The Feldenkrais Journal #18 Parenting

Marg Bartosek: Holding the Hope; Deborah J. Bowes: Awareness through Movement and love; Claude-Marie Caron: Head Turning

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The Feldenkrais Journal #18 Parenting

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THE FELDENKRAIS IOURNAL

p erenting

'I'he r"eldenkrais

Jounmlis published annually

b1,

The Fr:tonnxnrrs GurT.D@

of North America fbr its members. Inquiries regarding this publication should be directed to: The FsLorNrnars Gurr.o, 3iirr SW Hood Avenue, Suite roo, Portland, OR gzzsg.

If you have an article, poern, drawing, or lctter to the editor to submit rc the Journal, please send them directly to the editor. Send one copv to Elizabeth Beringer, Editor, Feldenkrais Journal, B3o Bancroft Avenue, Berkeley, CA g+zro, and a second copyto ElaineYoder, att. Iournal, +zz Clifton St., Oakland CA 9+618. The editorial committee is happy to comment on first drafts or r,vorks in progress. The deadline for sr-rbmission is June r, zoo5. The next issue is Ar,r,rareness. For more information about format, Iength, computer compatibilit-\,i etc., please contact Elaine Yoder at [email protected]. Additior.ral copies of the /o urnal are available through thc Guild oflice for s6 to Guild members and $ro to non-members (includes postage and

hanclling). Bulk rate fees ale available on request. Subscriptions to The Feklenkrais Journal are norv availabie. These ale designed for people rvho are not currentlv receiving the Journalthrough their Guild. A three-issue subscription is $25 for North,,\merican residents and $35 for overseas subsclibels. A five-issue subscription is $4o and $5o, respectively. Please send 1,our pa_vment in 1I.S. dollars directl_v to the Guild office.

follorving marks are associated rvith the fnropNrners Nltrnoo of somatic education: FET.DENKRATs@, FELDENKRATs METHoDo, FUNCTIoN-AL INTEGRATToN@ and .crveRrN ESS THRotJGH MovElllN1 @ are registered servicemarks; cr;rro CERTTFTED FELDEN(RArs pRACTloNER"" is a certification mark; and rerorNxners"' and TnE FELDENKRAIS IoURNAL'"' are trademarks of the

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OCopl.right 2oo5 the FrLoeNxn,A.rs Gurr-o or NorthAmerica. rights revert to tire authors and artists upon publication.

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The text face for The Feldenkrais Journal is Utopia, an Adobe Original family designed by Robert Slimbach. It was formatted in Quark Express on a Macintosh. The final fllm a the printing nere (as ah,vays) rvell done by Bacchus Press in EmerF.illg, Califolnia. t-vpe

The Feldenkrais Iournal number

Thble of Contents

2

Letter from the Editor

5

Dedication

6

For

11

Awareness Through Movement and

15

Tying Buckle

22

MyFather's

23

Filling in the Blanks Chava Shelhav

39

HoldingtheHope MargBartosek

45

Bare-Assed in

47

WatchingfortheChanges NancyGaleota-Wozny

53

Parenting

6S

Head Turning

Esther

a

Roger Russell

Shoes

Body

Deborah I. Bowes

Liz Dickinson

ClitrSmyth

Berkeley Karen Goldman

Parent

6S GivingBirth

Love

Iean Elvin

Preference Claude-Marie Caron MiriamLevenson

6g

PreciousMoments DeborahEdwards-Steinmann

70

BookReview CarlGinsburg

76

Contributors

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TTIF, IIELDENKRAlS JOIIITNAI, NO. IB

SPRING 2OO5

Letter from the Editor

Dear Colleagues, This Journal is dedicated to the memory of the great developmental psychologist Esther Thelen r,vho died in December. Esther was an extraordinarT scirolar as well as a motivated Feldenkrais practitioner. I was fortunate to have the opportunitl, to sper-rd time rvith Esther or,'er tire last fer'v years and experience her graciottsness, insight and generosity first hand. Her passing is a great ioss for those of tts r,r,ho kne'"v her and for the community as a n hoie. Coincidentally the theme of this issue is Parenting, an appropriate theue for an issue dedicated to Esther as her ll ork has contributed greatly to our understanding of the child's developmental journey. I'rn grateful to Rodger Russell for his last-minute memorial cor.rtribtrtion to this issue. \.Vhen."ve send out the call fbr papers on a Llarticular theme \Me never knor,r,rvhat w'ill come onto our desks out of the electlonic ethers. The shape of each issue emerges from the back and forth betrtreen the board and the authors. Some are invited articles reflecting the editor's rrision, and most are from tire private inspirations of the indir-icltlals \\rho choose to r,r'rite and take the risk to share their thoughts. The shape of this issue r,vas a particular surprise. I had expected and inrited a nttmber ol particular themes and articies, none of which came to fruitiort. i had also expected an issue mainly r,rrritten from a professional voice, artd linallv r,r'hat rtre have is a majorit_v of pieces written r,r,ith the personal voice of practitioner parents often intenvoven r,vith their related prolessional experiences. This has resulted in an issue i,r,,ith a different type ol rh1'thm than r-rsual, i,vith the special intimaclr that comes from personal stories. I am particularly pleased to have a delightful slory rvritten bv Liz Dickinson abortt N'Iosl-re r,r,orking with her daughter in tg75 during the San Francisco training. It is al'"rrziys a pleasure to have Moshe make an appearance in tl-rese pages. An important thread that runs througl-r rnany of the articles is the transfortnative quality of mindftrlness: simply observing oneself and the situation rvithout having to make something happen in that ntoment. Karen Goldman's article is a nice example of this, as are many others. \\re are also ven' pleased to have an important article by Chava Shelhav about the rn",ork she has developed supporting derrelopment in healthy children. Overall it is a rich t-nir of perspectives on the therne of Parenting. Part of the impetus fbr choosing this theme r,r,as the birth of rny daughter and my plunge into the rvorld of parents and young children. The flrst fer'v years of mv daughter's life have felt like a natural erpressiotl of n'ho I am and r,r,hat I deeply understand from our lr,ork. (Ol course there are plentv of areas of challenge lvithin that, especiallY ttou, that she is o1der.) \\hat seems "natural" to me is anvthing but that to others. I har-e been in-rpressed by some of r,r,hat I've seen and the oftentirnes strange ideas surrounciing development. This is part of r,vhat I wanted to explore in this issr-re, but {inally Chava Shelhav's article is the onlv one that addresses these issues directly, although they are implicit in other articles as rt'e11. When it comes to motor developrnent, parenting books mainl),'otltline the de.u'clopmental milestones, but there is 1,gr/ little discr-rssion about hou'to sr,rpport this early learning. Too manv parents fall into the trap ol thinking the-Y have to teach the child, as opposed to sttpporting their process or creating a stirlulating leaming environment. Thus they put them in au,alker to help them learn to -walk, or bouncers to strengthen their legs, and rnore.

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'1HE FELDENl(RArS IOUR-\Ar. NO.

SPRING 20O5

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After the birth of mv daughter I attended a postnatal yoga class. It w,as ir-r plump women and babies from newborn to one year, all squirming, nursing, and eventually cran ling around, rnainly on top of their moms. All this occurred r,r,triie the moms tried to do yoga. Generally, great fr-rn. In one of the last ciasses I took, next to rrle was a maybe seven-monthold boy, clutching his stroller and standing up the entire class. His legs bowed, his back stiffened, his pelvis and back merged into one unmovable piece, eventuallv he began to shake. I r,vas determined just to be another mom and mind my own business, but could you? So I began to talk rvith his mom. "Looks like he's getting pretty tired standing up, maybe he needs to be on the floor now." "No," she said, "He'il just cry. He always cries if I lay him down." (He was already qr-rite unhappy so I didn't really see that point.) "Can he pull himself up?" I asked. "No, not yet." "So if you put hirn down, then he'll stay dor,vn, rightlz" "Doesn't -vour daughter prefer standing?" She arts-ur,ered, "Doesn't she cry if you take her from standing and put her on the floor?" "I wouldn't really knor,r,," I ans',vered. "I never stand her up, and so she is rarely standing. I wait until she does it herself. Then she can go up and dor,vn as she pleases. I'm sure if vou let him cry for a bit on the floor Ite'11 get interested in something else." The mother stared at me, trying it seemed to grasp what I n as saying. Clearlv rny child had been happily crar,viing all over me lvhile hers had been fussing ar-rd unhappy the r,rrhole class. "Well" she finaily said, "hon do -vou expect her to iearn to rvalk then. " She stuck her norv sobbing child in the stroller and left. End of conversation. I began to pack up to leave. My daughter had crawled over to r,r,.here there -"^",as a young wornan observing a happv baby lying on her belly. The a large room ftrll of

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18

lovely arch, playing airplane, lifting her arms, legs, and head simultaneouslyfrom the floor in one spectacular motion. Unfortunately the mom had another idea and she began intently pushing on the bottoms of the child's feet. It turned out that she had the idea that she needed to teach her child to crawl, which of course had nothing to do with the baby's intention at that moment. The child felt interfered with and was soon crying too. Are we having fun here? She was actually pretty relieved when I cooed over howwell the child was doing the "airplane" and did she knowwhat an important developmental step thatwas? She clearly did not and was happy in fact to think that her child was on track, working on crawling in her own way. Both these mothers want the best for their babies and are going about that with the information they have. They both seem to be working from the idea that you have to teach/push the child to develop, not to mention that they are certainly missing basic information about the healthy progression of motor development that they imagine they should be teaching. Unfortunately I have seen the same misconceptions in practitioners who have not been able to fully flesh out a Feldenkrais perspective as it applies to early development. I've consulted with practitioners who have their children in walkers, sit their children up at the earliest possible moment, or overprotect them from any possibility of falling and thus learning about balancing and their or,rm real limits and abilities. Chava Shelhav lucidly addresses many of these points in her article. Although this should be an area of strength for us as a community, it seems that there are gaps for many of us in the area of development. For me the work of Emma Pickler and Magda Gerber, called RrE, was a big support and helped me extend my Feldenkrais background into some of the details of earlyparenting. (I encourage anyone who has not hqard of their work to search it out, as I'm sorry it was not represented in this isste. Dear Parent: Caringfor Infants with Respect, by Magda Gerber, is a good place to start.) Their work augments ours very well and articulates an inspiring vision of respectful parenting and especially how to support early motor development. Many of the same themes echo in Chava's work, the nrr perspective, and are woven through the stories in this issue: establishing a respectful relationship between the child and parent, allowing the child to take risks and meet challenges at its oltm pace, observing without judging (mindfulness again), and creating an option-rich space for solutions to emerge. I hope to further explore some of these themes in future issues. I want to thank all the members of the Editorial Board, the copy and prooflng team, and most especially the Assistant Editor Elaine Yoder who holds it all together. This issue is a particularly intimate one in which the author's voices come from many different perspectives. I trustyouwill

babywas extending her back in

enjoy it. Sincerely,

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niro(rLn*ri(, Editor

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I'HE T,ELDTNKRAIS ]OI'ITNAL NO.

