The Lived Expereince of the Feldenkrais Method

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THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD

A dissertation presented to the Faculty of Saybrook University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in __Mind–Body Medicine__ by Clifford Smyth

Oakland, California July 2018



  

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Approval of the Dissertation

THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD

This dissertation by Clifford Smyth has been approved by the committee members below, who recommend it be accepted by the faculty of Saybrook University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy in Mind–Body Medicine

Dissertation Committee:

Donald Moss, Ph.D., Chair

Date

Luann Fortune, Ph.D.

Date

Susan Hillier, Ph.D.

Date

ii Abstract

THE LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD

Clifford Smyth

Saybrook University

This research studied the lived experience of the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach. There has been little qualitative or phenomenological research into this practice. This study addressed that lack. The potential contributions of somatics practices to integrative healthcare have also not been extensively explored. The hermeneutic-phenomenological approach used was congruent with the experiential nature of learning fostered by Feldenkrais Method. It provided tools for interpretation of the description of bodily experience and for integrating researcher reflexivity. Eight informants from 45 to 85 years of age, with between two and 30+ years of experience as students of Feldenkrais Method were interviewed. Their in-depth experience was drawn upon in their verbal descriptions. Initial interviews included a stimulated recall exercise in which each informant did a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson from a recording. Follow-up interviews were undertaken. Iterative textual analysis was used to develop individual and common themes.

iii Common meta-themes uncovered by the study were: (a) learning how to develop awareness and change bodily experience through movement, (b) improvements in bodily experience in and through movement, (c) developing and making use of increased bodily awareness, (d) changing perceptions of the body-and-mind, (e) an experience of calming, and (f) a shift in ways of being and feelings of well-being. The structure of the experience which emerged was of the Feldenkrais Method as a process of self-caring. Constituents of this experience were (a) coming to the Feldenkrais Method, (b) experiencing improvement, (c) feeling good, (d) discovering how to take care, (e) a sense of I can, and (f) doing it: continuing practice in life. This study contributes to knowledge of the professional fields of Feldenkrais Method, somatics practices, and mind–body medicine. It suggests that further research would be valuable, including using phenomenological and micro-phenomenological methods, self-report measures (e.g. of pain, functional improvement, mindfulness, self-compassion, self-efficacy or coherence), and mixed measures. This study supports the value of movement-based bodily self-awareness practices for pain and stress reduction, improved movement and self-image, greater self-efficacy in health, and for the development of well-being, including the value of this practice in integrative healthcare.

Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my mother, Vic Smyth (1921–2012) who taught me compassion and the love of learning.

iv Acknowledgments I gratefully acknowledge: All my teachers, colleagues, students and clients who have taught me how to teach the Feldenkrais Method of somatic education. My Feldenkrais Practitioner colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area, who helped me connect with the informants, and to the eight informants, who patiently gave of their time and experience and who made this study possible. My special thanks to all of you. The late Dr. Werner Pelz, and also Dr. Fiona Mackie, of LaTrobe University in Australia, who taught me how to understand the sources of knowledge and to think in a phenomenological way. My Saybrook University Mind–Body Medicine Spring 2010 Cohort: Dr. Char Conlin, Dr. Deborah Miller, Dr. Sarah Ness, Dr. Carrie Phelps, Dr. Ramona Rolle-Berg, Dr. Renee Rolle-Whatley, Kathleen Stroman, and Jamie Teague who encouraged me through my early graduate studies, and my dissertation support group; Dr. Deborah Miller and Dr. Resa Regan who saw me through to the end. Also, my Saybrook mentors: Jerrol Kimmel, Dr. Devorah Curtis, and Dr. Luann Fortune for their personal and professional support. My Chair, Dr. Donald Moss (Dean, College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, Saybrook University), for his steady and tireless support through both my Masters’ thesis and my doctoral dissertation, and also for his unstinting vision for the Saybook University’s Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences graduate program. My Committee Member, Dr. Luann Fortune (Faculty and Specialization Coordinator, College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, Saybrook University), for all her assistance

v and collegial encouragement through my studies into the phenomenological approach to research, including my pilot study and dissertation. My Committee Member, Dr. Susan Hillier (Dean of Research, Health Sciences, University of South Australia), for her encouragement and bringing both her academic knowledge and expertise as a Trainer in the Feldenkrais Method to my dissertation process. My editor, Monika Landenhamer, who contributed much to my learning of writing and editing throughout my graduate school journey as my library class teacher, and for editing both my thesis and dissertation. All the members of my American and Australian families. My wife and partner, Dr. Deborah Bowes, who was there for me for every minute and in every aspect of this project, and without whom this dissertation journey would surely not have been possible. Thank you all.

vi Table of Contents List of Tables .........................................................................................................................xviii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................1 Overview of the Issue .................................................................................................................. 1 Statement of Purpose................................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives .............................................................................. 2 Historical and Professional Context ............................................................................................. 3 How This Study Relates to Existing Research in This Field......................................................... 6 Personal and Professional Interest in This Topic.......................................................................... 6 Research Question....................................................................................................................... 7 Purpose of the Study ................................................................................................................... 7 Note on the Concept of Lived Experience ..............................................................................8 Note on the Concepts of Health and Well-Being ..................................................................10 Contribution to Mind–Body Medicine, Healthcare, and Interdisciplinary Understanding ........... 11 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................................13 Feldenkrais Method................................................................................................................... 13 Bodily Awareness, Somatics, and Health .................................................................................. 14 Phenomenological and Other Qualitative Studies of Somatics Practices, Embodiment, and Health ................................................................................................................................. 15 Research Into the Feldenkrais Method ....................................................................................... 16 Qualitative Research on Feldenkrais Method ....................................................................... 19 Studies Into Experience of Participation in Feldenkrais Method.....................................19 Dissertation Research .................................................................................................... 19

vii Qualitative Studies of Feldenkrais Programs for People With Chronic Pain ...................20 Qualitative Study of Older Adults’ Motivations for Involvement in Feldenkrais Classes .......................................................................................................................... 23 Master’s Thesis: Feldenkrais Method and MBM ............................................................ 23 Dissertation Pilot Study Findings ................................................................................... 24 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 25 Additional Literature as Sources of Insight Cultivators ........................................................25 Theories of Health Related Behavior .............................................................................26 Neuroscientific and Neurophenomenological Literature.................................................27 Phenomenological Literature ..................................................................................................... 29 The Importance of Bodily Experience ................................................................................. 29 The Body and the World ..................................................................................................... 34 Motor Intentionality ............................................................................................................35 The Bodily Felt Sense, Mood, Befindlichkeit, and Feelings of Being ................................... 35 The Dys-Appearance and Experience of the Body in Illness ................................................ 37 Body Image and Body Schema ............................................................................................ 38 Animation: The Importance of Movement ...........................................................................40 Bodily Awareness and Body Consciousness ........................................................................ 41 Bodily Intersubjectivity: Intercorporeity or Intercorporality .................................................45 Phenomenology and Approaches to Research............................................................................ 46 Uncovering the Nature of Phenomena: The Husserlerian Approach .....................................46 Experience, Language, and Interpretation ......................................................................49 Bodily Meaning: Metaphors and Experience.................................................................. 50

viii Hermeneutic Phenomenology Approaches to the Research Process ..................................... 52 Data Analysis or Explorations ....................................................................................... 52 Horizontalization .....................................................................................................52 Developing Themes ................................................................................................. 53 Phenomenological Texts ................................................................................................ 53 Reflexivity .......................................................................................................................... 55 Embodiment, Bodily Self-Awareness, and the Phenomenological Research Process............56 Relevance of the Literature to the Research Question ..........................................................59 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGICAL OVERVIEW ................................................................. 61 A Note on Terminology: Method, Methodology, Approach, and Research Design .................... 63 Phenomenological Approaches to Research ......................................................................... 63 Research Design........................................................................................................................ 64 The Role of the Researcher .................................................................................................. 64 The Pilot Study and the Dissertation Research Designs ....................................................... 65 Eliciting Lived Experience ............................................................................................ 66 Informants: Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria .................................................................67 Experienced Informants ...........................................................................................67 Recruitment ...................................................................................................................69 Research Setting ............................................................................................................ 69 Phenomenological Interviews ........................................................................................70 Materials and Instruments ..............................................................................................70 Interview Guidelines ................................................................................................70 “Getting in Touch” With Experience: Focused Recall ..............................................72

ix Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports ....................................................................73 Interview Sequence ..................................................................................................76 Observation and Note-Taking During Interviews .....................................................77 Reflexive Practices in This Study............................................................................. 77 Researcher Reflexivity and Reflective Materials ......................................................77 Textual Analysis and Exploration in This Dissertation .............................................................. 78 Texts From Individual Informants: Processes for Exploring Texts and Developing Themes................................................................................................................................ 79 Searching for Themes and Descriptive Texts From Different Informants: Processes for Exploring Texts and Developing Common Meta-Themes ..............................................80 Epoché, Reductions, and Developing Plausible Explications ............................................... 81 A Somatic Reduction........................................................................................................... 83 Experiencing and Language ........................................................................................... 85 Conscious and Preconscious Experience ........................................................................ 86 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS ......................................................................................................... 88 Results of Thematic Analysis .................................................................................................... 88 Content of This Chapter ......................................................................................................88 How the Individual Themes Are Presented ....................................................................88 Introductory Notes on the Texts From Individual Informants .........................................89 A Note on Language ...................................................................................................... 91 Informant B: Themes and Exemplifying Texts .......................................................................... 92 Themes and Exemplifying Texts .........................................................................................92 Meta-Themes Based on All Informant Texts ........................................................................... 102

x Note on Developing the Textual and Structural Descriptions ............................................. 104 Textual descriptions: Meta-Themes and Their Main Variations ................................... 106 Note on the Texts ........................................................................................................ 107 Meta-Theme 1: Learning How to Develop Awareness and Change Bodily Experience Through Movement......................................................................................... 108 Variations of This Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts .......................... 109 Making it Easier..................................................................................................... 109 Having Options ...................................................................................................... 111 Using the Whole Body ........................................................................................... 111 Directing Attention ................................................................................................ 111 Attitudes to the Body-in-Movement ....................................................................... 112 Meta-Theme 2: Improvements in Bodily Experience in and Through Movement ............... 113 Variations of This Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts .......................... 113 Moving With Ease ................................................................................................. 113 Feeling Good and Feeling Relaxed......................................................................... 114 Fluidity .................................................................................................................. 114 Looser, Larger, and Fun ......................................................................................... 115 Finding Alignment....................................................................................................... 115 Not Holding ........................................................................................................... 116 Feeling Connected ................................................................................................. 116 Relief and the Lessening of Pain ............................................................................ 116 Less Fear and not Guarding ................................................................................... 117 Reducing Pain: Through Movement and Attention ................................................. 118

xi Functional Capacities ............................................................................................. 118 Keeping Moving and Performing Better................................................................. 119 Meta-Theme 3: Developing and Making Use of Increased Bodily Awareness ................... 120 Variations of This Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts .......................... 121 Bodily Needs ......................................................................................................... 121 Awareness of Changes From Feldenkrais Practice ................................................. 121 A Positive Sense of the Body ................................................................................. 122 Awareness of Habits .............................................................................................. 122 Using Awareness to Change Habits ....................................................................... 122 Meta-Theme 4: Changing Perceptions of Body-and-Mind ................................................. 124 Variations of this Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts ........................... 125 Sensing Into the Body ............................................................................................ 125 Perceiving Altered Densities .................................................................................. 125 An Altered Experience of Body-and-Mind in Movement ....................................... 126 Visually Imagining a Movement ............................................................................ 127 An Experience of Space ......................................................................................... 128 Imagining Movements and a Sense of Space .......................................................... 129 The Internal Process or Practice of Sensing Into the Body...................................... 130 Meta-Theme 5: An Experience of Calming ........................................................................ 131 Variations of This Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts .......................... 131 Feelings of Calm and Being Peaceful ..................................................................... 131 The Letting Go or Clearing out of Stress ................................................................ 131 Calming as Journey, Place, or Space ...................................................................... 132

xii Finding Calm Through Movement ......................................................................... 132 Engagement in the Experience of Movement Contributes to Calm ......................... 133 Developing Skills to Deal With Stress.................................................................... 134 Revaluing Resting, and Taking the Opportunity to Rest ......................................... 134 Finding Physical Comfort and Settling ................................................................... 134 Using Awareness Through Movement for Calming in Daily Life ........................... 135 Meta-Theme 6: A Shift in Ways of Being and Feelings of Well-Being .............................. 135 Variations of This Experience: Descriptions and Exemplifying Texts .......................... 137 Feeling Comfortable With Oneself......................................................................... 137 Shifting One’s Habits of Being-Toward Oneself .................................................... 137 Shifting Usual Patterns of Being ............................................................................ 138 Shifting Overall Life-Moods .................................................................................. 138 Changes in Self-Image ........................................................................................... 139 Staying Active and Performing Well ...................................................................... 140 A Sense of Integration ........................................................................................... 140 Authenticity, Wholeness, and Self-Healing ............................................................ 141 Textual Descriptions: In Summary .................................................................................... 142 CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS ....................................................................................................... 144 The Structure of the Experience Based on All Informant Texts ............................................... 144 Structural Description and the Main Constituents .............................................................. 144 Note on the Nature of Structural Descriptions .............................................................. 144 Structural Description: The Feldenkrais Method as a Process of Self-Caring ........................... 147

xiii The Dynamic Structure: The Form, Flow, and Functions of the Experience of Feldenkrais Method as a Process of Self-Caring ................................................................ 147 Constituent of the Experience: The Experience of Coming to Feldenkrais Method ............ 148 Pain, Bodily Distress, Being out of Touch, and the Experience of not Being Calm............................................................................................................................ 148 Pain ....................................................................................................................... 149 Distress and Being Ill-At-Ease ............................................................................... 149 Not-Being-In-Touch With Bodily Experience ........................................................ 150 The Experience of Not Being Calm........................................................................ 150 Desires ................................................................................................................... 152 Constituent of the Experience: Experiencing Improvement ................................................ 153 Exemplifying Texts: Experiencing Improvement ......................................................... 153 A Note on Improvements Occurring on a Prereflective Level ...................................... 154 Constituent of the Experience: Feeling Good – Positive Mood .......................................... 155 Exemplifying Texts: Feeling Good – Positive Mood .................................................... 155 Constituent of the Experience: How to – Discovering How to Take Care........................... 157 Exemplifying Texts: How to – Discovering How to Take Care .................................... 157 Constituent of the Experience: A Sense of I Can................................................................ 159 Exemplifying Texts: A Sense of I Can ......................................................................... 159 Constituent of the Experience: Doing It – Continuing Practice in Life ............................... 161 Exemplifying Texts: Doing It – Continuing Practice in Life......................................... 162 On Flow of the Structure of the Experience ....................................................................... 166 Summary: Structural Description and The Constituents of the Experience ......................... 168

xiv CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION .................................................................................................. 169 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 169 Part 1: Some Specific Observations About the Texts ............................................................... 169 Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement ............................................... 169 Other Aspects of the Experience That Did Not Receive Prominence in the Informants’ Texts .............................................................................................................. 171 Part 2: Body Awareness or Bodily Awareness – Introduction .................................................. 172 Experience of and Through the Body................................................................................. 173 Bodily Awareness ........................................................................................................ 173 Part 3: Bodily Awareness in the Feldenkrais Method............................................................... 174 Directed Attention in Awareness Through Movement ....................................................... 174 Awareness Through Movement as Self-Observation in Action .......................................... 176 Awareness in Action .................................................................................................... 176 Awareness and Movement: Movement and Awareness ................................................ 177 Part 4: Bodily Awareness and Feldenkrais Practice: What Emerged From This Study – Bodily Awareness and Making Changes.................................................................................. 178 Self-Observation as a Competence .................................................................................... 179 Developing Observing Attitudes ........................................................................................ 180 Mindfulness Through the Body and Self-Care ................................................................... 182 Moving Gently, Nonstriving, Healthy Powerful Movement, and Challenge ....................... 183 Developing Awareness of Parts of the Body Usually Missing From Awareness ................. 184 Comfort, Aesthetics, Learning, and “A Sense of Possibility” ............................................. 185 Insight: Developing Self-Awareness .................................................................................. 186

xv Dys-Appearance and Eu-Appearance, and the Body in Conscious Awareness ................... 187 Dys-Appearance and Eu-Appearance ........................................................................... 187 Body Awareness and Performance ............................................................................... 188 Discussion of Findings: Part 4 – Being Bodily ........................................................................ 190 The Sense of “I can”: Ability, Imagination, and Models of Health ..................................... 190 Imagined Movements .................................................................................................. 194 Sensing Into: “Seeing” and Feeling Into the Body........................................................ 194 “I Can,” Possibility, and Models of Health................................................................... 195 Posture, Acture, and the Preparatory Set ............................................................................ 197 More Space: Spatiality and Voluminousness ..................................................................... 200 Moving and Not Keeping Time With the Times (and Slowly Coming to the Present) ........ 205 To Be in the Present..................................................................................................... 210 Discussion of Findings: Part 5: Feelings of Being.................................................................... 210 Feelings of Being .............................................................................................................. 210 Fluidity, Ease, and Integration ........................................................................................... 212 Feelings of Fluidity and Ease ....................................................................................... 212 A Sense of Integration ................................................................................................. 213 Being Healthy and Feelings of Well-Being .................................................................. 214 Observations on the Research Process ..................................................................................... 216 Limitations of This Study ........................................................................................................ 218 Future Research ...................................................................................................................... 219 Feldenkrais Method and/or Other Modalities ..................................................................... 220 Topics and Approaches ..................................................................................................... 220

xvi Possible Research Approaches or Methods for Researching Feldenkrais Method............... 221 Phenomenology ........................................................................................................... 221 Other First-Person Approaches .................................................................................... 221 Neurophenomenological Approaches and Microphenomenolgical Interviewing ........... 221 Non-Phenomenological Qualitative Research .............................................................. 222 Self-Report Measures .................................................................................................. 223 Textual Analysis .......................................................................................................... 223 Some Topics Arising From This Study for Further Research, and How They Might Be Studied ......................................................................................................................... 223 The Experience of the Feldenkrais Method .................................................................. 223 Functional Integration.................................................................................................. 225 Imagined Movements, Sensing Into the Body, Altered Spatiality, and Time Perception ................................................................................................................... 226 Body Image and Schema ............................................................................................. 226 Calming ....................................................................................................................... 227 The Sense of “I can” .................................................................................................... 227 Bodily Awareness ........................................................................................................ 228 Pain ............................................................................................................................. 228 Values and Attitudes .................................................................................................... 229 Competence ................................................................................................................. 229 Health and Well-Being ................................................................................................ 229 Feldenkrais Method and Healthcare ............................................................................. 229 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................................... 230

xvii REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................... 232 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................................ 256 Appendix A: Interview Guidelines .......................................................................................... 256 Appendix B: Individual Interview Editing Guidelines ............................................................. 261 Appendix C: Individual Informant Themes and Descriptive Texts ........................................... 262 Appendix D: Notes on the Terms Movement and Awareness .................................................. 327 Appendix E: Forms of Directed Attention in the Feldenkrais Method ...................................... 329 Appendix F: Reflections on the Research Process ................................................................... 332

xviii LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Format of Individual Themes ...................................................................................... 89 Table 2: Format of Textual Descriptions and Structural Description ....................................... 103

1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Overview of the Issue The Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education1, and other somatics2 practices, have come to be increasingly used as interventions in healthcare in Western countries. There is a growing body of evidence from outcome studies of the efficacy of the Method in physical rehabilitation and similar areas of application. There is a paucity of studies into how the Method contributes to overall health. There are also few qualitative studies of the Method exploring students’ and clients’ experience. Statement of Purpose This dissertation was an investigation of the lived experience3 of the Feldenkrais Method, using a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, grounded in the tradition of human sciences research. This approach had the dual value of developing more in-depth descriptions of the phenomena associated with the practice of the Feldenkrais Method, as well as addressing the relevance and value of such research methodology for studying somatics practices4 such as the Feldenkrais Method.

1

The terms Feldenkrais Method, Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education, Awareness Through Movement, and Functional Integration are service marked terms of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America. In keeping with academic conventions, they will not be service marked in the text as would be required in nonacademic use. In recognition that these phrases are formal terms referring to specific practices within the Method, and to the Method as a whole, capitalization of all the words in each term has been retained. 2 Somatic and bodily are used interchangeably in this dissertation. As “somatic” can mean the purely physical body in medical literature, the term “somatics” is used to refer to thought and practices that are part of the field of somatics, which deals with the lived, experienced nature of the body from the first-person perspective (Hanna, 1976). 3 The concept of lived experience in phenomenological thought is discussed in the Section “Notes on the Concept of Lived Experience.” 4 Western somatics practices include the Alexander Technique, Sensory Awareness, Mind-Body Centering, Continuum, The Rosen Method, among many others (Smyth, 2012).

2 Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives The research design is grounded in the literature and practice of phenomenological and hermeneutic research methods, as currently used in fields like psychology, human learning and development, and in healthcare. Phenomenology is a philosophical approach to the understanding of phenomena as they appear to the person who experiences them. Phenomenology is critical of the view that something named in language can be assumed to be a distinct phenomenon per se, and can therefore be taken as a known basis for scientific investigation. Instead, phenomenology seeks to create an opening in which human experience can be approached to discover the nature of the phenomena, which inhere within, and are essential to the nature of the experience. Phenomenologically informed research uses first-person accounts of experience to create descriptions of such phenomena. Such an approach is useful when investigating complex practices, such as the Feldenkrais Method, in which the experience of the practitioner, client, or student is paramount to the process of human change or development and which have not been thoroughly described in the research literature. In addition, the researcher understands that the process of creating and analyzing texts describing lived experience necessitates a degree of interpretation on behalf of both the informants and the researcher; therefore, a hermeneutic or interpretive approach has been adopted in this study. Phenomenology is a tradition of thought and practice that has placed great emphasis on the bodily nature of human life in its many aspects (Dreyfus, 1991; Husserl, 1952/1989a5;

5

Husserl’s (1952/1989a) Ideas Pertaining to a Pure phenomenology and to Phenomenological Philosophy, Second book, was first published in 1952 as Husserliania IV (Spiegelberg, 1982).

3 Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, 1948/1968; Moss, 1989; Sheets-Johnstone, 1998; Taipale, 2014). As a theoretical and practical tradition of inquiry it provides a significant literature to draw upon, and within which this study has been located. Finally, there are a number of parallels between phenomenology and Feldenkrais Method as practices. Both involve, to some extent, the suspension of a natural attitude to one’s experience, intentionally observing experience (perception, thinking, and action) in order to create new openings to one’s experience, and using variation to bring forth new forms of understanding or action (Smyth, 2012). Historical and Professional Context The Feldenkrais Method of somatic education is a method of self-education, which both uses and develops somatic awareness through movement6. It can be seen, at least in part, as an awareness practice that may contribute to change in ways people experience themselves, their bodies, and the world. Feldenkrais Method has a strong historical connection with the humanistic tradition in human development. Feldenkrais’s (1949, 1972, 1981, 1985, 2013) principal writings engage with how people can live more fully realized and autonomous lives freed from habitual patterns of fear and self-limitation.

“Somatics” is the field of thought and practice concerned with the body as it is lived and experienced (Hanna, 1976). “Somatic awareness” refers to awareness of the experience of the body, as well as aspects of that experience and of parts of the body. It can include the ability to attend to, observe, and differentiate aspects of bodily experience, as well as the awareness of the body as a whole, and the bodily quality of being (see Literature Review chapter for a fuller discussion of this construct). 6

4 Moshe Feldenkrais collaborated with many leaders of the human potential movement7 of the 1960s and 1970s (Moss & Shane, 1999), and many others attended his educational programs. This includes such authors and educators as Jean Houston, Robert Masters, Fritz Pearls, Laura Pearls, Will Schutz, Thomas Hanna, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Anna Halprin. Indeed, the sponsor of Feldenkrais’s first professional training program in the United States was the Humanistic Psychology Institute (HPI), predecessor to Saybrook University. This history contrasts somewhat with the principal areas of application of the Feldenkrais Method today, which are in functional rehabilitation for people dealing with injuries, neurological conditions, illness, chronic pain, and stress.8 For example, a survey of the practice patterns of Feldenkrais practitioners in the United States was conducted in 2010 (Buchanan, 2010; Buchanan, Nelsen, & Geletta, 2014). The survey, sent to 1,287 practitioners, had a response rate of 30.5%, and generated 392 responses (Buchanan et al., 2014, p. 9). These practitioners reported that among the “top 5 most common reasons” for clients or students to seek the Feldenkrais Method were: •

62.7% of cases in relation to pain;

•

12.3% seeking help for issues to do with injury, surgery, or trauma;

•

10.4% in relation to neurological issues;

•

the same percentage in relation to mobility concerns; and,

7

The human potential movement of the 1960s and 1970s was associated with the emergence of a number of practices which experimented with how to enhance human physical, psychological, and spiritual life, human expression and health through, for example, encounter groups, group therapy, expressive arts activities and therapies, and the adoption of a range of Eastern psycho-spiritual practices. Key innovators and thinkers in the movement were associated with the development of humanistic and transpersonal psychology. Many somatics practices were introduced as part of this period of social and cultural experimentation. 8 Another key area of application is in improving the performance of dancers, athletes, singers, musicians, and actors.

5 •

7.5% were seeking Feldenkrais in relation to posture or balance (Buchanan et al., 2014, p. 9).

Only 3.8% indicated “health-wellness” and 0.9% indicated “emotional health” as first reasons for utilizing Feldenkrais Method. These latter motivations reached much higher percentages as the third, fourth, or fifth motivations of their clients but still only represented a small portion of the motivations for most clients or students. For example, for the fifth reason for their clients and students coming to Feldenkrais sessions these practitioners reported that “health-wellness” rose to 17.3% and “emotional health” rose to 5.1% of their client’s motivations for coming to Feldenkrais Method classes (Buchanan et al., 2014, p. 9).9 This accords with my clinical experience. It seems that many students or clients visit Feldenkrais practitioners, or attend classes, initially to deal with issues of movement and pain. However, in my experience many people then continue to study or practice the Method for greater physical flexibility and bodily ease, improved sleep, stress management, relaxation, and improved body image. That is, they may eventually engage with a broader application of the Method for health and personal development.

Even though practices like the Feldenkrais Method have been utilized by the public for rehabilitation, in the United States at least, much of this has been on a private pay basis (Buchanan et al., 2014). Conventional medical provision has not adopted somatic and mind– body approaches that emerged from the human potential movement for use with pain or musculo-skeletal conditions very rapidly or extensively. This is changing somewhat with the inclusion of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programs, yoga-therapy, and similar approaches in academic integrative health clinics since the 1990s (Maizes, Rakel, & Niemiec, 2009). It is only recently that more dual-trained Feldenkrais practitioners have been employed in mainstream medical settings in the United States. It was only in 2011 that the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM; now the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health–NCCIH) prioritized the investigation of mind–body practices, including the Feldenkrais Method, in its Strategic Plan (NCCIH, 2011). 9

6 How This Study Relates to Existing Research in This Field Although the Feldenkrais Method is often perceived as being of particular value for people dealing with physical challenges and pain, many clients and students also report that the Method has contributed to their overall sense of well-being and the adoption of behaviors that are more healthful, or “salutogenic” (Antonovsky, 1979, 1987; Duensing, 2008; Smyth, 2012). This aspect of the impact of the Method has not been researched to any significant extent. Most published research has been in the form of outcome studies looking at improvements in pain, physical function (e.g., balance, dexterity, breathing), quality of life measures, affective conditions and states (e.g., anxiety, depression), and self-perception (e.g., body image; Buchanan, 2012; Hillier & Worley, 2015; Smyth, 2012, 2016b). There has only been a small amount of qualitative research exploring the lived experience of those people who attend Feldenkrais classes or class programs, or who have individual sessions with practitioners of the Method. This dissertation both contributed to and is situated within this growing research literature and tradition, by focusing on people who come to utilize the Feldenkrais Method for dealing with pain, while at the same time asking clients and students about their qualitative experience of the Method in relation to their overall lives and health. Personal and Professional Interest in This Topic As a Feldenkrais teacher in practice for over twenty-five years, I have found the application of the Method to be transformative in my own physical and mental health and wellbeing, as it has been for many of my clients and students. The ideas embodied in the practice of the Method, and the practices themselves, have had an important and positive effect on my way

7 of being in the world10. I believe that it will be very useful for the development of the Method, and its application in healthcare, to bring forth a better understanding of the nature of the lived experience of the Method, and how it manifests in people’s health and lives. My hope was to contribute to a growing body of knowledge and practice in relation to bodily experience or embodiment, health, and well-being. In addition, there are many parallels between the practice of the Feldenkrais Method and phenomenological practice.This research is a contribution to the understanding of the value of a phenomenological approach to human understanding in relation to somatics practices and thought and vice versa. Research Question The research question for this dissertation was: “What is the nature of the lived experience of Feldenkrais Method for adult, long-term students of the Method who first came to utilize the Feldenkrais Method in relation to acute or chronic pain?” The investigation focused on whether, and in what ways, Feldenkrais impacts participants’ health and their experience and understanding of health. Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study was to describe the nature of the lived experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method (in each of its modalities, Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration), drawing on the reports of people who initially came to the Feldenkrais Method in relation to a pain condition. This focus included the immediate experience of these practices,

10

The term “being in the world” is used here in the commonplace sense of an organism or a person’s being. It is used in the ontic sense of the facticity of their being. When using the term, as advanced by Heidegger, in the ontological sense of “being,” then it will appear in the text as “being-in-the-world” (see Chapter 2 for further discussion).

8 and also the effect, if any, of having this experience of the Feldenkrais Method on the lives of the informants, including their health. On the basis of the literature, it was assumed that the Feldenkrais Method may lead to changes in perception of a person’s health and in their health-related behavior. For example, the Method may impact both nonconscious action toward living in a healthier way, as well as conscious awareness and decision-making about health. This study aimed to explore the ways in which the lived experience of somatics practices and bodily awareness relates to a person’s understanding of what constitutes health. Further, this study explored the use and value of hermeneutic-phenomenological approaches to studying somatics practices and bodily experience. In noting the often “wordless” knowledge associated with somatic experience, Fortune (2009) suggested, “As a practical consideration, because of its open-ended nature, phenomenological inquiry is useful for topics where research is minimal as it can serve as a bridge” (p. 14)—a bridge between experiential knowledge and scientific knowledge, between philosophy and healthcare, between our own experience and that of others. Note on the Concept of Lived Experience The idea of lived experience is one of the most important in phenomenological thought. It draws on Husserl’s use of the German, Erlebnis. Embree (2012) suggested that “lived experience” derives from the translation of Erlebnis into French as expérience vécue. He suggested that “lived though experience” or “living experience” might be clearer ways of rendering this idea in English (p. 34). Lived experience is not only experience-as-thought-about and reflected-upon, but also experience as lived through as living being. A living human being may be described in terms of

9 the dynamical systems that constitute it on one level, but it is also experienced as the self-as-aliving-organism with particular bodily needs, drives, and desires. It is experienced as a physical organism which takes up space, is in a location, which moves, and experiences time in relation to movement (Fuchs, 2012). Fuchs (2012) suggested that this is the “the living being’s prereflective self-awareness as grasped by phenomenology” (Fuchs, 2012, p. 149). Fuchs noted: Leben and Erleben are…connected etymologically, but also ontologically: the instransitive “living” or being alive (Leben) and the transitive “living through” or experiencing (Erleben) may be regarded as two aspects of the one and same process of being alive. (pp. 149–150) This reflects the distinction between the “body as living system (Körper) and the body as lived or experienced (Leib)” (Fuchs, 2012, p. 150). We have the experience of both human being as the self-as-organism, and human being as self-as-experienced as sentient, with capacity for prereflective and reflective awareness of one’s own experience. Embree (2012) suggests that lived experience—the encountering of one’s life—can include perceiving, remembering, and expecting, as well as valuing, willing, and believing. As an example, in relation to the lived experience of one’s body, one can think of one’s hand without necessarily experiencing it, and think of it in anatomical, biomechanical, and even functional terms. However, the lived experience of the hand, and being handed, is one of a felt sensing of the hand. This may involve, in the present, being able to access a sense of one’s hand—spontaneously as part of an action (e.g., due to pain, dysfunction, or sense of dexterity), or through directing one’s attention to one’s hand—as one might in a body awareness practice. Both also include the experience of one’s hand as it appears in one’s life—the skills and capacities it has and one expects to be able to use, its history of pleasures, or pain and dysfunction. This example may be extended then to one’s lived bodily experience in general.

10 Note on the Concepts of Health and Well-Being Gadamer (1996a) suggested that most people do not perceive their state of healthfulness until they encounter a situation where they are not able to do what they want—that is, it is the experience of disease or injury which impedes one’s goals or usual way of living that leads people to identify what constitutes health for them. That is, health is usually experienced in relation to one’s already diminishing capacities. The understanding of health I have drawn upon in this study is not the complete absence of disease. Drawing on Feldenkrais’s (2010c) thinking, I argue that health should be considered in two main ways. First, as a capacity for resilience and adaptation: the ability to return to a certain level of functional homeostasis after a challenge, and to adapt to changing circumstances—dealing with pathogens, accidents, and conditions of aging, along with changes in the social, economic, and physical environment (Dubos, 1959; Feldenkrais, 2010c). Antonovsky (1979, 1987) suggested, however, that challenges need be comprehended, managed, and made meaningful to someone, for that person to feel able to cope with them. Second, health can be seen as the ability to achieve positive life goals—which may include explicit goals, but also desires that one has not felt were possible to embrace, or one has relinquished (Feldenkrais, 2010c; Nordenfelt, 1987, 2000). In this context one might be quite ill or disabled by socially recognized definitions, but experience and consider oneself to be healthy (Milz, 1992). However, taking Dubos’s (1959) theme of adaptation, sometimes goals need to be adapted to the situation in which one finds oneself. In this context, life and activity goals may need to be revised, and this calls forth the values of acceptance and self-compassion that are currently being introduced into integrative healthcare practice in the West, particularly though

11 secular adaptions of Buddhist thought and practice (Cohen, 2002; Germer, 2009, Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 1994, 2000; Neff, 2003). Increasingly, this larger idea of health is being linked to that of well-being, with the suggestion that health can be considered on a continuum away from disease or death toward health and well-being (Arlosky, 2007; Miller, 2005). From a phenomenological perspective, how people experience health and well-being is of primary concern. In her work, theorizing complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), Sointu (2012) wrote, The wellbeing sought denotes personal fulfilment and happiness characterized by an ability to actively navigate challenges in life. Wellbeing not only implies a sense of control and an optimistic emotional outlook, it is seen to signify an ability to shape one’s own destiny. At the same time, wellbeing entails harmony and balance that encompasses the person as an individual, but also in his or her working life, relationships, and everyday interactions. The ability to actively respond to the flow of life is seen as fundamentally connected with a person’s sense of awareness, and moreover, with a willingness to explore, analyse, and express emotions and experiences. (p. 43) Contribution to Mind–Body Medicine, Healthcare, and Interdisciplinary Understanding This topic is important to the field in two principal ways. If the Feldenkrais Method and other somatics practices are to be considered as part of mind–body medicine (MBM) and of general value in healthcare, it would be helpful to understand the nature of the experience of these practices in peoples’ lives, including their perceptions of their health, and their healthrelated behavior. In addition, MBM has often, implicitly or explicitly, used a dualistic model, especially a model emphasizing the mind influencing the body for healing (Criswell, 2001). It was important to bring forth the kind of nondualistic approaches to MBM and healthcare, which are offered by somatics practices. In addition, somatics practices, with their emphasis on developing skills of attention to the body as it is experienced, and discovering ways to reduce pain, increase comfort, reduce stress, stimulate self-healing and develop self-care, have the potential to alter one’s experience of what constitutes health. Engaging in somatics practices

12 may shift the emphasis of health for clients and students from a focus on the absence of distress and the need for an external intervention to try to return to a pre-illness state, to health as a felt experience of well-being and a sense of the ability to alter one’s own health11. This dissertation study was important in part in addressing the growing need for understanding somatics practices. A better understanding of the lived experience of these kinds of bodily or somatic awareness, and other awareness-based practices, might help bring an understanding of (a) how they contribute to health and (b) what their possible mechanisms of action may be. This understanding helped provide a basis of thinking about how Feldenkrais Method fits within different models of medicine and well-being, and their further study using additional appropriate qualitative and quantitative research approaches and tools. The results of this study helped identify future directions for research into the Feldenkrais Method. A clearer understanding of the nature of the phenomena associated with the practice of the Method provides directions for further qualitative studies, and for possible quantitative studies of the mechanisms of action and outcomes. Ultimately, the aim for this exploratory research was to create stronger and clearer definitions of the Feldenkrais Method’s foundational elements, thus supporting the advancement of research.

11

It is important to note in this context that in countries such as the United States and United Kingdom, CAM therapies (including somatics practices) are currently more available to people with higher socioeconomic status (Sointu, 2012). That is, people with access to “cultural health capital” (Dubbin, Chang, & Shim, 2013, “Abstract”). This is reflected in the demographics of those in the United States who commonly make use of the Feldenkrais Method (Buchanan, 2010; Buchanan et al., 2014). While CAM practices are often reported to provide some remediation of gender biases that women clients often report as experiencing in biomedical healthcare settings (Sointu, 2012), the assumption of the client or student being able to, or required to, take full responsibility for their health outcomes needs to be considered critically in relation to conditions of socioeconomic, cultural, gender, and racial inequalities.

13 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Feldenkrais Method Feldenkrais Method is a method of developing self-awareness and improvement in various aspects of human functioning through movement and awareness. Feldenkrais Method can function in many people’s lives much like practices such as Tai Chi, Qigong, and Yoga, as approaches to physical and mental well-being. However, it does not have an explanatory system based on the concept of energy, nor any explicit spiritual philosophy or imagery. There are similarities to, as well as differences from, other Western somatics practices, such as Sensory Awareness, Alexander Technique, Rolfing, Mind–Body Centering, or Middendorf Breathwork, and aspects of osteopathic manipulation. The founder, Moshe Feldenkrais, was familiar with autogenics, autosuggestion, hypnosis, Judo, Yoga, Zen meditation, and many other body–mind or mind–body practices (Feldenkrais, 1952, 1972, 2013; Krietler & Krietler, 1977/2013). The development of the Feldenkrais Method was based on physics, anatomy and physiology, the neuroscience of movement, perception and cognition, learning theories, martial arts practice, and other mind–body or somatics practices (Beringer, 2010; Feldenkrais, 1972; Reese, 2015; Smyth, 2012). These sources continue to be drawn upon for its explanatory systems. Explanations coming from motor learning, information processing theories, dynamical systems theory, the biology of cognition, and neuroscience (particularly enactionist models and the role of neuroplasticity in learning) are now also commonly applied to conceptualizing the Method (Bruce, 2003; Buchanan & Ullrich, 2001; Connors, Galea, Said, & Remedios, 2010; Doidge, 2015; Ginsburg, 1984; Ginsburg & Schuette-Ginsburg, 2010; Goldfarb, 1990; Henry, Paungmali, Mohan, & Ramli, 2016; Rywerant, 1983; Smyth, 2012, 2016b).

14 Possible mechanisms of action include how conscious awareness can be used to alter the qualities of bodily organization and perception of self and world. As well, it is posited that engaging in these practices may directly change the neurophysiologic dynamics of the musculoskeletal and perceptual systems. Together, these dynamics are suggested to be a form of selfeducation or self-learning that can alter a person’s way of being in the world (Buchanan & Ullrich, 2001; Ginsburg & Schuette-Ginsburg, 2010; Shusterman, 2008; Smyth, 2012; Wildman, Stephens, & Aum, 2000). In addition to literature about the ideas of Feldenkrais Method from Moshe Feldenkrais and others mentioned here, this dissertation draws on literature from a number of fields, including (a) research into the Feldenkrais Method, (b) thought from the field of somatics, (c) literature about other somatics practices, “Movement-Based Embodied Contemplative Practices” (Schmalzl, Crane-Godreau, & Payne, 2014) or “body-mind therapeutic and educational systems (BTES)” (Payne & Crane-Godreau, 2015, “Abstract”), such as mindfulness meditation, yoga, and Qigong, (d) phenomenological literature on aspects of bodily experience, (e) literature from philosophy and human sciences (anthropology, sociology, and psychology) on bodily experience, body awareness, and health, and (f) some recent neuroscientific literature in relation to such topics as attention, awareness, movement, and bodily experience. In addition, I will draw on a large body of literature on the application of phenomenology, hermeneutics, the human sciences, and qualitative methods to the research approach used research in this study. Bodily Awareness, Somatics, and Health There are an increasing number of research studies, both quantitative and qualitative, of somatics practices in relation to health, including studies of somatics practices of Western origin and more somatics practices of Eastern origin. Historically, medical professionals have often

15 seen bodily awareness12 as a sign of dysfunction—a form of hypochondria (Mehling et al., 2009; Sointu, 2013). Many approaches in MBM utilize bodily awareness, for example, mindfulness meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, autogenics, as well as some guided imagery and hypnosis practices. It is also a component of somatics practices such as Yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, Alexander Technique, Mind–Body Centering, the Sounder Sleep System, Feldenkrais Method, and others. Schmalzl et al. (2014) call for more research into these practices. In addition, a number of meditation approaches also make extensive use of somatic awareness, for example, the use of the body scan, mindful walking, and awareness of the breath in the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program (Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 2000; Kerr, Sacchet, Lazar, Moore, & Jones, 2013). These practices use bodily awareness as part of developing awareness of how thoughts, feelings and moods, and action can affect consciousness and our sense of our selves and others. They promote bodily awareness as a way of promoting self-care and self-compassion. Studies of diverse CAM practices (not only explicitly mind–body practices) show that developing awareness and a positive concern for bodily experience appear to be part of outcomes and mechanisms of CAM as perceived by participants (Hsu, BlueSpruce, Sherman, & Cherkin, 2010; Sointu, 2013). Phenomenological and Other Qualitative Studies of Somatics Practices, Embodiment, and Health There are a small number of phenomenological or other qualitative studies of somatic or movement-based practices, such as Yoga, Alexander Technique, Tai Chi, Qigong (e.g., Kerr,

12

“Bodily awareness” is used here in preference to “body awareness” in recognition of the idea from Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962), Feldenkrais (1972), and many other thinkers that the “mind” is always “embodied” and “the mind and the body” are always embedded in a world (Sheets-Johnstone, 2015). Therefore, awareness is always a 2-way process of awareness of and by a bodily self.

16 2002; Morley, 2001, 2008; Tarr, 2005, 2008, 2011), and other awareness practices, such as the bodily focused aspects of mindfulness practice (Brown & Cordon, 2009; Caldwell, 2014; Kerr, Josyula, & Littenberg, 2011). In addition, there is a significant literature of phenomenological studies of people living with chronic illness in general (e.g., Benner, Janson-Bjerklie, Ferketich, & Becker, 1994; Ironside et al., 2003; Robertson-Malt, 1999; Svenaeus, 2000, 2001, 2011; Wilde, 2003), and specific medical conditions such as low back pain, phantom limb pain, multiple sclerosis, stroke (e.g., Doolittle, 1994; Finlay, 2006; Osborn & Smith, 2006; Sobchack, 2010), and many other conditions. There is also a large of amount literature of illness narratives that have been published in the last two to three decades. Finally, there is a well-established phenomenological literature of health, illness, and medicine including important studies from Buytendjik (1961), van den Berg (1966), Kestenbaum (1982), Toombs (1993), Gadamer (1996a), Young (1997), Svenaeus (2001), and anthologies edited by Benner and Wrubel (1989), Leder (1992a), and Toombs (2001). Consistent with the hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to research in this dissertation, the research results are discussed in relation to the literature, as they are relevant to the findings. The aim was to use the literature as a basis of reflection on the research findings, and to explore if the research adds to the knowledge of these fields. Research Into the Feldenkrais Method Before describing research into the lived experience of participating in Feldenkrais Method practices, I will briefly review research into the Method as such to set a context and also because some of this literature is suggestive that the Feldenkrais Method, as an experiential learning approach, may alter students or clients’ experience of health. Much of the writing about the experience of Feldenkrais Method has been in the form of case descriptions from Feldenkrais

17 practitioners (Smyth, 2008). While clinical case reports contribute to foundational, exploratory literature on a phenomenon (Kazdin, 1982), they are subject to the biases associated with a professional group describing its own practice. To date there has been a small amount of empirical research into the Feldenkrais Method. Much of this research has been outcome studies related to functional capacities (including grip strength, mobility, gait, balance, and balance confidence), affective states, pain, body image, and quality of life. Many were pilot or proof of concept type studies, with small numbers of participants and intervention durations much shorter than is common in actual practice of the Method, with many either not randomized or controlled or both; however, more recent studies have been of a higher quality (Buchanan, 2012; Hillier & Worley, 2015; Smyth, 2012, 2016b). There has been a significant growth in published research since 2010 (Smyth, 2016b). A systematic review of 20 randomized controlled trails of the Feldenkrais Method has been recently published (Hillier & Worley, 2015). A meta-analysis was performed for seven studies “finding in favor of the FM [Feldenkrais Method] for improving balance in ageing populations” (Hillier & Worley, 20015, Abstract, para. 2). Improved perception of body image, improved dexterity, greater comfort, and reduced perceived effort in movement were also reported as significant results in individual studies. Five more recent studies using Feldenkrais Method as the intervention have been published: y

Ramli, Leonard, and Harun’s (2013) pilot study showed preliminary evidence of improved lung function for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

y

Webb, Cofré Lizama, and Galea (2013) identified improvements in dynamic balance and a number of measures of gait from Feldenkrais lessons for people with osteoarthritis.

y

Teixeira-Machado et al. (2015) found exercises based on the Feldenkrais showed increased quality of life and decreased depression for study participants diagnosed with Parkinsons disease.

18 y

Lundqvist, Zetterlund, and Richter (2014) after a Feldenkrais Method program for visually impaired people, reductions in musculo-skeletal pain and fewer balance complaints at post-treatment and in a 1-year follow-up.

y

Paolucci et al. (2016) found participants with chronic low back pain (CLBP) had decreased back pain and increased interoception in a comparison with people attending a “back school” exercise program.

Some material from the Feldenkrais research literature seems particularly relevant to this dissertation. A number of research studies (Connors, Pile, & Nichols, 2010; Lundblad, Elert, & Gerdle, 1999; Malmgren-Olsson, Armelius, & Armelius, 2001) reported reductions in perceived pain. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) has defined pain as an unpleasant physical and affective experience (IASP, 2012). Similarly, a number of studies have identified increased balance confidence as an outcome from participation in Feldenkrais programs (Connors, Galea, & Said, 2011; Cook, LaRoche, Swartz, Hammond, & King, 2014; Ullmann, Williams, Hussey, Durstine, & McClenaghan, 2010; Vrantsidis et al., 2009). Finally, participants in a number of Feldenkrais studies reported improvement on a number of quality of life measures (Connors et al., 2010; Gopal Nambi, Trivedi, Momin, Patel, & Pancholi, 2014; Hall et al., 2001; Hillier, Porter, Jackson, & Petkov, 2010), such as “physical function, physical role, bodily pain, vitality, general health, social function, mental health, and emotional role” (Smyth, 2012, pp. 65–66). Taken together, these outcomes may be indicative of altered lived experience of oneself in relation to health as a result of participation in Feldenkrais Method practices. These outcomes from research into the Feldenkrais Method are suggestive of the value of further research into the Method. In particular how phenomenological approaches, as they are used in this study, offer the possibility of extending from the existing quantitative research and studies using self-report measures into the experience that students and clients have of the

19 Method. Does Feldenkrais Method contribute to an altered experience of health and well-being, and in what ways? However, most directly relevant to the topic of this research into the lived experience of undertaking the Feldenkrais Method is the small amount of qualitative research that has been conducted so far into the experience of participating in Feldenkrais Method classes, workshops, programs, or individual sessions. Qualitative Research on Feldenkrais Method Studies into experience of participation in Feldenkrais Method. There have been a small number of qualitative studies into the Feldenkrais Method, including some mixed method studies. For example, Löwe et al. (2002) studied 60 patients who, shortly after myocardial infarction, received four Functional Integration sessions. The authors of this study reported that 17 of the 20 patients in the Feldenkrais intervention group felt subjectively better. When asked in what ways they felt worse or better the patients described “feeling more lighthearted,” “more relaxed,” “more easy going,” and that there had been “a positive effect” (Löwe et al., 2002, p. 187) on their mood from the Feldenkrais intervention (Löwe et al., 2002). In a study of people with fibromyalgia, Kendall, Ekselius, Gerdle, Sören, and Bengtson (2001) reported a sense of being centered and grounded, improved breathing, and increased skills for dealing with pain. Dissertation research. The application of Feldenkrais Method for people with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been the topic of two dissertations that made use of qualitative methods. Ofir (1993) presented two case studies of his work with two young women over extended periods (2 and 5 years) of intensive Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement, with periods for integration of learning in between. He used an heuristic methodology to reflect on the process and outcomes in terms of physical and cognitive

20 rehabilitation, and remediation of disability. In an existential-phenomenological study of people with TBI, Murphy (2011) interviewed 10 participants about their experience of Feldenkrais Method in their treatment and recovery. Key themes in the interview texts included: (a) the “expanding and focusing of attention,” (b) the experiences of “finding a pathway to recovery”— how Feldenkrais Method helped them to sense and learn what was helpful and how to create it, and (c) “engendering a positive attitude” (p. 3). Qualitative studies of Feldenkrais programs for people with chronic pain. There have been two significant qualitative studies of the Feldenkrais Method as an intervention using Awareness Through Movement with people who had chronic pain. These were particularly relevant to this dissertation, as they helped establish (a) the value of Feldenkrais Method as an intervention for various biopsychosocial aspects of the experience of chronic pain, (b) provide evidence of the value of qualitative research strategies in bringing forward the lived experience of the Feldenkrais Method, and (c) provide ideas for the format of this dissertation. One study used a grounded theory approach (Öhman, Aström, & Malmgren-Olsson, 2011), drawing on participants’ diaries written during the program, and in-depth interviews carried out between 4 and 6 months after the program were used to generate qualitative data. In this study group, the most common conditions were back and neck pain. Participants attended 14 Awareness Through Movement classes over 7 weeks. The authors identified three major themes: (a) that Feldenkrais “is wholesome but difficult,” (b) the participants felt “more erect without effort,” and (c) they experienced an “extended space for myself” (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 153). As part of the first category of experiences, the participants noted that it took a few lessons to understand the process and work out if they were doing the lessons properly, and that they felt dependent on the teacher, as there was no home program provided.

21 In the second category, participants reported a range of functional improvements including, for example, (a) a sense of being grounded and being able to stand on their feet better, (b) more space in the chest and easier breathing, and (c) standing more erect. These improvements were associated with greater ease in moving and increased ability to “move without pain” (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 158). They felt better able to control muscular tension and could find greater relaxation. In addition, they were better able to identify when to rest and to sleep better. These functional improvements were associated with feelings of “liberation” (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 158). The authors suggested that the experience of practicing Feldenkrais Method was able to “instill a sense of hope and security”; with one participant feeling that he or she had shifted from a sense of “I can’t” to “I can” (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 158). Finally, the category of experiences associated with “extended sense of space for myself,” the participants (a) experienced greater awareness of moods, (b) felt “more present in the body,” (c) were less worried about pain, (d) felt more able to regulate themselves, and (e) had less of a sense of the need to defend themselves from inner and outer challenges (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 158). The participants felt they were better able to “listen to the body and its restrictions [and to choose to make] no more sacrifices” (Öhman et al., 2011, p. 159) to others that would create increased pain. Their enhanced movement abilities were also associated with a sense of larger sphere of action in the world. In the second study, Pugh and Williams (2014) conducted semistructured interviews with 11 people who had experienced a series of Awareness Through Movement lessons with certified Feldenkrais practitioners. All had chronic back pain, with an average duration of 27 years since onset. The authors used a phenomenological methodology to analyze the texts generated from

22 interviews. The authors explicated two main themes. First, the person’s experience of “chronic back pain and the route to the Feldenkrais Method” (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 174) including their history of “restricted movement, [and] restricted activities” (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 174). These included experiences of ceasing nonessential activities (such as sports and recreation), social isolation and loss of intimate relationships, feelings of weakness and vulnerability, as well as economic losses. Experiences of “treatment and therapy before Feldenkrais Method” (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 175) were described, including difficulties in obtaining diagnoses, painful and ineffective treatments, including manipulative approaches that were found to be too forceful. The second main theme explicated was the participants’ experience of “feeling empowered by the Feldenkrais Method” (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 176). Experiences described in relation to this theme included, (a) feelings of having greater choice, (b) learning tools for self-care, (c) the reinstatement of the sense of the body, (d) gaining a positive relationship with their body, (e) being able to maintain themselves with less pain and more functional abilities (e.g., by the use of a daily routine and having things to do when pain worsened). A theme of “gentle, self-awareness” included such things as: (a) learning how to scan the body, (b) having greater confidence in their body, (c) knowing when to think before moving in order to reduce pain, (d) awareness of the body structure and how to move in accordance with the body’s needs, and (e) the ability to “tune into” or “listen” to their bodies (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 178). Awareness of “habits and holding patterns” (Pugh & Williams, 2014, p. 178) was described as an important aspect of the experience. Likewise, the study brought forth the theme of awareness of the impact of the effects of predominant culture of striving and success without regard to bodily health or comfort, and the impact of such attitudes

23 on their pain and health. The enhanced ability of the participants to deal with these cultural expectations was an important aspect of the experience of the Feldenkrais Method. Qualitative study of older adults’ motivations for involvement in Feldenkrais classes. In a third qualitative study, Broome, Shamrock, and Alcorn (2015) conducted semistructured interviews with eight older adults about why they engaged with Feldenkrais Method classes. From their qualitative content analysis, they identified key themes as benefits such as reduced pain and improvement in everyday life activities, as well as “the attraction of gentle physical and cognitive exercise” (Broome et al., 2015, p. 122), the development of body and movement awareness and mindfulness. Master’s thesis: Feldenkrais Method and MBM. In addition to reviewing the literature, in my master’s thesis (Smyth, 2012), I interviewed three key informants, who were experienced practitioners of the Feldenkrais Method and educational directors of Feldenkrais professional training programs. Asked about how Feldenkrais Method contributes to health, a number of themes emerged from the interviews with these informants, including: •

The promotion of functional improvements: the experience of increased ability and overcoming limitations contributes to the experience of health.

•

The emphasis in the Feldenkrais Method as a form of self-education: promoting selfawareness, which can lead to increased choice in action, and the environments people choose or create for themselves.

•

Health as an ability or competence: the making of kinesthetic distinctions allows students or clients more choice in how they perceive bodily experience and how they take action in their lives.

•

Attention as an ability that can be learned: which can promote present moment selfawareness, and support quieting or shifting of habitual physical, affective, and cognitive responses.

•

Refining the self-image in action;

•

Enhanced ability to learn from experience; and

24 •

Drawing on the ability for development through the human life span.

These themes from experienced teachers of the Method seem consistent with the results of qualitative studies described in this Literature Review. In this dissertation, the focus shifted from teachers of the Method, to interviewing and describing themes based from clients’ and students’ experiences. Dissertation pilot study findings. The pilot study conducted in preparation for this dissertation involved gathering data from two informants using interviews as well as verbal and a written reports. The research question was almost identical to this dissertation study. The research question for the pilot study was, “What is the nature of the lived experience of Feldenkrais Method for adult, long-term students of the Method who have chronic health conditions and/or pain?” This has been narrowed somewhat, in terms of the motivations of the participants for participation in Feldenkrais Method for this study. The research question for the dissertation study became, “What is the nature of the lived experience of Feldenkrais Method for adult, long-term students of the Method who first came to utilize the Feldenkrais Method in relation to acute or chronic pain?” Four common themes were uncovered in the pilot study research: 1. The development of a more bodily experience of the self, with sub-themes of: (a) a more bodily sense of self, (b) changes in the experience of the body, (c) greater body awareness, and (d) a positive bodily sense of self as a basis for sense of well-being. 2. Finding processes for exploring and altering bodily experience of self, with subthemes of (a) visualizing movements, or visualizing-and-feeling the body while moving, (b) a changed sense of the relationship between “mind” and “body,” and (c) an altered state of being. 3. Developing practices and competences for self-care, with sub-themes of (a) developing know-how for finding greater physical comfort, reducing pain, and recovery from injury, (b) dealing with stress, self-calming, and enhancing mood and sleep, and (c) an attitude of caring for the self and sense of the ability to deal with challenges.

25 4. Enhanced capacities and sense of self for functioning in life and the world, with subthemes of (a) using know how, developed from Feldenkrais Method, in the practice of other movement and awareness practices, (b) the ability to continue work and to contribute, (c) a sense of the ability deal with challenges based in a physical sense of well-being, and (d) a sense of the life possibilities based in a physical sense of wellbeing. Conclusion The studies reviewed support the view that the use of the Feldenkrais Method alters the lived experience of participants toward enhancing health and well-being. They are also supportive of the theory of the Feldenkrais Method, which posits that improved bodily selfawareness is associated with improved movement, including breathing, and with less pain. In addition, improvements in awareness, the sense of the body, and action are associated with changes in the ability to self-monitor and self-manage conditions like chronic musculoskeletal pain. New attentional, movement, affective, and cognitive patterns are learned from the Feldenkrais approach. These changes are also correlated with improvement in mood, more positive psychological habits, and changes in the sense of the body, as well as the relationship to the social, cultural, and physical environment. As such, these studies provide excellent support for doing further, in-depth research into the experience of Feldenkrais Method and how it can contribute to overall human health. They presented very good sources of literature specific to the topic, which were drawn upon in shaping the descriptions of the lived experience of Feldenkrais Method in this dissertation. Additional Literature as Sources of Insight Cultivators Van Manen (2014) wrote of the value of “insight cultivators,” which can be sources for “thematic insights when studying a phenomenon or phenomenological topic or event” (p. 324). He suggested that the existing phenomenological literature, as well as other sources in relevant literature, can be important sources of insight cultivators. At the same time, he warns that valid

26 phenomenological research should not try to “legitimate itself with validation criteria derived from sources that are concerned with other (non-phenomenological) methodologies” (van Manen, 2014, p. 351). The principle here is that while findings and data can be understood from a number of perspectives (Gendlin, 1991, 1997), theoretical frameworks from outside of the context in which the data are collected may lead to a distortion of those descriptions and interpretations. This is consistent with principles from phenomenology and hermeneutics, which suggest that descriptions and interpretations must be grounded in the body of lived experience studied. Theories of health related behavior. Previously, I have identified the potential relevance of theories of health-related behavior change, such as Antonovsky’s (1979, 1987) construct of coherence, Bandura’s (1977) self-efficacy and Nordenfeld’s (1987, 2000) action theory of health (Smyth, 2012). In addition, there are aspects of self-determination theory, such as the constructs of motivation and competence that contributed to developing interpretations from this dissertation study (Ryan & Deci, 2000; Sheldon, Ryan, & Reis, 1996). The dissertation pilot study indicated that the informants’ participation in Feldenkrais Method practices contributed to the development of meaningful responses to challenges, along with a somatically based sense of the capacity to deal with such challenges. Indeed, it could be valuable to explore the potential role of somatic awareness to contribute to the development of coherence, selfefficacy, or self-determination. Mindfulness is another concept addressed in the theoretical and research literature that was considered in relation to this dissertation study (Smyth, 2012). A number of authors have pointed to the emphasis on the body and bodily awareness within mindfulness practice (e.g., in MBSR programs; Kerr et al., 2013). Again, through the pilot study, I found an increase in body

27 awareness, and the kind of deliberate, nonjudgmental, present moment attention to experience which are seen as important aspects of the construct of mindfulness (Hayes, Follette, & Linehan, 2004; Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 2000). Recently, too, there has been some initial research into differences between these two constructs of body awareness and mindfulness, in relation to, for example, their contribution to the experience of subjective well-being (Brani, Hefferon, Lomas, Ivtzan, & Painter, 2014). Self-compassion has been identified as one of the possible outcomes from the practice of mindfulness, as well as being something that can be cultivated in its own right (Germer, 2009; Neff, 2003; Neff, Kirkpatrick, & Rude, 2007). The construct of selfcompassion was also identified in my master’s thesis (Smyth, 2012) as being relevant to the experience of the Feldenkrais Method. Neuroscientific and neurophenomenological literature. At this stage there is no comprehensive neuroscience of a complex practice like the Feldenkrais Method as that would need to encompass at a minimum the neuroscience of attention, movement, consciousness, respiration, affect (emotion and mood), sleep, bodily states (e.g., autonomic and voluntary nervous systems), and experiential learning. In addition, the neuroscience in each of these fields is far from a settled body of knowledge but instead is in early development. To date there has only been one neuroscientific study of Feldenkrais Method using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to study responses to a Feldenkrais intervention (Verrel, Almagor, Schumann, Lindenberger, & Kühn, 2015). This study utilized one Functional Integration technique known as the “artificial ground or floor,” where a Feldenkrais practitioner brings a flat surface to the foot of a supine client, with the intention of using specific sensory stimulation to enhance functioning of the foot and ankle, and also to simulate the bodily organization of standing (Feldenkrais, 1981, p. 139). Verrel et al. (2015) wrote:

28 The present study compares two forms of the manipulation. In the local condition, the artificial floor is applied with the intention to explore mostly the mobility within the foot. The global intervention has a similar procedure, but the focus of the manipulation is on the connection and support from the foot to higher body parts. (p. 3) Working with and through the left foot and leg changes the neural resting state as measured by “regional homogeneity (RoHo) [in the] right lateral motor cortex” (Verrel et al., 2015, p. 1) in the local condition. In contrast, in the global condition, significant increases in RoHo were found “in the left supplementary/cingulated motor area” (Verrel et al., 2015, p. 1). The authors concluded, “The results of this exploratory study show that a short, non-intrusive sensorimotor intervention can have short-term effects on spontaneous cortical activity in functionally related brain regions” (Verrel et al., 2015, p. 1). There have been some recent hypothesis and theory papers examining aspects of Feldenkrais Method in relation to contemporary neuroscientific, as well as cognitive and movement science, research, and thinking (Clark, Schumann, & Mostofsky, 2015; Kimmel, Irran, & Luger, 2014; Myers, 2015). Neurophenomenological perspectives (Lutz & Thompson, 2003; Thompson & Zahavi, 2007) have provided a framework for authors, such as Schmalzl et al. (2014), who have called for the study of practices like the Feldenkrais Method. They suggested that such practices as structured, movement-based, contemplative practices provide a context for correlating first person accounts of lived experience with neurophysiological changes. They argued that these practices could be important for future neuroscientific research, for example, in relation to the mindfulness and bodily awareness constructs. The literature from neurophenomenology is referenced in the discussion of possible future research directions.

