lor.

Ner,v Harren, Yale

Universitr, Press.

Gracovetsh., S. G9BB], Tlte Spinal Englne. Neu, York, Springer Verlag. lohnson, \'1. (igBZ), The Body in

tlLe

Mind. Chicago, University of Chicago Press.

Kapandji, I.A. (rggz), FrtrtktionelleArntomiederGelenke.

Stuttgart, Enke\rerlag.

Kelso,l.A.S. (tgg1), Dyn.amic Patterns. Cambridge, N,Iass., MIT Press. Latash, M.L. and Tur-ve-v, M.T., eds. (rgg}), Dexterity and lts Deuelopnzerzf. Mahr,vah, Nl, Lar,wence Erlbaum. N{a}rier-,

M. (rSBS), Tlrc Psychol.ogical Birth of tlte Human Infant. Londort, Karnac Books.

N{cGran , f.'1.8. 0 S+Sl, The Neuromuscular Matu.ratiort of the Human Infant.

Ner,r,

york,

Hafner. Miller, P. (tgg3), Theories of Deuelopmental Psychology. NervYork, W.H. Freeman.

29

TlIE FELDENKRAIS IOURNAL NO.

1997

12

/1998

Pikler, E. (tsBB) , Laflt ntir Zeit.Minchen, Pflaum Verlag. Prigogine, I. (rg8o), quoted from p. xxviii in Kugler, P.N. and Turv-ev, \'1'T (1987) [nformation, Nattn'al Law, ond tlte Self-Assernblv of Rh-vtltrttic Nlouetnettt. Hillsdale, NJ' Lar'vrence Erlbaun-r.

Riccio, G. (rg93), "information in Movement \rariability About the Qualitative Dvnamics of Posture and Orientation," in Neu'ell K.N{.. ar-rd Corcos, D.M., eds., Variabilitt'crrtd llotor Control. Champaign, I1,., Human Kinetics Publishers. Robertson, Cohen and N'Ia]'er-Kress (rggs) , " Behavioral Chaos: Beyond the NIelaphor"' in Smith, L.B. and Thelen, E. eds., '{ D,t'rznnllc 5,1'slenl-s.{p 1:roach to Deuelopmettt: Applicarlon.s. Cambridge, Mass., 1'llT Press. Savelsbergh, G. J.P., Elsevier Science.

ec1s.

(tgg!,

Ttte Der.'elopnrcnt of

Coordinatiott in InJanq'' Arnsterdaln,

Schilder,P. (rgso), ThelmageandAppearartceof theHLtmanBod.y.Ner'vYork, International Universities Press. Schlack, H. G., Largo, R. H., Michaetis, R., Neuhduser, G., and Ohrt, B. (.tgg$, Praktische En tLoicklLtngsne tt r olo gie. Mtinchen, Marseille Verlag.

Smith, L.B. and Thelen, E. eds. (rgga), A Dynamic Systents Approach to Deueloptnertt: Applictttiorts. Cambridge, Mass. MIT Press. Saint-Anne Dargassies, S. GgSG), The NetLro-Motor and Psyclto-AfJbctiue Deuelopment of the Infant. Amsterdam, Elsevier Science Publishers. Stern, D. (rg}s), ThelnterpersonalWorld of the InfanI. NervYork, Basic Books'

Ihelen,E.andSmithL.B.(rss+), ADynarnicSt'stemsApproaclltotheDeuelopnetltof Cognition and Action. Cambridge, NIass. I{iT Press. Tour,r,en, B. (1975), Neurological Deueloptnent in Infancl'. Groningen,

Drukkerij Grasmeijet

andWijngaard. Vojta, V. (tgBB) , Die Zerebralen BeuegtLtt€:sstorlolgen int Sriuglingsalrer. Stuttgart. Enke \rerlag.

\Vinter,D.A.(1990), BiontechanicsandlvlotorControlofHumanMoltefitenLNer'r'York, John \\iile-v and Sons.

APPENDIX 2 If our rotational space is contingent on our movement organization we

\\'i11

discover that we can change either our sense of our movement or our sense of space to influence the other' in this expioration, ]rou will explore this

movement/ space reversibility. 1. Please stand up. Sense how you stand. Do you stand more on one leg than the other? Is one side shorter between the shoulder and hip than on the other side? Is the head closer to one shoulder than the other? Turn with the eyes closed using every part of yourself that is easy to involve in the turning movement. Is this easier to the left or to the right? If you carefully sense the movement you will discover that the movement to one side tends to in.".olve the eyes looking Inore dolvnwards whiie the movement to the other side lifts the e1,es whiie you turn. This involves a sliSht side bending to the same side no matter which direction you are Iooking with the rotational movements. You now kno-vv more about your habitual a-xis of your rotational space. Stand still with eyes ciosed and sense the space around )rou to both sides. You will probably discover that as you sense different heights relative to your body that you have different qualities of depth, size or clarity in your internal sensation of the space around you. You rnrill probabll' sense differences in the space betlveen the rigl-rt and left sides. Try the folloi,ving experiments: z. Lilt the lett hand to shoulder height, the arm straight and turn to the left, following the hand with the eyes and head. \\here does it go easily? Explore the movement while vou shift the weight alternatelv over the left