SPRING 20O5

THELEN

1,.: ESTHER

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TI{E F]]I,DENKRAIS JOIJRNAL NO.

SPRING 2O05

18

by Roger Russell

For Esther I lost a friend late last year. After battling cancer for more than a year, I er,n"r. Thelen died on December zg, 2oo4at the height of her ircadernic I .o."", and just as she rvas making plans to begin her Feldenkrais pracI tice rvorking with chilclren. Her untirnelv death at 63 has taken from us a I companion'in o.,. striving tolvard t-iuman development. Intrigued l,vith the potential of the Feldenkrais Method of sorlatic education, she completed her training in zooz. Now'she is gone. Esther was a disciplined and creative scientist, a sripportive men{or, and a r,vonderful friend for r.r-rany people. Each time I had the pleasure ol spending time ,,r,ith her I experienced both her gentle spirit ancl her challenging rnind. I came to Esther's doorstep in a roundabollt \,\ra\,. Carl Ginsburg first told me about her work and insisted that I read the tr,vo books she and Linda Srnith published in r993 and r99+. They are not light reading, rro question about it, but a mtrst-reacl for anyone r,vho r'r,ants to Llnderstand r'r,'here the Feldenkrais Method is sitr-rated in relation to the Iield ol developmental psvchologl'. I-Iaving slogged my wav through these books, r,r,here each chapter is a mental r,.",restling match rvith nelr,,ideas, I had the oppofiunit-v to see tire videotapes of her workshop in San Diego, lr,hich are a great introduction to Esther and her r,r,ork. In the summer of rggT I was in Munich r,vhen my colleague Edrvard Du,elle suggested that we listen to Oliver Sacks at the "Amerika Haus" r,r,here he r,vas reading from his latest bclok. Aftenuards I strode up to him lr,ith my hand outstretched, smiling. I could see hirn cringe. He rnust have expected another unbearabie fan. Holver,er, urhen I serid, "Hi, l'rn a friend of Carl Ginsburg," he smiled, shook mv hand and asked nte hor,r, the Feldenkrais Method rvas faring in Germany. I kner,r, from Carl that he had given OIiver Sacks a lerv Functional Integration (rr) Iessons for his famclusl-v broken leg. Sacks then said to me, "I)o you knon Esther Thelen's work?" \,Vl-ren I ansrvered that indeed I did, he told me "She is interested in

taking a Feldenkrais training." Until then it had not occurred to me to contact Esther. I Iigured a scientist r,r,ith her stature r,vould not have time for a beginning acadetnic iike rne. I cl-ranged mv mind after I heard that from Olir,er Sacks. The next day I sau, a friend, Klaus Schneider, a professor lbr biornechanics in Munich rvho had collaborated r,rrith Esther in some of her research. He lvrote Esther an email introdr-rction for me, and I called her a 1-er,r, days later. She r,vas gracious and open, and r,r,.hen I said that I u,as flying through Chiczrgo on nrv trray to Denver a month later and,,rrould like to hop dor,vn to Bloomington to visit her, she agreed.

\\hen I dror,,e mv rented car into the driverva-v of the house rvith David and Esther Thelen on the mailbox I didn't knour r,rrhat to expect. I rl,ras an 6

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THE FELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL No.

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e\perienced Feldenkrais teacher but a beginner when it came to her fleld of erpertise, and I had more or less inr,ited myself for a visit. \\hen she opened the door I rvas met b.v a small woman with curly hair, bright e-ves, a friendlv smile, and a bit of a lisp. "You must be exhausted after your flight from Europe and the drive from Indianapolis, come in. Ar-rAmerican who lives ir-i Europe must be starving lbr a hamburger barbeque!" On their patio she and Dar,e had a feast waiting for me. I tr,as deeply touched by this gesture r,vhich was t-vpical for Esther (and Dave). Er.erf,one rvho knew her has a similar story. She had a guest room set up lor me, and I kept her up until two in the morning ivith m_v enthusiastic but nai\,e questions. \&tren I apologized for taking so much of her time, she responded that since I had taken the effort to come to see her she r",anted to t11, to ans\Mer all of my questions. I felt right a[ home, and that never changed as long as I knerv her. She had a \,va)r of making you feel comfbrtable, attd for malcirtgyotL thinlc.For Esther Thelen r,vas a real thinkerl Esther had a truly original mind. A biologist lr,ho recognized information u-hele others onlv heard "statistical noise" she realized that the differences betu-een individual infants held an r-rnexpected and unexplored source of information about developmental processes. On the last page of the book, A Dt,rtarnic Systents Approach to the Deueloprnent of Cogrition and Action, she calls it "A ner,rr respect for indir,.iduaiity." She had a sharp eye for unrecognized patterns, an open mind, and a wide-ranging curiositv. She n as also a lad-vl The first tirne I read her rvork, she rvas reporting on some obserwations she rvas rnaking of the grooming movements of the front pau,s of some kind of u,oodchuck or muskrat. I forget exactly, but utrat stood out $ras her stvle. She began her article by complimenting several of the other contributors to that volume. I remember it because it is part and parcel of academic give and take to demonstrate the deflciencies in the u.ork of others. Esther's comments urere tactful and respectful. Hor,r, she managed to get that characteristic of hers across in formal academic language remains a riddle to me, but her spirit rvas definitel_v there, and it never changed. Esther came to child development and developmental psychology b1. u,av of her graduate work in biology and zoo1og1.. Working on her Ph.D. thesis in the late rg7os, she was observing "Rhythmical Stereotypies in Normal Human Infants," in other words, those r,rrobbly movements which infants make during motor development. She noticed something that so manv other people had seen but not attended to. Among the different infants there."vas a great variet-v in their der,elopmentai paths. Some of them lett out steps or made detours from the "prescribed" milestones of sensory-motor development that were explained in textbooks by a theory of brain maturation. Instead of writing off her obsen ations as mistakes because they did not fit the accepted theoretical framework, or categorizing her observations as "statistical noise" and ignoring them in order to make thern fit the theory, she u,ent looking for a developmental theo4r that r,r,ould fit l-rer data. She looked bet,ond her immediate fleld and found others l,r,ho lt ere exploring

cornplexitv in biologicai systems. This included Kelso, Turuey, and Kugler, who lr,ere looking at ideas from phr-sics, chemistry, and mathematics about non-linear, self-organizing, open or so called "dissipative" s)rstems, complexity, and dynamic systems theon. They were appiying these ideas from the physical sciences to biologt'in order to come to grips rvith the enormous complexitv of holr, living creatlrres are organized. Esther spent time working with these specialists and r,vhen she retumed to her studies of infants at the University of Indiana 7

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in Bloomington she had a nert'approach, and a brilliant experiment to demonstrate her theory. With one elegant experiment she revolutionized the theoretical paradigm of sensory-motor derrelopment and unleashed a flood of ner,v research. The theory of derrelopment before Esther held that the infant's development is dictated primarily by brain maturation after birth. Stated very simply, according to this viert point the brain of the infant matures after birth in the same order as the brain centers evolved in the historv of our species. As each ner,r, brain center matures it inhibits older, more inrroluntanr and less differentiated neural centers. As each ner,r, brain center becomes active, the infant develops new movernent patterns rvhich lead from rolling to crawling to standing and r,valking. This theory dictated that these steps were more or less "hard rvired" into the brain and each step folIowed on the other as a matter of biological la."r,fulness. Well that isn't r,r'hat the kids do, and as Esther pointed out in the Feldenkrais and science meeting in Paris in zooz, "These kids must not have read the textbooksl" How did she strike do.",r,n such a logical sounding idea? Simple-she demonstrated that one of the classic eramples of this maturation approach didn't hold water. This is hor,r, she did it: \\hen vou lift a ner,r,born babv upright and let it touch the floor u,ith its toes, it rviil u,ithdralr, the foot and do this repeatedly. This is called the stepping reflex, and it looks like the-v are doing a kind of automatic and primitive lvalking. According to the maturation theory this reflex disappears after a fer,r, months. The disappearance of this reflex r,vas considered to be proof that a "primitive" reflex had been inhibited by higher centers that mature after birth. Esther found out that if she took an infant in r,vhich this reflex had disappeared and just heid the child in a bathtub of -"rrater that the buoyancy of the water made the legs almost weightless for the child, and the1, begin stepping againl It turns out that the strength of the child's 1eg muscles develops more slorvly than the child's legs gain rveigirt. At some point the legs are too hear,ry to lift and the child seems to "1ose" the stepping reflex. Experimenting together r,vith others, including Beverlv Ulrich, r'r,ho ga.u,e a lecture at our symposium in Seattle last summer, Esther made a number of ingenious experiments and demonstrated that indeed it r,r,as something more than brain maturation that \,\'as responsible lbl the complexiw, rrariet-v, and individuality of each infant's developmental path. She based her arguments on the dynamic systems vier,rpoint rvhich held that brain development is just one of a complex constellation of elements r,vhich all contribute to der.elopment in different \vays at different times along the developmental landscape of the child. This r,r,as a new way to look at development and it opened a door to a ne\Ar field of research in motor development. Within a feur years of her first publications in the rg8os ne,,v research in sensory-motor development sprouted up in academic settings around the world. In rg93 the academic journal Child Deuel.opmentpublished a special issue devoted to the dynamic systems r''iervpoint of infhnt development. Esther was co-editor of that series of articles written b-y some of the most innovatirre and well-known peopie in the fleld. Along the \,va-y, the dvnamic systems approach also found its rvay into applications in ph.vsical therapy for infants and children. The success of her research and the flexibilitv of the dynamic s\rstems approach made Esther an influential person in the fleld of infant and child development. She'"vas the president of the International Societv of Infant Studies, a guest professor and lecturer at universities around the r,rrorld, a member of research re.,,iel committees, and contributor to many scientiflc