29 Phenomenological Literature The Importance of Bodily Experience This section of the literature review drew on key literature from phenomenology and other human sciences approaches that can provide a background and framework to the study of the kinds of phenomena that may be associated with somatic practices such as the Feldenkrais Method. As noted, phenomenology is a branch of philosophical thought that has extensively addressed the bodily nature of human experience and knowledge, in contrast, for example, to the analytical philosophy tradition, which privileges the mental, rationalist, and conceptually oriented. Edmund Husserl, considered the founder of modern phenomenological thought, identified the importance of the body in the constitution of experience. He pointed to the double nature of the human embodiment as both “a fully constituted material thing, [which] is also already constituted prior to, and correlative with, material nature, [and] the psychophysical subject” (Husserl, 1952/1989a, p. 151). Husserl (1952/1989a) drew on the experience of touch as key aspect of the constitution of the body through localized “sensations [or] sensings” (p. 152). Bodily experience provides the basis for our constitution of our world. Indeed, Husserl suggested, “The Body as such can be constituted originarily only tactually and in everything that is localized with the sensations of touch: for example, warmth, coldness, pain, etc.” (p. 158)13.

13

Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1948/1968, 2001) also took up the importance of tactile experience in the constitution of the experienced body, emphasizing the connection between movement and touch. In contrast to the case of vision with touch, he wrote, “I cannot forget in this case that it is through my body that I go into the world” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 369). Butler (2015) suggested Merleau-Ponty’s conception, which drew on Malebranche’s thought, was that “the ‘touch’ in question is not a single act of touching, but the condition by which corporeal existence is assumed” (p. 37). Merleau-Ponty (2001) discussed Malebranche’s philosophy in a series of lectures in 1947 and 1948.

30 He drew on the experience of touching oneself as “doubled:” we sense bodily self as an object in the world, and at the same time, as the being that apprehends our own body. For Husserl, movement is a fundamental aspect of this ability to sense, and thereby constitutes a self and world. He discussed the body as the “organ of the will, the one and only Object which…is moveable immediately and spontaneously” (Husserl, 1952/1989a, p. 159). Further, he posited, “The Ego has the ‘faculty’ (the ‘I can’) to freely move this Body—i.e., the organ in which is it articulated—and perceive the world by means of it” (Husserl, 1952/1989a, pp. 159–160). Husserl’s understanding of the embodied basis of human experience was important to his conception of the temporal, spatial, and intersubjective nature of human life (Husserl, 1952/1989a; Taipale, 2014; Zahavi, 2003), and of phenomena such as pain (Geniusas, 2014). In his later writing, Husserl (1954/1970) developed the idea of the “lifeworld” to assert the importance of practical, experienced aspects of life as a ground for humans’ understanding of “themselves, their lived bodies and the meaning that their life situations hold for them” (Dahlberg, Dahlberg, & Nyström, 2008, p. 88). This was in contrast to, the dominant objectivist, scientistic paradigm (Carr, 1977; Good, 1993; Husserl, 1954/197014; Zahavi, 2003). Heidegger drew on Husserl’s conception of the lifeworld in the development of his idea of being-in-the-world and the related concept of Dasein or Da-sein (often translated as “there-

14

Husserl wrote The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy in 1934 and 1937, which was first published in 1954 (Lauer, 1965).

31 being” or “being-there”)15. It has been suggested that Heidegger did not write much directly about the bodily nature of experience, but that his thought created a context for bringing forth the importance of the bodily, for example, in his discussion of comportment, use of equipment, skills, know how, practical coping, and the moods that arise from our social and cultural situatedness (Aho, 2010; Colombetti, 2014; Dreyfus, 1996, 2014; Heidegger, 2001; Käufer & Chemero, 2015). Within this concept of being-in-the-world is the idea that human experience is grounded in our ongoing skillful coping with the world into which we are thrown (Heidegger, 1962/2008, p. 276). This coping involves us in structures of care that are revealed in our ongoing, practical “projects” in the world (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 34). Heidegger (2001) suggested that it is our “capacities of understanding and comportment extending wide into the world, and which fundamentally constitute Da-sein” (p. 234). Merleau-Ponty did an extensive study of Husserl’s early published and unpublished works, as well as drawing on Heidegger’s thought. Merleau-Ponty suggested that our bodily comportment is fundamental to human consciousness. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and many other thinkers have posited that there is a fundamental unity of what is usually thought of as the mind, or perhaps the mental, and what is usually thought of as the body in human life, experience, and consciousness (Moss, 1989). It is a unity that is seen in human action, where the

15

Dasein is “usually translated as ‘being-there’” (Colombetti, 2014, p. 11). The use of this term points to the double nature of being bodily, that a bodily being is both a body and in and of its world. Any description of bodily experience includes both the way the body is involved in the process of constituting its world, and how its world is essential to the constitution of bodily experience. Some terms used in this dissertation may lean more to the worldly side of this coupling and others lean toward the bodily side, but their co-arising is always implied. The use of everyday and scientific terms can easily confuse this essential phenomenal unity of body and world (Colombetti, 2014; Morris, 2004). Morris (2004) adopted the term “body-world” to convey this thinking.

32 mental and the bodily, perception and action, simply cannot be disambiguated. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) wrote, [the human] taken as a concrete being is not a psyche joined to an organism, but the movement to and fro of existence which at one time allows itself to take corporeal form and at other moves toward personal acts. Psychological motives and bodily occasions may overlap because there is not a single impulse in a living body that is entirely fortuitous in relation to psychic intentions, not a single mental act which is not found at least in its germ or its general outline in physiological tendencies. (p. 101) He suggested that there is a “sublimation of the biological into personal existence” (MerleauPonty, 1945/1962, p. 97). This fundamental phenomenological understanding is expressed in the idea of the lived, experienced body. Many phenomenological thinkers have drawn on the distinction in the German language between two terms for body: Körper for the physical body, and Leib for the body that is lived-through and experienced (Aho, 2005, 2010; Colombetti, 2014). Hanna (1970, 1976, 1991) based his definition of the field of “somatics” on this phenomenological conception of the lived, experienced body. In the translator’s introduction to Freedom and Nature, Kohak refers to the person’s lived body, described by Merleau-Ponty as the corps propre, as one’s “body-as-oneself,” “an own body,” or one’s “personal body” (Ricoeur, 2007, p. xli). Related to this idea of the lived experience body, is that being bodily comes with a sense of mineness about one’s body (Moss, 1989). Along with this sense of ownership may come a sense of agency (Legrand, 2006). Jonas (2001), for example, described the basis of our sense of causality as grounded in our bodily action. Merleau-Ponty (19/451962) and many other thinkers have suggested that we both are and have bodies. Plügge (1970) put it this way: “We are bodily live, but we have the body as physical” (p. 304). Drawing on this distinction, however, the aim is not to see the physical body

33 only as an object, nor to render all consideration of the body to science, which would reduce the body from its appearance as an “elaborated phenomenon” (Plügge, 1970, p. 296). Instead, it is important that the lived, experienced body is understood to include the “physical body as phenomenon [or the] phenomenon of the body as physical” (Plügge, 1970, p. 299). This experience of the body includes having a sense of “heft” (Plügge, 1970, p. 299), or “mass” (Scholz, 2010)—involving our relationship with gravity and our bodily responses to it. This sense relates to the experience of bodily effort (see the discussion below), which is also proposed as an important aspect of the bodily experience of self and life. The spatiality of experience, the senses of the body existing in space and being spatial itself, is other important thematic of the body in phenomenological literature (Legrand, 2011; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Scholz, 2010). A number of authors suggest that space is experienced as a crossing of body and world, in terms of the experiences of orientation, and of volume (or volumicity or voluminousness), which can give access to experiences of self, objects, depth, and place (Casey, 1991; Cataldi, 1993; Legrand, 2011). In his 2004 book, Morris explored how bodily movement provides the basis for our experiences of depth and place. Medical anthropologist Honkasalo’s (1998) review of the phenomenological literature and study of people with chronic pain, identified multiple ways in which the perception of space can be altered by pain. For a living body moving in space, then the experience of time and timing is also always part of human life—the temporality of the body (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). Certain tasks and practices require certain rhythms, and people develop their own rhythmical preferences or habits. Drawing on ideas from Heidegger, Aho (2007, 2010) explored the experience of “accelerated” time in contemporary society. In addition, moods like boredom, depression, and anxiety can all

34 have an effect on time perception (Heidegger, 1962/2008; Slaby, 2012). Likewise, the experience of pain can lead to significant alternations in one’s lived experience of the passing of time (duree) compared to external clock or cosmic time (Good, 1993). The Body and the World Key to Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) thinking was the idea that it is through the body that we come to know the world, and it is through the world that we come to know the body. “The body is the vehicle of being in the world, and having a body is, for a living creature, to be intervolved in a definite environment, to identify oneself with certain projects and be continually committed to them” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 94). A relationship that is reflected in the continuous loop of perception and action, where perception is dependent on the action of the organism in its environment and action is dependent on perception. Our animate bodily orientation in the world, then, is a fundamental aspect of human experience (Legrand, 2011; Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). In addition, in the hermeneutic-phenomenological literature the concept of the “world” often has a different meaning to that used in traditional philosophy and the scientific discourse, where the world is seen as an objective a priori. Writing about hermeneutics, Lafont (2005) suggested that Heidegger proposed a replacement of the subject–object model…of an observing subject posed over against the world as the totality of entities, by the hermeneutic model of an understanding Dasein which finds itself always already in a symbolically structured world.…the world is no longer the totality of entities, but the totality of significance, a web of meanings that structures Dasein’s understanding of itself and of everything that can show up in the world. (p. 270) Following Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1948/1968), Morris (2004) proposed that there is a continuous “crossing” (p. 4) of the body and the world, so that “the perceiving body is a lived body, a body that is neither subject or object, but an inherently meaningful and fleshy mix of the two, a body inherently mixed up with the world in which it lives” (p. 51).

35 Motor Intentionality Merleau-Ponty emphasized our “being-toward the world.” He extended Bergson’s idea of intentionality, which had been taken up by Husserl. According to Hass (2008), Husserl suggested that consciousness is always about something, to which Merleau-Ponty proposed the idea of a body intentionality or motor intentionality. We sense for what is meaningful and preparing ourselves for what is emergently salient in our environment, and seeking possibilities for meaningful action. It is a kind of “operative intentionality” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. xx). “The living body greets the world, and has an influence on it” (Hass, 2008, p. 81). We develop skills for or habits of perceiving the world, which brings a particular experience of the world to us, in which we then apply our skills and habits of action. Our lives then develop an intentional shape and direction, or “intentional arc” that surrounds us (Dreyfus, 1996). “The intentional arc can be seen as a field of meaningfulness. Through our bodily deportment, as well as our conscious actions, we act on this field of meaningfulness and it acts on us” (Smyth, 2016a, p. 16). The Bodily Felt Sense, Mood, Befindlichkeit, and Feelings of Being While science in recent years has identified many physiological and neurophysiological correlates with emotion and mood, philosopher and psychologist Gendlin (1978, 1996) developed a practice he named “Focusing,” which uses a bodily experiential process to help identify affective states. This process involves accessing a bodily felt-sense, attending nonjudgmentally to get a handle on the image or words that arise, and patiently waiting to see what other meanings may emerge from the intricacy of the bodily experience. Over time the usage of felt-sense has expanded to include a broader meaning of a bodily based holistic sense of feeling and meaning.

36 Gendlin (1978–1979) suggested that this bodily felt-sense is related to Heidegger’s concept of Befindlichkeit, a sense of “being in a mood,” (“Introduction,” para. 2) which can be roughly translated as the quality and experience of “how-you-are-ness” (“Introduction,” para. 2) or “self-finding” (“Introduction,” para. 7). Ratcliffe (2013) wrote, “Heidegger refers to the characteristic of finding oneself in a world through a mood as ‘Befindlichkeit’, a notoriously difficult term to translate” (para. 2). Befindlichkeit has been translated variously as “mood,” “attunement,” “affectedness,” “disposedness,” and “sofindingness” (Ratcliffe, 2013, para. 2; see also Colombetti, 2014). The word for mood in German is Stimmung, therefore, in using Befindlichkeit, Heidegger (1962/2008) is pointing to the importance of the world in which we find ourselves thrown into. This “How-one-finds-oneself-ness shows up ontically as mood, through which we are attuned to ourselves and to our situatedness in the world” (Stolorow, 2013, p. 8). Mood “makes a substantial contribution to the sense that we have of belonging to a world” (Ratcliffe, 2013, para. 2). Stolorow (2013) suggested Heidegger “is using the term ‘mood’ to refer to the whole range of disclosive affectivity” (p. 8). Befindlichkeit has the characteristics of being (a) situated, (b) active, and (c) implicit as a lived through experience. Nagatomo (1992) used the term “living ambience” (p. 180) to describe the situation in which one finds oneself, and suggested that our bodily engagement (p. 197) is the best way to describe the nature of our response to that ambience. This engagement takes on particular forms (kata in Japanese). Ratcliffe (2008) drew on the ideas of felt sense and Befindlichkeit to propose the concept of existential feeling or feelings of being as a fundamental bodily aspect of human experience. In the context of healthcare, Benner (1985) suggested that beyond quality of life, healthcare should be focused on the quality of being for patients.

37 The Dys-Appearance and Experience of the Body in Illness Many authors have noted that when human beings are healthy and their capacities match the demands of their lives, then the conscious experience of the body disappears (Gadamer, 1996a; Leder, 1990; Plügge, 1970; van den Berg, 1966; Zaner, 1981). Our everyday projects engage us in such a way that we are involved in our activities and goals, and to be consciously aware of the body is not needed (Leder, 1990). Indeed, it has often been asserted in philosophical literature that such conscious awareness interferes with the performance of activities and actions (Taipale, 2014)—although this view has been subject to much discussion and dispute (Shusterman, 2008; Weiss, 1999). Drawing on Heidegger’s idea that the moment of a breakdown (e.g., the failure of a tool) is when un-reflected-upon perceptions are brought to awareness, Leder (1990) suggested the body dys-appears with pain, injury, or illness. That is, the body appears to consciousness because of and through pain, dysfunction, or disease. Leder (1990) suggested that the appearance of the body in awareness with pain or disability can be one of the “body as a threat” (p. 161). The concepts of the appearance, disappearance, and dysappearance of the body in consciousness have been the subject of recent discussion (see section “Bodily Awareness and Bodily Consciousness”). Many phenomenologists and other qualitative researchers have studied how our sense of our body and our bodily sense of self are changed in illness. Pain can create an alteration of peoples’ functioning or performance in life. Buytendijk (1961) suggested that pain not only involves sensation, but also “sensory feelings” that affect the “body-self” (p. 114). Strongly disagreeable sensations of pain also create “an experience of being moved” (Buytendijk (1961, p. 114). Strong pain may be experienced as a challenge to human being’s sense of their existence.

38 Good (1993), in analyzing an interview with someone with chronic pain wrote, “Pain becomes an ‘all’, an experience of totality, not a single set of feelings but a dimension of all of his perception. It flows out of the bodily into the social world, invading his work and infiltrating everyday activities” (p. 123). Corbin (2003), drawing on her research using grounded theory, suggested that illness may impact a person’s trust in their body. It can promote a split of the self from the body (e.g., “I am more than my body”) (p. 259), a changed relationship to time (the past and future of one’s body appear differently), and with space (which is reduced as the world becomes more inaccessible), or that “the familiar body can become the unfamiliar body” (p. 261). Leder and Krukoff (2008) described similar shifts in the person’s experience of one’s life and oneself in illness. Writing about the phenomenon of illness in people’s lives, Zaner (1981) noted, “Forced to undergo sometimes severe modifications and redirections, the self is obliged to maintain itself differently, and always with effort (p. 169). Body Image and Body Schema Flowing from Merleau-Ponty’s (1945/1962) idea of motor intentionality was his proposal of the concept of the body image16, or a corporeal schema. Much more than a grouping of body

16

Early thinking about this concept was also influenced by the study of the primary sensory and motor cortices by Penfield, who showed that the neurological mapping of the body in brain was in the form of a homunculus, which did not exactly match the physical body (Moss, 1989). Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) and Plügge (1970) both drew on the experience of phantom limbs to support the idea of different and malleable images of the body. More recently, scientists have also proposed the distinction between the “body image to account for the experiential, conscious sense of one’s body as a unity” and the “body schema to account for operational organization of the orientation and movements of the various body parts and organs in space” (Moss, 1989, pp. 68–69). This distinction is discussed at length in Gallagher (2005), and in relation to somatics and the Feldenkrais Method in Ginot (2012, 2013). In addition, body image is a construct which has been used extensively in the exploration of conscious self-representation of the body, especially shape, size, and appearance, which is influenced by social and cultural norms and expectations, and which has been associated with the various conditions such as obesity, anorexia nervosa, and bulimia (Gleeson & Frith, 2006; Grogan, 2006).

39 parts and their relationships or even the “compendium of our body experience” (p. 112), he suggested that the body schema is a “global awareness of my posture in the intercessory world” (p. 114); a background bodily sense from which our actions standout. Moss (1989) wrote, “For Merleau-Ponty, the body image is built up around the immediate, pre-reflective familiarity with one’s own body and the network of actions possible for one’s body” (p. 67). This points also to one of Merleau-Ponty’s important proposals, drawing on Husserl (1952/1989a), that we often experience the body as the possibility for action, as an I can more than an I am. Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) also emphasized the role of the body schema in the coordination of action: [A person’s] body is not only a system of present positions, but besides, and thereby, [it is]…an open system of an infinite number of equivalent positions directed to other ends. What we have called the body schema is precisely this system of equivalents, this immediately given invariant whereby the different motor tasks are instantaneously transferable. (p. 163) He suggested that the “acquisition of habit” involves the “rearrangement and renewal of the corporeal schema” (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 164). Moshe Feldenkrais (1972), Feldenkrais practitioners, and other somatic educators also draw on these constructs of body image and body schema as ways to conceptualize and communicate how changes in habit may be brought about (e.g., Ginot, 2010, 2012, 2013). A range of changes in body perception or bodily awareness can result from various chronic pain conditions, as recent studies by Valenzuela-Moguillansky (2012, 2013, 2017) and colleagues (Valenzuela-Moguillansky, Reyes-Reyes, & Gaete, 2017) have shown. For example, elicitation interviews with people with fibromyalgia brought forth reports of changes in body image in relation to “their body size, weight, posture, and shape,” as well as changes in the perceived density of the body, and may even include experiences of disembodiment (ValenzuelaMoguillansky et al., 2017, p. 7).

40 The construct of body image is not without its critics. A number of thinkers have objected to the use of the word image, which they suggest evokes only visual sensing, or suggests a visual metaphor for bodily experience, rather than a more multisensory and holistic, felt bodily sense (Sheets-Johnstone, 1998). Others have suggested that this construct has come to be reified and oversimplified in its application in health sciences (Gleeson & Frith, 2006). Animation: The Importance of Movement Whereas Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) posited the primacy of perception, dancer and phenomenologist Sheets-Johnstone (1998) suggested that the sense of self-movement is fundamental to our experience, consciousness, and life. She wrote, “movement is the generative source of our primal sense of aliveness and of our primal capacity for sense making” (SheetsJohnstone, 1998, p. 132). Sheets-Johnstone quoted Husserl (1952/1989a), “Originally, the ‘I move,’ ‘I do,’ precedes the ‘I can do’” (p. 273). In human development, she suggested, our first experiences as being animate beings are kinetic and kinesthetic (Sheets-Johnstone, 1998, 2015). As well as the temporal and spatial aspects of bodily life identified by many phenomenologists, Sheets-Johnstone (2015) suggested that the phenomenological “kinetic free variations”17 she used in her research also brought forth the importance of the quality of “force or effort” as an essential part of human experience. She suggested that self-movement involves “tensional,”

17

Phenomenolgical practice can involve the use of imaginative variation, a process mentally reflecting on and exploring different perspectives on aspects of an experience, theme, or phenomenon in order to better understand what are essential characteristics and structures (Wertz, 2011). Sheets-Johnstone (1998), in her research into the phenomenology of selfmovement, made use of variations in movements to assist in exploring the lived experience of movement. Feldenkrais Method lessons also make use of deliberate variations in qualities and aspects of movement (e.g., orientation, direction, speed, force, pressure, relationship with surfaces, smoothness, and reversability) and in movement sequences, with the aim to stimulate changed experiences and learning from experience (Feldenkrais, 1972; Ginsburg & SchuetteGinsburg, 2010).

41 “linear,” “amplitudinal,” and “projectional” qualities (Sheets-Johnstone, 1998, p. 143) that are fundamental aspects of our experience. Writing of French philosopher, Maine de Biran, in his critique of Cartesian dualism, Colombetti (2014) wrote, For Biran, proper analysis of consciousness reveals that subjectivity is given in experience via an “immediate apperception” as a force manifested in effort and movement: “Because I think, I understand, I want, I act, I perceive my effort, I know that I act, I exist for myself as an individual force; therefore I am really and absolutely and acting force” (Maine de Biran, 1841). (p. 8) Maine de Biran also influenced the development of Merleau-Ponty’s (2001) thought.18 Bodily Awareness and Body Consciousness Bringing the body to conscious awareness, other than through accident or illness (or the accident of illness), can be through the deliberate adoption of practices that aim to bring forth bodily awareness or body consciousness (Kerr, 2002; Leder, 1990; Shusterman, 2008). Rather than being seen as a failure of healthy functioning, these practices can be seen as an opportunity to alter habitual patterns of perception and action, to create learning and transformation, enhance consciousness, and contribute to healing (Hanh, 1990; Kabat-Zinn, 2000, 2005a; Shusterman, 2008, 2012b).

In Feldenkrais Method Awareness Through Movement lessons students are often instructed to reduce the amount of effort being used to make a movement, which Feldenkrais (1972) suggested, based on the Fechner-Weber law or principle that reduced effort should afford greater ability to sense changes in the levels of effort (Leri, 1997; Smyth, 2012). Dewey (1897) explored the “psychology of effort” noting the relationships between the sense of effort and habit change, the learning of new skills, motivation, and attention. Jonas (2001) explored how the sense of bodily force undergirds one’s sense of causality, noting, “That experience has its seat in the effort I must make to overcome the resistance of worldly matter in my acting and to resist the impact of worldly matter upon myself” (pp. 22–23). Drawing on this thinking from Maine de Biran, Dewey, Merleau-Ponty and Jonas, it might be argued that this concrete practice of the Feldenkrais Method engages with this important aspect of our experience of ourselves in our world (see also Scholz, 2010). 18

42 Pragmatist philosopher and somatic practitioner Shusterman (2008) drew critically on Merleau-Ponty, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Wittgenstein, and the pragmatists James and Dewey, as well as on his knowledge of various somatic practices, to put forward a program that values body consciousness. He wrote, As Socrates recognized that physical ill health…could cause error, so disciplines like Alexander Technique and the Feldenkrais Method (and older Asian practices of hatha yoga and Zen meditation) seek to improve the acuity, health and control of the senses by cultivated heightened attention and mastery of their somatic functioning, while also freeing us from the distorting grip of faulty bodily habits that impair sensory performance. (Shusterman, 2008, p. 20) He suggested that there are many reciprocal benefits of somatic awareness and psychological development, including increased sensitivity to one’s own health, but also toward others. Shusterman (2008) criticized Merleau-Ponty for his somewhat romantic emphasis on the value of “‘normal’ spontaneous bodily sense” as an antidote to disembodied thinking, while leaving out the possibility of reflective somatic consciousness (p. 64). Such a consciousness, Shusterman (2008) argued, can correct some of the distortions in our perception and action. In a philosophical review of bodily awareness, de Vignemont (2011) emphasized the emerging thought about the value of bodily awareness for developing awareness of emotions, enhanced perceptual awareness, and improved social cognition. There is currently vigorous discussion of constructs such as body consciousness, bodily self-consciousness, and body awareness or bodily awareness within the fields of somatics, phenomenology, and neurophenomenology (Colombetti, 2014; de Vignemont, 2011; Legrand, 2006, 2011; Legrand & Ravn, 2009; Shusterman, 2008, 2012b). Colombetti (2014) proposed “a taxonomy” of bodily feeling, including the body as an object of awareness and the body through which one experiences one’s world. When the body is the object of attention, she suggested, it may be more at the center of attention, or more on the “margin or periphery” of attention

43 (Colombetti, 2014, p. 115), the body can be more clearly felt or more obscurely felt (Colombetti, 2014, p. 122), more in the background or more in the foreground (Colombetti, 2014, p. 124), be more conspicuous or less conspicuous (Colombetti, 2014, p. 128). She also suggested that parts of the body or the whole body can be intentional objects of attention through a “voluntary act of attention” or one may experience them “‘popping out’ into awareness” in response to a bodily event like a muscle cramp (Colombetti, 2014, p. 116). She noted how different authors have different understandings about the appearance and disappearance of the body from awareness, and of the experience of “feeling absorbed” in bodily experience or in one’s performance in the world. In “feeling through the body,” one can also come to experience the body even if the initial intention was to feel an object. She gives the example as sensing one’s hand in a particular way as a result of touching velvet. Colombetti (2014) also distinguished between reflective or prereflective (or tacit)19 bodily self-awareness. The latter is a nonobservational or nonthematic experience of one’s own body as the subject of experience, compared to a reflective self-consciousness that is observational and thematic. In systematizing these themes, Legrand (2011) proposed four main kinds of “bodily selfconsciousness” (p. 204): 1. “The self-as-subject as a localized and oriented volume” (p. 214) characterized by a subtle form of self-consciousness that is experienced as having volumicity that is

19

Some authors, such as Nagatomo (1992) are critical of terms such as preconscious or prereflective, arguing that they perpetuate mind–body dualism. However, if it is assumed that all conscious states are grounded in the person’s history and current bodily experience, then subtle bodily alterations are involved in what is conventionally conceived of as thought. For example, changes in muscle tension or breathing, or eye or tongue movements may be co-arising and coconstituting of the experience of thought. Then it can be argued that bodily experience is always already involved in what might be described as preconscious and conscious, as well as prereflective and reflective consciousness.

44 oriented toward the world and place, where “the perceptual experience in some ways announces the bodily subject, even when the body is not taken as a perceptual object” (Legrand, 2011, p. 215). This is kind of a world-embedded self-consciousness. 2. “The self-as-subject as the bearer of bodily sensations” (Legrand, 2011, p. 219). For example, in reaching out to touch something one is “conscious of my bodily self” as the means of having a world, where “anything experienced in the way of one’s body is experienced [—] is experienced as being one’s body” (Legrand, 2011, p. 222)— from sensations of the body itself to things touched in the world. 3. “The subjective access to the self-as-object” (Legrand, 2011, p. 223). For example, when paying attention to one’s movement one could take one’s body as an object through the feelings of bones, muscles, and skin. This form of “bodily selfconsciousness” is a form of “reflective self-consciousness” (Legrand, 2011, p. 227)— a form of embodied or embedded reflection where making the body into an object is implied but the body is experienced in a subjective way. The body is accessed as being object-like, but experienced through the lived experience of that very “object.” Attention is directed, and access to the body is subjectively felt and not alienated or reified as in the fourth mode. 4. “The analytic access the self-as-object” (Legrand, 2011, p. 224). This involves a scrutinizing type of observation of the body, or part of the body, as an object. This involves not just attention, as in the third mode of bodily self-consciousness, but also an alienated reification of the body or body part as an object. This awareness is undertaken with an analytical attitude (Legrand, 2011, see Legrand & Ravn, 2009). These modes of bodily self-awareness or self-consciousness, as proposed by Colombetti and Legrand, have been valuable in reflecting on the kinds of bodily self-consciousness stimulated by participation in Feldenkrais Method practices that have been uncovered in this study. For example, Leder (1990) and Morley (2001, 2008) described the potential of somatic practices for experiences of relaxation and concentration, for self-awareness and selfdevelopment (see also Smyth, 2016a)20.

20

Mackie (1985) also proposed the importance of accessing an “altered experiential field” to the process of “entering and activating a moment-to-moment beingness,” a state she argued is vital to achieving an époche and for the possibility of some degree of liberation from the natural attitude and everyday perception (pp. 182–183).

45 Bodily Intersubjectivity: Intercorporeity or Intercorporality Husserl proposed the body as a basis for our intersubjective experience of others: the embodied experience of self leads us to understand that other bodily beings have similar experiences (Taipale, 2014; Zahavi, 2003). Intersubjective experience has been suggested as one basis of empathy (Braude, 2015). Husserl (196521, 1954/1970), Heidegger (1962/2008), Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1948/1968) have all brought forth the idea that our embodied experience of the world is always intersubjective; that in our lives there is a bodily intertwining with others that produces the phenomenon of intercorporality or intercorporeity (Finlay, 2005; Weiss, 1999; Young, 2011). We learn much about our own bodies and others by observing and interacting with others’ bodies. Consider touch, for example: In childhood touch is a vital part of how we come to sense our bodies and learn to move. It is a vital part of adult life from learning skills, to intimacy, to aspects of healthcare practice—including both conventional and complementary practices (Leder & Krukoff, 2008). It can also be suggested that we are touched by the gaze of the other. Legrand (2011) proposed that we develop a whole bodily sense of others and ourselves, because of the intersensory nature of our embodiment. Fuchs and DeJaegher (2009) argued for an “enactive intersubjectivity” involving participatory sensemaking and mutual incorporation as a framework for understanding many relationships, including the parent-child dyad (p. 465).

21

Husserl (1965) published the first essay in this collection, “Philosophy as Rigorous Science” in 1911, and it was first translated into English in 1956 (Lauer, 1965). The second essay in this collection, “Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man,” was given twice as a lecture in Vienna in May 1935 (Landgrebe, 2018), and it was first translated into English in 1956 (Lauer, 1965).

46 Phenomenology and Approaches to Research In the next section of this Literature Review, I will describe the nature of a phenomenological-hermeneutic research approach, which can provide relevant and effective approaches to researching complex phenomena, such as those associated with Feldenkrais Method. The range of phenomena associated with the practice of the Feldenkrais Method is not well understood in themselves, nor in relationship to the idea or experience of health. They are phenomena, which by their nature call for openness to new ways of thinking about what constitutes human experience and knowledge. Phenomenology makes a priority of understanding as a “standing under” actual human experience; an approach that emphasizes the kind of knowledge captured by the German word kennen, “to be familiar with” (related to the Old English, to “ken”), ahead of a focus on explanation or prediction (Pelz, 1974). A phenomenologically informed approach can provide a more appropriate and sophisticated framework for the study of somatic practices, rather than for example, a more purely psychological framework and research method (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Todres, 2007). Uncovering the Nature of Phenomena: The Husserlerian Approach All phenomenologically informed approaches to research base themselves on the initial thinking of Edmund Husserl, who is considered the founder of this tradition of philosophical thought. Husserl (1965, 1954/1970) proposed a multistage process to attempt to come to describe a phenomenon as it appears in consciousness. For Husserl (1965, 1954/1970), discovering and describing an essence of an experience can guide the researcher into a clearer and deeper understanding of a phenomenon. Husserl (1965) wrote of “the extraordinary wealth of consciousness-differences, for which the methodologically inexperienced, flow into each other

47 without differentiation” (p. 94). A key aim of describing essences is to allow for a much greater differentiation of phenomena as they appear in consciousness (Husserl, 1965). One of the markers of phenomenological research is the use of various forms of an epoché in approaching the researched phenomena. Wertz (2011) described Husserl’s process for the creation of description of a phenomenon as involving two kinds of epoché—a bracketing or holding in suspension of existing knowledge and understandings in order to attempt to grasp the nature of the phenomenon under study afresh. The first is an “epoché of the natural sciences,” “putting aside natural science and other knowledge—theories, hypotheses, measuring instruments, prior research about the topic under investigation” (Wertz, 2011, p. 125). A second is the “epoché of the natural attitude,” sometimes called the “phenomenological reduction,” which involves trying to set aside unexamined assumptions of the “existence of objects independent of experience” (Wertz, 2011, p. 125). The reduction is a process of thorough reflection on the nature of a phenomenon. The phenomenological reduction is seen as an ending of one’s naïve metaphysical belief in the actuality of things, and one’s usual thematized presentation of something as already known (Giorgi, 2009; van Manen, 2014; Zahavi, 2003). Madison (1982) wrote: Human consciousness is naturally belief and thus cannot cease as such, but—and this constitutes its uniqueness it can, in a self-reflective mode of consciousness, become conscious of itself as belief. It is, in other words to become aware that realities that one posits, and cannot help but posit are none the less posited realities, correlates of belief and not Reality itself. After the epoché one believes, so to speak, without believing. (p. 280) He suggested, “once one has managed to suspend one’s believing, a whole field of investigation opens up: the field of human experience and belief in their different modalities” (Madison, 1982, p. 280). Further clarifying the concept of the epoché, Porter and Robinson (2011) wrote, “the epoché…is meant to…allow access to the phenomenon in the least prejudiced or corrupted way,

48 [and that] phenomenology is not a description of the ‘real world’ per se, but our experiences of the perceived world” (p. 55). The various forms of the epoché are proposed as necessary steps to open up the possibility of observing objects on the basis of experience (Wertz, 2011). In his philosophical method, Husserl described a third transcendental reduction to obtain a description of the essence of the phenomena. Giorgi (2009) and Wertz (2011) explained that in psychological research, this step is replaced by a psychological phenomenological reduction to obtain an essential description of a psychological phenomenon. In addition, Wertz (2011) described two further methodological steps proposed by Husserl: “intentional analysis” and “eidetic analysis” (p. 125). Husserl saw all consciousness as involving intention in a specific sense of being about something. Intentional analysis is the exploration of the nature of the how or structure of how one (the I, ego, or self) experiences the world. Wertz (2011) wrote, “Phenomenological reflection, called ‘intentional analysis,’ shows that human experience is embodied, practical, emotional, spatial, social, linguistic, and temporal” (p. 125). Finally, there is eidetic analysis, often called the eidetic reduction. Husserl proposed that in developing the description of a phenomenon, an imaginative variation can be used, where the thinker can mentally explore possible variations on the description of the phenomenon to identify what is essential or invariant to the phenomenon (Depraz, Varela, & Vermeersch, 2003; Giorgi, 2009). Through the use of imaginative variation, the form, the necessary, or essential structure of the phenomenon is identified (Giorgi, 2009; Polkinghorne, 1983). Husserl’s emphasis in his early philosophical phenomenology on seeking a transcendental reduction toward the description of a pure phenomenon was both updated and

49 challenged on philosophical grounds by thinkers such as Heidegger (1962/2008), Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962, 1948/1968), Gadamer (1996b), and Ricoeur (1974, 1981). They emphasized the idea that humans are always already involved in ongoing experience that is necessarily historical, and therefore always already grounded in our experience of culture and in language. This thinking represents the “hermeneutic turn” in phenomenological thinking and practice. It is a shift from Husserl’s attempt to create transcendental knowledge though the uncovering of essences, to an acknowledgment of the always-situated nature of understanding (Lafont, 2005). Husserl (1965, 1954/1970, 1952/1989a, 1989b), in his later work, embraced this understanding that human experience and knowledge become sedimented through a variety of cultural practices, particularly language. Experience, language, and interpretation. Some philosophers’ considerations of the complex relationship between experience, meaning, and language are the reason that many authors suggest that hermeneutics, a systematic understanding and application of the practices of interpretation, is required for phenomenological thinking to be applied most effectively to human science research. Hermeneutics originated as an approach to the interpretation of religious texts (Palmer, 1969). Following Dilthey (Makkreel & Rodi, 1989a; Pelz, 1974), various authors proposed a wider application of processes of interpretation to texts of all kinds, and of human life and action more generally (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Polkinghorne, 1983; Ricoeur, 1981). How we can come to understand the nature of the participants’ understanding of their bodily experience, and the meaning of that experience for them, was an important aspect of the study. That is, to some extent, the translation or transformation of the participants’ somatic experience into language involves a process of interpretation (Smith, 2007). Hermeneutics as a form of human science understanding has been developed over time, by thinkers such as Droysen (1992),

50 Gadamer (1996b), Ricoeur (1974, 1981), and others (Packer, 1985; Packer & Addison, 1989). Applications of hermeneutics to research in health and healthcare have been developed by many authors, including Benner (1985, 1994a, 1994b), Conroy (2003), Fleming, Gaidys, and Robb (2003), Smith (2007), Tan, Wilson, and Olver (2009), and Wiklund, Lindholm, and Lindström (2002). This hermeneutic turn was associated with a focus on the role of language in the constitution of human experience (Lafont, 2005; Levin, 1982; Mansbach, 2002). Hermeneutics suggests a need for a researcher to have a high level of sensitivity to the relations between language and experience, as our experience in and through language is part of our experience of the world and ourselves. In relation to phenomenologically based research, this literature raises important questions about the nature of the relationship between experience and the description of phenomena. For example, van Manen (1990) emphasized that in the process of coming to the description of an essence of a phenomenon, the essence is not an object: it has no existence but as a description. The description is not the experience, but can evoke experience—indeed this is a principal aim of the phenomenologist (van Manen, 1990, 2014). There is an intimate connection between the structure of experience and how the experience emerges into language, and in turn, how language can evoke experience for the listener or reader (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Ricoeur, 1981). Bodily meaning: Metaphors and experience. Phenomenologists generally take bodily experience as inherently meaningful. Meanings, which may be expressed in bodily organization and movement—including breathing, gesture, as well as being articulated in speaking and writing (both of which also have their own specific bodily organization).

51 A number of authors have suggested that many words and concepts in language are grounded in bodily experience (Smyth, 2012). Lakoff and Johnson (1999) focus particularly on how bodily based image schemas (also described as root metaphors) work in structuring conceptual frameworks and our expression in language (see also Johnson, 1987, 2007). Conversely language, as a sedimentation of cultural practices and tradition, constrains how we can conceive of and express experience (Gadamer, 1996b; Lafont, 2005). Mackie (1985) wrote, “‘The body’ being also given as a category, the experience of which is socially constructed and accrues to the root of the ‘self’ from the moment of birth” (p. 38), is therefore what is experienced as the body, and the way in which it is experienced is, at least in part, intimately entwined with the social and linguistic. In exploring the origins of affective experience, which is always bodily, Stolorow (2013) proposed that there are two processes of differentiation of emotional experience and the symbolic integration of those affect states that “the child’s emotional experiences increasingly can be characterized as somatic-symbolic or, eventually, somatic-linguistic unities” (p. 9). In the phenomenological literature, differences between how experiences can be expressed are often explored through looking at the etymology of words and expressions (van Manen, 1990, 2014), in comparisons between the meaning of words and expressions in different languages and in the creation of new terms or defining words and terms in a particular way (Lafont, 2005). Somatic practices, such as Feldenkrais Method, may give people the opportunity to directly experience the “felt-qualities” (Johnson, 2007, p. 17) of concepts or metaphors such as “balance,” “ease,” “support,” “calm,” “rest,” “resilience,” “vitality,” or “trust” (in their body), or “self-care” (Smyth, 2012, pp. 94–95). At the same time, Feldenkrais Method and other practices

52 make use of metaphors as constraints on action in order to promote learning (Abrahamson, Sánchez–García, & Smyth, 2016). The next section presents arguments for the value of a hermeneutic approach to the practice of phenomenology and the creation of understanding. Hermeneutic Phenomenology Approaches to the Research Process Following van Manen (1990, 2014), henceforth in this study the term phenomenology is used to mean hermeneutic phenomenology. Specific references to philosophical phenomenology or descriptive phenomenological approaches will be identified as such. Specific references to transcendental phenomenology or descriptive phenomenological approaches will also be identified. The hermeneutic-phenomenological literature provides rich sources on approaches to the research process including the gathering of experiential data, its exploration or analysis, and the writing up of what is uncovered in the research process. These ideas are explored in the next sections. Data analysis or explorations. Data in a phenomenological study can be composed of texts, such as first person accounts from interviews, reflexive protocols, and observations from the researcher; notes generated during the research process, and published literature. The hermeneutic-phenomenological literature identifies a number of major steps in phenomenological-hermeneutic data analysis. These steps can include the following: Horizontalization. This involves getting all the material from each interview and listening to and re-reading the material several times with an open attitude. This helps ensure that no data are initially privileged by selective hearing or memory or other preconceptions of what was said in the interviews (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Moustakas, 1994).

53 Developing themes. The analysis of these kind of data is “concerned with identifying the major and minor eidetic themes that belong to the phenomena or events” (van Manen, 2014, p. 312). As described in the literature, this process involves: 1. The methods of epoché—as much as possible suspending the natural attitude and scientific explanations, and identifying foreknowledge, fore-conceptions, and foreunderstandings, and openness to the phenomena at hand (Wertz, 2005, 2011). 2. “The reduction…[which is] a complex reflective attentiveness” that allows the researcher to “gain access…to the world of prereflective experience-as-lived in order to mine its meanings” (van Manen, 2014, p. 221). The aim of phenomenological analysis is not to generate a final, thematically based, report. Rather, “phenomenological themes can act like creative shorthands” toward the creation of phenomenological descriptions (van Manen, 2014, p. 312; see also Moules, McCaffery, Field, & Laing, 2015). This is usually an iterative process of going backward and forward between the texts and the developing understandings of the emergent meanings, until there is greater clarity as to the possible meanings of the texts (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998; Finlay, 2012; Tesch, 1987). “In analyzing texts, we ask of each fragment: ‘How does this speak to the phenomenon?’” (van Manen, 2014, p. 312). Often this involves proceeding line-by-line through the texts (Tesch, 1987; van Manen, 1990). As part of the process of reflection and investigation a number of linguistic aspects of the texts (van Manen, 1990, 2014) may be reflected upon, including: (a) the etymology of particular words; (b) the use of jargon (e.g., from sports and fitness, medicine, somatic practices, etc.); (c) the origins of meanings of commonplace terms and idiom; (d) the use of idiosyncratic or unique images and metaphors used by the informant; and (e) the use of common conceptual, or root metaphors, also described as image-schemas (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Johnson, 1987, 2007; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999). Phenomenological texts. Writing is considered a key process toward the development of possible interpretations in hermeneutic-phenomenological research (van Manen, 1990, 2014).

54 A number of authors have suggested four main types of texts that may be utilized in phenomenological research, which represent different stages of the exploration of the data, in the uncovering of phenomena, and developing of interpretations. These are: paradigm cases, thematic descriptions, textural descriptions, and structural descriptions. The first involves the identification and description of paradigm cases. These are descriptions of a particular experience (a “group, person, community, or event”) that in their uniqueness are indicative of aspects of the experience not found in another case, and which, while remaining unique, are also indicative of some essential aspect of a theme or phenomenon (Benner, 1994b, p. 113). A second major type of texts is thematic descriptions, which results from the thematic analysis. As discussed previously, this writing process involves exploring individual accounts in depth, of comparing accounts from different informants, of moving backward and forward between parts of texts and wholes, between previous understandings and emerging new ones (Benner, 1994b; Finlay, 2012; van Manen, 2014). That is, this process makes use of the hermeneutic circle to help identify commonalities and differences in the research data (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). In writing these thematic descriptions, “The interpretive researcher engages in cycles of understanding, interpretation, and critique” (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009, p. 116). At this stage, variant and invariant themes may be identified and described, toward explicating vital aspects of the phenomena under study (Bentz & Rehorick, 2008; van Manen, 2014). Exemplifying texts can be grouped together for comparison and to help uncover common, if often implicit, characteristics and structures of experience (Benner, 1996b; Wertz, 2011).

55 This is a process of considering what is essential to a phenomenon, without which it would not be the same phenomenon, and at the same time with anything added it would also not be the same phenomenon. This is the process of the phenomenal reduction or eidetic analysis (Wertz, 2011). This is a process of deep reflection on the nature of the phenomenon at hand— involving a sense of wonder, a laying down of everyday and scientific frameworks, and coming to grips with what is essential to the phenomenon as experienced (van Manen, 1990; Wertz, 2011). At this stage, a process of imaginative variation can be used. Moustakas (1994) wrote: The task of Imaginative Variation is to seek possible meanings through the utilization of imagination, varying the frames of reference, employing polarities and reversals, and approaching the phenomenon from divergent perspectives, different positions, roles and functions. The aim is to arrive at structural descriptions of an experience; the underlying and precipitating factors that account for what is being experienced: in other words the “how” that speaks to the conditions that illuminate the “what” of experience. (pp. 97–98) The third major type of text, is that of textural descriptions of the phenomena that are uncovered in the research process. These descriptions are where the essential natures of the phenomena are presented as of textural descriptions of what was experienced. Finally, structural descriptions are developed that explore the how a phenomenon is experienced (Moerer-Urdahl & Creswell, 2004). These last two kinds of texts reflect the phenomenological distinction between “the intentional act: noesis” and “the intentional correlate: noema” (Bernet, Kern, & Marbach, 1993, pp. 91–101; see also Wertz, 2011). Reflexivity Reflexivity is the commitment and the process of the researcher to maintain critical selfawareness of how her or his own existing and emergent understandings, actions, and interactions with others, and their field of research have an effect on the research process (Finlay & Gough, 2003). Husserl’s phenomenological approach calls for an epoché: the intent to hold on

56 suspension, as much as possible, the researcher’s natural attitude to a phenomenon. These are the un-reflected-upon assumptions about the existence or nature of phenomena, arising from received common sense, linguistic, or commonly understood scientific preconceptions. The natural attitude can be seen as, “the standpoint of the person going about his [or her] everyday business in his [or her] everyday world” (LeVasseur, 2003, p. 410). A number of contemporary phenomenological researchers advocate the inclusion of researcher self-awareness, or reflexivity, as essential before and during all stages of the research process (Benner, 1994a; Finlay, 2011, 2012; A. L. Morgan, 2011; van Manen, 2014). Pollio, Henley, and Thompson (1997) also have suggested that the process of identifying one’s prior understandings, as well as one is able to, should be seen as a positive contribution to phenomenological research. Van Manen (1990) suggested, “To be aware of the structure of one’s own experience of phenomenon may provide the researcher with clues orienting oneself to the phenomenon and thus to all stages of phenomenological research” (p. 57). Some authors have proposed that a researcher’s own perspectives and biographical involvements with the topic can be valuably brought into the research process, bringing another kind of data and opportunities for new interpretations (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998; von Eckartsberg, 1996). Other thinkers see the inclusion of researcher perspectives as enabling conditions for understanding, rather than an inevitable source of error or prejudice (Bohman, 1991; Mantzoukos, 2005). Embodiment, Bodily Self-Awareness, and the Phenomenological Research Process An increasing number of human science researchers have recommended the exploration of the use of bodily awareness as part of qualitative research studies. There has been a call for a process of “bringing the body back” into research (Sharma, Reimer-Kirkham, & Cochrane, 2009, p. 1643). Todres (2007) proposed that awareness and inclusion of the experience of embodiment

57 can not only be the outcome of phenomenological research, but also provide a path to understanding. In a similar vein, anthropologist Waquant (2004) proposed that the body can be both the topic and a tool for research. The inclusion of bodily experience in phenomenologically informed research of bodily practices, such as the Feldenkrais Method, therefore represents a double enfolding of these two practices, which can greatly enrich one another. Various authors, including Burns (2006), Finlay (2005, 2006), Halling and Goldfarb (1991), Todres (2007), and Todres and Galvin (2008), identified some key benefits and proposed a number of processes for the inclusion of the bodily in the research process. Much phenomenologically informed research draws on first person accounts of informants gathered by interviewing people about their lived experience (van Manen, 2014). In the interview situation, the bodily awareness of the researcher can enhance the researcher’s presence in the interaction with the interviewee by a process of observing his or her own bodily responses. This can enhance connection and relationship, support the informant’s willingness to express his or her experience, and also serve as a source of information for the researcher. For example, through bodily empathy, the researcher can begin to get a felt sense of the meanings of the experience of which the informant is speaking (Braude, 2015; Finlay, 2005). This can inform both the researcher’s bodily responses, such as signaling attention and empathy, as well as inform the researcher’s questions, prompts, and probes. Attention to the researcher’s own and the informant’s shifting bodily organization (tensions, gestures, engagement) has the potential to greatly enhance the interview process and the depth, the concreteness and uniqueness of the speech that is recorded. In addition, bodily awareness can provide an additional source, type, and level of data for the reflexivity of the researcher. Reflexivity is the process “of examining how the researcher and interpersonal elements impact on and transform research” (Finlay, 2003,

58 p. 4). Unawareness of his or her somatic responses may lead a researcher to miss key ethical, relational, or conceptual aspects of the research process. Bodily awareness offers additional possibilities for researchers “to interrogate [their] own assumptions, locatedness, and investments” (Burns, 2006, p. 14). The body plays a vital role in our search for understanding in life and in research. Through the bodily felt sense one can access a depth of meaning not necessarily accessible to usual processes of cognition (Gendlin, 1978; Halling & Goldfarb, 1991). Todres (2007) drew on Gendlin (2004) to suggest that in many of our verbal expressions there is a more to our experience that is usually unspoken and often unknown to us. However, through drawing on bodily awareness of one’s own experience and bodily empathy one can begin to be in touch with other possible meanings (Finlay, 2005). One can “dip into” and “lift out” other levels and kinds of meaning for the informant, and indeed for the researcher (Halling & Goldfarb, 1991, p. 325). Todres and Galvin (2008) suggested that a text can “speak” to us, or “call,” and “stir” (p. 570) us to explore new meanings. Researcher and readers of a study may be moved, and in noticing how they are moved, attend and respond to the meanings of the texts that move them. Inclusion of bodily experience and phenomena in the research process is a reflection of the openness that is characteristic of phenomenologically informed research and can become an important part of process of uncovering the phenomena. As a long-term practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method and other mind–body practices, I have come to be aware of the profoundly meaningful nature of bodily experience, both for myself and for my clients or students. If indeed all human sense-making involves this somatic dimension, then my intention was to attempt to access this dimension of experience in the process of research. Part of the attraction of a phenomenological approach to research is that it

59 acknowledges the human experience, on both ontological and ontic levels, precedes the development of an epistemology and of concrete understandings—whether these are more descriptive and interpretive (as in hermeneutic phenomenology), or explanatory and predictive (as in scientific practice; Merleau-Ponty, 1948/1968). Relevance of the Literature to the Research Question The research question for this dissertation was, “What is the nature of the lived experience of Feldenkrais Method for adult, long-term students of the Method who first came to utilize the Feldenkrais Method in relation to acute or chronic pain?” The research revealed that Feldenkrais Method contributed to the informant’s health through reduced pain, increased confidence and competence in their abilities to alter painful and dysfunctional patterns of movement and bodily organization, the experience of greater calm, and a sense of well-being. They experienced the Feldenkrais Method as self-caring. The Feldenkrais Method has been associated with many health-related outcomes. Indeed, the variety of applications of the Method, on the one hand, and the variety of outcomes on the other, would suggest that investigating what are the common or invariant experiences or phenomena associated with the Feldenkrais Method could be of great value for understanding a practice such as this. As has been previously noted, there is not a lot of qualitative, and particularly not a lot of phenomenological research, into the Feldenkrais Method. The few qualitative studies that have been conducted bring forth some rich and complex material that is suggestive of the value of further exploring this topic. There is still much about the experience of this practice that could valuably be uncovered and reflected upon. Phenomenological perspectives on the importance of bodily experience—including the bodily experience of movement, affective states, of health and illness, and in human

60 relationships—have the potential to act as insight cultivators (van Manen, 2014) to support and stimulate the reflection and interpretation of the texts generated by this dissertation. Phenomenology had much to offer for achieving the goals of this dissertation, and therefore, I will now describe the phenomenological-hermeneutic research design used in this study.

61 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGICAL OVERVIEW This section of the dissertation begins by briefly reiterating the nature of phenomenology as a philosophical orientation and as it may be applied to human science22 research. The nature of the hermeneutic approach will also be briefly described. This section provides an epistemology of this study—the approach to how knowledge could be brought forth. Arguments for why a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach is most appropriate to investigate this topic are presented. The use of a phenomenological approach is founded in the idea of the importance of first person experience and the meaning of lived experience (van Manen, 1990, 2014). Recognizing the intersubjective and intercorporeal nature of human experience, a phenomenologically based methodology allows for the inclusion of the relationship between the practitioner and the student

A human sciences philosophy is an approach to the study of human life. It is associated with thinkers such as Dilthey, Bretano, Husserl, Wundt, Weber, Mead, and James, among others (Polkinghorne, 1983). Dilthey, who is seen as the founder of the movement, sought new ways to situate and pursue the study of human experience in relation to natural science, and which could have a similar status as science (Pelz, 1974). He emphasized how aspects of human experience cannot be reduced just to sensation, as was the tendency in 19th century science. As a replacement for the Cartesian theory of physical and mental substances, he argued for the importance of the experience of both “the external world as given in outer perception (sensation) through the senses, and the inner world as presented through inner apprehension of psychic events and activities (reflection)” (Dilthey as cited in Makkreel & Rodi, 1989a, p. 9). In the individual, he was interested in qualia of sensations, prereflective experience, feelings, will (or purposes), and thought, which he believed cannot be reduced to physical processes (Makkreel & Rodi, 1989b). Dilthey saw the “uncovering” of the relationship between life and expression, and the development of empathetic “understanding” (Verstehen in German) as the outcome of the various human sciences (or Geisteswissenschaften). He saw reflection as a key part of this process (Palmer, 1969; Polkinghorne, 1983). The subject of human sciences study was not only, or even primarily, the individual, but included the historically situated products of human life— including laws, religion, philosophy, the arts, symbols, language, and culture. Human science thought influenced the development of the sociology of knowledge, historiography, Gestalt psychology, humanistic psychology, phenomenology, and especially, hermeneutics. Dilthey’s critique of both positivism and empiricism was a theme taken up, for example, by Merleau-Ponty (1945/1962) in his phenomenology of perception. 22

62 or client as part of the experience (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Weiss, 1999; Young, 2011). As discussed in the Literature Review, phenomenological philosophy and research has included extensive discussion of the fundamental importance of bodily experience in human life. The focus of this dissertation was on the experience of the Feldenkrais Method, involving practices, which include touch, bodily movement and awareness, and the effects of these practices on experience. Therefore, it was vital to use an approach that not only allows the researcher and reader to come to understand cognition or thought-in-language, but also takes into account all kinds of human experience. In addition to a phenomenologically based research design, I made use of a hermeneutic approach in this dissertation. This literature provided tools for addressing the process of interpretation of texts (interviews, observations, research journals), which were generated as part of this study. Scientific and theoretical texts, not as sources of theory, but as sources of text about the body and movement, may be used in the interpretation process and in the discussion. A hermeneutic approach provides a way of thinking about integrating diverse texts into the research report (van Manen, 1990, 2014). I am a practitioner of the Feldenkrais Method, with over 25 years of experience of practice and teaching. It is essential for the researcher in a study such as this to have a great familiarity with the subject matter. In new fields of study, such as Feldenkrais Method and other MBM practices, it would be possible for a researcher unfamiliar with a field to miss many of the subtleties and profundities of what is being researched. Direct experience of the practices involved can help the researcher to differentiate experiential reports and conceptualizations, which are often blended in texts from informants (Oerton, 2004; Tarr, 2005). Bentz and Shapiro (1998) proposed that, “In contradistinction of the ideal of the distance from the object of study

63 promulgated by positivist science, hermeneutics contends that the closer you are to the object, the better you are able to interpret meanings accurately” (pp. 107–108). Understanding is seen to arise from the fusion of perspectives or fusion of horizons between the informants’ experiences and their descriptions of them, on the one hand, and the person doing the interpretation on the other (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009; Bentz & Shapiro, 1998). Hermeneutic theory and practice, which includes the idea of researcher reflexivity, allows the researcher tools to develop more valid interpretations. The closeness of the researcher to the topic will necessitate the use of reflexive approaches, to bring forth and create transparency about the researcher’s assumptions, emerging understandings, and role in generating the data (Finlay, 2003, 2011). In summary, a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach provides ways of uncovering and investigating the nature of human experience (van Manen, 2014), with depth and clarity of understanding (Polkinghorne, 1983), while aiming for an open and transparent approach to the role of the researcher in the development of understandings (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009). A Note on Terminology: Method, Methodology, Approach, and Research Design Many authors believe that hermeneutic phenomenology is not a method, in the strict sense of having pre-established research rules and protocols (van Manen, 1990). Therefore, approach will be used, rather than method, when describing the orientation of this research process in general, and research design for the specific research process used in this dissertation. Phenomenological Approaches to Research There are a number of different traditions within phenomenological research, including descriptive (Giorgi, 2009; Wertz, 2011), hermeneutic (Benner, 1994a; Finlay, 2011, 2012; van Manen, 1990, 2014), interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA, which is a particular form of the hermeneutic approach; Smith, Flowers, & Larkin, 2009), and heuristic approaches

64 (Moustakas, 1990; Todres, 2007). Different phenomenological research traditions propose different phenomenological research processes, with different steps in the research process (Finlay, 2011). An example of the systematic application of phenomenology to human science research was the development of various empirical existential phenomenological studies in psychology based on Husserlerian phenomenology and existentialist ideas (Polkinghorne, 1983; van Manen, 2014; von Eckartsberg, 1986). In applying Husserl’s ideas to psychological research, various authors identified the importance of gathering descriptions from others to generate phenomenological descriptions. Giorgi (2009), for example, proposed a descriptive phenomenological method. He emphasized that phenomenology as applied to psychological research is “doable,” rather than mysterious or obscure as is sometimes claimed (p. 93). However, Giorgi’s (2009) descriptive phenomenological method is based on the assumption of the researcher being able to bracket both “past knowledge and nonpresented presuppositions about the given object” (p. 91) in the research process. The possibility of creating essential descriptions of psychological phenomena that are not interpretive depends very much on the understanding of interpretation that is deployed. Drawing on Heidegger (1962/2008), both Mohanty (2009) and van Manen (1990, 2014) have argued that there is an inevitable intermingling of description and interpretation, and that therefore, interpretation is always part of the phenomenological enterprise. Research Design The Role of the Researcher As part of preparing this dissertation, I have conducted the entire project, including preparing and conducting interviews, managing and analyzing texts, and preparing the research

65 report. A transcription service was engaged to assist with the preparation of texts from interviews, and an editor was engaged to assist with preparation of the final text. Material from the dissertation was de-identified throughout the study, so that the only identifying material was the signed Informed Consent forms. The Pilot Study and the Dissertation Research Designs The following research design was implemented for the dissertation pilot study completed in September 2015. Almost no modifications have been made to the description of the research process. The differences in processes between both studies were: 1.