30

1

1997

/ 1998

T]IE FELDENI(RAIS IOURNAL NO. I2

leg, and the right leg. Nor,r, turn as far as is easy to the left while on the left leg and stay there with the arm and hand while vou return to the middle w-ith the head and eyes. Now keeping the left eye looking to the left hand, turn the head severai times right and left relatir.e to the lett arm. Rest. Return rvith head, eves, arm and hand to the left while standing on the left Ieg. Look down tol,rrards the left heel and up torvards the ceiling r,r,hile keeping the head and eyes turned to the left in space. Notice that to do this t'ou

must make a combination of a flerion and extension mo\.ement uith side bending of the spine. Rest. Return to the same positior-r to the left on the left Ieg. Shift the r,veight to the right leg and turn the left 1eg in ar-rd out turning flrst the leg around the ball of the foot on the floor, the heel moving, then the toes moving as vou turn the 1eg around the heel on the floor. Rest. Turn again to the left follorving the left harrd uith the left er.e, shifting the lr,eight to the left leg each time and imagine r.ourself getting longer over the left foot on the floor, the head moving uprvards tor'r,ards the ceiling as You turn. Sense the upper ribs in the chest on the left side as you turn to the left and let these ribs open up as you become longer and turn. Rest in the middle. 3. Repeat the explorations of turning and space from part one. Do you notice that not only is there a change in the quality and range of the turning movements to the left, but there is also a change in your sensation of space to your left? With a ne\v organization of the movements your sense of space has shifted. You may also sense that your standing has changed. 4. Now try the follor,ving. Instead of doing the same movements to the right, remain in the middle and imagine the space to the right of the middle line of vour body. Begin in the part of your space that is eas1, to imagine, and expiore a wav vou can imagine being able to flrst Iook r,vith your right eye into and then reach into the entire space to the right. Include also the space in front, up, down and even behind you, until the entire right half of the room can be easily looked at with the right eye and touched with the right hand in vour imagination. Do this slowly since it involves more changes than you might flrst imagine. As soon as this space is easily ar,ailable in your imagination, rest in the middle without testing with actual movements to the right. 5. Again, repeat the same explorations from part one. Is your sense of space around you more symmetrical? Are the movements right and left again more equai? Nol,l. sense yourself as -you stand in the middle. Have any differences that you sensed in your body after the flrst movements to the left, again changed? Has the imagination of exploring the space to your right also led to a change in how you sense vour \{av of standing or turning? 6. Now imagine being able to iook into any part of the left side of the space around you, inciuding up towards the ceiling, and all of the left parts of space behind you. After a rest repeat the same thing to the right again until you can imagine looking at or reaching into the entire space around you. Rest and sense your standing again. Notice if you have shifted your w-eight to another part of your feet and knees. \\4-rere is the pelvis over the hip joints, and how is the head related to the pelvis. Are you any longer? Was the change in howyou imagined the space to your right just as effective in evoking ner,r, sensations in your bod.v as the movements were to the left?

3l

THE FELDENKRAIS JOT]RNAI, NO.

1997

12

/r998

Doug Warner

@b

@k

%&$

%d&s

IEARNING TO WAtf,-A RETROTPECTIVE

Awaking dreamless, still, knorving I hear the flash of moon against the bal, soul, born of strange island waters, flnds its place among the tumbling stones in the stream of morning light.

IVIy

Tearing at the membrane, Solt filament of arvakening with folds and -,vrinkles, facing the mountain.

f T I

might somehow reconstruct the events leading to my nrr, unassisted sleps is at once ridiculor-rs and inspiring. It's also an idea that I'r,e found difficutt to ignore. It is, in away, an impossible