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journals. Her t-ntro books are classics. Her ideas have also found their r,va_v into a number ol other fields. People r,vho have collaborated with her, or rrho har.e been her doctoral ol post-doc students dot the academic landscape around the r,vorld. Among these innumerable "friends of Esther" are people n ho have contributed to some of our Feldenkrais conferences: Ber-erlv Ulrich at the University of Michigan, Biandine Bril in Paris, Beatrix \-ereijker-r in Nonrrav, Klaus Schneider in Nlunich, Alan Fogel at the Universin of Utal-r, and Carol-vn Heriza in Alizona. Recently she had been working on one of the more vexing problems of der.elopmental psychologv: Piaget's so called "A-not-B error." If vou like to har-rg out at conferences on infant deveiopment, admittedlv an unusual hobbr , vou u,ill soon discover that this observation br, Piaget, that young infants don't seem to have a concept of the permarlence of objects, is still, more than 70 years after his flrst reports, keeping hundreds of developmental scientist gainfulli, emplol,ed. Despite libraries full of research reports on this phenomenon no one has been able to explain it to the satisfaction of

1B

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evellrone inrrolved. Esther's and Gregor Schoener's (her main collaborator) ansrver is right up our alley. $hg thinks that the infant makes this error because of a movement habitl But they went bevond that and have n orked out a detailed and formal (mathematical) theory of hon, the child creates motor habits. If I read it right, it is also a description of how movement becomes thinking and part of the memorv of the self. In other r,r,ords how movement is the loundation oiour sell image. Here is what she and AIan Fogel have said about this in the past: Der.elopmentalists, like other ps\rchologists, have been concerned primaril-v lvith the formation of the conrplex s-vrnbolic and affective processes of the "life of the mind" and have paid less attention to the translation of ideas into movement-a "1it'e of the limbs." Infants, horver,.er, are born r,r,ith rnuch movement and ferv ideas and, lbl the first year or so, lack st,rr.rbolic and verbal mecliating mechanisms betr'r,een their mental state and the expressions of their bodies and 1imbs. At tl.ris stage of the iif'e c-vcle then, the link betr,r,een the developing mind and the der.,eloping limbs rla_v be especiallv direct.

Thelen, E. and Fogel, A. (1989).

in l-ockman, J.i. ancl Harzen, N.I-. (Eds.).,1crlori in Social Corttext.

These comments show the close relationship betrveen these important themes of development and our approach to human development. N{any Feldenkrais teachers, including the authors of this issue, shor,r, that movement is the foundation of the developrnent of the individual, the seil and the mind, and that this is intimately woven together b1. infants and their families as they move together through life. I think Esther r,t ould have

liked that. Esther rvas forthright in her interest for our r,vork, and she generously threrv the rveight of her scientiflc reputation behind several of our conferences. She told me rvhen I met her ser,.eral years ago in Amsterdam that lrom the first moment when Mark Reese introduced her to the ideas of \{osh6 Feldenkrais and gave herArvareness Through Movement and rr lessons she r,vas intrigued. She felt that she had found an expression in action of her ideas about development. Mark, having read her books, contacted her, and it was thanks to Mark Reese and Donna Ray that Esther r,r,as able to participate in a Feldenkrais practitioner training program. Since Esther r,rras unable to get away from her teaching and research duties at the Indiana Unir.ersity campus in Bloomington for.1o davs each year, Mark and Donna took the training to Estherl During this time she also spent time rvorking r,r,ith several Feidenkrais trainers and teachers r,r,ho are interested

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in science and deveiopment: Pat Bate from Australia did her post-doctoral work r,r.ith Esther, Pat Buchanan got her Ph.D. at Indiana with Esther. Jim Stephens, Carl Ginsburg, Chava Shelhav, myself, and others spent time in Indiana with Esther and her team. I visited her once at the Amsterdam Fr.ee Universit-V, r,r.here the movement science faculty is the largest in Europe. She'"vas a guest professor there for a semester. She arranged for some graduate students to give me a tour of the facility and thet showed me some of their research for their doctorai work. I was impressed. But Esther asked, "So ll'hat? \Vhat difference will this make for infants and their parents if r,ve knor,v rvhat these students are discovering?" paraphrasing William James. She pointed out that if this question was not a fundamental part of their research, then there was something missing. She said that one of the reasons that she was interested in the Feldenkrais Method rvas that it made an immediate and perceptible difference in people's lives. \\hat can rve do lvhen we review'Esther's work and remember her generous and gentle human spirit? Be thankful that we could knorv herl We can take a page out of her book. We can keep it up. We can look exactlv at r,vhat is there in front of our eves and rvhat we experience. We can look deeply and be demanding, thoughtful, and weil educated. We must ah,l avs ask the "So r,"nhat?" question. We can make a difference and make it uniquelv individual. We can contribute olrr resources lvhere \ve can, as in this issue of The Feldenkrais Jotuttalr,vhere the authors have shor,r,n hou'special development can be. On Sunday, lanuary 16, 2005, a memoriai setwice r,r,as held in Bloomington, Indiana for Esther. Friends and colleagues joined together to remember her life and work and to celebrate her spirit. For me these Iines of a poem by Stephen Spender come to mind:

ITHINK CONTINUALLY

OF

THOSE WHO ARE TRULY GREAT The names of those r,vho in their lives fought for iife, \&Iho rvore at their hearts the lire's center. Born of the sun they travelled a short rvhile towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed rvith their honour.

Esther was a biologist who studied life, but even more she r,r,as one of those who in her life "fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with

lherl honour." Esther,

ro

r,t'e

will miss yottl

THE FF:I,DENKRAIS ]OURNAL NO. 18

SPRTNG 2OO5

Deborahl. Bowes

Awareness Through Movement and Love noontime Awareness Through Movement class begins with the sound of the emergency fire siren atop the hill nearby. My students and Il-rar-e become accustomed to this bold herald and we wait, breathing quietly as the sound slor,vly fades.

5 I E

r en- Tuesdal'my

Please lie on yo11,

5r.* and begin

to notice lrcLU yoLt are lying todalt. Hotu do you ollotu

),oLn'self to be stLpporred by the Jloor?

Lving on the neatly arranged mats today are my mother and father. This is m.v mom and dad's flrstAwareness Through Movement class and the flrst time they have come to my studio in San Francisco. Thev have flor,r,n 3ooo miles from my hometor,r.n in Rhode Island to r,.isit r,vith my farnily for the Thanksgiving Day holidav. We haven't seen each other for over flve vears. HotLt do ),otrr

arms lie? Are J,our prilms ttrrned tott,ard the floor or the ceilirtg?

So much has changed for all of us in those five .vears. Mv tr,vo daughters, my parent's granddaughters, are no\,v expressing themselves as teenagers. We've mo-",ed to a ne\\,house and r,r,e have a dog for the flrst time. I'rre got a ner,v husband and am happilv re-married. His contributions as a colleague and business partner have

helped our Feldenkrais practice to blossom successfullt,. I've recovered from a major auto accident and arn learning to live rvith some of the residual effects. Both mv parents irar,e retired, my mom from r,vork as a medical records clerk at the hospital n'here I n as born and my dad from forty-flve years r,r,orking in a textile mill. Ther-are health1,, actir,'e in my hometou/n's senior citizeu center, volunteering on rnv high school friend's mayoral campaign. Begitt to notice rhe places tltctt are toucltirtg the floor. Where do you feel yottrself contactirtg tlte rttat'/ Are sonte places softer or Jlatter? Are some more pointed?

\ Iv relationship

r'r,ith my parents has had its smoother and rougher times. I have to live far arva-v in California for over turenty vears. In all that time, rve have noI lound a \\'av to share the smaller details of our 1ives, the kinds of detaiis that tell others rvho u.e are and r,vhat lve value. I have learned to accept that I am quite different fronl rnr-famil-y, different enough tirat an easy and close relationship perhaps nra\ never l-rappen. cl-ro,cen

i

l'/iar

r-r

tlte clttalln'

oJ

t'otu' breathittg?

I leel in rlr bodv horv nervous I am today. There's tightness in my belly. My flngers and hands mor-e restlesslv. My e1'es are very actirre, looking everyT ,r,here and yet norr irere in the room. NIv breathing is shailow and uneasy.

ll

'THE lJELDE.\I(R-C.IS JOURNAL \O. ]B

t2

SPRING 20O5

TIIE FLLDINKRAIS JOURNAI- NO. IB

SPRING 2OO5

Lttrt |ott obserL,e your breathing tLtithottt tryittg to change it or .judge it?

I find rnr.self carefully choosing my r,vords to begin the lesson. It is always a challenge to harre a rnixed class of longtime students and flrst timers. Today the neu. students are m). parents. It surprises me how filled I am with worry ar-rd doubt, not about my teaching, but about myself. I hear my questions to the students and at the same time I hear my questions to m1-sslf. Howwill r-ou respond to m-v teaching? \\hat do you think of rne? \'\hat r,vill you say about tl're Feldenkrais N,{ethod, my life's work and passion? \\4rat do you tl-rink about mr. children? Hor,r, do you like my husband? Do you like my dog? \\-ill n-rr- leeiings be hurt after this? What do the other students think? -\ln I sounding as anxious as I feel? Please lie on

1to11,'

rigltt

sicle.

\\'hat an effort it is to teach !oda,v. My thoughts and feelings interfere with mv abilitv to focus, to guide the students in discovering their embodied erperience. Bertd t'otrr kttees curcl let the left leg rest on top oJ the right leg. Extend your arms irt fi'cltt o.f t,oLt so thctt the lefi arm can rest on the right arnt, tlte left palnt on top o.f

tlte tigltt palttt.

Gaining nlomentuln into the lesson, my mind begins to focus and rela-x, m-v breathing slor,l,ly softens and deepens. As rny mind becomes engaged r'r,ith tl.re lessor-r, ml,rvorries recede into the background. I can start to notice r,r,hat is happening i,vith the students on the floor in front of me. Begirr ro lift the left arnl tou-)ards the ceiling and lou.,er it dotun again.

NIt parents seem comfortable in this nerv situation. They move with attention to tirernselves, surprising me how easiiy and naturall-v the1, are able to enter the process. They take rests as tirey need them. Tiret, seem not to have to achier.e or compete, a habit for man-v beginning students. Thev are the ideal ner,v students. For the flrst time I see holr, flexible and coordinated thev are. Does m1, athletic skill come from them? Lettgtltert t,ottr leJi lcnee by pttshing it Jbru,ard gerltl!. Let it slide ouer the rigltt lotee.