Two additional questions were added to the semistructured interview guidelines. The content addressed by these questions arose in conversations with both informants in the pilot study interviews. These additional texts are of significant value to this inquiry, and I wanted to be sure to capture this information in the dissertation. Therefore, I included these themes as new questions in Interview Guidelines as questions 6 and 7 in Appendix A. As these themes emerged in the interviews from the Pilot Study, the Dissertation Committee agreed that this did not disqualify the Pilot Study data from inclusion in this study.

2.

The Verbal and Written Report exercise was included immediately after the Initial Interview. This was the same sequence as in the pilot study, but with different timing of the break between the interviews. In reviewing the raw interview data from the pilot study, I found no detectable differences in themes between the two interview sequences with different breaks. However, this timing of doing the Verbal and Written Report exercise immediately after the Initial Interview did allow for more thorough preparation of questions for Follow-up Interview.

On this basis, the research design for this study was almost the same as the completed Pilot Study, the Dissertation Committee gave permission for the data generated from the two informants in the Pilot Study be included in the data analysis for this study. The Saybrook University Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval for the Pilot Study was received on April 20, 2015. IRB approval was received for the dissertation study on April 11, 2016. Modifications to the IRB providing for including people over 64 years of age in the study, and for payment of informants for travel expenses were approved by the IRB on July 6,

66 2016 and on August 18, 2016. After the conclusion of the first IRB approval for the dissertation, a second IRB approval was obtained on April 25, 2017, which covered the final three follow-up interviews conducted as part of the dissertation research. Eliciting lived experience. One of the major challenges facing phenomenological research in general, and this study in particular, is how to develop an understanding of verbal or written reports of embodied human experience (van Manen, 2014). Much of our bodily functioning is not conscious to us, and a large amount of our sensory experience occurs in the background, at least at a preconscious level. In addition, the body is subject to prohibitions and taboos, experiences of pain and abuse, or of control by parents, teachers, coaches, and others in authority, and therefore is often a source of confusion, shame, and fear (Grogan, 2006; Moss, 1982, 1992). Authority over the body and possible meanings of bodily experience, for example, through the power of the diagnosis, is often ceded to health professionals as part of the process of accessing care within a biomedical model (Dubbin et al., 2013; Sointu, 2012, 2016). As a consequence the language accessible for the description of bodily experiences is often impoverished, and the level of skill at describing them is frequently low (Moustakas, 1994). Overall, it is necessary to understand that utterances about experience are not complete evocations of that experience. As Madison (1982) wrote, “One speaks in order to articulate a kind of felt ‘meaning’ that proceeds our speaking, but in speaking we are led, by the inner momentum of language, to produce specific meanings” (p. 270) that may often be greater in their conceptual connotations, or less in their specificity, concreteness, and feeling that the speaker would intend. Speech is a creation, which is always already constrained to some extent, by what can be said within our inherited language and culture (Lafont, 2005). “Thus, while language is grounded in experience…no particular statement about experience at any particular time can ever

67 be said to express it ‘adequately’” (Madison, 1982, p. 271). Processes were put in place with the aim of helping maximize the effectiveness of the data gathering, including (a) selection of informants experienced in the Feldenkrais Method, (b) using an appropriate research setting, (c) phenomenological interviewing, and (d) methods for eliciting written and verbal reports of experiences. Informants: Inclusion and exclusion criteria. For this dissertation six informants were located through Feldenkrais Method practitioners in the San Francisco Bay Area, in addition to the two informants involved in the Pilot Study. The inclusion criteria were that informants: y

Were adults between 18 years and 84 years of age;

y

had experienced the Feldenkrais Method as a client/student over a period of at least 18 months, including experiencing both of the modalities of the Method (Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement);

y

initially came to utilize the Feldenkrais Method in relation to pain;

y

had sufficient English language skills to discuss their experience; and

y

signed an informed consent to participate in the research.

The following criteria were used to exclude potential participants: y

current or former clients/students of the researcher,

y

current or former clients/students of other Feldenkrais Practitioners who work at the Feldenkrais Center for Movement and Awareness in San Francisco (because of the researcher’s role as an owner),

y

professionally trained Feldenkrais teacher-practitioners.

Experienced informants. The question of the level of experience informants have with the Feldenkrais Method is an important methodological question. Many experimental research processes include neophytes to the intervention to attempt to avoid potential bias. In contrast, as this is not an interventional study, more long-term clients were sought on the basis that they have more experience to draw upon. This included experience of Feldenkrais

68 practices, and more experience of the effects, if any, of the Feldenkrais Method in their lives. A number of theorists have posited that for the study of consciousness and inner experience such as meditation, that it may be most useful to involve experienced practitioners, or indeed even train informants in the practice as a prerequisite for conducting an effective study (Depraz et al., 2003; Varela & Shear, 1999). It could be argued that, as the Feldenkrais Method is an approach to developing somatic awareness, the Method itself provides opportunities for students and clients to become more adept at identifying and articulating their bodily experience. However, experience with the Method may well also direct that awareness in particular ways. The aim, however, of a phenomenological study such as this is to provide a plausible description of the experience rather than objective findings. Therefore, the informants’ prior experience of the Feldenkrais Method was an essential and valuable feature of this research. An additional challenge was that long-term clients did have trouble discerning the individual contribution of the Feldenkrais Method in their life and health in contrast to other factors in their life, including the duration of their health conditions, the passing of time, and other medical, health promoting practices that many had engaged in, such as other somatic or mind–body practices. There were ways in which they also felt that they had integrated the awareness, the practice, and the benefits of doing in such a way as to not always be able to differentiate it from their ongoing movement, bodily, and life experience. It could be argued that there were ways in which their unconscious competence as experienced practitioners of the Feldenkrais Method inhibited bringing their more expert level of now taken-for-granted experience into awareness and language (Dreyfus, 1996). The researcher monitored the

69 possible effects of the duration of the experience with the Feldenkrais Method on informants’ descriptions. Recruitment. A convenience sample of informants was used. The following process was utilized: 1. I contacted Feldenkrais professional colleagues in San Francisco Bay Area using my professional network, and sent a copy of the recruitment letter for their reference. 2. These practitioners were asked to approach students/clients who might fit the criteria as to their possible interest in participating in the research, and the practitioner either asked their permission to send the potential informant’s contact information me, or asked the potential informant to contact the researcher. 3. Then I contacted the potential informant and conducted a screening interview by telephone. 4. The screening interview allowed me to ascertain if potential informants matched the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and I was able to get a sense of their English language abilities. 5. I selected participants and set up informed consent, interviews, and so forth. The screening questions were: 1. How long have you been doing Feldenkrais Method? 2. Have you ever attended classes or seen a practitioner at the Feldenkrais Center for Movement and Awareness in San Francisco? 3. What brought you to doing the Feldenkrais Method? 4. Have you done both classes (Awareness Through Movement) and individual sessions (Functional Integration)? Research setting. Interviews were conducted at locations convenient to the informants, either at the Feldenkrais Center for Movement and Awareness in San Francisco, or the office of the informant’s Feldenkrais practitioner or teacher. The aim of using these settings was to ensure that the interview setting is as convenient as possible for the informants and, possibly, that the setting may also be evocative of their experience of the Feldenkrais Method.

70 Phenomenological interviews. The aim of the phenomenological interview was “to collect examples of possible human experiences in order to reflect on the meanings that may inhere in them” (van Manen, 2014, p. 313). Unlike many qualitative human science approaches, the aim was not to gather individual, idiographic experience in order to present them as such. Instead, the aim was to gather reports of experience in order to identify general or common (“nomothetic”) aspects of experience (Pollio et al., 1997, p. 40). The nature of the interview questions and the interviewer aimed to guide the informant to provide “thick description” (Geertz, 1973, p. 3) of actual experience: examples, anecdotes, narratives, and descriptions of specific incidences, events, or practices (Benner, 1994b; van Manen, 2014). The phenomenological research interview has a conversational quality, with the researcher maintaining an open, appreciative, and nonjudgmental responsiveness (Benner, 1994b; Mishler, 1986; A. L. Morgan, 2011). I aimed not to have a neutral tone, as this is often perceived as judgmental and can tend to shorten responses, or lead the informant to try to provide what they perceive to be an acceptable answer (Mishler, 1986; Pollio et al., 1987). A phenomenological interview is not concerned with the accuracy of the account, in terms of its facticity, but instead with drawing out a detailed, plausible account that is meaningful for the informant (A. L. Morgan, 2011; van Manen, 2014). Therefore, the interviewer does not need to question the veracity of an account, while at the same time, seeking as much concrete detail of the reported experience as possible. Materials and instruments. Interview guidelines. The interviews involved an open dialogue focusing on (a) the informants’ experience of doing Feldenkrais sessions or classes and (b) the experience of

71 including Feldenkrais Method practices in their lives. A semistructured interview guide was used to support the interview process (see Appendix A). Although some approaches to phenomenological research use an unstructured interview format, semistructured interviews are also used (A. L. Morgan, 2011). As has already been discussed, asking for reports of bodily, sensory-motor, and affective experience can present a significant challenge for many informants. In this context, Moustakas (1994) noted, “Sometimes a general interview guideline, or topical guide, is used when the [informant’s] story has not tapped into the experience qualitatively and with sufficient meaning and depth” (p. 116). Van Manen (1990) also expressed concerns about the use of “the so called ‘unstructured or open-ended’ interview method” (p. 67). He wrote: Either one may end up with material that consists of lots of (too short) responses to long winded or leading questions by the researcher, or…an unmanageable quantity of tapes or transcripts. Interview material that is skimpy and that lacks sufficient concreteness in the form of stories, anecdotes, and examples of experiences, etc. may be quite useless, tempting the researcher to indulge in over-interpretation, speculations, and an overreliance on personal opinions or personal experience. (van Manen, 1990, pp. 66–67) The function of the semistructured interview guidelines in this research design was to provide (a) sample questions if the flow of conversation stopped, (b) questions if the informant was having difficulty bringing forth detailed, concrete descriptions of their experience, and (c) ways of addressing different aspects of the informants’ total experience. They acted as aide de memoir for me. It was not intended that (a) all the questions were asked, (b) that the questions asked was written, or (c) the questions were asked in the order in which they appear. Indeed, this was how the interview guidelines were actually used in the study. These guidelines were valuable as an aid in the interviews to help ensure they covered many aspects of the informants’ experiences. Included in the guidelines were questions about the informants’ specific experiences about the Feldenkrais Method, for example, enquiries about informants’ first and

72 most recent experiences. For the overall impact of Feldenkrais Method on their lives, questions were asked about the general impact and impact in the last week (Bentz, 1989). In addition, there was a question about how the informant described the experience of Feldenkrais to others, because in my clinical experience that can be a revealing question. Finally, most interviews finished with asking if there is anything else the informant wanted to add as has been suggested by many authors (e.g., A. L. Morgan, 2011). During the conversation, probing questions such as requests for additional or different examples were used to achieve a greater level of focus and specificity in the informant descriptions (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009). “Getting in touch” with experience: Focused recall. Halling and Goldfarb (1991) suggested that the felt sense of an experience can provide access to direct bodily experience in the process of verbal formulation and expression. Petitmengin (2006, 2007) and Stern (2004, 2010) have written that it is important in bringing forth a felt-sense or felt meaning of prior experience, that the informant be supported in getting in touch with the direct sensory, affective, motor, and gestural aspects of the remembered experience. This can include the dynamic, “transmodal” (Petitmengin, 2007, p. 64) “forms of vitality” (Stern, 2010, p. 3)23 that are experienced. A kind of focused recall process, using mindfulness and directed attention, which was developed and utilized by Stelter (2010) in his research into CAM modalities. This process was used in this study to support the kind of receptivity to normally preconscious or preverbal aspects of experience to contribute to generating such descriptions.

23

Stern, (2004, 2010) originally discussed these “forms of vitality” as “vitality affects.” Colombetti (2014) described vitality affects as, “mainly proprioceptive and kinesthetic experiences imbued with affective qualities, such as muscular tension, contraction, and resistance, or of ease of movement, fluidity, and unobstruction which come with a degree of felt arousal and changes in hedonic tone accompanying shifts in bodily dynamics” (p. 21).

73 At one time during each Initial Interview, I asked the informants to engage in this focused recall process by closing their eyes if they wished (or otherwise softening their gaze and looking down), imagining the remembered situation, try to get a felt sense of the situation, find an initial descriptor (such as a word, phrase, or image), to stay meditatively with the felt sense, and then continue the interview with a description arising from this process (Stelter, 2010). If this procedure had not been used earlier in the Initial Interview, then it was used at the end of the interview, asking the informants to do this procedure, focusing on their experience of the Feldenkrais Method as a whole, with the aim of discovering if any additional instances of their experience of the Method may be recalled. A text for this procedure within an interview is included in the Interview Guidelines (see Appendix A, Part C). Overall, I tried to support the informants in the bringing forth of such descriptions, encouraging them to find language for not usually talked about aspects of experience (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2006; Petitmengin, 2006), while trying not to introduce any additional terminology, concepts, or metaphors not already used by informants. Stimulated written and verbal reports. In an attempt to stimulate reports of experiences of the Feldenkrais Method, each informant was asked to do an Awareness Through Movement lesson from an audio recording. These Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons, like all such lessons, involved gentle, nonforceful movements that invite the student to move within their range of comfortable action. The lessons were done lying on a mat on the floor, with appropriate head supports as needed. These lessons included repeated instructions to move in a way that is comfortable, and does not cause pain or increase any pain that a student may already have. The informants were familiar with doing Awareness Through Movement lessons, as that was one of the inclusion criteria for the study. To reduce possible bias, this recorded lesson was

74 not one created by the researcher, or other Feldenkrais Practitioners who work at the Feldenkrais Center for Movement and Awareness in San Francisco. The lessons used were drawn from Introduction to the Feldenkrais Method, Vol. 1, audio series developed by Elizabeth Beringer and David Zemach-Bersin (n.d.). These teachers trained with Moshe Feldenkrais and are among the first North American practitioners of the Method, having graduated from their training programs in 1977. They are experienced Feldenkrais Trainers certified to train new Feldenkrais teacher-practitioners. The lesson “1–02 – Easier Turning” was used in five cases where the informants were able to lie comfortably on their sides. However, in the three cases where informants were not able to lie, or lie comfortably, on their sides on that day, then lesson “2–05–Mobilizing the Trunk” was used. The use of these materials ensured a degree of standardization of the material used for the Stimulated Written and Verbal recall exercise, using materials that are recognized to be of a high standard by the Feldenkrais professional field. Informants were provided with a choice of large file cards and pens, pencils, and markers, and asked to record words, phrases, or images that come to them. This method of using file cards to identify significant words or phrases is adapted from a device used by poets and other writers for creating a kind of personal word deck (McClure, 1978). Gathering verbal reports of experience immediately prior to self-observation, has been used in research in a number of settings (Gass & Mackey, 2000), including Gestalt psychology research (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951). The aim of this brief note-taking requirement was to assist informants to capture a number of aspects of their experience while still fresh in their memories. The nonlinear format of using file cards, rather than a notepad for example, is to suggest to the informant that the notes do not have to be extensive to be useful, and that a number and variety

75 of thoughts, experiences, or insights could be captured. This form of note-taking can act as bridge between immersion in the actual experience and a more extensive description in the interview that followed. Informants were encouraged to do some of this noting activity during the pauses in movement that are a part of all Awareness Through Movement lessons. They were informed that the lesson could be paused if they need more time for making notes. Several informants took advantage of this option to make notes during the lesson. While this is not part of regular Feldenkrais Method practice, it appeared to be minimally disruptive for an experienced student of the Method. Time was also allocated at the conclusion of the lesson for additional notes the informant wished to make. The informants were then asked to read over, and reflect upon what they had written or drawn, adding any words, phrases, or images they wished. They were then interviewed about their experience(s), drawing upon any of the materials on the cards they chose. The researcher also collected the cards from the informant, and recorded what was on the cards as part of the research materials. Feldenkrais Method Awareness Through Movement lessons are sometimes done from memory, notes, or videos. As the use of a recorded lesson, the particular lesson, or the teacher teaching the recorded lesson were unfamiliar to some of the informants, a number of questions were asked to ascertain the familiarity of this learning situation for the informant in case this may have impacted their experience and their reports of their experience. These questions addressed whether: (a) doing a recorded audio lesson was a familiar or unfamiliar format compared to the informants’ usual practice (e.g., live teaching or using a video), (b) the style of the teacher was different from that of Feldenkrais teachers who the informant had previously experienced, and

76 (c) whether they had any response to the particular content of the lesson. The Written and Verbal Report Guidelines are included in Appendix A, Part C. The interview took between 10 and 40 minutes, depending in part on the content, the length of the initial interview, and the time the informant had available. Interview sequence. Each informant was interviewed in three steps in this sequence: (a) an initial interview, (b) followed immediately by doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson and the Written and Verbal Report exercise as the basis of a second interview on the same day in which they were asked about their experience during the lesson, and (c) a third, follow-up interview was held between two and four months later. The follow-up interviews focused particularly on clarifications of parts of the initial interviews, and drew on my analysis of the first interviews with informants (e.g., organized by themes developed by the researcher based on the Initial Interview and Written and Verbal Report exercise, and using examples of text from the first interview that seem to exemplify the experiences being described). The aim of these interviews was to seek clarification, deepening, or extension of the material from the initial two interviews. The pilot study had shown the value of making use of the informants’ language from the Initial Interviews in the Follow-up Interview questions (Rubin & Rubin, 2011). Questions were asked to bring forth more concrete and specific experiences (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009), such as (a) asking for further examples, (b) asking informants about key ideas, concepts, images, metaphors, or experiences identified in the first interviews. The researcher was again careful not to introduce new terminology, concepts, or metaphors in the Follow-up Interviews. The total interview time was approximately two to three hours, including 35–45 minutes spent doing the Awareness Through Movement lesson. Digital audio recordings were made of the interviews. Recordings were de-identified when sent for transcription.

77 Observation and note-taking during interviews. When people are talking about bodily experience and movement, they often use gesture to help get in touch with, recall, and communicate the experience (Petitmengin, 2007). This study did not utilize formal gestural analysis (Young, 2002); however, selective descriptions of gestures were noted during some interviews. I also made verbal descriptions of informants’ demonstrations of movement sequences from Awareness Through Movement during the interviews, and these became part of the recorded record of the interview. Reflexive practices in this study. In keeping with the phenomenological research literature, my pre-understandings were reflected upon throughout the dissertation research process. This involved a reflexive process of self-observation, documentation, and reflection upon emergent understandings, and how these reflected my fore-conceptions of the experiences described. This included both the intended focus of the study and understandings of new aspects of experience and phenomena as they emerged and went beyond the initial conceptions held at the commencement of the study. Gough (2003) proposed three kinds of reflexivity: (a) personal: collecting personal reflections about expectations about the research and responses during data collection and analysis, (b) functional: awareness and reflection on roles and interactions within the research process, and (c) disciplinary: critical awareness of the place of the research within the practices and debates within the field. This framework was used to guide my process of reflection. Researcher reflexivity and reflective materials. As part of this dissertation study, I created the following materials. y

Reflexive written protocols describing my interests and prior experience with the research topic, including preparing my own written responses to the questions in the Interview Guidelines. Such protocols were produced for the pilot study and were

78 continued as part of the dissertation. Also included were reflections on why I undertook this research. y

A research journal reflecting on the research process. This journal came to a total of eight B5 size Cornell Method Note books, which provide a place for the date, and margins and space in the footer for notes and reflections on the main notes. This journal was used to capture insights into the research process, the effect of the research process on my assumptions, and insights on the emerging findings from the research. One aspect of the research journal were entries made at the time of interviews. In addition, important ideas from the literature were used to illuminate themes emerging in the text, and vice versa. Thus, the journal was used iteratively to move between the disciplinary fields of phenomenology, hermeneutics, and somatics and the emerging findings from the research.

These protocols and journal materials were used as sources of data in the preparation of the final dissertation, and in tracking the process of developing themes, descriptions, and structures, I referenced them. Textual Analysis and Exploration in This Dissertation Microsoft Word software was used to aid with the text analysis, particularly the tools that provided for line numbering, tables, and sort features, use of colored fonts and highlighting, and tracking changes and comments to aid in analysis and selection of texts. In addition, use was made of manual and visual-spatial techniques for sorting and arranging themes and texts, including preparing and clustering Post-it Notes of various sizes and colors; drawing diagrams to associate themes, meta-themes, variations, the structure of the experience and its constituents; underlining text in colored pencil; and cutting up blocks of text and arranging them in different combinations and sequences. Before each major step in the text exploration, first with the individual informant’s texts and then with the common themes and descriptions, I reviewed the literature on phenomenological and hermeneutic approaches to understanding text.

79 Texts From Individual Informants: Processes for Exploring Texts and Developing Themes For the analysis of the material from the first two interviews with each informant, I used the following steps: 1. Listening and “horizontalization”: Listening to each of the interviews and reading the transcripts in a process of horizontalization, which aims to offer an open listening to all experience described by the informant (Moustakas, 1994, p. 122). 2. Listening to the interviews and reading the text multiple times, including corrections to transcripts, along with an initial identification of themes. 3. Reading and identification of themes and some key quotes to prepare for writing “naive statements” which briefly summarized the whole of the transcripts from the first two interviews (Lindseth & Norberg, 2004, p. 145). 4. Re-reading the interview texts and naïve descriptions, and preparing questions for the follow-up Interview. Keywords and phrases from the transcripts of the initial two interviews were included for the preparation of the questions for the follow-up interviews (Rubin & Rubin, 2011). For the analysis of the material from all three interviews with each informant, I used this process: 1. Listening, re-reading, and doing text editing (see Appendix B for the Individual interview editing guidelines) 2. Organizing texts based on themes, including revising themes developed from the first two interviews, and developing new themes. A notebook for each informant was created at this time to record preliminary ideas for themes and record questions, puzzlements, and wonderings related to their specific testimony. 3. Creating a “temporal table”: a “phenomenological” and “temporal” “base line,” comparing each informant’s experience before doing Feldenkrais and since doing it, as well as before and after Awareness Through Movement lessons and/or Functional Integration sessions (Wertz, 2011, p. 132). 4. Creating a list of prevalent use of language for each informant, including frequently used terms, image schemas, and metaphors. 5. Using the naive statements to help with the “clustering” of meanings (Dahlberg et al., 2008, p. 245), organizing thematically similar material and identifying text that did or did not fit with those tentative themes (Lindseth & Norberg, 2004). Both the “selective or highlighting approach” and “line-by-line analysis” (van Manen, 1990, p. 93) were used to identify modes of “experience, meanings, motifs” (Wertz, 2011, p. 132).

80 6. Adding these emerging themes from the individual informant’s text to a “common themes table,” which was used as an heuristic device in developing the meta-themes in the next stage of data analysis. 7. Creating a Themes and Descriptive Texts document for each informant, which included: (a) Theme descriptors and key quotes, (b) selected texts presented thematically, and (c) the source texts of the key quotes and selected texts taken from the interviews— for reference during the text exploration process. The final Theme and Descriptive Texts document, without the source texts, for each informant is composed of theme descriptors, key quotes, and descriptive texts, and appears as the findings in Chapter 4 and Appendix C of this dissertation. Searching for Themes and Descriptive Texts From Different Informants: Processes for Exploring Texts and Developing Common Meta-Themes The next steps in the text analysis involved: 1. re-reading and reflecting upon the Theme and Descriptive Texts documents for each informant to be open to, intuit, uncover, and grasp for meanings of the experiences described—a process of trying to make sense of them as aspects of possible common experiences from the comparison of interview material from the different informants (Benner, 1994b; K. J. Shapiro, 1985; van Manen, 1990, 2014); 2. interpreting texts where the meaning was vague or unclear or where an utterance was complex (Shusterman, 1991; Taylor, 1979); 3. interpreting informant themes and descriptive texts in relation to each other, toward developing plausible and probable interpretations of common experiences (Taylor, 1979; van Manen, 2014); 4. an initial forming of meta-themes and variations of these experiences of what is similar, different, common, and essential to the emerging themes (Benner, 1994b; K. J. Shapiro, 1985; Tesch, 1987); 5. sorting, ordering, and interpreting interview themes and descriptive texts to identify common meta-themes, and variations of those meta-themes (Tesch, 1987; Wertz, 2005, 2011), using the Themes and Descriptive texts prepared from each informant’s interview texts as a basis, but also referring to the full interview transcripts as necessary;

81 6. using imaginative variation of the constituents of each meta-theme and variation of exemplifying texts to help clarity and refine both nature of the meta-themes and their constituents (Tesch, 1987; Wertz, 2005, 2011). In the process of exploring the texts, I kept in mind two key questions from Tesch (1987): “What is the existential question to which this story is the answer?” and “What is the realm of meaning that the data tend to conceal as they reveal themselves?” (p. 238); 7. preparing phenomenological descriptions of patterns of experience uncovered—of the dynamic structure, that is, the form, flow and function, of the experiences or phenomena identified in meta-themes and their constituents to describe the structure of the experience and its constituents (Moerer-Urdahl & Creswell, 2004; K. J. Shapiro, 1985); and 8. the selection of exemplifying texts (anecdotes, descriptions, and images) for these structural descriptions (Benner, 1994b; van Manen, 1990, 2014). This was a highly iterative process of moving back and forth between themes from the informants, meta-themes and their constituents, and exemplifying texts to check interpretations, develop and revise the structural descriptions, to check that the structural descriptions represented the experiences as described, and to select exemplifying texts. A process of “understanding, interpretation, and critique” and new understandings, often associated with the process of the hermeneutic circle (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2009, p. 116). Works identified in the Literature Review, particularly from somatics and phenomenology, were referenced as part of this iterative process as “insight cultivators” (van Manen, 2014, p. 324). Epoché, Reductions, and Developing Plausible Explications It is acknowledged in the research approach used for this dissertation that although my knowledge of the Feldenkrais Method is not necessarily an impediment to this research, and in fact can be an asset to developing understandings (Bentz & Shapiro, 1998; Bohman, 1991; Mantzoukos, 2005; van Manen, 1990), it was still important to be present to my foreunderstandings of the subject of the study. I paid particular attention to moments in the process of reading, interpreting, and organizing texts when an informant presented an aspect of the experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method which (a) I was not familiar, (b) where the

82 informant used language that is not often associated with the practice of the Method, or (c) where the informant reported negative or unpleasant results from an aspect of their practice to stay open and reflect on the nature of their experience. At the same time, listening for the ways informants connected aspects of more common experiences of the Feldenkrais Method to each other and their lives was very instructive for opening to new understandings of more familiar experiences. My main strategy to minimize possible negative impacts of my fore-knowledge on the analysis and explication of the text, was to stay near to the informants’ expression and include as much of the informant testimony as possible in the findings in Chapter 4 and 5 and Appendix C to allow their own language to carry the meanings. This may have impacted the flow in the presentation of the findings for the reader; however, it is an important way to help ensure an authentic report of the experiences. I also used tables to document both the presence and the location in the texts of examples of meta-themes and constituents of meta-themes from the informants’ explicit testimonies. In this way, there is an emphasis on the fusion of horizons not only between the researcher and informants, but also among the informants’ texts. Critical interpretive readings of the texts, and reflection on possible implicit meanings, added to the iterative process of reflecting on possible and plausible explications of meaning. Much of the literature on the use of reductions, or reflection, in the phenomenological literature relates to Husserlerian transcendental phenomenology (Husserl, 1962, 1952/1989a; Spiegelberg, 1982), which is primarily philosophical in its intent, or to empirical, descriptive phenomenology, used in psychology (Giorgi, 2009; Polkinghorne, 1983; von Eckartsberg, 1986). More recent writing provides some insights into ways of thinking about the use of reductions in

83 phenomenological research in human sciences (Schmicking, 2010; van Manen, 2014; Wertz, 2005, 2011). In this dissertation, I have engaged in processes suggested by Schmicking (2010) for “investigating particular phenomena” involving “detecting and grasping,” “analyzing” and “describing experiences,” as well as “mere logical analysis” comparing parts and wholes of individual and collective testimony and the described experiences. I have analyzed the texts for “typical” and “invariant” structures” (Schmicking, 2010, p. 50). At the same time, I have dealt with the fact that the fuzzy qualities, vagueness, and imprecision of common language (and sometimes the everyday use of technical language) in relation to bodily experience, makes categorization and typification more a process of detecting important resemblances than creating precise categories (Gavin, 1992; K. J. Shapiro, 1985). Van Manen’s (1990) notion of “themes” as “intransitive” was useful in understanding the sometimes fluid nature of the clustering of experiences from the text (p. 87). I have tried to understand the whole of the various key experiences communicated by the informants within the variations of individual examples and constituents, which are often suggestive of the lifeworld or way of being of the person (Husserl, 1954/1970; van Manen, 2014). A Somatic Reduction Van Manen (2014) affirmed: As part of the methodological reduction, we need to suspend the inclination to rely on a set of rules, a schema of steps, or a series of steps. Rather, each phenomenon requires its own unique approach and its unique application of the epoché and reduction. (p. 220) In finding an approach to the exploration of text in this study, I have tried to use my understanding of the field of somatics. Somatic thought would propose a unity of mind, body, and world (or the mental, kinesthetic-affective bodily experience, and the lifeworld) in an objective physical, social, and cultural-linguistic environment. In addition, thinkers in in the

84 field of somatics often employ a dynamic systems perspective. Therefore, describing and categorizing somatic experience is often more process-oriented, rather than object-oriented. Dynamic systems thinking also implies complex relationships and causality between elements of the system. Somatics assumes that self-movement is meaningful, on the one hand, and on the other, that verbal descriptions of sometimes fleeting and elusive somatic experiences are often fuzzy or vague. In addition, a concrete experience, say a sense of comfort during movement, may “speak to,” for example, a more universal sense of “comfort with oneself.” In somatics, the qualities, the “how” of an experience are often more important than the “what” of the experience (e.g., “I lifted my arm smoothly and easily on an inhale, with a sense of lengthening and shifting my weight,” compared to “I lifted my arm”). Finally, understandings in somatics arise not from purely thinking processes, but more from “feeling” (in the double meaning of sensation and affect) and “sense” (or sens in the French, which has a broader meaning than “sensation,” incorporating a direction, context, and a larger meaningfulness). Feeling and sense are always already oriented and situated within someone’s life. A “somatic reduction” could therefore be seen as an invitation to (a) a suspension of any assumption of mind, body, and world as separate entities or substances, (b) of simple causality, (c) of the expectation of precise meanings in language for the phenomena studied, and (d) static or state-based descriptions. Expectations of identifying pure or simple experiences and cognitions, with universal application also need to be held in abeyance. Many of these aspects of a somatic reduction are in common with established aspects of the reduction in phenomenological research, partly because somatics is a field defined and practiced in a phenomenological way that emphasizes lived experience. Keeping these somatic tools at the

85 forefront of my reflection was useful in explicating themes and structures in this dissertation research. There are two additional aspects of contemporary thinking in somatics that are important to the process of reflecting on the data gathered for this study, these are the relationship between experiencing and language, and the nature of preconscious and conscious experience. Experiencing and language. Languages and cultures frame or restrain what can be expressed in language of bodily experience and, therefore, may limit or distort a person’s access to possible bodily experiences (Feldenkrais, 1972; Shusterman, 2008). Recognizing this, many somatics practices make intentional use of language to attempt to evoke particular experiences for their students and clients. Feldenkrais teacher-practitioners are trained to use language in particular ways in teaching Awareness Through Movement with the aim of eliciting specific kinds of movement, perception, and awareness for students24. In Awareness Through Movement, for example, use of minimal instructions and open-ended questions, rather than detailed descriptions of the proposed action, students can “fill in” their own sensory, movement, and affective experience, and their own cognitions about the process—much as can occur in some forms of practices like guided meditation, hypnosis, and guided imagery. Skillful use of metaphors can also bring forth qualities of experience. Further, Feldenkrais (2008) saw that one

24

Moshe Feldenkrais made a point of making audio or video recordings of his teaching, including 550 lessons taught to the public at the Feldenkrais Institute in Tel Aviv from the 1950s to the 1970s (Feldenkrais, 1994–2004), as well as his recordings of particular training programs and public workshops (e.g., Feldenkrais, 2008). There is a body of around 1,000 recorded and/or transcribed Awareness Through Movement lessons in English originally taught by Feldenkrais. In addition, most Feldenkrais teacher training programs record the live teaching of Awareness Through Movement lessons taught in the program. Practitioners are encouraged to study these materials as part of their learning of the particular, precise use of language which is a key aspect of teaching the Feldenkrais Method.

86 valuable aspect of his work was to allow students to have a concrete experience of important concepts of bodily life, such as stability and instability, differentiation and integration, or force and effort. A somatic reduction requires sensitivity to the relationship between language and experience. Conscious and preconscious experience. Scholarly thought from the field of somatics takes into account that bodily experience always occurs in the context of societies and cultures (Shusterman, 2008, 2012a, 2012b). As all humans, with few exceptions, develop within cultural and linguistic environments, it is not entirely possible or productive in text analysis to try to disambiguate all prereflective experience from all conceptualizations of that experience. Instead, I aimed to be sensitive to both the limiting and enabling interactions between language and direct bodily experience in the text analysis. Finally, Schmicking (2010) presents an argument, That the notion of a simple split (conscious vs. non-conscious/sub-personal/etc.) must be abandoned. Husserl’s conception of secondary passivity has suggested that there is no “once-and-for-all” fixed boundary between what is conscious to the reflective mind and what is not. Depending on one’s activities, learning, etc. there is a whole bundle of lines which are likely to be domain specific and in a continual change for every skill for every individual respectively. For instance, certain lines move according to the increased automatization of skills. (p. 50) It is clear from the texts that some prereflective experiences resulted in more conscious or clear awareness and expressions when reflected upon, while others remained opaque and varying greatly between individual informants. In conclusion, while embracing the aim to identify prereflective phenomena, which influence the informants’ changes in perception and action—along with prereflective phenomena emerging into consciousness—it is inevitable that the testimonies gathered include a mix of direct experience, as well as the informants’ feelings, concepts, and interpretations of that experience. In addition, the informants frequently express nascent or explicit conceptions that

87 draw upon ideas from the Feldenkrais Method and other systems of practice and thought, as well as commonplace understandings. These are all part of the phenomena associated with a somatic practice, such as the Feldenkrais Method, as experienced and expressed by students.

88 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS Results of Thematic Analysis The findings from this research study are presented in two chapters. Chapter 4 will report on the themes that emerged from the process of textual analysis. This will include an example of the thematic exploration from one informant, and identify common meta-themes brought forward from the comparative analysis of the themes and text from all the informants. Chapter 5 presents the results of the analysis of the texts in terms of the structure of the experience for the informants. A detailed description of the processes that led to both the thematic and structural descriptions can be found in Chapter 3. Content of This Chapter This chapter begins with some introductory notes about the texts. This is followed by the Themes (titles and descriptive texts) from Informant B, presented along with the Exemplifying Texts for readers to get a sense of how the theme was developed. Further, to provide the reader with more details of the informants’ testimonies and additional context about the data collection, texts from the individual informants can be found as follows: Themes, with Descriptive Texts and Exemplifying Texts from informants A, and C through H can be found in Appendix C. How the individual themes are presented. The themes presented in this chapter for informant B, and in Appendix C for the other informants, emerged from the three interviews with each person, and the themes presented are unique to each informant. Each theme presentation involves three parts (a) a Title generated by the researcher, (b) a brief Descriptive Text on the theme, drawing mostly on texts from the informants that capture something essential about the theme, and (c) Exemplifying Texts—which present key texts from the informants about the theme. In the brief Descriptive Texts for each Theme, most of the language is quoted

89 directly from the informant texts. In some cases, I added a few words to the Descriptive Text in order to make the statement more coherent (e.g., introductory or concluding words to provide context, conjunctions). Each informant’s themes are identified by the letter identifier for the informant, and then the number of that theme (e.g., A1—theme 1 from Informant A, or C17— Theme 17 from Informant C). Table 1 provides the structure of the presentation of individual themes, using Theme B2 as an example.

Table 1 Format of Individual Themes Theme title (in bold text):

Descriptive text for the theme (in italics):

Exemplifying texts for the theme (in Roman face)

“Theme B2: New ways of dealing with stress.”

“I don’t take… stress on physically.”

“When things bother me now, I don’t take that stress on physically. I don’t let it make me feel physically bad. I don’t process stress physically anymore. I don’t tense up. Because I’ve experienced what it’s like not to feel tensed up. And I feel that probably 80, 90% of the time, I don’t feel tensed up.”

Introductory notes on the texts from individual informants. The Exemplifying Texts with each theme are selections of the informant’s utterances on a Theme, much of them are from continuous testimony from the interviews. However, partly because of the three interviews done with each informant, relevant material was also assembled together from different parts of the testimony in each theme. The texts were edited as per the editing guidelines set out in Appendix B. Material not relevant to the informant’s experience of the Feldenkrais Method, material that

90 was inaudible or was a speech fragment (e.g., the repeated beginning of a phrase or sentence), and a small amount of material that did not fit within the identified Themes was excluded from the theme texts presented in this chapter and in Appendix C. Many of the utterances from the informants were complex, dealing with multiple aspects of the informants’ experiences of the Feldenkrais Method. For example, in this text informant C describes a range of outcomes from Feldenkrais sessions involving specific bodily sensations and overall affect: “Whatever I’ve done…Awareness Through Movement, or a Functional Integration session, I walk out…feeling taller, straighter, more aligned, more comfortable, relaxed…generally a sense of well-being” (C2). Often, the informants are exploring complex and subtle relationships between aspects of their experience, for example, where the attention to the details of sensory experience brought informant E, “slowly inward, inward, inward—where there is more space because you’re not thinking about all of these other things around you that are distractions or restrictions” (E3). At times informants expressed how hard it was to describe their experience in words, The parts of me—are more together. Absolutely. I think it starts with the body movement….Well, I think. Sorry I can’t….With the mind…the mind and body together….Also, I feel a little floaty too. Floaty is great. That wonderful sense of space in this [that] I’m not quite sure how to talk about…the feeling integrated. (C8) The reader may get a sense of a groping for connections between aspects of experience and the search for expressive constructions and metaphors: It’s sort of something about feeling like myself…without all the crap. I know it’s the sense of frantically accomplishing things, which gets in the way of feeling integrated… [Doing Feldenkrais] dissipates that quite a bit. It’s almost like being on a mini vacation, without your cell phone, on the beach….So, it’s something like that. (C8) I hope that by retaining longer selections of informants’ texts and grouping them by theme, these subtle and complex aspects of informants’ experience can be uncovered, lifted out, and brought forward in meaningful contexts. I have chosen to present much of the findings in

91 the words of informants themselves. I am aware that little material of this type has previously been gathered or published about the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method, so I believe that it is important to present a body of these texts, which may be of interest and value to other somatics practitioners and researchers. I also hope that, in presenting these materials in this form, it provides a check and balance on my fore-knowledge of this topic, as it allows the reader to check the themes I have developed for the individual informants and common meta-themes in this chapter, in relation to the source texts. It is hoped that ample presentation of informants texts will evoke some sense of the original experience, creating understandings beyond only the cognitive, bringing forward the affective and somatic aspects of the experience (Todres, 2007; van Manen, 2014). A note on language. The texts from these informants make frequent use of some words many times in attempting to describe their experience of and with the Feldenkrais Method. Words like body, movement, mind, feeling, and sense recur often. In reading the selected texts, I invite the reader to consider these commonplace terms in the light of the possibility of broader meanings suggested by the phenomenological literature. That reading might include a nonCartesian interpretation of words such as body and mind. Even though the informants may not be formally educated in phenomenological thought, it seems possible to me that, given their long-term experience with Feldenkrais Method and in many cases other mind–body practices, that the informants may be quite in touch with, for example, the experience of the body as livedthrough and constitutive of a self and a world—rather than just a physical entity (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). Likewise, they may be in touch with the experience of movement as the experience of self-movement—rather than the displacement of an object, and of feeling being active and both sensory and affective in nature (Colombetti, 2014; Sheets-Johnstone, 1998). There are

92 places in the texts where the informants struggle to describe experiences of the relationships between the mind and the body, as conventionally put into language, and reconcile them with their own altered, emergently conscious or now-conscious experience. I invite the reader to view the texts with these reflections in mind, and to notice if the repetition of words, such as body and movement, bring forth connotations of the merely physical or physiologic, or perhaps even deliberately read some texts though the filter of the more physical understanding, and then with a more lived, meaning-laden, animate, and sensory-affective orientation to their possible meanings (Smyth, 2016b; Todres, 2007). Informant B: Themes and Exemplifying Texts I will begin with a complete presentation of the individual Themes that emerged from the interviews with informant B, and include a full presentation of the Exemplifying Texts from which these themes were developed. Themes and Exemplifying Texts As noted previously, themes are presented in the following format: a Title for the theme, followed by a Descriptive Text that sums up the theme in more direct and concrete language. Then, Exemplifying Texts has been added, for a reader to get some sense of how the theme was developed from the informant’s testimony. Theme B1: Practicing the Feldenkrais Method contributes to feelings of well-being. My sense of well-being was just zooming. I never really had the feeling that things are going to work out. Now I have that feeling all the time….if you can feel better about living in your own body, then everything else is going to work out. Feeling “physically good.” This feeling that everything does work out in some way or another, and that’s just such a motivator. Well I have this feeling that everything is going to work out and I’m sure that has to do with feeling physically better. Dread comes from not feeling good. Dread comes from not feeling like you can do something physically...

93 that, I think, gets in the way of emotional challenges, it gets in the way of thinking, it gets in the way of everything. I’m not just talking about pain. I’m not just saying, “Oh pain is alleviated therefore you can do things.” No. It’s about feeling comfortable about how you move. I never really had the feeling that things are going to work out. Now I have that feeling all the time and I really think a lot of it has to do with Feldenkrais. Because if you can feel better about living in your own body, then everything else is going to work out, isn’t it? This is a feeling I never thought would go away. This being ill-at-ease with yourself. If that can go away then, what else is there really? Physical well-being…and I’m not sure I…experienced that before…you have these things [that happen with] aging—but it’s not bad being, it’s just being. And then in general there is this feeling of well-being—and that propels you. Theme B2: New ways of dealing with stress: I don’t take…stress on physically. When things bother me now, I don’t take that stress on physically. I don’t let it make me feel physically bad. I don’t process stress physically anymore. I don’t tense up. Because I’ve experienced what it’s like not to feel tensed up. And I feel that probably 80, 90% of the time, I don’t feel tensed up. Theme B3: Developing the ability for physical relaxation. My muscular system felt more at ease and relaxed. I no longer talk myself out of [stress]. I just physically relax. I had a lot of stress and the only way I got around stress was to think myself out of it; to talk myself out of it. What’s different [with stress] is I no longer talk myself out of it. I just physically relax. I breathe, I move. I don’t feel victimized by it. It’s almost like I have a little bit of a shield. But it’s not like not looking it in the eye or dealing with it. It’s more like, “Oh yeah, it will work out.” But if you’re feeling good in your body, you’re just like, “Okay, yeah,” that’s [stress is] going to interrupt that feeling for a while—but not for too long, or it’s going to challenge this sense of well-being you have. But the sense of well-being is going to meet and overcome the challenge. It will, yeah. It’s going to, because it’s so solid… My muscular system felt more at ease and relaxed and I felt warmer, physically warmer —and that didn’t bother me and I don’t like to be warm but it felt good; a lot warmer. I felt really loose. Like, if I wanted to, I can stretch my arm like a piece of taffy or my leg like a piece of taffy… Theme B4: A sense of self-efficacy arising from feelings of well-being. I can do it because I feel good…

94 [Feldenkrais Method] is very important to me. Look how much it’s changed my life. I don’t think I would have fallen in love again to tell you the truth. I stopped thinking, “I can’t do it because I don’t look good enough.” Because I just felt great. Feldenkrais impacted my life in a big way. It helped me make a major life decision to go out and find a new intimate relationship. It was, “Like, okay, I can do this…” [The sense of well-being], it’s like a motivator. I can do it because I feel good. So it was always before, “I can do it because I’m smart” and “I can think myself through it” and “I can meet this challenge”, and “I can strategize” and “I can fig-ure-this-out…” Now I don’t have to figure… It’s just like, “Oh, I can do it because I feel good.” Theme B5: A feeling of being ageless: You feel ageless. It’s not anti-aging but it’s like, “Wow, if I am moving the best I can move then that’s kind of ageless.” I’m not defying age; I’m not saying that. It’s not like getting rid of a wrinkle. You feel ageless. Theme B6: Developing a new sense of coherence between appearance to others and internal or bodily feeling: I wanted to feel how I looked and how I moved, and not feel, kind of, like an imposter. I felt off center, very awkward and very ill-at-ease inside. So there was this outside, in which I got the best feedback possible…and then there was how I was feeling inside. Which was horrible, like, really distressed. And people who knew me well were just completely confounded by this. They couldn’t understand how…you know, I never wanted to look in the mirror. The back pain, it didn’t really figure in so much [in my initial motivation for doing Feldenkrais Method], as this feeling of discomfort of being in my own body. I wanted to feel how I looked and how I moved, and not feel, kind of, like an imposter. I knew that I look good; I knew that I move well, I knew that I had good social energy with other people. I knew all those things but I did not feel all of those things. It’s a different kind of pain. I don’t know whether I could have vis[ualized before doing Feldenkrais]. I don’t know if I told you this before, and I think there is a name for this: I avoid looking in mirrors and it’s a really big phobia. Ok. All of a sudden someone says, “Visualize…”, and I am thinking, “No, I do not want to visualize. Nope not doing that.” And I can’t do it. Then I thought to myself, “Wait a minute. Visualizing is a metaphor. It’s a simile. It’s the best way to learn and I need to learn this [what Feldenkrais has to offer]. That made me get past my inhibition of doing [visualization]. Theme B7: Dropping comparison with others and developing body confidence…nobody is judging; no one is comparing.

95 I could do this [Awareness Through Movement] with a group of people and I could relax and I felt good moving with a group of people, just made me feel, an intimate comfort with my body that I’ve never felt before. Lying on the floor, you focus on your own experience, the other people are focused on their own experience. And nobody is judging; nonjudgmental…and here I was doing this…having a successful experience in a nonjudgmental place, really does a lot to build this feeling that, “Hey, you know what? When you’re out in the world, I’m not so sure people are looking and judging how you look.” So then you could just be yourself. Being in public was always about image, [and here was this] sense of comparison going away. Theme B8: Experiencing self in a new way that involves a new bodily experience. Wow, I’m seeing myself in a new way. I can feel myself in a new way. I can live inside my body in a new way. Look at all these things it can do and that might be even more exciting than how your body can look. So, for me the artistry of this [Feldenkrais] experience is that at first it just let me envision myself and recreate myself in that vision—but it isn’t a standard I set for myself. It’s more like, “Wow, I’m seeing myself in a new way. I can feel myself in a new way. I can live inside my body in a new way.” It’s an artistic experience because, for me who has always been, sort of, uncomfortable in my body, and always worrying about how it looked and whether I was fat, whether I was attractive, all of these kind of society-imposed standards. I was an athlete and achievement oriented. For me to think about my body as an entity that can move with pleasure and that it was sort of like a beautiful machine—except I didn’t feel mechanistic. Now movement was flowing. I felt more graceful. I felt beautiful; it made me feel beautiful. And I began to think about the artistry of the body itself. And like, “Wow! Look at all these things it can do and that might be even more exciting than how your body can look.” Theme B9: Letting go of bodily holding associated focus on appearance allowed feeling more relaxed and natural in social life…taking myself out of this constant worry about holding myself a certain way because I was worried about how I look, and how I was presenting myself. It’s like, this feeling of walking around holding myself a certain way. Taking myself out of this constant worry about holding myself a certain way, because I was worried about how I look, and how I was presenting myself. So, it took that feeling away and so I felt this tremendous…it actually released me from this tension. Oh, my whole self-image is totally shifted in a big way. I’m still like very concerned about clothes and hair and all of those things. I am. I mean, I was trained [in my family] to be a certain style...I was trained to be a certain way. But it was always achieving a

96 standard. Now it is just sort of like, “Hey, I’ve got good skills. I know what clothes look good on me.” I know this or that. I don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s natural. It comes naturally to me now. So now I just go out and be myself. Relax and have a good time and meet people and dance and talk, all those sorts of things…and then I went on a trip to Europe. By myself. It’s about coming from the inside…it’s infectious, it’s contagious…and realizing that people feel [relaxed around you]; you just see other people relaxed. Theme B10: Imagining or visualizing the body while moving in Feldenkrais lessons alters experience of the self, body, and movement. I had been looking inside myself and seeing myself, and seeing movement in a whole other way....to visualize the structure of your body...is one of the resources I have. I see it. I see myself without skin. I see my skeletal structure and that frees me from a lot of my body image worry. And instead of making me feel more mechanistic, it makes me feel more fluid. You keep going. You do things in spite of what your body is saying to you. Yeah, just get to where there is no right or wrong. It took that out, it took comparison out; it took all sorts of stuff away because it was just wow, just a feeling of ease and just try it. I’m suggesting things and I really stopped thinking about it, but I had lots of visual imagery: flooded by visual imagery all the time. I did sort of stop [thinking about the movement]. I think [it] was a little meta-cognitive [strategy]: I would hear it and then I would picture myself doing it, and I’m not sure how much of a time lapse it was between the picturing myself doing it and actually doing it. They might have been simultaneous, but the visual imagery became completely and totally comforting and fascinating to me. All of a sudden, I could see what was happening in the cubist paintings. I could see in this graphic representation things I couldn’t see before, because I had been looking inside myself and seeing myself, and seeing movement in a whole other way. So, if you’re seeing movement in a whole other way inside yourself, then [it’s as] if someone is saying, “Okay, here is the human figure and it’s dynamic in its movement and here’s another way to think about it and you thought about it and experienced it.” …when you start to visualize the structure of your body, and [it’s] mainly the skeletal structure for me—although sometimes I think about the muscle part of it. It was almost like realizing that… there’s circuitry [the nervous system], and there is skeletal, and somehow the circuitry can help the skeletal—or it’s almost like the electronic can help the mechanical. Because the pain in my back, that [my Feldenkrais practitioner] has helped me with, came from tremendous muscle spasms. Muscle is like a bad word for me: “It’s pain. Pain is in your muscles. So, I’m not picturing that.”

97 Because those things [images of skeleton as mechanical and nervous system as electronic] are the other resources I have. So, when I get into that thing…that gives me pain.…I can just think about learning to move these other things better. Theme B11: Greater awareness of the positive value of bodily experience. I’m just listening to my body…just reveling in being physical and in my body. It was a big sense of permission to experience it. It opened up exploration and it also…. I can’t think of other ways of saying than clichés…but it was like, “Okay, I’m just listening to my body.” Which is something I’d never done because I had always sort of not paid attention to my body because I didn’t want to feel this chronic back pain that I had. So, you sort of power through. You don’t really listen to your body. You keep going. You do things in spite of what your body is saying to you. I’m not a person who thinks a lot about sensory stuff. I’m a really an, “in my head,” sort of person. So, all of a sudden, this person who is “in your head” is like just reveling in being physical and in my body. …the body confidence thing….Because I could do [Feldenkrais in a class] with a group of people and I could relax and I felt good moving with a group of people, just made me feel, an intimate comfort with my body that I’ve never felt before. I’m not sure what the other people had to do with it, but it was like the public…because being in public was always about image. Theme B12: Increased awareness of habitual bodily organization and action...helps you question the normal or the habitual way you do things, your normal. The [recorded] lesson [we just did], helps you question the normal or the habitual way you do things; your normal. I thought…“Hmm, no I’ve never done that. I haven’t questioned my normal. I haven’t thought about my normal.” It opened my mind to questioning the normal. [In the recorded lesson the Feldenkrais teacher mentioned] The idea that holding is unconscious, [which] made it more conscious. I don’t know how that is. By telling me I was unconscious I could see it. I don’t know why. And as a result of that, I released it… Theme B13: A physical experience of the potential for transfer of learning from one circumstance to another. You physically experience something, and then you shift it to another circumstance so what you’ve experienced is now more available to try in the new situation. I began to use visualization in yoga. [I became aware of the idea of] “availability.” If you just experienced something and you’ve had some thought about it or if you just physically…if you physically experience

98 something, and then you shift it to another circumstance and this is like shifting sides [in the Awareness Through Movement lesson] but you shift it to another circumstance, what you’ve experienced is now more available to try in the new situation. I think maybe the Feldenkrais informed the yoga. [Yoga practice now is a] totally different experience: it’s wonderful, and I feel different. I began to use visualization in the yoga. The minute I began to use visualization in the yoga, I found the teacher to be less irritating and intimidating, because I could hear what she was saying—because I thought well, “If I can’t do it, I will just simply visualize it.” I just began to be able to follow. [Before] I could always follow the big movement, [the] basic instructions, but it was the finer details—the things that really made it yoga….I could start to do that because I visualized them, and I stopped worrying about it. Like, for example, like [the yoga teacher] would say, “Move your spine to the back of your body. Move your diaphragm; send your diaphragm to the back.“ I thought that was ridiculous. “How do you do that? What the hell is she talking about?” But because of Feldenkrais, I could picture my spine moving back in my body. Theme B14: The sense and image of movement through the whole body gives a positive sense of wholeness or oneness. A physical embodiment of being at one with yourself. …the idea that spreading out of movement [throughout the body] [in the Awareness Through Movement lesson] gave me the immediate image of myself as just a complete support system to myself. Myself is my support system, and I’m all one, and I feel whole. And that is very comforting. Because it’s like a physical embodiment of being at one with yourself. Theme B15: Reduced chronic pain; and pain not impacting life as much as it used to. I have aches and pains but…they’re not the chronic pain that I lived with. I fell down this terrible long marble staircase when I was young. Yeah, I’ve had [chronic pain]. I still have little twinges but most of the time I’m pain free, and I never find myself thinking about whether I can do something or not do something. My guard is down. I’m not guarding myself all the time about the pain. I’m not pain free. [The pain] doesn’t have to do with the spot [where you feel the twinge]. I know it’s not the spot. [The relief] happens in movement. Impact [of Functional Integration] was great because it alleviated a whole lot of pain that I had. And the pain didn’t just pop back at me. The way maybe after a massage it pops back. It didn’t keep reemerging.…The pain didn’t go away totally, it just lessened and lessened and lessened…

99 Theme B16: Increased stamina and activity levels—associated with sense of well-being. I have stamina that I’ve never experienced before…however, the minute the activity and the movement goes away, I feel a little less like things are going to work out. I have stamina that I’ve never experienced before…in fact if I don’t walk four or five miles a day, I’m not as happy. I got used to the level of activity. The minute the activity and the movement goes away, I feel a little less like things are going to work out, a little more problematic….Well actually a lot more problematic, a whole lot more problematic and almost like, “Augh”—I’m being seized with old feelings. Theme B17: Learning self-care. Knowing how to take care of yourself I guess is what it’s about, you know. It is fundamental… You know how it [pain] shows up [now]? It shows up…when I’ve fallen back into an old pattern of movement, [which] actually [is] some kind of accommodation to dealing with the pain I have. Probably that most of these accommodations made me feel wonky, and out of balance and stuff. When I feel myself falling back into one of those [patterns]. I actually am pretty good at thinking [for example], “Oh wait a minute, this is the way to get up. This is a more comfortable way to get up.” Or, “Oh you’re feeling that way because, it’s the way you’re sitting, or it’s the way you’re standing, or why are you leaning like that”—you know, those sorts of things. It’s the body organization. Like, there is something to be said about getting ready to move and stopping and thinking. I have to do that kind of consciously because I have so many bad habits. [Feldenkrais has] been really helpful, in that way. Like I just sprained my ankle. I don’t think I can vocalize exactly what I have done differently, but I’ve done nothing to strain that ankle any more than I need to, but I haven’t stopped my life and gotten off my feet completely because of it. I’ve taken good care of it, because of what I’ve learnt; because, I stop and get organized and I think about it. It’s pretty good.…Knowing how to take care of yourself, I guess, is what it’s about, you know. It is fundamental. It’s very fundamental. Theme B18: The importance of ease. One thought I have...is, “Make it easy.” One thought I have sometimes is, “Make it easy.” That comes to mind. So every now and then I think that, but I can’t tell you what I do to make it easy, because I’m not like that. Theme B19: Experiencing a mind–body relationship. It was an experience going on between my mind and my body.

100 [After a number of classes]…it no longer became an exercise in having my body make the motions that the teacher was telling me to do. No longer was that. It was an experience going on, I just have to say it, “between my mind and my body.” All of a sudden it became this very interior experience not an experience like…it was in a certain way….I [am] going to contradict myself: it became this interior experience, but it became highly mechanical to me. In that all of a sudden I realized that I was making these mechanical connections in myself—and that I could improve those mechanical connections...I could not make…but I could think my body into a physical ease that I’ve never felt before. Theme B20: A shift from a sense of directing, controlling, or defending the body to a diffuse sense of “brain in body” of being propelled. I’m not feeling my body as something I have to make do something. I’m not feeling my body as something I have to make do something. The movement comes from the inside out. But also that there is…there was an integrated feeling I had that I’d never had before because I’m a thinker, I am an intellectual, and all of a sudden I was using my brain to move. I thought about my brain in terms of moving my body, and making me feel comfortable, and just feeling good… I stopped thinking about my brain as a control center. It’s more like my brain was not stuck in my head. It was all over my body. And my brain wasn’t defending me. It was kind of just propelling me. Theme B21: Experience of integration of mind and body is pleasant. The more I integrate, the more I use my mind, and the more I just feel my body, the better this feels. [The] frustration went away. The concept of achieving went away. The feeling of comparing myself to others in the class went away. It just had to do with, “Wow: the more I integrate, the more I use my mind, and the more I just feel my body, the better this feels.” I didn’t even think about it as the better I’m getting at this. It was just a feeling like, “Whoa, I like this, I enjoy this…and I’m feeling my body in a whole new way.” Theme B22: Having an image of the movement improves movement and sensation. Having this internal image and doing it at the same time...of mind and body [moving] together… [which] could improve your movement and sensation. It went from…being more of like a physical activity—where you were kind of telling your body how to kind of make the movements; “an exercise,” to some kind of more interior experience of realizing the mind body connection somehow….And then your mind and body were like doing it together….And that you could improve your movement

101 and sensation and also that somehow having this picture you were like having the picture and doing it at the same time; having this internal image and doing it at the same time. I really stopped thinking about it but I had lots of visual imagery: flooded by visual imagery all the time. I would hear it [the Awareness Through Movement “instructions”] and then I would picture myself doing it, and I’m not sure how much of a time lapse it was between the picturing myself doing it and actually doing it. They might have been simultaneous, but the visual imagery became completely and totally comforting and fascinating to me. Theme B23: Imagining movement allows for better movement. I imagine it in an ideal and then I can do it better.25 I’m not a picture sort of thinker, I’m a word-thinker, so I was just so excited about that… that I didn’t think about it [in words] anymore. This [recorded] lesson [we just did], made me realize that when I imagine it, I imagine it in an ideal. I imagine it the way I really would like to be able to move. So the imagery is a guide in itself. It’s a goal that I would never set for myself. I just wouldn’t…couldn’t…I’m not trying to say, “I see it in my head, and now I see it in my head as I’m doing it and I try to achieve that standard.” It’s not like that. It’s not like that. It’s just: “I can do it better.” Theme B24: Experience thought as a travelling message in the body. It was just a flow... like a travelling message. Which is, like I would go to Feldenkrais and I would stop thinking and I would no longer be … it wasn’t like a translation process of, “Okay, she has told me these physical instructions, now I’ve got to think about that and then I do it.” No. It just became like talking... going like it was just a flow. It was like, “Oh, there we go.” [It’s the kind of like]…someone says something to you, you almost don’t verbalize in your head, and just let it happen to you. And feel….And if it’s just happening to you and you’re not describing to yourself what’s happening, you’re not checking in, “Am I doing

25

In Awareness Through Movement lessons as taught by Moshe Feldenkrais (1994– 2004) students are often asked to make imagined movements. They are also sometimes asked to imagine into the body, particularly to feel or sense the location, size, and relationships of bones, or the whole skeleton. Sometimes students are invited to think along or through a part of the body or an image, for example along the imagined line of the spine in the primary image lessons (Smyth, 2007). This use of language may be evocative of the kinds of multimodal sensing reported by various informants in this study. In general, Feldenkrais students are less likely to be asked to visualize, in the sense of being invited to create a purely visual image, but this language may be utilized in some lessons or by some Feldenkrais teachers, and of course, individual students may engage in their own learned sensory and imaginative processes in the course of lessons.

