The Feldenkrais Journal #26 Science

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THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL, NO 26

science

2013

The Feldenkrais Journal is published annually for the members of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America (fgna). Inquiries regarding this publication should be directed to: fgna, Communications Editor, 5436 North Albina Avenue, Portland, OR 21. If you have an article, drawing, or letter to the editor to submit to the Journal, please send directly to the Assistant Editor, Judy Windt, at [email protected]. Please save electronic writings in Word or rtf (rich text format). The deadline for submissions is May 15, 2014. The theme of the next issue is Improvisation. For more information about format, length, computer compatibility, etc., please contact Judy Windt at [email protected].

Additional copies of the Journal are available through the Guild office for 10 to Guild members and 15 to non-members (plus shipping and handling). Bulk rate fees are available on request.

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The Feldenkrais Journal number 26

Table of Contents

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Letter from the Editor

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Unity of Mind and Body in Scientific Research and The Feldenkrais Method: The Example of Gait Marek Wyszynski

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What Do We Do and What Is It For? A description of the Feldenkrais Method through the notions of body image and body schema Isabelle Ginot

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Involving Primary Caregivers in Feldenkrais Group Sessions with Children with Special Needs: the camit Experience Marilupe Campero

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Splitters & Lumpers The Major Conflict in Neuroscience Between Exploring the Whole or the Parts: A History Carl Ginsburg

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Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Lessons and Motor Learning

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Differentiating a Movement and Its Imagined Twin

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The Primacy of Movement, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone Maxine Sheets-Johnstone: A Review Roger Russell

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Contributors

Steve Mulvihill

Elin E. Lobel

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Letter from the Editor

Dear Colleagues, In this issue we look at our work from the viewpoint of science. Marek Wyszynski looks at recent research and demonstrates how it supports many of the views and hypotheses of Moshe Feldenkrais, with a special emphasis on gait. Isabelle Ginot asks if scientific vocabulary and concepts, specifically those of body image and body schema, can be used as a description of our work, not just to explain what the work is. Marilupe Campero shares with us a program which includes caregivers in the process of atm lessons with special needs children and demonstrates the resulting improvements in quality of life for all involved. Carl Ginsburg takes us through a fascinating history of some of the conflicts in neuroscience and introduces us to the splitters and lumpers. Elin Lobel shows us how we can look at atm lessons from the standpoint of motor learning principles, taking a lesson familiar to all of us and further illuminating it using these principles. Steve Mulvihill guides us through his process of exploring and experimenting with imagined movements, first with just himself, then with a small group. And finally, Roger Russell reviews Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s book, The Primacy of Movement, giving us a real sense of Sheets-Johnstone as a person, while exploring some of the most interesting issues in modern philosophy. The topic for the next issue will be improvisation, a vital part of our creative interaction with ourselves and our environment. How does improvisation affect or guide your fis, your atms, your life? Write and inspire us with your stories, discoveries, thoughts, and ideas. This issue will be my last as editor. My wholehearted thanks and gratitude to Judy Windt, an incredible Assistant Editor, the editorial board, the Guild staff, and the designer who work so hard to make this publication possible. And to all of the practitioners who submit articles, poems, and artwork to the Journal— past, present and future. Keep writing, keep reading. Sincerely,

Katrin Smithback

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Unity of Mind and Body in Scientific Research and The Feldenkrais Method: The Example of Gait Marek Wyszynski “I believe that the unity of mind and body is an objective reality. They are not just parts somehow related to each other, but an inseparable whole while functioning. A brain without a body could not think . . . the muscles themselves are part and parcel of our higher functions.”

—Moshe Feldenkrais, Mind and Body, 19641

Introduction Feldenkrais training helps us develop an understanding of and skill in working with the whole person. Lessons and interactions between practitioners and clients take into consideration the co-existence of four elements of every action: movement, feeling, sensing, and thinking.   Dr. Feldenkrais was a scientist. He combined a rigorous knowledge of scientific logic with uncanny powers of observation and deduction. Nevertheless, the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education has often been treated dismissively by the scientific world because it is supported with anecdotal case studies. Critics claim that Dr. Feldenkrais made bold assumptions about the function of the brain in relation to human health and behavior without sufficient research and documentation. Good news for all Feldenkrais practitioners is the current, ever-increasing range of research on the functioning of the nervous system—in particular, on neuroplasticity. Technological advances are allowing us to look more deeply into the workings of the human brain, and a number of interesting scientific studies have been published in recent years confirming the brilliant insights and discoveries that Moshe Feldenkrais made. In this article, I introduce several studies that provide scientific evidence for the interconnectedness of body and mind functioning. I then go on to examine the specific case of the relationship between gait and cognitive function, looking at scientific studies and also exploring a Feldenkrais view of working with gait. Now let’s take a closer look at some of the research supporting our understanding of the coexistence of bodily movement, sensation, thought, and feeling.

Movement and Thinking It is generally accepted that regular physical activity is essential for healthy aging. Most often, however, the benefit of exercise has been linked only with physiological improvement, such as increases in strength, flexibility, or endurance. Recent discoveries are beginning to document that an active lifestyle may play an important role not only in improving the body, but also in making the mind function better. Dr. John Medina, for example, devotes the first chapter of his book, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, to the role of movement and exercises in boosting our brain power.2 “To improve your thinking skills, move,” suggests Medina. The book is scientifically rigorous—he only includes findings that have been “published in a peer-reviewed journal and then successfully replicated.” Fortunately, there are more and more such findings.

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A number of studies comparing sedentary individuals with those who exercise support the claim that aerobic exercise reduces the risk of dementia. One such study states, “Aerobic exercise just twice a week halves your risk of general dementia and it cuts your risk of Alzheimer’s by 60%.”3, 4 Another study observed the responses of a group of 27-year-olds to a 12-week exercise regimen. When the participants exercised, their brain function rose, and when the program stopped, their prefrontal brain function fell.5 At the annual Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, which took place in July, 2012 in Vancouver, researchers presented several important clinical trials and research studies establishing that exercise can help prevent or delay cognitive impairments and dementia. A number of studies demonstrated the benefit of resistance (strength) training for selective attention and conflict resolution.6 Resistance training also led to functional changes in three regions of the cortex involved in the encoding and memorization of non-verbal associations.7 Other researchers found the benefit of varied exercises—including muscle strengthening, aerobics, and postural balance retraining— on cognitive performance.8

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The Importance of Gait In addition to various exercise programs, researchers are starting to take a closer look at walking. In an interview, William Thies, PhD, Chief Medical and Scientific Officer of the Alzheimer’s Association, said, “This year we have a remarkable set of very large studies that really confirm the relationship between changes in gait and cognitive function.”9 Several studies have pointed out that gait is no longer considered by scientists and medical researchers as an automatic motor activity independent of cognition. A study presented by Kirk Erickson showed that one year of a moderate-intensity walking regimen increased the size of the hippocampus by 2% as compared with a stretching-toning control group.10 The hippocampus is part of the cerebral cortex, which plays an important role in learning, memory and spatial orientation (it is the area of the brain damaged by Alzheimer’s disease). In addition, the study observed positive changes in the subjects’ concentration of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (bdnf). bdnf helps to support the survival of existing neurons and is active in the formation of new neurons and synapses. The researchers documented brain neuroplasticity in response to the walking program, even among the older adults who had previously been sedentary. A few of the studies found a relationship between decreased speed of gait and increased risk of dementia in older people.11 One study, conducted at the Mayo Clinic and led by neurologist Dr. Rodolfo Savica, examined the relationship between the results of cognition tests and changes in the three parameters of walking: velocity, stride length, and cadence.12 Most of the 1,341 participants did not have dementia and were evaluated twice, 15 months apart, with tests of cognitive ability and walking. The study found that, on average, a person who walked one meter per second slower on the second test scored half a point lower on cognitive tests. Participants with lower cadence, velocity, and amplitude of stride length demonstrated larger declines in cognition and memory, as well as in executive functions such as planning, prioritizing, organizing, and paying attention to and remembering details. In another study, Mohammad Ikram of the Netherlands observed that particular aspects of cognition were linked to specific aspects of gait: speed of processing (cognitive function) with velocity of gait, executive functions with stride length, width and variability of stride.13 An example of greater variability would be uneven steps, veering off the path, or uneven timing of gait cycle. Perhaps the most practical research study for Feldenkrais practitioners is one presented by Swiss scientist Stephanie Bridenbaugh.14 She and her team studied changes in gait while the subjects were “challenged” by cognitive dual tasking. The group of 1,100 participants included elderly persons who were cognitively healthy, individuals with mild cognitive impairments, and people at various stages of dementia and Alzheimer’s. On the first trial, subjects were observed walking spontaneously, without any mental tasks. On the second trial, they walked again while performing a cognitive task, such as counting backward by twos from 50 or naming animals. The New York Times, in its online edition of the article “Footprints to Cognitive Decline and Alzheimer’s Are Seen in Gait” by Pam Belluck (July 16, 2012), describes findings presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference and includes very interesting video footage from the Bridenbaugh study.15 “‘One 72-year-old woman’s first walking test betrayed no problems. But when she walked while counting backward from 50, her gait worsened dramatically,” said Dr. Stephanie Bridenbaugh, head of the Basel Mobility Center. The subject walked much more slowly and more awkwardly, and her balance was markedly compromised when she was asked to perform the dual mental tasking. 5

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“She almost tipped to the side and she didn’t notice any of it,” Bridenbaugh added. “She was mad that she didn’t remember more numbers.” Cognitive testing that followed the gait analysis showed the woman had mild cognitive impairment. Changes in walking often occur long before observable cognitive changes. Gait analysis, therefore, could become a valuable tool in early detection of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. And who could be better at observing changes in gait than we Feldenkrais practitioners, who spend most of our professional lives studying and making sense of the most subtle changes in our clients’ movements? This is especially true because most doctors and specialists who focus on cognitive impairments do not examine their patients’ everyday movements, like walking or getting up from the floor, the bed, or a chair. The simple test of comparing a client’s “normal” gait with his/her walking pattern while counting backwards by twos could become a standard component of our initial assessment of older clients. Difficulties with our students’ performances on the test could be documented and communicated with their doctors and clinicians as early detection allows for better treatment options and more favorable outcomes. In addition we could use the same test to monitor our clients’ progress. Our active engagement in a dialogue with the medical community could help the Feldenkrais profession gain recognition as a reputable approach to the prevention of deterioration in mind and body function. After all, statements such as that from The New York Times health and science writer Pam Belluck—“The more trouble people have moving and walking, the more trouble they have thinking”—are bread and butter for Feldenkrais practitioners. Not only can we can detect subtleties of change in movement and gait, but our properly constructed lessons can bring improvement and reversal of deterioration. Practically every Feldenkrais lesson can be considered a form of training to shift attention and to improve spatial orientation, proprioceptive and kinesthetic awareness, and coordination and balance.

Things to Consider when Working with Improvement of Gait Over the years, I have had the privilege of studying and learning Feldenkrais’s body of work and its interpretation with a number of great trainers, assistant trainers, and practitioners. Thus, the following ideas are not completely original. I have benefited from using a certain “working theory” when selecting and giving lessons to people wishing to improve their walking. I hope you find this model useful in grasping the thinking behind the structure of the lessons, even though we are still far from having a complete understanding of human gait. Walking is an efficient form of locomotion. Gait with an upright and erect posture— or as Dr. Feldenkrais called it, “acture”—is superior for a number of reasons. Firstly, increased height of the center of mass increases the potential energy of the body. This means that, when we stand taller, it takes less effort to initiate, redirect, and change our movements. The principle also applies to easier recovery of dynamic balance: when we are taller, it takes less effort to right ourselves. Secondly, walking allows the telereceptors located in the head (especially the eyes, but also the ears and nose) to be held high above the ground. We literally have “higher horizons,” allowing us to see further while standing and walking upright. Slouched posture, on the other hand, makes us shorter, since the locomotion that is performed is closer to the ground, as in creeping or crawling. Furthermore, the ability to “see more” while being tall imparts more information to the brain and the nervous system. One of the jobs of the nervous system is to collect informa6

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tion from the internal environment (kinesthetic and proprioceptive input from our body) and the external environment. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the human body sends over 11 million bits per second to the brain for processing. This transmission of information includes 10 million bits per second from the eyes, 1 million from the skin, 100,000 from the ears, 100,000 from smell, and 1000 bits per second from the organs of taste. It is worth mentioning that the conscious mind seems to be able to process only 50 bits per second! How little reaches our consciousness! Nevertheless, most of the information is processed, and the nervous system is trying to make sense of it. In order to survive, our nervous system is trying to “predict the future” and enact the best available responses. Some of them are reflexive and simple (for example, when a sudden noise evokes protective flexor activation—“ducking”), while others are very complex (a baseball player running 30 feet at a specific velocity and direction, extending his arm, opening and closing the glove in order to catch the ball). To enact a movement response, the nervous system needs tools: muscles and bones. Skeletal muscles either move or inhibit movement of the bones. Bones provide a framework (internal scaffolding of the body). Dr. Feldenkrais said that the function of the skeleton is to cancel gravity. Gravity causes the weight of the body to push into the ground (the force is directed straight into the center of earth). Because bones are hard, they can support our body weight and create levers through which movement is possible. Our bodies perform two basic types of movement: 1. Movement of one body part in relationship to another (for example, moving a hand toward the mouth, or bringing a knee toward the chest). 2. Movement of our body in space (travelling from point a to point b, for example through walking, running, jumping or swimming). In this type of movement, it is necessary to actively push off a supportive surface. Hardness of the skeleton allows us to powerfully anchor ourselves and push away from the ground. Imagine if we did not have bones and only had soft tissues like skin, connective tissue, and muscles. We would be like soft bags spread on the floor, and the only form of locomotion would be slow and worm-like. The explanation of Moshe Feldenkrais’s concept of how a properly organized skeleton cancels or at least counteracts gravity is based on the Newton’s Third Law of Motion, which can be summarized as follows: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. To be precise, when one body exerts a force on a second body (for example our body weight pushing straight down into the ground), the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction to that of the first body (the ground is pushing back up with the same force). If the skeleton is held upright, it is properly supporting itself, and such balance is possible—just like a pillar or a Greek column that has stood for thousands of years! To grasp the Newtonian principles in creation of movement, let’s imagine using a paddle in kayaking: you insert the paddle into the water and pull the water back. The action of pulling produces equal and opposite force that pushes your kayak forward. Walking, running, and dancing are all based on the same principle. Examine a simple action like standing and stepping out to the left side. Can you sense that in order to side step to the left your right foot needs to push the floor to the right? Can you imagine the efficient interaction of your foot with the floor that offers this propulsive force? Most of us use our skeleton in an underdeveloped, crude way, not quite sure how to take full advantage of it. In order to understand what happens with less-than-perfect 7

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skeletal organization, we need to realize that in gravity, unsupported objects fall. A column that is tilted to the side is doomed to collapse sooner or later. The head that doesn’t have the spine underneath it is unbalanced and begins to fall; the pelvis that doesn’t have the legs and feet right under it also loses its balance and begins to fall. The moment such “falling” occurs, our nervous system perceives a lack of balance, predicts the possible consequences (“the future”), and immediately enacts responses to prevent the complete fall. The way our nervous system prevents such falling is through contraction of specific muscle groups. For example, if a client’s head is tilted forward and to the left, the practitioner, upon examination, may find overly contracted muscles in the right back of the neck and perhaps contraction or even spasm of the muscles of the right side of the lower back and buttock. These muscles are pulling on the head to prevent a complete fall forward and left. Persistent contraction of these muscles reduces freedom of movement of the head, shoulders, chest, and spine. When the muscles remain contracted, they cannot be free to perform other movements. In addition, such an ongoing tension diminishes a person’s kinesthetic and proprioceptive sensitivity. This phenomenon is explained by the WeberFechner Law on perceptible difference. It tells us that our ability to perceive a change depends on the level of existing stimulation. It takes a bigger change to notice a difference when our senses are exposed to higher levels of stimulation. Just as we cannot hear our cell phone during a rock concert or would have difficulty seeing the change in light produced by a candle on a bright, sunny day, our ability to perceive a change of length, position, and tonus of muscles is greatly reduced when excessive muscle tension persists. The quality of movement declines as the kinesthetic acuity is diminished. We are really in trouble when our nervous system does not detect this crucial kinesthetic information or does not respond accordingly! It is also important to remember that most essential information is processed in the nervous system but does not reach and does not need to reach our conscious awareness. The righting responses have to be much faster than our slower processes, like awareness. As Roger Sperry, PhD, winner of the 1981 Nobel Prize for Medicine for his brain research, said, “Better than 90 percent of the energy output of the brain is used in relating the physical body in its gravitational field. The more mechanically distorted a person is, the less energy available for thinking, metabolism and healing.” The kind of insufficient skeletal support described above can evoke anxiety. The fear of falling is turned on to assure our safety and survival. Improvement of habitual skeletal organization not only improves movements and function—it may directly affect our psychology.