he idea that

1

goal. But after being exposed to the TEIoeNKRAIS METHoD for a few Years I've taken a new approach to impossible goals. I've found that the first step is "clare to visualize." The goal is reached or not reached but I have somehorv changed in the process. I learned to rvalk flfty-one years ago. 1945 was a year oftragedy and resolution. The pain and terror experienced during the closing davs of World War II rtas immense, yet somehow humanity has survived the fifty-one years. \\4rether we as a species have evolved a lasting strategy for sun"ival has yet to be determined, man1, probiems stiil exist' Yet I flnd significance in the simple fact that while humankind was at one of it's tragic crossroads, small optimistic struggles and the rvili to move forward in unfamiliar rvays also took place within me. \.\tren I imagine m-vself as a one-vear-old and try to unravel some melnories of my first steps, I hit a wall. it's a rt'all built from an engaged but still emerging nelvous system. For most of us, learning to rtralk takes place r'vhi1e the nervous system is still under physical development, a living rvork in progress. Somer,r,here in this living process is a hiding place for mernories' Finding this hiding place is a challenge similar to unlocking dream messages. In m-v work r,t ith dreams, a Sroup takes a single clream, reenters the drearn and explores it as a shared experience. In this process there are as many perspectives on the dream as there are people in the group. Dream

32

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 12

sequences overlap one another, dream events take place simultaneously; past present and future coalesce into a single point. These dreamwork experiences help me to piece together my memories of flfty-one years ago.

wW$ I r oxcr, a sense ofthe neu,. I'm drann fonr,ardfrom aprecarious ,[ \perch. It's a different nrorld from up here. I'm scared and thrilled rvith this higher feeling of fonr,rard. I've been mor,ing for a very long time norv, lifting m), e)'es and head, folloi,ving the sound, the r,r,armth, the taste. I'm curious about sounds and shapes, rolling closer to them satisfies mv curiositv for a while. This constant lbrce that holds me down; I must resist it and learn to accommodate it, learn to push against, yield. It's easier for me to play with this force r,r,hen I'm closer to the floor. Moving back and forth on my belly, back, hands, knees and middle has become fun, even easy. \\hy can't I just stay here? Yet, all that has come before has r,vhet my appetite for a leap of faith, hope and desperation. Impossiblel My feet are too small and too far away, two points on the ends of just tnro unstable legs. I rvill fall. I must faII as I have so many times before. But nowwhen I fall and I seem to catch myself, grabbing hold of an emerging piece r,vithin rne. I feel the rhvthm of the pressure on the bottom of my feet move up through my legs, pelvis, chest, arms, head. Nor,r, it's dor,vn from my eyes and head to my chest, pelvis, legs, feet. I'm out of control in a rhr,thmic way. I use this constant force holding me down to move me forn ard. The rvorst idea I've come up r,vith in a long time! Not my idea. I'd really rather lie dor,vn. \\ho's idea rvas it? It's a scary idea. The world's so different when seen and felt from up. Yet, I'm closer to the warmth and the stuff that fll1s me with strength, the stuff I put in my mouth, the sounds of loving giants. A thread of freedom in this chaos. The best idea I've come up with in a long timel No one has had a better idea. I thought it up all on m1, orvn. Yes, I r,r,.ili never be the same. I must tell people about the view from up here. I can see myself bouncing faster, springing off the ground, flying. But now, can I keep myself afloat for more than three steps? I was made for this. .. or am I being made for this? Are those my bones i feel moving and growing in response to my rnoving? \rVhat's that feeling in my back? Are my bones supposed to bend? It may take a while. There is just too much falling. Think I'll rest a while. Now, a moment in the midst of moments. No.u\,, dreaming this rvalking. That's it, I did dream this nalking; I remember now. As if I walked into a field of r,valking. As if walking rvas there r,t aiting for me, waiting a ven/ long time for me to try it on. Nor,rr I experience possibilities that were always there but not yet ripe untii today. A major thrill and berviiderment I've stumbled into. I can get somewhere now. Pulled closer to me.

33

THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO.