102 it right?”—[then] you’re monitoring through words. It’s a different kind….I could feel these things happening like a traveling message. I think it must be what athletes are good at doing. What happened [in the Awareness Through Movement lesson] was this “in my whole body” thing. Like I thought like, the thinking was…was traveling through my body. [For example, like being reminded in the recorded lesson to breathe:] “Oh okay. I can breathe.” And then I was breathing….I wasn’t even thinking. I wasn’t doing that fake breathing. I notice that fake breathing…this like intentional [breathing]. No, I was just breathing. It’s like, I didn’t even say [to myself], “Oh breathe.” [The teacher said something like] “Holding the breath is a strategy you might do to start something hard”— and then I was breathing. How do you figure that? That is different for me. Theme B25: Discovery of pleasant movement, which has the characteristics of an altered state. I’m just moving and it feels really good and it’s not painful. It’s easy and it feels really pleasant…it’s a bit of an altered state. It’s like I’m just moving and it feels really good and it’s not painful. It’s easy and it feels really pleasant. It feels so pleasant and then I saw instead of a little bit of a shock to come back out of it because it’s kind of…it’s a bit of an altered state. But for movement to be pleasant for me, is like, “I can’t believe that’s happening. I cannot believe it.” It’s concerted…like a concert….It’s orchestrated like music, but it’s not concerted like manipulation. It’s not in the service of anything other than my own service, the service of myself. That’s very nice. This concludes the presentation of the example of individual themes from the data analysis, using informant B as an example. In the next section, I present the Textual Analysis developed from analysis of the combined texts from all the informants. In addition, I provide notes on the criteria for inclusion of themes the Textual and Structural descriptions and how I developed each of these descriptions. Meta-Themes Based on All Informant Texts In the remainder of this chapter, I present the findings that emerged from textual explorations and analysis of the interview material from all eight informants as Textual Descriptions. In Chapter 5, I present a Structural Description highlighting the main aspects of

103 the process of doing Feldenkrais Method—from the experiences that led the informants to come to do Feldenkrais Method to how they applied it in their lives. Although commonalities found in all informants describe experiences that are reflected in the Meta-Themes presented here, not all of the Variations of these themes can be found in each informant’s texts. In the Structural Description each of the informant’s experience is also represented as Constituents of the experience. Variations in the experience of the informants are represented in the exemplifying texts in the Textual Descriptions, and the Constituents and their exemplifying texts are addressed in the Structural Description (see Table 2).

Table 2 Format of Textual Descriptions and Structural Description Textual descriptions (second part of Chapter 4)

Structural description (Chapter 5)

Meta-themes: Present in all informants texts

Constituents: Present in all informants texts represent variations that are essential to the constitution of the experience.

Variations presented with introductory and interstitial texts

Constituents presented

Exemplifying texts for variations

Exemplifying texts for each constituent

Chapters 4 and 5 are therefore focused on the presentation of what was uncovered in the research, with the analysis and interpretation being included in the introductory, interstitial, and concluding texts, as well as the selection and presentation of Exemplifying Texts. This applies both to the Textual Descriptions (Meta-Themes, Variations), as well as the Structural Description (Structure of the Experience and its Constituents), and the Exemplifying Texts. Chapter 6 provides a more thorough discussion of the findings, with reference to the Meta-Themes and

104 Structure considered in relation to the literature identified in Chapter 2—ideas and practices from the Feldenkrais Method and somatics, and from phenomenology and other relevant fields. Note on Developing the Textual and Structural Descriptions In designating this part of the presentation of the findings as a textual description, I am drawing on Ricoer (1981), who described how the explication of texts can bring forth the sense of belonging or being-in-the-world found within them. In the textual description, I aimed to bring a sense of the nature of the frequently described forms, patterns, and shapes of the experience; that is, the kinds of pre-understandings arising from their intention and situation that emerged into the understandings which informants shared in the interviews (Ricoeur, 1981). Similarly, Moerer-Urdahl and Creswell (2004) drew on Moustakas’s (1994) description of “textual and structural descriptions” to put forward the idea of the textural description (MoererUrdahl & Creswell, 2004, p. 20). However, while identifying common Meta-Themes, termed “meaning units” by Moerer-Urdahl and Creswell’s (2004) and Giorgi (2009), rather than creating a singular prose description of an invariant theme, as one would do in a transcendental phenomenological approach, in this hermeneutic-phenomenological approach, I have presented a common theme followed by significant variations—using the exemplifying texts to bring them forth. My aim was to allow the reader to grasp some of the intricacies (Gendlin, 1997) and complexities (Zaner, 1981) of the experience, and get in touch with the qualities (the feel, tone, color) of the experience described within the theme. However, with both approaches, the referral back from linguistic description of the nature of the experience can lead to the emergence of the “structure of experience” (Ricoeur, 1981, p. 118) which is the basis of my second way of presenting these findings found in Chapter 5.

105 In Chapter 3, I provided an overall description of the processes of textual analysis toward these findings. Here I discuss specifically the process of developing the Meta-Themes and their Variations, and the Structure of the Experience and its Constituents, through the course of exploring the texts. I made use of my research journal to make lists of possible themes. This was done many times after completing a number of interviews, and many times more after I had finished the full set of interviews. Writing the naïve descriptions from the initial interviews with each informant, and preparing the follow-up descriptions, also afforded frequent thematic analysis. Likewise, the development of themes for each informant (see this Chapter and Appendix C) also allowed for clarification of the emerging common themes. I frequently varied themes, sub-themes, and examples within the emergent themes. Therefore, the nature and content of the themes were changed many times throughout the process. Developing the idea of a “somatic reduction” helped me to identify that the structural description needed to be dynamic—as is the structure of the human body. In addition, I reflected on how the structure of individual Feldenkrais Method lessons and sessions could be one way to consider the overall experience of the Feldenkrais Method. That is, (a) the situations that led people to come to the Feldenkrais Method, (b) the developing of skills of attention and movement, (c) the adoption of qualities of movement as values-in-action (such as ease, slowness, reduced effort), (d) the noticing of improvement, (e) the improvement in mood—and how that contributed to motivation, and (f) continuing to use the learning in daily life, were reflective of the overall structure of the experience as described in the text. Both these reflections, developed using my research journal, particularly helped organize the Structural Description. I developed a table, which identified which themes were common to all the informants, and for which I also had supporting texts. A breakthrough came when I realized that this list of

106 common themes was the structure of the experience; that they were all essential to the experience of coming to the Feldenkrais Method, to the present moment experiences of doing Feldenkrais, and importantly, to the continuing use and practice the Method (which was one of the selection criteria for the informants). However, that left some themes that were common to all the informants at a thematic level, but highly varied at the level of the experiences described. From these themes, the Meta-Themes and the descriptions of their Variations were developed. For example, for all informants, the theme of bodily awareness emerged mostly in the form of noticing improvements in feeling and function during lessons or sessions or in their daily life activities and therefore is included in the Structural Description and in the Textual Description in terms of improvement. However, other informants reported on actively deploying bodily awareness as a strategy to reduce pain, deal with distress, or improve their action in the world. This form of bodily awareness is only represented in the Textual Description and Variations. Textual descriptions: Meta-themes and their main variations. Presented next are Textual Descriptions, which bring forth common characteristics, qualities and attributes of the experiences described in the interviews. These are clusterings of the main kinds of experiences described by the informants. They are presented as Meta-Themes and the main Variations of each of these experiences of doing the Feldenkrais Method for these informants. The seven parts of the Textual Descriptions, presented as Meta-Themes and their main Variations, are: Meta-Theme 1: Learning how to develop awareness and change bodily experience through movement Meta-Theme 2: Improvements in bodily experience in and through movement Meta-Theme 3: Developing and making use of increased bodily awareness Meta-Theme 4: Changing perceptions of the body-and-mind

107 Meta-Theme 5: An experience of calming Meta-Theme 6: A shift in ways of being and feelings of well-being. Note on the texts. The process used to analyze the combined texts from the informants and generate these particular Meta-Themes and Structural Description is described in Chapter 3. The individual Themes (found in this chapter for informant B, and in Appendix C for informants A and D to H) are included within the Meta-Themes and Structure of the experience. There is an overlap between these the individual Themes, common Meta-Themes, and the Constituents of the Experience, which arises from the iterative and recursive processes of grasping, intuiting, and explicating with the aim of bringing forth meanings in a hermeneutic-phenomenological study such as this. In this way, the thematization of the experiences found in the informants’ utterances was intended to serve a heuristic function to promote understanding, rather than the creation of logically or essentially separate categories. Consistent with hermeneuticphenomenological thought, these categories are some possible ways of presenting the nature and form of the experiences described. Indeed, they are a probable way in which these informants do experience Feldenkrais Method beyond any singular event. As I have noted, the utterances are often quite complex. Many of the meaningful utterances consist of some contextualizing element (e.g., an aspect of their lives or of the Feldenkrais Method), one or more sensory or movement experience and its qualities, and some affects or ideas from the informant that are linked to that experience for the informant. It is not clear from the texts whether this implies a unity in experience, which is then rendered into contextual, bodily-experiential, and conceptual elements in the process of making the utterance, or whether there is a flow from the situational to the felt-bodily experience, and then to conceptualization. It seems unlikely, however, that this form of utterance about lived experience is to be found only in descriptions of experiences of the Feldenkrais Method.

108 Therefore, the reader will find thematic slippage or overlap as one utterance refers to multiple aspects of an experience, as well as overlaps between aspects of the Meta-Themes and their Variations and the Structural Description and its Constituents. Whereas in some areas in these textual and structural descriptions, I have been able to make use of key phrases or brief examples from the informants, in several other sections using longer selections of the Exemplifying Texts was the best way to convey the meanings. These segments provide extra text and context toward presenting the complex nature of the experience and allow for additional narrative descriptions. Meta-Theme 1: Learning How to Develop Awareness and Change Bodily Experience Through Movement …figure out a way to make it easy. (E24) This Meta-Theme describes the experience of the Feldenkrais Method as learning how to develop awareness and change bodily experience through movement. In and through Awareness Through Movement lessons, students experienced improvement through their own careful and mindful movement. They learned to make use of the felt qualities of their bodies in movement and the movement of attention to make the movement easier. They learned that using awareness to make movement easier reduced pain as well as the sense of effort and work, and also that making movement easier supported greater awareness: “It is just [that] awareness is so key” (G3). Students learned to use key strategies such as (a) sensing for an easier path—or the easiest path for the movement; (b) reducing the force, or perceived effort, used in the movements, (c) using imagined movements; (d) making small movements initially and not going to one’s limits of movement or comfort, including not causing or increasing pain, and (e) not isolating movements in particular joints or segments of the body, but including the whole body in

109 movements. They discovered that making movements with awareness and ease often involved working out movement puzzles or challenges. They experienced that a sense of greater ease in the body-in-movement is supported by directing attention to the body, including not focusing attention on areas of difficulty. They learned how to bring awareness to parts of the body that are often not attended to, such as the skeleton. In addition, students experienced how various attitudes to their body and the process were implemented in their actions in a class. Such values-as-strategies included, for example: (a) being caring toward their bodies, (b) being nonjudgmental toward their bodies and their movement, (c) not striving or not being goal oriented toward a particular movement outcome (size, shape, etc.), and to (d) being open to the experience. In a way, these strategies became strategies-as-values-in-action that are carried into their lives as part of care of the self. As all these strategies and attitudes also guide the practice of Functional Integration, these students have experienced these aspects of Feldenkrais Method not only in classes, but also in preconscious or prereflective ways in individual sessions. Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. Making it easier. Students found that making it easier was possible and helpful. One day I had an awareness that it was, like…. “It was supposed to be easy!”—and it wasn’t easy…and finally I thought, “Well if it is supposed to be easy and I can’t do that, why don’t I just put it as far as I can?” And then I just stayed with that and it felt really wise. That was a good lesson for me. I remember that. Noticing what works and what doesn’t. And doing what I can. (G17) …another way in which Feldenkrais is so different from everything else [is] because we’re just supposed to figure out a way to make it easy—that’s the only rule. “Oh my God, it’s not hard, it’s easy – it’s easy and it’s me that might be making it harder…” …if it sinks in there this is supposed to be “easy” then it’s like, “Oh whatever, let me figure out how to make this easier…” Which seems sort of counterintuitive…seems like we would go for easy first…but we don’t. (E24; see also additional texts on this theme in E24 in Appendix C)

110 Students discovered strategies to make movement easier, such as reducing perceived effort, making small movements, or even making movements in the imagination. …it doesn’t really feel like work—that’s the other [thing], talking about the principles, you’re not working. I really don’t feel like I’m working. Right? Maybe that’s the core: it’s easy. (C25) I try to think about the way I am moving, like [the Feldenkrais teachers] say, “Find an easier path”—that sort of thing. [They] tell you to do the small movements, and then find the easiest way or path, and don’t make any effort and if you are making an effort do half as much, or imagine it. Those are the ways to trick you into not efforting—and they are pretty effective I think. (A7, A19) Being able to make imagined movements allows me feel free from a sense of not being able to do things. (E15) The informants practiced staying within “the limits” of what is comfortable, and moving in ways that did not cause pain. Not pushing the limits for sure. We don’t have to go long, push to the limits, because it’s actually a little bit better if you don’t push to the limits…and it shouldn’t hurt. (G3) Learning how to make small movements was also part of learning how to make it easy. That experience of classes too, that not everything has to be fast and big. [Feldenkrais] it’s very different from any movement [practice] I’ve ever done before, because I’m not trying to overstretch myself. I’m not trying to have big, bold movements. All that stuff [about going small] was just a total brain twister to me….Now I say to myself, “No, just a little bit. Like what is this little bit?” I can, I can [do a little bit now], but I am still really getting a kick out of that, because my first inclination is like to just give a big ol’ stretch somewhere. I mean there are all kinds of sayings in the gym about “burn” and whatever….So yeah, doing it a little bit, that’s really great—and a little bit thoughtfully, how powerful that can be. (E24) Distributing the movement throughout the body also contributed to the experience of making movement easier. The idea of these movements isn’t about locating…it isn’t about using just one joint, but spreading the movement throughout the body. As a person with joint pain, it is really hard not to focus on that particular point—but [on] the idea of spreading everything out. (C18; see also B14 in this chapter)

111 They discovered how going slower and with less force facilitated awareness, as well as promoted relief from pain and stress. That was my introduction really to say, “Wow this is really amazing because you could do a small movement and feel relieved.” (E24) I think one of the things is the slowing down and the awareness…we all comment on how we move slowly after the lessons. (G12) Having options. Making movements that are easy and comfortable involved trying the options offered within the Awareness Through Movement class process. Even while I was still in pain, there was a lot of accessible things that I could do in Feldenkrais. [For example] the “opt outs”: “If this isn’t working for you, try this.” What we were…doing in classes had such a big window to it—that your possibility for the success was pretty great. There were lots of adaptations... there were alternatives. (E25) Using the whole body. Deliberately utilizing the whole body is one of the ways students discovered how to create greater ease. So that in this [Awareness Through Movement] lesson I was just really noticing the parts where there is isolation—and how different the movement is with that isolation. When you lift your leg up without moving your pelvis it weighs a ton. As opposed to like, “Oh jeez, that’s easy [if I] use the rest of my body!” (E 8) Directing attention. Learning how to direct attention to sensation and body organization was an important part of the process. [In the recorded lesson] I was pretty much paying attention to my…the movements. I was paying attention. I was in the moment. I wasn’t fantasizing about anything. I wasn’t daydreaming. I was just focusing on the body. (F9) For me, because I do everything fast, so if I’m doing something slower and softer and less, then that forces me to focus my attention a lot. To avoid like, you know, the efforting. So probably it’s the attention that’s the key. (A19; see also E20) This included paying attention to or noticing the movement itself, the organization of the body—including awareness of the skeleton. Another thing I learned, not long ago, was to really pay attention to the bones and think about what the bones were doing—and that made a big leap in my thinking. That was helpful. It’s just a concept that…it’s been there, but all of a sudden I heard it.… (A14)

112 The informants practiced shifting attention from aspects of experience like tightness and pain that often take one’s attention to other aspects of their experience. …we weren’t focusing on that area…of my body [with] some tightness…that I came in here feeling…. (D 8) “Oh okay, that’s what I should be looking at, or that’s what I should consider to increase my body awareness.” Instead of just focusing on the pain part, there were all these other components to it. (E4) Attitudes to the body-in-movement. Doing Feldenkrais Method involved an experience of utilizing a number of values that guide the practice including, being kind to oneself and finding out what is possible for oneself, working out how to make movements without judgment or striving for an external goal, for example, in the form of particular bodily form or size of movement, or making comparisons with others, and an openness to what might arise from just trying the movement. …to find what works, what is your authentic movement. And doing what I can. (G7) …there’s always those little rest periods in Awareness Through Movement I’m saying to myself, “okay. Now maybe I can figure it out.” So it’s like taking the rest is really important. (C19, C28) “No, you’re not striving for something.” That felt really good…you are not striving…. Like you’re not trying to get yourself in an extreme position….The thing that I really thought was so interesting, is that you’re not striving toward some way of being—like a way of holding your body or anything like that. Ideally, you’re not striving….Like you’re not trying to get yourself into an extreme position. (H8, H9, H16) Yeah, just get to where there is no right or wrong. It took that out, it took comparison out. (B 10) One of the things that I think I like about Feldenkrais... is the curiosity part. I think it’s fun…how often do we think about our bodies as just interesting?...where you’re just exploring these little things?” (H13; see also B8 in this chapter)

113 Meta-Theme 2: Improvements in Bodily Experience in and Through Movement I have become more aware of these different ways of moving, and how I could make that movement easier, more comfortable…that I might be holding myself in ways that are not good (H5). This Meta-Theme describes the positive changes in bodily experience that were experienced through doing the Feldenkrais Method. The informants described a variety of different, new, or enhanced bodily experiences associated with improvement in function and in movement itself, and associated with a positive and enhanced sense of their bodies. These same qualities-of-moment-as-strategies and values-as-strategies are also used in Functional Integration. So that, in addition to the effects of Awareness Through Movement, they experienced their bodies in and through the movement by, and touch of, their Feldenkrais practitioner. In both modes, the movements themselves were often perceived as subtle and yet they lead to significant felt-changes: “you wouldn’t think that such subtle movements…could have that great of an impact. But it has. It’s been amazing” (D1). Sometimes the changes were subtle shifts in body organization and movement, and which often occurred in a way that was not reflected upon or was difficult to describe, but was observed and reported on through overall positive feelings in the body or changes in functional capacities. Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. Overall experiences associated with doing Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration included that the process was “easy” and “really pleasant” (B25), with the sense that the body has been “reorganized” (A2). Moving with ease. Particular bodily experiences included going from a sense of being restricted or constricted of being “stiff,” to a much greater range of “moving all over the place”

114 (C1). There may be a sense of release or letting go of unpleasant bodily feeling or organization. There was an overall experience of being “relaxed” (F7) which was sustained for a while, and of the musculature itself being relaxed and “more at ease” (B3). The body-in-movement was felt to be “really good” (B25), “loose and fun” (C14), and “fluid” (B10). The experience of pleasure in movement was associated with being able to do more. Feeling good and feeling relaxed. …tiny little movements…and I expect to feel, things getting softer and calmer. It’s in tiny little increments…during the hour—and then I love how you feel (C2). Individual sessions feel so good. My Feldenkrais practitioner is working on parts of my body, it’s not like a massage, but you know…she’s manipulating parts of my back and parts of my shoulders. They always feel good. (F11) Feeling good in a bodily way was associated with a feeling of being “relaxed,” with sensations of feeling, “heavy, sleepy, peaceful” (F7), as well as ones of relief, release, and regeneration. My muscular system felt more at ease and relaxed and I felt warmer, physically warmer …a lot warmer. I felt really loose. Like, if I wanted to, I can stretch my arm like a piece of taffy or my leg like a piece of taffy.… (B13) At the end of the day [at a Feldenkrais workshop]…you come out feeling really great and you stay that way. I wouldn’t say it is a permanent—like permanently different but certainly released a lot of stuff that’s been building up…it’s rare to get up from a lesson and not feel good all over. Like everything’s been reorganized. (A1, A2) Fluidity. There was a sense of fluidity. It’s just this fluidity of movement. Your whole.…It’s like everything’s together. There is congruence in the body….There is this ease of movement all through me. Doesn’t happen every session at all, but once in a while that does happen, things just kind of click and, “Oh yeah…mmm, lets do that session again.” (G11) I see my skeletal structure and that frees me from a lot of my body image worry. And instead of making me feel more mechanistic, it makes me feel more fluid. (B 10; see also D2 in this chapter, and A5, F8, and F13 in Appendix C)

115 Looser, larger, and fun. A greater ease led to larger, looser, and more enjoyable movement. At the beginning in [of an] Awareness Through Movement lesson there’s that trying to figure things out and everything feels really stiff. And then when you go back and do it again, all of a sudden you’re moving all over the place…, which is so fascinating. [After doing the recorded lesson]…it’s really loose and fun. It sort of feels like flying….I just love that slow, back and forth [with the arms]…[I] started getting images of birds in the sky and all…it’s a lovely movement. And then you can feel yourself kind of loosening up and easing into it and whenever you do…I wrote a quote from a song that I really love: “Funny how running seems like flying for a little while.” All of a sudden I could hear the song. (C1, C14) Now movement was flowing. I felt more graceful. I felt beautiful; it made me feel beautiful. And I began to think about the artistry of the body itself. (B 8) Feeling good in movement may create a sense of being-able-to. No. it’s about feeling comfortable about how you move. [The sense of well-being], it’s like a motivator. I can do it because I feel good. It’s just like, “Oh, I can do it because I feel good.”…for me who has always been…uncomfortable in my body. (B1, B4) Finding alignment. An altered sense of the body included a sense of improved bodily organization. One key experience of this was associated with the experience of bodily alignment: “I walk out of [classes or sessions] feeling taller, straighter, more aligned” (C2). The feeling of alignment was associated with less pain and improved functioning. Alignment is what it seems to me [that Feldenkrais is about]. In other words, I seem to function physically more in alignment after I’ve had the Feldenkrais, especially with my practitioner. Yeah, I move more efficiently, walk better, back doesn’t hurt, doesn’t give much as much trouble, I can move better. (F5) Truly, if you’re aligned, there’s less pain. You know, getting up out of a chair or walking…you know it’s easier, so much easier….[I was] doing Functional Integration sessions just to prep my body for knee replacement surgery. And then shortly after the operation, seeing [my] practitioner every week…working…on alignment, and some of the side effects that come as a result of getting a knee replacement. I think the alignment part has helped a lot. (C9, C11) [After a class] the frame feels like it’s sort of balanced on the legs, instead of pushing into the legs; floating on top of the legs…[I] imagine my skeleton….Each vertebrae is lined up above each…one above the next. [In daily life] you end up arching your back… everything is…shortened. Somehow when you do a lesson, it doesn’t shorten like that. I

116 don’t ever quite find it [that organization] without doing [an Awareness Through Movement] lesson, but [creating that bodily alignment] certainly feels better than if I didn’t do it.…Otherwise, I feel like I’m just continually collapsing forward and my digestion is getting constricted. Sometimes, I find myself not breathing very much. [That’s a signal]…at least to straighten up, and then go home when I can do some Feldenkrais, when I can. And that’s how it always feels after the lessons. That’s why we do it. The main thing for me is that lack of effort. [My] posture always corrects itself. (A2; see also A12, A 13 in Appendix C.) Not holding. Improved bodily organization was associated with a reduction of a sense of unnecessary holding in the body. I walk in [to a session or lesson] with upper back pain, often from my job and working on a computer, and the upper back is like a block. Feldenkrais helps a great deal. It softens things up and I’m not holding myself…[gesture of lifting arms and shoulders and chest high and rigid] like as would on a computer. (C9) It’s like, this feeling of walking around holding myself a certain way. Taking myself out of this constant worry about holding myself a certain way, because I was worried about how I look, and how I was presenting myself. So it took that feeling away and so I felt this tremendous…it actually released me from this tension. (B9) Feeling connected. An improved sense of bodily organization included a sense of the connection of the parts of the body, and moving in a more integrated way. [My first Feldenkrais teacher] would also talk about how to move from the interior of the body….That was interesting because that was not something I had thought about before: using your whole body to move your own arms around….[The teacher] was trying to get us to move from “the core.” [I can sense that] in class—not necessarily in everyday life…[but] I hope so! It must be, otherwise I would probably injure myself more….[For example, when I am painting] I’m trying to think of not just moving this much [makes painting gesture just with lower arm; with movement just in the elbow]…otherwise it’s going to get repetitive very quickly. I think I’m trying to be aware if it starts to hurt, and then to make sure I am moving in a more integrated way. (A15) Relief and the lessening of pain. The experience of reduced pain during and after classes and sessions was common, and it lasted for various periods of time. This included experiences of the pain going away completely during an Awareness Through Movement class: “There was a lot of relief….I wasn’t feeling that pain” (E4); or a Functional Integration session: “the hands-on Feldenkrais, there was often like a real change that I felt when I walked out the

117 door. Like, the headache, ‘It’s gone’” (H2). All the informants continued to deal with pain— either the pain they came to Feldenkrais Method with or new pain issues, but all talked about the pain being less overall. The experience of reduced pain included developing the ability to move in ways that reduced or minimized pain. Reduced pain was often associated with senses of greater calm, feeling more spacious, as well as improved functional abilities. I just remember just having this headache that wouldn’t go away…kind of all around my head, because it moves around, and being on the table and having my practitioner…she just like moved different parts of my shoulders and my neck. The experience of that lifting…that pain, lifting….The headache feels oppressive; it’s like a crushing feeling; compression. I think when the pain goes away, particularly with the headache…the experience with going away is a lifting; it’s an opening. (H2; see additional texts in H2 in Appendix C) The impact [of Functional Integration] was great because it alleviated a whole lot of pain that I had. And the pain didn’t just pop back at me. The way maybe after a massage it pops back. It didn’t keep reemerging….The pain didn’t go away totally, it just lessened and lessened and lessened. (B15) [Feldenkrais] also gave me a coping tool to deal with the amount of pain that I had in movement at that point in time…the relief that I got in those moments—where I had that floating experience. I had been in…chronic pain for a long period of time. So even lying down on your back, it was like, “Oh, how am I going to get comfortable here…like I’m going to need 42 pillows under the knees.” And there was none of that in that class, so I was really surprised that I could reach that state, because I hadn’t felt that relief in quite a while. (E4) Less fear and not guarding. Feldenkrais may be part of dealing with the fear of changes in the body, for example, from surgery or aging, or even the fear of pain itself. The pain was not as nearly as great after the [hip replacement] surgery as what I have been dealing with before the surgery. So that really diminished and it turned into this other project—of the pain in my head about being fearful about this new body…about, “What can this new metal thing do inside my body?” All these other thoughts that I was having after the surgery…[that] here was anxiety around and Feldenkrais helped with that. (E6) I never find myself thinking about whether I can do something or not do something. My guard is down. I’m not guarding myself all the time about the pain. (B15; see also A2, A6, and F6 in Appendix C)

118 Reducing pain: Through movement and attention. Greater awareness of the relationship between body organization and pain also created the possibility of reducing pain, through altering ways of moving. I could tell the connection between how I was holding here, to pain here [points to jaw], and [the head]ache [points to forehead]. I have become more aware of these different ways of moving, and how I could make that movement easier, more comfortable…that I might be holding myself in ways that are not good—in a way that accentuates pain or that aggravates pain. (H2, H5) I notice how much more aware I am of my body and my movements than most people, so I don’t know if I can elaborate on that or not…but I do notice it, and [it] makes me grateful. [That awareness is useful for]…avoiding injuries, [and] avoiding pain…(A14) Altering attention also played a role in the experience of reduced pain. As a person with joint pain, it is really hard not to focus on that particular point—but the idea of spreading everything out, makes perfect sense. I’m sure I’ve experienced it before—I mean I think I’ve been describing that experience all along—and walking out feeling more whole and integrated and nothing’s pounding…on the knees, which is what I focus on a lot. (C18; see also B15 in this chapter and F6 in Appendix C) The experience of Feldenkrais Method may include the relief of pain, but also discovering how not to trigger a pain response or pattern. Today I am think[ing] about Feldenkrais treating pain…but down the line, if you’re aligned, and if you’re calm…you’re not going to kick off that cascade of pain. I’m thinking of both…(C9; see also C9 in Appendix C) Functional capacities. One of the ways these informants experienced the changes in bodily experience was through improvement in functional capacities in their lives. For example, improvements in activities of daily living, such as: balance, sitting, standing, walking, climbing stairs, lifting, and sleeping. [After Feldenkrais lessons] I usually feel more balanced. (G10) So [after the hip replacement surgery] my practitioner has been teaching me how to do things like standup, sit down, walk down stairs in a way that’s less painful. So it’s worked really well. (C12)

119 I was concerned about this painful knee. [My practitioner and I] talked about how I was standing leaning back…and about getting myself more standing into my feet. She did some stuff with my legs, and how I was moving [in] my hip here. She was having me show her how I move my leg. We discovered something. Then there were some things she wanted me to do to loosen that up... that would help me walk more comfortably. I remember with the leg, I was just noticing, “How do I walk?” and “Is there a way I could walk differently that would maybe be better or...?”…and some of the little exercises. And so it wasn’t…it wasn’t a dramatic change right off the bat. (H17) Feldenkrais Method contributed to the ability to continue to recover from surgery or injury and continue to work and contribute to society. Feldenkrais didn’t fix the sciatic pain—that was a surgery. I think it helped afterwards just to keep it from hurting—I think it is more of a maintenance [thing]. It helps me. It keeps me at a level where I am, sort of, a relatively normal person, and functional, and I don’t get too low. If I don’t do it [Feldenkrais] so often, then I get really starting to get all kinds of…[difficulty]…so you are out of pain and everything moves the way it is supposed to. Doing those [recordings of lessons for the] arms…also physical therapy, I came back and I played [music professionally for] maybe four or five years. That was really keeping me able to keep going to work. [Later] I got an injury…where I couldn’t type anymore. [Doing regular Functional Integration sessions] was even better….Going to get [frequent Functional Integration sessions]…that got me more and more functional but I didn’t want to do the computer thing anymore. I ended going back to school and doing [a new kind of work] which was much easier on the body. [If I] hadn’t had [Feldenkrais], I would be in a wheel chair and I wouldn’t be working. It saved my life….It really did restructure this way of moving….I’m still able to go to work and be useful, if I try to work 40 hours, I get in pain. But if I can do 20 or 30, I tend to be okay—especially if I go home, and I have time, and I can do a [Feldenkrais] lesson…(A11, A12, A13) Keeping moving and performing better. The experience of improved function included finding ways to continue to be active and improve performance in sports and recreation. One thing I did notice, as soon as I did a Feldenkrais lesson I was getting balls on the tennis court that I wasn’t getting at before. That my movement was more “functional,” that I was…I said, “Wow, that’s interesting, you know, because after a Feldenkrais session, I was hitting balls I wasn’t hittin’ before.” If you wanted a bottom-line that, that would be what it is. Just movement in general…climbing stairs, walking, doing an ExerBike, anything where there’s movement involved….I just function more efficiently, I move better. I’m always looking forward to going to my Feldenkrais practitioner once a months’ time is up. Because I know I always come out feeling better. Just put it that way. And I am always kind of feeling, “Wow this is working a little better.” I did a couple of years [of Awareness Through Movement classes] and I’d go out and play tennis afterwards. I notice on the—my body worked better after an hour of [the] group

120 exercises that he did with us... he would do various different movements. (F1, F3; see also E5, G1, and H1 in Appendix C) Meta-Theme 3: Developing and Making Use of Increased Bodily Awareness “A wonderful thoughtful experience of getting you into your body” (E18) and an awareness that “If it’s just learned, it can be unlearned” (E11). In this Meta-Theme the experience of increased bodily awareness and the use of bodily awareness to change habits is described. The experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method involved increased bodily awareness—awareness of the body, through the means of moving and sensing the body. Firstly, it was a process of getting in-touch with bodily experience itself. It may have involved a change in the overall sense of the body—creating an expectation of “feeling exponentially different” after doing a class (C2). Bodily awareness was experienced as a “wonderful thoughtful experience of getting you into your body” (E18). It involved awareness of the need to listen to the body and notice one’s bodily needs, as well as, sometimes subtle, changes. This included awareness of the effects of particular lessons on bodily experience, such as awareness of dynamic connections throughout the body. A key part of the experience was increased awareness of one’s bodily habits, including, movement preferences and patterns that may have had a long-term effect on the body, habits acquired from previous movement practices, or habits of muscular tightening or holding associated with stress, interpersonal relationships, and so forth. The experience of doing Feldenkrais Method also afforded using bodily awareness to alter habits. For example, becoming consciously aware of a bodily habit, such as holding the breath allowed change in the movement. Also, how small, often local, changes in bodily organization made significant, often global, changes in bodily organization and experience. Elements of Awareness Through Movement lessons were used to help alter habits once they

121 were identified. Doing Feldenkrais created an experience that, “If it’s just learned, it can be unlearned” (E11). Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. For some informants increased bodily awareness was more of a receptive nature, for example, noticing the state of the body, or changes or improvements after Feldenkrais Method lessons or sessions. Bodily needs. A greater awareness of the body’s need was experienced. [There are] the situations that will come in which I have a crisis, and then my practitioner works on it. Not very often….If I know something that is really going wrong…and that has happened a few times with my back. (F6) Awareness of changes from Feldenkrais practice. The informants reported greater awareness of the sometimes subtle changes that occur. Also, students may become aware of the particular kinds of bodily changes associated with certain kinds of lessons. [In lessons with the toes and feet, the feeling]….It goes all the way up and it doesn’t just stop there in the feet and ankles. It certainly does transfer to my knees, and to my pelvis, and eventually all the way up. I can feel if I’m really present as soon as I do that—instead of just getting up and going to the next thing, I walk for just a couple of minutes—which of course after every lesson you are advised to do; get up and walk. There is a phenomenal difference in the way that I feel the information coming in—like feeling it coming up all the way through my pelvis, into my shoulders, into my crown, my shoulders or my neck….(D9; see also additional texts on this theme in D9 in Appendix C) Awareness is really important in this. Having had that intense experience with [my practitioner] gave me deep respect for the power of Feldenkrais. I have a sense that things are changing even when they don’t feel like they are changing. Just the movement and the bringing of awareness brings…something…different. And most of the time I’m not aware of what it is. I just have confidence. I have faith that it is so…Just the movement of it, something happens. (G1) Other informants reported developing and using the ability to direct their attention to their body. There were a range of other aspects of how bodily awareness was experienced, including awareness of bodily habits and the ability to change those habits (addressed in this Meta-Theme) and ways of using a more active process of bodily awareness to help them deal

122 with pain or distress, to create calming, or work out how to make movements (also described in Meta-Theme 4). A positive sense of the body. Increased body awareness from doing Feldenkrais Method was associated with a positive sense that the body’s feel and function can improve though time— as the informants became more sensitive to their bodily experience. When you do [Feldenkrais] over a lot of years, first of all, you know what to expect. You become sensitized…more and more to.…So, I step in the room and it’s like: “Okay, it’s time. It’s time, for this.” That’s why I was a little disappointed [with the class I did] today because I wasn’t sort of sense…feeling it. You know. It felt blocky and I just didn’t feel it today. But…so, I expect to feel sort of like cared for in some way. When I first started, it really wasn’t quite as effective. It’s just as you do it more it becomes more effective. (C2) In classes the teacher acts as a guide who is an expert in the process to “a wonderful thoughtful experience” of “getting you into your body.” So, there’s little tiny things that when I’m walking down the street, I’m just happy to be walking down the street because…I’m like, “Oh I’m really aware of what’s going on in there”—all that anatomy information and experience about [of] awareness, I’m feeling that. (E18, E6) Awareness of habits. Greater bodily awareness included greater awareness of habits. Yeah, little tiny things too, which I hadn’t thought about before…and I thought I was a super aware person. I have been dancing, I have been doing yoga, I have been doing all that stuff that is kind-of body related, but really had a lot of strange habits. (E7) [Recently, working with my practitioner] I was talking about my family, who I had just visited. There was this family “stuff” that came down…and as I was describing it to my practitioner she says, “You are tightening up!” She was doing something to my shoulder, she was like, “Do you think you could relax your shoulders some?” And I say, “Oh God. There it is that family thing!” [showing up in my body]. So, it does help with all of that…the tightening we do when we are thinking stuff. (C4) Using awareness to change habits. Awareness Through Movement lessons created the possibility of noticing habitual ways of doing things. [For example] when you put your knees together and then you let them go one side and let them go the other side, and then you take your head and you do [move] it the other way. I know that [is] training the body-mind…and I love that. Well, just being disciplined, and working with the mind to learn how to be disciplined and not assume. Not do what’s habitual but do what is intended. (G8)

123 Bringing awareness to bodily experience was in itself experienced as a stimulus for change in the movement. [In the recorded lesson, the Feldenkrais teacher mentioned] the idea that holding is unconscious, [which] made it more conscious. I don’t know how that is. By telling me I was unconscious I could see it. I don’t know why. And as a result of that, I released it… [For example, like being reminded in the recorded lesson to breathe] “Oh okay. I can breathe.” And then I was breathing….I wasn’t even thinking. I wasn’t doing that fake breathing. I notice that fake breathing…this like intentional [breathing]. No, I was just breathing. It’s like, I didn’t even say [to myself], “Oh breathe.” [The teacher said something like] “Holding the breath is a strategy you might do to start something hard” —and then I was breathing. How do you figure that? That is different for me. (B12, B24) Bodily awareness was used to facilitate small changes in self-use over time. I had headaches that went away—because I was looking at stuff like this—[the informant arches her neck] that was a kind of neck strain. So that’s one example of a small thing that had huge benefits to changing that habit, or being aware of that habit. (E4) I can do something a little bit different and make a difference, and I’m not surprised because it does. Reaching, standing, getting my spine straight. (G14) Feldenkrais lessons were used to alter bodily habits. Once that’s pointed out to you….My practitioner said, “The good part is that with this body awareness you can correct yourself.” (E7) The neck [pain] was a result of the butterfly stroke. My body was trying to find ways to correct and to compensate for the things that weren’t feeling so good. I do feel a support with the [Feldenkrais] work through that, and I still have pain. Everything that I have just been sharing with you about the home practice I do—pressing my heels, and how that affected my whole spine. All of that was linked to the need to balance the swim. (D4) [For example] getting into what the shoulders are doing—there was a small movement of pushing your elbow out and tucking your elbow in as a way to, kind of, release the shoulder. I had been doing all kinds of pushing, tugging, and pulling, and tucking, and all kinds of things to get shoulder relaxation—and then there is this one little tiny thing from Feldenkrais could create such an impact on me. Because we are just learning, it’s not an exercise routine. (E9) It goes hand in hand for me—about the attitude and the benefits of breaking that habit – that’s causing me some restriction or pain later on. So it is a mental benefit, but then also there is the physical part. I don’t know how I could get one without the other. Instead of doing something sort of self-depreciating by getting so uptight about stuff that’s really out of my control…[For example] If I’m standing on a line and I’m uptight – I have got my shoulders up to my ears! [speaking ironically] “Because when I’m uptight, I just

124 need to pull up that for my physical wellbeing!” Now there is a whole different thing that I do right there. I think, “This is a long line, I’m going to do my shoulder thing” —a small gentle exercise for my shoulder. “Okay, I’m breaking that habit.” That’s the fun part—also that’s definitely a benefit…in that I am taking in every situation wherever I am, [and] through that situation I am benefiting myself. (E11; see also F3, F6, F14 in Appendix C) Meta-Theme 4: Changing Perceptions of Body-and-Mind “I’m not feeling my body as something I have to make do something” (B19) “There’s a visual imagining and a felt imagining” (E22) “The bigger space is where all the change happens” (C21) This Meta-Theme describes the experience of changes in the perception of the body-andmind, including the experience of a sense of space, and the ability to sense into the body. These sometimes included a sense that the mind is not controlling the body in movement, but that movement can become more automatic in Awareness Through Movement lessons and everyday life. There was, for some informants, also a bodily felt-sense of greater space or spaciousness— in the physical body, but not necessarily confined to the body. It was sometimes experienced as an overall sense of being more spacious in oneself, and at others it was an experience of space within particular parts of the body. This sense of space experienced during and after lessons was associated variously with reduced pain and anxiety, and increased relaxation and calm. The invitation to sense the body, may include making imagined movements in Awareness Through Movement lessons. Informants described particular aspects of this ability that involve imaging into the body which involved both a visual and bodily-felt experience that may involve parts of the body, the whole body, a sense of space around the body, or a nonspecific sense of spaciousness. This multimodal sensing of the body involving visual imaging (such as body parts—especially the skeleton, colors, textures) combined with various felt experiences of weight and densities, as well as of movement, location, and spatiality.

125 Often when this experience occurred, students were imagining movements to help them prepare for or plan a movement or movement sequence. However, some informants also made use of ability for sensing into their bodies as part of an ongoing capacity for self-awareness. Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. Sensing into the body. It opened up exploration…I can’t think of other ways of saying [other] than clichés…but it was like “Okay, I’m just listening to my body.” Which is something I’d never done because I had always sort of not paid attention to my body because I didn’t want to feel this chronic back pain that I had. (B11) If you listen to your breath enough, then you can begin to discern between your breath and other sounds in your body. So, I don’t know how to speak about that so much. Again, that’s just something that, if it shows up, I’m paying attention. (D14) Perceiving altered densities. As part of the altered experience of space, during and after lessons, there may be a changed sense of the density within the body, especially the sides of the body. [After doing the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson: reads card] “After the movements: body parts moved; feel more spacious and open and more room for bones and muscles to move freely.” So, what I mean by that is, you know, how you’re done with one whole side26 and it feels very “poufy” and has a different visual image on it. It’s just spaciousness, whereas the other side is very solid and clunky and dense. And that’s how I…always how I experience it…visible like that. Less dense, yeah, less dense…. And the little points of pain and discomfort are gone. (A6) Let’s see, when we took a rest, I wrote “fluffy on the right and solid on the left.” That’s how it feels laying on the back. So, the left side felt very grounded and the right side was like [makes “wooshing” noise]—really low. One side felt like really open, like marshmallows, like no muscles, super light I could float off the floor kind of and the other one was like: [slaps table with hand] solid!…by the end of the lesson is [it was] even. Both sides felt really grounded. Not like marshmallow, not like rock…very, just solid, in a nice way in a very nice way at the end of that lesson. (C14)

26

The informant is referring to the point in lessons where the movements are done lying on one side, there is a rest lying on the back where bodily sensations are observed, and then often the lesson will continue on the other side. It is thought in Feldenkrais Method teaching that this learning strategy generates sensory contrasts for students (Feldenkrais, 2010a).

126 An altered experience of body-and-mind in movement. Initially moving with conscious attention in Awareness Through Movement led in some cases to informants experiencing a change between conscious mind or conscious intention to move, and movement feeling more automatic. What I like about Feldenkrais is that…it’s just like your body does it, it’s not your mind and your thinking, analytical…or your mind doing it….You get out of your body’s way. To me that’s very important, because I can find any number of ways that tense up…. (A15) [After a number of classes]…it no longer became an exercise in having my body make the motions that the teacher was telling me to do. No longer was that. It was an experience going on, I just have to say it, “between my mind and my body.” I’m not feeling my body as something I have to make do something. The movement comes from the inside out. But also, that there is…there was an integrated feeling I had that I’d never had before because I’m a thinker, I am an intellectual, and all of a sudden I was using my brain to move. I thought about my brain in terms of moving my body, and making me feel comfortable, and just feeling good. (B19, B20) Injury, pain, or recovery from surgery may lead one to moving more deliberately or consciously. While in Awareness Through Movement lessons students are asked to attend to the experience of moving as a learning strategy, one possible result was a greater sense of the movement becoming less consciously controlled. In the course of a lesson, students may develop less of a sense of conscious control, and more of a flow of movement as comfortable synergistic patterns are discovered and movement becomes less effortful. Similarly, in daily life as pain and dysfunctional patters of movement are reduced and new patterns of movement are discovered, movements may be experienced as more automatic27.

This apparent paradox is often observed in Feldenkrais Method, and other learning practices, as a training phenomenon. In the learning context of Feldenkrais classes and sessions —especially initially—the emphasis may be more on conscious awareness of aspects of experience, but either later in the lesson or taking the learning into life, the aim is for the learning to be able to be used more spontaneously. In classes and sessions the aim is to teach students and clients to develop the skills to access bodily experience for when they need to deploy them, for example, for calming, to deal with a movement dysfunction or pain. However, this does not 27

127 …I stopped thinking about my brain as a control center. It’s more like my brain was not stuck in my head. It was all over my body. And my brain wasn’t defending me. It was kind of just propelling me. (B20) Right now, because of the knee replacement and learning how to balance again, and all of that, so what I notice is that it’s much easier to just move forward without being… without having to think as much. Because with knee replacement, you really do have to think about how you’re moving. You have to plan your moves—which is really tiresome. Until things recover, you’re always doing strategy to figure out how to get up, get down, put on your clothes, all that kind of stuff. Climb stairs….It’s not automatic. When it’s a little more automatic, it’s like, “Ahhh…” [relief sound]. So, it’s just like, “I didn’t have to think about that.” (C10) Visually imagining a movement. An experience of visualizing or picturing a movement, or of utilizing a visual image of the movement, may also accompany a changed sense of a realizing a body-and-mind connection. It went from being more of…like a physical activity—where you were kind of telling your body how to, kind of, make the movements; “an exercise”—to some kind of more interior experience of realizing the mind body connection somehow….And then your mind and body were like doing it together….And that you could improve your movement and sensation and also that somehow having this picture you were like having the picture and doing it at the same time: having this internal image and doing it at the same time. I really stopped thinking about it but I had lots of visual imagery: flooded by visual imagery all the time. (B22) I did sort of stop [thinking about the movement]. I think [it] was a little metacognitive [strategy]: I would hear it, and then I would picture myself doing it, and I’m not sure how much of a time lapse it was between the picturing myself doing it and actually doing it. They might have been simultaneous, but the visual imagery became completely and totally comforting and fascinating to me. I’m not a picture sort of thinker, I’m a wordthinker, so I was just so excited about that…that I didn’t think about it [in words] anymore. (B10) Visually imagining the movement functioned as a guide to help improve the quality of the movement.

imply that students and clients need to be, or indeed could be, consciously aware of the body or movement all of the time, or even that this is desirable—as there are many situations where spontaneous deployment of new movement skills is most effective (Feldenkrais, 1972; Shusterman, 2008).

128 This [recorded] lesson [we just did], made me realize that when I imagine it, I imagine it in an ideal. I imagine it the way I really would like to be able to move. So, the imagery is a guide in itself. It’s a goal that I would never set for myself. I just wouldn’t… couldn’t…I’m not trying to say, “I see it in my head, and now I see it in my head as I’m doing it and I try to achieve that standard.” It’s not like that. It’s not like that. It’s just: “I can do it better.” (B24; More texts describing these experiences for informant B can be found in B6, B10, B11, B13, and B21 to B23 in this chapter) Developing the ability to visualize within the body, especially the skeleton, was useful for dealing with planned medical procedures. The Feldenkrais classes were a preparation for me to have a hip replacement, because I had done a lot of examining all different things to do and what was going to work. In that preparation we were always looking at skeletons [in class], we were talking about the body and how it works, and it really helped me to visualize what was going on inside my body, and that the surgery was going to be viable alternative to get my mobility back. For me it was like a visualization, somehow that I knew what was going on inside of there—because the doctors didn’t even show me the x-ray. (E6) An experience of space. A sense of space, or greater spaciousness, was associated with a whole bodily experience of less stress and greater calm, a different ability to respond to internal and external stimuli, and more openness to experience. That wonderful sense of space in this….More space. More room. Less clutter…yeah, internal clutter, right. There’s that filtering again. So, in terms of internal clutter, you know, you filter out internal clutter, and the external stuff too. [Doing Feldenkrais] is associated with] an openness, instead of everything being boxed and structured and… even thinking-wise—way more associative and open. But I’m thinking sort of physically and emotionally…not “tight box,” but nice and open. (C13, C21) It was also associated with less pain and absorption in one’s sensory experience. The space in my body—it wasn’t just in my body but it was almost like I was free floating. So, it wasn’t confined to my body, it was just you are a part of this spaciousness where I wasn’t feeling the pain. That state was just…you’re very much conscious, but you’re super relaxed and not feeling tethered to the body, or not feeling like “Oh my ankle hurts” or any of that stuff, you’re just in a peaceful state in the middle of your body but it’s not contained at that point….I think is what happened because, when you are feeling the pain, you are confined by it. Whereas, when that goes away and you are in a relaxed state, there is so much more space. You have space to look at other things—or recharge yourself. I felt that that was important. It didn’t happen like immediately, the teacher is talking through this process, and first they started with more physical movements and then they got smaller detailed movements….So that I was kind of lead to this place of this internal area that I was paying attention to, like, “Where your eyelids

129 meet” and [other] small little details….I think that [this experience] pops up in conjunction with being in that relaxed state because I’m changing my perspective. (E21, E22) There was awareness of space in relation to specific parts of the body. I’ve been more aware of the space around my heart. I have had a few Feldenkrais lessons around that—focusing the breath in different areas. Those have been really wonderful. There’s more spaciousness and there’s more…I would just say awareness. (D14) [After this recorded lesson] there’s more space between my vertebral bodies and my cervical spine. There’s more space between my mandible and my lower occiput. And there’s just more space all the way around through everything there. Both of my shoulders were closer to the floor when we stopped or when the lesson was over. (D14) Imagining movements and a sense of space. Imagining the movements may evoke an alteration in perception of the body as simultaneously internally felt and externally visualized— that is, there seemed to be multiple perspectives for these informants on their experience available at the same. This process is associated with a sense of space in which this experience occurred, and in which working out the movement and feelings associated with it occur. If I can’t imagine the move properly, I think I’ve approached [that] from a couple of different angles trying to get there. One is that I’m inside of central part of my body and I’m concentrating on the limbs. I am inside, my eyes are closed, and I’m trying to imagine the movement of this arm or leg. When that wasn’t working so hot, that maybe I’ll go up and look down on myself, and see what that body looks like and imagine it from that way…to imagine it from up above—I’m looking down at my body and you know, almost puppeteering it….When I’m looking down on myself I am also sensing myself physically. I don’t really have a system to figure it out. I’m just trying to…in relation to doing it, depending upon how difficult the movement was for me to imagine. Just as a starting point to say [to myself], “If you can get the hang in this movement from some angle, then you can imagine it and incorporate it into your what you can do easily.” So, there’s a visual imagining and a felt imagining. (E22) [When trying to work out how to make movements in classes] I try to picture what the movement is and then experimenting…it’s sort of like an out-of-body-image and, you know, [as] if I was looking at myself from above and [imagining] where would I, you know, put parts of my body. That often doesn’t work. But at least I have this image. There’s something about, um…how do we describe this? I don’t know…I’m just realizing this as I’m talking to you…It’s sort of an out-of-body, in-body thing….I think it’s more in-body. It’s like there’s this big space, big empty space, and I’m in the middle of it as my whole person—and yet the external part of me is doing this thing, and I’m thing to figure out where to move. I think there’s a way in which I learn new movements

130 by trying to see it from the outside and then inside-out of course. Imagining as seeing… So, there’s like…there’s me, there’s the inner me, and then there’s the external person looking and trying to figure out all that. That bigger space, which I view is inside…the bigger space is where all the change happens, I think. The big space…I’m inside it and I’m outside it. It’s sort of in me and there’s a little me in there and it’s…trying to figure stuff out. So, I guess that’s how I’m imagining how to move. And after all [that], the external me goes away and it all kind of comes together….So I don’t have to think about it. I think it’s really fun to try—once I get past that frustration. (C21) The internal process or practice of sensing into the body. Sensing into the body may emerge as a way to prepare or plan for making movements in Awareness Through Movement, that ability may also be consciously used as an internal practice of sensing the body. While the experience of sensing into the body may be described as a visual and bodily-experience, it may also be experienced as an “all through sensory perception” (D15)—perhaps meaning multimodal perception. So, let’s say I hit a frustration. So instead of verbalizing or flailing away at Frustration A or Difficulty B or whatever it is or…I think it…I think there’s a way that I’m learning how to just take my time, and work through it…because if you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson: [there is] frustration…calm…empty space…you know, and then you work through it in some fabulous way!…knowing how you learn, or what you do when you learn, is really important. I do know that sense of frustration, “Am I doing it right? Well let’s just keep….” So for me it’s always trial and error. You know, I think that’s a learning process. It’s kind of this unconscious process, which I think I would apply to Feldenkrais as well. Where all of a sudden, I don’t know how but I learned something. No idea how that happened! (C21) I can “see” into my body sometimes doing Awareness Through Movement or at other times, if I intend it…like if there’s really a problem. If I’ve gotten worried, I would ask to see…“Show me” and I’ll have to work with it. I see static. I see friction. I see colors sometimes. I am aware. I pay attention…I’m paying attention. I’m intending to attend and it’s working. It’s much easier for me to attend with my eyes closed for sure. I’m not seeing the space. It’s a total—it’s all sensing. I can see if I want to. And I see what’s going on in there. I can see. But I don’t usually ask to see. That’s a whole another level. I see more without ‘trying to see’, because it’s ‘all through’ sensory perception. Right now, what do I see? I mean, look at something….Let me focus on something and see if I can see it – to speak it, to see it, to translate. [Pause] So I’m looking at my left acetabulum and I’m seeing smoothness in some areas, a lot of smoothness, just looks pearly. And in other areas, there’s a bit of a spiraling looking rope – which I’m perceiving to be tension in the cells of the muscle. It looks... There’s a pale…sort of a pale blue color there. I’m just going to see if I can smooth it. [Pause] So now it’s all unwound and it’s relaxing and I feel it through my whole body. It’s good. (D15)

131 Meta-Theme 5: An Experience of Calming “Find an easier path.” That’s what I do: do it slowly and pay attention…when you’re done with a lesson, your mind feels very different, you are very calm and centered. So, obviously, something is happening to the nervous system: that it’s beneficial. Everything seems slowed down or stopped. It’s a very nice place to be. (A7) This Meta-Theme describes the experience of the Feldenkrais Method as calming. Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. Feelings of calm and being peaceful. Doing Feldenkrais classes and sessions led to feelings of “calm” (A7), and being “peaceful” (F8). Sometimes it was an experience that appears more as mental: the “mind feels very different, you are very calm and centered” (A7). For example, the quieting of “nattery” negative self-talk and “shutting off the inner critic” (C25), and sometimes this seem to do more with bodily feelings, such as feeling “relaxed, heavy, sleepy” (F7), feeling “softer” (C4), or that the student’s “muscular system felt more at ease and relaxed and I felt warmer, physically warmer” (B3). It may also involve a sense of quietness in parts of the body, or a feeling that “everything starts calming down” (C3) [Feldenkrais] calms down my mind, as well as my body…all those little inner voices, that are so unpleasant sometimes….So…let’s say you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson…and you start out with all the little “nattery”…like, “Oh this is boring…” and all the “Nya, nya, nya, nya…”. The inner critic? It shuts it up very nicely…and by the end of the class, it’s a remarkable…all that stuff is quiet. It’s really great. (C4, C5, C25; see also D8 in this chapter and F8, G2 in Appendix C) The letting go or clearing out of stress. For some informants Feldenkrais classes and sessions may allow a sense of a sense of having a break or a “vacation” (C8) from the stress, and a chance to “start anew” (A9). [I continue to do Feldenkrais] for comfort. I mean, if I stopped altogether, yeah, I could go backwards because every day brings compression and stress, and weird things that you do to your body that you don’t mean to, and it builds up and it doesn’t go away by itself

132 …[Doing weekly classes] removes whatever garbage happened to me, and I can start anew and…and then I can get through the next week a lot of times. (A9) It’s sort of something about feeling like myself…without all the crap. I know it’s the sense of frantically accomplishing things which gets in the way of feeling integrated… [Doing Feldenkrais] dissipates that quite a bit. It’s almost like being in a mini vacation, without your cell phone, on the beach….So it’s something like that. (C 8; see also H16 in Appendix C) Calming as journey, place, or space. The finding of calmness in Awareness Though Movement lessons was experienced as a journey to greater calm, or as finding a place of calmness. The calmness was often associated with a sense of space, or spaciousness. [From doing Feldenkrais] I think I actually know that there’s a place that’s really calm. So, I think it does help me calm down. Just calm down the racing aspects of my thinking and…just persevere. For me that’s really important…a little pool of calm for me. Along with the calmer mind, because….It gives you more space to sort of process information. So that helps. The parts of me—are more together. I think it starts with the body movement….With the mind…the mind and body together. Also, I feel a little floaty too. Floaty is great. (C3, C5) [The detailed awareness in lessons] it brought me to this awareness of my own body and this peace within my body, it was like a little path you walk down. [Until you are in] this slow down peaceful little place. Yeah, to just bring you slowly inward, inward, inward— where there is more space because you’re not thinking about all of these other things around you that are distractions or restrictions. Some of the space that [going slower] provides also provides a certain amount of clarity on some things. So that I’m just calmer and less reactive I think. I just felt like it was really valuable, because afterwards I felt really refreshed. And slowed down, again…so that I wasn’t just like, “Let me just jump back into everything that I supposed to be worrying about.” (E3; see also E14 in Appendix C) Finding calm through movement. Informants experienced the calm arising from the qualities-of-movement-as-strategies such as finding a sense of ease, and making small and slow movements, which introduced or induced an overall feeling of ease and slowness. So that’s where Feldenkrais is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness [too]. There were some sessions [classes] that were [are] just delicious….I think one of the things is the slowing down and the awareness. Well you know…we all comment on how we move slowly after the lessons. Just that moving slowly out of the room….“Moving…oh, yeah…”. We can hardly walk down the street. My thinking? Yeah it’s so slow…to slow everything down. So that’s where Feldenkrais

133 is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness, too. (G2, G12) Greater calm may be associated with reduced pain, and not setting off a larger pain pattern. “With the calming the pain goes. It doesn’t go away completely, but it’s less prevalent” (C9). Engagement in the experience of movement contributes to calm. Making movements while being “focused” (H4) or “concentrating” (C17) on the body in movement also contributed to calming. Movement challenges that involved doing a little work to “figuring it out” (C19) can create an “engagement” (C17) that was absorbing and “distracting” (E3) from pain, thoughts, and worries, including the next thing on one’s to do list or what one needed to do tomorrow. “It was that I was not having concerns about anything else because of that concentration for that small movement—you really can’t think about a whole lot of other things” (E14). My mind slows down. I can’t really do meditation very well, so [with Awareness Through Movement]…we’re moving…it’s slow, easy, manageable movements that sometimes are a little bit challenging to figure out. So, your mind has something to do. But at the same time, everything starts calming down. Probably through the movements…it’s kinetic in a way that is calming. [Doing Feldenkrais classes are] distracting from that mind that’s always blabbing and flapping around and writing laundry lists or whatever—or shopping lists, or whatever it is you do in your head, worrying about work, or think about the next thing to do during the day. By the end of class, generally all that stuff is gone…whereas in meditation it would still be there…it would still be just sitting there. So, for kinetic people, it’s perfect. There’s something about moving slowly and thinking about things that calms everything down…thinking about the movements. (C3, C17; see also E14 in Appendix C) Being in a group setting, with possible distractions on the one hand and a sense of joint purpose on the other, contributed to focused attention. I was doing mostly Awareness Through Movement lessons at the height of the anxiety, depression—and I loved the group: I really liked the group. There’s something about being in a group of people all doing that same thing that’s really relaxing for me—and kind of calming. I’m not sure what it is. Even though nobody is talking, which took a little bit of discipline for me because generally I do love to talk, there is a sense of…. You’re all working on the same thing…and you’re being led by somebody….My understanding is that part of this process…is figuring it all out. But the group thing is a lot of fun for me. I like that. It’s like a tiny little hour-long community of people—and

134 the room is really pleasant. It’s calm, it’s nice, it’s quiet. Everybody is there. Everybody is kind of focused. (C27) Developing skills to deal with stress. Informants developed skills to deal with stress, through a learned ability to physically relax: “I breathe. I move…” (B3) or learn the ability to filter out sensory-emotional stimuli. When things bother me now, I don’t take that stress on physically. I don’t let it make me feel physically bad. I don’t process stress physically anymore. I don’t tense up. Because I’ve experienced what it’s like not to feel tensed up. What’s different [with stress] is I no longer talk myself out of it. I just physically relax. I breathe, I move. (B2, B3) My core challenge is how much “noise” can I take in and not feel like I have got to do anything with it…just allow…and just allow what my body is doing. [Feldenkrais] speaks to the noise inside and how to differentiate, it’s just how to differentiate [this is in here] and that’s out there. I don’t have to do anything like that right now. I believe Feldenkrais helps me with being able to actually make that differentiation. I think it’s helped a lot. Feldenkrais is a call to your own center quickly, isn’t it? Maybe more quickly than anything else. (D11, D14) Revaluing resting, and taking the opportunity to rest. They also can draw on their experience of the calming to re-value the importance of rest and decide to do restful things. [After a class] everything feels so much more relaxed. Just more relaxed, calmer, not twitchy….I usually often want to take a nap. I mean, sometimes I think, “Should I go… [to class]?”—because if I have a lot of things planned…it’s going to change the trajectory of my day, because after the session, I feel like all that other stuff isn’t quite as important. It’s more important to go take a nap or something. Just to sort of enjoy the calm. I never have a problem in napping. But I do have a problem taking time out from doing everything—just saying. “Okay, I’m just going to go take a nap.” So it helps motivate me…to go [take a nap]…or rather de-motivate me from doing all that stuff…all my errands….To just say, “Yeah, let’s go home.” “Who cares? So, what if the kitchen is dirty—whatever!” Which is actually really helpful, because, you know, I think most of us these days are doers, we live in a busy place, we all have stuff to do and you can get really wrapped up in that. [Having done a class before this interview]…I guess I’ve got that “peaceful-happy…easy-comfortable, don’t need to do anything feeling” that I so love. (C3, C5) Finding physical comfort and settling. Doing Feldenkrais helped with finding physical comfort for meditation or for sleep, for example by being able to find ways to be comfortable in nonfamiliar positions and finding ways to settle.