Conclusion More than a half century ago, Dr. Feldenkrais postulated that successful treatments need to address and integrate a person’s movement of the body, sensation, feeling, and thought. He left us a system that to this day is way ahead of our time. New research begins to recognize the interconnectedness of seemingly separate disciplines like psychiatry, psychology, cognitive science, biomechanics, and movement and physical therapy. As practitioners, we should remain up to date with current scientific findings and engage in an open dialogue with scientists and medical professionals. As the example of observing and understanding gait shows, we have much to offer—especially by sharing how we convert abstract knowledge to its concrete application in Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement lessons. 8

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References 1 Feldenkrais, M. 1964. Mind and Body in Embodied Wisdom: The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais, ed. Elizabeth Beringer, Somatic Resources, Berkeley; and North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, 2010: 28 & 29. 2 Medina, J. 2008. Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School. Seattle: Pear Press. 3 Rovio, S., et al. 2005. Leisure-time physical activity at midlife and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Lancet Neurology 4: 705-711. 4 Verghese, J., et al. 2003. Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine 348: 2508-2516. 5 Harada, T., et al. 2004. Jogging improved performance of a behavioral branching task: implications for prefrontal activation. Neuroscience Research 49:325-337. 6 Nagamatsu, L., et al. 2012. Resistance training promotes cognitive functions and functional plasticity in senior women with probable mild cognitive impairment: A 6-month randomized controlled trial. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol 8 Issue 4, 82. 7 Fallah, N., et al. 2012. Refining exercise prescription to promote executive functions in older adults using multi-state transition modeling. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 100. 8 Shimada, H. 2012. Effects of multicomponent exercise on cognitive function in the older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment: A randomized control trial. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 144-145. 9 http://www.alz.org/aaic/2013_news_releases.asp#newsreleases 10 Erickson, K., et al. 2012. The influence of an aerobic exercise intervention on brain volume in late adulthood. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 81. 11 Meguro, K., et al. 2012. Clinical gait assessment in the old-old population in a community: The Kurihara Project. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 99-100. 12 Savica, R., et al. 2012. Slow gait predicts cognitive decline: A population based cohort study. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 318. 13 Ikram, M., et al. 2012. Cognition and gait reveal distinct patterns of association in an aging population. Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association Vol. 8 Issue 4, 99. 14 Bridenbaugh, S., et al. 2012. How does gait change as cognitive decline progresses in the elderly? Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association. Vol. 8 Issue 4, Supplement, 131-132. 15 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/health/research/signs-of-cognitive-decline-andalzheimers-are-seen-in-gait.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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What Do We Do and What Is It For? A description of the Feldenkrais Method through the notions of body image and body schema Isabelle Ginot There are frequent discussions within the Feldenkrais community about “how to talk about the Method.” This persistent question seems even more difficult when the issue becomes how to discuss the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education with non-practitioners, for instance in interdisciplinary discussions where we lack a common vocabulary to share with other professionals or scholars. Moshe Feldenkrais, a former scientist, was known for his ongoing interest in the sciences while creating his Method, and most of his writings are supported by scientific arguments. Yet, his writings intended more to build a theoretical framework for his Method, than to describe his work. Could scientific vocabulary and concepts be used as a description of our work? In this paper, I will consider a notion that is central to both Feldenkrais’s writings and practice, the notion of “self image.” I will also observe how this notion may be clarified by using a more contemporary framework of “body image and body schema,” offered by philosopher of science Shaun Gallagher. In doing so, I will not try to follow Moshe Feldenkrais’s effort to use science to explain what the work is, but rather, to offer a description of our work. In other words, parallel to the question Feldenkrais was trying to answer in his writings: how does it work? I’d like to ask another one : what do we do and what is it for?

Body image and body schema in Moshe Feldenkrais’s writings In his writings, Feldenkrais uses a constellation of notions linked together: body image, body schema, self-image, awareness, and habits. When writing about “self-image” Feldenkrais refers to Paul Schilder’s The Body Image and the Appearance of the Human Body, first published in 1935 (Schilder 1950), and he recommended that students read this book during the Amherst training. Schilder’s book is seminal for it sets crucial representations for later research: body image (or self-image) is not static, but rather continuously evolving according to a perceptive flux of information. It is also dynamically composed of a variety of sources that Schilder sets as equally important: the functioning brain (and the crucial importance of proprioception, which was first promoted by Schilder, among others), the subconscious and the social (although in Schilder “social” is approached as the interpersonal aspect of subconscious movements). As shown later, Gallagher has recently criticized not the content of Schilder’s book, which sets the foundation for later research on these notions, but his lack of rigor and precision in the vocabulary he is also setting up. Feldenkrais borrows much from Schilder (the notion of dynamic body image, or in more contemporary terms, its plasticity, is crucial to Feldenkrais, as is its multi-layered nature), including the lack of discrimination in vocabulary. Like Schilder, he uses both body image and body schema, without differentiating between the two, and perhaps even more often the term “self-image”1 —a term that many contemporary Feldenkrais practitioners also favor. Moreover, in his effort to approach theory in a holistic way and demonstrate how different aspects of the self are in fact linked together, he presents the same concept, throughout his writings, with non-consistent descriptions or definitions. A first version of Feldenkrais’s concept of “self-image” is neuro-scientific: it is explained or described through another concept, the “homunculus,” or the theory of brain localiza10

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tion—very prominent at the time he was writing (Feldenkrais 1972: 13–14). In these fragments of his texts, “self-image” might very well be confused with an image in the brain, and perhaps even an image of the brain. We can think of this first concept as the result of Feldenkrais’s own research to understand the experiential method he was developing. A second version of the same concept might be said to be anthropological or sociological, although Feldenkrais himself does not use such terms. This appears in the many parts of his books where culture, society, education, and family are the main causes of faulty development of the self: “Scholastic practice is responsible for parents’ beliefs, and understanding of learning. It seems that well-meaning parents interfere with organic learning to the point that many therapists trace the real start and development of most dysfunctions back to the parents. These findings are so general that one would think we would be better off if we never had parents at all.” (Feldenkrais 1981: 32) Quite interestingly, this concept appears at length in his writings, while it is difficult to find evidence in the practice of any acknowledgement of cultural or social differences. A third version appears to be mostly experiential and belonging to the subject’s use of himself or herself: “A complete self-image would involve full awareness of all the joints in the skeletal structure as well as of the entire surface of the body—all the back, the sides, between the legs, and so on; this is an ideal condition and hence a rare one.” (Feldenkrais 1972: 21) Quite interestingly, such a description of the ideal self-image appears marginally in his writings (as opposed to the first two, which occupy many pages and entire chapters), though it is the one that illustrates most clearly the aim of every Feldenkrais lesson. One can also observe that in this definition, “self-image” is actually equal to “full awareness,” and appears both as an ideal and as the final goal of the practice.

New definitions: body image and body schema by Shaun Gallagher While body image appears to be key to the Feldenkrais Method (as of many other somatic techniques), what Feldenkrais really means by it, and how the Method builds it, remains quite unclear, due to the definitional discrepancies within Feldenkrais’s texts, and also between texts and practice. Yet those notions of body image and body schema have been the object of more recent research in the field of neuro- and cognitive sciences. I found the work of philosopher Shaun Gallagher relevant to the Feldenkrais Method because, while integrating recent research in neuroscience and cognitive science, he gives the same value to the tradition of phenomenology, therefore assimilating the “first person point of view” so necessary to our work. In How the Body Shapes the Mind (2005), he first remarks that the concepts of body schema and body image have a long history of confusion and inconsistency since Schilder’s book (p. 19). Alternatively, he proposes to define quite strictly body image and body schema as two distinct sets of functions, so as to observe how they interact in the “normal” subject. In his model, “The body image consists of a complex set of intentional stages— perceptions, mental representations, beliefs, and attitudes—in which the intentional object of such a state is one’s own body. Thus the body image involves a reflective intentionality.” In other words, body image encompasses all intentional actions, perceptions and ideas that are both conscious and turned towards the body. Gallagher proposes three subdivisions of body image: 1. Body percept: “the subject’s perceptual experience of his/her own body,” (p. 25) or any conscious perception related to position, movement, touch, etc. In an Awareness 11

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Through Movement (atm) lesson, this covers any moment when students bring their attention to body parts, movement direction, effort quality, shifts in weight supports, etc. 2. Body concept: “the subject’s conceptual understanding (including folk and/or scientific knowledge) of the body in general”; our lessons are full of “body concepts,” (p. 25) from the elementary notions of skeletal anatomy that we may distill in order to clarify some direction, to more sophisticated information about biomechanics or movement learning and development. 3. Body affect: “the subject’s emotional attitude towards his/her own body” (p. 25, emphasis added). This doesn’t concern emotions as experienced in one’s body, but more specifically emotional states about one’s own body (likes and dislikes, permissions and taboos, etc.). This last dimension of body image might be of interest in the Feldenkrais Method because, as opposed to percepts and concepts, the way we approach it in our practice is less tangible. I’ll come back to this later. Body image is therefore present mostly in the field of consciousness, and is particularly involved in new motor learning; as we know as Feldenkrais teachers, its three levels— percepts, concepts, and affects—are deeply interwoven and make the foundation for our lessons. In contrast, body schema “involves a set of tacit performances—preconscious, subpersonal processes that play a dynamic role in governing posture and movement. In most instances, movement and the maintenance of posture are accomplished by the close to automatic performances of a body schema, and for this very reason a normal adult subject, in order to move around the world, neither needs nor has a constant body percept” (p. 26, emphasis added). Gallagher uses the term pre-noetic to encompass this sphere of the many processes that are non-conscious, but condition the quality of our consciousness. In the Feldenkrais Method, we often use more vague terms of “nonconscious,” “habits,” “automatism,” etc. Gallagher insists that body schema is particularly difficult to describe since its operations are not accessible to consciousness. Just as with body image, Gallagher offers three groups of processes that compose body schema (pp. 45–55): 1. Information about posture and movement (mostly produced by proprioception, and visual and vestibular information). 2. Motor programs (learned complex actions such as swallowing, reaching, grasping, writing, walking that have been automatized through learning and repetition, and remain accessible as long as they are activated by usual behavior), along with motor images (the capacity to evoke or imagine those actions). 3. Cross-modal communication of the senses. Body image and body schema also include different functions of space. While body image is only concerned with one’s own body, and therefore separates itself from space and surroundings, body schema may include non-body objects such as tools and prostheses, as well as elements of space that are inherent to movement (the kind of implicit knowledge that allows us, for instance, to walk through a door without having to consciously calculate how to adjust our trajectory). What they share is permanent readjusting and modulating, which is important since, in popular thinking, both body image and schema tend to be referred to as fixed things that one “has.” Finally, body schema and body image are obviously intimately interacting; certain functions or actions integrated by body schema may migrate to body image (by way of “awareness,” for instance, as would most somatic practices), and vice versa (by way of learning and integrating new motor schemas). 12

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This summary of Gallagher’s categories does not do justice to the complexity of his book. But how body image and body schema interact and cooperate in movement learning, how “pre-noetic” habits and awareness dialogue to facilitate or add constraints to action, is precisely the field of work of the Feldenkrais Method, particularly in Awareness Through Movement (atm) classes.

Reading an atm lesson through Gallagher’s model As we know, an atm lesson is usually structured around a “movement theme” (walking, shifting from lying to sitting, rolling, reaching, etc.), and its general aim is to “improve” this global movement or coordination. The practitioner leads the class through verbal instructions, avoiding demonstration, and students interpret these instructions according to their conceptual understanding (what is being said) and their movement experience (how they usually move). We can split verbal instructions given by the practitioner into four categories that will either remain distinct or be woven together, depending on the practitioner’s style and the moment in the lesson: 1. Position instructions (where to start from), e.g., “Please come to the front of your chair, with your feet flat on the floor.” 2. Movement instructions (what to do), e.g., “Please turn your head to the right as if to look back,” or “Please turn your head to the right while your right shoulder moves forward.” In their first presentation, these movement instructions might be mostly kinematic, that is, they name one or several body parts as well as a direction in space, and will not at first mention movement qualities, rhythms, etc. Suggestions of movement qualities, rhythm, amplitude, and effort, will be added while the same instruction is repeated and rephrased several times. 3. Perceptual indications (where to bring attention), e.g., “When you turn to the right, is your weight remaining equally on your buttocks or does it move more to the right? Or to the left? If you bring your weight to the right, does it feel easier or heavier than if you bring it to the left?” These perceptual indications are mainly given in the form of a question and optional choices, and will stick to interrogative form, aiming at the minimal possible induction (they should never sound like “This is the right thing to feel.”). 4. Conceptual information of various kinds (why we do this or feel this way): anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, how the Method is supposed to work, why we rest so much during a lesson, etc. The common experience of standing up after an atm lesson is a very perceptible change in standing, and/or in walking and any daily movement; this change may be felt in the shorter or longer term. Part of it may be conscious and clear (my weight falls more to the middle of my feet now), and part of it feels much more obscure (I feel different). In Gallagher’s terms, part of this change has occurred in the “pre-noetic functions” (the antigravity activity or/and the motor schemas), that is, in the body schema, and in the awareness of this anti-gravity activity (my noticing that something changed), or body image. If the change persists it will become “more habitual,” says Feldenkrais, or “integrated,” which means that my weight is now always more to the middle of my feet than it used to be, but I no longer notice it. The new organization of my responses to gravity has become “prenoetic”; it has integrated in the body schema. Hence, the structure of atm instructions and their goals can be described as a weaving of actions upon body schema and body image as follows: 13

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Body schema is mobilized in all instructions about position (Group 1) and movement (Group 2). The more raw they are (“Please come to sit to the front of your chair,” or “Please turn your head to the right”), the more they will be followed by the participants in their spontaneous movement style, that is, without consciousness and following their own habits. Then instructions from Group 3 and 4 (perceptual and conceptual directions) bring awareness and new representations in the action engaged by instructions of position and movement, therefore acting upon body image to reach participants’ body schema. Not only by the spoken words, but also the specificity of the movements taught act upon the relationship between body schema and body image. This is what happens when a kinematic instruction has to evoke new representation to be performed, for instance in this kind of Feldenkrais classic: “Turn your head to the right while you move your eyes to the left.” Before they are able to perform such a non-usual coordination, most people will have to carry out various trial-and-error steps, to become aware of their automatic motor habit (here, moving head and eyes in the same direction), before succeeding in differentiating head and eyes. Another built-in device is the sequential composition of movements (what I call “the syntax of the lesson”). Take this classic sequence in a chairsitting position: · turn your head to the right · turn head and shoulders to the right · turn head to the right and shoulders to the left · turn head and shoulders to the right while moving your right sit-bone backward · turn head and shoulders to the right while moving your right sit-bone forward. Through the exploration of this series, even without the usual verbal suggestions (guiding awareness through various body parts other than those named by the movement direction, and guiding attention to changes and variations in movement qualities), most people will navigate their own dialogue between pre-noetic habits and new awareness.

Body affects I hope this is enough to demonstrate how Gallagher’s concepts of body image and body schema may appear as a new vocabulary for the usual description of the Feldenkrais Method as changing unconscious habits through awareness of movement. But I believe it also raises a question: in the above description, the reader may have noticed that the described aspects of body image are mainly body percepts (indeed a very outstanding mark of our work) and body concepts. Gallagher’s model forces us to question the place for “body affects” in our work. The notion of “affects” is not clearly defined by Gallagher, but one should remember that affects are different from emotions. Emotions are usually clearly categorized (joy, sadness, anger, etc.); they are expressed by the subject and often confused with their signifiers (the visible signs of the emotion). Affects are less easy to differentiate and categorize. They are easier to describe as a continuum between “positive affects” and “negative affects”: more importantly, they operate in terms of dynamics and intensities, and pre-condition our capacity to act (or incapacity to act). In atm lessons, the specificity is certainly to build this articulation within the structure of the lesson and by “navigating” verbal instructions among the four levels of position, movement, perception, and concepts. Most often described as sympathetic or parasym14

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pathetic reactions in Feldenkrais’s writings (blushing, heart accelerations, sweating), body affects are considered as effects of dysfunctional education (Feldenkrais 1985: 7–13). They are therefore as much as possible separated from the structure of the atm, and considered as an indirect target of the work. Practitioners and Feldenkrais users often argue that the Feldenkrais Method (like most somatic practices) is actually also acting upon emotions or affects. I do agree that affects, as fully part of body image, are influenced by Feldenkrais practice. But I would like to argue two nuances: first (and this is an argument rarely mentioned within the community), the Feldenkrais Method approaches directly (or explicitly) only percepts and concepts, through the four types of instruction described above. This does not mean that there is no implication of body affects within Feldenkrais pedagogy (through the voice of the practitioner, his or her gaze on students, etc.), but the prominent insistence on body concepts and percepts tends to reduce the role of affects both in the experience and the representations of students. The other nuance—and this is a much more frequently discussed topic among practitioners—is that in terms of impact or efficiency of the method, we do expect a balancing or regulating of body affects. But again this is an indirect target of the work. In other words, Feldenkrais has an ideal of the “perfect body image,” which explicitly relies on the development of acute perception, and implicitly expects the influence of affects on action to fade. 15

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Conclusion What I want to emphasize here is that this pair of concepts (body image and body schema), while omnipresent in Feldenkrais discourses, has not been sufficiently considered as a possible tool for a description of the practice, for two main reasons. First, Feldenkrais, following Schilder, is not using them as distinct categories. Second, Feldenkrais himself has not considered “description,” giving priority in his writings to general explanation. In contrast to Feldenkrais’s attempt at a “general explanatory theory” of his method, I argue that today we urgently need a description of the work, and that Gallagher’s definition of “body image and body schema” offers a possible tool for this description. Such a description does not attempt to be exhaustive, and may even appear simplistic compared to the general issues of the Feldenkrais Method. But such a reduction also can generate transdisciplinary discussion and comparative studies, by observing how each somatic method presents itself as a specific articulation of the link between body image and body schema, through a specific use of body image and body schema subcategories.