Hor,r,easil], m-v mother differentiates her pelr,is fi'om her rib cage, simply

initiating the movement from her back. I recognize her

as a r,r,hole person, and a sexual person. My lather moves his shoulders asymmetrically, ths rernnants of his injuries-a car accident and the vears tending braiders in the factonr. Did I er,er hear him complain? I feel a new sense of compassion for hirn.

Lie ott t'otu' bcrt:lc attd see tulnt has chartged Ji'ortt doing these sinple fircuefttents. Is tltere sontething di.ffbrerttyou catt rtotice?

For the first time in my fsfiy-six years, my parents are people, not only my rnother and father. Their breathing deepens and they turn even more inu'ard. \It, f211r".'t hands t\\'itch during the restsi his nen ous system adjusts. \{t mother's chest softens and her face loses some of her worry lines. Hou, much of those lr,.orry lines come from me? The quality of their mo\-ement graduall_v irnproves. I ."t itness them move into the poetry and the

pleasule of Ar,r,areness Through Movement.

l3

,IIIE FILDLNKRAIS ]t]URNAL \O.

SPRTNG 2OO5

18

Whert yotr are ready, lie on the other side tuith your arrns and legs arrangecl tlrc sonte LLjaJt. Lift your riglrt arm cutd ttu'n toLuartls the ceiling and back. What keeps yo tt.front tttrn i ng euen .furtlter?

I tend to the other students r,vhile a tirne machine yanks me back through the line of my life, all the r,vay to childhood-so many events, feelings, and

longings. Here are the beginnings of the pattern, the emergence of particular attitudes and dvnamics. It is an extraordinalr experience. There is a shift in some basic rigidity tor,r,ards them. I am able to f'eel love for each of them, love for them as a fellolv human being, a person just like me. It feels like a turning point in my relationship r,vith them. Is it easier to turn to tlrc right or left? Only do tt'hnt is cornfortable and L,ery easy.

\\4rat does keep us from turning further? From turning ton ard those we love, turning tor,vard ourselves? How often do our judgments, assumptions, or reactions to ourselves and to our students affect our behavior? Lie on yow'back. Contpare horu yoLt are feeling Ltou) to the begirutirtg

of class.

parents roll and come up to sit and stand .nt ith the rest of the students. Evervone r,r,alks around in the lorreiy feelings that corne h'om self-ar,r,areness. I'm wondering, What do thev think? My mother salrs, "I t'eel great, " rn1' father says, "That lr,as nice." Ah, I can agree w'ith both of them. M1r

t4

SPRTNG 2OO5

THE FEI-DENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. IB

Liz Dickinson

Tying Buckle Shoes A TEACHER Moshe Feldenkrais was fond of saying that "words are a summary of what you have already thought." \dhen the doctor at the University hospital told us you would not be able to think, the mistake I made was not asking them what it was they were summarizing. \fhat, on earth, were they thinking when they said you couldn't think? \l/hat is thinking, for that matter? Feldenkrais, also, said that his unique gift to the world is that he could take any abstract thought and return it to its concrete event and come out with a new action. "Now, that's thinking," he said. rg75 I cannot remember making the transition from r,r.atching the back of my husband's, suit-coat walking away from us to watching a round BuddhaIike man, halo of white hair framing a bald head, a white shirt neatly tucked into black baggy pants, in martial-art slippers, lvalk toward us. But here we are, somehow, lying on the floor in the front ror,r, of chattering lines of sweat-slrited, beaded aliens from an as yet unnamed planet. A hipp-v-skirted woman greeted us at the front door, pinned name tags on us, in case we get lost, and smiled at Nicky. The Buddha man floats do."vn an aisle that magicall-v opens up between the ronrs and lines of bodies, arrives at the front of the room, iowers himself into a metal kitchen chair as if it were a throne. The hippy-type woman necklaces him with a mike. "Please sit," he says. Although rve are all lying on the blue carpeted floor, u,e suddenly sit, except for Nicky, who was sitting in the first place. The -,r,oman beside him bends down to announce into his mike, "Leave t'our notebooks and shoes against the back r'vall to make more room." There is a stir as people compiy, Iine up their shoes, Birkenstocks for the most part. Nicky and I are wearing new white tennies. At Ieast we'll be able to hnd ours, I say to someone with Birkenstocks, covering up for the embarrassment of not knowing the dress code of San Francisco. Back in our places, Nicky leans against me. I try to straighten her up, separate us, make us into two people, but she falls back. The Buddha glances our \\ray, or at least I think he does. It's hard to tell r,vithout my glasses, rvhich are back against the wall, inside my tennies. "Please lie down," the mike crackles. There's some adjustment of volume as sorne lie on stomachs, some on backs. I choose my side to watch Nickv, u,ho is sitting up all alone. "Backs," he roars into the mike. I puil Nicky down beside me, roll her to her back. He is standing over us, the rnike cord trailing behind him. Nicky closes her eyes. Mine are glued open. He chuckles into the mike.

isan

II

e*cerpt fro,i an unpub-hefollowino lished book written by long-time practitioner, Liz Dickinson, entitled Iyrng Buckle Shoes. The book is cen-

tered around her daughter "Nicky" who most probably had a stroke before birth. The chapters we have chosen

tell of Liz bringing "Nicky" to the opening ofthe San Francisco Feldenkrais training pro9ram.

l5

SPRTNG 2OO5

THE FELD]]NKRAIS ]OIIRNAL NO. IB

A hush comes over the room. He moves dort n the aisle, arvay from us. I

close my elres. He's going to tell us a joke, he saYs. It's about a man holding his penis rvith chop sticks while peeing. Everyone laughs. I don't get it. Ma1'bs if I were a man. . . . "For learning to be real learning, there has to be laughter, " he says into the mike. I guess that leaves me out. That r,vas one of Josh's complaints about me. I didn't laugh at jokes. AJter this, he says, he'll number his jokes, just say the number. It will speed up the learning. Everyone lar.rghs, canned laughter, except for me. I laugh so hard people look at me. "Learning rvithout laughter is just learning effort, and -vou already knorv hor,r, to do that," he iar-rghs now. The rest of us are silent. His head bobs around, circling the horizon, like a spinner in a game, coming to land on Nicky's face. She stares back at him. He wiggles his ears. She doesn't laugh. "If there is on11, one in this room who doesn't learn, the teaching fails, " he savs into the mike. I secretly beg Nicky to laugh. "Please lie on the floor," he says, "YOUR BACKS ARE YOtrR BACKS, NOT YOUR FRONTS," although that's where.,ve already are. I think he is going to use tire r,vord dummies, bttt he doesn't. He uses the r,vord "idiots," instead. I -"vonder if idiot would be allorved at our dinner table, br-rt I no longer care. I'm committed to the floor. "It's r,r,hat's in back of you," the voice says softly, into mY ear. I open my e],es. He's standing beside Nicky u,ho is sitting up. "Don't change," he says, "orvouwon't knorvrvhat-you're doing." N{y eyes crau,l up his trouser leg, past his white shirt, to tr'vo small twinkling eves. He r,r,inks at me. "When " -vou kno'uv rvhat you're doing, vou can do i,r,hat vou.nvant, he says. I look, Nicky is I close my eyes again, the voice moves au,a\'. The next time u,as. lving on her back beside me as if that l,r,as lt here she alr'r'a--vs

"If

person lies on his back long enough, he's bound to change something, so -vou don't have to do anything." His laughter is joined by a fe'uv a

others.

"That's Freud's contribution," he sa-vs, "I can't take credit for that." "Freud can't either," he says, "it's the abstract iart'of gravity." My lower back, i,vhich has been arched up like a drar,r,bridge to let traffic through, suddenly flattens to the floor. "People who sit r,l hen they lie, or lie r,r,'hen they sit, never know where they are, but are always asking who they are." He laughs again, on his own. "Change and you change the body's relationship to gravity." He's teaching us now, he says, but no one's listening. "There is no such thing as teaching," he says, "onl-v learning." "Raise your left arm above your head." ..ABOVE

YOTIR HEAD IS ABOVE YOUR HEAD, NOT SO\{EONE ELSE'S.'' I raise my head to see if I'm doing it right, but i can't tell. Some people have their arms raised to the ceiling, some are on the floor. Mine is on the floor. Nicky's isn't raised at all, of course. It's her Ieft arm. "Please stand up," he instructs us. "Non raise Your arm above your head." "Keep it there and lie back down, " he says. Our arms are all on the floor. "Above your head is above your head, no matter rvhere -vou are," his r,oice softens, "You take your head with you, you are the center of your r,rrorld. "

"If vou don't knorv rvhere your head is, hort'can you use it, you're letting someone else use it," he chuckles to himself.

l6

SPRING 2OO5

TIIE FEI-DENKRAIS JOURNAI, NO. IB

The microphone crackles and suddenly goes dead. I sit up and see the \\roman take the mike from around Feldenkrais'neck. He walks to Nicky u-ho is lr.ing on the floor nith her Ieft arm now reaching to the ceiling. "You are good cows," he says, mooing, offmike, so people rise up to see u'hat he's saying, and see Nicky. ''But she is a genius," he says, "She's doing what she wants." No, no, I want to correct him, she's retarded, eyes in the black section, she doesn't know any better. Then Feldenkrais motions for his mike back. "But co\ /s can be better cows than you, so stop trying," he says, "Your job is to be human, and my job is to create an environment in which you can do r-our job. "

LEARNING You used to say that the reason you didn't like school was school didn't give you time to learn, but this school was different. You called the teacher Santa Claus. He taught you a lesson most people take a lifetime to learn. It took -you,t5 minutes. I've got it on videotape. We su.itch classrooms to a smaller, green-carpeted room. A camera is already set up on a rolling tdpod and Moshe Feldenkrais is perched weightlessl.v, def,ving his overweight condition, on a little wooden stool at one end of a low, broum Naugahyde-covered table. The round Buddha-head in its halo of rvhite hair swivels like a periscope to watch each of us enter the room, as if he's the audience and we are the actors. I take a seat in the front row, pull Nick.v into me in the next seat. I've been told Feldenkrais will work with her as a demonstration subject, for a famous doctor. After the last student, the doctor enters, grey-bearded, full head of matching hair, medium height, bare tanned muscled arms hanging out of a white t-shirt tucked-in and grounded in faded blue jeans. Feldenkrais calls for a stool to be placed at his right. The famous doctor squats on the stool, folds himself into his own lap of crossed arms and legs. A standing microphone suddeniy reaches out its arm to amplify the doctor's name and throw it back into the air for all of us to catch. I miss it. But the mike has caught Nicky off guard. I see Nicky's head turn to the left, taking her eyes like an Eglptian frieze. It lasts onl.v seconds. The famous doctor leans into Feldenkrais' ear, his whisper picked up by the hovering mike. "You can't work on her," he says, the authoriry, "She's just had a seizure. " Feldenkrais cocks his head, "I'11 ask her," he says. I want to cry. "Wouid you like a lesson?" he says in his srveetest, gentlest voice. I think angels are taiking, but not to me. Nicky's eyes refocus on him as if they've never left. She nods her "yes." I let go of the breath I did not know I was holding, feel my buttocks open out and rest into the seat of the chair. She's safe, I think, although I'm not. Eyes from the round Buddha-head make a bee-line into mine, until I let go of mv flngers interlaced into Nicky's. He invites her to lie down on the table in front of him. "Please lie on your back," he says. She lies on her stomach, diagonally, her feet dangling off one side. I rvant to explain that Nicky can't follow directions. It's not her fault, she's retarded. (The adult Nickv requested that we note here that she is emphatically not retarded! Editor's note.) I rise up to turn her over, arrange her the way she should be. The Mickey Mouse appliqu6d on the back of her shirt stares up at the ceiling. 7V