135 [Feldenkrais lessons] also helped me because when I was having trouble going to sleep, I would get into one position, just laying on my back, and kind of repeat the sequence of the lesson in my mind and it helped me with going to sleep—in a position that I usually don’t sleep in, which was on my back…[Also] Meditation for me was something I liked to do, but I’m a little antsy in my body—I’m very, like, wriggly. I just would start meditation and couldn’t settle into it—but I could settle in to it by starting with the Feldenkrais. Before I would just sit there and be uncomfortable: where I was focusing on, “This is really uncomfortable,” and, “How am I going to get comfortable?”—because that’s all I was thinking about. So that [doing Feldenkrais] sort of freed me up: “Okay now I know how to get comfortable in my own body right now—regardless of what’s going on with it.” So that just allowed me to clear my head and get to the meditation. (E5, E13; see also D7 in this chapter) Using Awareness Through Movement for calming in daily life. Informants used lessons or parts of lessons that they felt were calming, and incorporated them into their daily lives. I have all these anxiety symptoms. I can’t sleep. [Doing a Feldenkrais lesson] would help a little if I did one right before [going to bed]….and actually, in the middle of the night I got [have] up and I did [a lesson].…if I am uptight, and I think to relax…then I sleep better. There’s a nice [lesson] for the eyes. That seemed good…[Also] there is a guy who does Feldenkrais for sleep [referring to Krugman, 2005, and recently] I pulled his [recording] out because I was so desperate, and I did…it for half an hour and it did help calm me down. My heart stops racing so much…and the breath regulates itself. [I am] less agitated and twitchy. (A9, A10) The jaw, I am much more aware of it. I know that when I go through a period of high intensity work and I have big deadlines, and I’m worried about something—some sort of pressure, I hold it in my jaw. I do it at night and wake up in the morning with the [jaw tight]. I do Awareness Through Movement lessons moving the tongue and jaw—the TMJ Health [from Bersin & Reese, n.d.] recordings. You practice moving your tongue around your teeth…between your teeth and lips... and [then the] opposite direction. I have [those recorded lessons] on my phone. Sometimes when I’m on the airplane I’ll do it. Because I’m shifting my attention to my body, and particularly if it’s a focused, directed thing, then it helps me shift away from the—I wish I had a good word for that mental whirling that I can get into. My husband [says] I can get into a “spin cycle!” I’m not as bad with the spin cycle as I used to be, but yeah, it is definitely still there. So [the jaw lessons] help [me to] shift out of that; it will calm me; it will focus on the body. It’s not like I fall as[leep]—like with meditation I will fall asleep sometimes. I don’t think I would fall asleep with the [Feldenkrais]. All I know is that the mind shifts, and I would assume that if my mind [is] able to shift then the body shifts too. I was thinking about that this last time I did [it] on the airplane. And I was thinking how calming it was. (H16) Meta-Theme 6: A Shift in Ways of Being and Feelings of Well-Being Yeah, more comfortable…and comfortable with myself (C7).

136 This Meta-Theme describes the experience of the Feldenkrais Method as a shift in ways of being and greater feelings of well-being. Positive bodily experiences led to changes in ways informants felt about themselves. They were more hopeful about their health and their lives, including having a greater sense of being able to cope with aging. There was a sense that the concrete experiences of physical well-being from Feldenkrais sessions translated into an overall sense of well-being. They had the experience that over time significant habits of being shifted – habits such as, self-criticism, dissociating, a sense of struggling, or of oversensitivity to stimuli. Some informants also experienced being able to deal with challenges without falling into old patterns of reactivity. For some the focus of self-image shifted from external appearance to an internal self-sensing—a new sense of a general internal ability to be in social life. For some, intimate relationships became possible. They found pleasure in being able to engage in movement and activity; “I mean I get in an ecstatic state after a great shot in tennis” (F4) and “I have stamina that I’ve never experienced before…in fact, if I don’t walk four or five miles a day, I’m not as happy” (B16). Overall feelings of well-being were associated with feelings of being integrated, which may be associated with feelings of being “in less effort” (H8), or of being centered, being grounded, or being present. Abilities to change habitual ways of being were discovered, such as developing the ability to observe oneself and one’s responses, to be aware of shifts in habits and the qualities of being, and to make use of particular movement sequences from Awareness Though Movement to shift habitual ways of being in life. Feldenkrais Method was experienced as a process or a path to self-healing, regeneration, and a sense of wholeness.

137 Variations of this experience: Descriptions and exemplifying texts. Feeling comfortable with oneself. Doing Feldenkrais was associated with developing positive feelings about oneself. This also involved changing habits of how one is with or treats oneself based on one’s internal feelings and being able to deal with internal and external disturbance. This experience was associated with a sense of being more comfortable in the body, with calmness, and self-acceptance. I feel more comfortable in my body. “Okay, here’s my body…it’s just fine. It’s good. We’re going to just go with this.” Yeah, more comfortable….And comfortable with myself. Any of those critical voices shut up—which is such a relief. All that negative self-talk that can occur: “Goodbye.” It’s like…there is a present-ness to the whole process….The parts of me—are more together. Absolutely. I think it starts with the body movement….Well, I think. Sorry I can’t….With the mind…the mind and body together. (C7, C8) Shifting one’s habits of being-toward oneself. Habits, of how one treats oneself for example, shifted in the nonjudgmental processes and atmosphere of Feldenkrais classes and sessions. Not-judging set a context for developing intrinsically motivated goals based on the informants’ current needs and abilities, rather than an external form. This allowed a less attached and more accurate sense of their bodily self. [Feldenkrais] changed my kind of being stingy about everything, to be more generous with myself and what my process was, because I could see that these very small things were very attainable—and the payoff was greater. It was a slowing down process where you are actually looking at yourself more carefully. I just felt greatly lifted by that whole process….Being realistic about what the goals are here. Where you as the client or student is “right now” is really important. I think that’s the other thing that the individual classes have clarified for me, is that you are not trying to regain something you were… but where I am “right now”: “What is achievable?” “What’s beneficial?” [in Feldenkrais lessons]…you’re not making any of those judgments. This isn’t for anything, there is no perfect form for this particular…I think that was definitely part of the freeing experience, like now you’re just making simple observations….when I look back and I say, “Gosh, I wasn’t any more accurate [in my self-perceptions]—because of all that judgment [was] affecting my accuracy.” [In classes] I could look at that [my body] maybe in a not emotional or territorial way like, “My body, my body!”—but just as a spectator to be able to, kind of, look at it without any conclusions or judgment—and from the outside just take a peek at what’s going on. (E17)

138 Shifting usual patterns of being. Bodily patterns associated with an habitual way of being were identified, bodily ways of addressing the habit were explored and used in life to create a shift. [There] was something to do with how I sit into my hips—so I was playing with that. I think, I am still trying to do that even though I can’t articulate it. [It’s one of] the different things I was doing with experimenting with walking…I don’t know if I’ve changed the way I walk or not. I don’t think that I lean back like I used to. I think I was leaning back in part because…I was leaning away; I was trying to pull myself away from the world a little bit. (H14) I’m very “mental” and I tend to go out quickly into thoughts and into the future. [One] …practice I do is lying flat and pressing the back of the heels into the floor and how that impacts all the way up. When I press my heels into the floor and that information traveling up at the back of my legs and at the back of my spine, and up…I feel that significantly in my pelvis and at back of my cranium. It can be a 30 second thing and I feel different when I get up—just from doing that. It’s amazing how much more present I am at the back of me. That movement sequence seems to pull me back into my body, and into a more present state of awareness, than what the mind always wants to go into— which is always pushing forward. So, whenever I’m with that feeling of pushing forward, I just remember I can lie down on the floor. It’s a receptive state—that’s my language for what it feels like, because I’m receiving information from the world around me, instead of trying to make information up here in my head. It’s a life lesson for me that, “It’s here, it’s all here….You don’t have to push it, or rush it, or make it…”. That for me related to the lessons with moving the feet also. It’s related to being “in here” and not “running forward.” (D12; additional text on this theme can also be found text in D12 in Appendix C) Shifting overall life-moods. A sense of physical well-being contributed to a shift in feelings of being toward greater ease and a mood of greater optimism. This being ill-at-ease with yourself. If that can go away then, what else is there really? Physical well-being…and I’m not sure I…experienced that before….you have these things [that happen with] aging—but it’s not bad being, it’s just being. And then in general there is this feeling of well-being—and that propels you. My sense of well-being was just zooming. It was just increasing by leaps and bounds. (B1; see B1 and B3 in this chapter for further texts on this theme) Greater acceptance was also experienced. Feldenkrais helped me the most with the idea that things take some time, and then you are going to go slow. “There is a lot of stuff I’m not going to do, because I don’t have a confidence to do them—but also I think it is stupid to do for my body right now.” So, for me Feldenkrais was this like, “Come on over here: it will make sense, you will feel better about yourself—and go slow.” So even if I didn’t know what I was doing, it gave me so

139 much patience with myself to say, “I’m going to go slow with this because you are not going to screw yourself up by going slow.” And [with] really simple tasks and sort of saying, “Thank you. Thanks body for getting that together and sticking with me”—and it’s not lost on me. (E6; for additional texts on this theme see also E6 in Appendix C) Changes in self-image. The experience of injury, chronic condition, or surgery may alter the body image. The experience of Feldenkrais Method was that it may be part of finding satisfying activities that can be part of a new identity. When I had this [the] disability—that was like an identity crisis in some ways: “Oh my God, I can’t do what I did for years.” It was important to me, in my self-image, to be able to say to myself, “There’s something else that you can be doing that’s just as wonderful for you.” Instead of having this mourning process, it was like, “Look, over here. There are things that you could be doing for yourself that were really satisfying.” That was really important to me—and the joy that I felt in my body. It was a big deal to me, because I thought that was a letting go process of that instead of always [thinking] like, “That’s going to be my identity—is the injury.” [My identity] in the injury, instead of just saying [to myself], “That’s a pattern from the injury and now you don’t have that, or now I am correcting that, so now I can work out [how] to undo that pattern and let that go.” (E18) A shift to a focus on internal felt-experience of the bodily-self was associated with greater comfort with oneself in social situations, and contributed to developing new personal relationships. It’s about coming from the inside…it’s infectious, it’s contagious…and realizing that people feel [relaxed around you]; you just see other people relaxed….the body confidence thing….Because I could do [Feldenkrais in a class] with a group of people and I could relax and I felt good moving with a group of people, just made me feel, an intimate comfort with my body that I’ve never felt before….because [before] being in public was always about image. The feeling of comparing myself to others in the class went away. (B9, B11, B21) I don’t think I would have fallen in love again to tell you the truth. I stopped thinking, “I can’t do it because I don’t look good enough.” Because I just felt great. Feldenkrais impacted my life in a big way. It helped me make a major life decision to go out and find a new intimate relationship. It was, “Like, okay, I can do this.” (B4) Something else that has happened—it’s so important to me, I have a lover now, and I haven’t had anyone in my life for a while. There’s just, um…a space of energy that is so open and tender, it’s just—and it’s like everything else plays in with that and it reinforces each other, its lovely…a very gentle good soul. It’s very wonderful; believe me. At almost 77 that’s a quite amazing. (G1)

140 Staying active and performing well. Doing Feldenkrais Method allowed informants to continue to stay active and function effectively in their lives, for example, to be able to stay active and continue to do things they associated with well-being and even peak experiences. So, I credit…being able to play the tennis this much partly to Feldenkrais. I’m not sure I would if I didn’t have this continuing opportunity to get lined up. I mean I get in an ecstatic state after a great shot in tennis. That’s an altered state! I’ve been into sports since I was a young kid, and played baseball, played basketball, and have played tennis since I was in high school as well and in college…and here’s the thing that I find in sports, and that is that, there’s an opportunity when you’re playing to have these, kind of, wonderful, joyful, mystical experiences that comes from hitting your great shot, from playing particularly well. You don’t have to win, but doing something really well…you have this sense of awe and sense of wonder…and I am doing it myself…and so it’s, kind of, like a drug. (F1, F4, F5) A sense of integration. Doing Feldenkrais was associated with a new and positive sense of being integrated. It involved becoming more aware of more of one’s body. Feldenkrais has one main effect—which is that sense of togetherness of myself, of integration. You know, going out into the world not scattered, but in one piece….There’s that sense of walking out of the room [after a class] and feeling really like yourself, and really whole, and nice and calm. (C1; see also C7, C8, and C13 in Appendix C) One of the things that I have noticed with the concussion is that as I get better, I feel more integrated. And so, [if] in that way, maybe Feldenkrais is particularly good for this kind of situation [of dealing with post-concussion syndrome], because you feel so unintegrated. Just in…[a] little [Awareness Through Movement] lesson…we’re integrating maybe two or three different things or parts or movements, and so that’s helping my whole self become more integrated. It feels important. If your body is sort of disconnected and going a lot of different directions, and especially if your mind is disconnected….All these things have been exaggerated for me post-concussion—I could feel it acutely. Then you’re not like “flying all over the place,” and [doing Feldenkrais] pulls you back together, and down, and in. [Informant makes initial gesture with hands moving apart, and away when talking about “apart,” and then, bring the hands towards each other, and then, down toward the ground when talking about “coming together” and “integration.”] I do remember every time I would finish with an individual session with my practitioner, I would say I feel more “integrated,” and essentially that what I’ve meant was integrated and grounded or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth. As well as, all the parts of my body [were] even more connected to each other. (H8; see also E7 and E14 in Appendix C)

141 Authenticity, wholeness, and self-healing. Feldenkrais Method was experienced as a process of personal development associated with coming to a sense of oneself not by pushing oneself, but through an opening. Feldenkrais is my backbone, it’s my place to go. I may not do it for a while but then at some point…[I] just that I know it works, the teachers are really skilled…and it helps me to come back to myself. I continue to come to Feldenkrais sessions and classes because I like it, and I really do have faith in it as a cumulative agent for change. I don’t know… whether this was from the Buddhism or from the Feldenkrais, but patience is certainly one thing that find I more of. I mean, Feldenkrais has so many principles that are so clear. It makes it easier…to live a life. There are certain precepts…[such as] don’t push yourself because the opening doesn’t happen from a pushing. The opening happens from the opening. (G1, G3) Feldenkrais Method was experienced as an approach that respects the individual’s own ways of moving and learning. That’s it [with] Feldenkrais, you go into the root of moving slowly to find the base, to find what works, what is your authentic movement. So that’s where Feldenkrais is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness [too]. I mean, one thing that Feldenkrais does is respect the [your] learning, whether you can do it [the movement] well or not. (G7) There was a sense that the changes arising from the movement, awareness, and the whole process allowed for habits to change, often on a subtle level, or in a subtle way associated with a sense of depth. Awareness is really important in this. I have a sense that things are changing even when they don’t feel like they are changing. Just the movement and the bringing of awareness brings…something…different. And most of the time I’m not aware of what it is. I just have confidence. I have faith of that it is so.…Just the movement of it, something happens. It’s as if the habitual patterns are worked on without even knowing they are habitual patterns in Feldenkrais, and just…you just change the way you move and then you experience something different, “Oh.” One of the things that really is true in Tibetan Buddhism and Feldenkrais, is that it takes you beyond words. And something shifts that’s in your being. It just does. Describe it? “Kinda.” It’s just like there’s something there, but I can’t quite get there…and that’s what’s is so challenging and wonderful in these disciplines, is that these disciplines allow you to go to that deep place. And you can’t put words to it but you know when it is happening or [when] it’s not! (G1, G5)

142 The informants experienced the development a process of small steps based in the same principles, and an accrual of experience that builds over time, contributing to habit change and feelings of having resources, of regeneration, of health and wholeness. What I’ve noticed about Feldenkrais, is it’s less of an [experience of an] amazing moment….I feel like it’s building, building….The benefit of the class[es] is more things that I could integrate over time. I’ve been thinking, “Why do I keep goin’?” I think over time it’s just these little bits that you gather…it’s subtle….It gave me more confidence that as we grow older that there are things that you can do to address past problems. Like my knee is not just going to perpetually get worse because I’m getting older. So, I think that awareness is what builds, and maybe some habits….Each lesson is a little different each series is a little different... but there are repetitive concepts. The class definitely feels like a process. The kind of a beauty of it is little small things that you do, that kind of collectively build up into just better health, or to change that makes you feel more whole; physically whole….(H1, H5) That the experience [of doing Feldenkrais is] very intrinsic, and that’s what so empowering about it. There are things that you could be doing for yourself that were really satisfying. That was really important to me—and the joy that I felt in my body….I started doing those classes and it was so satisfying when I did it. So I kept with it and continued taking the classes as my personal resource before the surgery happened. They were a comfort to me and to sort of look into my body…healing and calming, and something that you’re doing for yourself—I mean that’s the main part [of my experience]. I just have a lot to say that I found it a comfort and very healing, and regenerative. I just have a lot of gratitude for the whole thing. I feel like there’s a whole other path that I did not really know about, and a great addition to dealing with the stuff that’s going on with your body. So yeah, I’m really happy to have met it. (E2, E15, E1) Textual Descriptions: In Summary These texts arranged by Meta-Theme provide both an extensive and in-depth view into the experiences associated with practicing Feldenkrais Method for these informants—especially if read in conjunction with the Structural Description presented in the next chapter. I believe they convey a sense, indeed a quite felt-sense, of the shapes, textures, and contours of these experiences as lived through. While each Meta-Theme displays many common characteristics, the individual uniqueness of the interaction between the bodily self-experience of each informant, their experience of the Feldenkrais Method and how that interaction impacted their lifeworld, is evident. These Textual Descriptions, along with the Structural Description, provide

143 an interesting ground from which to consider how Feldenkrais Method contributes to the health for students of the Method, and what health might mean in the context of Feldenkrais practice.

144 CHAPTER 5: FINDINGS The Structure of the Experience Based on All Informant Texts Structural Description and the Main Constituents Following this introduction, I present the Structural Description, which emerged from the analysis of the texts, across informants, which I have titled: The experience of the Feldenkrais Method as Self-Caring. Along with the overall Structural Description, the chapter identifies the Constituents of the experience: (a) The Experience of Coming to Feldenkrais Method, (b) Experiencing Improvement, (c) Feeling Good: Positive Mood, (d) How To: Discovering “How To” Take Care, (e) A Sense of I Can, and (f) Doing It: Continuing Practice in Life. This Structural Description is somewhat temporal in nature, suggesting a dynamic structure of the form and flow of the experience. It is one possible progression of the overall experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method. The structure is focused on action—how people gain, enact, to bring forth in active and bodily way—to body forth the experiential learning from their experience with the Feldenkrais Method. That is, how the experience functions in the informants’ lives. Note on the nature of structural descriptions. Structural descriptions seek to express what is common to all the textual descriptions from all the individuals interviewed. Moustakas (1994) wrote, “The Composite Structural Description is a way of understanding how the coresearchers as a group experience what they experience” (p. 142). By “co-researchers” Moustakas means the participants or informants in a study. Moerer-Urdahl and Cresswell (2004) elaborated: From the thematic analysis, the researcher then provides a description of “what” was experienced in textural descriptions, and “how” it was experienced in structural descriptions. Textural descriptions are considered and additional meanings are sought from different perspectives, roles, and functions (Moustakas, 1994). This process of

145 imaginative variation leads to the structural textures resulting in essential structures of the phenomenon. (p. 20) On a micro-phenomenological level, Feldenkrais Method encourages the alteration of what one experiences, through altering how one experiences—for example, by altering the qualities of movement and the nature of attention to oneself in movement (Goldfarb, 1990). So, it could be argued that there is some blurring of these two aspects of experience (the “what” and the “how”) as traditionally distinguished in phenomenology. To some extent, Feldenkrais Method alters one’s intentionality—the relationship of self to objects of attention, including one’s bodily experience. The intentionality itself, both at a reflective and prereflective level, becomes not just about the experience of bodily self and movement as such. Attention is also directed, and awareness developed, of how one habitually attends—and how one could become differently aware. Put succinctly, that part of how Feldenkrais Method works is in attending to and changing the “how” of the “what” students do, which in turn changes “what” they do (Behnke, 1997, 2009). At a more macrolevel I would argue, based on this research, that the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method can be seen as a process, with a particular form of constituent elements without which the description of the structure of the experience would not be complete. There is a particular flow of experience, although not in rigidly organized steps. For example, the learning of how to do Awareness Through Movement can create positive feelings and feelings of success in the process. This may contribute in turn to a sense of confidence in oneself in the process, as well as the value of the process for one’s life, and promote one’s continued practice of Feldenkrais Method and integration into one’s life. It is worth remembering at this point, that this explication is only one possible set of descriptions of the experiences communicated by the informants. This study was undertaken in

146 the context of studying health and the particular group of informants involved. This is not a structural description of the experience of Feldenkrais Method per se, but only one possible arising from these informants who initially came to Feldenkrais Method in relation to experiencing pain, which was one of the criteria for selection for participation in this study. This focus was significant in my identification here of Feldenkrais as a process of self-caring. For another group of informants, a structural description may bring forth a different structure, but likely containing some significant common constituents with this description. It is important to avoid an assumption of completeness in either the individuals’ descriptions of their experience, or of this set of informants’ texts as a description of the Feldenkrais Method as a whole. Further, the approach used here is not one of transcendental or descriptive phenomenology where the description of invariant essences of a phenomenon is sought. As a hermeneutic-phenomenological study, the aim is to generate plausible explications based on interpretations of the texts. My emphasis is often on presenting insights arising from the informants’ utterances, which vary greatly with the context of the experience being described. Using variation in analyzing, selecting, interpreting texts, and describing constituent elements of these experiences (Wertz, 2011), has been valuable. I believe this structural description is an important part of the overall presentation of findings. This Structural Description presents the main aspects of the process of doing Feldenkrais Method—from the experiences that led the informants to come to do Feldenkrais Method, through to how they applied it in their lives. The experience of a process of self-caring is important to these informants who came to the Feldenkrais Method because of their experience of being in pain. They reported on developing the abilities to reduce or relieve pain, not to trigger more pain or new painful episodes and that it helped them recover lost movement abilities

147 and deal with the sequelae of pain—including muscular tension and uncomfortable ways of holding the body, sleep disturbance, and pain’s contribution to other aspects of feeling stressed. Structural Description: The Feldenkrais Method as a Process of Self-Caring Something to do for yourself for dealing with what is going on with your body (E1). There’s something about movement, there’s something about the calmness, there’s something about the well-being (C1). My practice of Feldenkrais is more frequent: as a result everything is enhanced…it’s a deepening practice. I’m practicing – I’m not going to stop. It’s an ongoing thing—that is selfcare…(D2). The Dynamic Structure: The Form, Flow, and Functions of the Experience of Feldenkrais Method as a Process of Self-Caring Feldenkrais Method was experienced by the informants both as a form of self-caring and a source of self-care skills and practices. Experiencing improvement created a mood of a sense of possibility. Through experimenting with qualities of movement in Awareness Through Movement the student discovered how to move in ways that are safe and less painful and more comfortable and pleasurable. Through that experimentation the student developed know how for how to improve their situation through movement and bodily awareness. They then did it. They practiced self-caring in both senses of the word practice: they adopted and embodied practices, and they continued to do practices in various ways. The life-situation that brought the informants to the practice of the Feldenkrais Method is also a part of the structure of the experience of practicing Feldenkrais Method—providing a framework for perceiving and understanding experiences, their expectations and hopes for the process. I will begin the Structural Description with this Constituent of the experience. What

148 follows are descriptions of the main Constituents of the structure of The Feldenkrais Method as a Process of Self-Caring. Constituent of the Experience: The Experience of Coming to Feldenkrais Method Life experience and life situations involving pain and distress provided the motivations for seeking out the practice of Feldenkrais Method, and to some extent for continuing with it28. While pain is experienced as sensory, the sources and experience of the sensation of the pain varied greatly, and indeed that the pain experience was one involving complex and intricate relationships between (a) feelings and moods; (b) movement and movement restrictions; (c) cognitions about health, bodies and bodily experience; and (d) one’s functioning, and the whole of one’s life. Pain, bodily distress, being out of touch, and the experience of not being calm. Bodily experiences of injury and surgery, of chronic conditions and aging, of anxiety, depression, poor body image, and the effects of stress were all part of the narrative of coming to Feldenkrais. Beneath and behind these particular experiences could be detected a general bodily dissatisfaction and distress that was often experienced or expressed as pain or stress. This experience—or possibly the extent of this experience of a more pervasive bodily-felt dissatisfaction or distress—was sometimes only evident after the kind of relief and improvement people experience with doing Feldenkrais Method. In this way, Feldenkrais was part of the disclosure or uncovering of the phenomena of pain, being ill, and being ill-at-ease.

28

One inclusion criterion for the informants in the study was that they had come to Feldenkrais Method due to the experience of pain; however, pain was not defined for the informants in any way.

149 Pain. The experience of pain may have been intense and reduced the possibility of painfree movement altogether. When I very first started [Feldenkrais Method], and I was having so much pain, that sometimes I was just laying on the floor imagining the movement (E1). Sometimes it was a result of particular activities. I’ve got the knee issues. I have shoulder issues because I play tennis, still do and….So I put my body through a lot of stress (F1). Sometimes pain was associated with patterns of bodily organization carried over the long term, and others developed as a response to the pain itself. I was just…messed up and in pain. I feel like I’m just continually collapsing forward and my digestion is getting constricted, and my breathing is getting….Sometimes, I find myself not breathing very much. There’s some scoliosis in here because it felt like less. Less restriction on the one side, where it doesn’t want to move as much. [The results of not going to class are…] my back hurts all the time and now my shoulder hurts all the time. My joints hurt all the time, and my posture is not…usually I can maintain a good posture and it just started to collapse. It’s much harder to keep erect and keep this [gestures with shoulders and upper body] back; everything is crunching in on itself. And my neck is so bad—I wake up every day, it hurts right here [points to shoulder and neck area on one side]. (A4, A5, A12) You know how [pain] it shows up [now]? It shows up…when I’ve fallen back into an old pattern of movement, [which] actually [is] some kind of accommodation to dealing with the pain I have. Probably that most of these accommodations made me feel wonky, and out of balance and stuff. (B15, B17) Distress and being ill-at-ease. For the informants, the experience of distress and being ill-at-ease included feelings expressed in language and images of a sense of compression—a build-up of tension and unwanted bodily sensations, of being out of balance or uncentered, hypersensitivity to the physical and social environment, being fearful of injury or re-injury, and a lack of confidence in their abilities to do what they needed to do in their lives, as exemplified in the following texts. …every day brings compression and stress, and weird things that you do to your body that you don’t mean to, and it builds up and it doesn’t go away by itself—at least not for

150 me. I find that if I get to it [class], it changes my whole week. It removes whatever garbage happened to me (A9, A10) I felt off center, very awkward and very ill-at-ease inside. The back pain, it didn’t really figure in so much [in my initial motivation for doing Feldenkrais Method], as this feeling of discomfort of being in my own body. It’s a different kind of pain. (B6) Dread comes from not feeling like you can do something physically…that, I think, gets in the way of emotional challenges, it gets in the way of thinking, it gets in the way of everything. (B1) I want more sleep, a lot more sleep and I don’t rest well often and I’m…sensitive to every little thing in the bed that is driving me crazy. (D8) I was just always scared about what I wasn’t supposed to do—and then the fear of falling or reinjuring. Or trying to figure out [after the hip replacement surgery], “What is this new body I have?”—what it can and cannot do. Not really having anybody to foster that process. (E6) I realized that having that head injury, not only was it truly difficult mentally and physically, but it must have had emotional effects too that I wasn’t aware of at the time that related to anxiety, and the “spin cycle,” and then, lack of confidence because I couldn’t rely on myself to be responsible when I needed to be. (H16) Not-being-in-touch with bodily experience. Part of the experience of distress may have been associated with alterations in the relationship between mind and body or self and bodily experience – some form or degree of disassociation. If your body is sort of disconnected and going a lot of different directions, and especially if your mind is disconnected….All these things have been exaggerated for me postconcussion—I could feel it acutely. (H8) One common form of relationship between self and body was to treat the body purely instrumentally to carry out tasks without regard to bodily feelings. I just did it the hard way initially. [That’s] just kind of my motto; it’s just like, “Get it done.” So that’s the part where I’m always making these reflections about myself in a bigger sense. It’s like, “Geez, that’s very indicative of how I do a lot of stuff.” (E8) The experience of not being calm. The experience of not being calm for the informants involved feelings of being “antsy” or “twitchy” (E13), and an awareness of “tension in the body” (F7). Often the informants were aware, and sometimes became more aware through doing the

151 Feldenkrais Method, that how they lived their lives was affecting their state and process. This may have included a sense of the speed at which they live their lives. That is, their lives brought a particular experience of time pressure with bodily consequences. This sense of hurry and stress may have represented a lifetime behavior stimulated by a culture of competition, work, achievement, and so forth. Social pressures can also contribute to not being calm, including the pressure to join in the busy, speedy, and competitive ways of being of those around one, or being sensible to the level of distress in wider society. Just that concept [of going slow in Feldenkrais], in and of itself, is so big for me, because it is the opposite of how I had grown up in competitive sports. Before I had all the stuff with the hip thing, I was a “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah” person—kind of hyper. Anyways. So now I still have those inclinations. But [now] when I’m watching some other people just zipping around and I think, “I used to just like jump right in the river and go with them….” (E24) My core challenge is how much noise can I take in and not feel like I have got to do anything with it….I’m just aware of how much stress is in the collective and how that’s affecting me too. (D13, D11) Additionally, the amount of life tasks to do and a feeling of overload that went with it, led informants constantly to thinking about the next thing on the to do list, which stimulated often being “in planning mode” (F8). This stress can contributed to feeling “irritated” (F7), increased pain, and difficulty getting to sleep: …being led away by one worry after another…I can’t sleep. (A8, A10) I tend to be a nervous, anxious person. So I was thinking that it might help with the anxiety and calm everything down. I suffered from depression all my life. Right now, it’s under incredibly good control. But I thought maybe that [Feldenkrais Method] would help as well. (C1) [I have a] mind that’s always blabbing and flapping around and writing laundry lists or whatever – or shopping lists, or whatever it is you do in your head, worrying about work, or thinking about the next thing to do during the day. (C17) Not being calm may have been associated with tension in particular parts of the body.

152 I know that when I go through a period of high intensity work and I have big deadlines, and I’m worried about something—some sort of pressure, I hold it in my jaw. I do it at night and wake up in the morning with the [jaw tight]. (H4) In addition, people may have been dealing with a combination of usual life stress along with the effects of, for example, a serious injury. This led to a “a spin cycle” of “hyperarousal” (H4), an image of an unstoppable, machine-like speed. Part of the concussion thing is my mind was also going so fast all the time. So it’s really hard to get myself to rest, my mind to rest. [Feldenkrais] had the effect of helping me to fall asleep, because that would help my mind stop moving all the time. When I think of that “spin cycle…” its part of this whole system of getting hyper-excited….feeling like, my heart beating faster…[and] whatever it might be. I’ve been trying to work with myself to get…myself better in balance, and to kind of pull myself out this hyper-excited state that…the injury caused. (H16) These experiences, arising from what brought people to try the Feldenkrais Method, provided a context—perhaps an openness, perhaps expectations, for the informants’ reception of their experience of the Method. Alterations in bodily experience (comfort, less pain), mood (relief, calming, less arousal, feeling less irritable), changes in the experience of time (slowing down), rest (improved sleep), and of changed patterns of bodily organization (not falling into old uncomfortable bodily or movement patterns) were experienced as significant improvements. Desires. Desires were also part of the narrative about coming to the Feldenkrais Method. These informants expressed explicit desires to experience less pain, to feel better within and about oneself-as-bodily, to continue to be able to work and walk, to be more active physically and socially, to be more skillful, more comfortable, and more calm. However, some of these desires were only discovered implicitly by reflection on the benefits of the Method described by informants. They may have been implicit desires that were not acknowledged until the sense of the possibility and the ability to realize them was experienced.

153 Constituent of the Experience: Experiencing Improvement For the informants, the experience of Feldenkrais as self-care drew on the experience of improvement felt in and from Feldenkrais sessions and lessons. They experienced less distress, which may have included: less pain, more bodily comfort, improved body image, being less anxious, and greater capacities, which may include variations such as easier movement, improved sleep, ways to avoid or recover from strain or injury, being better able to deal with stressors, and feeling stronger and more resilient. Exemplifying texts: Experiencing improvement. Less pain was experienced, and experienced as a relief, for example, a lifting out of or away from the pain, and the possibility for comfortable movement and a sense of bodily comfort emerged. [Feldenkrais Method is] the only thing over those three years that made a dent on that [hip pain]. (G9) …the hands-on Feldenkrais, there was often like a real change that I felt when I walked out the door. Like, the headache, “It’s gone.…” The experience of…that pain lifting. (H2) [From my first Awareness Through Movement class I remember] I was struck by how comfortable I got. How different I felt, how much relief I found. The muscle pains go away….it’s rare to get up from a lesson and not feel good all over. (A2, A1) It’s like I’m just moving and it feels really good and it’s not painful. It’s easy and it feels really pleasant. (B25) This sense of comfort as a bodily experience contributed to a sense of more comfort with the self. …what I like about Feldenkrais: I feel more comfortable in my body. Yeah, more comfortable…and comfortable with myself. It’s sort of something about feeling like myself…. (C1, C14) There were greater functional abilities. It’s a way in which my body functions better.…If you wanted a bottom-line that, that would be what it is. Just movement in general…climbing stairs, walking…anything where there’s movement involved….Yeah, I move more efficiently, walk better. (F1, F5)

154 [After Feldenkrais lessons] I usually feel more balanced. (G10) There was the experience of calming and peacefulness. I think I actually know that there’s a place that’s really calm. So, I think it does help me calm down.… (C3) It brought me to this awareness of my own body and this peace within my body.… (E3) A note on improvements occurring on a prereflective level. Improvements also occurred at a prereflective level, meaning that by definition collecting direct informant texts on these kinds of alterations to experience are not possible, and instead was intuited from the texts. For example, the texts here include many examples where complex performance of actions were improved—in everyday life, like going from sitting to standing, lifting and carrying, to activities such as yoga and sports like swimming and tennis, not to mention changes in states of arousal and altered affective states. However, these informants sometimes experienced an often-subtle felt-sense of change in habitual patterns of bodily organization and experience, for example: It’s as if the habitual patterns are worked on without even knowing they are habitual patterns in Feldenkrais, and just…you just change the way you move and then you experience something different, “Oh.” And you can’t put words to it but you know when it is happening or it’s not! (G5) The frequent observation of the subtlety of the perceived changes after doing Feldenkrais Method lessons suggested that there is a quality where there was an emergent, if fringe or liminal, awareness of these kinds of positive changes in experience—in bodily feeling, organization, habits, and capacities. It may also have been an expression of the difficulty expressing in language the changes in lived, felt-experience associated with somatic practice. Everything that I have experienced has been very different but equally helpful. It started out so subtly—and it still is so subtle. Feldenkrais for me is about making my body move more fluidly. (D1)

155 [After individual sessions I] move more easily, more fluidly. It’s a subtle feeling, hard to describe, it’s just that you notice it. It’s a whole-body thing. (F2) The benefit of the class[es] is more things that I could integrate over time. I’ve been thinking, “Why do I keep goin’?” I think over time it’s just these little bits that you gather…it’s subtle.…(H5) These sometimes subtly experienced, sometimes clearly experienced, sometimes concrete and specific, and sometimes more global or profound experiences of improvement provide a set of experiences and a new context for positive experiences of the body, movement, self, and life that are likely to have contributed to the experience of feeling better and having a more positive mood. Constituent of the Experience: Feeling Good – Positive Mood29 These informants experienced a range of positive feelings or a positive mood in general, as well as the experience of improvements in bodily feelings and their ability to create those improvements. Informants described various positive feelings and changes in mood including joy, relief, pleasure, optimism, feeling comfortable in the body and more comfortable with one’s self, and a sense of spaciousness, calm, and peacefulness. Exemplifying texts: Feeling good – positive mood. Positive affective responses included a sense of calming, less worry and anxiety, and greater mental balance (rationality, less reactivity).

29

In developing this Constituent I was thinking of feelings and mood in a broad sense as involving, not or even particularly, the basic emotions as identified in Ekman (2007) and colleagues and basic emotions theory (BET) in its more original formulation (Hutto et al., 2018). Instead I am thinking more about the idea of mood or Befindlichtkeit from Heidegger (1962/2008) especially as interpreted by Gendlin (1978–1979). That is an overall felt-sense (Gendlin, 1978) of how one finds oneself, which always already includes bodily experience. The construct of vitality affects (Stern, 2009, 2010) is also useful here, as the positive feelings expressed by these informants may represent a two-way relationship between the qualities of movement (speed, force, direction, frequency, intensity) and qualities of affective experience.

156 …mind was much calmer at the end of the lesson, some nervous tension and worries dropped away, and thinking became more balanced and rational…not being led away by one worry after another…(A1, A8) This included a sense of optimism or possibility flowing from a sense of greater physical wellbeing. This feeling that everything does work out in some way or another, and that’s just such a motivator. Well I have this feeling that everything is going to work out and I’m sure that has to do with feeling physically better. (B1) There’s that sense of walking out of the room [after a class] and feeling really like yourself, and really whole, and nice and calm. I’ve got that “peaceful happy…easycomfortable, don’t need to do anything feeling” that I so love. (C1, C5) Positive affective experiences, for example, of rest, integration, stability, comfort, and hope, were associated with of a sense of greater space, and connection with place, or with the earth. …what Feldenkrais offers is this liberation—and the joy involved in that. I felt like having this peaceful experience of Feldenkrais was something that “shored me up,” and sort of gave me the space to have some thought or reflection…. (E1, E2) That wonderful sense of space in this [that] I’m not quite sure how to talk about…the feeling integrated. (C8) My being—in this body, in this place. That gives me internal feelings of comfort, yes, and rest, deep rest. (D19) This where I get…always get emotional…[crying lightly] because it was comforting and hopeful. I feel more…integrated and grounded or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth. (H1) Peak or altered experiences were associated with ability: You know, I get in an altered state hittin’ a great shot in tennis…you have this sense of awe and sense of wonder…and I am doing it myself…and so it’s, kind of, like a drug. (F2, F4) Informants described felt experiences of integration, ease, and fluidity: It’s just this fluidity of movement. Your whole….It’s like everything’s together. There is congruence in the body….There is this ease of movement all through me. (G11) Some mentioned the development of positive relationship with one’s body, such as:

157 Somehow: how kind you are to your body. (G4) Others described pleasure and enjoyment of learning about and through the body, for example: It’s just enjoyable to take some time to be curious about how your body works. I think the classes are fun for that reason…(H8). These positive feelings provided motivation to engage in and continue with the process. These experiences contributed to a sense of hope and possibility for learning how to take care of ones’ self through the Feldenkrais Method. Constituent of the Experience: How to – Discovering How to Take Care Discovering how to take care of ones’ self was one of the constituents of the experience of Feldenkrais Method as self-caring for the informants. This involved learning a number of skills to observe and create different qualities of movement and attention. As these skills were taught they were infused with values about self-care involving creating a sense of ease through safety and comfort, generating positive movement experiences, and adopting self-care attitudes toward one’s body: kindness, nonstriving (for a particular size or shape of movement, but for the quality of the movement), opening to the experience, and taking an interest in one’s bodily experience. These qualities-as-strategies and attitudes-in-action were then used in Feldenkrais practice and everyday life. In the process or skill of not triggering pain or distress was also learned. Exemplifying texts: How to – Discovering how to take care. Discovering how to take care involved a number of experiences for the informants. They found ways to make it easier, not straining, reducing effort, and not causing pain, such as: Be kind to my body…and it shouldn’t hurt. (G7) “Reducing effort”: It seems like it’s an important concept in Feldenkrais…it feels so promising….there’s a lot of potential there and not quite what we’re used to…. (H8)

158 [The Feldenkrais teachers] tell you to do the small movements, and then find the easiest way or path, and don’t make any effort and if you are making an effort do half as much, or imagine it. Those are the ways to “trick” you into not efforting. (A19) Well, it was gentle. The movements felt good, it wasn’t straining (F10). One thought I have sometimes is, “Make it easy” (B18). Informants also had experiences of not striving, and not judging: Ideally you are not striving….Like you’re not trying to get yourself in an extreme position…(H9). That being nonjudgmental as a process….That felt really good…I don’t know if I’ve ever been in something called “a lesson” where it’s totally nonjudgmental (H8). As well, they experienced an openness to discovery: …trying to understand what the words mean and then apply it to the movement. My understanding is that is part of this process…is figuring it all out. (C19, C28) One of the things that I think I like about Feldenkrais…is the curiosity part. I think it’s fun…how often do we think about our bodies as just interesting? (H13) They explored choices by finding other ways to do things and making use of the options afforded by the process: Even while I was still in pain, there was a lot of accessible things that I could do in Feldenkrais….the “opt outs” that they give you, you know [like]: “If this isn’t working for you try this”—because there were also alternatives….I felt like there were lots of [possible] adaptations…. (E25) I have become more aware of these different ways of moving, and how I could make that movement easier, more comfortable….that I might be holding myself in ways that are not good—in a way that accentuates pain or that aggravates pain. (H5) They developed awareness of the function and effective use of different parts of the body: I was learning about my body and learning about ways to understand how to connect with my skeleton, and how my skeleton is moving so that it would make all kinds of movement easier. The skeleton awareness—it has been important. (H6) Informants became attuned to different experiences of the mind-and-the-body, and the possibilities for altering their experience:

159 Pain feeds on itself. Just calming things down with Feldenkrais sort of breaks the cycle; the cycle of pain. There’s that whole, whole-body psychic mishmash of generalized pain. I wonder if I was talking about physical pain or mental pain?—maybe both….Today I am think[ing] about Feldenkrais treating pain…but down the line, if you’re aligned, and if you’re calm... you’re not going to kick off that cascade of pain. I’m thinking of both…. With the calming the pain goes. It doesn’t go away, completely but it’s less prevalent. That “whole whole-body psychic mishmash of generalized pain”—because you can’t separate it. Doing Feldenkrais will integrate into your behavior patterns—your thinking and body patterns. I assume that’s the point of the practice—or part of it. (C9) It went from kind of being more of like a physical activity—where you were kind of telling your body how to kind of make the movements; an exercise, to some kind of more interior experience of realizing the mind body connection somehow.… (B21) Discovering and exploring these abilities of how to take care of oneself help provided the ground for the sense of being-able-to take care: a sense of I Can. Constituent of the Experience: A Sense of I Can These informants developed a sense that there are things they can do for themselves, which they have experienced, will improve their situation. The sense of I Can affected aspects of the informants’ lives from greater balance confidence, to a sense of having abilities they can use to deal with the effects of aging, to a general sense of the ability to be responsive and responsible. These positive experiences provided motivation to continue with Feldenkrais and other practices to care for themselves. The informants bodied-forth this belief in both their Feldenkrais practice and in their daily lives. Exemplifying texts: A sense of I can. For the informants, there was a sense of the ability to reliably alter the felt-experience of their self in Feldenkrais classes, which may have included the sense of knowing how to use the process to care for themselves. I step in the [Feldenkrais class] room and it’s like: “Okay, it’s time. It’s time, for this.”… So I expect to feel sort of like cared for in some way….I learned that how I feel at the beginning of the class is…going to be exponentially different [at the end]. (B2) They had a general sense that greater awareness provided the basis of healing and that awareness was of great value.

160 The thing that Feldenkrais has given me the most, was the sense that I can heal anything. It’s the most subtle process, but for me, in my system it has had [led to a] huge, lifechanging sort of awareness. (D2) There was a sense that learning within the class is available to be transferred to other situations within class—and in life: [I became aware of the idea of] “availability.” If you just experienced something and you’ve had some thought about it or…if you physically experience something, and then you shift it to another circumstance…[then] this is like shifting sides [in the Awareness Through Movement lesson], but you shift it to another circumstance: what you’ve experienced is now more available to try in the new situation….I think maybe the Feldenkrais informed the yoga. [Yoga practice now is a] totally different experience: it’s wonderful, and I feel different. I began to use visualization in the yoga. (B13) The informants gained knowledge of and ability to use self-care tools, which can be reliably deployed to deal with challenges. If my back is starting to hurt me in any way, I will get on the floor and do those movements—and I feel better. If my back is trying to bug me, I’ll do that. Doesn’t take long, 5 to 7 minutes. (F14) Continued practice of Feldenkrais Method allowed these informants to engage in activities (such as work or recreation) that they want or need to do: Whatever gets me on the tennis court and enables me to play for an hour and a half singles…that’s what I’m up for. When my body gets…when I get the balls I wasn’t getting to before…that’s big. If it does that well…keep doing that. (F3) The informants experienced a sense that they could deal with coming challenges, such as aging: So that gives me some confidence with my body, then I don’t get hysterical about getting old, and not being able to do things. I’ve learnt that what seems to be impossible at first kind of opens up. (G2) In general, students were able to move and alter their movement patterns in ways that they previously perceived as not being possible and valued the confidence that this engendered. There is just more and more confidence that there is [are] ways to move my body that I can change and that that can make a difference. I’ve learnt that what seems to be impossible at first kind of opens up. So it can change. (G2)

161 The sense of I Can provided the experiential ground for the next Constituent of the experience: Doing It: Continuing Practice in Life. The sense of I Can provided confidence that there are things that can be done to improve one’s situation—how one is feeling, how one can respond, and respond successfully, to the demands of one’s world and life. That is, that one could do what one needed to have less distress and pain, and to increase ease, comfort, calm, and integration, and maybe to do previously difficult or impossible tasks or activities: a bodily-felt sense of animate possibilities. Constituent of the Experience: Doing It – Continuing Practice in Life Part of the experience of the Feldenkrais Method as Self-Caring for the informants, involved Doing It—making use of the Feldenkrais Method in life and on an ongoing basis. Doing It involved both the direct bodying forth and enacting of the somatic learning, as well as consciously carrying out self-care practices: sensing, moving, and altering habitual patterns of attention, preparation for action, and movement flowing from the learning. The experience of improvement, the development of the know how, the sense of I Can, the positive mood associated with Feldenkrais practice all contributed to students integrating elements of Feldenkrais practice into their lives. Practice may have included prereflective alterations to patters of action and attention—simply making use of these changed patterns in life, through greater skill or capacity in action. Informant testimonies suggested that there was a conscious application of the learning about what constituted comfort and ease in action to challenges that arise—a kind of informal practice of the Method. In addition, Doing It involved conscious use of knowledge of Awareness Through Movement to do elements of lessons that allowed the informants to maintain well-being or respond to pain and discomfort, or whole lessons from

162 recordings used similarly. Finally informants engaged in continued formal practice by attending classes or working with a practitioner. Exemplifying texts: Doing it – Continuing practice in life. For the informants, this involved knowledge of preferred Awareness Though Movement lessons, or movement sequences from particular lessons, which they used as a “tool-kit” of movement practices to apply in different situations. They learned how to use the “tools” they had gained to move more appropriately, effectively, and comfortably, and to maintain well-being. Another thing I have always done [are] some little movements that help me….I do those during the day, so if I’m sitting in a chair and it starts to hurt, I will do this kind of thing. [The informant demonstrates standing, leaning on the seat of a chair with her hands and arms, then rounding and arching the back—flexing and extending the spine, and followed by making circles with the pelvis]. I do that a lot at work and I do that in the morning….I get up and I often do this before I jump in the car. (A3) …sometimes I’ll do [a lesson] at night just to help me get sleep. There’s a nice one for the eyes. You trace your eyes like across the room and up the wall, and then back…and each time when you do the scan [covering the eyes with the hands]….That [lesson] seems to be good for a sleep.…the whole body goes…ahhh. (A10) Everything that I have just been sharing with you about the home practice I do—pressing my heels, and how that affected my whole spine. (D4) Those Feldenkrais lessons about hands and wrists and elbows—subtly turning and moving and turning—have hugely helped. Those lessons now have a substantial effect on my ability to “navigate” challenges, like when I don’t feel like I should be picking up heavy things. (D6) I do Awareness Through Movement lessons moving the tongue and jaw…you practice moving your tongue around your teeth…between your teeth and lips…and [then the] opposite direction. I have [those recorded lessons] on my phone. Sometimes when I’m on the airplane I’ll do it. Because I’m shifting my attention to my body, and particularly if it’s a focused, directed thing, then it helps me shift away from the—I wish I had a good word for that mental whirling that I can get into. (H4) The informants used sequences from Awareness Through Movement lessons as preparation for an activity—which may include such things as driving, sitting, hiking, swimming, playing tennis, and working on the computer. These sequences were also used to

163 respond to an event of pain or strain, or as part of a daily or frequent maintenance program— often included with other movement-and-awareness practices such as Tai Chi, Qigong, and Yoga. I think [Feldenkrais eye exercises are] even more important to do it more [now] because of how much more time I spend on a computer. Now it’s a whole different life—we have got our phones, and we are constantly looking at screens. Or in our conversations on the phone….I spend a lot of time on the phone. I try to do it a little bit with my eyes at least one day a week. I try to spend at least 10 minutes on the floor, just with rolling my head and my eyes in the opposite directions. (D6) I do an exercise on the floor for my back, it’s a Feldenkrais exercise that my Feldenkrais practitioner gave me, that I do every morning when I get up. And that releases my back. …my back is always a little…“talking to me” in the morning, and so it takes me a while to work it out. I do a warm up in the morning. The first thing I do in the morning is this series of Tai Chi movements, and they are the breathing exercises and they get the body moving. Then I do some Hatha Yoga….then I work this [Feldenkrais movements] in with the Hatha Yoga. (F13) The Awareness Through Movement lesson for my toes and feet, I do that regularly. Just before I dance, or before I hike or when I’m going to be working in—or moving in, more upright. (D6) They used awareness to discover movement patterns and noting them to discuss with the practitioner and focus on in Functional Integration sessions: …with the Feldenkrais practitioner I was able to explore what I was doing, notice things and bring them and my own understandings into the process. I would go home during the week and I would notice little things that I was unsure about. I would remember them, and bring them back to the session and then we would work on that particular thing. (E18) The informants worked with a Feldenkrais Practitioner to explore movement habits and possibilities, which may have included developing somatic insights into their usual ways of acting in the world, developing specific individualized awareness and movement practices, and experimenting with and rehearsing ways of dealing with movement challenges. So [after the hip replacement surgery] my practitioner has been teaching me how to do things like standup, sit down, walk down stairs in a way that’s less painful. So it’s worked really well. (C12)

164 The work that I do is very physical, there’s lots of loading stuff, and so my Practitioner worked with me on that. You know she’ll fill up boxes with things: “How are you going to pick this up? How are you going to approach this? How are you going to move this from here to there?” Analyzing the movement—and practicing that lifting thing. That’s helped too. (E19) New awareness and movement abilities were used in daily life to alter usual responses or patterns of action, particularly to change habits that were not useful, or were painful or harmful: I was looking at stuff like this— [the informant arches her neck] that was a kind of neck strain. So that’s one example of a small thing that had huge benefits to changing that habit, or being aware of that habit. (E4) I understand some of those repetitive patterns or habits I have, or I’m not thinking about. Some kinds of movements in Awareness Through Movement undo that. I feel its unraveling.…I came to understand that I may have been like bringing something along that I didn’t need to. One example of a small thing that had huge benefits to changing that habit, or being aware of that habit [was] asking myself, “Where is your chin in the whole scheme of things?” That one little movement was so great to me, because it changed the prescription of my eyeglasses, the way I was looking at the computer.…I had headaches that went away. (E9) Once in a while I can stop myself and think, “Hmmm…I could move differently”…but it isn’t exactly that but something like that—that I remind myself that I don’t have to. I can do something a little bit different and make a difference, and I’m not surprised because it does. (G14) Informants used awareness to recognize discomfort and as part of deciding to not put up with unnecessary discomfort: …because of Feldenkrais, I’m aware of how I sit—and how I should sit. If I find myself in a situation, like a folding chair—that I know it’s going to start scrunching my back, I just get out of there right away. I don’t persist in it. If I have to be in a situation, like that for a short time, I just keep moving and I keep trying to keep my lower back elongated. I stand up and take breaks. (A4) They chose to stop when in pain, fatigued, or distressed, to leaving a situation in which they were experiencing discomfort or pain, and recognized when it was a good time take a break: My practitioner would say in class, “Well, if you only think about moving. If you start to get a headache then just think about moving. Or don’t do it. Or just rest after doing one movement instead of three or four.” My practitioner…suggested that I stop, and that that meant that I was working…[too hard]. So [she] just told me to rest: that meant I should rest! Yeah, I would stop during the lessons, [if I felt a headache coming on.] So, I was

165 learning at the time to figure out what were the precursors. I mean, it’s hard for me, because I tend to want to do everything, and be an A student. I wasn’t watching for that moment, then it would start to hurt. I kind of learned how to rest when you needed to. I won’t say I learned it completely, but I learn…I began to learn. I think I’m more aware …[now]—like [that awareness of needing to stop or rest] has translated and this is so I’m more aware of that as a really important…tactic…and self-care step. (H1, H15) Having less pain and stress, or having developed strategies to deal with pain and stress, led to increased physical activity and other healthful activities. This included using new abilities for a range of activities (such as walking, playing sports, yoga) as well as, for example, to experience improved sleep or being able to do seated meditation practice: So now I can walk four or five miles a day. (B16) So, I credit it being able to play tennis this much partly to Feldenkrais. The fact that I play tennis three days a week—at age 84, I mean something is happening right in my body. So, it’s a way in which my body functions better as a result of the practice [of getting Feldenkrais sessions]. Functional Integration isn’t that the name? (F5, F6) So that [doing Feldenkrais] sort of freed me up: “Okay now I know how to get comfortable in my own body right now—regardless of what’s going on with it.” So that just allowed me to clear my head and get to the meditation. (E13) The informants chose to continue to go to Feldenkrais group classes, or do lessons from audio or video recordings—including from the Internet, or remembered lessons, and parts of lessons, as well as continuing to receive Functional Integration sessions: [I continue to do Feldenkrais] for comfort. I mean, if I stopped altogether, yeah, I could go backwards because every day brings compression and stress. (A9) I started doing those classes and it was so satisfying when I did it. So, I kept with it and continued taking the classes as my personal resource before the surgery happened. (E1) I continue to come to Feldenkrais sessions and classes because I like it, and I really do have faith in it as a cumulative agent for change. (G1) The final part of the structure of the experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method brings emphasis to the essence of the structure: that the experience is about self-care. The experience meant bringing Feldenkrais Method into their lives in the way they do things through an

166 increased sense of their capacity to know how to look after themselves—increased awareness, embodied values, and changed patterns of movement. The informants then engaged in Doing It in informal ways: resting, refusing to do things that are painful and not good for their health, changing how they moved in life, and Doing It in more formal ways: seeing a practitioner to work on what they have noticed, doing Awareness Through Movement in their daily lives, and continuing to go to classes. On Flow of the Structure of the Experience The situations that brought the informants into the experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method were to do with how they were able to move, act, and be in their lives and worlds. That is, how they felt restricted or limited in their lives, and whether they felt, or did not feel, competent and have a sense of efficacy and agency. The etiology of their particular challenges and particular forms of distress varied, but included (a) injuries, (b) surgeries, (c) challenges of aging—from arthritis to intimate relationships, (d) moods such as anxiety, depression, or dissociation, (d) self-image issues, (e) patterns of movement, deportment, or self-use associated with work, recreation, and overall habitual ways of being-in-the-world, (e) constrictions from the use of equipment—chairs, desks, computers, musical instruments, and (f) the social organization of activities—such as the time distortions and feelings of stress to do with contemporary society (task overload or overwork, deadlines, and lack of rest, digital stimulation, social disruption). All of these contributed to pain and distress with pain as both a source and consequence of distress, and distress as both a cause and consequence of pain. The informants experienced feelings of discomfort, mind–body dissociation, anxiety, depression, and being-ill-at-ease. These experiences of pain and distressed-being were often associated with restriction or limitation: feelings of what one cannot do, and may have included the ability to (a) move without pain, (b)

167 undertake sustained activities—such as sitting, walking, playing tennis, and computing, without pain or discomfort, (c) move easily (rather than feeling stiff and blocky, fearful of pain, fearful of falling, feeling fatigued), (d) find sleep easily, (e) feel calm and relaxed (rather than anxious and ill-at-ease), (f) stop worrying about the next thing that needs to be done or all the things on one’s to do list, and (g) feel integrated between the parts of the body and the whole, or feel integrated between the-mind-and-the-body. In this study, the informants found greater capacity for all of these things. The informants’ experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method engendered a sense of I Can, which allowed them to respond more effectively to, and sometimes partially or fully transcend many of these aspects of what they felt they could not do. Learning new ways to move in their lives, which contributed to experiencing improvement in their life situation—in how they felt, in their responses, and in their capacities, contributed to this enhanced sense of I Can. These informants experienced improvement through processes of discovering how to sense, move, and be themselves in new ways. They built up a repertoire of bodily knowledge that allowed them to notice in their movement patterns, bodily organization, attitudes to their bodies, movement, or themselves that may make it easier or harder to move through their lives. The informants brought things they noticed to work with a practitioner on in Functional Integration sessions. They built up know-how of elements from Awareness Through Movement lessons which they deployed to prepare for activities, to deal with pain or discomfort, or to maintain sense of comfort, calm, ease, fluidity, or integration. This know how engendered feelings of well-being. That is, these informants found formal and informal ways of Doing It—doing the Feldenkrais Method and enacting the learning from Feldenkrais Method in their lives. They also

168 bodied-forth new patterns of movement. They discovered new forms of animate being-in-theworld, new ways of responding to the ongoing and new situations into which they found themselves thrown. Summary: Structural Description and The Constituents of the Experience In this Structural Description I have brought together texts that explicate the form of the overall experience of doing Feldenkrais Method—how it was constituted through a number of key aspects of the experience, and without which it would not be this experience. This included (a) the experience of distress, including pain and its sequelae, which brought them to the Feldenkrais Method, (b) the learning of the processes of what to attend to and how to alter one’s movement and perception, and the values necessary to bring to the process to be successful with that, along with (c) awareness of improvements in bodily experience coming from the process, (d) positive feelings engendered by the improvement from the process, and (e) the sense of confidence in their ability to alter their own bodily experience and do more of what they want to in their life, and (h) using Feldenkrais Method an ongoing informal and formal practice. This concludes the presentation of the findings from this study. In the next chapter, I will discuss these findings, with reference to the literature, reflect on what was learned from the research approach, limitations of the research, and discuss possible directions for research based on my findings.