Bibliography Beringer, E. 2001. “Self imaging,” Feldenkrais Journal, #13, Spring. ____ (ed.) 2010. Embodied Wisdom. The Collected Papers of Moshe Feldenkrais, Berkeley, ca.: Somatic Resources, North Atlantic Books. Bottiglieri, C. 2010. “D’un sujet qui ‘prend corps.’ L’expérience somatique entre modes de subjectivation et processus d’individuation,” ouvr. coll., De l’une à l’autre, Bruxelles: Contredanse, pp. 246–61. Feldenkrais, M. 1972. Awareness through Movement, New York: Harper & Row. ____ 1977. The Case of Nora, New York and London: Harper & Row. ____ 1981. The Elusive Obvious, Capitola, ca: Meta Publications. ____ 1985. The Potent Self, San Francisco: Harper & Row. Gallagher, S. 2005. How the Body Shapes the Mind, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ginot, I. 2010. “From Shusterman’s somaesthetics to a radical epistemology of somatics,” Dance Research Journal, 42:1, pp. 12–29. Godard, H. 2006. “‘Les trous noirs,’ entretien avec Patricia Kuypers, in Scientifiquement Danse. Quand la danse puise aux sciences et vice-versa, Nouvelles de Danse #53 Bruxelles: Contredanse, pp. 56-71 Schilder, P. 1950. The Body Image and the Appearance of the Human Body, New York: International Universities Press.

Notes 1 Such a variety of terms also varies according to translations, and thus deeper research on his conceptual uses would require an exhaustive reading of original texts. For instance, a chapter title in Awareness Through Movement (1972) appears as “The Self-Image” in the English version, while the French is “Le schéma corporel.” 2 This is a constant theme in Feldenkrais’s writings: entire chapters of his books are dedicated to it, and it also appears in most other chapters on other themes.

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Involving Primary Caregivers in Feldenkrais Group Sessions with Children with Special Needs: the CAMIT Experience Marilupe Campero “The lessons are designed to improve ability, that is, to expand the boundaries of the possible: to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy, and the easy into the pleasant. For only those activities that are easy and pleasant will become part of a man’s habitual life and will serve him at all times.” —Feldenkrais 1972, 57

Parents of children with special needs provide for, care for, and bond with their children in ways that are somewhat untraditional. They build this repertoire over time as they come to know and understand who their little ones are and what they are capable of. In this way, they find the means to effectively care for them and thus express their love. While these parents love their children the way they are, they usually have a compelling desire to do something to help them, though often times they are clueless as to what that might be. The Early Multiple Intervention Center (camit by its Spanish acronym) Colima, Mexico, is an institution that helps parents better accomplish their goal. In this paper I will first provide an overview of the camit Center. I will then outline the methodology we use when giving Feldenkrais group sessions. I will follow with the success stories of three caregiver-child teams who have greatly benefited from our work. Finally, I will present the conclusions we have reached.

The camit Center, Colima, Mexico Camit is a part of the Department for Special Education of the State of Colima. It was established in 1984 and caters to children with special needs. Though a symbolic fee is charged—usd$5 per month—some families make hefty contributions, while others are awarded government stipends to help pay for transport to and from their towns or communities to the Center, located in the city of Colima, as well as for lunch expenses for both child and parent. I joined camit in 1985 as a physiotherapist, and have had the privilege of being a member of the team for the past 27 years. We now proudly offer several special education teachers and teaching assistants; a psychologist, a social worker and a speech therapist; two physiotherapists, various administrative staff and a Director. Our patient-student population is approximately 120 children, and I work with twenty of them and their parents. The latter are almost always the children’s mothers, though in a few cases it is their fathers who bring them. Some children come to us from children’s homes as well, accompanied by a caregiver of some kind. The various medical institutions in the State of Colima refer their special needs patients to us along with the children’s medical diagnosis and clinical information, and we use their input as a guide for our work. We work with a broad spectrum of children including children from high-risk pregnancies, premature infants (and in the past few years, extremely premature children born between 24 to 26 weeks gestation), and babies who appear to have neurological damage 17

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but have not been diagnosed for it, as well as those diagnosed with microcephaly, hydrocephaly, and spina bifida. At times we have also worked with children who suffer from uncommon ailments such as artrogriphosis and neurological syndromes caused by metabolic disorders. A fair number of parents request our services because their children have not yet managed to control their head or upper body. In some cases although they are able to remain in a sitting position, they do not know how to come to sitting or switch to a different position, nor are they yet able to move along the surface they are on and reach out for what they want. By the time I had completed my Feldenkrais training in 1987, I had been at camit for two years and had gained a fair amount of experience in using the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education to help children with special needs. Naturally, my perception of the whole process changed in the course of these two years, as did my outlook on the complexity of working with this population. My practical experience, along with a series of factors, led us, over time, to develop what has become our tried and tested methodology, which I will outline in the following section.

Feldenkrais Group Sessions at camit Our Feldenkrais work at camit is based on what dynamic systems theory (Thelen 1987) says about various key issues I will mention below. However, the practical aspect of implementing the theory is equally important. I will address the theoretical aspects first and then discuss their practical applications at camit. Our approach to Feldenkrais group sessions places a greater emphasis on the process than on end results, consistent with the theory of dynamic systems (Thelen et al). Hierarchical neurological structures and neuronal maturation are seen as being on equal planes together with other structures and processes which interact with and promote motor development. As Thelen (1987, 41) states, the various “. . .structures come to progressively integrate with the system’s self-regulation properties” in order to gradually optimize functional abilities. The systems involved in our work include musculoskeletal components, sensory systems, central nervous system mechanisms of sensory-motor integration, alertness, and motivation. Notice the emphasis on sensation and responsiveness to the environment. This reflects our understanding that, in an infant’s motor development, the environment is as important as the organism (Thelen 1995; Thelen & Ulrich 1991). A person’s specific structure and functionality depend both on pre-established genetic connections typical of their biological species as well as on the amount, variety, and strength of other synaptic connections. The latter are a result of, or are established by, each person’s specific personal experience, their history. To quote Thelen (1990, 18), “Two elements are of key importance in brain plasticity: the conjunction of genetic programs together with the opportunities afforded by the environment. Thus, each individual is, in a real sense, the creator of his own and unique brain, and by extension, of his functional motor behaviour.” When working with children with special needs and their caregivers, it is difficult at first to know exactly how each little one will make progress and how much progress they will make. All cases are different, but we must always strive to look for ways to create the conditions that will afford each child the opportunity for their synaptic potential to emerge and to directly influence their life story, that of their mother or caregiver(s), and their relationship to one another. 18

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During the years I have been working with small children and their mothers or caregivers, I have observed and learned in great detail how children with no handicaps seem to step into the natural process of development ever so smoothly, as if by magic. This extended and detailed personal observation has allowed me to detect the conditions necessary for a function to appear, and those necessary for a child to acquire a skill that will, in turn, lead them to acquire others. I then apply all this learning to our group sessions and actively create the conditions necessary for the children to master a given function or acquire a set of given skills. For instance, I have learned how the developmental process is a complex unfolding of many interrelated patterns such that a baby can come to walking, to talking, and to a fine-tuned use of its hands, allowing it to manipulate and interact with the environment. In its early years, camit maintained a steady growth rate, and the demand for our services made it impossible for me to go on working with children individually. This led us to implement group sessions, as it allowed us to work with up to ten children at a time rather than one. The problem was that I could not teach a class of children with special needs without the help of the children’s caregivers, so they too became class members. This brought up the issue of parents’ and caretakers’ lack of awareness of their own organization, which made it difficult for them to take part in the lessons, as they had to be on the floor for extended periods or in certain positions they found uncomfortable. Asking parents to handle their children when they did not quite know how to handle themselves made group sessions quite a challenge. I addressed the issue by showing caregivers how to organize themselves first. I would provide them with several options for the movements I was asking them to make, using their own bone structure to clarify the relationship between the various parts involved, and transferring this information so they could see how it took place in their children. Gradually, as I became more adept at teaching Awareness Through Movement (atm) lessons to the public at large, I started teaching camit parents too. I was extremely encouraged by the dramatic way in which our results changed. Previously I had been feeling that the improvements I saw in children during their sessions were not sustainable, and I almost felt as if I was starting from square one each week. However, as soon as caregivers became a key part of each lesson, I realized children improved by leaps and bounds. We have been following a very efficient methodology for the past twenty years. We start by meeting with each child first and incorporating them into our group lessons, as I will explain below.

One-on-one interview Our first assessment of children takes place in an individual setting. I interview the caregiver in the presence of the child, and she explains the challenges her little one is facing. As I ask her questions, I get her to tell me about what her baby can do rather than what it can’t. Throughout the interview I observe how the baby moves. Afterwards I turn my full attention on the child, who is at this point moving around on a floor mat. I pay special attention to his muscle tone, to whether tonic reflexes are present or not, and to how they play a part in key movements such as head control. I note whether he is able to raise his head lying on his stomach, if he keeps it in the midline lying on his back, if he is able to sit on his own or needs his mother to place him in a sitting position, and if he is able to remain in a sitting position on his own or needs his mother to help him stay there.

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I observe whether he is able to go from a sitting position to lying on his stomach, to all fours, or to standing, and whether he can walk slowly while holding on to the furniture. I pay attention to the form of the movement when he interacts with an object or a toy that is nearby, as well as to his relationship to his caregiver and hers to him. I also note whether he makes any noises and if he has any communicative intent.

Group lessons At camit we currently work with groups of six to eight babies from six to eighteen months of age and their caregivers. As mentioned before, nearly all caregivers are the children’s mothers, though we do get the occasional father. At times we also have caregivers from orphanages who bring their charges to sessions. Our Feldenkrais classes meet on Mondays and Wednesdays at 9 o’clock. Babies and caregivers show up slowly but surely. Mothers place cotton sheets on the carpet floor so the children can lie there and move freely. This school year we are working with six little ones who are regulars and two more who come from rural communities and attend lessons every other week. Babies and caregivers integrate into the class as they arrive. Throughout the lesson, I lead the caregivers and show them how to move the children, what parts of their body should be used as leaning points so they can better handle their kids, and how these leaning points change as they move. It is important that caregivers are clear as to where they should touch their babies: the protruding part of the scapula, or the iliac crest. Together we analyze the movement, breaking it down and putting it back together. I emphasize the important role the pelvis plays in the raising and control of the head: I show them how taking a child from the sides of her pelvis and bringing her pelvis forward when sitting will straighten her spine, which influences the back and helps the child better control her head against gravity from a stable base of support. This also prevents the discomfort and irritation that may be caused when caregivers attempt to work straight from the head, especially when they are not experienced enough in bodywork. Little by little mothers become familiar with the movements and find their child’s own rhythm as well as their own, while at the same time feeling the rhythm of the class. I also focus on how individuals relate to one another to ensure that the group works smoothly. A little further on in the session we stop working with the children and I suggest the sequence we have been doing as an atm, which means the caregivers make the movement themselves. I provide verbal instructions and ask questions based on my observations in order to lead their attention, suggest exploration, and promote learning and improvement in their own organization, all of this built around the function we have been working with. The sequences we generally use are, among others, switching positions from lying down on one side to the other while going through the face-up position, and raising and orienting the head in space when lying on the stomach with elbows and forearms leaning on the floor. Other basic sequences for the development of a baby that parents must explore in themselves include rolling from back to stomach, going from lying on one side or face down to sitting, dragging themselves, crawling, transition to standing, kneeling, and walking. After a period of practice and self-exploration, caregivers go back to working on this awareness with their babies, now possessing a clearer sensation and idea of “how to do it.” I take the lesson forward, leading them and providing specific suggestions to each parent about the specific needs of their child, and I also take the time to explore their questions and comments. 20

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Generally speaking, the whole class ends the lesson at the same time, going over the movements of the function we have been working on so that they are integrated and become more available for use in daily life. As Bernstein (1996, 58) points out, it is a must that “dexterity” be built with the resources necessary to quickly and successfully solve a problem in an unexpected situation. In other words, participants must experience a progression in their ability in such a way that it leads them to create a new, previously unknown motor combination that responds exactly to an emerging situation. Through their own organization, self-knowledge, exploration, practice, and interaction with the children and one another each adult learns what is needed to acquire and promote the different functional abilities throughout the holistic development and full maturation of their child. At the same time, they may regain their innate capacity to relate to their little one as parents, opening up the possibility of a natural and spontaneous parent-child relationship for the first time.

Case studies Through doing, learning, and practicing atm sequences, parents and caregivers communicate the benefits they experience having done our work. For instance, some of them have told me they no longer get tired when they are on the floor with their children, that they have gotten rid of some back problems, that they feel more energetic, and that both they and their children are sleeping better. When working with their children, they also find it easier to understand how the different body parts are related; they realize it is not a question of moving joint by joint, but rather, that they are working with a whole self that cannot be partitioned. They are now in a position to be able to discover their child’s own rhythm and how he responds. It is no longer a question of “doing therapy” twice a day—rather, it’s all about how to pick him up, care for him, and move him in a way that helps him to find calm, happiness, and the opportunity to learn.

Yael Two-year-old Yael and Mari, his mom, came back to camit following an interlude caused by the birth of a younger sibling. Yael was unable to control his head, his muscle tone was extremely low, and his capacity for attention was greatly reduced, suggesting an intellectual handicap. Mari has learned to take Yael by the shoulders when lying on his back with legs bent; she moves him from the shoulders so his head is centered without falling to the side. She stays there for a while then goes to the other side and back. When he is in the center his mother talks to him, comes close to him and makes faces at him to attract his attention and get him to follow her with his eyes. Thanks to the learning they have both experienced, Yael is beginning to smile and keep track of her with his eyes. After they have made contact, Mari takes him to his side, this time guiding him from the pelvis, allowing for one leg to go first and then the other. The first time Yael responded to his mother when she was talking to him from up close, the expression on Mari’s face was one of sheer bliss. We then realized Yael’s intellectual handicap was not as severe as we had thought. She can now have him sit up when holding him from the pelvis and shoulders without his collapsing. He holds his head in this position and looks around. He likes playing ball and laughs a lot when it rolls over to fellow classmates, and they send it back to him. 21

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Karis Karis is a two-and-a-half year-old girl who has been diagnosed with spastic quadriparetic cerebral palsy with intracranial valve. Karis lives at a children’s home, and comes in on Mondays with Diane, the Director, and with Michelle, one of their caregivers, on Wednesdays. Karis always cried at mealtimes, did not like eating, took around an hour and a half to complete a meal, and often choked. When she first joined us I noticed that when she was in a sitting position she easily lost the alignment of her head: she shortened her neck, rolled her pelvis posterior and rounded her whole back, and when she felt food in her mouth, her muscle tone rapidly increased towards flexion in arms and chest. We started working on the floor and developed an adequate alignment of head and neck to chest and pelvis. We clarified the movement of her chest and scapulas to her vertebrae, showing her their connection to her ribs. Finally, when the connection between head and pelvis was more functional and defined, we went back to sitting. I helped her to feel the leaning points in her sitting bones while we maintained the alignment of her head. As a result, feeding her became easier. Karis still needs help to remain in a sitting position, but she does enjoy spending lengthy interludes in the custom-made chair we purchased for her, and she can be fed there. At the children’s home she is better able to interact with the other children when she is in her chair, which can also be placed in her stroller. She enjoys food now, has gained weight, and makes several sounds which manifest a good communicative intent. Her caregivers have also learned to work from within her mouth to address Karis’s hypersensitivity to almost any texture in food. I once wrapped a finger around the oldest piece of cotton fabric we could find, and pushed my finger against her gums. She immediately calmed down and looked at me. Little by little we moved on to spoons and to different foods; she now greatly enjoys semi-pureed chicken with vegetables. Michelle tells me everyone is much calmer at the children’s home because Karis almost never chokes any longer, enjoys mealtimes, is much more participative than before, and smiles frequently. Diane, a 48-year-old Canadian woman, has a son with cerebral palsy. When she experienced firsthand the progress Karis was making thanks to their work at camit, she told the Director of the children’s home that she was amazed at the method we were using, and said she was sorry she was not familiar with it years before so she could have applied it to her own child.

Rafael Rafael is currently 10 months old. He was referred to us by a pediatrician at the State of Colima’s premier public hospital, the Hospital Regional Universitario (hru). At birth, Rafael had an elongation of the brachial plexus and this resulted in an Erb-Duchene paralysis—he was unable to move his right arm at all. Rafa and his mother, Mary, have been taking classes at camit since he was 2 months old. Through the soft yet specific touch his mother learned to use on him, he learned a smoother, more inclusive movement of his right arm. Gradually, Rafa was able to incorporate the movement until he was able to do it by himself. He is now able to crawl because he has learnt both to differentiate his pelvis from his shoulder girdle while moving his vertebrae in a spiral motion, and to adequately alternate between the leaning points he uses to support himself, going from hands and knees in a diagonal manner. He is now able to efficiently move about the room, exploring the space around him. Mary was telling me that, besides the obvious recovery of movement in her child’s arm, she has noticed other benefits from attending group classes at camit: she is no longer as 22

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shy as she used to be, she no longer finds it difficult to speak when in a group setting, and it is easier for her to relate to the other moms. She also says Rafael is now much more outgoing than her eldest son, that he likes interacting with people, lets different people hold him, and is overall “a happy little fellow.” Both of them very much enjoy their time at camit.

Conclusions The fact that Feldenkrais sessions at camit are provided in a group setting has brought about great benefits for both children and parents, even though at first it was employed for budgetary reasons. As mothers feel more that they are a part of the class, they share their own experiences and are strengthened by hearing those of their peers. Needless to say, the quality of their relationship to their child substantially improves, and this has a positive effect on other areas of their family life. Through this learning experience in which awareness of movement plays the leading role, mothers regain self-esteem and improve their self-image as well as their child’s. Not surprisingly, their quality of life improves, as does that of their family and community.