rgg7,'r998

12

Ken Chase

The FeLdenkraLs Method,

ffiM,

and llealtngthe l{eart

y work in the treatment of heart disease using innovative

34

approaches to mind/bodv education began in rgBo. At that time, I was invited by Dr. Denis Maddox, a cardiologist at Peralta Hospitat in Oakland, Calilornia to Iecture and demonstrate T'ai Chi and arn to groups of his patients. I irad been teaching T'ai Chi since rg69 and my pre'u,ious experience with the FELDENKRAIS N{ETHoD consisted of a r,r,eeklong workshop rvith Moshe, a series of seminars with NIia Segal, and a serious ongoing personal practice of ernl lessons. Later, I completed a FELDEh-KRAIs professional training, graduating in rg96 from the San Francisco II program led by Paul Rubin and Julie Casson. Dr. Maddox and I collaborated in creating a stress management component for a nern". modalitv of treatment of heart disease. In those days, exercise of any kind r,vas barelv acknowledged bv physicians as beneflcial for health. There certainiv rvere no programs integrating eastern martial arts and western mind/bodv methods. Ours became the flrst attempt to do such a thing. We operated the program at Mills College campus in Oakland for another year, until Dr. Maddox moved into prirrate practice in Napa, Ca. In 19Bo-81, rve established the flrst cardiac rehabilitation program at Queen of the Valley Hospital, also operating a satellite program at nearby Sonoma Vailey Hospital. As our program population grerv, it became necessary to adclress the emotional components of heart disease. Maddox remarked, "behind every patient's personai story is a broken heart, some sad tale which seems to contribute to disease." We attempted to incorporate support groups and psycho-educational lectures, encouraging patients to share their feelings about their situations. At first, this was difficult for manv people, but over the months of exposure to this format, it proved extremelv beneflcial. This group support component evolved as we brought in psychiatrists, health educators, and biofeedback speciaiists. Those early days of getting to know our heart patients, listening to their experiences, and sharing our orvn feelings with them, were immensely rewarding. One of our patients, Maria, confided in me, "I'm not sure I could continue to raise mv three children alone if I didn't have group to come to." Our programs seemed to function like a safety net, helping heart patients to reconstruct their lives after such serious iilness. Research over the past 20 years has confirmed that by eating a lort'fat diet, exercising regularly, and managing stress, one can reduce, and in some instances, even reverse heart disease. In tggo, Dean Ornish conducted a randomized, controlled trial to deterrnine r,rrhether comprehensive life-

r997 / 1998

TI]E f EI-DENKRAIS JOURNAL NO.

12

stvle changes aft'ect coronary atherosclerosis. Tr,venty-eight patients were assigned to an erperirnental group; twenty to a normal care group. The experimental group ate a lorv fat vegetarian diet, took stress management training, and pertbrmed moderate exercise. The control group did the usual cardiac care. "195 coronarl. iesions rvere analyzed bv angiographv. The a.u,erage percentage diameter stenosis regressed fiom 4o.o to 37.8 in the experimental group; \ret progressed frorn 42.7 to 46.r in the usual care group. When on1r. of 5o% stenosed lesions r,r,ere analyzed, the ar.erage percent diameter stenosis regressed 6r.r to 55.8 in the erperimentai group; and progressed from 6r.7 to 64.4 in the controi group. Or,erall, Bz% of the experirnental group patients had an average change tonards regression." In rgg,1, r,r,hile teaching at Cardiologv Associates ol NIarin and San Francisco, I became certified to teach artr classes. I graduated from the San Francisco II training of Paul Rubin and Julie Casson in rgg6. \,Iark Wexman, rvro, Vicki Chase, nN and I created the rer,r (Total Ateriosclerosis Management) Program. The rar,r Proplram is an aggressive risk factor reduction program for coronarv artery di5sase. It is an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of heart disease, utilizing physicians, nurses, dietitians, mentai health professionais and me as the stress management consultarlt. We reasoned that rvith a unique blend of scientif,c applications, ancient Chinese phiiosophv, and aw'enrNESS THRouGH \{o\/E\{ENT, r,r,e could offer the best possible program to our patients. The rer,r Program is offered on an B-rveek ct c1e. It starts rvith a rveekend intensive r,vorkshop, follorved by rti birveekhr sessiolls. Participants have medical, psr''chological, nutritional and lifestvle assessments before, during and at the conclusionof the program. Ali clinical data is tracked and maintained. Annual foliow,-up is aiso inciuded. Groups of 10-12 participants arri.,.e and perform moderate exercise, move into nutritional iectures, learning hor,r, to choose and prepare foods appropriately, rvhile enjol-ing gourmet lorv-fat meals. Next the group comes into the exercise roorn u,here they Iearn T'ai Chi, enr lessons and a ro-minute meditation. fhe session ends with group process, rvhich is a sr-ipport group lor siraring feelings ancl strategies on ho-"v to cope r,r,ith coronary disease. f'he rar,r Team, as we are called, has trained over 15o patients tirus f'ar, and r,r,e are currently training our r8th group. We have evolved over these past iive years, as \\re continltously refine and revier,'", methods for improving ollr presentations.

WHY FELDENKRAIS INSTEAD OF YOGA? It has been my observation, from 2o 1,'sa1s of r,vorking rvith heart patients, that r,r,hat thev most willinglir accept is gentle, relaxed, and competent teaching. They definiteiy do not need competitive, forceful, or pushing approaches to iearning. I have seen manv of the Yoga classes oft'ered to heart programs, and harre noticed the struggie to be like the teacher, to do the asanas as well as he or she does. This does not occur in either T'ai Chi class or erii,r lessons. Given any aru, accomplishn.rent ol a ntol.ement is not the critical factor. Rather it is the entire process of moving; a\\rareness of how we learn is the unique thing. The various n'rind/bodv states of opening, allorving, creating spaces in us are vah.red. It is irrelevant that one can touch the chin to the knee or sit in difficuit postures. \,Vhat is reier.ant is every gradation, even' sensation of moving. \\rl-rat is it that springs forth in awareness, as rve move a particular r,vay? \Vhat emerges from musctrlaritv to conscious attentionl2 These are the small treasures in our r,r.ork. As a result of this context, Iearning is non-compelitive, eas1, and elegant. In the rAN,r program w,e take time to share individual experiences of movement, rvhich provide valuable transitions into the group sharing sessions.