169 CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION Introduction In this chapter, I discuss some important aspects of the findings from this study. The process of analyzing the texts, selecting, and arranging in the structure of Feldenkrais Method as an experience of self-caring and the six Meta-themes, reflects in a major part my thinking about what is most salient and significant in what the informants shared with me. This is a kind of “reflection-in-action” (Schön, 1983, p. 21). While it is not the aim in hermeneutic-phenomenological study to develop theory, I believe there is value in looking at the gathered texts and uncovered structures and themes, using existing literature as insight cultivators (van Manen, 2014). In anthropological literature, for example, each publication of a significant body of new data or texts is considered in terms of the literature to date, in order to advance discussion and research. Later in this chapter, I will explore the findings in relation to the phenomenological and research literature presented in Chapter 2, as well as ideas and concepts from the Feldenkrais Method and literature from psychology, cognitive science, movement science, and the neurosciences related to questions of bodily awareness, affect, and health. My aim is to place the Feldenkrais Method into ongoing discussions about contemplative practices, bodily experience, movement, awareness, health and well-being. I begin this discussion with some general observations about the texts. Part 1: Some Specific Observations About the Texts Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement One noticeable feature of the texts is that the informants usually described their experience of the Feldenkrais Method without distinguishing whether they were talking about Awareness Through Movement or Functional Integration or informal practice and use in their

170 lives. However, when they did discuss a particular modality, they tended to talk most about Awareness Through Movement. This may be an artifact of the research design, where as part of the research process they did an Awareness Through Movement lesson and were asked to take notes about and discuss their experience. I also wonder if students’ active engagement within Awareness Through Movement lessons—scanning the body, making movements, and sensing-for aspects of their bodily experience—made a difference in their ability to report on these different aspects of their experience. In contrast, the hands-on part of the Functional Integration mode does not necessarily require as much conscious attention, nor does it necessarily call forward as great, detailed, or continuous conscious attention during the process30. Indeed, some informants reported deep relaxation they experienced in Functional Integration sessions: “I’m so relaxed…with my practitioner I’m, kind of, in an altered state and I had to, kind of, get back to normal reality. It takes a while” (F8). In general, when informants spoke specifically about the experience of Functional Integration, they described the experience—especially initially—as one that can be powerful and profound, generating very good bodily feelings, rapid relief from significant pain, and a sense of the body being altered in significant ways. For example, informant H reported, “the hands-on Feldenkrais, there was often like a real change that I felt when I walked out the door” (H3). In addition, a number of informants reported that the relationship with the practitioner through

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Drawing on my clinical experience, one exception may be clients who are hypervigilant. For example, if the client is actively anxious about the process, including about being touched, or is in pain or is fearful of increased pain, or is in a posttraumatic state.

171 touch and talking was an important part of their experience. Informant G described her experience this way: The hands-on lessons are much more powerful, much more. I think I go further faster when it’s individual; because it is all geared to me! A whole hour of me!…teacher moves my body, and so there is more direct feedback. [Those early sessions], I enjoyed them, and we got along really well…it was fun, it was reassuring, I liked her. I felt like I was in good hands. (G15, G16) In general, however, the informant’s testimonies about Functional Integration were not as detailed as well not as extensive as those for Awareness Through Movement. Other Aspects of the Experience That Did Not Receive Prominence in the Informants’ Texts Although it is beyond the scope of this study, it is important to note that there are important aspects of Feldenkrais Method practice that were not featured in the texts. Axiomatically, these tend to be the prereflective, background, or recessive aspects of human experience. For example, while the informants discussed the importance of the movement, and described qualities of movement and improvements in movement in terms of overall increased functional capacities, these descriptions tended not to be very specific. Likewise, the relationship of the bodily self with the environment is an important part of Feldenkrais Method thinking and practice (Feldenkrais, 1981), but was little mentioned. So, for example, although many Awareness Through Movement lessons involve scanning one’s contact with the floor or chair at the beginning and end of the lesson, as well as attention to changing contact with the floor or chair during the lesson (Feldenkrais, 2010a, 2010b; Smyth, 2012), this aspect of attention was mostly not described by these informants. Further qualitative research, asking in more details about these aspects of the experience could be of value. Overall, I observed that more global awareness of outcomes from the experience predominate over more detailed descriptions of the processes – even though many of the texts

172 are quite detailed in places. This might be in part an artifact of the open-ended interview process. Part 2: Body Awareness or Bodily Awareness – Introduction In this section, I discuss findings from this study in the context of the most significant features of bodily awareness emerging in the texts. Bodily awareness will also be considered as a skill that involves the development of an observing attitude. The idea of the appearance of the body into conscious awareness will be addressed in the context of this discussion. From re-reading the informants’ texts, and looking over the literature in many fields that make use of the construct of body or bodily awareness, it would appear that body awareness is neither a unitary experience nor a unitary concept. Yet, there are some aspects of the process of attending to and becoming aware of bodily experience that are important aspects of the experience of Feldenkrais Method and other somatics practices as described in “MovementBased Embodied Contemplative Practices” (Schmalzl et al., 2014), and performative practices— like dance or martial arts. Some of the difficulty comes from the double-sided aspect of the idea: that the body, which is always already in and shaped by its environment, is the organism through which awareness is generated, and on the other hand, the body is what one is aware of. I chose to use the term bodily experience in this chapter to indicate that dual role of the body in experience. First, as a primarily experienced support, source, center, site, and space for our experience, the bodily is the way in which we experience the world and ourselves. And, second, the body is the animate biophysical entity to which we attend and which we experience; and which we always experience in and through its relationship with its environment involving at least space, gravitation, and surfaces, objects, society, culture, language, and time (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962). This is the body we can become aware of.

173 Experience of and Through the Body It is clear from the informants’ texts that in their descriptions of their bodily experience they are talking about the body as a lived, experienced phenomena in their lives—the phenomenal body as discussed by Merleau–Ponty (1945/1962), and developed and utilized by many other thinkers (e.g., Morley, 2008; Young, 2002). They do not seem to be talking about their body primarily or only as an object or a thing, but as the experienced physical, spatial, and mobile aspect of self, that is, as “physical and lived bodies” (Sheets-Johnstone, 2010, p. 12). At times the informants do distinguish that they are talking about experiencing the body as a physical phenomenon (such as informants B and F). Likewise, some informants distinguish the body in that sense when they want to discuss their experience of a relationship of mind and body, as in, “It was an experience going on, I just have to say it, ‘between my mind and my body’” (B19). Bodily awareness. For most of the informants a significant part of doing Feldenkrais Method involved a process of increasing their bodily awareness. One aspect involves improvements in bodily organization and functioning that are emergent from the process, but are only available to awareness when those changes in body organization and functioning are noticed. That is, bodily awareness arising directly from the process. In addition, many informants reported becoming more aware of their bodily experience on an ongoing basis, and developed greater ability to attend to body to alter their movement to achieve easier movement, greater comfort, or calming. There is an extensive and rapidly growing literature in philosophy, psychology, the cognitive and movement sciences, neuroscience, and consciousness studies about the nature of bodily awareness and the role of the bodily in the process of the development of human

174 awareness. These involve discussion of conceptions and constructs such as: (a) attention, especially in the context of mindful movement (Clark et al., 2015; Mattes, 2016), (b) mindfulness (Brown & Cordon, 2009; Caldwell, 2014; Thompson, 2016), (c) contemplative practice (P. F. Morgan, 2013) and interoception (Farb et al., 2015), (d) body awareness (Mehling et al., 2011), (e) body consciousness and somaesthetics (Shusterman, 2008, 2009, 2012a, 2010b), and (f) kinesthetic consciousness (Behnke, 1997, 2009)31, which will be drawn upon in the discussion. The terms movement and awareness are used in particular ways in this discussion (see notes in Appendix D). Part 3: Bodily Awareness in the Feldenkrais Method Directed Attention in Awareness Through Movement The nature of directed attention in Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons is quite specific and can be different from the use of attention in both mindfulness meditation and other movement-based embodied contemplative practices. In Feldenkrais lessons, attention is often directed to (a) contact of the body with the floor or other supporting surfaces, (b) direction of movement of parts of the body or the whole body, and (c) parts of the body in relation to one another, (d) qualities of movement, (e) the skeleton, (f) sense of balance, (g) comfort, (h) the size of the movement, especially in relation to the end the comfortable range, (i) where and how the movement is initiated, (j) breathing, and (k) the students’ attitudes to their movement and/or body. In addition, attention may also be directed to the location of particular points in the body,

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Behnke (1997), in her description of “kinaesthetic consciousness” presents eight important kinaesthetic systems, which she characterizes as involving: (a) locomotor-perceptual, (b) goal-directed practical, (c) organization of the body as a whole, (d) balance and support, (e) breathing, (f) affective, (g) immediate efficacy, and (h) coping and recuperation (pp. 19–22). All of these systems are reflected in the texts coming from this study.

175 a sense of the whole body, or to the student’s mood or affective state (see Appendix E for more detail). It is important to note that perception is active and that the bodily awareness I am focusing on here involves activities of bodily awareness, such as directing attention or attending, sensing, and developing awareness. This dual but unified nature of the body as lived and experienced is consistent with Merleau-Ponty’s conceptions (1948/1968). Krueger (n.d.) suggested, “To be a body for Merleau-Ponty is thus to exist within the tension of this ‘ambiguous’ existence where subjectivity and objectivity are interwoven with the dynamics of everyday life” (para. 5). Indeed, both Plügge (1970) and Slatman (2008) emphasized the subjective awareness of the physical body as an important, if often neglected, understanding of the constitution of consciousness or of bodily awareness practices. Slatman (2008), drawing on Husserl, made use of the German terms Körper for the physical body and Leib, for the experienced body to argue for an experience of the “Leibkörper”—the living experience of the physical body (p. 75). By developing awareness in relation to both these aspects of bodily experience, Feldenkrais Method may help people function more effectively based on a more accurate set of self-perceptions grounded in the physical body (Feldenkrais, 2010a; Ginsburg, 2010), as well as more familiarity with their often ignored or suppressed subjective bodily experience, which constitutes much of our feelings of situation and self (Colombetti, 2014; Legrand, 2011)32. In addition, this bodily awareness may aid in the recovery from current cultural forms of bodily

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In terms of Legrand’s (2011) four-part schema of “bodily self-consciousness”: “the self-as-subject as a localized and oriented volume” (p. 214), “the self-as-subject as the bearer of bodily sensations” (p. 219), “the subjective access to the self-as-object” (p. 223), “the analytic access the self-as-object” (p. 224), the findings from this study would seem to suggest that practice of the Feldenkrais Method may enhance students’ capacity to access bodily experience in all of these ways.

176 objectification33. For example, informant B described: “I’m seeing myself in a new way. I can feel myself in a new way. I can live inside my body in a new way” (B8). Awareness Through Movement as Self-Observation in Action In naming one of the modes of the Feldenkrais Method, Awareness Through Movement, Feldenkrais (2010a) wanted to emphasize that possibility and process for self-awareness that could emerge from being aware of one’s self via movement. Feldenkrais (1981) wrote of the Method as involving “self-observation in action—which is movement” (p. 96). Indeed, the original name for Awareness Through Movement in Hebrew can be translated as selfobservation while moving or doing. It is this ability that Feldenkrais (1981) saw as a vital skill, which can be learned, and which links to his larger goals for the Method. He wrote: “Hours of repetitive practice is hard work; hours of practicing awareness in movement or action remain the most absorbing and interesting in our lives. The feeling of being alive relates to the awareness of growing to be oneself” (Feldenkrais, 1981, p. 96) Awareness in action. Movement is a valuable way of accessing and developing awareness, and awareness alters movement patterns. Informants in Broome et al.’s (2015) study also report on this dual relationship of awareness and movement. Feldenkrais (2010a) wrote, “the point of my work is to lead to awareness in action, or the ability to make contact with one’s own skeleton and muscles and environment practically simultaneously” (pp. 36–37). Taking up Feldenkrais’s ideas, Clark et al. (2015) used the framework of mindful movement to explore the

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Such as the commercialization of the body-image of the young, fit, uninjured body of the beauty, exercise, fitness industrial complex (Yu, 2015), “acceleration and time pathologies” (Aho, 2007, p.25), or the body as object in biomedicine (Leder, 1992b; Toombs, 1993; Young, 1997). These social and cultural forms of objectification of the body differ from the experience of the body as physical.

177 value of movement for accessing and developing attentional skill, and the use of attentional skill in improving movement skill. They wrote Following our model of skilled control of attention, our central hypothesis is that the long-term practice of mindful movement may train the ability to continuously monitor movement, register deviations and update structural motor procedures that guide or maintain attention within movement. (Clark et al., 2015, p. 11) These authors provided a description of the process of attention in Awareness Through Movement. They pointed out that for Feldenkrais, cognitive control of movements during Awareness Through Movement is more important for learning than the making of the actual movements themselves (Clark et al., 2015, p. 12). For some informants in this study, this actively conscious making of the movements was seen as a valuable form of engagement with their experience: “Concentrating…on the movement: just trying to remember how to do things, and do them. You’re actively engaged because you have to move your own body….There’s an engagement that’s enjoyable—but it’s a little more work…” (C17), and a greater capacity for bodily awareness: “…when you slow down and suddenly you start noticing things” (C15). Awareness and movement: Movement and awareness. Because movement and awareness are integrated in Feldenkrais Method lessons, they operate with different directions of intentionality, even if to the same effect. For example, using attention may allow for the reduction of effort, as suggested by informant C, “if I’m doing something slower and softer and less…then that forces me to focus my attention a lot. To avoid like, you know, the efforting. So probably it’s the attention that’s the key” (A19). At the same time, Clark et al. (2015) noted the importance of the reduction of effort in movement as a key strategy for increasing sensitivity to sensory experience and allowing for novel movement patterns to emerge. On this theme Feldenkrais wrote, “in order to be able to tell differences in exertion one must first reduce the

178 exertion. Finer and finer performance is possible only if the sensitivity—that is, the ability to feel the difference—is improved” (Feldenkrais, 2010a, p. 37). Several informants noted the idea and experience of reduction of effort was a key part of Feldenkrais practice. The sense of effort can be a guide for good bodily organization, for example informant A noted that: “The main thing for me is that lack of effort” (A4), in her description of feeling for a more comfortable and ideal posture. The reduction in effort was associated with senses of ease, calm, and potential, with informant H simply stating, “The other thing I feel is…that I’m just in less effort” (H8)34. Part 4: Bodily Awareness and Feldenkrais Practice: What Emerged From This Study – Bodily Awareness and Making Changes Informants identified a range of benefits of developing bodily awareness. In MetaTheme 3 it was described how informants reported on developing a range of types of new or increased awareness including a positive sense of the body, awareness of their bodily needs, and changes from their Feldenkrais practice. In addition, they developed awareness of habits, of the possibility of changing habits, and using awareness itself to help change habits35. There are a number of reports in the texts where the awareness of the body is quite specific, for example, to location in the body and the person’s circumstances. “The jaw, I am much more aware of it. I know that when I go through a period of high intensity work and I have big deadlines, and I’m worried…some sort of pressure, I hold it in my jaw” (H4). Informants

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Koch, Fuchs, and Summa (2014) have published research showing stronger movements were associated with “more fighting affect, and more negative memory recall, whereas light movements [were] related to more indulgent affect and more positive memory recall” (p. 272). 35 Mehling et al. (2009) suggest that the “Attitude of body awareness” is an important aspect of the construct of body awareness, which can include “trusting or viewing bodily sensations as helpful for decision making and sense of self” (p. 12).

179 then used this awareness to change their behavior or take ameliorative measures, such as in the case of informant H who regularly used a home program of recorded exercises for the jaw (see H4). Informant A described using her awareness for “avoiding injuries” and “avoiding pain” to change her bodily organization. Learning how to pay attention can in itself be helpful and healthful (S. L. Shapiro, Carlson, Astin, & Freedman, 2006). For example, for several informants, bodily awareness was part of the experience of calm and peacefulness (see MetaTheme 6). Focused attention (Clark et al., 2015) on the details of bodily sensations allowed informants to focus away from and to distract themselves from other concerns and become absorbed in present moment bodily experience. Kabat-Zinn (2005b) described focused attention as an experience of calm or taking rest through being directly in touch with one’s somatic experience in a non-conceptual way. For example, informant E noted: [The detailed awareness in lessons] it brought me to this awareness of my own body and this peace within my body….Yeah, to just bring you slowly inward, inward, inward— where there is more space because you’re not thinking about all of these other things around you that are distractions or restrictions. So that I’m just calmer and less reactive I think. (E3) Self-Observation as a Competence For many informants, the body, and particularly the body-in-movement, provided a focus of attention: “I was pretty much paying attention to my...the movements. I was just focusing on the body” (F8). Slowing down activity in Awareness Through Movement lessons was one factor in the emergence of bodily awareness for some informants: “You know what is when you slow down and suddenly you start noticing things. Like just things you wouldn’t necessarily notice if you were busy and crazy….So yeah, I feel a lot more…” (C15). The focus on the details of bodily experience was important for discovering experience previously not attended to—parts of the body, sensations, and experiences: “I was kind of lead to this place of this internal area that I was paying attention to, like, ‘Where your eyelids meet’ and [other] small little details” (E21).

180 However, there can also be barriers that may lead people not to develop bodily awareness. The construct of body memory (Leibgedächtnis in German; Koch, Fuchs, Summa, & Müller, 2012; Fuchs, Russell, Schläfke, & Graf-Pointner, 2016) may be useful here. People’s experiences may include preconscious memories of stress or trauma, and that may militate against developing bodily awareness. On a conscious level too, experiences of pain or issues of negative body image may lead someone to resist directing their attention to their body. For example, informant B reported, “listening to my body…is something I’d never done, because I had always sort of not paid attention to my body because I didn’t want to feel this chronic back pain that I had” (B11), and relation to her body image, that with, “this feeling of discomfort of being in my own body....You know, I never wanted to look in the mirror. It’s a different kind of pain” (B6). Developing Observing Attitudes Therefore, one key aspect of developing bodily awareness ability is the attitude that is brought to the process. Attitudes are like postures: the way one orients to, and leans into or away from a situation, skill, task, or phenomenon, as the etymology of attitude suggests36. The literature on mindfulness particularly provides some useful thinking and insight into the development of useful and positive self-observation skills (Kabat-Zinn, 1990, 2003, 2005a). Kabat-Zinn’s (1994) frequently quoted description of mindfulness is that: “Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (p. 4). Shortly after that passage, Kabat-Zinn cited Indian spiritual teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj

36

The Online Dictionary of Etymology gives the first recorded use of attitude (n.d.) in 1725 as, “a posture of the body supposed to imply some mental state,” with the “Meaning ‘habitual mode of regarding...’” [as] short for attitude of mind from 1757 (para. 2).

181 about the value of “watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge” (as cited in KabatZinn, 1994, p. 10). Feldenkrais (1972, 1985) also emphasized a nonjudgmental attitude in the process of learning in Awareness Through Movement, and observed that striving—using will and force to achieve—tends to increase effort and muscular tension, reproduce patterns of anxiety, and leads to errors in action. In this context, using less effort may be seen as a shift in attitude to the process. Many of the informants discussed ways in which the process of doing Awareness Through Movement involved being nonjudgmental A nonjudgmental approach…meant a lot to me. In part because of the state…that I was in right then [after my injury] and the vulnerability that you feel after something like that. I felt like Feldenkrais creates a lot more room for change and growth…because there’s not a “supposed to.” (H9) In addition, informants described how one is not striving for a particular goal in terms of particular movement “content”—a particular shape or form of the body or movement: “In Feldenkrais you are not striving for any perfection or outlandish movement that no one else can do. It is not competitive, and it [that] is good for your body” (E12), and “This isn’t for anything, there is no perfect form for this particular...” (E17). For informant E, this involved, “Being realistic about what the goals are”, and “not trying to regain something you were...,” which allowed her to shift to just making simple observations, it’s just sort of collecting data….I could look at that [my body] maybe in a not emotional or territorial way like, “My body, my body!” —but just as a spectator to be able to…look at it without any conclusions or judgment—and from the outside just take a peek at what’s going on. (E17) Informant C described how, coming into class, she attended to herself “in a really kind way” (C25). Writing in the context of the body awareness literature, Brani et al. (2013) described a two-component model of mindfulness, involving both immediate attention to

182 experience and the (meta) awareness that one develops which includes one’s attitudes to that experience. They wrote that this model suggests “that the efficacy…does not reside in people simply becoming more aware of subjective qualia, but imbuing this awareness with particular qualities of kindness and compassion” (Brani et al., 2013, p. 102; see also S. L. Shapiro et al., 2006). Mindfulness Through the Body and Self-Care Feldenkrais Method has much in common with some forms of mindfulness practice, which also focus on bodily experience as a basis for awareness and self-care (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Kabat-Zinn, Chapman, & Salmon, 1997; Kerr et al., 2011, Kerr et al., 2013; Smyth, 2012). For example, the MBSR program, which includes sitting meditation, with attention to the bodily experience of breathing, walking meditation, and mindful yoga. MBSR can also be considered substantially as a practice of mindfulness of and through the body. Kabat-Zinn’s (2003) description of mindful yoga has much in common with aspects of Feldenkrais practice: Hatha yoga was never about accomplishment or perfection, or even about technique by itself (para. 9)….Intentionally cultivating mindfulness within our hatha practice invites us to inhabit the postures more fully (para. 22)….We dwell in this interior landscape as best we can without forcing or striving. And if such impulses come up, as they sometimes do with exasperating persistence, we can at least greet them without judgment and with kindness and acceptance. (para. 23) Another Buddhist teacher and scholar, Moffitt (2008) suggested that, “violence against self through the body can also occur in situations where you are ostensibly taking deliberate care of your body, such as in doing yoga” (p. 53). I would argue that in adopting—in Feldenkrais classes and in everyday life, the kinds of values-in-action described in this study, especially those of nonjudgment and nonstriving, as well as going slowly and easily without strain or triggering pain, provide a basis for the development of self-compassion (Neff, 2003; Neff et al., 2007). The frequent reports of a sense of calm and

183 peacefulness from the informants in this study as a result of their practice of Feldenkrais Method are suggestive that these students were largely embodying the suggestions of caring for the self. Moving Gently, Nonstriving, Healthy Powerful Movement, and Challenge Many of the informants described how they found other practices to sometimes be too competitive, or too strong or rough for them, and preferred the more gentle approach of the Feldenkrais Method. It is worth noting however, that many practitioners and students of the Feldenkrais Method are active practitioners of a range of martial arts, such as Judo, Aikido, and Krav Maga. Moshe Feldenkrais was one of the first Europeans with a black belt in Judo, and wrote several books on Judo and martial arts practice (Feldenkrais, 1944, 1952, 2009). He drew on his knowledge of martial arts in developing the Feldenkrais Method (Smyth, 2012). The question here is of teaching strategies and the values that subserve them. Feldenkrais argued that self-judgment, striving, and the use of will power actually often inhibit effective action (Feldenkrais, 2010b). Feldenkrais suggested that the reduction of unnecessary effort, through the Feldenkrais Method, allows people to move in more efficient ways, which should in theory allow people to make large and powerful movements in ways that use less muscular strength and reduce the chance of injury. Feldenkrais (2010b) wrote: “The aim is not complete relaxation, but healthy, powerful, easy and pleasurable exertion” (p. 37). Several informants reported after doing Feldenkrais Method, that they gained or regained the ability to be more physically active, or to pleasurably engage in active recreation including playing tennis, doing yoga, walking, and swimming. Finally, some Feldenkrais lessons can be quite challenging, as Informant H, in recovery from falls and post-concussion syndrome, described:

184 We stood on a foam roller…balancing on that, and I think we were turning our heads…while we were standing or turning our bodies….In that moment, it was good for me, because it was a little scary to step onto this moving thing—I had just had this horrible fall, but I did it; and it felt safe and comfortable. The roller thing is about that, and it’s so interesting because it’s like taking yourself out of feeling grounded, and [then] you do feel grounded. (H16) In relation to bodily awareness as a construct and an experience, then, Feldenkrais Method can be seen to have a lot in common with other somatic or contemplative movement-based embodied practices, depending, importantly, on the attitudes embodied in which they are taught. Developing Awareness of Parts of the Body Usually Missing From Awareness Feldenkrais (2010a), in developing the Method, was interested in how distortions of the self-image in action affected people’s use of themselves and fulfillment of their goals, noting that a complete body image was rare, and also that different parts of self were less available based on the action we were engaged in. He was concerned to develop ways in which students could develop a more complete body-image through scanning the body and observing their selves while moving, suggesting that, “we might surmise that to improve one’s self-image so that it more nearly approximates reality will result in a general improvement in one’s bodily actions” (Feldenkrais, 2010a, p. 10). For example, Feldenkrais (2010a) suggested that awareness of the skeleton, when combined with reduction of habitual muscular tonus, ensures that “our intentional actions are performed with the least possible effort” (p. 18). Consistent with this view, Informant H reported, “I was learning about my body and…ways to understand how to connect with my skeleton, and how my skeleton is moving so that it would make all kinds of movement easier” (H6). A significant aspect of the experience for many informants was a sense of discovering or getting in touch with parts of their body that had been missing or not so clear in their perception or image of their bodies. Sometimes the experience of pain led to not attending to nonpainful

185 parts of the body. For example, informant D noted, “The back is a really good place for me to focus and I don’t focus there very often,” reporting that “immediately my whole system just relaxes” when she does attend to her back, “but there’s no pain there, so I’m not attending to it” (D12). The discovery of parts of the body not so present to experience was felt to be interesting and mostly pleasant. Informant E described how the classes put me in touch with parts of my body that I hadn’t really thought about before. It was like waking me up to other parts of my body and the integration that happened from that. It is really fun….It’s weird, and exciting at the same time…there are all these other areas that I am still learning about. That’s a kind of a fascinating thing to me. (E7) Comfort, Aesthetics, Learning, and “A Sense of Possibility” Feldenkrais (1981) suggested a range of qualities of experience as outcomes from practice, writing, “In Awareness Through Movement lessons you make the impossible possible, then easy, comfortable, pleasurable, and finally aesthetically pleasing” (p. 82). He saw this as an important part of the motivation to keep learning, and indeed not only learning a new skill, but learning how to learn. He wrote: I believe it is more important to learn the way to learn new skills than the feat of the skills themselves; the new skill is only a useful reward for your attention. You will feel you deserve the skill and this will help build your self-confidence. (Feldenkrais, 1981, p. 82) A sense of comfort and feeling comfortable was indeed one of the most common ways the informants described the change in their bodily experience from Feldenkrais practice. For example, informants described, “feeling comfortable about how you move” (B1), and “an intimate comfort with my body” (B8), or, for example, “It’s easy and it feels really pleasant…it’s a bit of an altered state” (B25), and, “There is this ease of movement all through me,” “There were some sessions that were just delicious” (G12). Given that pain often creates a fear of movement (kinesiophobia), then the discovery of nonpainful, comfortable, and even pleasurable

186 movement is an important part of the recovery of a greater movement repertoire (Trojan, Diers, Valenzuela-Moguillansky, & Torta, 2014). Shusterman (2008) included the aesthetic dimension as an important part of his pragmatist somatic field of theory and practice, somaesthetics. He sees somaesthetics as engaged with “how we experience and use the living body (or soma) as a site of sensory appreciation (aesthesis) and creative self-fashioning” (p. 1). Informant B, particularly, described her experience in a way that is reflective of this aesthetic aspect of somatic practice and learning. She described experiencing her “body as an entity that can move with pleasure and that it was sort of like a beautiful machine. Now movement was flowing. I felt more graceful” (B10). This greater comfort and aesthetic pleasure in movement and bodily experience may provide intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2002) to continue with a practice like the Feldenkrais Method. Indeed, finding greater comfort and pleasure in everyday life can be part of the experience of well-being (Farb et al., 2015; Zeiler, 2010). Insight: Developing Self-Awareness Consistent with Feldenkrais’s (1972) conception of the Method, if seems that many informants developed new self-awareness—awareness of more pervasive characteristics of their ways of being, which they detected in their habitual patterns of bodily organization. Several informants disclosed some significant patterns of ways of being they discovered from their experience with the Method and revealed by doing class lessons and working with their practitioner. For example, informant E observed, “[Feldenkrais] changed my kind of being stingy about everything, to be more generous with myself and what my process was” (E17), while Informant D noted, “I’m very ‘mental’ and I tend to go out quickly into thoughts and into the future...that feeling of pushing forward” (D12). Informant H, who came to Feldenkrais to

187 help deal with post-concussion syndrome described how, “I don’t think that I lean back like I used to. I was leaning away; I was trying to pull myself away from the world a little bit” (H14). Informant E described her habitual approach to actions in life in this way: I just did it the hard way initially. [That’s] just kind of my motto; it’s just like, “Get it done.” So that’s the part where I’m always making these reflections about myself in a bigger sense. It’s like, “Geez, that’s very indicative of how I do a lot of stuff. (E8) These kinds of self-observations seem consistent with the gaining of enhanced insight, as described by Farb et al. (2015) in their discussion of the value of interoceptive ability for health. This increase in self-awareness was experienced positively and an opportunity for an improved relationship with their own body and functioning in the world (see also Pugh & Williams, 2014). Dys-Appearance and Eu-Appearance, and the Body in Conscious Awareness Dys-appearance and eu-appearance. Leder (1990) posited that at least some of the time the body appears in awareness as a process of a “dys-appearance.” That is, experiences of pain, dysfunction, and disability are the situations where people become more generally and specifically aware of bodily feelings. At other times, explicit, thematic awareness of the body often fades, until distress or disability recur. Based on the texts from these informants who came to Feldenkrais Method in relation to pain experience there certainly was a dys-appearance of the body, but this was often not just an episodic coming to consciousness of bodily experience, but part of an ongoing pattern of a distressed-experiencing. However, some informants also described the value of learning to notice sooner when they were in some form of distress, and be able to alter their movement or activity in appropriate ways. Leder (1990) was concerned that the narrative should not stop with dys-appearance, writing “The surfacing of the body at times of disruption may support a vector of threatening associations. However once these are solidified into a negative discourse, there is a failure to

188 pursue countervailing forms of positive body awareness” (Leder, 1990, p. 153). He observed that various Eastern practices, like Zen, Tantra, yogic asana practice offer possibilities for addressing being stuck in the body consciousness of dys-appearance. He wrote, “Within such practices the body is viewed as a crucial medium of self-development and actualizes a variety of positive states of relaxation, concentration, coordination, ecstacy” (p. 153). Zeiler (2010) proposed the term eu-appearance for the appearance of the body into conscious awareness that is experienced positively. She gave the example of the possible pleasures of feeling one’s body while exercising comfortably, of sexual pleasure, or of positively perceived major bodily changes—such as a wanted pregnancy. Clearly, from the informant testimonies in this study, the body appeared to them in conscious awareness in positive ways. I also wonder if, for these informants, whether the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method contributes to transforming the experience of dys-appearance of the body with pain, distress, and breakdown (“I can’t”), into an eu-appearance of the body. That is, through the process of developing a sense of “I can,” for example, they are able to make previously impossible movements possible, modulate the intensity of pain experience (Bissell, 2009), and learn to wield their bodies with new confidence (Morris, 2006). That is, that the Feldenkrais Method creates “a positive felt-appearance of the body” into awareness (Smyth, 2016b, p. 13). Body awareness and performance. The traditional assumption in Western philosophy, that bodily awareness is always an impediment to functioning (e.g., Taipale, 2014), has been challenged by many thinkers. Shusterman (2008) provided a thoroughgoing critique, arguing the value of bodily awareness in many situations, especially in the learning of new skills. The question is not only that one is aware, and how one is aware, but also when does one deploy awareness (Goldfarb, 2004). Research shows that dancers, athletes, and other performers make

189 use of body awareness in the form of particular types of awareness or directed attention in their performance as attentional anchors (Abrahamson, Shayan, Bakker, & Van Der Schaaf, 2015). These are specific forms of bodily awareness, which, for example, they evoke to check whether they are ready for a performance, or for the next stage in performance (Hutto & Sánchez-García, 2015; Kirsh, 2011; Kirsh, Muntanyola, Jao, Lew, & Sugihara, 2009). Hutto and Sánchez-García (2015) quoted a skateboarder who checked on his bodily alignment (how his body was “stacked”) and on the sense of the orientation of one eye and his nose, and the position of the back shoulder, in preparation for doing a back flip. As Dinovici (2012) noted in relation to martial arts, different practices bring forth different forms of attention and bodily awareness— that is, the body appears differently in consciousness, especially in the context of different forms of skill learning. The informants in this study also chose particular parts of the body to attend to (such as the back, informant D), aspects of their bodily organization to attend to (such as the stacking of the spine, informant A), and particular situations to attend to (such as moving from sitting to standing, informant B). In conclusion, the texts from these informants, along with the literature, suggest that the role of conscious bodily awareness in movement is a complex one. Bodily awareness can be useful in learned improvement in action and, once learned, can be deployed intentionally with positive effects. Therefore, it can be seen that that Feldenkrais Method also fostered ability in developing an open and nonjudgmental body awareness and the competence37 associated with the ability to observe oneself in useful and practical ways.

37

Competence has been defined as “a complex operational capacity resulting from the integration, mobilization, and disposition of a set of capacities and abilities (of a cognitive, affective, psychomotor or social order) and of knowledge (declarative knowledge) used in an efficient manner in certain situations” (Boni & Lozno, 2007, p. 822).

190 At the same time, reducing pain, dysfunctional habits, and other barriers to effective movement made possible the kind of pleasant, absorbed, and effective movement without conscious awareness, that not only has been historically valorized by philosophers, but has also contributed, for these informants, to an enhanced sense of self and a larger lifeworld. Discussion of Findings: Part 4 – Being Bodily In this section of the discussion of the findings, I will explore a number of phenomena associated with what might be characterized by different forms of bodily being that became available to informants from their participation in Feldenkrais Method. The Sense of “I can”: Ability, Imagination, and Models of Health One of the constituents of the Structure of the Experience of the Feldenkrais Method as Self-Caring, was “A Sense of ‘I can.’” The informants described many manifestations of this sense in their lives. I would argue that based on the informants’ texts, this feeling is grounded in multiple experiences of success in making movements, solving movement puzzles, altering the qualities of one’s movement, and altering the state of one’s bodily experience in and through Awareness Through Movement classes. For Husserl, the sense of “I can” is fundamental to the constitution of the ego or self (Husserl, 1952/1989a, p. 159). Sheets-Johnstone drew attention to the important distinction made by Husserl (1952/1989a), who wrote, “Originally, the ‘I move,’ ‘I do,’ precedes the ‘I can do’” (p. 273). Sheets-Johnstone (2009a) emphasized that the experience of animation, of beinganimate or animate being, is our “originary” experience of self and world. The sense of “I can” has important implications for how one responds to challenges to one’s health, and indeed one’s conception of health. The idea of “I can” goes beyond any individual act or even particular actions done in an ongoing way. “I can” has more to do with an ongoing attitude or orientation

191 to life that creates a certain dispositional set, an ongoing deportment, or a way of being-toward one’s life that is emergent in all aspects of one’s life (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962; Shulman & Braude, 2018). Slaby (2012) observed that, “This embodied, modifiable sense of ‘I can’ and ‘I cannot’ shapes the way the world, others, and oneself are apprehended” (p. 153). He framed the “I can” as an affective construal 38 of the situation in which one finds one’s self and one’s sense of one’s ability. For the informants, the shift to a sense or mood of “I can” seems to have partly been grounded in experiencing improvement. Feldenkrais (2010b) believed that it was necessary to experience improvement, for example, in discussing the value of re-educating the kinesthetic sense he wrote, “We must first realize the benefits of improvements so we will spare the time needed. But the benefit cannot be imagined until the improvement is sensed” (p. 42). Feldenkrais Method sessions and lessons are designed to create conditions of learning where students can reliably experience success, in large part by focusing on improving the qualities of movement rather than focusing on particular content in the form of particular sizes or shapes of movements. These factors in supporting learning were mentioned by several informants (e.g., B, E, & H). Feldenkrais (1981) suggested that not having choices can increase anxiety. Some informants also identified having options in the learning process was a factor for feelings of success (e.g., see E23).

38

He lists a number of similar constructs from other authors, including Ratcliffe’s (2008) existential feeling, which I will take up later in exploring other overall moods associated with the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method. So, in this way the “I can” is like a mood (or Stimmung) in the phenomenological sense, which is always in relation to how one finds oneself in a situation (Beflindlichkeit).

192 In this way, Feldenkrais Method is consistent with the construct of self-efficacy as introduced by Bandura (1977), in which he described having sufficient challenge and sufficient resources to meet them as optimal for promoting the sense of self-efficacy (Smyth, 2012). Öhman et al. (2011) characterize this experience of Feldenkrais Method as a sense of “improved self-reliance” (p. 160)39. The “I can” appeared in many forms. Informants discovered ways to respond if there was a breakdown in their ability—such as with pain, or did something to prevent breakdowns (e.g., see F14). The “I can” also appeared as an “I won’t,” if an activity seemed beyond their safe capacities (e.g., see D7). Not doing, then, can also be a form of “I can” when needed40. Learning when to rest, especially when in pain, in classes and in everyday life, was mentioned by a number of informants as an empowering aspect of the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method. (O’Connor & Webb, 2002; Pugh & Williams, 2014). Some of the sense of “I can” was implicit in the texts from the informants and the narratives they form. For example, all eight informants continued to live with some kind of pain. For some, it is residual from the pain that initially brought them to do the Feldenkrais Method; for others those pains are resolved, but people continue to deal with other pain. Despite this, all of the informants continued to be active: several returned to work after significant surgeries or

39

Feldenkrais (1949, 1985) wrote about attaining a potent state—the sense of one’s ability to move consistently with one’s intentions, and in which excessive willing is not needed as one has a sense of one’s capacity. A state associated with reduced anxiety and clarity of motivations, and linked to comfortable upright posture where one can take effective action without preparation (“acture”) and exert necessary force without a sense of efforting. 40 Informants in Öhman et al.’s (2011) study of Feldenkrais Method for chronic pain, talked about not making sacrifices in their bodily comfort for external ideas or social demands. Informants in Pugh and Williams (2014) also describe becoming more attuned to their body and resistant to external demands.

193 accidents, and one informant retrained twice in order to continue to work despite hand and arm pain. Many of them were engaged in vigorous activities including playing singles tennis weekly, or hiking considerable distances on a daily basis. Most continued to do some, usually daily, form of movement activity—perhaps Feldenkrais lessons or elements of them, or often some form of personal routine that combines elements of yoga, Tai Chi Chuan, and Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement41. Most still attended Awareness Through Movement classes. It seems like they did not feel stuck in the limitations or restrictions of their health conditions (even though many did have limitations), and on the other hand often chose movement-based activities as part of their recreation, health, and well-being “program” (see also Pugh & Williams, 2014). In their testimonies, I sense that there is a sense of a kind of “aliveness” that comes from movement (Sheets-Johnstone, 2010, p. 3). On another level of engagement in their lives, two informants said that how they felt doing Feldenkrais Method had been part of them being open to starting new intimate relationships later in life. This phenomenon of seeking to live well and with engagement despite chronic health conditions has been characterized as one involving “healthy ill people” (Milz, 1992, p. 32). With more advanced medical care people are living longer with more complex medical conditions or with the sequelae of treatments. According to Milz (1992), then, some people become more engaged with practices like Feldenkrais Method that open up possibilities of improved coping, less fear and more hope, and enhanced quality of life (see also Öhman et al., 2011).

41

Informants in Pugh and Williams (2014) study described how they developed a repertoire of movements from Awareness Through Movement lessons that they use in everyday life, especially in relation to managing pain.

194 Imagined movements. One particular contribution to developing the sense of the “I can” can be found in the experience of making imagined movements, which was empowering in allowing them to participate despite pain or limitations, and freeing students from a sense of “I can’t:” “Sometimes, if I can’t actually do the lesson I imagine myself doing the lesson” (D7). Informant E noted, “Being able to make imagined movements allows me to feel free from a sense of not being able to do things” (E15), and informant H experienced doing imagined movements as “a place where I could be successful—even with all those pretty severe limitations at the time” (H11). Making imagined movements also allowed the imagining of movements that are not painful, are more comfortable or efficient—that is, imaging positive results (Krietler & Krietler, 1977/2013, p. xxvii)42. Informant B described her experience this way: When I imagine it, I imagine it in an ideal. I imagine it the way I really would like to be able to move. So, the imagery is a guide in itself. I’m not trying to say, “I see it in my head, and now I see it in my head as I’m doing it and I try to achieve that standard.” It’s not like that….It’s just: I can do it better. (B23) Pausing to imagine can also be associated with a sense of opening to possibility: “You’re not even thinking it through...because it’s not like you’re trying to solve it,” rather, “I’m, going do this in my head for a sec….it’s [an] openness to…and seeing what happens” (H11). Sensing into: “Seeing” and feeling into the body. Another way in which many informants made use of their imaginations was by imagining and feeling into their bodies. These ways of directing intention was used to improve movement and learning, or get a sense of the state of their bodies. Most informants used these strategies as part of working out a movement

42

In neuroscientific terms, imagining movements, as a form of sustained attention, may be thought of as a form of “active rehearsal” engaging “task positive executive networks” (Clark et al., 2015, p. 7).

195 sequence during an Awareness Through Movement lesson. Informant C described a process of working past the frustration of not being able to make a movement, to an enjoyable experience of being able to make the new movement in a more automatic way: I try to picture what the movement is and then experimenting. I think there’s a way in which I learn new movements by trying to see it from the outside and then inside-out of course. I guess that’s how I’m imagining how to move…and it all kind of comes together….So I don’t have to think about it. I think it’s really fun to try—once I get past that frustration. (C21) “I can,” possibility, and models of health. The sense of “I can” arising from the experience of the informants is consistent with recent literature from social psychology on the role of the body in the “fluid ever present potential for creativity in experience” (Tucker, 2010, p. 513). That the body is “not wholly socially or biologically determinate” (Tucker, 2010, p. 514), but through the alteration of affect, is “imbued with the ability to create new connections of relations into unknown patterns” (Tucker, 2010, p. 518). Coming from a neurophenomenological constructionist perspective, Declerke and Gapene (2013) proposed a view of “the body, far from being merely what it is actually…is better construed as an available power….[A] mode in which the body makes itself available [is]: ‘the horizon of the possible’” (pp. 1–2). That is, there is a sense of empowerment experienced by the informants in this study. In their research into the experience of long-term students of the Feldenkrais Method who were dealing with back pain, Pugh and Williams’s (2014) also uncovered the sense of empowerment as the key theme of their research. The testimony from the informants in this study suggests that for them, health is not to do with a fixed state. Rather, there is ability, or a series of competences developed or enhanced by their practice of Feldenkrais Method, to respond to ongoing challenges of health conditions and

196 of pain in order to continue to function as described in the findings from this study43. This experience that Feldenkrais Method contributes to health through promoting enhanced capacities to recover is consistent with Feldenkrais’s (2010c) thinking and that of the three Feldenkrais experts I interviewed for my Master’s research (Smyth, 2012). These ideas of health as ability and action, consistent with the experiences described here, are not ones of the curing of disease or the absence of health challenges. Instead, these models are consistent with concepts of health such as Antonovsky’s (1979, 1987) coherence model and Nordenfelt’s (1987, 2000) action theory of health. Nordenfelt (1987, 2000) provided a philosophical critique of the model of health as a static state characterized by the absence of illness, particularly as that excludes people with disabilities. He suggested instead, “health as a person’s ability to attain the goals set by” that person (Nordenfelt, 1987, p. 65), where the goals promote the person’s welfare or long-term happiness—that is, they are “vital goals” (Nordenfelt, 2000, p. 85). He emphasized the idea of “health as ability” Nordenfelt, 2000, p. 77). Consistent with Feldenkrais’s thinking, Nordenfelt (2000) felt it was important, in rehabilitation for example, not only to learn how to do something, but also to learn how to learn, to ensure one’s ongoing health ability. Antonovsky (1979, 1987) proposed that having or developing a sense of coherence was fundamental to health. He suggested a sense of coherence composed of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. In terms of comprehensibility, it appears that Feldenkrais Method helped these informants organize and understand their experience of their bodies, for example, developing an awareness of what contributed to pain or stress. In terms of

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(p. 17).

Behnke (1997) wrote, “kinaesthetic consciousness is a capability consciousness”

197 manageability, Feldenkrais Method helped them develop competences that they used to deal with challenges, along with the sense that improvement is possible. In relation to meaningfulness, informants reported greater interest or curiosity about their bodily experience, as well as positive bodily experiences that brought hope, and discovered information about the causes of and the relief or reduction of suffering (Antonovsky, 1979, 1987). In terms of Antonovsky’s model, the informants in this study exhibited an ongoing salutogenic (health generating) orientation— through their continuing practice of the Feldenkrais Method and engaging in other healthful activities, some of which become possible, at least in part, through doing the Feldenkrais Method. Posture, Acture, and the Preparatory Set Informants experienced a range of perceived improvements in bodily organization (see Meta-Theme 2). For example, informant A talked about being aware of finding, through Feldenkrais Method, a more supported upright posture and described the nature of the skeletal organization involved (see A4), which was associated with reduced effort and an absence of the sense of holding herself up. Several other informants also described the sense of alignment that they associated with less pain and greater ease in movement. Informant C reported after lessons or sessions, “feeling taller, straighter, more aligned” (C2). Several informants also noted becoming aware of habitual patterns of holding the body or moving the body (see also Pugh & Williams, 2014). Behnke (1997) talked about the importance of “the ongoing ‘how’ of our habitual bodily comportment…our deeply sedimented way(s) of ‘making a body’” (similar to making a fist or making a face). A deportment which involves “schematic inner vectors or tendencies toward movement that persist as bodily ‘ghost gestures,’” and “‘inadvertent

198 isometrics,’44 i.e. persisting patterns of ‘trying,’ ‘bracing,’ ‘freezing,’ etc.” (p. 181). A parallel concept—“dysponesis,” emerged in the early biofeedback literature on muscle activity: Whatmore and Kohli (1968) defined dysponesis as misplaced effort, or as “a psychopathological state made up of errors in energy expenditure within the nervous system” (p. 103). Payne and Crane-Godreau (2015) proposed the construct of the preparatory set to describe the body organization at the beginning of an action sequence. They described how “preparation involves a coordination of many aspects of the organism: muscle tone, and expectations” (Payne & CraneGodreau, 2015, p. 1). Feldenkrais (1985) similarly wrote of one’s dynamic posture or bodily organization as “the use made of the entire neuromuscular function…the affect, the motivation, the direction, and the execution of the act while it is performed” (p. 53). Like Feldenkrais (1985), Payne and Crane-Godreau (2015) described how affective states (e.g., of fear, anxiety, depressed mood, stress) acquired through one’s personal history (e.g., of trauma or pain) can impact how one can be organized to take action. They suggested that “training in voluntary attention” may make it possible that “previously automatic responses may

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These “inadvertent isometrics” are described in Feldenkrais practice as habitual, unnecessary co-contractions. A variety of strategies within Feldenkrais Method are hypothesized as addressing such co-contraction, including (a) increased ability to direct force through the skeleton, which is thought to reduce muscular bracing; (b) the stimulation of reciprocal innervation in sequences that lead to the lengthening of muscles involved in both flexion and extension of a particular joint, or to balance flexor-extensor tone in the whole body; (c) using touch to support muscular contraction until there is a felt reduction in muscular contraction; (d) by altering muscular tonus in the whole body which also reduces more local or regional patterns of co-contraction; and (e) by assisting students become aware of unconscious, involuntary muscular “holding” patterns. Feldenkrais Method also makes use of temporarily increasing muscular tonus through functional or novel movement patterns and then reducing it through, for example, making movements smaller or with less effort, thus reducing muscular contraction. This bears some similarity to an original form of progressive muscular relaxation (PMR) described by Jacobson (1938). Occasionally, a student is invited to make a conscious muscular contraction and release it, for example, while compression into the joint is being supported by the Feldenkrais practitioner—a process similar to the more commonly used brief forms of PMR.

199 come under voluntary influence” (Payne & Crane-Godreau, 2015, p. 5). This may be seen in reports from informants about consciously altering habitual movement patterns; for example, “It’s the body organization…there is something to be said about getting ready to move and stopping and thinking. I have to do that kind of consciously because I have so many bad habits” (B18). At the same time, improved preconscious patterns of bodily organization may also be engendered by changing sympathetic activation—which may be reflected in the sense of calm frequently reported by the informants (see Meta-Theme 5). Many informants reported on the sense of muscular or physical relaxation, changes in habitual patterns of holding in the body, and ease and fluidity of movement, along with sense of skeletal support. These reported experiences may be indicative of alterations in the preparatory set of background bodily organization. Feldenkrais (1985) coined the term “acture” to characterize a bodily “state from which it [the body] can be brought to perform any act without further preliminary change” (p. 223), a bodily organization of alert readiness. Payne and Godreau-Crane (2015) suggested that the preparatory set is an important way of understanding the nature of the stress response, while the alteration of the preparatory set, for example, through “body-mind therapeutic and educational systems (BTES)” offers significant opportunities to change stress response patterns.

200 More Space: Spatiality and Voluminousness Many of the informants mentioned an experience of a sense of space45, that is, explicitly and implicitly a sense of having access to a sense of greater space—especially within the body. Informant C spoke of “More space. More room” (C13). In discussing space here, we are not discussing the objective space of physics, even though we all have to find ways to relate to physical space. In fact, it is in this relating to space that we generate experiences of volume or voluminousness, and of spatiality in our lifeworld (Diekelmann, 2005; Fuchs, 2018; Jonas, 2001; Morris, 2004). Bodily movement is fundamental to the experience of space and time. Feldenkrais (1981) suggested that, “spatial awareness is but another facet of…kinaesthetic sensation” (p. 109). It is through movement that we constitute the lived or phenomenal space in which we conduct our lives (Casey, 1991; Morris, 2004; Straus, 1966). Straus (1966) suggested that it is the whole body movement of a practice like dance that alters the sense of space for many people, and brings forth a more richly experienced space, than, for example, more linear, constrained, and functional activity like walking—or marching! The exploratory, whole body movements in Feldenkrais Method practice also demonstrate this capability of impacting spatial perception46.

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One informant in Öhman et al.’s (2011) study reported, “I felt like I could take more space, that I could find a bigger sphere around myself where I could move” (p. 159). In phenomenological thought the sense of space is one of the four “lifeworld existentials”—“lived space (spatiality), lived body (corporeality), lived time (temporality), and lived human relations (relationality or communality)” which are seen by van Manen (1990) as “guides for reflection in the” hermeneutic-phenomenological “research process” (p. 101). Informant D also emphasized the role of Feldenkrais lessons in helping her develop a sense of being-in-a-place through awareness of her body in her new living environment. This is consistent with the Heideggerian notion of presence allowing us to experience space as place (Diekelmann, 2005), and Casey’s (1991) and Morris’s (2004) ideas about the experience of space as place. 46 See for example quotations from dancers in Kampe’s (2010) research.

201 Feldenkrais (2010a) believed “to become conscious of our body’s spatial orientation is to come to know ourselves in depth and in clarity” (p. 25).47 The informants in this study talked about a sense of a greater spaciousness or voluminousness in a number of ways. In some ways, it seems doing Awareness Through Movement created an affective-cognitive “space” that allowed them to experience less distress and greater calm, and to have a way to process their experience. In this way, they seemed to be using a somewhat more metaphorical48 sense that would link to the many uses of the image of space in everyday culture, which may have both been influenced by and influences on that language in relation to body-and-mind practices like yoga (Persson, 2007, 2010). Persson (2007, 2010), in her anthropological research into the practices and ideas of a yoga, noted how the word

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Feldenkrais (1972) wrote that developmentally the infant’s exploration of the body with self-movement gives “the first notions of distance and volume”, while “the discovery of time begins with the coordination of the process of breathing and swallowing” (p. 13). However, parts of the body image can be omitted or distorted in development and adult life. He advocated, “To complete and clarify one’s self-image by paying attention to the spatial and temporal orientation of one’s body can bring about a growth in self-knowledge” (Feldenkrais, 2010a, p. 14). Some Awareness Through Movement lessons included attention directed specifically to bodily spaces and volumes. Moving the body through space and against surfaces generates experience of spatial aspects of the body, such as the front, back, and sides of the body, lengths of bony segments, and so forth. 48 Persson (2010) cautioned against any simple use of metaphorical analysis in relation to somatic experiences. For one thing, the idea of mapping one set of meanings or images (linguistic) in relation to others (bodily) can lead to confusion of levels of meaning as well as introducing an implied dualism built into the process of analysis.

202 “space” functions not just as a simple single concept, but was resonant of a wider field of associations and meanings for her research subjects49. Some informants in this study described perceptions of physiological changes, such as there being greater space within joints or an overall greater sense of length of the body, “feel more spacious and open and more room for bones and muscles to move freely” (A6) and, “there’s more space between my vertebral bodies and my cervical spine” (D14). Given the relaxation that many informants reported, it is possible that physiological changes associated with the lengthening of muscles contributed to this experience. Feldenkrais (1972) provided a perspective on this, suggesting that “superfluous efforts shorten the body,” and continued: “In every action in which a degree of difficulty is anticipated the body is drawn together as a protective device against this difficulty” (p. 96). For example, informant H described the feeling of compression of the whole body, as well as the tightening of one side of the body or the other, as sequelae of her post-concussion headaches (see H2 in Appendix C). General stresses and difficulties in life may also contribute to an experience of tightness and compression. Informants A and C talked about the accumulation of tensions and a sense of compression in the course of the week—especially the working week, which were relieved by doing Feldenkrais lessons or sessions.

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Gusdorf (1953/1965) wrote, “Linguists have shown that the basic unit of living speech is not the form of nouns, verbs, or adjectives, all isolated from each other like grains in a sack. The unit of speech is the complex whole, given vitality by the intended meaning of the speaker: it is the verbal image that is expressed in more or less complex sentences, sometimes reduced to a single word, but always corresponding to the expression of a meaning” (p. 36). This is consistent with the Ricoeur’s (1981) views on utterances. Feldenkrais (1972) suggested that we think in images.

203 Also, in terms of spatiality in our lives, Mackie (1985) noted a “flattened” (p. 229) sense of spatiality in our common cultural form of attention (involving stillness) and communication of thought (written or visual media)—a flattening that has just become pervasive in the screenbased culture in schools, work, and homes that has emerged since then. The interaction between organisms evolved for movement for long hours per day with still, two-dimensional input-output devices has been associated with the kind of generalized stress response, repetitive strain injuries, and chronic muscular tensions reported by several of the informants. Informant C described how “Feldenkrais helps a great deal. It softens things up and I’m not holding myself… [gestures lifting arms and shoulders and chest high and rigid] like as would on a computer” (C9). This points to another aspect of the experience of greater space reported by the informants. If contemporary life is very busy, with many things to do in what is perceived as a limited amount of time, as it is for many of the informants, then that there is a sense that their life is too full or “cluttered”: That wonderful sense of space in this….It’s sort of something about feeling like myself… without all the crap. More space. More room. Less clutter…yeah, internal clutter, right. So, in terms of internal clutter, you know, you filter out internal clutter, and the external stuff too. (C13) The physical-and-mental relaxation associated with the Feldenkrais Method seems to be associated with a greater sense of spaciousness in their lives. In this way space is also related to the sense of the amount and quality of time available—which I will discuss in the next section. For informant E a greater sense of space was associated with the significant reduction in pain she experienced in Awareness Through Movement, which contributed to the space in my body—it wasn’t just in my body but it was almost like I was free floating. So, it wasn’t confined to my body, it was just you are a part of this spaciousness where I wasn’t feeling the pain. That state was just…you’re very much conscious, but you’re super relaxed and not feeling tethered to the body, or not feeling like “Oh my

204 ankle hurts” or any of that stuff, you’re just in a peaceful state in the middle of your body but it’s not contained at that point…I think this is what happened because, when you are feeling the pain, you are confined by it. Whereas, when that goes away and you are in a relaxed state, there is so much more space. You have space to look at other things—or recharge your self. (E21) This is consistent with research that indicates distortions in spatial perception resulting from chronic pain (Honkasalo, 1998; Valenzuela-Moguillansky, 2012).50 Likewise, these experiences with Feldenkrais Method would seem to be consistent with the findings about other practices which address the felt perception of the body, for example, the use of a body scan to reduce phantom limb pain described by MacIver, Lloyd, Kelly, Roberts, and Nurmikko (2008). The reduction in overall levels of physical activity in Western cultures has implications for the experience of the spatiality of the body. The altered experience of the body as physical— spatial and motile—may be part of the increased experience of pain throughout society. An enhanced sense of the body as spatial and motile, along with an increase in specific movement and awareness skills, through a practice like the Feldenkrais Method, has the potential to contribute to a reduction in pain conditions throughout societies. In addition, informants who described sensing-imagining into the body as part of Awareness Through Movement, or as a personal practice, also talked about the sense of space. For informant C, this was experienced (at least part of the time) as a large space, which included her bodily self: It’s like there’s this…big empty space, and I’m in the middle of it as my whole person— and yet the external part of me is doing this thing, and I’m trying to figure out where to

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Conversely, when available space, and therefore bodily movement, is deliberately restricted, and the physical environment is deliberately reduced of variety (e.g., constant artificial lighting, white walls, no living things, and often no physical or even visual contact with another living being) as in solitary confinement conditions in many U.S. prisons, this is often associated with pain, as well as a many other psychophysical injuries and symptoms (see Guenther, 2013; Yu, 2015).