References Bernstein N. 1996. “On Dexterity and its Development” in Dexterity and Its Development. Latash M. and Turvey M., eds. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey. Feldenkrais M. 1972, 1977. Awareness Through Movement. Harper Collins paperback edition published 1990. Thelen E. 1987, Thelen E. 1990, Thelen E. & Ulrich B. 1991, Thelen E. 1995 in Shumway-Cook A. and Woollacott M. 2001. Motor Control, Theory and practical Applications. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. Campbell S., Wander Linden D., Palisano R. 2nd ed, 2000. Physical Therapy for Children. Saunders Company.

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Splitters & Lumpers The Major Conflict In Neuroscience Between Exploring the Whole or the Parts: A History Carl Ginsburg

Introduction Within our daily life, experiencing is where we live moment by moment. In its familiarity it has something mysterious that is hard to explain. We move ourselves as a whole; our conscious sensations, hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching are revealed as a totality although we can focus on specific items within the field. We experience emotions, feelings, and body energies and sometimes sense the lack. Often we can coast along as if automatically without awareness and at times we find autonomy where we consciously direct what we do. We attribute all of this to a brain and nervous system. But how does the brain and nervous system create experience? And how do our complex bodies and nervous systems create patterns of muscular activity that move our intentions into actions? Moshe Feldenkrais became interested in these questions as he began to develop his method to improve life through explorations of moving in a new way using quietude, effort reduction, and awareness. It was an empirical exploration with him-self, and then with pupils. With his doctorate in science, he wished to find out how his method achieved its effects. An avid and rapid reader he studied anatomy, physiology, psychology, learning theory, cybernetics, and the burgeoning field of neuroscience. There were few satisfying answers for his interests, which involved coordination, the importance of coherence in action and thinking, and how integration of processes took place. In his first book about his method, Body and Mature Behavior (1949), he discussed what he knew about nerve fibers, how they branch and connect, how they are activated, the importance of reflexes, the antigravity mechanism, and many other facts that were known at that time. In my introduction to the North Atlantic Books edition of Body and Mature Behavior, published a few years ago, I quoted from his text, “We know, in fact, so little about the functioning of the nervous system as a complete unit, that we have little right to expect any theory to be near the truth.” And, “Even the anatomy of the nervous system is not fully explored, and the knowledge of what goes on in some parts of the brain is practically nil.”1 He accepted much of what was known of the units of the nervous system, which were investigated by Ivan Pavlov, whose work became a basis for behavioral psychology, and the discoveries of Sir Charles Sherrington in relation to the physiology of the reflex arc. In Feldenkrais’s observations he noted that reflex learning was very primitive and machine like, and observed that in daily movement the antigravity reflexes were integrated with the intentional movements as an adjunct in giving strength to movement and support. He began thinking beyond the idea that the brain was a control mechanism and asked what is the primary function of the brain and nervous system. If we knew that, we would begin to understand how the nervous system becomes integrated. In normal2 science there was no answer. Normal scientists hoped, by exploring the pieces of a system, they could with enough research come to a conclusion to this question. Normal scientists were splitters. Many years have gone by since without an answer. Although a great deal of knowledge about the parts had been established there seemed to be no mechanism to provide an explanation of integration. The hopes of a solution were and continued to be projected into the future. There were a few scientists who had a sense early, even in the nineteenth century, that another approach in research was possible. These were the lumpers, the explorers of the 24

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whole. While their ideas were potent, hard evidence was not found until much later in the twentieth century. Today we have new possibilities of continuing this quest. I can only sketch a history considering the huge amount of research and speculating about the brain over at least a century and a half. The human brain and nervous system as a whole is the most complex organized system that is known. Feldenkrais’s wisdom was that he anticipated much about a new neuroscience that is beginning to resolve the conflict. As I sketch the history, I begin with splitters and the discovery of the neuron. In the next section I make a detour into research in artificial intelligence to contrast the effectiveness of the two basic approaches. I then go back to the early work of Pavlov to discuss the idea of the reflex. In the following section I switch to the early lumpers and their critiques of the idea of the conditioned reflex as a source of understanding of psychology. In later sections I describe briefly some of the new ways of exploring cooperative states in biology and neuroscience that open a vast new horizon for the validity of the lumpers. Integration is now becoming respectable. The search for the neural correlates of consciousness have produced many suppositions but no convincing theories; for the purposes for our Feldenkrais work, we have a clearer understanding of what we mean by integration.

The Discovery of the Neuron A long history of observing the nervous tissue in the body and brain began with the dissection of a nerve fiber in 500 bc. In ancient Rome, Galen described that nerve fibers had a relation to movement of the body. In the late eighteenth century, Galvani, an Italian experimenter, discovered that touching a nerve of a frog’s leg with a knife produced a muscular contraction of the leg. Fascinated, he went to his laboratory. There he discovered that bringing the frog’s dissected nerve fiber near an electrical field produced a twitching of the muscles. At the beginning of modern neuroscience the discovery of the neuron in the late nineteenth century was essential to expanding understanding of how nerves convey activity. This discovery of the basic unit of the brain and nervous system produced signals through a wave-like electrochemical charge. These signals moved along the extension of the neuron called the axon in a movement away from the center of the neuron. At the end was a synaptic connection where the signal jumped to the next neuron to an extension called the dendrite, where the signal proceeded to the center of this next neuron. Signals thereby moved from a sensory surface to the brain, from one part of the brain to another and from the brain to the musculature that moved the organism. We could now describe how the brain functioned with neurons within the nerve fibers and connected to the body through the neurons and synapses. This process evoked reactions engaging the body systems through connecting synapses. These synapses also released neurotransmitter chemicals that signaled to body organs to modify functions. The brain, in this view, was a controller that managed the body in daily life. Thus the nervous system as a whole was imagined as a vast telephone network. Many years of research revealed that learning was realized in changes of the sensitivity of the synapses. And learning seemed to be related to activity that produced what was called a reflex. Thus a neuron doctrine was established. It was thought everything could now be explained eventually based on these discoveries. Throughout the twentieth century a number of similar doctrines became scientific orthodoxy. By the mid-century, behaviorism had been adopted by a vast number of academic psychologists. In biology Neo-Darwinism and the gene doctrine were supreme, and 25

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the neuron doctrine as described dominated the field of neuroscience. There was a strong belief, especially in the us and uk, that these doctrines alone fit with scientific objectivity; science could not progress without them. The theme of this movement was based upon the success in physics in showing how the basic particles, the proton, neutron, electron could explain the formation of atoms which then explained the physical world. The term reductionism now applied as the basis of a number of sciences. By finding the underlying units, for example, it was believed that neuroscience would be able to explain everything of importance in the future. Well, we are now in the twenty-first century and many mysteries persist despite huge outlays of money for research in neuroscience. This is not to say that not much has been discovered; the literature is vast, but many puzzles remain. I cite these conundrums: humans and animals of all sorts behave mostly coherently and skillfully in daily life. How does coherence develop in a nervous system and the body in moving? Where in the nervous system are our acts integrated and where in the brain are the huge capabilities to act in varied environments and situations with myriad patterns and choices? And where in the brain is all this complex organization stored? We can also ask, how are our choices appropriate to the situation? Humans are incredibly flexible in differing situations in life, and so are animals, even those with considerable lesser possibilities. How are the capacities created given that we don’t actually put them together piece by piece? Nor are they organized through instructions—not even through genetic programs. And where in the brain and nervous system do consciousness and perception arise? It is quite a list in its complexity. Despite the success in finding parts of these questions through normal research, reductionism as a process has not solved these conundrums. Perhaps a different conceptualization or a different approach to understanding life can be possible. Recent thinking and researching from a new view has made further progress. To make the story short, I will take an example from a different but related investigation, the search for artificial intelligence (ai). Here I will describe how the splitters looked at the prospect of building such a project, and compare the approach of the lumpers.

A Clue from Experiments in Artificial Intelligence Professor Marvin Minsky (mit) is a pioneer researcher in the field of ai. In his book The Society of Mind,3 Minsky lays out a process of understanding the working of the human mind as part of his project to create a machine that can synthesize an intelligence to match the human and perhaps succeed it. He is a wonderful writer and thinker, and he has a strong attachment to thinking concretely in classic materialist terms based in cognitive science. He eschews the idea that if we can understand mind it will be as a series of processes layered on layer in which each element is physical and has no intelligence whatsoever. Each unit is a kind of functional module that creates mind through forming something like a society with other modules to create the complex that we call mind. In designing one of his early robots he devised a functional agent, builder, to direct the agents that will do the building of the robot. His idea, which was created with his collaborator and students, was to simulate the thinking of a young child in play. One choice of his team was to put builder to the task of stacking wooden blocks. The team then had to figure out how to break down the task into small steps that could be programmed. Each task element then had to be created. Using a computer the team could provide a program for a module agent for each functional task unit. These were then assembled into the robot. How were the tasks agreed on? Here was the breakdown: The robot’s builder first step was to begin, that is, add a block. add now has to be broken down into agents. find, see, leads to get. get needs grasp, then move, then put and release. Minsky remarks that we do not 26

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remember how we learned as children. In piling up blocks, “We can’t remember learning them at all,” and “Now they [the skills] seem mere common sense.” Minsky then points out that creating the programs required much more: see, for example, means the agent must recognize the blocks and consider color and seeing blocks that are partially hidden. “move has to guide the arms and hand through complicated paths in space, yet never strike the tower’s top or hit the child’s face.”4 Professor Minsky notes that, “It took several years for us and our students to develop move, see, grasp, and hundreds of other little programs we needed to make a working builder-agency.” Oddly, from this perspective he noted that the project “gave us glimpses of what happens inside parts of children’s minds when they learn to ‘play’ with simple toys.” And he added that they wondered, “if even a thousand microskills would be enough to enable a child to fill a pail of sand.”5 Watching babies and young children at play shows that they learn differently, and when ready through development, learning happens quickly. Minsky in this book uses his ideas not only to build robots but also to speculate as to the building of a human mind. But the program for robots did not result in creating a really useful artificial intelligence. Minsky’s intelligence allows him to create a model using the metaphor of “society” to explain how a mind can work coherently and create an integration of processes. But the cognitive complexity and programming fall short and his idea of mind is something internal. This gives enough to understand the process. The more that is added for more complex tasks increases the amount of programming. Thus each complication involves more specific programmed routines, which at the same time reduces the flexibility to respond to new situations. Another researcher at mit, Rodney A. Brooks, turned the whole process upside down. He writes, “Artificial Intelligence research has foundered in a sea of incrementalism. No one is quite sure where to go. . . .” To find an alternative thinking, Brooks was inspired by a biological notion in which environment and body as well as a nervous system are essential to life and its development. He notes that, “In classical ai, none of the modules themselves generate the behavior of the total system.” The modules have to be combined to create a working system. In what Brooks calls nouvelle ai, “each module, itself generates behavior, and improvements in the competence of the system proceeds by adding new modules to the system.” The robot learns to function in being grounded in an environment and by using its physical sensors. He points out that in the evolution of animal life in the world, intelligence already increased dramatically before humans invented language, symbolic representations, agriculture, manufacturing, writing, etc. Classic ai begins with human cognition. Brooks promotes a “carefully built physical grounding” for developing learning to function in an environment.6 I tell this story not to suggest that either approach produces a better robot. Functionally, both methods have brought more sophistication to the functioning of present robotic devices. But the classic ai approach depends entirely on human beings to provide the programming and put things together as small pieces, which are independent. Nouvelle AI on the other hand has a design that allows for a form of self-learning on the basis that the organization of function comes about through the activity of the robot, just as a living animal learns through its senses within its environment. The robot’s network in effect programs itself. This capacity mimics how animal life gains sufficiency for living. The story brings out the beginning question of the title of this essay: How can we rely on the neuron by itself, or a network of neurons, or the brain as a global whole to explore the functioning? And if networks are functional, can networks function through other processes besides the signaling neurons? Does learning equate with conditioning, or is it a far more complex process? 27

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I’ll add one other note about computers: The original idea of a computer was based on a simple code involving 0 and 1 in sequences of computation. It is a linear process. But if you want a computer to understand a voice, the linearity cannot handle the task. Engineers and scientists eventually had to consider how a human brain could do so easily. The thought was that a large network of neural connections could work. This led to an engineering design called neural networks. In fact computers learn to hear by the user speaking along with correcting and repeating the process. Again observing natural systems allowed for a way out.7 From here I will go back to show how Pavlov’s conditioning, the neuron doctrine, etc., at the beginning of the twentieth century reductionism evoked conflict. The underlying difficulty was that some scientists saw the complexity of life as an impediment to reductionism as a program for research. Reductionists believed that by establishing the smallest parts, the complexity would eventually be explained. The splitters and lumpers were at loggerheads.

Classic Neuropsychology Ivan Pavlov, a Russian medical doctor and physiologist, was born in 1849. In the late nineteenth century he began research on the digestive glands. In experimenting with dogs he made a seminal discovery that the salivary gland activated before eating when the dog saw the food. He then discovered that if he rang a bell before the food appeared, the dog salivated on hearing the bell. The salivation is a reflex and by pairing the sound and food the dog now salivated just with the sound of the bell. This was the discovery of the conditioned reflex. From this discovery, he continued to concentrate on the physiology of the nervous system. Professor Pavlov wrote that he then (in 1908-9) “made the first attempts to subject the entire nervous activity of the higher animals (of the dog) to an objective investigation, excluding absolutely any conjectures concerning the activity of the experimental animals based on a comparison with our internal world. From our point of view all nervous activity of the animal could be considered as a reflex activity of two forms . . .”8 He designated the two forms as normal reflexes and conditioned reflexes. Taking this scientific stance for his further explorations had a strong influence on further Russian and Soviet psychology as well as psychology in the us and uk. Pavlov was convinced that further research would reveal an understanding of the complexity of behavior. In Body and Mature Behavior Moshe Feldenkrais developed a stance in relation to Pavlovian physiological understanding. The work is of “. . . great importance to the understanding of the process of learning in its most general application.” But Pavlov’s notion of reflex goes beyond what was specified in the literature of the time. Feldenkrais writes, “At the best it [the extension of reflex] becomes a loose application to voluntary innervation of findings strictly only applicable to involuntary innervations . . . . Pavlov and his school confidently assert that their findings are, in fact, the foundation of a new psychology based on physiological functioning. It was therefore important to see clearly that this assertion is not proved unless physiological terms are stretched beyond their accepted meanings.”9

The Reaction to Pavlov and Behaviorism While the turn in psychology adopted Pavlov’s stance in the form of behaviorism, in the us and in Soviet Russia, where Pavlovian psychology became part of official Soviet doctrine, there were those who argued that complexity required another approach. In 1896, educa28

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tor and philosopher John Dewey wrote, “The reflex arc idea, as commonly employed is defective in that it assumes sensory stimulus and motor response as distinct psychical existences, while in reality they are always inside a coordination and have their significance purely from the part played in maintaining or reconstituting the coordination.”10 He appealed to his colleagues that what was missed for the organism was the observation of the “unity of activity.” Another skeptic, Alexander Luria, was an extraordinary researcher in psychology and neuroscience in the Soviet Union. His explorations included social and cultural psychology, the neurology of language, studies of experimental disorganization and control of human behavior, higher cortical brain functions of the human, and local brain lesions with studies of veterans of World War ii injuries. He began his career in the first years of the Russian Revolution and continued until his death in 1977. With his original ideas and boldness he also skirted Soviet orthodoxy. And while he gave homage to Pavlov, he often pointed out that to find a better understanding of the brain and human psychology, he looked for pathways to an understanding of integration and complexity. In his introduction to The Nature of Human Conflicts, which describes his researches into “Emotions, Conflict, and Will” covering the years 1924-9, he wrote, “The elementary processes of excitation and inhibition are the basic ones which are found in every nerve cell; they are carried through the whole organism, and the most eminent objective school of psycho-neurology attempts to explain every process of behavior in the terms of excitation and inhibition.”11 But his acute thinking through these investigations led him to add, “Researches in human behavior, both normal and pathological lead us to doubt the adequacy of these fundamental conceptions.”12 In a paper, neurologist Oliver Sacks, md, refers to a private letter from Luria: “Luria tells a vivid and poignant story of how, as a very young man, he presented a copy of his first book, The Nature of Human Conflicts, to Pavlov, and how the next day the old man, with blazing eyes, tore the book in half, and flung the two halves at his feet, and roared, ‘You call this science! Science proceeds from elementary parts and builds up, here you are describing behavior as a whole!’”13 Many years later Luria noted that scientists had two main perceptions of their work and understanding. There are classical scientists that follow the trail of exploration by looking step by step for the single units until they “formulate abstract, general laws.” The outcome, he writes, “is the reduction of living reality with all its riches of detail to abstract schemas. The properties of the living whole are lost . . .” The second option was to practice “romantic” science, which rejects reductionism and seeks “to preserve the wealth of living reality.” He pondered over which approach “. . . leads to a better understanding of living reality.”14 He felt drawn to retain the careful procedures of classical science, however, and desired a way to resolve the conflict. Pavlov’s anger exhibited the powerful attachment to pure materialism, and rejection of other ways of thinking and exploring human experience. Luria was condemned for “unpavlovian” and “unsoviet” thinking. Thus he was forbidden to teach, publish, or carry out research until World War ii required his skill as a neurologist. Only in recent years could a middle ground be created that is considered valid. While the antagonism against differing forms of holism continued in the US and Soviet Russia, a number of European psychologists and neuroscientists kept alive a second stream. Gestalt psychology under the influence of Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, and Kurt Koffka, and Field Theory of Kurt Lewin was developed in Germany. Many of these thinkers came to the us in the thirties to escape the Nazi regime. Wertheimer particularly defined Gestalt theory in this way: “There are contexts in which what is happening in the whole cannot be deduced from the characteristics of the separate pieces . . . what happens 29

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to a part of the whole is, in clear cut cases, determined by the laws of the inner structure of its whole.”15 Kurt Goldstein, another German refugee, who practiced neurological and psychiatric medicine as a professor in Germany, influenced not only Luria but also the gestalt psychologists through his researches, which established that reflexes couldn’t be the elements with which to build the organism and nervous system. He discovered that changes in one place effect change in other parts of the system. The conception of the organism had to be a whole set of relationships. He postulated that the nervous system is a network and that, “The system is never at rest, but in a continual state of excitation.” And, “The fact that the nervous system is continuously under the influence of stimuli and is continually excited was overlooked.” And, “. . . events that follow a definite stimulus are only an expression of a change in the nervous system, that they represent a special pattern of the excitation process.”16 Goldstein recognized also that, “Each movement of one part of the body is accompanied by a definite change in the posture of the rest of the body.”17 This thinking influenced psychiatry and therapy to some extent in the US, but not so much in neuroscience until much later. By that time he was forgotten. The behaviorists held sway for quite a while. In the 1940s, J. J. and E. J. Gibson made advances away from behaviorist learning theory in realizing that action is related to perception and that requires another way to learning. Some neuroscientists—Karl Lashley, Donald Hebb, Karl Pribram—were beginning to look at the brain as a distributed system as Goldstein suggested. Norbert Wiener began a new field of exploring feedback and brought cybernetics into biology as well as engineering. As Feldenkrais developed his Method he was absorbing much new material.