35

rg97 / 1998

NO. 12

THE FELDENKRAIS

'OIIRNAI,

Very often, postoperative patients are unable to lie on the floor, or even move their arms anci shoulders. 'I'he pain in the sternum and fear of anY recurrence of a cardiac event nearlv paralyzes the upper bodv. Horv tl-ren to proceed rvith their rehabilitation and healing? Perhaps it is here that rrrt helps most. A specific case in progress ma-v help to elucidate. Vince joined the rau program in September rg94. He rvas nearly gray of color; his movement was rigid and awkward, especially in the chest and thoracic spine His or,vn r,r,ords were, " I can barelY move, I maY not iast for the r'r'hole program, but I'll give it a trv." That particular night I had planned a lesson in side iving (taking the arm back). I asked Vince to sit in a chair, observe tire lesson, and imagine himself on the floor. If possible he r,n'as to try and raise his arrns straight out in front of his torso, on a 9o-degree angle to the chest' From this position extend one arm straight out and back a ferv times' He was to rest and then try the other side. Essentially, he',vas to do our lesson sitting in a chair, creating and modif ing it to his condition After r'r'idenir-rg the space betr,veen his lett and right arm, and differentiating the head movement from the arm movements, he felt softer, lighter. He reported Iess pain in rvalking and turning, and there canle sense of relief in his chest' Even a partial approximation to tl.re ArNI seenls to have improved Vince's moving and breathing. Instead of months of slorn"', painful recor''erl', Vince \vas on the floor with the class in 3 rr,'eeks. This all happened z rveeks atier open-heart surgery. He is nor,r'one of our Inost successful graduates, partic-

ipating full1, in our ongoing maintenance program. This scenario has occurred manl' times, each person bringing his or her own unique muscular organization to the lessons. N'{y choice of err't lessons r,vill of course vary r,r.ith each ner,r'group. Since cardiac patients are a special population, I most often use basic ler,'el lessons: taking the arm back, pelvic clock, back lying with differentiation of head and neck from hip and knees' Our aim is to improrre the ftrnctioning of the back, chest and pelvis, as manv patients complain of pain in these areas. The rau Program also offers an ongoing graduate program, lvhere t'r'e introduce the more challenging and subtle ArM lessons' This part of our program is the most exciting to rne as a FELDENKRATs teacher. I am often put in a situation r,vhere i have to shorten a lesson due to an emergencv or some unforeseen time crunch. For example, in the middle of an,q'rr'l a patient may feel chest pain, and need to stop to take n.redication. Needless to saY, this interrupts the flor'r,r of tl-re lesson' As a result, I must choose the essential aspects of an am't, trving to blend them r'r'ith a nerv ending or completiot.t' At flrst I found this to be annoying, and felt mvself being rushed. Later, I realized that tiris abilitl, to be fleribie and work rvithin our clinical context has produced some interesting results. I find m-vself involved rt'ith sttrplising, innovative variations on ArN'I lessons. The students and i explore r'r'hat seems to me like new horizons. It's almost as if sma11, simple, "a priori motion" springs forth from unkno-,t n parts of the body, teaching us about our structure, our breathing, and our bones.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Huang,Wen-Shan. FtmdantentcLLsof T'rti.ChiCh'uan. Seattle,Washington: SoutirSkv Book Co, 1979. N'litchell, Stephen. Too

1'e

Clting. Ner,r'York, I{arpers and Rolr' Publishers, r988'

Ornish, Dean, et al. Lil'est-vle Trials for Coronary Arterv Disease Regressiotl Lancet: Vol' 336, p9.129. 199o.

36

1997./1998

THE ITELDEN-KRAIS IOUIINAI- NO. 12

Steven Shafarman

ON LANGUAGE AND FUNCTIONAL THINKING Philosophy is

a

battle against the be-,r-itchment of our intelligence

b-v

means of language. r.uD\vlG

lrrittcsxsrrrN

It]

The farliiiar'-,r,ords Iuil us often into complacency and in such cases

hinder constructive thinking. Nrosi.iE FELDENxners lz]