205 move. I think there’s a way in which I learn new movements by trying to see it from the outside and then inside-out of course. (C21) For informant C the sense of space was a part of a process of problem solving, creating movement in the experience when feeling stuck So, let’s say I hit a frustration. So instead of verbalizing or flailing away at Frustration A or Difficulty B or whatever it is or…I think there’s a way that I’m learning how to just take my time, and work through it…because if you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson: [there is] frustration…calm…empty space…you know, and then you work through it in some fabulous way. (C21) One may think about this sense of a spaciousness—which includes but is not limited to the body—that it created a kind of phenomenal workspace (to use another image from contemporary culture), or perhaps an enlarged being-space: a space, associated with a sense of calmness and reduced pain, which allows them to focus on their experience, to “process” their lives. Yoga practitioners, interviewed by P. F. Morgan (2013) in her study of contemplative practice, also reported a development of a sense of a special space for contemplation or creativity: a sense of a space, which seems to come with a sense of possibility for action in one’s life (Slaby, 2012). It is clear then, that the experience of doing Feldenkrais Method can contribute to a changed sense of spatiality. Particularly, a perception of a greater phenomenal space or volume, and which is experienced as positive. It is experienced as associated with senses of relaxation and calm. This may be a useful example of how the movement and awareness processes in Feldenkrais contribute to specific cognitive-affective processes. Moving and Not Keeping Time With the Times (and Slowly Coming to the Present) A number of informants (e.g., D, G, & F) mentioned some experience of time distortion in Feldenkrais sessions or lessons, with a sense of time passing more quickly or slowly. However, the most significant aspects of the informants’ experiences related to time appeared to

206 be the sense of speed of activity in their daily lives, and the sense of slowness engendered by doing Feldenkrais Method. Indeed, slowness is probably most frequently mentioned of all the qualities-as-strategies that students found in Awareness Through Movement lessons. Phenomenological thought puts forth ideas of subjective or phenomenal time, particularly the experience of duration or durée. The experience of the “felt unfolding dynamic” of movement can alter time perception, and time perception can alter the qualities of movement, for example, the way that the feeling of a finite time pressure to complete a task can lead to jittery or clumsy actions (Sheets-Johnstone, 1998, p. 152). The temporal aspect of movement is one of the parameters of the idea of vitality affects—that certain qualities of affective experience are related to the temporal qualities of movement (Stern, 2009, 2010). The number and size of movements are influenced by the amount of time in which they are done51. Doing a lot of movements in a short amount of time gives a sense of high speed or intensity, while the increase in activity is experienced as acceleration. The internal felt-experience may be one of moving fast, but it may also be one of being hurried. The feeling that one has no choice but to do a lot in a short amount of time also creates a feeling of being “harried” (Aho, 2007, p. 26). There is recognition of distinctions in the phenomenal experience of time in Feldenkrais teaching practice. Initially at least, students in Awareness Through Movement lessons are usually enjoined to move slowly. When faster movements are required, Feldenkrais Method teachers acknowledge the distinction

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In addition, there is a well-established correlation between workload and musculoskeletal disorders (repetitive stress or motion injuries: RSIs or RMIs) in Western societies, and increasingly in other economies, associated with computerization (Hughes, Babski-Reeves, & Smith-Jackson, 2007; Linden, 1995; Pascareli & Quilter, 1994). The physical stress associated with both rapid physical movements of the hands while maintaining static overall body posture and general stress related to work organization (deadlines, morale, resource levels, expectations) are seen in chronic muscular tensions, and are both related to the experience of time acceleration and time pressure in the society (Aho, 2007).

207 between internal time-sense and the actual speed of movements, for example, with suggestion that students should move “quickly,” but not “hurry” (Feldenkrais, 2001). Feeling like one has not completed the previous task, or needs to be thinking about the next tasks, can also affect the quality of current movement. This can have an impact on the possibilities for experiencing the present moment, as well as influence how muscular tensions are embodied as mixed intentions or crossed motivations (Feldenkrais, 1985). There may be an effect on the “tensional” qualities of people’s movement (Sheets-Johnstone, 2009a, p. 205). The rapid switching of task movements may interrupt the flow of movement, and create altered timing of actions beyond the actual action being performed, with movement becoming habitually indecisive or staccato, and less smooth or tentative. The informants reported on changes in time perception from doing Feldenkrais Method classes and sessions. While the informants who were employed (i.e., not retired) commented most on this aspect of their experience, even the oldest informant noted a sense of “peacefulness” during the recorded lesson, with “nothing going through my mind that’s irritating me, nothing that I’m worried about…nothing that, ‘Oh well, I’ve got to go do this now or tomorrow.’ So, I wasn’t in the planning mode” (F8). The lessons provided many informants a pause from the busyness, “In day-to-day life…there’s too much to do…mostly at jobs. So, it’s nice to have a break,” which may help with, “calming down enough to realize that there is little stuff going on all the time…in the body, and how we’re moving…how you think” (C15). The not-being-busy was often experienced as a calm space or place: “Everything seems slowed down or stopped. It’s a very nice place to be” (A7), “it brought me to this awareness of my own body and this peace within my body, it was like a little path you walk down. [Until you are in] this slow down

208 peaceful little place” (E3)52. This is consistent with the previous discussion of the experience of space. If the body and life are experienced spatially, then busy lives can be experienced as too full and doing Feldenkrais is a way to achieve a sense of greater space in one’s body and lifeworld. That is, there is a metaphorical mapping of the bodily experience of time and space— where time demand may contribute to a felt-sense of a lack of space in one’s bodily life experience. The experience of doing Feldenkrais is also one that may evoke remembrance of less busy times (e.g., see C5 in Appendix C). In addition, the experience of slowing down in Awareness Through Movement may lead to different choices of activity, when possible, Just more relaxed, calmer, not twitchy….I usually often want to take a nap. [Going to class is] going to change the trajectory of my day, because after the session, I feel like all that other stuff isn’t quite as important. It’s more important to go take a nap or something. Just to sort of enjoy the calm. “Who cares? So what if the kitchen is dirty— whatever!” (C5) Becoming more attuned to the value of moving slowly may help with ongoing change in relation to “time urgency” or “time-stress” (Aho, 2007, p. 29), for example: I think there’s great value slowing things down. I mean, at least as an organism, I could be slowing…going at my own pace and amidst the crazy ping-pong balls of everybody else running around. So, the more I think that I could do that, the better I’ll function. I have to be goal oriented, [but] I think I get more done when I go slower. (C22) Drawing on Heidegger’s (1999) philosophical critique of contemporary life and consciousness, Aho (2007) described various “time pathologies” (p. 25.). Heidegger puts forward a number of characteristics of contemporary culture that contribute to pervasive alienation from possibilities of more authentic being. Heidegger (1999) used the terms

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Cohen (2002), a Zen practitioner and teacher who taught and wrote about living with pain, described the importance of “encountering the one who is not busy” to reduce the suffering associated with living in a compulsively goal directed way (p. 122).

209 “Machination” (p. 88) and “the gigantic” (p. 94) as key terms in his description of how the world appears as having been made in all ways—that it is experienced as necessarily, massively, and comprehensively predetermined, before one is thrown into one’s life. Aho (2007) speaks of “an outbreak of massiveness” in which all things are reduced to calculation, rationalization, and objectification (p. 25)53. These processes are a constant constitutive pressure on the lived experience for people in Western society (see also Valega-Neu, 2003). Especially with the rise of technology (in the sense of techné—the technological methods of science, technology, bureaucracy, etc.), the possibilities of life are saturated with already delimited possibilities, including entertainment, fads, work demands, and forms of social organization that command one’s time (Aho, 2007; Friedman, 2017). Aho (2007) links these characteristics of contemporary society to a sense of “time acceleration,” which is associated with health challenges such as “high blood pressure, obesity, emotional fatigue, insomnia,” “isolation,” and the “fragmentation of social support systems,” and “perhaps even…barrenness or emptiness spawned by chronic struggle to accomplish tasks” (p. 30)54. Manipulation of the individual’s affective states, for example, in an “energized motivational climate” in the workplace is not uncommon; this can also constitute an increased sense of busyness and time pressures (Slaby, 2016, p. 8). Han (2017) described the treatment of emotions as resources in contemporary economy. Feldenkrais classes and sessions gave informants some respite from these kinds of experiences of time demand or pressure, some perspective on them, and some coping tools. Feldenkrais Method seems to help people become more present to and for other kinds of self-

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Pelz (1974) would describe this as the triumph of instrumental rationality. Han (2015) wrote, “the society of achievement and activeness is generating excessive tiredness and exhaustion” (p. 21) 54

210 experience. The somatic experiences of changing pressures on the body—of touch and movement and breath, of slowness and absorption on one’s own experience may help students become more in touch with more originary aspects of themselves through their bodily experience (Feldenkrais, 1981; Sheets-Johnstone, 1998). Informant G described her experience this way: There were some sessions [classes] that were [are] just delicious….I think one of the things is the slowing down and the awareness….we all comment on how we move slowly after the lessons. Just that moving slowly out of the room. “Moving…oh, yeah…” We can hardly walk down the street. My thinking? Yeah, it’s so slow….To slow everything down….so that’s where Feldenkrais is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness, too. (G12) To be in the present. A greater sense of presence or being in the present was mentioned by several informants. Informant D, for example, stated, “I can feel if I’m really present as soon as I do that” in relation to a particular movement sequence bringing attention to the back of her body, while in the context of the quieting of “negative self talk” describes that for her “there is a present-ness to the whole process” (C1). A sense of being “more present in the body” was also an outcome of Feldenkrais practice reported by Öhman et al. (2011, p. 158). The quality of being present to one’s experience55, of present moment awareness is discussed in the mindfulness literature, where it is proposed as a way to reduce past-focused rumination (often associated with depression) and future-focused worry (often associated with anxiety; KabatZinn, 1994; S. L. Shapiro et al., 2006; Vago & Silbersweig, 2012). Discussion of Findings: Part 5: Feelings of Being Feelings of Being Much of the testimony from the informants in this study had to do with changes in an overall felt-sense of the bodily self. That is, that much of what they experience can be described

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Broome et al.’s (2015) informants also identified this present moment awareness as part of their experience of Feldenkrais Method.

211 as shifts in feelings of being, or existential feelings (Ratcliffe, 2008, 2013). This would include for example, the explicit descriptions of calming by many informants. Other aspects of these existential feelings that were more implicit in the texts, include the sense of “I can,” and feelings of greater spaciousness, of more slowness and sense of presence. In the next section I highlight and explore some additional aspects of positive changes in feelings of being emergent from the text. There is currently a considerable amount of research and debate about the nature of emotion or affect56. Of most interest here is inclusion of the role of the body and somatic experience in emotion or affective states. For example, there is a reevaluation about the bodily roots of emotion and reintroduction into the discussion of the thinking of James by Jacobson (1938), Bull (1968), de Rivera (1977), Shusterman (2008), and Lewis (2012). Sheets-Johnstone (2010) provided a summary of these contributions. Some authors have recently written about the possible evolutionary and functional relationships between responses to peripheral sensation or feeling (such as pain), and the role of homeostatic function, and the development and functioning of named emotions (such as fear or joy) as they function at the personal level (Damasio, 2018; Johnstone, 2013). In philosophy there has been a reexamination of Heidegger’s ideas about

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This debate includes (a) the discussion of definitions and relationships between emotion, mood, feelings, and affect, (b) whether emotions are innate neurophysiological patterns, or emergent from a context or situation, and (c) if more situational, is that emergence more of an embodied and enactive nature (theories of universal emotions or basic emotion theory), or more a question of a social construction, (d) whether there is a role of appraisal in affective responses, and (e) if there is appraisal, whether that it is primarily of a cognitive-emotional nature, or primarily somatic in nature, (f) is the role of the nervous system in emotions one of simulation and prediction, and (g) relative roles of neurological physiological, cognitive, linguistic or cultural factors. Some sources on these debates include Barrett (2017), Colombetti (2014), Ekman (2007), Hutto, Robertson, & Kirchhoff (2018), Prinz (2004), Sheets-Johnstone (2010), Slaby (2008), and Slaby and Stephan (2008).

212 mood as making a contribution to the discussion of affect or emotion from a phenomenological or neurophenomenological perspective (Gendlin, 1978–1979; Guignon, 2009; Ratcliffe, 2002, 2008, 2013). Indeed, many scholars are drawing on both phenomenological insight and neurophysiological research in formulating hypotheses and theories about the affective domain. Fluidity, Ease, and Integration Stolorow (2013) has suggested that affective experience, through developmental processes of feeling and verbal articulation, can come to be “characterized as somatic-symbolic, or eventually, somatic-linguistic unities” (p. 9). Persson (2007, 2010) noted for the yoga practitioners she studied, how the word space functioned as a root metaphor or image-schema (Fiumara, 1995; Lakoff & Johnson, 1999) or a verbal image (Gusdorf, 1953/1965)—which, as I noted, may also apply to the informants’ use of the word space in this study. In what follows, I will explore how the words fluid and ease, and the word integrated, may function in a similar way for the informants in this study. Although these words can function as single concepts or descriptors, they also seem to carry connotations to a wider field of existential feeling. Feelings of fluidity and ease. Informants described the sense of fluidity in a variety of ways. The sense of fluidity stood in contrast to feeling disorganization or discomfort in the body, “I’m sometimes ‘out of whack’” (F2), whereas doing Feldenkrais sessions or classes led to “less restriction…[and] a little more fluid” (A5). The sense of fluidity was also associated with feelings of less effort or work and feelings of ease, “talking about the principles….I really don’t feel like I’m working. Maybe that’s the core: it’s easy” (C25). Receiving Functional Integration lessons also conveyed the experience of ease (e.g., see C10 in Appendix C). The sense of ease may be consciously sought after in Awareness Through Movement, for example, “if it sinks in there this is supposed to be ‘easy’ then it’s like, ‘let me figure out how to

213 make this easier.’ Which seems sort of counterintuitive…seems like we would go for easy first… but we don’t” (C24). The development of a sense of greater automaticity in one’s movement57 can also be part of the experience: What I like about Feldenkrais is that…its just like your body does it, it’s not your mind and your thinking, analytical…or your mind doing it….You get out of your body’s way. To me that’s very important, because I can find any number of ways to tense up. (A18) Finally, the sense of greater fluidity and ease were described as a whole-body experience, “[I] move more easily, more fluidly. It’s a whole-body thing” (F2). In fact, the whole-body or integral feeling of the body-in-movement appeared to be an important constituent of the experience of fluidity and ease. As informant G noted, “It’s just this fluidity of movement. It’s like everything’s together. There is congruence in the body….There is this ease of movement all through me” (G11)58. This sense of connection and coordination of the parts as part of the whole body in movement seems to be part of, or at least, contribute to the sense of integration. A sense of integration. For some informants a sense of not being integrated was associated with disconnection of the parts of the body and the whole, or the body and the mind, for example, when informant H reported, “If your body is sort of disconnected and going a lot of different directions, and especially if your mind is disconnected” (H8). In contrast, feelings of integration came with a sense of mind and body integration, for example, “The parts of me—are more together. Absolutely. I think it starts with the body movement….With the mind…and body

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Broome et al. (2015) also report informants’ experiences of greater automaticity in movement. 58 An informant in Webb et al.’s (2013) study of Feldenkrais for osteoarthritis also described “a more gentle, fluid motion” as an outcome of learning Feldenkrais (p. 4).

214 together” (C8) and “the more I integrate, the more I use my mind, and the more I just feel my body, the better this feels” (B21).59 For some informants, the sense of integration arose from “that spreading out of movement” (B14) throughout the body, which is one of the characteristics of most Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration sessions. For others, it involved “integrating maybe two or three different things or parts or movements, and so that’s helping my whole self become more integrated” (H8). The feeling of being integrated was associated with other positive feelings, as informant C reported: “I feel more comfortable in my body...” and “…the feeling integrated. It’s sort of something about feeling like myself…without all the crap” (C1, C13). Informant H described: “I feel more ‘integrated...,” which for her also came with experiences of being “grounded or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth” and “not like ‘flying all over the place.’” “…it pulls you back together, and down, and in” (H8). For informant B, the Awareness Through Movement lesson done during the interviews “gave me the immediate image of myself as just a complete support system to myself….I’m all one, and I feel whole. And that is very comforting. Because it’s like a physical embodiment of being at one with yourself (B14). Being healthy and feelings of well-being. Overall the informants did not speak specifically about “health” as a category of experience and their ideas about health, but instead, I would argue, they embodied and enacted a different capacity for and experience of health and well-being. This seems consistent with a somatic approach—improved health status and feelings

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Mehling et al. (2009) describe “Awareness of mind–body integration” as one of the four main domains of bodily awareness. This may include awareness “that certain physical sensations are the sensory aspect of emotions,” and also “a felt sense of the interconnectedness mental, emotional and physical processes” (p. 12).

215 of being healthier were revealed through their description of their greater capacities for less painful and more comfortable movement, and being more functional and more effective in their lives. I would argue that the bodily experience of “I can” was fundamental to the experience of greater health as action and ability: health was experienced as a capacity to deal with challenges, as resilience, and being able to carry out one’s positive life goals (Feldenkrais, 2010c; Nordenfelt, 1987, 2000). The changed understanding of health for the informants can be seen through their changed, meaningful bodily action in their lives and in the world. In this way, the informants showed they have discovered the broad meaning of health posited at the beginning of this dissertation. Taken together, the experiences of bodily fluidity, ease, and integration seem to contribute to particular feelings of being or existential feelings: the feelings of well-being. I would argue that these positive feelings of being are not merely epiphenomena of improvements in physical movement and function, but are grounded in the feelings associated with those improvements in a profound and nontrivial way. Conversely, it seems likely that greater feelings of well-being contribute to lowered anxiety, a more positive life orientation, and greater confidence, which can manifest in improved patterns of movement. If, as described by Stern (2009, 2010), vitality affects—the affective qualities of movement observable in the size, speed, and force of movement—are reflective of affective states, then I think that the evidence from this study suggests that changing the qualities of movement does change affective states. For example, moving slowly and with less force can contribute to the sense of calming, or making imagined movements and making movements without triggering or worsening pain can contribute to a sense of “I can.” As noted, lessons that require self-observation of the body-in-

216 movement in a nonjudgmental way can generate insights into one’s overall habitual ways of being-in-the-world. This is consistent with Feldenkrais’s (2010a) view that The mental and physical components of any action are two different aspects of the same function. The physical and mental components are not two series of phenomena, which are somehow linked together; but, rather, they are two aspects of the same thing, like two faces of the same coin. (pp. 19–20)60 Ultimately, these informants’ experiences seem to support Feldenkrais’s (2010a) belief in the “essential unity of body and mind” (p. 19), not just as a philosophical position, but as a practical and practiced way of being, which affords ways of enhancing one’s life. Kerr (2002) suggested that, by its own description, Qigong practice involves a process of “mind-in-body.” I would suggest that somatic practices like Feldenkrais Method may also involve “body-in-mind,” in the sense that bodily experiences of spaciousness, slowness, presence, being in less effort, fluidity, ease, integration, and “I can” can have a profound impact not only on people’s current affective states, but also affect ongoing existential feelings. Indeed, these are existential feelings. People find themselves “in a world through a mood” (Ratcliffe, 2013, p. 1)—a world that is lived differently in their bodies and selves through their experience of the practice of Feldenkrais Method. The informants’ experience of being able to change these existential feelings through their own movement with awareness was vital to the experience of the Feldenkrais Method, and of how it contributes to health and well-being. Observations on the Research Process This section includes brief remarks on the research process (for a detailed description and analysis, see Appendix F). Recruitment for the study was slow, perhaps due to the time

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Here Feldenkrais echoes Merleau-Ponty’s (1948/1968) view of the double belonging of the body to the objective and subjective orders, joined in his idea of the flesh of the world, of which the body is also a part.

217 commitment and the way of life in the San Francisco Bay Area. The interviews generated much valuable material—creating text about the experience of Feldenkrais Method in ways that it has not been documented before. While the interview process proceeded well, in an effort to reduce researcher bias, I may have erred on the side of not directing more specific questions about aspects of the informants’ experiences. With regard to the Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports, informants generally did not record a lot of written material, and generated variable amounts of text through the interviews afterward. What was generated in that process was often more detailed than other texts and therefore quite valuable. The Focused Recall Process was useful for some informants but did not generate material from others. What was generated tended to be more general insights into the process of doing Feldenkrais Method, and not as much specific detail as intended. This may be a useful tool in future studies, but how and when it is used would need to be carefully considered. The process of exploring the texts involved many, many iterations, but extensive use of tools like the research journal, and visual-spatial sorting of themes and exemplifying texts was very effective. The research journal was key in my reflexivity as a researcher though keeping notes on my insights, assumptions, and emerging understandings. The organization of the findings and the development of themes were, as expected, significantly influenced by my experience as a Feldenkrais practitioner, while at the same time I relied heavily on the informant texts in front of me to guide what was included and how it was presented. My awareness of my bodily experience in the process was not significantly altered in the interviewing process—where I maintained a poised bodily organization to be open to the informants’ utterances. In the process of exploring and analyzing the texts, changes in my bodily organization reflected aspects of the process (fatigue and

218 “stuckness” with the material, pacing with the development of important breakthrough insights), and was able to adjust my bodily organization to support the process of working with the texts. Limitations of This Study This study has some significant limitations. The informants were not a diverse group. They were seven women and one man 50 to 84 years old. The participants were all of European descent, and all worked in professional or managerial role, or were retired professionals and managers. As such, however, they are reflective of the demographics of the population of people who most utilize Feldenkrais Method in the United States (Buchanan, 2010; Buchanan et al., 2014). Coming as they did to the Feldenkrais Method for pain, and their age group, meant that the kinds of testimonies about the Feldenkrais Method had a built-in bias toward the utilization of Feldenkrais Method for health-related reasons. Interviews, for example, with members of a sports team or a dance company who had used Feldenkrais Method as part of their training likely would have yielded some different texts, structures, and themes emerging from their experience. As a hermeneutic-phenomenological study it did not aim to create data of the kind that can be used for prediction of outcomes or the development of treatment protocols. Therefore, that criterion for reliability does not apply. One way this kind of research achieves reliability is through impact: Will the research be of value to practitioners and researchers of the Feldenkrais Method, other somatic practices, and mind-body medicine? This cannot be answered until after publication. The main value of a study such as this is in describing an area of human experience in such a way as to uncover experiences that have previously not been described and provide some insights into the nature of the phenomena concerned.

219 As noted, as the researcher, I bring considerable fore-knowledge to this research. The main ways I have tried to increase validity is through the detailed presentation of the research findings in the form of the informants’ texts. This may also aid the impact of the study, given that those working in somatics and MBM can assess for themselves the texts of people’s experience of this practice. In addition, in this discussion, I have cross-referenced these textual findings with source materials from the Feldenkrais Method itself, qualitative research into the Feldenkrais Method and other somatic practices, and some research and hypothesis and theory from other domains—movement science, neuroscience, somatics, dance, psychology, and philosophy. However, the limitations are substantial, and the value of the study must be assessed mainly on the quality of the material uncovered and how it presents this area of human experience. Future Research This study supports the view that Feldenkrais Method does produce significant improvements in people’s health, well-being, and lives, and that the findings presented here support that view. Further research is justified. The aim of future research should include (a) gaining more knowledge of the outcomes for people in their lives, (b) nature of Feldenkrais Method practice, (c) gaining more understanding of the mechanisms of action of the Method—or perhaps processes of action might be more appropriate term. For example, what people learn and how they can learn it as part of Feldenkrais Method might be the most productive focus. With regard to research into mindfulness, given the complexities of that phenomenon—involving phenomenal experience, neurological and other physiological systems, processes of attention and awareness, and social-cultural factors, Thompson (2016) suggested that perhaps research should

220 focus on how people develop mindfulness as a skill or competence they use in their lives. This may be a way to also prioritize research into Feldenkrais Method (Smyth, 2012). Feldenkrais Method and/or Other Modalities I would also note that there is great value in understanding an individual practice like Feldenkrais Method, as it has a unique combination of characteristics, even though some of them it shares with other somatic, mindfulness, and movement-based practices61. Studying both the similarities and differences could be enlightening. For example, Feldenkrais Method shares with other practices like Alexander Technique or mindful walking, a focus on attention and awareness while moving. Feldenkrais Method emphasizes nonstriving in making movements, in contrast to some versions of yoga practice and many approaches to physical exercise. That is, more “performatory” approaches to movement-based practice, while Feldenkrais emphasizes a more “exploratory” approach (Yu, 2015, p. 55). Practices, such as Qigong, Tai Chi Chuan, and Yoga asana practice emphasize moving towards creating a certain bodily form or posture. Research studies examining more than one modality may be useful, but will need to be attentive to key differences at the same time, where a better understanding of commonalities will also be very useful. Topics and Approaches In this section, I will explore the implications of this research for future investigation. This study brought forth a number of significant topics that deserve further research. Specific interesting topics, new to this researcher, were uncovered—such as the experience of

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The kinds of movement-based embodied contemplative practices and body-mind therapeutic and educational systems (BTES) described by Schmalzl et al. (2014), Payne and Crane-Godreau (2015), or mindful movement practices (Clark et al., 2015).

221 simultaneously “seeing and feeling” into the body. In addition, gaps in the testimonies in relation to the whole of Feldenkrais Method practice suggest other topics for future study. In the next section I will identify these possible topics. I will begin by briefly describing a number of research approaches that may be appropriate ways of investigating these topics. Possible Research Approaches or Methods for Researching Feldenkrais Method Phenomenology. Phenomenological research would be useful to help further explicate the nature of experiences associated with Feldenkrais Method and similar practices. Other first-person approaches. In recent years, approaches to gathering first person testimonies have been developed, especially for exploring the details of prereflective aspects of experience (Petitmengin & Bitbol, 2008). These include (a) microphenomenological interviewing (Petitmengin, 2006; Petitmengin, van Beek, Bitbol, Nissou, & Roepstorff, 2017), (b) explicitation interviews (Depraz et al., 2003; Maurel, 2009; Vermersch, 2009), (c) the microanalytic interview (Stern, 2004), and (d) experience sampling (Hurlburt & Heavey, 2006). Neurophenomenological approaches and microphenomenolgical interviewing. There is an increasing amount of published hypothesis and theory that draw on phenomenological approaches and insights, and combine them with neurological research (especially coming from neuroimaging studies), in the discussion, for example, of action, pain, consciousness, or inner experience.62 As Petitmengin (2017) noted, to date there is a paucity of actual studies using neurophenomenological research approaches. Such studies might make use of first person accounts of experience with the Feldenkrais Method with physiological measures —such as heart rate variability (Appelhans & Luecken, 2006; Moss, 2010: Shaffer & Moss,

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For example, Berthoz and Petit (2008), Fuchs (2018), Petit (2010), Price and Barrel (2012), Price, Barrel, and Rainville (2002), and Rainville and Price (2003).

222 2006), or neuroimaging (e.g., Kerr et al., 201363). Stern’s (2004) micro-analytic interview process, which involves identifying a remembered segment of experience (“no longer than 30 to 90 seconds”) and reviewing it multiple times enquiring about “what happened,” “what they thought,” and “what they felt,” and any other aspects of the experience, such as the intensity (pp. 252–253). The explicitation interview also draws on prior experience. “The explicitation interview makes it possible to support the subject, without induction [to make] the transition from prereflective consciousness to reflective consciousness about as specific lived experience” (Maurel, 2009, p. 59). The informant is encouraged to take a position in the discourse focused on concrete memory, while the interviewer uses open prompts and guides the informant away from judgments, assessments, and commentaries on the experience, with an emphasis on how something is experienced (Maurel, 2009; Petitmengin, 2006). Microphenomenological interviewing (Petitmengin et al., 2018) uses meditative techniques to bring the informant into a present moment focus and aims at recreating elements of precise moments of lived experience in the interview situation to gather detailed reports. Petitmengin et al. (2018) provided a detailed description of the use of the microphenomenological approach in the study of meditative experience. Non-phenomenological qualitative research. The existence of several qualitative studies into the Feldenkrais Method affords further research further investigating the themes identified in those studies. Interview questions could draw on themes already identified in those

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Kerr et al. (2013) used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure 7–14 megahertz alpha rhythms associated with the modulation of attention with students a MBSR program. New MEG technology allows the subject to move and may prove useful in studying somatic modalities (Neuroscience News, 2018). Verrel et al. (2015) made use of fMRI to study a Feldenkrais Method technique, which involved minimal movement and measurements taken between the active interventions.

223 studies (Broome et al., 2015; Öhman et al., 2011; Pugh & Williams, 2014), and this dissertation study, to gather further reports. Self-report measures. Based on this study, other qualitative research, and controlled studies, there are self-report measures that may be useful for the study of Feldenkrais Method— for example measures of (a) body awareness (Brani et al., 2014; Mehling et al., 2009), (b) mindfulness (Baer, Smith, Hopkins, Krietemeyer, & Toney 2006; Brown & Ryan, 2003), (c) functional improvement (Connors et al., 2010), (d) pain (Connors et al., 2010), (e) selfcompassion (Neff et al., 2007), and (f) self-efficacy (Chen, Gully, & Eden, 2001; Ryckman, Robbins, Thornton, & Cantrell, 1982) or coherence (Antonovsky, 1993; Eriksson & Lindström, 2006). Textual analysis. In the context of Feldenkrais Method, Conners et al. (2011) examined texts of Awareness Through Movement to compare the approach to principles of motor coordination and movement learning, while Wright (2000) compared texts of Awareness Through Movement with those of a high school physical education class. Similarly, Yapko (2011) compared texts from mindfulness meditation practice and hypnotic inductions. Textual analysis might continue to be a useful tool in examining details of Feldenkrais practice, and in comparing Feldenkrais Method to other modalities. Some Topics Arising From This Study for Further Research, and How They Might Be Studied Here is a selection of some possible research topics and approaches informed by this study. The experience of the Feldenkrais Method. This study has shown that Feldenkrais Method generates a complex array of experiences for participants. There certainly needs to be more studies exploring the nature of the phenomena involved. Studying the experiences of

224 people who come to Feldenkrais Method with different health conditions, or more specific pain conditions, for example, post-stroke, or chronic low back pain [cLBP]), would be valuable. One of the criticisms of somatics practices on a philosophical and political level is that they sometimes assume that bodily experiences and outcomes of doing these practices are universal, while at the same time (as the demographics of this study show), these practices tend to be mostly available to limited populations (Ginot, 2010; Rothfield, 2005). It could be very useful to study Feldenkrais Method used as an intervention, or as part of an intervention, for example with MBSR (Smyth, 2012), for people dealing with addiction recovery, obesity, or trauma64. A phenomenological approach such as the one utilized in this study could be used for continuing investigations into the overall experience of doing the Feldenkrais Method. In addition, experience sampling approaches, developed by Hurlburt and Heavey (2006)65 might be useful to capture present moment experience of doing Feldenkrais Method. For example, using recordings of an Awareness Through Movement lesson with longer breaks and accompanied by verbal prompts for informants to make notes. Random or regularly timed prompts might also yield interesting results, as they would disrupt the usual flow of the lesson to capture, for example, the experience in the middle of movement exploration sequences66. Using voice-

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Vallejo and Amaro (2009), for example, made movement-based modifications to the body scan and other aspects of an MBSR program for women in addiction relapse prevention. 65 This approach usually involves a beeper sounding and the participant recording what they are experiencing at that time. Training and interviews accompany the recording process with the aim of ensuring that participants are familiar with the task. This may involve cultural assumptions about experience, for example, participants may need to discuss the possibility that they may be experiencing or can report something that did not involve “thought” in words or images at the time of the beep (see also Heavey, Hurlburt, & Lefforge, 2012, Hurlburt & Heavey, 2001, Hurlburt & Schwitzgebel, 2007). 66 On the other hand, disrupting the usual flow of the lesson experience may generate its own experimental effects, which might include resistance from the participants to the disruption of their usual experience of Awareness Through Movement.

225 recording devices to document experiences may also be useful in this kind of research. Experience sampling may be another tool for studying the effects of Feldenkrais Method for students in their daily life. Functional integration. This is one area of the experience of the Feldenkrais Method that was little reported upon in this study, although some informants reported on significant but nonspecific positive effects. Future studies of Feldenkrais Method as a whole could include the experience of participating in a Functional Integration session, followed by Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports, as was the case with Awareness Through Movement in this study. Alternatively, whole studies of just the experience of Functional Integration would be valuable. Phenomenological or general qualitative interviewing could be used, synchronized with video documentation of sessions or lessons, along with noninvasive physiological measures (such as wireless HRV), which could combine first person (reported), second person (observed), and third person (physiological) data. Feldenkrais (1981) saw Functional Integration as a communication and synchronization between the musculo-skeletal and nervous systems of the client and practitioner. It could be valuable for future research into Functional Integration to gather reports of experience from those receiving a Functional Integration session—which could also be observed by the researcher who could gather information about the whole interaction and setting (as used by Fortune & Hymel, 2015). Likewise, in a discussion of the client–practitioner relationship in the Alexander Technique, Stuart (2013) used the term enkinaesthesia to describe the phenomenon of a “cointentional kinesthetic resonance or affective attunement” (p. 1) between the somatics practitioner and client. She also suggested the use of explicitation interviews combined with neurophysiological monitoring as ways in which this process could be studied.

226 Imagined movements, sensing into the body, altered spatiality, and time perception. Within these findings there are some specific phenomena that would seem to particularly benefit from detailed study using disciplined first-person methods. Such approaches might be suitable when interviewing an informant about a significant moment in a recently completed Awareness Through Movement lesson on themes identified here, such as imagined movements, changes in the sense of space, or “seeing and feeling into the body.” The making of imagined movements was associated with hope and a sense of “I can” for informants beginning Feldenkrais practice in strong pain—it would be interesting to research the role of cognitive, perceptual, and movement aspects of this experience67. Body image and schema. Studies into Feldenkrais Method (Laumer, Bauer, Fichter, & Milz, 2004) and yoga practice (Daubenmier, 2005; Impett, Daubenmier, & Hirschman, 2006) in relation to eating disorders made use of various self-report scales for self-objectification, body satisfaction or body parts satisfaction, body cathexis, body awareness, body responsiveness, well-being or affect, eating disorders inventory, and others. Daubenmier (2005) found that a reduction in self-objectification was a result from yoga practice, in studies involving either a 2month intensive program or ongoing practice. Further research into somatic practices and selfimage is certainly warranted (see also Öhman et al., 2011). The body schema, as a largely preconscious experience, is harder to research with verbal reporting methods, and therefore were not a feature of the reports from the informants in this study. However, visual software-based tools may allow mapping of background or implicit

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Neuroimaging studies may be valuable in this context, looking for example at relationships between activation in the frontal, premotor, anterior cingulated cortex (ACC), somato-sensory regions of the brain (Rainville, Carrier, Hofbauer, Bushnell, & Duncan, 1999; Rainville, Hofbauer, Bushnell, Duncan, & Price, 2002).

227 bodily perceptions (Tarr & Thomas, 2011). Such tools may be able to be adapted, and combined with interviews to study, for example, the effects of the “primary image” Awareness Through Movement lessons. Would the accuracy of the perception of the physical body be improved by such lessons in a similar way as Kerr et al. (2008) identified increased tactile acuity as a result of Tai Chi practice? Calming. The experience of calming was one of the most important outcomes of Feldenkrais practice for the informants in this study. The kinesthetic qualities of movement and the informants’ absorption in movement experience both seemed to contribute to their experiences of relaxation and calming. The study of these contributions would be useful to understanding of the role of movement-based practices in stress reduction. Kabat-Zinn, Chapman, and Salmon (1997) found different preferences among participants in a MBSR program for walking meditation, the body scan, and seated meditation with attention to the breath. Studies into different aspects of movement and attention across several modalities, or different aspects of Awareness Through Movement alone, could also contribute to a better understanding of the role of these modalities in dealing with anxiety. The sense of “I can.” There are conceptual issues of how the phenomenological idea of “I can” may be mapped in relation to constructs such as coherence and self-efficacy. Certainly, there is an argument for more phenomenological or qualitative interviewing about students’ experience of the sense of “I can” in Feldenkrais Method and other modalities. Self-report measures of coherence and self-efficacy may be valuable to include in future mixed-methods studies. Studying correlations between a sense of confidence or self-efficacy and physiological measures of movement (such as gait, grip, and manipulative abilities) may be valuable. The

228 construct of balance confidence is suggestive that a more general bodily confidence is a factor in and outcome from movement and awareness practices. Bodily awareness. Body awareness is a large and complex area for research. There are various body-awareness scales available. One conceptual question arising from Feldenkrais Method practice is that these scales for measuring body awareness often focus on interoceptive or proprioceptive experience (Mehling et al., 2011); however, bodily awareness in Feldenkrais Method is often directed to sensations that arise in relation to the environment (e.g., gravity, i.e., feelings of heft or effort and the effects on the body of gravity in relationship to supporting surfaces, such as tactile or haptic experience, and also to the relationship of the body to the spatial environment as in orientation). Phenomenological thought suggests that changing perception of the bodily self also involves altered perception of the world. It would be valuable to have discussions of these conceptual challenges when considering future research of body awareness and somatic practices. Textual analysis may be a useful process in relation to the teaching and learning of greater body awareness. For example, comparing the kind of directed attention in Feldenkrais Method classes, mindfulness meditation, and Yoga Nidra, especially if coupled with phenomenological or qualitative interview methods, could provide some interesting crossmodality comparisons. In addition, such a study could provide comparisons of what is taught and what is experienced. Pain. This is another complex area for research into the action of the Feldenkrais Method. Informants in this study uniformly experienced reductions in perceived pain during lessons and sessions, and in their overall trajectory of using the Feldenkrais Method. They also all continued to experience some pain. Their testimonies suggest a variety of factors that the

229 informants themselves associated with this phenomenon. Studies of Feldenkrais Method as an intervention with various pain conditions and using a variety of self-report measures and phenomenological or qualitative interviewing may start to be able to confirm and also disambiguate these factors. Again, a focus on what skills Feldenkrais Method gives students for managing pain may be a fruitful focus for research on Feldenkrais Method and pain. Values and attitudes. Arising from this study, it would be interesting to study how the qualities of movement as values- or attitudes-in-action contribute to people’s successful outcomes (e.g., movement, calming, reduced pain) from the practice of Feldenkrais Method, and its application in their daily lives. Competence. In general, the perception of Feldenkrais Method as involving learning skills or developing competence seems to be an important topic arising from this study. Health and well-being. Because in this study I did not want to bias the results by assuming that Feldenkrais contributes to health and well-being, questions about these topics were only asked after they arose in the dialogue. There is a need for further research, perhaps using qualitative interviews on themes emerging from this study and other qualitative studies of Feldenkrais Method, about student’s perceptions of the processes whereby Feldenkrais contributed to their health and well-being. Feldenkrais Method and healthcare. The structure of the experience of Feldenkrais Method as self-caring may also have implications for healthcare systems. The informants in this study described how they learned important skills and gained significant confidence in dealing with pain, musculo-skeletal conditions, and movement dysfunction. As such, the Feldenkrais Method as revealed in this study, is an example of learning-based self-care as potentially having a fundamental role in healthcare. It would be useful to further study the health outcomes of

230 Feldenkrais practice and characteristics of the practice that would be useful in increasing health outcomes and reducing healthcare expenditures (e.g., following up on Connors, Pile, & Nichols’s 2010 work). For example, how the pattern of learning and improvement revealed in this study, involved an initial and perhaps intensive input of practitioner expertise in Functional Integration and live Awareness Through Movement classes. This was then followed by the integration of ongoing practice into the informants’ everyday lives, for example, in their home practice routines, as well as regular Awareness Through Movement classes (both live or recorded), and less frequent Functional Integration sessions for maintenance, continued improvement, and dealing with any recurrence of symptoms. Further research for particular health conditions is indicated for establishing effectiveness, and specifically cost effectiveness, of learning-based somatic practices such as the Feldenkrais Method. Concluding Remarks The research question for this dissertation was: “What is the nature of the lived experience of the Feldenkrais Method for adult, long-term students of the Method who first came to utilize the Feldenkrais Method in relation to acute or chronic pain?” This study uncovered aspects of the experiences of eight students of the Feldenkrais Method who had been practicing from 2 to 25 years, and who originally came to the Method in relation to experiencing pain. It showed that they experienced a number of benefits from doing Feldenkrais Method, including experiencing positive alterations of their bodily experience including reduced pain, bodily awareness, calming, and feelings of well-being grounded in qualities of their bodily experience. They experience changed perceptions of the relationship between body and mind; between the mental, physical, and affective aspects of experience—including sense of integration or wholeness. The overall structure of the experience for them was one of Feldenkrais Method as

231 an experience of self-caring. That is, an active experience of caring for themselves through the practice, and boding forth positive values and attitudes about their bodies and lives. They developed a sense of “I can” in relation to being able to alter their bodily experience, confidence in the benefits of doing the Feldenkrais Method for them—which encouraged them to continue to practice Feldenkrais Method, engage in physical recreation and pursue social connection. Although an hermeneutic-phenomenological study, such as this, cannot be used to make clinical recommendations, I believe this study will be useful for practitioners and students of the Feldenkrais Method, other somatic practices, and movement-based embodied awareness practices to help develop an understanding of these practices, the meaning of these practices in people’s lives, and their value for individual and social health and well-being. This study supports the view that bodily experience, and our ability to improve our bodily experience, is a profound aspect of our being human and our ability to live better—and perhaps improve our world.

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256 APPENDICES Appendix A: Interview Guidelines A. Introduction to the interview notes: Note: Script for the guidance of the researcher I would like to have a conversation about your experience of the Feldenkrais Method. I am interested in both what it is like to do, or practice, the Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration, and also the effect, if any, Feldenkrais may have had on your life. The kind of material that will be the most useful for my research will be descriptions of your experiences: things you experience in your body – sensations, feelings, moods, things you have noticed, etc., examples of the kinds of experiences you have or have had, such as particular events, states, anecdotes, etc. I may ask you at some stages to sit back, relax, and get in touch with memories of particular experiences. It is fine if not, we will just proceed with the interview as usual. Would that be something you would be willing to do? If yes: You can still say no with regard to any particular instance. As you saw in the written information that I sent, there will be three different parts to the research process we will do together. One interview will be about your experiences with doing the Feldenkrais Method. In another interview, I may ask you for any clarifications from the first interview, plus anything that we may have missed in the first interview. Any more questions that I have, and you might think of some things you want to add. A third part will be after we do the Awareness Through Movement lesson. Here I will mostly ask you about your experience in that lesson – what came to you in that experience and anything that it reminds you of about doing Feldenkrais in general. We will do the noting exercise using file cards, which I mentioned in the material I sent you, as part of that process. B. Initial Interview: Interview guide Note: It is anticipated that only a few of these questions will be asked, and once ‘saturation’ has been reached on a topic then no more questions will be asked. These are designed as prompts for the researcher to use if they do not introduce these topics on their own. 1. Tell me about the history of your experience of the Feldenkrais Method overall? Prompts/clarifications: How long have you been doing it? In what ways have you practiced Feldenkrais? Why did you decide to do Feldenkrais Method? What was going on in your life that led you to try Feldenkrais?

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2. Think back to the very first experience of doing Feldenkrais? Can you describe what you experienced? Prompts/clarifications: What feelings, sensations, bodily states, etc. were associated with this experience? How did the experience affect you? What changes do you associate with that experience? • Possibly use focused recall exercise. 3. Think back to the last time you did Feldenkrais? What did you do (individual session, class lesson, etc.)? Can you describe what you experienced? Prompts/clarifications: What feelings, sensations, bodily states, etc. were associated with this experience? How did the experience affect you? What changes do you associate with the experience? • Possibly use focused recall exercise. 4. Thinking about a usual day, are there ways in which having practiced Feldenkrais Method affects you in your daily life? Prompts/clarifications: You might like to think about some time or times in the last week. Can you give examples of ways in which it has affected you? Can you describe those kinds of experiences? 5. Has doing Feldenkrais Method affected you in your life? If yes: What does it mean to you to practice Feldenkrais? Or, How do you think/feel your Feldenkrais practice has effected your life? Prompts/clarifications: What aspects of your life has it affected? Can you give examples? 6. Can you describe your experience of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (verbally directed) classes, and Feldenkrais Functional Integration (individual, hands on) sessions? 7. Have you done other movement-based or mind–body practices? Can you compare your experience with them and your experience of the Feldenkrais Method? 8. Are there ways in which your experience of the Feldenkrais Method has changed over time? 9. What have you told other people about your experience of Feldenkrais Method? How do you describe the experience to them? What is the hardest thing to describe? 10. Are there other experiences of doing Feldenkrais Method that we haven’t talked about so far, which you would like to share?

258 [References for developing these interview questions: Bentz (1989), A. L. Morgan (2011), Moustakas (1990), Pollio et al (1997), Smith et al. (2009), and van Manen, (1990, 2014).] C. Focused Recall Exercise Guidelines In the interview a situation that is relevant to the research topic is identified where it might be useful for the informant to ‘get in touch’ with the situation or experience. 1. Sit comfortably, feel what supports you as you sit, become aware of your breathing without changing it particularly. If it feels comfortable, you may let your eyes close. 2. Begin to imagine yourself in [decided upon] situation. What do you remember and sense of the situation: sensations, things you can hear or see, what you are doing, feelings in your body… 3. Now try, without working hard, to get a ‘felt sense’ of being in [that situation or that experience] – an overall sense, feeling, taste, aura... Just notice what arises for you – allow yourself time, and be open to what comes without judging what comes up. 4. What is your overall sense of this, is there something that suggests itself: a word or phrase or image that seems to fit. Sit with that handle and feel if it is a good fit, or perhaps another word, phrase or image might arise… take your time. Let me know when you feel ready to share what you have experienced. Let your eyes open if they have closed. 5. Questions based on Focused Recall Exercise 5.1. Did you find an overall felt sense of that situation/experience? What word(s), phrase(s), image(s) came to you? 5.2. What can you share about that situation/experience after doing this process? What feelings, sensations, bodily states, etc. were associated with this experience? How did the experience affect you? What changes do you associate with that experience? 5.3 How do you feel about this experience in relation to your self and life after doing this process? [Based on process described and researched by Stelter (2010).] D. Stimulated Written and Verbal Report Exercise D.1 Materials: Medium sized blank file cards, black and blue ballpoint pens, a variety of colored pencils, and a variety of markers. D.2 Introduction to participant: Before doing recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson:

259 As we discussed, you will be doing a recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson. During the lesson, in the rests, if you feel like it, I ask you to write down any words or phrases, or even a sentence… that come to you about your experience at that moment or in the last section of the lesson – or draw an image perhaps – on these file cards, which will be next to your mat. You can do this in the breaks anytime you want to. Also at the end of the lesson, before you stand and walk, I would ask you to write down any words or phrases, or even a sentence that comes to you, about your experience – or draw an image perhaps, on the file cards. You can take your time then to do this. After that I will ask you to share with me any of what you have written, or drawn, that you want to, and ask you some questions about your experience of the lesson – and we can refer to what is on the cards if you want to. D. 3 At the end of the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson: Please write down any words or phrases, or even a sentence that comes to you, about your experience of the lesson and what you are noticing and feeling now – or about your experiences during the lesson, on the file cards. You could also draw on the cards. Take all the time you need to do this. There is no right or wrong thing to write. It is not a test, but an aid to capturing your experience for the research process. Just let things come to you – they don’t have to be consistent, or make sense, just write what ever comes… D.4. When the person appears to be done: It looks like you seem to be finished. Do you mind just looking over the cards a little and reflect and see if they suggest any more words or images about your experience? There are plenty of cards. [Allow client to walk and integrate the lesson if they wish. Allow bathroom break if needed.] D.5 Interviews Note: It is anticipated that only a few of these questions will be asked, and once ‘saturation’ has been reached on a topic then no more questions will be asked. These are designed as prompts for the researcher to use if they do not introduce these topics on their own. Interview: Drawing on material on cards • Is there anything from the cards that you would like to share? [If they share] Tell me more about that experience/feeling/word/phrase/image? • What is most interesting to you about what you noted? • Is there anything that surprised you about what you noted? • Are there any commonalities or patterns in the kinds of things you noted?

260 • What did this process of making notes on the file cards tell you about your experience of doing Awareness Through Movement, or Feldenkrais Method in general? Interview about Awareness Through Movement lesson • Is there anything else you can tell me about the experience of doing this lesson, or that it reminded you about your experience of doing Awareness Through Movement, or Feldenkrais Method in general? • Is this a familiar format, doing a lesson from a recording? How was it for you doing this lesson from a recording? • What was your experience of doing Awareness Through Movement this particular teacher? Are there similarities or differences between the teacher on the recording and other Awareness Through Movement lessons you have done? • What was your experience of doing this particular lesson? What was your experience of the content of this particular lesson? • Is there anything else you would like to say about this experience? Or the experience of doing Awareness Through Movement or Feldenkrais Method in general? [Collect file cards the participant wishes to share. Inform the client that you will email them a copy of the list of what is on the cards, or scans of images, and/or send them the cards back once they have been recorded as part of the research process.]

261 Appendix B: Individual Interview Editing Guidelines The standard edits made by the researcher to interview texts were as follows: y

Materials not directly relevant to the interview topic were removed

y

Cut unfinished sentences that did not clearly link to the content of the previous or next finished sentences, or was a duplication of what was said the previous or next finished sentences

y

Standardized the terms for Functional Integration: ‘sessions,’ ‘practitioner,’ and for Awareness Through Movement: ‘classes,’ ‘teacher’

y

Clarified what or who was being referred to (e.g., between the class teacher and the practitioner for the individual sessions)

y

Brought tenses into agreement

y

Made use of personal pronouns more consistent – mostly changing ‘you’ to ‘I’ when the informant was clearly referring to herself/himself, and retaining ‘you’ when I interpreted the informant was using ‘you’ instead of ‘one’

y

Added some words to clarify referents where they were not clear – these appear in square brackets [ ],

y

Edited out some of the filler language (particularly ‘you know’ and ‘like’), while keeping some of this language to retain some of the informants’ diction or where their diction conveyed hesitation, doubt, or a simile

y

Ellipses [...] were used for unfinished thoughts and pauses in the conversation, and dashes [–] for supplementary phrases (‘thought tags’) after an initial utterance.

262 Appendix C: Individual Informant Themes and Descriptive Texts Informant A, and Informants C to H (Note: Informant B: Themes and Descriptive Texts can be found in Chapter 4) Informant A: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme A1: The experience of relief from bodily discomfort and pain. I was struck by how comfortable I got. How different I felt, how much relief I found. I was just… messed up and in pain. [From my first Awareness Through Movement class I remember] I was struck by how comfortable I got. How different I felt, how much relief I found. Relief and comfort. The muscle pains go away. At the end of the day [of a Feldenkrais workshop] …you definitely you feel much more relaxed and it lasts longer. You feel better longer. Anyway if it [the workshop] is any good you come out feeling really great and you stay that way. I mean I wouldn’t say it is a permanent – like permanently different but certainly released a lot of stuff that’s been building up... So I need that right now, but there isn’t any [workshop on offer at the Feldenkrais studio I go to]. [Laughter]. Theme A2: A positive and pleasant sense of bodily reorganization. Like everything’s been reorganized. ...it’s rare to get up from a lesson and not feel good all over. …the muscle pains goes away and the frame feels like it’s sort of balanced on the legs, instead of pushing into the legs; floating on top of the legs, kind of… [My] posture always corrects itself. The shoulders feel like, they are kind of going down and back, but also up – so you are not arching your back to get that feeling. It’s like, if you try to get that, you end up arching your back because everything is... shortened. Somehow when you do a lesson, it doesn’t shorten like that. [After doing the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson]... [reads card] “After the lesson: no effort for chest; head and arms to be positioned above the pelvis – they are floating and weightless.” And that’s how it always feels after the lessons. That’s why we do it. Almost every lesson has the appearance of working on one part more: either the top of the body or the bottom, but actually they’re all about the whole body always so it’s rare to get up from a lesson and not feel good all over. Like everything’s been reorganized. That’s how that one – [the recorded lesson] felt, which I was glad about. I don’t think my understanding was as sophisticated then [when I began doing Feldenkrais], because I used it more as a way to relieve pain even though, I had been

263 taught that it was a way to restructure the body. I was just in a lot of... messed up... and in pain. It really did restructure this way of moving it, so it eventually, got back to normal or almost normal. Theme A3: A self-care practice: using movements to reduce pain: If I feel my shoulder starting to ache a bit, I will do a sequence from an Awareness Through Movement lesson – just a few times, just to try to wake it up and relieve it. Sometimes I’ll do this... if I feel my shoulder starting to ache a bit. I will do that one... when I wake up and my shoulder hurts. I don’t have time to do anything before I leave for work, but I [still] do this – where the head goes one way and the shoulder goes another: just a few times, just to try to wake it up and relieve it. I am not very good at bringing whatever I learn into my day, but I try. Another thing I have always done [are] some little movements that help me … I do those during the day, so if I’m sitting in a chair and it starts to hurt, I will do this kind of thing. [The informant demonstrates standing, leaning on the seat of a chair with her hands and arms, then rounding and arching the back – flexing and extending the spine, and followed by making circles with the pelvis]. I do it – that’s one of my favorites. This one I do it a lot. I do that a lot at work and I do that in the morning... I get up and I often do this before I jump in the car. Theme A4: Using bodily awareness to find comfort in everyday activities. I’m aware of how I sit... and how I should sit. …because of Feldenkrais, I’m aware of how I sit – and how I should sit. If I find myself in a situation, like a folding chair – that I know it’s going to start scrunching my back, I just get out of there right away. I don’t persist in it. If I have to be in a situation, like that for a short time, I just keep moving and I keep trying to keep my lower back elongated. I stand up and take breaks. I try to imagine the Feldenkrais posture and then try to do it the best I can. [I] imagine my skeleton you know, I can sort of imagine this whole... [gestures to upper body] ribs and everything just kind of sitting here. The main thing for me is that lack of effort. [Each vertebrae is] lined up above... each one above the next… I don’t want my head falling forward... the shoulders aren’t rolling in towards the chest. I try to keep the bottom of the ribs elevated, so that the stomach area doesn’t get constricted. I try to think about the collarbones coming up, if I can. I don’t ever quite find it [that posture] without doing [an Awareness Through Movement] lesson, but [creating that bodily alignment] certainly feels better than if I didn’t do it... Otherwise, I feel like I’m just continually collapsing forward and my digestion is getting constricted, and my breathing is getting…

264 Sometimes, I find myself not breathing very much. [That’s a signal] ...at least to straighten up, and then go home when I can do some Feldenkrais, when I can. Theme A5: A sense of less restriction in the body and more fluidity in movement. Less restriction… a little more fluid. [After doing the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson]... [reads card] “they [the sides of my body] felt more equal; and the twist[ing movement] could be felt arising from the bottom of the spine and occurring in an even way up the spine through the upper back and arms.” So before [I] could twist around, [I] couldn’t really feel that twist inside the spine, maybe [just] that upper spine. But after it, I felt it. You know? I really felt my spine moving, along with my arm, spine. There’s some scoliosis in here because it felt like less. Less restriction on the one side, where it doesn’t want to move as much; a little more fluid. Theme A6: A sense of spaciousness. feel more spacious and open and more room for bones and muscles to move freely. [After doing the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson]... [reads card] “After the movements: body parts moved; feel more spacious and open and more room for bones and muscles to move freely.” So what I mean by that is, you know, how you’re done with one whole side* and it feels very ‘poufy’ and has a different visual image on it. It’s just spaciousness, whereas the other side is very solid and clunky and dense. And that’s how I… always how I experience it... visible like that. Less dense, yeah, less dense... And the little points of pain and discomfort are gone.”68 Theme A7: A pleasant calm and centered mental state. When you’re done with a lesson, your mind feels very different, you are very calm and centered. Everything seems slowed down or stopped. I try to think about the way I am moving, like they [the Feldenkrais teachers] say, “Find an easier path” – that sort of thing. That’s what I do: do it slowly and pay attention. ...when you’re done with a lesson, your mind feels very different, you are very calm and centered. So, obviously, something is happening to the nervous system: that it’s beneficial. Everything seems slowed down or stopped. It’s a very nice place to be.

68

The informant is referring to the point in lessons where the movements are done lying on one side, there is a rest lying on the back where bodily sensations are observed, and then often the lesson will continue on the other side. It is suggested that this learning strategy generates sensory contrasts for students.

265 Theme A8: An experience of reduced tension and less worry. Just calm and not being led away by one worry after another. [After Awareness Through Movement lesson] [reads card] “The mind was much calmer at the end of the lesson, some nervous tension and worries dropped away, and thinking became more balanced and rational.” [The informant sighs] So I noticed that more of me was here and I still have some worries going on with it. There was a little more space from them [worries], a little more distance from them. More grounded maybe. Yeah, more grounded. Just calm, and not being led away by one worry after another... So like, kind of, noticing that they’re not been taken away by it. Theme A9: Feldenkrais can reduce stress. Every day brings compression and stress… and other types of activity don’t resolve it for me. [I continue to do Feldenkrais] for comfort. I mean, if I stopped altogether, yeah, I could go backwards because every day brings compression and stress, and weird things that you do to your body that you don’t mean to, and it builds up and it doesn’t go away by itself – at least not for me. And other types of activity don’t resolve it. Like, if I exercise I’ll feel better but my muscles... It’s just most other [movement modalities] we [can] do don’t address the nervous system… [Doing the weekly Awareness Through Movement class] removes whatever garbage happened to me, and I can start anew and… and then I can get through the next week a lot of times... Theme A10: Using Feldenkrais and similar somatic approaches to improve sleep. Sometimes I’ll do a Feldenkrais lesson at night just to help me get sleep. I have all these anxiety symptoms. I can’t sleep. [Doing a Feldenkrais lesson] would help a little if I did one right before [going to bed]. What sometimes I’ll do [a lesson] at night just to help me get sleep. And actually in the middle of the night [sometimes], I got up and I did [a lesson]. There is a guy who does Feldenkrais for sleep69 [Recently] I pulled his tape [recording] out because I was so desperate, and I did listen to it for half an hour and it did help calm me down. My heart stops racing so much... and the breath regulates itself. [I am] less agitated and twitchy. …if I am uptight, and I think to relax, [using an Awareness Through Movement lesson] then I sleep better. I haven’t done that in a long time. There’s a nice one [lesson] for the eyes. That seemed good… you trace your eyes like across the room and up the wall, and then back... and each time when you do the scan [covering the eyes with the hands] you

69

Michael Krugman drew on the Feldenkrais Method and other sources to create the Sounder Sleep System. (Krugman, 2005)

266 just look – and there’s less lights flashing off [referring to effect of the activity of optic nerves in the visual field with eyes closed]. [The teacher on the recording] says that’s brain activity, and you are trying to get totally black, and velvety... That [lesson] seems to be good for a sleep. …the whole body goes… ahhh – and you don’t expect it, so it’s nice. Theme A11: Experiencing resilience: Creating the possibility of continuing to function, work, and contribute. If I hadn’t had… Feldenkrais, I would be in a wheel chair and I wouldn’t be working... It saved my life... I feel like…[if I] hadn’t had [Feldenkrais], I would be in a wheel chair and I wouldn’t be working. It saved my life... It really did restructure this way of moving it [the body], so it eventually, got back to normal – or almost normal. I’m still able to go to work and be useful, if I try to work 40 hours, I get in pain. But if I can do 20 or 30, I tend to be okay – especially if I go home, and I have time, and I can do a [Feldenkrais] lesson. The once a week lesson [public class] – sometimes I don’t get to, but I find that if I get to it, it changes my whole week. It removes whatever garbage happened to me, and I can start anew... and then I can get through the next week a lot of times.... Two [classes] a week, it would be better than one! Theme A12: Maintaining a necessary and desired level of function. Doing Feldenkrais regularly keeps me at a level where I am a relatively normal person, and functional, and I don’t get too low. [Doing regular individual Functional Integration sessions] was even better, of course, because I saw [the Feldenkrais practitioner] more often. That was really keeping me able to keep going to work. Feldenkrais didn’t fix the sciatic pain – that was a surgery. I think it helped afterwards just to keep it from hurting – I think it is more of a maintenance [thing]. It helps me. It keeps me at a level where I, sort of, am a relatively normal person, and functional, and I don’t get too low. If I don’t do it [Feldenkrais] so often, then I get really starting to get all kinds of… [difficulty]. …so you are out of pain and everything moves the way it is supposed to. [The results of not going to class are…] my back hurts all the time and now my shoulder hurts all the time. My joints hurt all the time, and my posture is not… usually I can maintain a good posture and it just started to collapse. It’s much harder to keep erect and keep this [gestures with shoulders and upper body] back, everything is crunching in on itself. And my neck is so bad – I wake up every day it hurts right here [points to shoulder and neck area on one side].