Feldenkrais’s Revolutionary Thinking Now we have to find out how Moshe Feldenkrais’s explorations of movement and learning related to the way the brain and nervous system functions. Of course, he began with his experiences in Judo and teaching this method. For one thing he realized in teaching that many Western students had very little sense of their body and less understanding of movement in gravity. He sought then unusual ways to provide the students with learning processes to enhance their Judo skills. He also made use of his own injuries and difficulties, and studied the Alexander Technique while exploring and teaching out of his self explorations. Later, after publishing Body and Mature Behavior, he was advised to meet with another teacher, Heinrich Jacoby, who provided him with evidence that reducing effort enhanced self learning. Not long after writing Body and Mature Behavior, he wrote another manuscript that was finally published as The Potent Self just after he died in 1984. In Chapter 15 “About the Technique,” he wrote, “The whole man must move at once. The inability to do so is lifted when the contrary motivations are lifted; this coincides with relieving contractions enacted with or without awareness. To make this possible in all situations, we must learn to bring ourselves into the state of potency in which we enact what we wish correctly.” And two sentences later he wrote, “We have seen that environment, mind and body is an indivisible one. No method is effective that deals with any one of these alone.”18 This is a remarkable statement produced in the 1940s. If valid, it implies that the nervous system including the brain cannot be considered as a telephone network, or computer, or mechanical process device, and so he was corroborating Goldstein. A consideration of a reductionist model of brain function by itself cannot be correct. In a similar way an entire holistic model in which everything works together is also not seemingly possible. In other 30

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words the complexity involved requires another thinking. This thinking then must involve how the organism, the body itself in the environment with all the senses, becomes organized to live and survive. In mid-twentieth century there was no solution. In 1975 Moshe Feldenkrais came to San Francisco to begin the first Feldenkrais Method training. His practical thinking was influenced by many of the thinkers, scientists, psychologists, cyberneticists, etc.; I have cited some of them in this short history. He was clearly ahead of his time. Much had happened in science in the twenty-five years before that. Solutions were still in the future. Ultimately he was obsessed with experimentally discovering for himself what he called developmental learning, and what is experientially needed to learn how to learn. It was this that he presented to us, literally giving us secrets of his method through experiencing his unique movement sequences, his hands-on processes, and his many lectures. He taught us that Gustav Fechner in the nineteenth century found that the senses were enhanced when noise and effort is reduced, that sensory feedback is essential to learning and functioning, that contact in movement can evoke new patterns of movement and action, and much more.

Biology and Neuroscience Shifts in the Sixties and Seventies In academia, behaviorism was in decline. Noam Chomsky upended the behaviorist theory of language learning and influenced cognitive science. He was probably wrong to promote the theory that syntax (how sense is made by grammar) is genetically built into the nervous system and therefore behind the scenes of syntax in all human languages. J.J. Gibson continued to challenge the learning theories of behaviorism by finding action and movement essential to seeing and perceiving. This insight led him to an ecological psychology that promoted the idea that environment and action in the world was essential for perception, learning, and development to occur. Gregory Bateson, an early cyberneticist, sociologist, anthropologist, biologist and all-round creative thinker was promoting an ecological view to emphasize relationships in nature as essential for living systems. Biologist Lynn Margulis was doing research that placed symbiosis as a creative process in the evolution of more complex cells from the very primitive beginning organisms. As an extension of evolution theory through her explorations of cellular activity, she showed that simple cells have the ability to trade dna or incorporate other single cells. The incorporated parts become organelles, which function as part of the new cell. This process called symbiosis showed that living systems interacted in ways that were unexpected within biology, although it was observed as early as the 1920s but rejected until Margulis carried out convincing research. She showed that nature was more complex and interrelated within a biosphere. In neuroscience new forms of investigation were proposed by Aharon Katzir (Katchalsky), a friend of Feldenkrais. He was thinking ahead toward dynamic systems in biology and neuroscience. He wrote about waves, oscillations, and macrostates emerging out of cooperative processes. This was a revolutionary stance, which proposed that the complexity of the brain required pathways other than linear neuron signaling in functioning. Only a very few neuroscientists chose to follow this lead at that time, and Katzir was tragically killed in 1972. A whole new kind of research has come out of the pioneering of these scientists, fifteen years later. Neuroscientists such as Wolf Singer, Francisco Varela, Walter Freeman, and G. Buzsaki have recorded and observed the oscillations of Katzir in relation to functions in the nervous system in the brain. These oscillations have been recorded in synchrony in many brain areas during actual functioning in activities such as perceiving an object. 31

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While these changes were moving in the direction of the lumpers, in the 1970s a small group took a radical step further. In some ways it was a theoretical new look at living systems considering the nature of living cells. The question was, how are even single cells alive as organisms and how are they organized to survive and function? A professor in Chile, Humberto Maturana, noticed that all cells lived inside a cell wall, in which an organizing process (as a loop) continued in the life of the cell. He proposed that if the loop is broken, the cell dies. Maturana called this autopoiesis. Internal to the cell the loop involves dna and rna, which forms proteins through a metabolic reaction network and the loop continues to produces enzymes (catalysts), which close the loop to create dna and rna. The cell wall exchanges substances and energy, but nothing outside the cell wall could change the organized process. Maturana’s student, Francisco Varela, became a colleague in extending the insight. He saw that this special organization allows cells and organisms to have autonomy in which they respond to needs, dangers, other cells or organisms, and thus survive. Varela also postulated that in more complex organisms that have a nervous system, the nervous system is also a loop or series of loops. Thus information is not actually transferred from outside. What does happen is that events from outside perturb the system and the system responds by changing itself. Out of cybernetics and the radical biology of Maturana and Varela, the systems thinking of Heinz von Foerster and Gregory Bateson, Varela began to think of themes such as embodiment and enaction along with his colleagues. I quote here a passage from a talk he gave in the 1990s on the topic of ethical wisdom, which was transcribed in a small book, Ethical Knowhow: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition: “The world is not given to us but something we engage in by moving, touching, breathing, and eating. This is what I call cognition as enaction . . .”19 “We always operate in some kind of immediacy of a given situation. Our world is so ready-at-hand that we have no deliberateness about what it is and how we inhabit it.”20 And, “. . . [T]he enactive approach underscores the importance of two interrelated points: (1) that perception consists of perceptually guided action; and (2) that cognitive structures emerge from the recurrent sensorimotor patterns that enable action to be perceptually guided.”21 These statements, I believe, profoundly change our basic stance in the world. At the same time it suggests that the world and its contents are not abstract images and ideation, but are revealed as we act in the world. I hope the reader can get a whiff of the idea that as we engage in a world, a society, a family, etc., we are active and acting, perceiving and creating responses which are quickly understood, and also often effective. How can a brain, which can only create an action from reflexive activity, accomplish such a scenario? The act is not a fixed response to something in the world. It is an expression of the autonomy of the human and many lower creatures. The complexity and flexibility available have to have another source. Varela expressed the idea of self organization which must involve sensory-motor coupling with the world in action, enaction. He wrote, “. . .[W]hat counts as a relevant world is inseparable from the structure of the perceiver.”22 These discoveries and new thinking have relevance to us and our Feldenkrais Method of somatic education.23 Esther Thelen and Linda Smith have taken many of the above discoveries and shown how we can begin to use the notions from new understanding of dynamic and relational processes.24 These processes can become a new basis for how cognition comes about, as well as development in infancy and beyond, and how movement patterns can evolve and create flexibility and choice. Professor Thelen was intrigued by our work and became a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method.

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Neuroscience at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Can it Manage the Further Challenges? Many schools have evolved. Theories abound. What we know from our experiential work is that patterns can shift. We can connect through our techniques and bring ourselves into merging with another person. Our expert Feldenkrais approach brings about learning through this skillful and attentive contact. We create person to person inter-subjectivity, which evokes security, and feeling contact that evokes new experiences. What is happening in the nervous system—surely not a reflex arc? We do not begin knowing how the brain and nervous system are working toward this state of organizing a new possibility. We know activity evokes what we now know as neural plasticity. We know activity with awareness can create what we call attractors within the neural nets. Do we really know how these processes work within the net? What we do know is how we can facilitate the possibility. And encourage the shift. You see, we are finding that what the brain can do depends also upon what is outside the brain and nervous system. A brain acts to organize activity and perception into something coherent through the loop of activity and the nervous system actively sensing what happens. What a wonder! It cannot work by being fed information in the ordinary sense. On the contrary, the system creates its own information dependent on the living being it inhabits. Believe what I suggest; a brain is not a computer and not a machine that we know. What do we know then about brains given this challenge of life’s complexity? Olaf Sporns is a professor and neuroscience researcher at the Indiana University who has been actively trying to find out. In his recent book, Networks of the Brain, he has researched, surveyed the literature (the book has over one thousand citations and references), and developed models of functioning of many tracks in the brain between networks, following cells and synapses, at differing scales, and systems. In his introductory chapter, he writes, “We cannot fully understand brain function unless we approach the brain on multiple scales, by identifying the networks that bind cells into coherent populations, organize cell groups into functional brain regions, integrate regions into systems, and link brain and body in a complete organism. In this hierarchy, no single level is privileged over others. The notion that brain function can be fully reduced to the operation of cells or molecules is as ill-conceived as the complementary view that cognition can be understood without making reference to its biological substrates.”25 In this view all levels of organization are contributing to a more complete understanding that the brain is an integrated system. Thus we have a kind of resolution of the question we started with at the beginning of this essay. We need multiple approaches to better understand what we mean when we use the term “Functional Integration” in our Feldenkrais work, and appreciate the complexity of ourselves as living beings. But you can see, I hope, that in understanding the problem of learning and integrating ourselves, we don’t need to know how to tweak a brain, other than as we do it through our practice. It is a lot easier than trying to force the brain or pull it apart to see how it works; we already know that when we treat ourselves with easiness and quiet awareness we improve ourselves. In the meanwhile, more and more facts accumulate and we watch how neuroscience comes closer to our thinking.

notes 1 Moshe Feldenkrais. 2005. Body and Mature Behavior, North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, xxi. 2 The term normal science refers to the research that is accepted and based on past science. 3 Marvin Minsky. 1985. The Society of Mind. Simon and Schuster, 21-23.

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4 Ibid., 22. 5 Ibid., 29. 6 Rodney A. Brooks. 1990. “Elephants Don’t Play Chess,” Robotics and Autonomous Systems (6), 3-15. 7 See J. Anderson and E. Rosenfeld, eds. 1998. Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Networks, mit. 8 Ivan Pavlov. 1928. Lectures on Conditioned Reflexes, Liveright Publishing Co., 100. 9 Body and Mature Behavior, 58-59. 10 John Dewey. 1896. “The reflex arc concept in psychology,” Psychological Review 3, 360-363. 11 Alexander Luria, The Nature of Human Conflicts, Washington Square Press, 1932, 1967. 12 Ibid., 5. 13 Oliver Sacks. 1990. “Luria and Romantic ‘Science,’” in E. Goldberg, ed., Contemporary Neuropsycholoy and the Legacy of Luria, lea, 182. 14 Alexander Luria. 1979. The Making of Mind: A Personal Account of Soviet Psychology, Harvard University Press, 174-175. 15 Max Wertheimer. 1970. “Definition of Gestalt,” in W. S. Sahakian, ed., Psychology of Learning: Systems, Models, and Theories, Markham Publishing, 94. 16 Kurt Goldstein. 1990. The Organism, Zone Books, 95. This book was published in German in 1933, when Goldstein was in exile in Holland, and then translated when he migrated to the US. The Zone edition is available and is worth reading. 17 Ibid., 99. 18 Moshe Feldenkrais. 1985. The Potent Self, Harper & Row, 149. 19 Francisco Varela. 1999. Ethical Knowhow: Action, Wisdom, and Cognition, Stanford University Press, 8. 20 Ibid., 9. 21 Ibid., 12. 22 Ibid., 13. 23 For a more detailed description of how these discoveries apply to our work see my articles published in the Feldenkrais Journal, “The Roots of Functional Integration,”1987, 1988, 1992, and my book, The Intelligence of Moving Bodies, with contributions from Lucia Schuette, awareing Press, 2010, available from Feldenkrais Resources. 24 Esther Thelen, Linda Smith. 1994. A Dynamic Systems Approach to Development of Cognition and Action, mit Press. 25 Olaf Sporns. 2011. Networks of the Brain, mit Press, 2.

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Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Lessons and Motor Learning Elin E. Lobel When I was in my Feldenkrais professional training program it was mentioned often that Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais was a physicist and that the beauty of the lessons came from his understanding of mechanical physics combined with his self-study of human movement science (i.e., physiology and anatomy). However, during those four years of my training program I often thought that one of the reasons I enjoyed the Awareness Through Movement (atm) lessons so much is they are elegant microcosms of a course I have been teaching at Towson University’s Kinesiology Department. Kinesiology is the science of human movement, and the course I teach, Concepts of Motor Learning, develops one of the most fascinating aspects of this science, and one that atm lessons neatly illustrate. While atm lessons surely capitalize on biomechanical principles, seeing them in terms of motor learning principles can further illuminate what Moshe Feldenkrais so brilliantly devised. To begin with, they can serve as an illustration of what is called in the field of motor learning a general motor program—defined as a set of general instructions or a template for a class of movements. These instructions include creating frames of reference for comparing body movements as the student progresses. The typical body scan of an Awareness Through Movement lesson is an example of creating such a frame of reference. At the beginning of an atm lesson, a student is often asked to lie on his or her back and complete a teacher-guided scan of the body. This scan then becomes a frame of reference for the student to compare and contrast the subsequent effects of the movement experiences of the lesson that follow. General motor programs also contain elements of movement that are foundational and therefore inflexible, and elements that are adjustable and can be tailored to the requirements of a specific movement. These elements of a general motor program appear to be hard wired into the brain, but change considerably through use (Rose and Christina, 2006, 9-10; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 105-129). The adaptable features of a general motor program include muscle activation, timing of movements, and force production of the muscles, while the inflexible features include sequencing of movements, internal timing, and internal force. When I teach this to my students, we often use a pen to write our names using different speeds and force and then change body parts to write our names—for example with the toes or the mouth, to illustrate the elements that are easily changed from one attempt to the next and those that remain more constant (Coker 2013, 58; Magill 2011, 94; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 127-128). Often in atm lessons the learner is asked to explore the timing of the movement, how much or how little muscular strength (force production) to use, and what muscles are being used to meet the action. atm lessons do not always highlight these elements, but if you know what you are looking for you can find them in many of the atm lessons. For this article I will be using the familiar lesson “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating Spine,” also commonly known as “Coordinating the Flexors and Extensors,” to illustrate these elements (Stransky, 1987, 17-23). In this lesson the student explores the timing of the movement, how much muscular strength to use for the reference movement and its variations, and which muscles are being used to meet the action. In this way, the student creates frames of reference for not only the body scan at the beginning of the lesson but also elements within the lesson proper, such as timing and force. Creating frames of reference is a key component in comparing actual to desired movement 35