SPRING 2OO5

THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO. 18

Feldenkrais' hand rises up, and as if fastened to me across space, his hand sinks, bringing me with it, back into my seat. "We are not important, " Feldenkrais says. The mike crackles his r,vords. An assistant quickly moves the mike arm further ar,r,a\-. Feldenkrais glowers at her, for making the mistake in the fi.rst place. Then he forgets her. "She is," Feldenkrais says, bobbing his head tolr,ard Nickr-. A restless shuffling of shoulders and feet seek to discor,er n hat is important. I lean forward with my body, to hide her bent leg, irer crooked arm,

her.... "She's more important than the mother," Feldenkrais chuckles. turn toward me, catching me in my mistake like tl-re emperor in his nerv clothes. Then he lorgets me. "Today, we are going to learn Functional Integration, " he sa1-s. "\,t/hat?" a student asks. The mike comes in for him to say it again, but Feldenkrais pushes the arm back. The person turns to me, whispering "\Vhat?" but before I can say I don't know, Feldenkrais taps Nicky's right foot, Iike a card shark gir.ing a signal to his partner, and she rolls over onto her back, eves closed. He straightens her to lie in the middle of the table, calls for a roller to be placed under her knees. "I'd lie on my stomach too, if I r,r,as being looked at like in azoo," Eyes

Feldenkrais says. "Only vou are the animals, not her, " he says, circling his head to take in each ofus, On orders, we back our chairs ar,r,ay from the table. Only the famous doctor is invited to lean in close. Feldenkrais r,r,inks at the black pupiis of the Minnie Mouse appliqu6d on the front of Nickv's shirt as if he is about to play a joke on the world. He picks up a little wooden stool, the kind that kids use to reach the faucets at the sink, and places it against the bottom of Nicky's crooked left foot. He r,r,,aits for the toes to touch. He takes the board away and begins again. This time, starting with the little toe, he continues from toe to toe, touching each one delicately, issuing a separate invitation to an invisible party. The big toe refuses, sticking up from the board like a flagpole, a spastic condition of cerebral palsy, we were told by the doctors, difficult to try on shoes, we were told by the shoe salesmen. Feldenkrais cocks his head from side to side as if he's figuring out how to interest the big toe in a world up to now that's been uninteresting. It's not the big toe's fault. With gentle flrmness he presses the board against the other four toes. He'11 wait, if it takes forever. The famous doctor leans fonvard, shakes his head "no," it can't be done. The class ieans forward, I lean forward, no longer a mother but a part of the class. The big toe trembles, then slor,r4y, in tiny increments, comes toward the board, until it lies flat. Everyone smiles, including the famous doctor. We've won. \Arhat, we don't know. All flve toes are now on the board. Feldenkrais siaps the heel r,vith the free end, like a teeter-totter. The leg stands at attention.

"Now that's a foot," Feldenkrais says. Nicky smiles through closed eyes. "She doesn't have to see it," Feldenkrais savs, "She knows it."

"It's her foot." Feldenkrais turns to the famous doctor. "I saw it," the famous doctor answers, before Feldenkrais can ask.

l8

THE TjELDENKRAIS IoURNAL No. lB

SPRING 2OO5

il* o a

r, r^

t, J,

-r, h.

Feldenkrais beams.

"Neurologically it can't be done, turning a spastic foot into a normal foot," the doctor says. "It's a miracle." It's the line of the script cuing Feldenkrais' next lvords. "It's not a miracle," Feldenkrais says, "Anvone can do it. N{y students can do it." He beams at us as if we already can. Then he adds, "\\hen they know urhat they're doing." None of us did. "But I didn't do it," he says, as if comingto his senses, " She did it." He makes the camera take a picture of her, r,vithout him, lvithout the lamous doctor. Her eyes are still closed. "Like life, the real floor was too hard for her," Feldenkrais says, "Now the floor goes rvith her, and she can learn to r,valk like a normal person." I reach lor my notepad under my chair to -"rrrite dor,vn his r,vords. "\\rhen you understand you urill remember; you r,r,on't need to take notes, " he says, looking at me. I put the notepad back under my chair, the page blank, hoping I nili remember. "You take notes because you think you'il forget, " Feldenkrais says to the c1ass, "but it's because you think you are not good enough that you forget." Feidenkrais picks up his stool and carries it to the other end of the tab1e. Telting the famous doctor to stay where he is, Feldenkrais r,vaits for the camera to follow him. Sitting at the head of the table, he brings Nicky's head as if he r,vould carry it into his lap. He places her left palm on her foreiread. The hump in her left wrist flattens, then sculpts itseif to the head. \Vhen he moves the left arm back to the table, it lies like the right arm. He smiles to himself.

l9

TIIT FEI-DE\KRAIS ]OUIT\AL NO,

SPRING 2OO5

1B

There is now no one present but the two of them. "lT'S RELAXED," someone in the class stands and shouts. "l'M NOT TEACHING RELAXATION," Feldenkrais shouts back. The mike pops and sputters. Nicky's arm goes into contraction, her whole left side follows, bringing along her crooked Ieg and foot. "Rela-xation is for falling asleep," Feldenkrais gentles his voice, "This is for waking up." He drarvs her right arm up, puts his right palm over hers, sculpted to her forehead, rolling her head a Iittle to the right and back to center. Then he draws up her Ieft arm, the spasm abates, the hump in the -'trist flattens, the arm softens, the leg lengthens, the foot is for standing. "Her nervous system is smarter than ours," he says, "She knows what to do without words." Although using third person, it's for her to hear, not us. "With -vou I have to use these words," he says, and we knort'who he's talking to. Nicky's head lies at an angle toward her right side. Feldenkrais presses through the vertebrae at the base ofher neck on the right side to her left foot; then from the left side to the right foot. He brings her head back to the middle, dralvs it up into him again, presses through to her pelvis. Then he lays her head back on the table. She's alive, I think. He chuckles and tweaks her nose, covers her face lvith his palm. Is it some kind of Jewish blessing? \A,4ren he removes his hand, Nickv's eyes are wide open. The two of them Iook at each other as if first meeting. We are voyeurs. Cradling her with an arm under her legs and another under her neck and shoulders, he rocks her to a sitting position. She looks surprised and then pleased to find herself sitting, like a baby who sits for the first time. He gives a slight tug to the back of her trousers and she comes to standing, as if standing for the flrst time. He cups her head between his palms and takes her head over her right leg, until her left foot lifts off the floor. Then over her left leg until her right foot lifts off the floor. She is walking. He releases her head, and she walks past me, past the class and out of the room. "From now on she will never lie dor,rm on the table diagonally for a lesson again, " he tells us. "She did that because she was doing the lesson for you. Now she n ill do the lesson for herself." He is looking at me. It is oul turn now, he sa1,s, "P.lease lie down on the floor. On 1'6u1 backs, not Vour fronts." "This is Awareness Through Movement. On the table is Functional Integration. I didn't think up the words. Someone else did," he says. "Roll your head a little to the right and back to center, back home," he calls it. "Pay attention to your right shoulder, your right arm, the right side of your rib cage, the right side of your pelvis, your right leg, slowly, slowly." How slow can I go without stopping? Onl-v my breathing is rolling to the

right. My right shoulder flnds the floor, or does the floor flnd it, my right arm, my right leg, the right side of my rib cage, the right side of my pelvis. No longer parsed by words, my right side turns, rolls to a side, stands up. I am my right side. I wait, wait, wait, until my left side joins in, I can hardly wait to tell Nicky. \&Ihere is Nicky?

I find her sitting in the hall, her back against a wall, hugging her knees. "I want to go home," she says, angry, before I can say anl'thing.

20

THE FELDENKRAIS IOURNAL NO. 18

SPRI\G 2OO5

"\Ve can't go home," I say. Going home is the last thing I r,vant to do. I \\'ant to stay here forever. " Not home, dummy," Nicky says. It's the oniY time I've heard her use the lr,ord "dummy." It's Adam's r,vord, the word that is banished from our home. "1n'ant to take a short-cut home," she says. \\re're headed don n the steps of Lone Mountain College, pushing into the u,ind for an opening. We've just moved in, I teil her. I only knolr'one \\'a\- to get home. But she's alread-v crossing the street, the r,rrav we didn't come, through a garden. She must have expiored it lvhile i r,vas lying on the floor. The thought scares me. She could have gotten lost, and I wouldn't have known it. The tr,vo of us take up the lr,idth of the patl1. She's gone back to her asymmetrical gait. Nothing's changed, after all. My orvn body clutches. Suddenl-v she bends over. I think she's going to have a seizure. I bend beside her to wait. Sire puts out her right hand, picks a tiny blue florver out of the grass, the kind vou r,valk over or on rvithout noticing. She puts it into her left hand that is crooked, just like it's always been. " See," she says. a pretty flor,ver," I say, rvanting to cry. \.\hy doesn't anything e\rer

"It's last?

"Not the flolr,er, dummy," she says, "Look, it's mv hand." She's turning her left hand this way and that. I remember Rachel doing it. I remember Adam doing it. They r,r,ere less than a -vear old. "Yes, " I say, tears in my eyes. Her hand drops the flower in the grass. Slowly she stands up. She's not going to have a seizure after all, I think, and rvant to thank God at the sanle time.