In the second summer of the Amherst training, I r,vas Moshe's appointments secretar\r and rvatched him do FUNCTToNAL TNTEGR\TroN. \\trat interested me most \,vas not the position of his hands but the content and qualitv ol his au-areness: I wanted to knolr,, rvhat and how he was thinking. \,,\l-ren I tried to ask about that, ho-"vever, he would not answer. So I began in m1, imagination to question or quarrel rvith Moshe. For many years, he r,r,on most of those quarrels. For mv iearning, that lengthy, rather frustrating process n as essential. It nras hor,r, I r,t orked out the ideas for my book, Aware ness Heals : Tlrc Feldet*rais Methodfor Dynamic Health. [Al As I \Aras completing the flrst draft in the summer of rg93, I experienced a delightful shift: in my inner dialogue with Moshe, the quarreling had ceased and he was generally pleased with my insights and ways of communicating. Many of the ideas I discuss in this paper are in Atuareness Heals, bllt onlv implicitly, since I did not then knorv horv to state them clearll, and concisely. \\hether or not these ideas are truly consistent with Moshe's thinking is for others to judge. That is less important to me than the fact that they seem useful, interesting, even elegant. ON LANGUAGE Moshe was extremely concerned with language. People who listened attentively, either in person or to tapes, know that he chose words carefullv. He sometimes paused in the middle of a sentence to comrnent on how difficult it rvas to speak in a truly functional r,r,av. Most talking is quite habitual in both manner and content. As such, it often reinforces existing attitudes and behaviors. This can occur even'"vith

r I have not found an exact reference for this quote. z N,loshe Feldenkrais, The Case of Nora, (Berkele-v, CA: Frog, Ltd, 1993) p. 91. 3 Steven Shafarman,

Atuareness HecLls: The F'eldenlcrnis Method HeaLth, (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesler,', r997).

for D),nmnic

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relatively casual comments or questions, such as "how are you?" To someone who chronically experiences pain, this question often evokes selfassessing with regard to the pain, its presence or absence at the moment. \.{4ren looking for pain, people often flnd or create it. Aware of how talking can interfere with learning, Moshe sought to prevent his students from undermining ourselves and our students. In Tel Aviv, when he flrst trained practitioners, Moshe insisted that they do functional integration silently; some observed that constraint for years. [+] Practitioners trained in San Francisco recall how, when visitors came for lessons during the practicum, Moshe interviewed each one, thereby demonstrating appropriate communication. Graduates of more recent trainings often do not know this history. Silence during and after functional integration is always an option and may often be best. To be truly effective, however, I believe we need to become skitlful communicators verbally as well as non-verbally. And we might further enhance our skills by helping our students become more aware of how they communicate. Moshe demonstrated this quite nicely in a rgBr lesson with Hazel Biddle. At the start of the lesson, he asked me for the letter she had written requesting an appointment. Then he discussed the letter with her and commented on her assumptions and uncritical acceptance of medical judgments regarding her balance and the "nelve impulses" in her legs. After leading her to reexamine her language and then to sense her feet and legs in nonhabitual ways, he concluded the lesson by dancing with her.

DECONSTRUCTING DIAGNOSES In everl,da.v cliscourse, people often say "1 have back pain" or "she has a rnigraine headache." The structural similarity betr,l'een these staternents and "I have the book" or "he has a neu, car" sug€Jests that pains or problems are things of some kind. Books and cars are concrete and distinct, horvever, and can easily be set aside or ieft behind, unlike back pain or rnigraine headaches. Thus, these two uses of 'har.'e' are quite different. Alternatively, people describe diseases as traits or characteristics, "he is dysieric, arthritic, nellrotic, etc." Yet the verb 'is' suggests something fixed and reiativeiy unchangeable. This is rvh-v manl'students of General Sernantics, an approach to language theory and plactice, recommend avoiding or eliminating an,vform of 'to be'.fsl Pains ancl problems ah,va1's involrte some doing, albeit mostly una\'\rare ancl unintentionai, as distinct from having or being. To escape complacencv or bervitchment, I usually say tirat one is 'erperiencing' back pain or other probiems. This iielps rne be arvare olpossibilities for changing and iearning, fbr both m,vself and mv students. A common problem rvith diagnostic labeis, lr'hich N{oshe discussed in 'fhis Amherst, is that people often identify u'ith them and act accordingly' can occLrr legardless of rv}.ro assigns the label, including oneseli and it is especiailv likelv rvitir diagnoses given bv doctors or other authority figures, or spouses or parents. Furthermore, doctors and therapists are mostlY trainecl to base their treatments on the diagrlosis, and in doing so they ma.v 4 RuthyAlon, personal communication. is S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Acrloiz, (New York: Harcourt Brace, r99o) . This was flrst published in rg39 and Moshe strongly recommended it.