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outcomes, thus improving one’s ability to detect and correct one’s own movement (Coker 2013, 101; Schmidt and Wrisberg 2008, 203). Comparing information and sources of information is a common feature of the central nervous system (cns) and human function. This comparison allows for decision making and an opportunity for increased efficiency. The cns appears from a physiology and neuroscience perspective to be searching for more efficient ways to function. Efficiency can be viewed in terms of both energy expenditure and function (Kandel, Schwartz, and Jessel, 1991; Saladin, 2012). Decision-making processes for movement are affected by how much time is available to decide on and carry out the desired choice. When we have less time available, i.e., less than 40 milliseconds, then movement can only be adjusted or modified on the next attempt rather than in the moment. Movements such as hitting, kicking, or striking take around 40 milliseconds to complete from start to finish. During the “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating the Spine” lesson in Stransky, 1987, 18, Feldenkrais introduces see-saw breathing while tilting the crossed legs (reference movement). He says to gradually make the movement as fast as possible—and then you can feel the diaphragm flopping up and down! Even though the see-saw movement of the belly and chest are not exactly like kicking or striking, the movement does take less than 40 milliseconds to do. Were the student to decide to start expanding the belly sideways as well as forward, it would be hard to do in the moment she thought of it. She would have to wait until the next repetition. This may be why atm movements are generally slow. When done slowly, the student has time to be contemplative, to change the movement in the moment, according to what is more comfortable or efficient. When more time is available, i.e., 200 milliseconds or more, then movements can be adjusted and modified while they are occurring in the moment. From the point of view of the structure of an atm we can identify that atm lessons often use movements that take more than 200 milliseconds and movements that sometimes (though rarely) take less than 200 milliseconds. Movements that occur in 200 or more milliseconds use what is called a closed-loop method of control. This means that there is often enough time to make adjustments while you are moving. Closed-loop control is another name for what is more commonly known as a servomechanism, similar to what most heating and cooling thermostat units use to adjust actual temperature to the desired temperature (Schmidt, 1975; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 68-74; Shea and Wulf, 2005). In humans, the closed circuit is made up of afferent or sensory input coming into the cns through the ascending spinal pathways and then to the higher brain functions for motor control. These functions identify pertinent incoming information, select the appropriate motor program for the desired action, and send the commands to the descending spinal pathways to the effectors or muscles to carry out. The brain then compares the actual to the intended movement so that it can be adjusted or refined if necessary (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 72-74). An extension of the motor program, called a schema, transforms a motor program that is useful for a general class of actions to something more particular for an actual movement. Every time we repeat a movement either physically or through visualization, we have an opportunity to strengthen the schema for the movement through our interpretation of the actual movement as compared to the desired movement. The schema is a set of rules or instructions for a particular action (Magill, 2011, 93). We practice the movement by varying the timing, the muscles used, and the amount of force (what I earlier called the adjustable features of the motor program). Most atm lessons are done this way. In my training program, we called it the first approximation. The student attempts to get the idea of the action, and figures out through doing and thinking about the movement how best to 36

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approximate it, refining it on each attempt. For example in the “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating the Spine” lesson again, we have tilting the triangle of the arms without deforming the triangle, with the knees bent, feet on floor; and then straightening the leg on the side to which you are tilting, to find what is easier (19). Another variation is tilting the arms while they are closer to the stomach or closer to the head, trying various approximations to find the easiest movement. Elaboration of the schema—the implied set of rules—through physical and mental practice enables the student to move through the different stages of learning. During the first stage of learning the student is trying to get the idea of the movement and figure out the order of operations (Fleishman 1962; Gentile, 1972; Rose and Christina, 2006, 178-182). It is in this first approximation that we see the largest gains in motor performance. A principle called the power law of practice states that the largest gains in learning occur during this beginning phase and level off or plateau during the intermediate and advanced stages of learning a particular skill (Coker 2013, 137).

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The second and third stages of learning tell a different story. The student has the chance to refine the movements, thereby elaborating the schema or fleshing it out more particularly to match the experience. Throughout the “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating Spine” lesson the student refines movement through successive iterations. There are many repetitions and variations; Feldenkrais repeats the reference movement after many of the variations, and the movement keeps improving because the ribs are gradually learning to let go, allowing the legs to tilt more easily, involving the entire torso in the rotation, not just the pelvis. In the second and third stages of learning one can begin to relegate certain aspects of the movement to unconscious control while freeing up some of the available attention for skill refinement (Fleishman 1962; Gentile, 1972). During the third stage of learning more of the movement can become automatic, increasing available attention for increased use of strategies and further refinement (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2009, 202-203). This is the stage in which motor performance becomes truly elegant in an atm lesson. If we accept that attention is a limited resource then the only way to get more of it is in how you actually use it (Coker 2013, 39-46; Ives, 2014, 172-174). Feldenkrais lessons take advantage of this effect as well because unlike other movement learning systems such as the Alexander Technique, Bartenieff 37

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Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering, and yoga, the participant in atm lessons will have the opportunity to cycle through each stage of learning with every lesson. Following these three stages of learning in relation to attention, when a student begins a new atm lesson, most of the attention is focused on figuring out how to do the movement described. But as a whole, Feldenkrais lessons take advantage of this three-stage process. Yet another element of motor learning is the ability to learn from either a narrow or a broad focus of attention; or from an intrinsic or extrinsic focus of attention (Nideffer, 1995). Once the student gets a feel of the movement then aspects of attention can be freed up for attending to extrinsic and intrinsic feedback and a conscious comparison of the actual to the intended movement. Most atm lessons instruct the student to adopt a narrow or broad internal focus of attention. The body scan example given earlier is an example of guiding the student to adopt a broad internal focus of attention. Noticing one’s breath while doing a particular part of an atm is an example of guiding the student to adopt a narrow internal focus of attention. In The Judith Stransky Notes (1987, 1-8) the first lesson is a scan lesson using five cardinal lines; Moshe uses this again in the tilting legs lesson (18). The five lines are conceptual as if seen from the outside, and you also use the contact with the floor to feel the clarity or lack of clarity of the five lines. So it includes both intrinsic and extrinsic points of view. The Feldenkrais teacher begins by instructing how to do the movement, and proceeds to guide the student to listen for and feel extrinsic (from outside the body) and intrinsic (from inside the body) feedback. In this way, the student can compare the actual to the intended movement. Looked at in more detail, extrinsic and intrinsic feedback is the feedback that the body generates itself from moving and being alive (Kandel et al., 1991, 534-563). Extrinsic refers to sensory receptors, such as the ears and eyes that pick up information from the environment; while intrinsic refers to sensory receptors that pick up information from inside the body, such as proprioceptors, Golgi tendon organs, and muscle spindles (Kandel et al., 1991, 565-580). The lesson will continue with verbal instructions for further refinement of the movement, which is matched to the capability of the student to relegate more of the movement to unconscious control. I think this is the moment when the student can do more than a simple on and off, or yes and no, and reflects motor skill development. “Feldenkrais wrote on many occasions that every individual should have more than two solutions for every movement problem. His reasoning was that having two choices was really the movement equivalent of only being able to say yes and no. He postulated that to increase freedom in movement, an individual needed to be able to make the movement equivalent of yes and no (or on and off ) plus two more options” (Brodie and Lobel, 2012, 158). This distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic feedback is similar to, but not identical to, the situation during which children transition from relating to their spatial world from an egocentric perspective—when spatial orientation is referenced from your own body— to an allocentric perspective—when spatial orientation is referenced from your surroundings. This transition is thought to occur relative to the onset of independent locomotion (Haywood and Getchell, 2009, 222). atm lessons strengthen and develop the schema (set of rules) of the general motor program by means of practice. Most atm lessons use a varied practice structure, during which the student may repeat a movement but is guided to do it differently every time. We see this throughout the “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating the Spine” lesson as well. Varied practice has been shown to be more effective in increasing learning (Coker, 2013, 225; Magill, 2011, 371; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 274). Varied practice has also been shown to be more effective in retention of learning (Magill, 2011, 372; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 38

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2008, 274). Maximizing learning gains increases the student’s potential for improving their motor skill level. atm lessons also contain within them a balance between practice and rest, which facilitates learning (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 225-228). In motor learning terminology, the practice frequency within a typical atm lesson uses both massed and distributed practice and rest intervals. In massed practice, time spent executing the movement is greater than time spent resting, while distributed practice contains more rest than actual movement (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 225). In terms of the overall structure of the lesson, a typical atm lesson uses both. Within most lessons there are sections which mass the physical practice and reduce the amount of rest. The see-saw breathing section of the “Tilting Crossed Legs, Rotating the Spine” lesson is an example of massed practice (Stransky, 1987,18). There are also distributed practice and rest ratios with regards to the beginning movements of the lesson that are repeated throughout to compare the effects of how the body lies on the floor as a result of doing the lesson proper. Additionally, student-regulated rest is present throughout the lesson in which every participant judges for themselves when to rest more if needed. atm lessons use verbal instructions without visual demonstrations. This is a unique feature that is not found in other similar movement learning systems. The value of not providing a visual demonstration for the student is manifold. Visual demonstrations provide modeling for the student but also constrain the student to mimic movement rather than discovering for his or her self how best to solve a movement problem. Solving the movement problem for oneself is thought to enhance thinking and learning independently from the instructor of the lesson (Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 203). Occasionally it happens in a lesson that the student will sit up (for a lying down lesson) and look around at others doing the movement using observational learning, just as infants and young children do when acquiring motor milestones and gross motor skills (Coker 2013, 177-178; Haywood and Getchell, 2009, 92-109). Additionally, the teacher might ask the class to stop and watch others do the movement to highlight the variety of ways to solve the movement problem or show how different people solve the problem in a similar way. As there is little to no visual demonstration from the teacher, atm lessons typically emphasize intrinsic feedback. This is the feedback that the student generates through their own cognitive and movement participation in the lesson. Augmented or instructor delivered feedback in atm lessons is typically what we call in motor learning program feedback and parameter feedback. Program feedback relates to aspects of the general motor program that are fundamental to the particular atm lesson being taught such as the actual movements the student is executing. Parameter feedback relates to the adaptable features of the generalized motor program that were specified previously such as speed and force of the movement (Newell, 1985; Schmidt and Wrisberg, 2008, 297-299). Both program and parameter feedback from the instructor, and intrinsic feedback from the student, combine to improve learning in an atm lesson. Mental rehearsal of movement has been shown to enhance motor performance in a variety of different motor skills (Martin, Moritz, and Halls, 1999; Vealey and Greenleaf, 2006). Students are often skeptical of this form of practice to improve motor performance unless they have some previous experience with it. I often illustrate how mental rehearsal works through doing an exercise I call moving a key with the mind alone. Feldenkrais also wrote about this exercise in his book The Potent Self, in the chapter “The Means at Our Disposal” (Feldenkrais, 1985, 129). It has been described by others elsewhere, but the gist of the exercise is that you hold a key hanging on the end of a string and get it to move in directions you are thinking without moving your hand, such as forward and back, left, 39

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right, clockwise, and counterclockwise (Brodie and Lobel, 2012, 133). For me, the value in this exercise is that it highlights that thinking often equals doing even if it is on a smaller scale or magnitude. My students often are mystified by this exercise but we relate it to the general motor program in that we are thinking about a direction in space, which enables the higher motor functions to select a motor program and send the commands to the muscles, in this case the effectors of the forearm and hand, thereby making the key move in space. Many atm lessons incorporate mental imagery or visualization of oneself doing the movement without physically doing the movement. This also happens when we do an atm lesson that has a portion of it done on one side physically and on the other mentally. Research supports the benefits of mental rehearsal as well (Coker 2013, 213; Rose and Cristina, 2006, 278-286). atm lessons often end with noticing how your body is making contact with the floor after doing the lesson and comparing it to how it felt at the beginning of the lesson. In this way, the student judges for himself through thinking and feeling what has occurred and the relevance for him. This enables the student to be more independent from the instructor, thereby creating another opportunity for skill enhancement. Lessons also often add getting up to stand, noticing how you feel in your body while standing, and then going for a short walk around the room. Both of these aspects of the conclusion of atm lessons are opportunities for the student to observe the transfer of the lesson to another movement action. The application of the atm lesson to common actions of daily life such as standing and walking has the potential to strengthen the learning component of the movement experience. Transfer and retention are common measures of motor learning and motor skill (Magill 2011, 257). atm lessons as created by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais are elegant examples of learning experiences that are optimally constructed to improve motor performance. The architecture of the lessons incorporates all the components necessary to enhance the general motor program for a particular class of actions, thereby influencing learning and performance positively.

References Brodie, Julie A., and Elin E. Lobel. 2012. Dance and Somatics: Integrating Somatic Principles in Dance. McFarland Press. Coker, Cheryl A. 2013. Motor Learning and Control for Practitioners. 3rd ed. Scottsdale, az: Holcomb Hathaway. Feldenkrais, Moshe. 1985. The Potent Self: A Guide to Spontaneity. New York: Harper and Row. Fleishman, E. A. 1962. “The Description and Prediction of Perceptual Motor Skill Learning.” In Training Research and Education, edited by R. Glasser, 137-177. Pittsburgh, pa: University of Pittsburgh. Gentile, Ann M. 1972. “A Working Model of Skill Acquisition with Application to Teaching.” Quest Monograph, xvii, 3-23. Haywood, Kathleen M., and Nancy Getchell. 2009. Lifespan Motor Development. 5th ed. Champaign, il: Human Kinetics. Ives, Jeffrey C. 2014. Motor Behavior: Connecting Mind and Body to Performance. Philadelphia, pa. Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins. Kandel, Eric R., Schwartz, James H., and Thomas M. Jessell. 1991. Principles of Neural Science. 3rd ed. Norwalk, ct: Appleton and Lange.

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Magill, Richard A. 2011. Motor Learning and Control: Concepts and Applications. 9th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill. Martin, K. A., Moritz S. A., and C. R. Halls. 1999. “Imagery Use in Sport: A Literature Review and Applied Model.” The Sport Psychologist, 13, 245-268. Newell, Karl M. 1985. “Coordination, Control, and Skill.” In Differing Perspectives on Motor Learning, Memory, and Control, edited by D. Goodman, R. B. Wilberg, and I. M. Franks, 295-317. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Nideffer, R. M. 1995. Focus for Success. San Diego: Enhanced Performance Services. Rose, Debra J., and Robert W. Christina. 2006. A Multilevel Approach to the Study of Motor Control and Learning. 2nd ed. San Francisco, ca: Benjamin Cummings. Saladin, Kenneth, S. 2012. Anatomy and Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function. 6th ed. New York. McGraw Hill. Schmidt, Richard A.1975. “A Schema Theory of Discrete Motor Skill Learning.” Psychological Review, 82, 225-260. Schmidt, Richard A., and Craig A. Wrisberg. 2008. Motor Learning and Performance. 4th ed. Champaign, il: Human Kinetics. Shea, Charles H., and Gabriele Wulf. 2005. “Schema Theory: A Critical Appraisal and Reevaluation.” Journal of Motor Behavior, 37, 85-101. Stransky, Judith. 1987. Moshe Feldenkrais’ Esalen 1972 Workshop. Berkeley, ca: Feldenkrais Resources. Vealey, R. S., and C. A. Greenleaf. 2006. “Seeing is Believing: Understanding and Using Imagery in Sport.” In Applied Sport Psychology: Personal Growth to Peak Performance, J. Williams, editor, 306348. New York: McGraw Hill.

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Differentiating a Movement and Its Imagined Twin Steve Mulvihill The first time I completely differentiated a simple movement from the same imagined movement it was as if portions of my nervous system had been dismantled and scrambled. It felt similar to the first time I differentiated the movement of my eyes from the movement of my head. The experience suggested that there was something significant going on, and I wanted to know more. This investigation began much earlier. During the fourth year of my formal Feldenkrais training, a fellow student, Christy Cutler, introduced me to a phrase that intrigued me: “seeing with the body.” I searched the Internet and eventually found instructions for having an experience of seeing with the body. I went outside and stood near the street. Just to my right was a giant rv bus, and down the street was a skinny palm tree. As I shifted my visual attention from one to the other, my internal sensations also shifted. Much of the right side of my body was included when attending to the bus. When attending to the distant tree my internal sensations were instead at a small place near my left lower ribs. Next, I watched a car come up the street. As it approached, went past, and moved away, I could feel the movement of sensations within me that seemed related to the changing location of the car. When a person rode past me on a bicycle, my experience was similar, but with decreased magnitude of sensations. A year later I was doing an Awareness Through Movement (atm) lesson from Jack Heggie’s “Total Body Vision” series. I heard him say, “In some sense we see with our whole body and not just with our eyes.” It reminded me of my previous exploration with the bus, tree, car, and bicycle, and I wondered if I could create another seeing with the body experience. I stood next to a wall in my living room. My right arm and shoulder were near the wall, and my left side was toward open space. With my eyes open, I stood quietly, and I noticed that my right and left sides felt different. If I were to move my right arm farther to the right, it would soon hit the wall. My left arm did not have a similar limitation. With my feet staying where they were, I shifted even closer to the wall and then returned to my starting position. While I did not touch the wall, moving closer to that constraint and having more support coming from my right leg created mildly confusing internal sensations. I couldn’t discern if these changing sensations were from the wall, my support, what I was seeing, or something else. To get a better sense of what was happening, I moved away from the wall. Now I was starting with both sides equally unconstrained. I explored the sensations I experienced as I shifted my weight to the right and then to the left. I started to go stand by the wall again, and then I laughed out loud when I realized I didn’t need to move to the wall: because I have an imagination, I can move the wall to me! In my imagination I moved the wall close to my right side. As I imagined its approach I had the internal sensations that corresponded to moving away from it. I noticed that I had also slightly shifted my weight to the left. As the wall “approached” I shifted slightly left, and as the imaginary wall “retreated,” I returned to a neutral stance. While my observable movement was small, my internal sensations of moving to my left were, to me, clear and obvious. I did a similar exploration of moving an imagined wall toward and away from my left side. My experience was basically the same: the wall and the constraint it created were guiding my attention. 42