"It's my leg," Nicky says, lifting her left foot offthe ground, balancing so precariously that I reach out to catch her. Br.rt befbre she falls, she's taken the next step. Right lbot. Left foot. Faster, faster, r,r,e're running through the park. People after rvork r,vith briefcases on their shclrt-cuts honte let us by. \{others r,r,a}king children home from school share the path.

.4 Liz Dickinson passed away in December zoor. "My Mother r,tras a good parent and a good Feldenkrais Practitioner. I'm pleased to honor her bv sharing her ll,ork with the Feldenkrais Communiry, " salrs Marcia Richmond Dickinson (Nick1.) today. Marcia is grateful for the opportunity she had as a child to receir,.e Functional Integration lessons from Dr. Feldenkrais, and she continued to receive pt lessons from her mother and other practitioners tl'rrough the 1,s31s. Marcia currently lives in the irome she shared r,vith Liz. " She took care of me r,vhen I needed help and I am happv I couid take care of her, " continues Marcia. Following surgery several .vears ago, Marcia has been able to reduce her medication, allorving her to think more clearly and feei much stronger. In addition to her employment as a Customer Services Representative at Target, Marcia exercises daily, sings in her church choir, ar-rd has u,orked diligently to be able to play 1i1s electric keyboard rvith both hands. She also loves to read and spend time with her nieces and nepherv.

2t

SPRING 2OO5

THE FELDENKRAIS JOTIITNAL NO. IB

Cliff Smyth MY FATHER'S BODY my father's body is gaunt & taut muscies hard to the touch his grasp like some tool for holding children or pieces of wood in his shed out the back the arcane world of men i turn & turn aw'av

but cannot escape as he drives the hair brush into my scalp as his arms encircle mine to show me the grip on the cricket bat surrounded by hair oil & soap & srveat my father's body inwhite he guides the boys'bodies in the gyn, a running forward roll i don't knowhow my father's bodv i irnagine wading rvaist deep in freezing mountain urater the srveat running cold in the tropical heat as the machine gun thumped slowly the metal in little hot spurts into the -vvater & the bodies of m1, father's friends i can't imagine

my father's body holds me at three or four his head on my shoulder crling i can't imagine what it feels i can't imagine

whathe feels

,,

SPRING 2005

TI{E FTLDENKRAIS JOUITNAL NO.

18

Chava Shelhav PhD

Filling in the Blanks From unformed awareness to informed awareness A PERSONAL STORY Nen insights are often granted to us during work with our students. One particular student of mine was the catalyst that led me to take a much closer look at the stages of infant derrelopment and the effects of dela-ved development and how missing pieces in the development puzzle can have repercussions on many aspects of a person's life. Mike, an accomplished scientist, came to me compiaining of back probIems caused by two slipped disks. In fact, he could not stand upright at all. rr lessons r,i ere his last ditch attempt to avoid the already scheduled back surgery. After a fer,r,lessons there r,rras a noticeable reduction in his pain. During these lessons, I was amazed to flnd that Mike had very little sense of himself. He was not aware of where his limbs were in space, he could not identifi'or locate body parts such as his shoulder blades, and he seemed to have no clear image of his body at all. Also, his experience of pain r,vas black and w.hite: it hurt a lot or it didn't hurt at all. There \,vas no awareness of gradation in the sensation. It was clear to me that through the rr lessons he needed to learn to feel himself, to make a connection with his body parts, and understand the interaction between them. Mike conflded in me that at school he did not like sports and never participated in any games. He never even went outside at recess, had never played rvith a bali, and his social life -,rras stunted and unsatisfactory. He reported that he was ar1 extremeiy clumsv child. Focusing on his description of himself as a child, I extrapolated mv lesson strategy. Using both rr and arrr lessons, r,t e worked through all the phases of infant development. We even played balll Imagine an older, respected scientist piaying like a child r,vith immense enjovment. I can report that Mike's situation graduali-v improved and, on the way, he acquired a new self image. His posture improved tremendously, his back pain dissipated, he even changed the way he dressed, and his social life became more satisfying. Mike learned to lorre himself and to lorre moving and movement. I fllmlv believe that working through ail the phases of infant development, u'ith au,areness, changes a person's self image because it affords them the opportunity to Iill in the blanks created by undeveloped factors during the crr.rcial first tr,rro years of life. ln some circles it is generall-v accepted that a\lareness begins at a later stage of life. Another schooi of thought posits that babies are capable of awareness. I like to think of my work r,r,,ith infants as bringing them liom unformed awareness to informed awareness. Consider how'much better offMike would have been if his early problems had been recognized and if tirere had been some kind of timely inten ention. During thirty-flve fascinating 1,ears of working vr,ith the Feldenkrais \"Iethod, I came to understand that there is a connection between chronic adult back pain and missing elements during early derrelopment, especially

23

SPRING 2OO5

THE FEI,DENKRAIS IOURNAL NO. 18

insufficient early development in the areas of orientation and balance. Even admirable people, people with great achievements to their credit, can still be missing a piece of this early ptrzzle.I found myself u'orking r'r'ith younger and younger children untii I arrived at the very beginning-earlv infant development. I discovered that small signs of nascent problems in infants,

which often become more marked as the infant grows, are present in babies who are considered normal and healthy. I found that in infants r,t'ho present minimal developmentai disturbances, such as not turning the head or not sitting up independently, this early intervention allows the babies to Iearn what I teach and they learn quite quickly. Early intervention has the added value that the imprint on the synapses is not yet so dense that it is difficult to effect change and the issues are not yet laden with emotional baggage' Alan Fogel writes, "During the past ten years there has been radical change in the conceptualization of the self in infancy. There is a grorn'ing consensus that a sense of self exists long before infants recognize their own image in a mirror, before the acquisition of language or symbolic abiiities' The prelinguistic self is believed to be based on the direct perception of the self as a part of a relationship with the physical and social environment."l During the flrst few months of a baby's life there is a strong connection between the development of the motor, emotional, and social elements. Daniel Stern emphasizes the important channel of matching that encourages intersubjectivity between the mother and her child, which is vital to social development. "It follows that the emotional element can be the source of delays in motor and social development. Encountering problems, the infant's survir,,al mechanism kicks in, the brain and then the body develop compensatory movement for each problematic element. The infant flnds a solution that serves him well in a speciflc situation. The temporary solution slowly becomes a pattern of movement and this behavior becomes a permanent part of his movement and personality. Over the years, these compensatory patterns delay development and distort the quality of his movement and his behavior in general."z The work with Mike was a seminal experience and lead me to further research into infant development which eventually resulted in my PhD. Bewegung und Lernen-Die Feldenkrais-Methode als Lernmodell (Mouement as a Model for Learning).3 The understandings I gained Ied to developing a method for working with parents, empowering them with knowledge and confidence in their parenting skills. Alvin Toffler once wrote that "parenthood remains the greatest single persevere of the amateur." Based on the theory of Dr. Feldenkrais, Child'Space focuses on healthy babies and, most importantly, their caregivers during the first two years of iife.

CHILD,SPACE AND THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD Moshe's ideas about early development and the origins of deficient functioning seemed a Iogical springboard for research focusing on the flrst two years of life. One of the startling realizations I came to was that babies do not always develop when left to their own devices and there is indeed a need for intervention that provides necessary developmental stimuli. Some arlr lessons are based on breaking the function down into its components and then proceeding to rebuild the function step by step until arriving at a feeling of competency, having choices, and organic satisfaction. Working with the parents, we are in the unique position of being able to address deficient functioning at its onset and not have to engage it once

24

SPRING 2OO5

THE FELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL NO.

1B

it has begun to solidify into ingrained behavior or habit. We can nip the problent in th.e bud, so to speak, without interfering with natural deueloprnertt and u,ithotrt contpelling something the system is not able or not yet w i ll

in

g to acco mmodate. care workers are not trained to, and often do not have

\lost infant health

the time, to notice the developmental nuances, which can indicate an evoh'ing problem during earlv infancy. Only when a problem has become so u.ell established, that it can't escape notice, is it then treated. This unfortunate situation is due to the fact that our cultural habit of perceiving concentrates on.,r,hat the infant is doing and not on how he is doing it. Dr. Feidenkrais rvas alwavs adamant that the "how" is much more important than the "rr.hat. " To discern the "how, " one must be sensitive to the quality, ciarirr , and economy of movement. The ability to recognize these developmental nuances and to use these clues as a means to identift, potential problems is a r,,aluable skili for all infant health care workers and parents. Some theories advise leaving the child to his own devices without intervening, even to the extent of not laying him on his stomach until he can get there b1.himself.a Researching the first two years of development brought me into extensirre contact with infants and, of course, with their parents. After all, who is going to carry that big bag ofdiapers, toys, and sundries that babies seem to need or at least parents seem obliged to schlep? Witnessing the interaction between parent and child was unexpectedly revealing. I did not expect to find that the interaction between parent and child was such a complex issue. For example, I found that, although the basic care given to the infant is scrupulous and exemplary, parents do not touch their babies enough. Also, with the disappearance of the tribe and the extended family, flrst time parents flnd themselves basicallv on their own while being bombarded by a deluge of contradictory theories on parenting. These parents often lack a feeling of competency. How can we help restore a sense of competency to these parents? My new work with babies and their parents is based on the principles explored by Dr. Feldenkrais. Stimulating all the systems involved in normal infant development (the motor, social, emotional, cognitive, balance, orientation, and sensory systems) leads to change and integration. Touch, hearing, sight, and speech, as appropriate for that particular baby's developmental stage, are used to track development. A positive atmosphere is established from the flrst meeting with parents and their baby. We explore: what functions correctly, how that function is organized, and what the baby can accomplish. With the same strategy that \re use to structure ATN{ or rr lessons, the baby's achievements, and not Iack of achievement, are emphasized. This opens the way to add new elements to her movement repertoire, avoiding evoking feelings of difficulty and frustration. Talking softly to the baby during the session creates a supportive atmosphere. The ultimate goal of successful parenting is to assist their child's development, help them construct a positive self image, bolster their self confidence, improve the reciprocal relationship between the baby and the other members of the family, and reinforce the parent's sense of competency. Parents need to understand the child has needs of his own and these needs deserve respect.5 My training addresses all of these issues. As the parents' awareness expands, what they have learned becomes spontaneously available and is unconsciously used during the simplest tasks of the daily routine.

25

THE FELDENKRAIS ]OIIRNAL NO.