s An excellent introduction to general semantics

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THE FELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL ]JO. I2

overlook a patient's unique characteristics. Nloshe referred to tiris as a "medical attitude" and noted that it affects almost everyone in our culture, inciuding FElDENKRATs practitioners. l6l One w,ay I encourage awareness of the probiems with diagnoses is to Iabel the label. Thus, I often say that some particular person was "diagnosed with" arthritis, dyslexia, migraine headaches, etc. EMPO1VERING LANGUAGE Notice the differences betrveen' act' and' action',' move' and' m ovement', 'relate' and 'relationship', and 'orient' and 'orientation'. In each case, the latter term transforms the verb into a noun through r,r.irat linguists call relf cationor norninalizntion. The nominaiized for-m convevs an appearance of concrete realitr., an illusion of substance and solidiry, lvhich obscures the fact that verbs indicate process and inrrolr,e change. NIoshe talked aboul these linguistic distinctions, although he did not consistentlv applv that knolrdedge. Simiiar concerns u,ere expressed bv some of the leading thinkers of the zoth centltry, includir-rg Ludr,rrig \Vittgenstein, Gregorr,Bateson, Nfred Korzl,bski, and Nfred North Whitehead, r,r,ho described this as "tl1e fallacv of misplaced concreteness. " I find it uselul to denomininalize and use verbs r,r,herever possible and appropriate. Thus, instead of talking about orientation, I speak of helping people orient more skillfr-i11r,. To anr.one rvho rnight be concerned abor-rt iris or her relationships, I adr.ise learning to relate in u,avs tirat are more satisf,,,ing. Similarlv, compare " l teach movement" u,itir " I teach people to move more comfortabh::" the first statement presents mo\rement aS Content, iike calculus or a foreign language, u,hile the second clearly refers to process. An indicator of this emphasis on process is that in each of these three pairs of statements, the latter includes the u,ord 'more'. tsuckminster Fuller rvrote, "1 seem to be a verb." i;l As r,erbs, i,r.e live in the present. \\4ren unarvare ofverb tense, however, sorrre people speak in r,rrar.s that embed themselves or others in the past or othenr,ise limit one's potential. For exan-rple, in some flyers or articles arbout rer.oeNKn{rs lessons, I have seen the benefits ciescribed as "erpanded ar,r,areness" or "enhanced abilities." Sornething can be erpanded or enhanced but still remain static or fired. In contrast, 'expanding' or'enhancing' clearlv indicate that further progress is possible. To speak of 'expanding' instead of "expanded', of 'orienting' not 'orientation', of 'acting' rather than 'actions', ma-v seein to be just urord games. Playing can be both fun and enlightening, ho\,\.ever, and I recomrnend it irighl_v.

SENSING AND FEELING Moshe sometimes spoke about four neuroiogical ftrrrctions or "four components that are involved in any action: rnovelnent, sensation, feeling, and thought. " LBl This order suggests a seqlrence fiom rnovement, which is relativelv r.isible and accessible, to thought, rvhich is extremely subtle. To me,

6 This and other unattributed quotes from Moshe are from my notes from the Amherst training. 7

R.

Buckminster Ftrller, I Seem To Be a Verb. (New York: Bantam Books, rgZo)

B Moshe Feldenkrais,

A wareness

.

Through Mouement (New York: Harper Collins,

rgTz) p. ro.

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this seemingly simple statement-r,vhich can be denomonalized to moling' sensing, feeling, and thinking-provides some fundamental insights into Moshe's thinking: FELDENKRAIS lessons help people learn to move more comfbrtably ancl effectively; in doing so, lessons simultaneouslv enhance sensing, feeling, and thinking; and this learning invoh,'es successiveh'refining one's awareness and skill. This phrase also differentiates sensing from feeling, thereby making a distinction that is missing from most discourse. People typicallv use "feeling' in a."vay that confbunds sensonr, emotional, and psychological experiellce. \Vhile rvritingALuoreness Heals,l tried to be consistent and to use 'feeiing' only and alr,r,ays when referring to emotional experience. Here is an erample of horv I differentiate these terms: " Sense horv you contact the floor. Also sense-your breathing at this moment. Be ar'r'are of how you pe1, r'r,'hether irappy, bored, annol'ed, curious, or whatever"'At times, hot'r'et'er' i still tell people to /eel their breathing, the chair, or the floor. Quite honestly, I do not know how important it is to be too precise about this.