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Ignoring the wall now, I began moving those internal sensations from left to right and back again. It surprised and delighted me that I could control them so well. I wondered if I could move these internal sensations opposite an actual movement, that of shifting my weight to the left and to the right. As I shifted toward my left foot, I shifted the internal sensations to the right. As I shifted toward my right foot, I shifted the internal sensations to the left. Oooooooooooo! This was fun! It was at this point I recognized that these internal sensations I was moving around were the same type of sensations I experience when doing an imagined movement. I was differentiating between the actual movement of shifting right and left and the imagined movement of shifting right and left. This higher level differentiation was a new experience for me, and I wondered if I could do this with other movements, such as the ones I experience during atm lessons. I was quickly on my back with my knees bent and feet standing. I pushed with my left foot to roll to the right but I found the sequence was a little too complex. It felt like four different but connected moves. I couldn’t clearly do it or even imagine it as one clearly defined movement. Instead, I tried breaking up a simpler task: tilting my right knee to the right, and returning to the starting position. Using my imagination, I could actually do both of these movements at the same time. While I moved my knee to the right, I simultaneously did the imagined movement of returning to the initial standing position. I followed this experiment with others, including simultaneously rolling my head left and right, and simultaneously lifting and lowering my shoulder. During my Feldenkrais training, we worked with actual movements and imagined movements. We did differentiate these movements (actual and imagined). We explored by actually moving on one side of our body, then on the other side of the body doing the same exploration, first as imagined movement, and then as actual movement. There were other times when we imagined a movement before actually doing it. There were times when we

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only did the initial part of a movement and then continued it in our imagination. Other times there were imagined movements that grew into actual movements. The directions of these imagined and actual movements were always the same. I thought the experience of using the imagination in this way was limited and maybe even played into habitual thinking. Doing these movements in opposite directions, on the other hand, is counterintuitive, non-habitual, and seems to create a more significant differentiation of the actual and imagined movements. The experiences during my training were of differentiations between an actual movement and the same movement as an imagined movement. When I moved the actual and the imagined movements independently and simultaneously, I experienced a dramatic increase in that differentiation. Could other people easily learn this way of differentiating actual and imagined movements? Would there be a detectable benefit? I recruited seven people to come to my Saint Street Movement Lab in Albuquerque for experiments. Most of the people were from my atm classes. I worked with one person at a time. The first half of each appointment was for experimenting with differentiating actual and imagined movements. The second half was for a Functional Integration lesson which was separate from and had nothing to do with the differentiation experiments. The first experiment for each person was “Lifting a Hand.” Here are the instructions I gave: 1. Sit in a comfortable position with your hands resting on your legs. 2. Actual Movement: slowly lift your right hand about 10 inches and return it to the initial resting position. (This is repeated while the person notices what is involved in doing this movement.) 3. Imagined Movement: slowly do the same, but as an imagined movement. It is an imagined duplicate of the actual movement. (This is repeated while the person notices what is involved in doing this movement.)1 4. Differentiate the actual and imagined movements. There are many ways to differentiate the movements. Two that I like are: a. Actual movement and imagined movement are taken out of phase with each other. While one is starting the other is returning. They are moving opposite each other and will pass through each other during the moving. b. Both actual movement and imagined movement are done continuously but at different rates. Begin with slowly doing the imagined movement then add the actual movement that is even slower than the imagined movement. While the actual movement completes one cycle, the imagined movement completes two or three or four cycles. 5. Repeat Step #2 and notice any differences. 6. Repeat Step #3 and notice any differences. 7. Discuss what we notice. Twenty differentiation experiments dealt specifically with simple and reversible movements. They included: · lifting the hand · rolling the head · moving the shoulder blades closer together · moving a shoulder forward (sitting position) · shifting the weight left and right (standing position) · tilting the knees out and in (on the back with feet standing) · tilting the knees left and right (on the back with legs crossed at the knees) · lengthening (front/back/left side/right side/center) (sitting position) 44

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All the volunteers were able to differentiate the actual and imagined movements during their first thirty-minute meeting with me. Most participants tended to want to move through each step rapidly and to do the movements, both actual and imagined, too quickly. The actual movement and the imagined movement each need to be clearly experienced prior to moving them independently and simultaneously. It also seems that the differentiation movements are best done slowly. Frequent breaks were usually required. Taking apart, dismantling, and differentiating these movements, actual and imagined, seems to create a significant physical response. I heard the words “dizzy,” “disoriented,” and even “nauseous” to describe the initial effects of moving actual and imagined movements in different ways. These effects diminished with experience. Based on what I observed and what the participants told me, differentiating actual and imagined movements improves functionality. I noticed that movements became smoother, seemed easier, and involved more of the person. The participants said that both their actual movements and their imagined movements were easier, clearer, and required less work. Perhaps more significantly, during these experiments participants seemed to enjoy doing imagined movements far more than they had before. It may be that doing imagined movements at the same time as actual movements engages the participants in a more meaningful way. Given the value of doing imagined movements, enjoying the process is a significant added benefit. As a result of my personal experiences and my homemade experiments using friendly volunteers, I am convinced that differentiating actual and imagined movements has value. There certainly seems to be improved actual movement, imagined movement, and a learning experience that is enjoyable. Using imagined movement (with various names and definitions) is the subject of much current scientific research. It has been used for treating disease, healing from injuries, developing athletic and artistic skills, and much more. I wonder whether the significant differentiation of actual and imagined movements would produce evidence of even better performance. It is my hope that what I have begun can be taken to a significant level of scientific credibility. People in physical rehabilitation programs and those people developing their skills and talents will be most grateful to have more desirable outcomes. My casual investigations will continue. Part of my work will be with differentiating twin actual and imagined movements. Some work will include differentiating movements that are not even similar. I consider this the early days and the early daze of a fascinating exploration. I still want to know more.

Notes 1 Note: I am defining “Imagined Movement” as an associated experience. An associated experience is done as if mentally reliving or mentally rehearsing the experience. By definition, there will be felt sensations with this associated, imagined movement.

Acknowledgements I want to thank Colleen Lang, Dianne Lewis, and Monica Meilleur for their kind support, insights, and suggestions.

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Maxine Sheets-Johnstone The Primacy of Movement, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone: A Review Expanded second edition, John Benjamins Publishing Company, Advances in Consciousness Research, Volume 82, 2011

Roger Russell “We were apprentices of our own bodies . . . . We learned by listening, by being and staying attuned kinaesthetically, in an on-going process of feeling the dynamics of our own movement . . . . Caught up in the adult world, we easily lose sight of movement and of our fundamental capacity to think in movement. Any time we care to turn our attention to it, however, there it is.” —Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, The Primacy of Movement, 1st edition, 517.

The Primacy of Movement is a challenging book. I have thought a lot about whether I could recommend this book to most Feldenkrais teachers. Like other work by the author, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, the book is not an easy read. You have to stick with it. In this book Maxine challenges us to take ideas seriously and think clearly, but also be “. . . attentive to, and patiently observant of, one’s own everyday experiences of movement” (xviii). That expectation is an expression of her life in philosophy and dance. As I pondered how to draw Feldenkrais teachers into Maxine’s circle, I realized that she herself would be the best avenue into her world, her thinking, and her approach to making movement primary. Therefore, let me first introduce you to Maxine as I got to know her before we look into her book. Leuven is one of those irresistibly charming European medieval cities. This ancient city near Brussels, first mentioned in the history books in 891 after a Viking raid, has been the home of the Catholic University since 1425. But wait, this is not a travelogue, what are we doing in Leuven if this is a book review? Well, the collected works of Edmund Husserl ended up at the university library in the confusion of World War II, and they have been there ever since. This traditional academic institution, rated in the top 100 universities in the world, was where my colleague Carl Ginsburg and I met Maxine Sheets-Johnstone in 2003 during a conference concerning Husserl’s philosophy of phenomenology. If you have ever been to a philosophy conference, you might know what we were in for. The experts meet to talk shop, argue, and find out who is smarter. They are among peers who speak the same language, so there is no need to stop and explain to people from outside of their craft, like myself, what they mean by such sentences as: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.1

This quotation is a central idea of C.S. Peirce’s philosophy of pragmatism, which, despite the confusing complexity of this statement, is very close to the heart of the Feldenkrais Method. What Carl and I experienced in Leuven was impressive and entertaining. One lecturer after another talked about what we can understand about ourselves, our place in the universe, and how we know what we know by referring back to our immediate experience. Sounds interesting? Well it is, except for one small detail: nobody was actually doing any experiencing. They argued about the embodied foundations of human knowledge without doing something their philosopher-hero, Edmund Husserl, admonished his students to do in the early part of the 20th century: 46

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“. . .[T]he only way to check your definition is to experience an act . . . you have to jump in there feet first and experience it yourself.” 2

Nobody in the room was willing to do the experience thing—except for Maxine. When it was her turn she scolded this group of learned professors for not doing what they were saying. Being a phenomenologist herself, she was so well versed in what they were talking about that their counter arguments sounded like lame excuses, which they were. Having checked out the gym on the day she arrived, she said, “Let’s go to the gymnastic hall here at the university and experience what you are claiming needs to be experienced.” Astonished expressions, stunned silence, and then shy refusal. They were not willing to put their money where their mouths were; nor could they talk her out of it. She knew her game. A tough-minded lady, smart, skilled in her craft of critical thinking, she knew all of the ways of squirming out of the question: “Are you willing to jump in there and experience it for yourself?” Their answer was no. But not Maxine. She has been taking phenomenology seriously for about 60 years by finding ways to meld experience and critical thinking into a unified whole. This is what she does in her teaching and in her books, including The Primacy of Movement. For me she hit the bull’s-eye in Leuven with a remark she made in a discussion that had been raging all day. It concerned speculation about how Neandertals thought and used language. Maxine brought the discussion to a standstill when she said, “Well, they don’t have any evidence of that, do they? They only have some skulls and some drawings on cave walls and things like that. So what they are actually doing here seems to be mind-reading, and as far as I know, mind-reading is not a valid scientific method.” Carl and I were impressed and charmed. We looked at each other and said, “This is what we are looking for—critical thinking and quick wits.” So Maxine came to the symposium on research and the Feldenkrais Method sponsored by the Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America in Seattle in August, 2004 and, true to form, she stood out from the crowd. Who is Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, and how did she learn to think and argue like she does? Her adventurous life has included teaching, running a farm, dancing and more dancing, and studying the philosophy of dance at a university department which did not want to support a philosophical dancer. So she transferred to the philosophy department and finished her Ph.D. in philosophy instead of dance. This was followed with unfinished work on a second Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, a second marriage to a great guy, Albert Johnstone, a house above the ocean in Yachats, Oregon, a position in the philosophy department at the University of Oregon in Eugene, and a very active “retirement” with lectures in conferences around the world. Her books include The Phenomenology of Dance, The Roots of Thinking, The Roots of Power, The Roots of Morality, The Corporeal Turn, and The Primacy of Movement. She has also published numerous journal articles since the 1960s, including one titled “The Work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais: A New Applied Kinesiology and a Radical Questioning of Training and Technique.” That article appeared in Contact Quarterly, Fall, 1979. So what about her book The Primacy of Movement? I am sorry to say that I cannot, with a good conscience, recommend it to most Feldenkrais practitioners or students. This might not sound like a good recommendation, but indeed it is. The book demands from the reader a foundation in the issues of phenomenology in philosophy—something that most of us don’t have. Or at least we would not recognize that we have this kind of background, which indeed we do since Moshe was a phenomenologist par excellence.

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That being the case, go right ahead and take a crack at it. After all, each of us has “jumped in feet first” and perfected what the philosophers call an “Epoché.” This is a Greek word, and it basically means to suspend our belief and observe. It was adopted by Husserl to describe the phenomenological approach to discovery. One first finds a way to suspend habitual judgment, pay close attention to what we are experiencing, and accept our experience as is. In this sense we are all doing “kinesthetic phenomenology” in Awareness Through Movement (atm) lessons. So, the next time you are lying on the floor in one of those unexpected Alexander Yanai contortions and someone walks in and asks you what in God’s name you are doing, just tell them that you are taking phenomenological philosophy seriously. As Feldenkrais teachers our challenge is to ask ourselves how we can think and speak clearly about our experience. The answer to this question is the reason why The Primacy of Movement is both challenging and worth reading. So it is in this sense that I can recommend it after all. But, be warned, you will need to come to this 523-page intellectual wrestling match between thinking and moving with curiosity, persistence, and a readiness to be pinned down for your unexamined everyday beliefs. Getting pinned for incautious thinking is something I can highly recommend, as long as Maxine is your sparring partner. Talking with Maxine in her Yachats, Oregon home, as I have had the pleasure to do, or through the pages of this book, will definitely cost you some of your favorite beliefs. However, by sacrificing some of your implicit assumptions about what you are doing in your Feldenkrais lessons, you will gain an understanding of some of the most interesting issues in modern philosophy. Why curiosity? Well, even Plato said that wonder is the foundation of philosophy. Maxine takes him up on this about 2500 years later. In a chapter entitled “Does philosophy begin (and end) in wonder?” she writes: “In this chapter I wonder about wonder and its centrality to a philosophic act” (280). When you read through this book, you will realize that the entire endeavor is driven by a deep, lively curiosity—to look at things from another angle, to find out what others have thought and understood, to thirst for experience as the foundation of knowing. What does this have to do with the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education? If you ever had dinner at a restaurant in San Francisco with Moshe Feldenkrais, you would recognize that Maxine’s curiosity is right up Feldenkrais’s alley. Moshe ate fast, so after he was finished with his meal, he checked your plate for anything that looked good, and more often than not helped himself. Which you got used to. However, something that you could never get used to was his uninhibited curiosity. If he left something on your plate and you continued to eat, you would soon realize that Moshe was carefully observing how you held your fork, cut the meat, moved your hand to your mouth, etc. A glance in his direction confronted you with an extraordinary experience: someone who was watching you with unlimited curiosity about your uniqueness as a person, and you could feel the impact of that humane curiosity immediately. A remarkable experience! So, curiosity is about as “Feldenkrais” as you can get. So what’s next? Ah yes, persistence. Why persistence? Well, because Maxine wrote it! That means any reader will be challenged to ponder, think, re-examine assumptions, and figure out some of her idiosyncratic language. You will need to hang in there. If you are a beginner in reading philosophy, then it wouldn’t hurt to have at least two other books next to you: a history of Western philosophy and a dictionary of philosophy.3 It will slow you down to keep checking to find out what she is referring to as she ranges across the philosophical landscape, including Aristotle, Descartes, Helmholtz, Brentano, 48

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Husserl, Heidegger, H. Dreyfus, Michel Foucault, and many, many more. One can only be impressed by her range of scholarship and experience. She certainly has jumped in there not only with both feet, but also with body and soul. If you jump in there with her and keep at it you cannot help coming out a wiser person. What is her central thesis? I will let Maxine say it herself: “. . .[M]ovement is first of all the mode by which we make sense of our own bodies and by which we first come to understand the world. . . .[A]n understanding of the phenomenon of learning to move oneself requires a readiness to cross disciplines. . . .” (xxv).

So she crosses more disciplines than that chicken ever crossed roads. She points out that in modern philosophy and cognitive science, the subjective experience of one’s own body has been for the most part ignored. Sure the experience is talked and written about, but is it really experienced for its own sake? From her point of view movement belongs in the middle of the conversation. She considers movement to be a fundamental category of the universe. She puts movement back into the thinking game. With her knowledge and insistent voice, she has helped do just that. In 1998, The Journal of Consciousness Studies published a volume with her article, now a chapter in this book, as the lead article.4 That’s real impact. The ivory tower folks might not always agree with what she says, or her demanding way of speaking her mind, but they certainly cannot ignore her voice. What will you find in The Primacy of Movement? First, let’s start with the title. In the 1960s one of the leading philosophers of phenomenology, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, published two books—translated from French—entitled The Phenomenology of Perception (1962) and The Primacy of Perception (1964). Merleau-Ponty argues that philosophy must start with experience rather than speculation, and that perception is the foundation of experience. In a sense Maxine is turning the priorities around and forcing a discussion of her suggestion that perception of one’s body is a correlate of movement which is one of the fundamental organizational principles of the cosmos, thus making movement primary. Second, Maxine’s book includes chapters that have appeared as articles in journals, expanded or edited for this volume. They are offered in an ordered presentation in four sections: Foundations is the opening section, followed by sections entitled Methodology, Applications, and Twenty-first century reflections on human nature. In Foundations you will find chapters about Neandertals, a natural history of consciousness, a discussion of Aristotle’s approach to understanding consciousness, and finally the primacy of movement. I won’t try to list everything you will find in the section entitled Methodology, but you will meet Husserl and Helmholtz, Merleau-Ponty, and the importance of wonder in philosophy. I suppose it will not surprise you to hear that one of my favorite chapters is “On learning to move oneself.” But whoa! Don’t go running in there just yet. It too demands patience. After all, this is not a popular science book about learning to move, it is Maxine SheetsJohnstone. So be prepared to stick close to your dictionary of philosophy to decode some of what she writes into everyday English. Is it worth it? Well that depends. Do you relish being asked to rethink most of what you thought you had a good handle on? Do you want to know what is up to date and relevant for Feldenkrais teachers in the academic world? Is your curiosity spiked by the chapter title “On learning to move oneself?” So, take a shot at it. Nobody will examine you about whether you got it all on the first reading. I suppose that Alva Noë could pull that off in one run through the chapter. However, if you are not a professor of philosophy in Berkeley, then don’t sweat it. Just come back for more. And if you happen tell somebody you know about what has been awakened 49