SPRING 2OO5

1B

And so Child'Space was born. Sometimes it is not so easv to flnd a name a new "bab1,." With deep gratitude, I thank Carla Reed fot'understanding my vision and presenting me with: Child'Space. This name had a talmudic appeal, the Talmud being full of wise and witty sayings, puns, rvord games, for

and acrostics. Let me r[911r -!ou: Child'Space, rvell this seems prett-y obvious: Child and Space. But nhat is rvith this rveird apostrophe? Nolv transpose the apostrophe. You get Childs'Pace. And this is the crux of the rnatter. Remember: One lesson at an early age is rvorth many lessons at a later stage.

EMPOWERING PARENTS Studies have shown that the quality of the connection between parents and their babies have a pervasive influence on the motor, social, emotional, and cognitive development of the child.ti Parental involvement as knon4edgeabie observers is rdtal. Hor,r,ever, it appears that most parents do not have the knorvledge or the tools needed to be effective observers. This is lr,hat, I believe, must change. Parents can be taught to provide for their infant's motor and emotional needs by learning to recognize phases of their child's development, to track their gror,vth, and to identify and neutraiize a\y compensatory movement habits that are evidence of something having gone off track. This knolvledge empo\Ners parents and contributes, not only to the establishment of better parent-child relations, but also to the development of the famill, unit in its entirety. The child feels more comfortable ivith himself r,r.hen receiving positive reinforcement from his environment and he will master the abilitv to achieve rvhat he wants by himself.

TRIAL AND ERROR LEARNING Thinking, "I must solve all my baby's problems," is not a useful approach. An example is when the baby attempts to sit and then to stand. During this process, the child nili be confused, she will fall, she will receive a fer,r, knocks, but through trial and elror she r,r,iil eventually solve the problem. Balance and coordination rt'ill develop only if the infant herseif searches for, and flnds, the r,r,ay to sit and stand. Sometimes the relevant systems take Ionger to mature, but the movement flnally is achieved and the baby has learned to search for and find soiutions and to depend on herself. Allor,r,ing discovery through trial and error is exactllr the r,r,ay to let the child to begin developing independence. Being able to monitor the infant and her surroundings, parents can learn to be observant enough to realize r,vhen trial and error has gone off track and can then seek gentle intervention. The child's abiiity to try things derives from the securitv she feels through the physical connection r,r,ith the primary caregiver. Security and autonomy means feeling free to try different things, to experiment, and to engage in trial and error. Toda-v's generation of parents does not ailovv their children enough challenges and, unintentionally, they prevent the child from seeking out challenges. Allowing the child his or,r,n chailenges is r,vhat energizes the development of balance, co-ordination, and orientation that are constructed in the child's flrst 1rs31 of life.

THE PARENT AND THE INFANT The personal baggage that nen,parents bring to parenthood is directlv responsible for the quality of the connection betn een parents and their

26

SPRING 2OO5

THE FELDENKRAIS JoURNAL No.

1B

inlant. This nerv situation, of being a parent, pror,,ides a marvelous opportllnirr- to consider their or,rrn past, the r,vay they were raised, and re-erraluate the relationship lvith their parents. "Wil1 I raise mv child in the same manner as I u,as raised?" Or, maybe, "I r,r.ant to be a different sort of parent. I don't t.ant to be like m\.mom or dad." -\s a parent learns to get close to her infant and learns to listen to him, she learns to listen aiso to herself. \\hi1e derreloping sensitirrity towards the inlant, lrcr self-directed sensititti4,,is sharperted. (See, From Theoqr to Practice, page 3z). Attention to the infant's needs and the positive feedback, strengthens the parent and evokes a feeling of security and satisfaction. (See Palent's Feedback, page, 35) The small validations experienced lr,hen soh-ing the small problems that crop up, and laying the groundwork lbr parent and child understandings, provide parenting tools and strengthen the abilities needed to be a mother or father. In a u,ider sense, the connection sought is not the parent-to-infant connection, but the family-to-infant connection. Family members provide the babv n ith inr,aluable opportunities to establish and develop social skiils. Social skills, already leamed at a very early age, influence the chiid's sense of curiosity, language skills, problem solving abilities, peer group behavior, and the development of various character traits. The influences are bidirectional: Children become active partners in defining the family structure and there is a direct connection between the child's personal development and the evolving family dynamic. Nlaritai harmony usual11, leads to pro-active parenting and improved accommodation on the part of the infant. Another factor in child behavior is their chronological position in the farnily. Is the child tire first born or is he the second child? Or is he the middle child? Hor,v does the presence of one child in the family ir-rfluence the parents' interaction rvith the nelr, arrival? Hor,v'does the lreung.rt child influence the oldest child and vice versa?

\Vhat meaningful process can occur in the mother that alters the rvav tirat she perceives herselfl Imagine the mother r'r,ho, while holding her baby, has strained shoulders, holds her breath, exhibits tension in her hands, and is ahvavs rushing around. If you point out to her that this strained posture and hrperactivitv may not fit the baby's irnmediate needs, she ansr,vers "But this is just hor,v I am. This is hor,r, I knonr myself." It is imperative to flnd a r,vav to help this parent to be more responsive to her baby. Ntavbe the child needs calming, which can often be easily achierred through simply moving more siowl.v, using a softer or firmer tone of voice or speaking more clearlt or faster or slo,,ver. Exposing the mother to the divergent needs of her babv r,vill create a new awareness of hersell thus enabling her to be more open and creative in her interaction rvith the baby and less hemmed in bv preconceived notions. It has also been discovered that babies of depressed mothers harre a difficult time der,,eloping independence and often exhibit stunted social skills. N{aria Knist, a psl,chologist r,vho completed the Child'Space training, studied a group of mothers l,r,ho lr,ere hospitalized in psychiatric facilities. The mothers u.ere not capable of taking care of their children, due to a trauma during birth or dr-re to a pre-existing condition. Some of the \,vomen \\rere er,en considering giving their baby up for adoption. After participating in the Child'Space u,orkshops, some of the r,r.omen left the hospital to make a home and raise their child. Women that remained at the facility reported that tire connection r,vith their child improved and they decided not to give their babies up for adoption. A nerv approach to touch and the positive feeclback tl're mother receives from the babtr creates a ner,v dmamic in the

27

I'HE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL NO.

SPRING 2OO5

18

mother-child relationship. From this experience, we understand how important it is to take care of the parent who is taking care of the baby In fact, the Child'Space method is nowroutinelyused in this facility. FUNCTION AND DYSFUNCTIONWHEN AND HOW TO INTERVENE? There is an irrevocable connection between movement patterns and the development of behavior patterns, self image, and interpersonal communication. Even slight delays in development affect the baby's present and future behavior and functioning. For example, the inability to roil from lying on the back to lying on the stomach may cause feelings of frustration and dissatisfaction. These feelings create negative feedback, betrveen the baby and herself and between the baby and her environment, rvhere she may be perceived as lazy or unsuccessful. Lack of success can create a situation where the infant feels that she is not compensated lt ith an adequate reward for the effort invested, however unsuccessful. On the other hand, expanding the baby's movement repertoire during the flrst fer,v months of life creates a drive to continue twing nerv solutions. Intervention, at the {irst er,'idence of even minimal dysfunction and before the habit is imprinted and flxed in the system, results in rapid learning and quick assimilation of change. The longer one utaits to interuene, the more time is need to effect the change. Sometimes parents feel that something is not right. \Vhen, during a routine visit to the doctor, they mention what they have observed, their fears are often dismissed by the doctor saying "It will work itself out. " Shortld rue leaue the ontogenetic process to work the problem oLtt or interuene?My observations have shown that leaving things to work themselves out often instills in the infants a sense of inability. Leaving things to rvork themselves out can lead to stiffness in joints and muscles. Movement begins to be perceived as something difficult and unrewarding instead of fun and joyful. It can also lead to stress because the child does not receive positive feedback from her environment and this influences her developing self image. A vicious circle is created, where these early frustrations remain rvithin the system and adversely influence the development of other, more complex functions. We are not talking about pathologv here, but about the infant's perception of herself as a capable human being. I am not arguing that the infant cannot find a wa-v to perform the necessary physical tasks. I am, hor,r,ever, concerned with the quality of the functioning. It seems sensibie to exploit the fact that applying minimal stimulus, at an early stage, to achieve maximum quality. We cannot foresee which child will overcome early developmental hiccups and for r,r'hich child these early frustrations will have far reaching, um,t'anted effects.

INCORPORATING SUPPORT AND AUTONOMY A mother brought her eight-month-old baby to me for consultation. Her baby's feet were turned inward. Their doctor advised against immediate intervention, claiming that when the child started walking the situation could be re-evaluated. During my examination, the chiid was b4ng on his back; I discovered hlper tonus in the leg muscles that resisted my attempts to bend his legs. Turning from lying on his back to his stomach was performed with straight legs. He also could not bring himself to sitting without his mother's help. The mother recounted how she always sits him up because in that position he seems more alert. She never realizedthat he does not sit independently because he lacks the coordination and rotation 2A

SPRING 2OO5

THE I]ELL]ENKRAIS ]OURNIL No. 18

among the legs, the arms, and the head that is necessary for shifting weight from one position to the next. Bv arranging her child in a sitting position, the mother inadvertently forces a position on him that he is not yet able to achieve independently. The resultant stiff muscles and inflexible spine, where the head and the back begin functioning as one unit, is brought about by the child's need to maintain his balance and avoid falling. Witnessing the child's struggle to remain upright leaves the mother skeptical of her child's abilities and leaves her unsure of herself as a mother. The mother's feelings are reinforced by the chi1d, who is developing an unhealthy dependence on his mother's help instead of finding his way to self reliance. Outside intervention has nolv become critical. The baby needs motor stimulation that will guide him towards organizing his balance and co-ordination. The mother needs professional support to teach her how to help him, using different stimuli that will allow her child to achieve sitting position independently. She will learn to encourage the baby to use trial and error, r,r,hich inherently teaches the infant to cope with failure, to fall, and

."vhen moving

ultimatell, find

a solution. Ertcountering obstacles and dangers increases the child's abiliry tu deal tuitlt dfficulties, falls, uncomfortable situations, and problem soluing. If we open the curtain wider and peek into this chtld's future, we can confidently say that neutralizing dangers at such an early age may be inaduertently

depriuirrg him of the opportunity to deuelop coping mechanisms.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY Play, the supremely important activity for the infant, goes beyond the motor aspect. "Play stimulates the baby to search for solutions and make decisions in changing situations. Play allows him to deal with failure and, of course, develop his motor, sensomotor, and psychomotor systems."T Play, according to Reed, "is an action system and has a quality of open,

non-committed exploration. "B Play encourages:

Meeting challenges Searching for solutions Developing attention Stimulation and reaction

Imitation Decision making During play sessions the infant learns to give and receive, recognize iimits and dangers, and acquire the ability to deal with failure. Play also develops coordination and balance. \\hen considering play, we must take a look at the toys that today's child plays r,r,ith. Do these toys really encourage imagination and creativity? Can r,r.e believe the toy manufacturers' hype claiming that their product "stimulates the imagination," "helps develop social skills," "awakens the cognitive functions," and "develops motor skills and tactile sense"? I believe that the answer to this must be, in most cases, a resounding no. Children's rooms are fu1l of toys, but most of these toys are not sufficiently challenging. They soon tire of the toy that does not contribute to the development of imagination and creativity. The truly beneflcial toys are the ones that demand more acti\,ity on the part of the baby, such as blocks, clay, dolls, crayons, and paper. Also, a smaller number of toys can actually encourage imagination and creativity. e Most toys today mold the child into a passive observer;10 the

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SPRTNG 20O5

TIII FLLDLNKRAIS JOURNAI- NO. IB

to-vs nhistle, squeak, talk, display moving pictures and all at the press of a button. What better training for sitting in front of the television and zapping around the channels? I encountered one mother r,r,ho found many justiflcations for putting her 4-month-old baby on the floor in front of the television. She claimed that it is good for him because it encourages him to lift his head. She rvas also convinced that he liked rv. Is this mother trul-v responding to her baby's needs or is she projecting her o."rrn needs onto her child? I encourage parents to use a combination of complementary play objects, such as large rings r,vhere body parts can be threaded though and noisemakers, r,vhich serve as training aids for developing the motor system and coordinating the hand-eye-hearing function. Balls are especially effectitte and handy props for ttrgingbaby to change location, ancl deuelopirrg sigltt, spcLtial orientatiort, sensatiotts of the body and of the ertuironntent. All these factors play important roles in gross and fine motor functions. It is not surprising that children who suffer from Developmental Coordination Disorder are not good at games involving balls and this, in turn, can cause manv social problems in school age children.lr

WHY IS EARLY INTERVENTION SO IMPORTANT? in gror,r,th and anlthing not attempted in its o',vn time mav remain dormant for the rest of the learner's 1ife.

Tin-re presses on

-\{osHE

FELDENKRAis, The Elusiue Obuiotrs

Over the last decade, the necessity of identifring, diagnosing, and treating problems at the earliest stage of life has become clearer to researchers and somatic professionals. Springing from this a\\rareness, and rooted in experience gleaned during manyyears of r,r,orkingr,vith children with motor, cognitive, or emotional and social skills problems, I developed Child'Space. Child'Space is cortcerned tuith tracking a child's deuelopment from birth trrttil he or slrc succeeds itr walkirtg indepenclently.The focus is on babies w-ho have no speciflc problems, in other -"vords, healthy babies. Often miniscule problems escape a parent's notice and even if the probiem is seen, it is doubtful if parents can correctly understand it. Left unattended, these tin1. problems can derrelop into clumsiness of movement, degraded lunctioning, and sometimes lead to more serious defects. Todav researchers in the field of developmental psvchologv are exploring the effect of parental involvement and the enormous impact this involvement has on their child's motor-co gnitive- emotional development. It follows that tracking an infant's earliest development and paying special attention to any difficulty or problem encountered, regardiess of hort, negligible these problems may seem, and, flna11y, intervening effectively at an early stage will heip avoid more intractable problems later. Tiris is over-nvhelmingly true for babies born premature11.. Preemies need proprioceptive feedback and improved breathing organization. r 2 HaddarsAlgra analyzed infant movement and found that full term babies exhibited normal Iidgety movements, lr,hich were complex and three dimensional (e.9., a movement of the ieg that combines not onlv flexion/ extension, but also abduction in the hip and final internal rotation of the foot). Preemies, on the other hand, clearly exhibited tr,r,,o-dimensional morrements lacking in variation and complexity. According, to this researcher, these babies are at risk for neurological disorders (such as c.p.), clumsiness, and attentiolr deflciency disorders.

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THF, FEI-DINKRAIS JOURNAI- NO. 1B

Earlv intervention, influencing all the system elements that comprise orderlr, infant development, is crucial. However, the most important question to consider is, "\Vhen am I helping and lr,hen am I hindering?" Esther Thelen's research shor,r,s that the infant brain is plastic and the child has the inherent capability for self correction. "Research in developrnental neuroscience points to the fact that synaptic connections are eliminated if they are not activated."r3

EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION BETWEEN THE PARENT AND CHILD Considel the case of a babv with hyper tonic legs. !\hile cradling the bab_v, his mother might perceive that he is not calm and is having trouble bending his legs. The Child'Space coach rvill teach her how to relieve the hyper torlicit\.bv tapping softly on his legs and touching his abdomen, thus regulating the tonus through the proprioceptive s-ystem. Once his legs are a bit more pliable, the mother learns horv to bring the baby's knees closer to his bodv rvhile she also brings her face closer to the baby's face. \\4tile doing this, the mother varies her facial expressions and her wav of talking, repeating the child's name for instance. The child invariabl-v focuses on his mother's face and he i,r,ill even mimic her mouth movements. " . . . the most important r,t ays in rvhich infants learn, before language development, consist ol looking and imitation" (Hanna & Meltzoff, 1993) .11 All possible cornmttnication channels are used: tactile, auditory, uisual, mouement, and, of course, rhe sectLrity of bei.ng closely held by his mother. Er,.entually the baby becomes calm; his flexors rela,x, tension is reduced, breathing is easy, and the infant senses a great degree of physical comfort in this cradled position. This process results in a calmer baby rvho senses, through his mother's touch, that she too is calm and confident. En-iploving r,alied means of communication, ieads to a more fruitfui diaIog betlveen the parent and the infant. Touch, speech, singing, and whatever inr.olves other senses, establish superior communication between the child and the caregiver. "From one month infants show enhanced visual attention to particular facial features, such oS eygs, rnouth, that are most relevant lor the reading of emotional expressions" (Maurrer & Salapatek, 1976). r 5 To build these communication channels, the parent must be learn hou'to create a pleasant environrnent where the child feels comfortable, calm. and secure. BODY MAPPING Tu-o vears ago a perplexed mother showed up r,vith her sweet twin girls. Katerina and N{arta lr,,ere beautiful babies. Vlarta, ho\,l,el.er, was missing her

right forearm and lacking a hand. How could four-month-old Nlarta learn that most basic function-rolling? One of the main problems facing the child u.as coping r,r,ith the huge difference between the feeling and functioning on each side of the body. Learning how to roll n as initiall-v impossible. Since there was no forearm to provide a lever, she had to iearn that the stump can be a functioning part of her body. On the undamaged side, I found great inflexibility in the shoulder that presented a whole new set of challenges. Each side required different orientation and coordination. Children u.ith these types of def'ects are prone to develop one side only because the irrcomplete side is not represented in their bod1, image. After two years of rvork \Iarta norv climbs ladders and communicates weil. She is comfortable standir-rg up for herself.

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THE FELDENKRATS IOURNAL NO,

SPRTNG 20O5

1B

Infants begin constrtrcting their self image tfuough personal inuestigation. They touch themselves, investigating by feeling their body parts, and begin formulating a concept of themseives. Damasio called this the body loop. "How the body loop functions in mental, emotional, and embodies life, mapping those activities as they occur."16 They listen to their inner voice and bring their extremities into their fleld of vision. "Seif exploration is more than a behavioral inventory: It is a speciflc process through which infants become perceptually attentir,.e to their olr,n body and engage in a perceptual dialo gue with themselves. " 17

LYING ON THE STOMACH Research has over'"r,'helmingly demonstrated that the connection between an infant's strlrcture and function are inexorably iinked to everything that has to do nith his development. For example, newborns can barely raise

their heads, but r,r,hen their muscles have developed enough to allor,t'this function babies easill, raise and hold their heads in a stable posture. This seemingly small developmental step expands the infant's interaction with his enr,,ironment: The baby smiles more when relating to the people around him and seeks to establish eye contact with them.lB Parents are instructed to lay babies on their backs rather than on their stomachs. The rationale for keeping babies on their backs is to prevent cradle death. This practice usually results in many children who do not deveiop their arm, neck, and shoulder girdle muscles because they have no need to push themseh,es up i,r,ith their arms. This, however, surely does not mean that the baby cannot be placed on his stomach during the daywhen he is under caregiver supervision, giving him the opportunity to develop his upper body and neck musculature that are vital to lifting his head, erecting his upper body, crawling, and balance. A11 these new abilities strengthen the connection between the baby and his environment. This is just one example, among man-y, that point to the need inexperienced parents have for a support system that orovides the necessary guidance, in a number of flelds, that hetps them understand and support their baby's normal development. FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE The Child'Space training for facilitators is implemented in two ways:

Individual sessions with parents-baby-practioner Group sessions with parents-baby-facilitator During group sessions we attempt to insure appropriate and qualitative de'",elopment. The babies are divided according to their developmental stage:

Rolling over From rolling to crawling From crar,r4ing to independent sitting From sitting to standing and walking Orderly and appropriate developmental stages are discussed and experienced through movement. These discussions do not remain in the realm of the theoreticai; facilitalors learn how to make clear to parents that orderly developmental stages influence daily fungli.ns. Exercises, that improve movement and the quality of that movement, and encourage learning, are taught so that parents can repeat these exercises at home during baby's playtime. Parents are guided in how to routinely apply what they have learned, for example: how to hold and carry the bab1r, when is the appropriate stage to support the baby in his or her attempts at sitting, and so on.

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.1'HE

SPRING 20O5

IELDENKRAIS ]OURNAL ,\O.

18

One of the most important tools acquired by parents, working with facilitators, is the confidence to recognize rvhen it is time to intervene. B-v observing and interwening before nonfunctional or compensatory movement becomes habitual, parents allow their baby to arrive at complex functions free from delaying factors and stress. The Child'Space workshop consists of 5o days (3oo academic hours). Course syllabus: Phases of motor development from o - 3 months of age Turning over and rolling Crawling and sitting Standing and nalking

From homo lateral movement to contra lateral movement Balance mechanisms in varying fields of gravity Gross and fine rnotor control Coordination and orientation Developing speech and Ianguage Interpersonal communication and developing social skills Infant and child play Lectures

SYSTEM ELEMENTS AND FACILITATORS This diagram represents the mutuality of interaction among the main players. BABY

FACILITATOR