AVOIDING JUDGMENTS A feur years ago, I learred a r,aluabie lesson about language and functional thinking from ml, friend Neil N{arcus. Moshe worked rvith Neil throughout the sunmer of rgBt, and man-Y FELDENKRA.IS practitioners have seen those lessons on r.,ideo. Anvone rvho rt'as inAmherst might remember Neil's spastic-dramatic ways of moving, especiallv i,vhen he was out of his motorized wheelchair. Neil had a rather normal, health--v childhood until the age of seven, r'r,'hen he began to erperience trouble rvith balance and coordination. That progressed and he rvas diagnosed with dystonia mtrscularum deformans trernendurn,r,vhich is described in textbooks on neurology as a rarer degenerative disorder of the cerebellum, with unknotvn cause. After Amherst, I had no fttrther contact r,vitl-r Neil untitr r9BB. One da-v, i,r.hile reading the Sanla Barbara Independent, I learned that he had r'r'ritten and was starring in an autobiographicai play, Storm Reading.lgl I \'vent to the opening and spoke rvith him aftenvards. Over the next fer'v Years, he sometimes stayed rvith me rvhen he r,r'as visiting from Berkeley. During one of Neil's visits, I shoi,ved him a draft flYer for mY A\'\TARENESS rHRorrGH NrovEN{ENr classes. In it, after stating that the lessotls could help people recover from chronic back pain or migraine headaches, I had r'r'ritten "FELDENKnqrs lessons can also help people r,l'ho suffer from neurological disorders such as cerebral pals-v and rnuitiple sclerosis." He looked at me, pointed at that sentence, and said, "sr-rffer?" Illumined bv his erperience, my casual r,r'ord choice seemed rather arrogant and presumptuous. Perhaps I r,r,as and am more disabled by ignorance than Neii is bv dystonia. Moshe remarked on occasion that rve are all "average abnormals." Some rights activists describe the majority population as " temporaril.v able-bodied" or "TABs. "

RECOGNIZING CAUSE -AND. EFFECT In medicine, psychology, politics, and other areas of everyda-v life, causeand-effect models are extremelv common. Conventiotral science demands

g Stortn RendingtoruedinternationallY, u'as featured on CBS nenrs and an NBC special, and has beer-r hlmed botl'r in production and as a documentary about the production. 40

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TI.IE FELDENKRAIS IOURNAL NO. 12

them and depends upon them. Yet Nloshe regr-riarly challenged statements r,r,hich assumed cause- and-effect. Life is complex, multidimensiona[, continually-changing. Cause-andeffect models impose artificial boundaries on both time and space, and assume linear and reiatir,eh,fixed relationships betr,r.een the specified elements. Typicail_v, once a cause-and-effect relationship is defined, people believe it to be absolute or immutable. Sucl-r beliefs or assumptions ignore individual differences and capacities to char-rge. Instead of attributing hunran behar-ior to specific causes, u.hether past or present, genetic or enr,ironmental, it is trseful to en-rphasize tile fact that each individual activeh. and uniquely makes sense of the u,orld. One of the r,r,avs I do this is bv being extremeh, carelr-rl rl ith n,ords that suggest catisalifi-. These include 'because', 'therefore', 'consequentl),', 'd,-re to', 'as a result of '. Cause-and-eft'ect models can be especiallv problernatic, it seems to me, r,r,hen they inrroirre attribllting causality to some psychological factor such as f'ear, 1ow self-esteem, or a conflict with one's mother. These are all labels

for complex behaviors that alrvavs involve learning, movement, and unacknon4edged choices.

CREATING CONDITIONS FOR LEARNING This phrase, which Moshe used often and I repeat regularly, expresses r,vhat seem to be basic truths about leaming: E[ it requires doing something for the first time, and is consequently somer,vhat unpredictable. d It is an active process, best initiated b-v the individual.lrol

i[

It involves some change in one's seif-image and functioning. E[ It occurs in r,r,ays that are organic and more fundamenta] than anv conscious purpose or content. Creating conditions for learning is distinct from teaching or training, rvhich focus on some specific goal, content, or result. \\tith teaching or training, Iearning can certainly occur and often does, but such situations tend to obscure, overiook, or minimize the individual learner's unique needs, traits, concerns, or differenc.-s. The idea of creating conditions for learning makes the learner's experience primarl. Teaching or training impiies some knort n content or predetermined result. Learning can certainit. occur in such situations, and it otten does, but the fbcus is tvpically on the content or result, not on the individual doing the learning. FELDENKF-ars lessons rigorously emphasize learning. Practitioners consequentlv experience constant challenges: creating conditions for learning requires awareness and trust in oneself, one's student, and the learning process. \\4ren I reflect on times that I teach or taik too much, it is generallv n hen I am not truiy trusting. The best and most effective lessons, in my experience, are somewhat minimalistic: thev provide only those cues that enable the individual to learn as if bv himseif or herself. \\4ren this

ro Jolirr Holt, irr Learrirtg;\ll the Tinte (Reading, \,fA: Addison-\\resle_y, 1989), rote: "Ninetv-nine percent of tl-re tirle, teaching that has not been asked for u{ll not result in learning , but udll irnpede learning." (p. 128) Holt presents a r,r

number of ftlorur