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in your cortical fields, the odds are that they will be speechless that you are thinking about those things. You will be too, and pleased to feel that you are up to the challenge. However, the real payoff for you as a Feldenkrais teacher will be that you will never look at your practice of the Feldenkrais Method as you did before. Which means you will find more ways to teach a lesson you thought you knew well than you could have imagined. That’s worth the effort isn’t it? How might that work out for you? Probably not quite as you might expect if your question is “What will all of this challenging text do to make my everyday Feldenkrais practice easier?” Well, truth be told, at first probably not much. However, if you stick with it you cannot help but realize that behind your Feldenkrais practice—those concrete, well-structured atm lessons—there is a wealth of ideas, a long tradition of thinking critically, passed down from generation to generation, that landed in Moshe’s lap during his education. If you were expecting quick and easy directions for giving atm or Functional Integration (fi) lessons, then you are probably still in the first part of the first chapter, or more likely you have gotten to page three of her Introduction. At this point you might want to put the book down and ask yourself if you are willing to take the slow road to understanding. One thing is certain: Maxine does not deliver quick and easy answers, just as Moshe never promised the easy way out of life’s dilemmas. Instead Maxine suggests a disciplined way of thinking and experiencing that leads to a consequent way out, new ideas and experiences that open up a path that is not visible when we begin the journey. This is the same thing that Moshe does in any atm lesson. One of your first discoveries will be that behind the astounding accomplishment that we call the Alexander Yanai lesson series is a deep and well-versed mind, grounded in refined intellectual traditions of Western science, Middle Eastern Talmudic education, and the martial arts of the oriental traditions of personal development. However, this realization will not immediately help you teach lesson number xyz any better. That comes later. But it will come, count on it. Let’s take a look at two examples of how Maxine’s and Moshe’s approaches cross paths. One concerns how we can think productively and one how we can relate to each other creatively. Take the time to watch Moshe’s talk in the Amherst training entitled “On Posture” on July 29, 1980. He begins by reading a letter from one of the participants, who is criticizing the seemingly illogical form of the fi lessons that the letter writer observed Moshe’s Israeli assistants giving. Drawing on ideas in Moshe’s book Body and Mature Behavior, the writer asks Moshe why the assistants gave lessons that did not “follow the rules” outlined in Moshe’s book. In his response Moshe proceeds to demolish the letter writer’s arguments, in the process giving a deliciously entertaining demonstration of his thinking about how one can act effectively, introducing an idea that many Feldenkrais teachers refer to in their teaching: “Acture.” This spontaneous lecture is a bravura demonstration of Moshe’s personality and his clear, practical thinking. If you go back to the talk a second time, listen to the internal logic of how Moshe argues. Listen to how he deconstructs the logic of the letter he received and reconstructs the idea of posture and acture, utilizing another approach to logic. The arguments of the letter follow the logical process that philosophers call deductive logic. This kind of logic is comforting since your conclusions are always correct. If the rule you start with is reliable and the thinking is done properly, you can hope to be 100% sure of the conclusion. This approach appears to give the letter writer a secure claim that Moshe’s assistants were giving inconsistent lessons, that they were not following what he thought were the rules of the game. 50

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If you listen carefully, Moshe argues the other way around. He rejects using statistics to find good posture as an average of many people. He goes on to point out that posture is grounded in being able to move, and demonstrates how good posture is related to the functioning of each particular individual. However, from this way of looking at individuals and their needs, we can formulate a general principle for dynamic posture. This is how scientists are trained to think—by inductive logic, arguing from individual observations to a general rule. Moshe can then formulate this rule: good posture enables the person to move in any direction without preparation. This kind of thinking—open and grounded in curious observation of the real world—is the heart of creative science. Moshe mastered this process, and his Amherst talk about posture shows that he knew the difference between these ways of thinking. The effectiveness of his argument demonstrates an acute understanding of how to think, and how to start thinking from movement itself. Why is this important? We need to understand that we can start with experience and after we are surprised by what we discover, we can ask, “How does that work?” We do not need to insist that everything we do is limited to what the rules of deductive logic allow. This frees us to follow the lead of what we discover through our experience. But hold on a moment. If you think that Maxine, or for that matter Moshe, will agree that we can say, “Great, anything goes for an explanation,” then think again. The other side of Maxine’s argument is that it is still important to ground our thinking in those traditions that help us assure that our thinking is on solid ground. So we need to seek answers to our questions in grounded knowledge. In her Introduction she states, “The chapter shows how scientific and phenomenological research can complement one another, not only because a phenomenological methodology entails practices familiar to scientists, but because the truths of experience are as proper an aim of science as the truths of behavior” (xxiv). Therefore, once we have looked at the scientific viewpoint we need to go back and find out if that theoretical understanding has a positive impact on how we can attend to our experience. How does Maxine approach this in her book? Take a look at the Aristotle chapter. It demonstrates the importance of understanding how we can think critically. This is priceless if we want to delve deeper into the ideas behind the Feldenkrais techniques. Aristotle is the historical godfather of observing natural processes in order to understand them. In her chapter “Consciousness: An Aristotelian account” Maxine will warm the hearts of Feldenkrais teachers who sense something incomplete about modern Western scientific claims that by reducing people to their parts we can understand how the whole works. Reaching back to Aristotle she argues that he was looking at animals and people with two things in mind: experiential quality of sensory experience and moving as a fundamental and irreducible category of the world. This is indeed reaching back a long way to the roots of thinking about life itself, and considering what our traditions of thought have to offer. It may seem theoretical and far away from your daily Feldenkrais practice, and if you are not steeped in this way of questioning I have to admit that it can seem tedious. However, taking this kind of approach is the best possibility for getting away from our accidental habits of thinking about moving and learning to ask productive and careful questions of our experience. You cannot get much closer to how Moshe went about it himself. He was a disciplined and demanding questioner of moving and thinking. He almost never passed up an opportunity to ask you to rethink your assumptions about what you were experiencing. You might want to argue about this point given Moshe’s insistence on practical experience and thinking without words. His often-quoted comments about the priority of 51

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organic learning over academic learning are mistakenly interpreted by many listeners as permission to get on with the experience while insisting the “theoretical stuff” is irrelevant. No question about it, doing comes before understanding in the organic learning processes of the Feldenkrais Method. But informed, critical thinking cannot be ignored. It is part of what makes us professionals. If you ever had the chance to visit Moshe in his apartment on Frug Street in Tel Aviv, you would realize that he lived in a space that was akin to a library with a built-in bed and kitchen. Moshe did not skip the theory; he brought it into coherent and pragmatic connection with experience. This cannot be done without standing back and wondering about our own habits of thinking and how we can clarify our thinking to find more effective action. Maxine will show you how to go about it. Let’s take another example. Although Maxine does not have a chapter directly addressing the meaning of movement in interpersonal interactions, she touches on it across chapters throughout the book. If we put two and two together we can realize how deeply the non-verbal communication used in fi lessons is embedded in our beings as humans. Take the opportunity to watch Moshe give Kimberly two lessons in Amherst (June 27 and July 9, 1981). Skip the techniques he employs: how he moves her pelvis, which directions, how often, etc. Instead, attend to your own reactions as you watch Moshe. You may find something fascinating, something astounding as the lesson unfolds. Moshe seems to be simply and easily relating to this young girl. She is brought in and is sitting in her stroller next to him. In the first lesson he continues to finish his cigarette, then engages her to say hello. In the second lesson, he asks her name. Simple gestures. While many people take offense at him smoking in her presence, they miss the way Kimberly looks at him. She falls under his spell. She watches him attentively, riveted to his sitting there quietly greeting her. If you attend to your own reactions to this short interaction, you will find yourself touched and fascinated. You will realize that in some simple but profound way he has pulled her into his orbit; friendly and open, he is a magnet for her attention. As the lesson unfolds you have to begin to wonder: how did he capture her attention so powerfully, so naturally, that her fascination brings her into a self-discovery process that she could never describe? It certainly packs a wallop for the success of the lesson. If you don’t believe me, try giving a lesson to a child in similar circumstances as Kimberly, while you are busy with your techniques and not open to the child. Doesn’t work. Furthermore, most children will let you know in no uncertain terms that they don’t care if you are a Feldenkrais ace—you are boring and self-absorbed, and they want to go home now! What is going on in that easy-going interaction? In a section relating to Daniel Stern’s descriptions of mother-infant interactions Maxine writes, “The social dimension of this . . . can be profitably spelled out precisely in these terms: in the beginning we relate to others in and through movement. . . . Stern’s detailed descriptive accounts of ‘affect attunement’ (Stern 1995) are relevant in just this context. . . . [W]e relate to others in and through movement and in notably affective as well as effective ways. Our social lives are indeed rooted in a dynamic intercorporeality that is kinesthetically and affectively resonant through and through” ( 514-515). This “dynamic intercorporeality” becomes the source of what I consider to be the most potent FI technique of all, one that is invisible to all but the most observant Feldenkrais teacher. It has to do with our own attitude of being interested in how we experience our fundamental capacities to move and attend to how we move. If we are willing to do exactly what the phenomenologists ask us to do—suspend our biased assumptions, direct our attention towards ourselves in movement and accept what we discover—we have a chance to discover how we can do exactly the same when we are touching another person. 52

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In her chapter “Consciousness: A natural history,” Maxine draws our attention to the evolutionary foundations upon which this potential for awareness is built. She writes, “ . . . with respect to its day to day living in the world, a creature is necessarily sensitive in a proprioceptive sense to the present moment; . . . know thyself has remained a consistent biological built-in; a kinetic corporeal consciousness informs a diversity of animate forms” (61-63). What can we conclude for our Feldenkrais practice? Maxine argues that the foundation of our being is movement. This being so, paying attention to our own movement while teaching fi lessons shows us that we are asking the question: “Who am I when I am giving a lesson?” This brings us into contact with our deepest sense of our own potential and likewise the deepest potential of the person we are touching. As I quoted from Maxine above, “ . . . we relate to others in and through movement and in notably affective as well as effective ways.” The results can be magical. This approach is very different from thinking about what technique we are using in an fi lesson: which bones are we pushing, pulling, rolling, or supporting. So what’s the big deal? For me this kind of questioning and critical thinking is fascinating and it is at the heart of the Feldenkrais Method. In a professional field that is often caught up in making our practice work—going to the next, new exciting workshop about how to roll the head or soften up the chest, and discussions about the issues around email address lists—we can lose sight of the ground that makes the Feldenkrais Method feel so vital: “ . . . movement being the mother tongue of all animate forms, thinking in movement is both a primary fact and a perpetual possibility of animate life” (xxxii). Now, onwards to the chapters included in the “Applications” section. I did mention that the book is 523 pages, right? So I won’t try to tell you everything about this section; you might want to be surprised. How about something about animate form, human speech, why minds are not brains and brains are not bodies, and what it might be like to be a brain? The last chapter in this section is entitled “Thinking in movement.” Sounds interesting, doesn’t it? She begins with a section on dance improvisation and moves on to a discussion of Lois Bloom’s observations of how infants learn language. She argues that despite the present claims that language is essential for thinking, “Clearly, thinking in movement is our primary way of making sense of the world” (432). Moshe could not have said it better. I am sure he would have been pleased with the direction of Maxine’s thinking, just as she was indeed pleased with his. In the late 1970s Maxine attended one of his California workshops, I’m not sure which one, and wrote the article for Contact Quarterly, mentioned in the beginning of this book review. Here is one of her observations of his approach: The intention is not to be nor to affirm oneself somewhere but to give oneself over to the qualitative feel of movement, to be caught up in the flow, to feel its surges, its diffusions, its wanings, its accelerations, and so on. Such an awareness may be not only the domain of the dancer but of the gymnast, the diver, and even the Sunday golfer as well.5

Finally, Maxine takes on the embodiment crowd in two chapters in the section entitled “Twenty-first century reflections on human nature: Foundational concepts and realities.” Maxine doesn’t particularly like the word embodiment. I watched her take a professor of philosophy apart on this topic in Germany, when she was a visiting lecturer a few years ago. She figures that if the creature is living, then we cannot avoid realizing that it has a body. She prefers the word animate. She insists that speaking about embodied life is saying it twice. But more to the point she insists that this discussion is not limited to descriptions by philosophers, cognitive scientists, or experts on mind and action; it also needs to 53

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include the creature or person actually doing the moving, and that from a very subjective, first-person attitude of experiencing. This brings us back to the beginning in Leuven, and lets us close the circle. A few pages short of the end of the book, she writes: In sum, self-movement has an inside and an outside, either of which can be the object of our attention and hence constitute our experience. We have merely to shift from our natural attitude with all its built-in presuppositions and unexamined assumptions and begin examining movement itself, not from afar but close-up, experientially . . .” (517).

What more do I need to say?

Notes 1 “Pragmatism” in Simon Blackburn. 1996. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 2 E. Husserl, quoted by Deparz, Varela and Vermersch. 2003. On Becoming Aware. Amsterdam, John Benjamins Publishing Company. 3 You might try The Passion of the Western Mind, by Richard Tarnas, which is almost poetic in his use of language, or Bertrand Russell’s delightful History of Western Philosophy. If you are a champion wrestler you might want to tackle Ninian Smart’s World Philosophies (yes, that is his name) or Randall Collins’s magnificent A Sociology of Philosophies. Finally, something like Simon Blackburn’s Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy is a must. 4 Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3, 1998, 260-294. 5 Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. “The Work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais: A New Applied Kinesiology and a Radical Questioning of Training and Technique,” Contact Quarterly, Fall 1979.

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Contributors Marilupe Campero served as General Coordinator of the Feldenkrais Method as part of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Colima. She is a physiotherapist with a degree in occupational therapy. She has been working at the Centro de Atención Múltiple, (School for Students with Disabilities), Special Education, Department of Education of Colima, Centro para el Aprendizaje y Movimiento (Center for Learning and Movement), Colima, México. She has expanded her teaching in the Feldenkrais Method to the general public and professionals in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France. She is the co-founder of the Asociación Mexicana del Método Feldenkrais ( ).

Dance and Somatics nationally. Lobel is editor of the Journal of Laban Movement Studies; and editorial board member for the Journal of Dance Education and the Feldenkrais Journal. She currently teaches dance and motor development/learning. Steve Mulvihill continues to delightedly participate in the grand adventure of experiencing and exploring movement, while building his Feldenkrais practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Barbara Gillmore was born in Chile and has studied art, dance, and dance theater. Her work as an artist includes illustrations for the book Yoga for Kids by Grijalbo, collaborations with Arte al Limite magazine and Le Monde Diplomatique, as well as producing labels for vineyards in Chile and France. She is currently a student in the Argentina Feldenkrais Training.

Roger Russell, ., trained with Moshe Feldenkrais in San Francisco, Amherst, and Israel. An American, he has lived in Germany for thirty years, where he leads the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg. A physical therapist with a master’s degree in movement science and movement education, he has researched infant development and the application of the Feldenkrais Method to people with multiple sclerosis. He is fascinated with the thinking behind the practice of the Feldenkrais Method. He led the symposium on research and the Feldenkrais Method sponsored by the Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America, “Movement and

Isabelle Ginot is a Feldenkrais practitioner and a professor

chaired the symposium and conference “Embodying Neuro-

Saint-Denis. She conducts research in the epistemology of

professional contemporary dancers, and social institutions diseases ( head of a University curriculum for somatic practitioners and health workers. Most of her and her colleagues’ publications

Carl Ginsburg has been writing about the Feldenkrais Method since the beginning of his training with Moshe Feldenkrais Feldenkrais career he taught chemistry at the college level. In addition to his many writings he also edited Feldenkrais’s book, , and wrote a book of short stories, Medicine Journeys. His most recent book is Bodies: A Somatic View of Life and Its Consequences.

explores the relationship between embodiment and creativity as a Feldenkrais practitioner, visual artist, and teacher of Authentic Movement. She is in the Feldenkrais Illustrated: , an illustrated collection of Feldenkrais’s writings. She lives, works, and plays in Somerville, Massachusetts with her husband Matty Wilkinson and their son Aydin Moshe. Marek Wyszynski is co-founder and partner of the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, Vice President of Feldenkrais Founda. He is a member of the Rehabilitation Network of the Hospital for Special Surgery, a licensed physical therapist, and a former supervisor of the New York Pain Treatment Program at Lenox Hill Hospital. He studied and worked closely with Dr. Hans

and those with orthopedic, musculo-skeletal, and neurological Elin Lobel, h. , is Associate Professor of Kinesiology at Towson University. She studied dance at Walnut Hill School For Performing Arts, and received her . in dance from Connecticut College. After performing in London, Boston, and New York City, she received her doctorate in kinesiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the area of coordination, control, and skill of human movement with a specialization in balance, gait, and movement disorders. She

Approach for Treating the Muscular Components of Chronic Pain Syndromes” was published in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Method for People with Chronic Pain” was published in Pain Practitioner. He is a former national fencing champion of Poland, loves sports and competition, and enjoys listening to music. Marek lives with his wife Kasia and two sons in Queens, New York.

Editor:

Katrin Smithback

Assistant Editor: Judy Windt Editorial Board:

Adam Cole, Isabelle Ginot, Elin Lobel, Anita Noone, Judy Windt, Elaine Yoder, Matt Zepelin

Production:

Margery Cantor

Proofreading Judy Windt, Elaine Yoder, Matt Zepelin Front & back covers:

Barbara Gillmore, Front cover, “Cuidados”; back cover, “Control”

Interior art: Body and Mature Meta Publications, Capitola, CA.

Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no. Journal no.

General Issue (photocopy) Martial Arts Special Interest Groups Emotions The Arts Stories Conceptual Models General Issue Parallel Developments Children More Children General Issue The Self-Image Performing Arts Awareness Though Movement Performing Arts General Issue Parenting Awareness Awareness Open Issue Teaching Aesthetics General Issue Let’s Play

All back issues are available through the

THE FELDENKRAIS JOURNAL, NO 26

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