267 I haven’t been doing those self-care things – but I probably will because now I’m in trouble, so… [laughter]. Theme A13: Relief from work-related pain and support for ability to retrain in new occupations. Because of Feldenkrais… and also physical therapy, of course. I came back and I played my instrument maybe four or five years after that… [When I first injured my thumb playing an instrument professionally], I went to the gym and did a bunch of strength exercises, so that probably aggravated it. So, I was out for a about a month, I couldn’t play because I couldn’t hold the instrument up. That was the beginning of the end of my music career. I didn’t know it, but it was: because it never really got to come back. But because of Feldenkrais, doing those tapes [recordings of lessons for the] arms, I was able to… and also physical therapy, of course... I came back and I played. And then [for] maybe four or five years after that... [I moved to working in Information Technology, and] then I got an injury up in here [indicating shoulder], where I couldn’t type anymore. It was just frozen and every time I moved my hand, it would hurt. I think that was related to the prior stuff with the instrument thing that never completely healed, because that was at the side too with the [injured] thumb and all that. I had a shoulder injury then that’s what I was going to get [frequent Functional Integration sessions], and it seemed to fix… I mean it was very gradual but over time it seemed to fix it. I mean or at least get me to work. I still couldn’t write, I couldn’t type really, but at least it didn’t hurt all the time. …anyway, that got me more and more functional but I didn’t want to do the computer thing anymore. I did a whole bunch of private [Functional Integration sessions]… I ended going back to school and doing [a new kind of work] – which was much easier on the body. I realized that I needed to find a job that didn’t stress my arms and shoulder and didn’t really stress my back – didn’t have long time sitting. I think I had kind of chronic back pain back then, especially sitting. My back would … I just couldn’t sit maintaining an upright posture, my back would just collapse back. Theme A14: Body awareness contributes to more comfortable and functional body organization. Now I understand it’s really about awareness. My understanding [of Feldenkrais] has changed quite a bit, and now I understand it’s really about awareness and [I] try to maintain the different posture to keep it through the today. I feel like I’m just continually collapsing forward and my digestion is getting constricted, and my breathing is getting… Sometimes, I find myself not breathing very much.

268 Another thing I learned, not long ago, was to really pay attention to the bones and think about, what the bones were doing and that made a big leap in my thinking. That was helpful. It’s just a concept that it’s been there, but all of a sudden I heard it… I notice how much more aware I am of my body and my movements than most people, so I don’t know if I can elaborate on that or not... but I do notice it, and makes me grateful. [That awareness is useful for]… avoiding injuries, [and] avoiding pain… I had to [take an interest] because I was so injured and messed up. Otherwise I would just be sitting home in a wheel chair or something. Theme A15: Learning to move from the interior of the body in a more integrated way. How to move from the interior of the body... to make sure I am moving in a more integrated way. [My first Feldenkrais teacher] would also talk about how to move from the interior of the body because she was working with dancers. That was interesting because that was not something I had thought about before: using your whole body to move your own arms around.... [The teacher] was trying to get us to move from ‘the core.’ She would show us... how dancers could move like [demonstrates moving arm and rest of body together] that so everything is moving with their arm when they do the arm outstretched – or whatever they are doing. [I can sense that] in class! Not necessarily in everyday life... [but] I hope so! It must be, otherwise I would probably injure myself more… [For example, when I am painting] I’m trying to think of not just moving this much [makes painting gesture just with lower arm, with movement just in the elbow]… otherwise its going to get repetitive very quickly. I think I’m trying to be aware if it starts to hurt, and then to make sure I am moving in a more integrated way. Theme A16: Imagining movements. Making movements in the imagination, which I’m not very good at, but it seems to work anyway. [The recorded Awareness Through Movement we just did] had [movements in the] imagination – which I’m not very good at, but it seems to work anyway. I can’t do much of that very well. I’m not very good at it. They tell you, “Try to see each vertebrae” – I can never do that, [but] I guess some people can… I just don’t get very much of it into my visual picture when I am trying to [imagine the movements]. I just get bits and pieces here and there. Not much. I just try to get whatever part of it I could get, you know... usually the points70, I think, and then in the

70

Feldenkrais lessons sometimes make use of the image of points, usually the points of the shoulder and hip joints as a perceptual-awareness strategy to clarify body position, shape, orientation, or movement.

269 middle [it] gets… a lot of it is lost. But if you imagine the… points moving you can get something... that you imagine that thing... It’s very elusive how that works, huh? Theme A17: Looking into the body and seeing different densities. When I looked at [my body] with my inner eye... that [is] what it feels, so that’s what it looks like. ...the way I visualize it on my... on the inside of myself. The way I see it. Like when I looked at it with my inner eye. One side I see the Michelin man or something like that... [On the other] I see this little hunk of meat that’s all compressed. [The way I visualize it is like] if my inside was like that [gestures toward large, tan, leather chair with somewhat puffy cushions], that’s what I... that [is] what it feels, so that’s what it looks like – I don’t see bone or muscle or anything. Its kind of tan and has some wrinkles in it... and kind of puffy, pillow-y... [The more solid and dense feeling is]… More like this table... Yeah, solid and fixed... and with like knots in it. [Speaking ironically and metaphorically] Like right now, this is one right here [gestures to a place on her shoulder]. Theme A18: Experience of body doing the movements, not using the analytical mind. It’s not your mind and your thinking… you get out of your body’s way. What I like about Feldenkrais is that… its just like your body does it, it’s not your mind and your thinking, analytical… or your mind doing it… You get out of your body’s way. To me that’s very important, because I can find any number of ways to tense up… Theme A19: Moving small and slowly helps one attend, and to reduce the amount of effort used. Do the small movements... find the easiest way or path, and don’t make any effort and if you are making an effort do half as much, or imagine it... that forces me to focus my attention a lot. The main way they get you to do that, I think is that they [the Feldenkrais teachers] tell you to do the small movements, and then find the easiest way or path, and don’t make any effort and if you are making an effort do half as much, or imagine it. Those are the ways to ‘trick’ you into not efforting, and they are pretty effective I think. And I try to go slower than I normally move and that seems to help too. [Laughs] [Using an exaggeratedly slow voice]: “Go – slower – than – usual, that – seems – to – help.” Yeah, because I think when we are efforting, we are thinking. I think. For me because I do everything fast, so if I’m doing something slower and softer and less, then that forces me to focus my attention a lot. To avoid like, you know, the efforting. So probably it’s the attention that’s the key. (Note: Informant B Themes and Descriptive Texts can be found in Chapter 4.)

270 Informant C: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme C1: A sense of well-being. I feel more comfortable in my body and with myself, present-ness, a sense of togetherness of myself, of integration. I was introduced [to Feldenkrais] by my practitioner. It’s been quite a long time. I can’t even tell you how long I’ve been involved – maybe 10-plus years. So I took some of my practitioner’s classes. Then I had some, what do you call [it], a Functional Integration [session So that – in a nutshell. I think meeting my practitioner [brought me to Feldenkrais]. I was really curious about what she was doing, and I decided to try it. I tend to be a nervous, anxious person. So I was thinking that it might help with the anxiety and calm everything down. I suffered from depression all my life. Right now, it’s under incredibly good control. But I thought maybe that would help as well. ...what I like about Feldenkrais: I feel more comfortable in my body... I hate to use the term, but more integrated. I’m sorry, but that’s the only thing I can think off. But normally, I do feel more comfortable: “Okay, here’s my body… is just fine. It’s good. We’re going to just go with this.” ...that’s normally what I get. Yeah, more comfortable… and comfortable with myself. Many of those critical voices shut up which is such a relief. All that negative self-talk that can occur: “Goodbye.” It’s like, “Okay.” …and there is a present-ness to the whole process... Feldenkrais has one main effect – which is that sense of togetherness of myself, of integration. You know, going out into the world not scattered, but in one piece. There’s that sense of walking out of the room [after a class] and feeling really like yourself, and really whole, and nice and calm. At the beginning in [of an] Awareness Through Movement lesson there’s that trying to figure things out and everything feels really stiff. And then when you go back and do it again, all of a sudden you’re moving all over the place… which is so fascinating. And there’s something about the movement… there is something with the movement. I don’t know what that is. I really don’t. There’s something about movement, there’s something about the calmness, there’s something about the well-being. Theme C2: A positive, changed experience of self. Feeling exponentially different at the end of a class…taller, straighter, more aligned, more comfortable, relaxed… generally a sense of well-being. Whatever I’ve done in Awareness Through Movement – or [if I have had] an Functional Integration session I walk out of [it] feeling taller, straighter, more aligned, more comfortable, relaxed… generally a sense of well-being. [I] do feel those things. All of them [at the same time]. I think they all occur. I don’t think you can do something

271 physical and not have an emotional, brain-based reaction... Even if I’m swimming or something like I’m riding a bike, there’s all sorts of emotions that happen... When you do [Feldenkrais] over a lot of years, first of all, you know what to expect. You become sensitized… more and more to… So I step in the room and it’s like: “Okay, it’s time. It’s time, for this.” That’s why I was a little disappointed [with the class I did] today because I wasn’t sort of sense… feeling it. You know. It felt blocky and I just didn’t feel it today. But… So I expect to feel sort of like cared for in some way. [Doing] tiny little movements... and I expect to feel, things getting softer and calmer. It’s in tiny little increments… during the hour – and then I love how you feel. I will say I learned that how I feel at the beginning of the class is… going to be exponentially different [at the end]. So as I’m coming in[to class] now, I look forward to that ‘exponentially different’. So that’s the difference. When I first started, it really wasn’t quite as effective. It’s just as you do it more it becomes more effective... Theme C3: Creating calmness through attention to movement experience. Slow, easy, manageable movements that [are] sometimes are a little bit challenging to figure out – your mind has something to do and everything starts calming down. My mind slows down. And it’s a kinetic activity which… I can’t really do meditation very well, so [with Awareness Through Movement]… we’re moving… it’s a slow, easy, manageable movements that [are] sometimes are a little bit challenging to figure out. So your mind has something to do. But at the same time, everything starts calming down. Probably through the movements, would be my… I mean obviously... Feldenkrais isn’t just in words – that’s helpful, [but also] it’s kinetic in a way that is calming. Sometimes it does bring emotions to the surface, but not in a way that’s ‘clangy’. It’s easy and then everything can dissipate of its own accord. Just relaxing is really critical. It’s been really beneficial. The benefits don’t last forever, but at least I get a couple days of calm – more calmness, feeling more at ease. [For example, after a class] everything feels so much more relaxed. Just more relaxed, calmer, not twitchy… I usually often want to take a nap. I mean, sometimes I think, “Oh God, it’s going to ‘wreck’ my day. Should I go… [to class], because if I have a lot of things planned...?” When I [say] ‘wreck’... I don’t really mean ‘wreck’.... but it’s going to change the trajectory of my day, because after the session, I feel like all that other stuff isn’t quite as important. It’s more important to go take a nap or something. Just to sort of enjoy the calm. I never have a problem in napping. But I do have a problem taking time out from doing everything – just saying. “Okay, I’m just going to go take a nap”. So it helps motivate me… to go [take a nap?]… or rather de-motivate me from doing all that stuff. …all my errands... To just say, “Yeah, let’s go home.”

272 [From doing Feldenkrais] I think I actually know that there’s a place that’s really calm. So I think it does help me calm down. Just calm down the racing aspects of my thinking and… just persevere. For me that’s really important… a little pool of calm for me. Theme C4: Awareness of tension and experiencing relaxation. Where everything kind of relaxes during a session or a class. Recovering from knee surgery and all that... all that stuff…. and then all of us who work at computers and walking hunched over, and so there’s that physical aspect too… where everything kind of relaxes during a session or a class. It’s in tiny little increments during the hour – little tweaky movements, you know, tiny little movements – things getting softer and calmer. And then I love how I feel. There’s many things that are, sort of similar, between Feldenkrais and Physical Therapy, but in Physical Therapy you’re sort of forcing the issue in many ways. There’s that building muscles and trying to achieve certain things. Normally coming [to a Feldenkrais session] after Physical Therapy, the day after, it’s a chance to sort of un-wrinkle some of that that [residual feeling of] activity. [Recently, working with my practitioner] I was talking about my family, who I had just visited. There was this family ‘stuff’ that came down... and as I was describing it to my practitioner she says, “You are tightening up!” She was doing something to my shoulder, she was like, “Do you think you could relax your shoulders some?” And I say, “Oh God. There it is that family thing!” [showing up in my body]. So it does help with all of that… the tightening we do when we are thinking stuff. Theme C5: A feeling of floating along. That ‘peaceful-happy… easy-comfortable, don’t need to do anything feeling’ that I so love. [Having done a class before this interview] So I guess I’ve got that ‘peaceful happy… easy-comfortable, don’t need to do anything’ feeling that I so love. You know when… you’re a kid, how you can sort of just sort of float around… ...for me it really was hanging out reading books and just not worrying about anything. Just taking all your time. It’s very pleasant. I know… it’s still there, but I don’t get to used it, hardly ever because of the other parts of who I am, and what I do, and where I live. [Feldenkrais] calms down my mind, as well as my body. Sometimes, as I’ve probably mentioned, to ‘ill effect’, because everything I want to do in the rest of the day is… “Who cares? So what if the kitchen is dirty – whatever!” Which is actually really helpful, because, you know, I think most of us these days are doers, we live in a busy place, we all have stuff to do and you can get really wrapped up in that. Along with the calmer mind, because…. It gives you more space to sort of process information. So that helps.

273 Theme C6: A way of improving moods. Dealing with anxiety, depression, and negative self-talk. Feldenkrais is part of my program of mental sanity…. just to keep things together. I tend to be a nervous, anxious person. So I was thinking that [Feldenkrais] might help with the anxiety and calm everything down. I suffered from depression all my life. Right now, it’s under incredibly good control. Depression has a lot to do with negative self-talk. If you can keep the negative self-talk at bay, or counter it, or get rid of it… If you can keep all of that at bay, and keep your central nervous system from going overboard and buying in to whatever is going on, then you can have a way more positive outlook. So my outlook has really improved. So moving through the world thinking that things are pretty good. So it gives you the grace to just put it on hold... So I think that really helps. I’m hardly ever depressed anymore. But I do a lot of things to manage, a ton of things... that really helps. I do therapy too and I think the two go together really well. You’re working on well-being. So therapists should teach Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais is part of my program of mental sanity…. just to keep things together. So this is an important aspect of doing Feldenkrais. So really these days [its] not so bad, just little moments. But after time, you employ whatever you need to do to keep all of that at bay, and it all works. Theme C7: Being more comfortable. I feel more comfortable in my body... and comfortable with myself. …this is what I like about Feldenkrais: I feel more comfortable in my body. Normally, I do feel more comfortable: “Okay, here’s my body… it’s just fine. It’s good. We’re going to just go with this.” ...that’s normally what I get. Yeah, more comfortable…. And comfortable with myself. Any of those critical voices shut up which is such a relief. All that negative self-talk that can occur: “Goodbye.” It’s like, “Okay.” …and there is a present-ness to the whole process that everybody do. Theme C8: Feeling integrated. Things are not separated… the mind and body together, and sort of something about feeling like myself… The parts of me – are more together. Absolutely. I think it starts with the body movement… Well, I think. Sorry I can’t… With the mind... the mind and body together. Also I feel a little floaty too. Floaty is great. That wonderful sense of space in this I’m not quite sure how to talk about the feeling integrated. It’s sort of something about feeling like myself… without all the crap. I know it’s the sense of frantically accomplishing things, which gets in the way of feeling integrated… [Doing Feldenkrais] dissipates that quite a bit. It’s almost like being on a mini vacation, without your cell phone, on the beach… So it’s something like that.

274

Theme C9: Discovering how to reduce pain and not set off pain. There’s that whole, whole-body psychic mishmash of generalized pain… if you’re aligned, and if you’re calm... you’re not going to kick off that cascade of pain. Pain feeds on itself. Just calming things down with Feldenkrais sort of breaks the cycle; the cycle of pain. There’s that whole, whole-body psychic mishmash of generalized pain. I wonder if I was talking about physical pain or mental pain? – maybe both... Today I am think[ing] about Feldenkrais treating pain... but down the line, if you’re aligned, and if you’re calm... you’re not going to kick off that cascade of pain. I’m thinking of both… With the calming the pain goes. It doesn’t go away completely but it’s less prevalent. Truly if you’re aligned there’s less pain. You know, getting up out of a chair or walking… you know its easier, so much easier… And emotionally it’s the same thing. If we clear the mind of all that mishmash… you know, the competing thoughts – those are what trigger your emotional reactions to things or even yourself. So yeah, yeah there must be something related... I am sorry, I can’t…. That ‘whole whole-body psychic mishmash of generalized pain’ – that’s a really good description [that I came up with in the first interview] – because you can’t separate it. Doing Feldenkrais will integrate into your behavior patterns – your thinking and body patterns. I assume that’s the point of the practice – or part of it. [Or, for example] I walk in with upper back pain, often from my job and working on a computer, and the upper back is like…like a block. Feldenkrais helps a great deal. It softens things up and I’m not holding myself… [gestures lifting arms and shoulders and chest high and rigid] like as would on a computer. So that helps a great deal. Theme C10: A feeling of automaticity: Not having to think about movements to avoid pain. When movements are a little more automatic, or when I am being moved by my practitioner it is a relief. Right now, because of the knee replacement and learning how to balance again, and all of that, so what I notice is that it’s much easier to just move forward without being… without having to think as much. Because with knee replacement, you really do have to think about how you’re moving. You have to plan you moves – which is really tiresome. Until things recover, you’re always doing strategy to figure out how to get up, get down, put on your clothes, all that kind of stuff. Climb stairs… It’s not automatic. When it’s a little more automatic, it’s like, “Ahhh…” [relief sound]. So it’s just like, “I didn’t have to think about that.”

275 When my practitioner is working on me, we chat a little bit – I’m not thinking about my knee and how I have to move to not have pain. I don’t have to think. So that in itself is like, “Oh my God, I don’t have to think.” I’m being manipulated in a very easy way, very gentle, really easy. Theme C11: Using Feldenkrais for surgery preparation and recovery. I’m thinking now… everything that my practitioner has been working with me on, that she doesn’t need to work with me on [that] anymore. [I was] doing FIs [Functional Integration sessions] just to prep my body for knee replacement surgery. And then shortly after the operation, seeing [my] practitioner every week [for individual sessions]. Especially with the knee replacement working... on alignment and some of the side effects that come as a result of getting a knee replacement. I think the alignment part has helped a lot. In fact… I’m thinking now… everything that my practitioner has been working with me on, that she doesn’t need to work with me on [that] anymore. Okay. You know things have come along very nicely… Also helping me with my swimming and sitting at the computer. Theme C12: Working with practitioner on movements. Given me some clues on how to move, which help tremendously. So [after the hip replacement surgery] my practitioner has been teaching me how to do things like standup, sit down, walk down stairs in a way that’s less painful. So it’s worked really well. My practitioner has [also] helped with my swimming... she actually has given me advice on how to position… [gesture of bringing arm up] especially this overhead [arm movement] for the crawl. How to place that… [arm and hand], and the side to side movement that you do… [demonstrating crawl arm and head movements] …as you breathe one way. She’s actually given me some clues on how to move, which help tremendously. [Such as] at work, with the typing and working at a desk. Whether or not I can maintain that at work is another question. Theme C13: Experience of a sense of space in life. More space. More room. Less internal and external clutter… That wonderful sense of space in this... I’m not quite sure how to talk about... the feeling integrated. It’s sort of something about feeling like myself… without all the crap. More space. More room. Less clutter… yeah, internal clutter, right. There’s that filtering

276 again. So in terms of internal clutter, you know, you filter out internal clutter, and the external stuff too. Theme C14: Stimulating new images for bodily experiences. It sort of feels like flying... [The recorded lesson] It’s really loose and fun – I wrote that on the cards a lot. It sort of feels like flying... I just love that slow, back and forth [with the arms]... [I] started getting images of birds in the sky and all... it’s a lovely movement. And then you can feel yourself kind of loosening up and easing into it and whenever you do... I wrote a quote from a song that I really love: “Funny how running seems like flying for a little while” – It’s really cool song… All of a sudden, I could hear the song. Let’s see, when we took a rest, I wrote “fluffy on the right and solid on the left.” That’s how it feels laying in the back. So the left side felt very grounded and the right side was like [makes wooshing noise], really low. One side felt like really open, like marshmallows, like no muscles, super light I could float off the floor kind of and the other one was like: [slapping noise] solid! …by the end of the lesson is [it was] even. Both sides felt really grounded. Not like marshmallow not like rock... very, just solid, in a nice way in a very nice way at the end of that lesson. Theme C15: Developing body awareness. ...and suddenly you start noticing things. You know what is when you slow down and suddenly you start noticing things. Like just things you wouldn’t necessarily notice if you were busy and crazy... So yeah, I feel a lot more… [but] I don’t think I’m sharply aware of things after classes, it feels ‘mushy’, which is good. [For example], Today [after class] it’s not a detailed body awareness… Yeah, just calming down enough to realize that there is little stuff going on all the time… in the body, and how we’re moving… how you think. I don’t get to do that in day-to-day life because there’s too much to do… mostly at jobs. So it’s nice to have break… you know to just sort of calm down, notice tiny changes…. Theme C16: Curiosity: I found the changes in my movement really, really interesting. At the beginning of class, there’s that trying to figure things out and everything feels really stiff... then when you go back and do it again, all of a sudden you’re moving all over the place. [When I first did Awareness Through Movement] I thought, “This is so odd.” I hadn’t experienced anything like it. So naturally I wanted to go back – to kind of figure it out. Like, “What the heck?” You know, that was a big question mark. And that was pre having a phone [with] internet. We did have internet back in the day, but you couldn’t

277 easily look everything up and didn’t even occur to me to look it up. I asked questions [about the classes] …and so seemed like this big mystery to crack so that led me back a little bit. And then I’ve continued… all these years. At the beginning… especially if you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement, at the beginning of an Awareness Through Movement lesson, there’s that trying to figure things out and everything feels really stiff. And then when you go back and do it again, all of a sudden you’re moving all over the place… which is so fascinating. It’s really, really interesting. So it’s kind of curiosity. Theme C17: Enjoyable engagement with the body in movement. Actively engaged because you have to move your own body... There’s something about moving slowly and thinking about the movements... [Doing Feldenkrais classes are] distracting from that mind that’s always blabbing and flapping around and writing laundry lists or whatever – or shopping lists, or whatever it is you do in your head, worrying about work, or thinking about the next thing to do during the day. By the end of class, generally all that stuff is gone… whereas in meditation it would still be there… it would still be just sitting there. So for kinetic people, it’s perfect. There’s something about moving slowly and thinking about things that calms everything down… thinking about the movements. Concentrating… on the movement: just trying to remember how to do things, and do them. You’re actively engaged because you have to move your own body and you’re taking instructions. There’s an engagement that’s enjoyable – but it’s a little more work, working a little bit. Theme C18: Feeling an even distribution of effort and attention. It isn’t about focusing on or using just one joint, but spreading the movement throughout the body… ...it is about feeling even. It’s almost like the oil and vinegar, you know, you’ve got to shake it up. The idea of these movements isn’t about locating… it isn’t about using just one joint but spreading the movement throughout the body.…Just love that concept! Because I have many problems, I focus there [on my knee] a lot and the more I focus the worse it gets. That’s a good idea. Yeah, everything’s even… As a person with joint pain, it is really hard not to focus on that particular point – but the idea of spreading everything out, makes perfect sense. I’m sure I’ve experienced it before – I mean I think I’ve been describing that experience all along – and walking out feeling more whole and integrated and nothing’s pounding... feeling... on the knees, which is what I focus on a lot.

278 Theme C19: Problem solving: Figuring out movements in lessons. It’s always trial and error... Normally when we take a rest – there’s always those little rest periods in Awareness Through Movement, I’m saying to myself, “Oh thank God, okay. Now maybe I can figure it out.” So it’s like taking the rest is really important. I’m trying to understand what the words mean and then apply it to the movement. It’s like, “Where do I put this body part?” It’s like, “I can’t get this…” and usually my practitioner will say something, “Okay, here’s what you do. Take this and put it over there.” Sometimes I’ll sneak a peek at somebody else. So for me it’s always trial and error. So I’ll keep trying different things, and then when it feel like it’s okay, or I get some verification from the person speaking… you know, after a while you’re going, “Oh yeah this is right.” Given the rest of the instructions; it sort of makes sense. Theme C20: Visualizing and feeling the body in imagined movements. It’s sort of an out-of-body, in-body thing... Also, [when trying work out how to make movements in classes] I try to picture what the movement is and then experimenting….it’s sort of like an out-of-body-image and, you know, [as] if I was looking at myself from above and [imagining] where would I, you know, put parts of my body. That often doesn’t work. But at least I have this image. There’s something about, um… how do we describe this? I don’t know…. I’m just realizing this as I’m talking to you.... It’s sort of an out-of-body, in-body thing... I think it’s more in-body. It’s like there’s this big space, big empty space, and I’m in the middle of it as my whole person – and yet the external part of me is doing this thing, and I’m thing to figure out where to move. I think there’s a way in which I learn new movements by trying to see it from the outside and then inside-out of course. Imagining as seeing… So there’s like… there’s me, there’s the inner me, and then there’s the external person looking and trying to figure out all that. That bigger space, which I view is inside… the bigger space is where all the change happens, I think. The big space… I’m inside it and I’m outside it. It’s sort of in me and there’s a little me in there and it’s… trying to figure stuff out. So I guess that’s how I’m imagining how to move. And after all [that], the external me goes away and it all kind of comes together… So I don’t have to think about it. I think it’s really fun to try – once I get past that frustration. Theme C21: Knowing how you learn: Encountering frustration, finding calm and a sense of space so solutions emerge. …frustration, then calm, and then space, and then you work through it in some fabulous way.

279 So let’s say I hit a frustration. So instead of verbalizing or flailing away at Frustration A or Difficulty B or whatever it is or… I think it… I think there’s a way that I’m learning how to just take my time, and work through it… because if you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson: [there is] frustration… calm… empty space… you know, and then you work through it in some fabulous way. [Doing Feldenkrais] is associated with] an openness, instead of everything being boxed and structured and… even thinking-wise – way more associative and open. But I’m thinking sort of physically and emotionally… not ‘tight box’, but nice and open. ...knowing how you learn, or what you do when you learn, is really important. I do know that sense of frustration, “Am I doing it right? Well let’s just keep…” So for me it’s always trial and error. You know, I think that’s a learning process. It’s kind of this unconscious process, which I think I would apply to Feldenkrais as well. Where all of a sudden, I don’t know how but I learned something. No idea how that happened! Theme C22: The value of slowness. That’s why I come here, because I want to go slow. The movement is subtle… and slow. I think it is slowing down [is how Feldenkrais helps]. Most people who teach Awareness Through Movement lessons are pretty slow. In fact, I don’t like when somebody is going too fast. That’s why I come here, because I want to go slow. All I can say is… if I could figure it out, it would be good to do an Awareness Through Movement lesson every day: because I think there’s great value slowing things down. I mean, at least as an organism, I could be slowing… going at my own pace and amidst the crazy ping-pong balls of everybody else running around. So the more I think that could do that, the better I’ll function. Once again; counterintuitive. But sometimes for me going slower is better than going faster. I have to be goal oriented, [but] I think I get more done when I go slower. Theme C23: The value of moving smaller. I went too far... [So I] made the movement smaller. Way smaller. When [I did] oppositional movements… [in the recorded lesson – where, one part of the body going one way and the other opposite, or moving opposite a usual pattern] – that’s always challenging, but since I’ve done it before it wasn’t too bad… but you know, mild, mild discomfort. When we first started moving this [my arm out to the side] back and forth, I went too far felt a little of… [Informant makes a wrenching noise] “Oh let’s stop.” That’s all it was… I went too far and something tweaked in the lower back – a little bit pain. Just a little like, “Oh-oh! – a little muscle tweak.” [So I] made the movement smaller. Way smaller. I was obviously going too far or moving – I wasn’t sure, possibly the movement wasn’t right. Smaller, just small.

280 Theme C24: The value of easy. It can be hard to get over the structures that made me do things a certain way, but if it sinks in there this is supposed to be ‘easy’... ...because if it’s easy… Because she [the teacher on the recording] said ‘easy’… you know what, that’s the ‘rule.’ So, this is another way in which Feldenkrais is so different from everything else. I know that there is quote unquote ‘rules’ that you guys [Feldenkrais teachers] are working by, but in this case the rules seem to be thrown out… which is why I like it. Because we’re just supposed to figure out a way to make it easy – that’s the only rule. Which is probably why I like… Because like, ‘Oh my God it’s not hard, it’s easy – it’s easy and it’s me that might be making it harder… It can be hard to get over the structures that made me do things a certain way, but if it sinks in there this is supposed to be ‘easy’ then it’s like, “Oh whatever, let me figure out how to make this easier…” Which seems sort of counterintuitive… seems like we would go for easy first… but we don’t. Then there’s some things that are actually difficult to do. Like, Physical Therapy can be difficult to do. Some work is intellectually difficult to do, you know so that’s the way that it is, why make it harder than it needs to be? [For example: swimming]: When I get into the water at the swimming pool today will be much smoother, because I won’t be fighting the water… “Oh, I am not going to be fighting this, I’m just going to let it to go.” Because I have the emotional where-with-all to not to struggle through the water – which you don’t really need to do in a pool… Theme C25: Learning self-care and dealing with self-judgment. …you’re sort of learning self-care right along with learning all the movements. Ultimately, it’s kind of self-care, because you’re doing the movements on your own, you know, with a little guidance by the teacher. You’re sort of learning self-care right along with learning all the movements and working on all that alignment. And it doesn’t really feel like work – that’s the other [thing] –talking about the principles, you’re not working. I really don’t feel like I’m working. Right? Maybe that’s the core: it’s easy. [When a go to a class] I expect to feel sort of cared for in some way. I would say, [one attends to oneself] in a really kind way. That’s the thing – all those little inner voices, that are so unpleasant sometimes… The inner critic? It shuts it up very nicely. So when you start your Feldenkrais… lets say you’re doing an Awareness Through Movement lesson – Awareness Through Movement in particular because there you are, you’re on the floor…and you start out with all the little ‘nattery’…like, “Oh this is boring…” and all the, “Nya, nya, nya, nya…”, and by the end of the class, it’s a remarkable... all that stuff is quiet. It’s really great. Theme C26: Importance of relationship with practitioner. The relationship with the practitioner is huge…

281 I think meeting my practitioner [brought me to Feldenkrais]. I was really curious about what she was doing, and I decided to try it. …it’s the practitioner that you’re dealing with – they’re all really nice. I mean, really nice. And the same with whomever is like teaching. If it’s an Awareness Through Movement lesson, the relationship is huge. ...my practitioner in particular [has] got a great voice and [it is] calming. Theme C27: Doing classes in a group is valuable and fun. Everybody is there. Everybody is kind of focused... It’s like a tiny little hour-long community of people. I was doing mostly Awareness Through Movement lessons at the height of the anxiety, depression – and I loved the group: I really liked the group. There’s something about being in a group of people all doing that same thing that’s really relaxing for me – and kind of calming. I’m not sure what it is. Even though nobody is talking, which took a little bit of discipline for me because generally I do love to talk, there is a sense of… It’s different than going to a basketball game, but it’s similar in a way. You’re all working on the same thing and you’re being led by somebody… My understanding is that is part of this process... is figuring it all out. But the group thing is a lot of fun for me. I like that. It’s like a tiny little hour-long community of people – and the room is really pleasant. It’s calm, it’s nice, it’s quiet. Everybody is there. Everybody is kind of focused. So that’s all I can say. Informant D: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme D1: Feldenkrais brings me back into balance and to a healing through awareness that guides me. Feldenkrais has given a sense that I can heal anything... when I really get thrown out of balance and I can allow it to guide me. Anything can come into balance through this system. The thing that Feldenkrais has given me the most, was the sense that I can heal anything. It’s the most subtle process, but for me, in my system it has had [led to a] huge, life-changing sort of awareness. Not that I always remember to be with it and allow it to guide me, but it’s there when I really get thrown out of balance. Everything about this experience of Feldenkrais Method for me over the last it’s been over 20 or 30 years it’s been… It’s all been wonderful. Everything that I have experienced has been very different but equally helpful. It started out so subtly – and it still is so subtle. Again, you wouldn’t think that such subtle movements... I wouldn’t track [think] that such subtle movements could have that great of an impact. But it has. It’s been amazing.

282 Theme D2: A self-care practice where frequent and deepening practice brings benefits – such as less pain, and more fluidity and strength. It’s a deepening practice: as a result everything is enhanced... It’s an ongoing thing – that is self-care... My practice of Feldenkrais is more frequent: as a result everything is enhanced... as always it’s a deepening – it’s a deepening practice. I’m practicing – I’m not going to stop. It’s an ongoing thing – that is self-care... I’ve been doing practice so continuously I don’t have so much pain, and I am stronger. It gives me a sense of fluidity even though I’m not so much in the water. I have to do it. There’s not really a choice for me, the Qigong, and the Tai Chi, and the Feldenkrais are things I have to do: I have to do them. I have been doing Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons at least three times a week – either in class or on my own. The Feldenkrais is the most frequent thing that I do – with the most consistency. Everything else is sort of, “Oh, yes. I can do a few minutes of that here and there...” But my Feldenkrais practice, really, it’s almost a daily. Even if it’s just 10 minutes, it’s almost a daily thing. I’m grateful for that. Theme D3: Dealing with effects of accidents and injuries and finding a better foundation for movement. A number of events led to a disassembly of my usual way of doing things, and that has then allowed for a greater structural foundation to be built and Feldenkrais has been the way that... happened. I had a mild stroke a few years ago... I didn’t have a major [event]...anything that took me to a black out stage, but I watched myself, I watched the information, I watched in it... Well after that, within probably several months, I had some accidents where I fell. Hiking slippery hiking [trails]... falls... I had a boating accident. So all of those things to me were pieces of, I’m going to say, a ‘disassembly’, that has then allowed for a greater structural foundation to be built – and Feldenkrais has been the way that its happened. Theme D4: Doing balancing work and dealing with compensations. My body was trying to find ways to correct and to compensate for the things that weren’t feeling so good, so I did a lot of balancing with Feldenkrais work. The neck [pain] was a result of the butterfly stroke. My body was trying to find ways to correct and to compensate for the things that weren’t feeling so good. I do feel a support with the [Feldenkrais] work through that, and I still have pain. Everything that I have just been sharing with you about the home practice I do – pressing my heels, and how that affected my whole spine. All of that was linked to the need to balance the swim.

283 I realized how critical Feldenkrais was for me, because of what happens to me in the water. My body goes go into ‘dolphin mode’ – because I’m a butterfly swimmer. I’m not a lollygagging swimmer until I’m not butterflying, and then I’m a floater. I never got all these different swimming strokes down. So my body just instantly goes into something that ain’t so good for your pelvis. I realized that after many years of swimming, and doing Feldenkrais – how my spine was being affected by my [swimming] stroke and how I really did need to learn some new strokes, and I really did need to make sure that I did a lot of balancing with Feldenkrais work because swimming was taking its toll on me. Theme D5: Navigating movement challenges. Feldenkrais has helped me be more aware of how I’m going about something. I’ve had some falls and some [other] accidents – some serious falls where I caught myself on my hands. Those Feldenkrais lessons about hands and wrists and elbows – subtly turning and moving and turning – have hugely helped. Those lessons now have a substantial effect on my ability to ‘navigate’ challenges, like when I don’t feel like I should be picking up heavy things. I’m sure that something would trigger it if it was really heavy, or I was in a really awkward position. Feldenkrais has helped me be more aware of how I’m going about something. I’m not having the reactions that I was having before. Theme D6: Using Feldenkrais for preparation for tasks and prevention of injury or strain. I use The Awareness Through Movement lessons to prepare for things I am going to do. The Awareness Through Movement lesson for my toes and feet, I do that regularly. Just before I dance, or before I hike or when I’m going to be working in – or moving in, more upright... I think [Feldenkrais eye exercises are] even more important to do it more [now] because of how much more time I spend on a computer. Now it’s a whole different life – we have got our phones, and we are constantly looking at screens. Or in our conversations on the phone... I spend a lot of time on the phone. I try to do it a little bit with my eyes at least one day a week. I try to spend at least 10 minutes on the floor, just with rolling my head and my eyes in the opposite directions. Every day, even if I don’t get out for a walk I at least try to get up from the table and look out the back; look at the trees in different ways and try to integrate….I also try to look away from the screen and do the distance—looking—here and there… I do attend a class once a week, and that teacher is very good at integrating eye movements... [but] if the teacher is not including them in... [a particular] lesson, then I’m doing it. I can actually be doing... the [movement] instruction, and I can be doing this whole thing with my eyes [as well]. So I really try to include the eye movements.

284 Theme D7: Tools for recovery from a strain or painful incident. It doesn’t take much to recall, “Oh yeah, I know what to do with this... I need to get on the floor and do a little Feldenkrais.” If I can’t actually do the lesson, I imagine myself doing the lesson... [Lifting something heavy is] just not comfortable anymore for my system, [say, e.g.] picking up a gallon jag of water – which weighs eight pounds. It doesn’t take much to recall, for me quickly get to, “Oh yeah, I know what to do with this.” I just remember, “I need to get on the floor and do a little Feldenkrais.” Sometimes, if I can’t actually do the lesson I imagine myself doing the lesson. I just imagine myself lying still and having that experience of turning my wrists and hands and elbows at different angles – and that’s huge. Theme D8: Improved sleep. Feldenkrais allows me to sleep more deeply... I can just settle. ...to focus on my breath and my center – my internal sensations help calm me. I think Feldenkrais allows me to sleep more deeply. I’ve never really had a problem with it before, but I know that being in menopause is affecting my sleep way more. I want more sleep, a lot more sleep and I don’t rest well often and I’m much more sensitive to every little thing in the bed that is driving me crazy... The pillow that’s just not right, the thing that... the whatever... the turn the blanket does... is just not right... So I’m much more aware of that. When I can just settle, which I can usually do pretty quickly, and by focusing on my breath, focusing on my center – it doesn’t take me long, usually, to unwind that... whatever that thing is. I know that Feldenkrais has helped me with that – to focus on my breath and my center – my internal sensations, to help calm me. Theme D9: Quieting areas of the body and shifting awareness of them. ...a tight or painful area of the body can feel ‘much more quiet’ – which is a beautiful turnaround in my whole awareness of it.... I feel so much different. [The recorded lesson we just did...] – it’s a great lesson, just what I needed... was just exactly what my neck and shoulders needed. A lot happened. And it usually does for me. I usually come away with some really big ‘ah-ha’s’ in my system – and they’re not usually uncomfortable [like this lesson was at the beginning]. It was just so much more quiet afterwards. I know that’s hard to believe right now, because I’m yammering and processing…but yeah, so much more quiet in this whole area of my body that I came in here feeling... And it feels like I look different because this area shifted so much. [After doing the recorded lesson] There’s still some tightness, and there’s still some pulling. What was that, an hour? And we weren’t focusing on that area. I guess that’s the beauty of Feldenkrais. It’s always such a beautiful turnaround in my whole awareness of it.

285 Theme D10: Feeling connections all through the body: Feeling different, feeling present. With some Feldenkrais lessons there is a phenomenal difference in the way that I feel the information coming in [from my feet and legs]... feeling it coming up all the way through my body – [and into] the areas where I have had the most ‘get me out of here’ feeling. The Awareness Through Movement lessons that I have been using the most consistently are the ones for the toes and feet. Really simple little things. It’s so easy to do. It’s amazing how subtle [the lesson is]. 10 minutes per foot, just doing different things – you are not just working with just your toes. At some point you interlace your fingers with the toes both sides... and you are doing these movements... It moves all of this area up through your ankle and into your shin. But it’s just a very different experience when I have done that versus when I have not done that. [In lessons with the toes and feet, the feeling]... It goes all the way up and it doesn’t just stop there in the feet and ankles. It certainly does transfer to my knees, and to my pelvis, and eventually all the way up. I can feel if I’m really present as soon as I do that – instead of just getting up and going to the next thing, I walk for just a couple of minutes – which of course after every lesson you are advised to do; get up and walk. There is a phenomenal difference in the way that I feel the information coming in – like feeling it coming up all the way through my pelvis, into my shoulders, into my crown, my shoulders or my neck – or the areas that I have had the most ‘get me out of here’ feeling. Also the way that I’m transferring information back. I’ve had a few lessons with... moving the knees: having your knees bent and moving the legs one direction and then the other – and very slight movements... A lot of those lessons with just the turning and twisting... So this lesson [from the recording] was just the primary focus on moving the knees and pelvis was pretty impactful. It was quite a long lesson but even in the first several minutes of it I could tell that there was ease, there’s just more ease in my neck and shoulders. Anything to do with the pelvis helps my neck and shoulders – very, very subtle movements, but very impactful – the whole pelvic, cervical, the cranial... It’s basically that: the cranial-sacral relationship works, so everything in that area, the whole cervical spine changes. The other Awareness Through Movement that I do a whole lot, which also helps me anchor the same experience, is just sitting on the edge of a chair and doing the hiprocking movements. Simple and I can feel it instantly. Theme D10: Being more grounded. Some lessons create a different stance in my walk. I think the insteps; the insides of my soles relate new information up through my thighs and so there is a different ‘stance in my walk’. What that has done for me is ground my system in a different way. It grounds my walk. For me walking barefoot is information

286 exchange between me and the earth all the time, every step. When I’m not barefoot it’s a whole different conversation... especially when I have just done that lesson... Theme D11: Awareness of others’ stress and finding center. Feldenkrais tunes me to that awareness of how much stress is in the collective. I have also learned from Feldenkrais how to center and respond differently. I’m just aware of how much stress is in the collective and how that’s affecting me too. Feldenkrais, it tunes me to that awareness, I think I’m just much more keenly aware of what might be happening in my own body – and now because of all of the things that are going on in the collective, I’m keenly aware of how many people are carrying so much tension. But I have also learned from Feldenkrais that I don’t have to participate at that level. I can be in a different bandwidth, and observe that frequency, and not have to vibrate off that... Feldenkrais is a call to your own center quickly, isn’t it? Maybe more quickly than anything else. Theme: D12: Life habits and using movements to address them. My mind is always pushing forward... That movement sequence – when I press my heels into the floor and that information traveling up... seems to pull me back into my body, and into a more present state of awareness. Another practice I do is lying flat and pressing the back of the heels into the floor and how that impacts all the way up. When I press my heels into the floor and that information traveling up at the back of my legs and at the back of my spine, and up... I feel that significantly in my pelvis and at back of my cranium. It can be a 30 second thing and I feel different when I get up – just from doing that. It’s amazing how much more present I am at the back of me. I’m very ‘mental’ and I tend to go out quickly into thoughts and into the future. That movement sequence seems to pull me back into my body, and into a more present state of awareness, than what the mind always wants to go into – which is always pushing forward. So, whenever I’m with that feeling of pushing forward, I just remember can lie down on the floor. It’s a receptive state. That’s my language for what it feels like, because I’m receiving information from the world around me, instead of trying to make information up here in my head. It’s a life lesson for me that, “It’s here, its all here... You don’t have to push it, or rush it, or make it...” That for me related to the lesson with moving the feet also. It’s related to being ‘in here’ and not ‘running forward’.

287 The back is a really good place for me to focus and I don’t focus there very often. I am usually focusing on movement, and I’m not focusing on my back during that movement, and then I remembered, “Oh, lower back against the surface of whatever I’m on” – and immediately my whole system just relaxes, my whole nervous system says to my body, “Oh, yes. There it is”. It’s that simple for me. And I do not do it enough. It’s one of the most impactful for me…instantly. And it’s so impactful because it’s so far removed from my norm. So it’s the very thing that is calling the loudest – but there’s no pain there, so I’m not attending to it. I’m just so aware [as I describe it now] of how helpful that is and if I can find a way to anchor that on a daily basis – it’s going to help me even more to drop in even more. The impacts on my life from Feldenkrais are probably not as strong as I would like them to be – because I still have that ‘going forward into’ rather than just being... [makes whooshing sound and smoothing gesture with arm and hand] ...being in a receptive mood and not having to do anything. So, I know what the big issue is. I know what the lesson is, and I have been at it for a while, [laughs] ...and I will probably be on it until I’m not here anymore. Theme D13: Differentiating internal and external perceptions, and allowing choice in responses. Doing Feldenkrais has refined my perception deeply... [and] Feldenkrais has just helped me become more aware that I don’t have to respond in any certain way... My core challenge is how much noise can I take in and not feel like I have got to do anything with it... just allow... and just allow what my body is doing. [Feldenkrais] speaks to the noise inside and how to differentiate, it’s just how to differentiate [this is in here] and that’s out there. I don’t have to do anything like that right now. I believe Feldenkrais helps me with being able to actually make that differentiation. I think it’s helped a lot. Doing Feldenkrais has refined my perception deeply…Is it birds out there? Skateboard or something? [Informant makes this aside while taking about sensitized perception]. Sometimes I think it refined me to a place where… again, it’s too much information and too much noise. Then I remember, ‘Oh yeah, it doesn”t mean I have to do anything with it.” In that context, yeah, sometimes it feels like it’s overwhelming to process that much information – and then again, it’s all there. It’s always been there: there is nothing that I have to do with it. Feldenkrais has just helped me become more aware that I don’t have to respond in any certain way and that I don’t have to do anything with it... [laughs] Theme D14: Sensing: Time, spaciousness, and sounds in the body. What Feldenkrais offers is that ability to be aware of your body in time and space. I can sense into my body...

288 A big part of what Feldenkrais offers is that ability to be aware of your body in time and space. And a lot of other practices may not give you that so clearly. For me it slows things down tremendously, because we are so conscious, the whole Awareness Through Movement piece is all about that. It slows things down tremendously. What always surprises me is how quickly a lesson flies by. [For example] I’ve been more aware of the space around my heart. I have had a few Feldenkrais lessons around that – focusing the breath in different areas. Those have been really wonderful. There’s more spaciousness and there’s more... I would just say awareness... [After this recorded lesson] there’s more space between my vertebral bodies and my cervical spine. There’s more space between my mandible and my lower occiput. And there’s just more space all the way around through everything there. Both of my shoulders were closer to the floor when we stopped or when the lesson was over. If you listen to your breath enough, then you can begin to discern between your breath and other sounds in your body. So I don’t know how to speak about that so much. Again, that’s just something that, if it shows up, I’m paying attention. Theme D15: Sensing into the body. I can ‘see’ into my body sometimes doing Awareness Through Movement or at other times, if I intend it... it’s all through sensory perception. I can ‘see’ into my body sometimes doing Awareness Through Movement or at other times, if I intend it... like if there’s really a problem. If I’ve gotten worried, I would ask to see... “Show me” and I’ll have to work with it. I see static. I see friction. I see colors sometimes. I am aware. I pay attention... I’m paying attention. I’m intending to attend and it’s working. It’s much easier for me to attend with my eyes closed for sure. I’m not seeing the space. It’s a total – it’s all sensing. I can see if I want to. And I see what’s going on in there. I can see. But I don’t usually ask to see. That’s a whole another level. I see more without ‘trying to see’, because it’s ‘all through’ sensory perception. Right now, what do I see? I mean, look at something... Let me focus on something and see if I can see it – to speak it, to see it, to translate. [pause] So I’m looking at my left acetabulum and I’m seeing smoothness in some areas, a lot of smoothness—just looks pearly. And in other areas, there’s a bit of a spiraling looking rope – which I’m perceiving to be tension in the cells of the muscle. It looks... There’s a pale... sort of a pale blue color there. I’m just going to see if I can smooth it. [pause] So now it’s all unwound and it’s relaxing and I feel it through my whole body. It’s good.

289 Theme D16: Quality of movement and internal practices. I always felt inside: choosing to do Feldenkrais [Method] and Alexander [Technique], Tai Chi and Qigong: These practices are much more internal – it’s always about the quality of the movement. I use meditation. I think meditation has influenced my Feldenkrais experience. I can ‘travel’ easily into areas of my body... Whatever that practitioner [does] influences everything we do. I definitely see that and now they’re probably inseparable. I’d say Tai Chi and Qigong are really very much that too: I played with those a little bit too. Those are very much internal practices, and again I think that meditation led me to those practices. I think my meditation practice led me to choose Feldenkrais. It led me to choose Alexander. It led me to want to explore those things versus yoga, because they all came into my awareness around the same time I was young. What do I want to do? I’m not a runner – I know that. I always felt inside: this is my practice. These practices are much more internal – it’s always about the quality of the movement, right? You only allow that experience to come in your awareness if you’re paying particularly close attention. I’d say Tai Chi and Qigong are really very much that too: I played with those a little bit too. Those are very much internal practices, and again I think that meditation led me to those practices. Theme D17: Enhancing perception with movement. I integrate Feldenkrais when I’m walking on a trail. It enhances perception... the very subtle changes in wind and water, and colors, and sounds of animals... I integrate Feldenkrais when I’m walking on a trail – turn the head slowly and move the eyes around, and looking at distance, and closer up. I always do the ‘cross-crawl’ walk where one hand is going toward the opposite knee... and I switch that up a lot. I just find it’s another call to presence in another way. It gets a whole different pieces of information coming in a whole another way. [For example] Say, “The thrush over there” and, “What’s going on over here?”, and “The rabbit that’s behind me.” Its like way the native American ‘medicine people’ have of walking – with their ‘eyes at the back of their heels’ – because they are in constant communication with the plant medicines. ‘Walking with eyes below’. So it’s that level of awareness, which we don’t have in our computer world. It enhances perception... the very subtle changes in wind and water, and colors, and sounds of animals... Theme D18: Integrating bodily awareness is part of my sense of place. My being – in this body, in this place. That gives me internal feelings of comfort and rest.

290 I’m new to this land [where I live now]. Hiking and spending time in nature, that is my system exchanging information with the land and feeling more comfortable here. So it’s a recalibration of my nervous system for sure, to be here in the trees and hearing the land, and the rain, and the elements much more emphatically. That is why, of all the Feldenkrais I have done over the years, that the foot and toe lessons have been the most prominent thing for me. There is something about being in touch with the sense of place that relates to some of these internal sensations – and Feldenkrais has been a huge facilitator of integrating them more deeply. My being – in this body, in this place. That gives me internal feelings of comfort, yes, and rest, deep rest. Theme D19: Helping others with Feldenkrais practices. I share things I have learned in Feldenkrais. I often have clients do the simplest things that I know will help. I share things I have learned in Feldenkrais. I often have [my coaching] clients do the simplest things that I know will help. Everybody I have shared them with have just been astounded by how different they feel. Those are the simplest little things. So, definitely, it impacts my work for sure... just through the ability to share the simplest little things. Every partner in my life, since I discovered Feldenkrais, I have taken them to Feldenkrais too. I have shared the toe and foot movements with a few people, who have just loved that. I have shared the pressing... being on your back and pressing your heels and your pelvis and your cranium into the floor. I share anything that’s very easy for someone to do with me over the phone. I share the movement of the nose that just nodding quarter inch up and down, and with the nose and left and right turning a little... very, very, very, subtle focuses... or on their chin... So those are probably the easiest ones that I share with people over the phone. And it’s almost immediate the response, the relaxation response that happens for them. Informant E: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme E1: Something to do for yourself for dealing with what is going on with your body. Feldenkrais Method is a path for dealing with bodily challenges, which creates a sense of “I can do that” – which generates positive feelings of relief, comfort, accomplishment, hope, joy, healing, calming, and regeneration. I started doing those classes and it was so satisfying when I did it. So I kept with it and continued taking the classes as my personal resource before the surgery happened. They were a comfort to me and to sort of look into my body. ...healing and calming, and something that you’re doing for yourself – I mean that’s the main part [of my experience]. I just have a lot to say that I found it a comfort and very healing, and regenerative. I just have a lot of gratitude for the whole thing. I feel like there’s a whole

291 other path that I did not really know about, and a great addition to dealing with the stuff that’s going on with your body. So, yeah, I’m really happy to have met it. When I very first started [Feldenkrais Method], and I was having so much pain, that sometimes I was just laying on the floor imagining the movement. And that was that… now I’m making that connection – that was totally liberating. So like, “Okay, but I can think of myself doing this.” – “I mean, I can do that!” Feeling a sense of accomplishment or hope in that potential – and that you could feel some effect... that you could have effect on something by imagining the movement. It was huge attitude change: “I’m going to be doing this, it might be different, but I can do this – it is not about everything I can’t do.” So I felt like they were a few components to that [Feldenkrais class] experience: the benefits of the movement itself; the benefit of just taking the time to concentrate on that; [and] lying down. Theme E2: A sense of liberation. An empowering experience of liberation from chronic habits and tension, which is based in intrinsic experience of the body for yourself – rather than external appearance for somebody else. I was first thinking [that the sense of liberation that comes with doing Feldenkrais] is information – and my Feldenkrais practitioner has such a wealth of information about women’s health. So she has opened up like this path to say, “Here is more about your body” – like meeting your own body. Then from there it grew [in my mind/as I reflected] to, what Feldenkrais offers is this liberation – and the joy involved in that. Whether it is – the pain or the chronic habits that are causing you tension, that there is a liberation; there is a process for liberation. [Also a process] that is actually liberating to a woman because you’re not doing it for performance or competition. Like, you’re not doing it to improve your physique to be attractive to somebody else... or for your clothes to look a certain way; to please somebody else. That the experience [of doing Feldenkrais is] very intrinsic, and that’s what so empowering about it. Theme E3: Calmer and less reactive. Like a little path you walk down, going slowly inward until you’re kind of in this slow down peaceful... place. [The detailed awareness in lessons] it brought me to this awareness of my own body and this peace within my body, it was like a little path you walk down. [Until you are in] this slow down peaceful little place. Yeah, to just bring you slowly inward, inward, inward – where there is more space because you’re not thinking about all of these other things around you that are distractions or restrictions. Some of the space that that [going slower] provides, also provides a certain amount of clarity on some things. So that I’m just calmer and less

292 reactive I think. I just felt like it was really valuable, because afterwards I felt really refreshed. And slowed down, again… so that I wasn’t just like, “Let me just jump back into everything that I supposed to be worrying about.” That, you know, you’re kind of in this slow down peaceful little place. Theme E4: Relief from pain. Pain relief came from focusing on the other components of bodily experience rather than the pain part, along with being aware of and changing habits. The Feldenkrais class teacher was very probing, asking us questions all the time, and I didn’t know what the answers were. Then it grew [into] that kind of, “Oh okay, that’s what I should be looking at, or that’s what I should consider to increase my body awareness.” Instead of just focusing on the pain part, there were all these other components to it. There was a lot of relief. And then, you know, I was converted. The Feldenkrais teacher would talk us through slow movements. And I wasn’t feeling that pain – and first I didn’t realize that, because I was just in a happy state of say, moving my elbow back and forth, or something small like that. It wasn’t until with hindsight I felt like, “God I’m completely regenerated after that class!” [Feldenkrais/the classes] also gave me a coping tool to deal with the amount of pain that I had in movement at that point in time... the relief that I got in those moments – where I had that floating experience. I had been in... chronic pain for a long period of time. So even lying down on your back, it was like, “Oh, how am I going to get comfortable here… like I’m going to need 42 pillows under the knees.” And there was none of that in that class, so I was really surprised that I could reach that state, because I hadn’t felt that relief in quite a while. I had headaches that went away – because I was looking at stuff like this – [the informant arches her neck] that was a kind of neck strain. So that’s one example of a small thing that had huge benefits to changing that habit, or being aware of that habit. You know this has been I think three years since I had the total hip replacement, which is what initially I went to see my practitioner because I felt kind of grounded like a plane that can’t take off. So that transition was so powerful... and so now everything else is kind of like dessert. Theme E5: Improved sleep. Repeating the sequence of the lesson in my mind and it helped me with going to sleep – in a position that I usually don’t sleep in. [Feldenkrais lessons] also helped me because when I was having trouble going to sleep, I would get in to one position, just laying on my back, and kind of repeat the sequence of the lesson in my mind and it helped me with going to sleep – in a position that I usually don’t sleep in, which was on my back – so that was before the surgery [and it allowed me to sleep].

293 Theme E6: Empowerment for dealing with surgery. In each different situation to do with the hip replacement, Feldenkrais gave me something that I could actively participate in getting benefits for my own body. In the preparation – to understand what was going on in my body – taking away some of the fear around it, and after helping me understand where my body was then. It gave me so much patience with myself. There was all of that stuff kind of mixed into that a stew of… like, “Am I going to be able to take care of myself? Am I going to be able to walk?” So I felt like having this peaceful experience of Feldenkrais was something that ‘shored me up’, and sort of gave me the space to have some thought or reflection about it. To have some peace and confidence that also came along with it. It gives you the confidence, because it is breaking down [movement] in [to] small things that are achievable. That gives you confidence, instead of this far away goal that I’m going to have to muscle through to get there. That wasn’t a part of it. You know... the model where you complain, complain, complain, go to the doctor, people are getting shots in their hips, they’re getting pain pills – and I just thought, “I have to have a different kind of a script for myself besides that.” That was part of what Feldenkrais helped me to do was to say, “Well, I’m going to be proactive at least, or I’m going to be involved in this body, and I’m going to go and take this class.” ...the Feldenkrais classes were a preparation for me to have a hip replacement, because I had done a lot of examining all different things to do and what was going to work. In that preparation we were always looking at skeletons [in class], we were talking about the body and how it works, and it really helped me to visualize what was going on inside my body, and that the surgery was going to be viable alternative to get my mobility back. For me it was like a visualization, somehow that I knew what was going on inside of there – because the doctors didn’t even show me the x-ray. Well, even I think emotionally to prepare yourself for the surgery – it’s just [a] big unknown thing... and [ironic] I’m this pliant little person: “You need to get this done,”, “Okay I just follow directions!” You know like I needed to understand what was going on in my body, and say, “Yeah, okay, that’s what it looks like and now I understand what you’re talking about.” ...taking away some of the fear around it. I just felt like [Feldenkrais] was all part of this information gathering that [was] sort of… my process for being able to relax a little bit is to understand what’s going on. There’s also a curiosity… I’m curious what is going on in there. That preparation before the surgery I think is what gave me confidence also to say, “Yeah, I just need to do this, now, I’ve got the picture of what’s going on a little bit better, and what’s possible in the outcomes...” I just need[ed] to collect a lot of information about it before I say, “I want to do this.”

294

Before doing Feldenkrais, the confidence was not there. I was just always scared about what I wasn’t supposed to do – and then the fear of falling or reinjuring. Or trying to figure out, “What is this new body I have?” – what it can and cannot do. Not really having anybody to foster that process… The pain was not as nearly as great after the surgery as what I have been dealing with before the surgery. So that really diminished and it turned into this other project – of the pain in my head about being fearful about this new body… about, “What can do this new metal thing do inside my body?” All these other thoughts that I was having after the surgery... [that] here was anxiety around and Feldenkrais helped with that. I think I was like, bottom line, depressive after the surgery. I just wasn’t sure what was going on. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be doing by myself – and you are just kind of turned loose after this major event. After the surgery Feldenkrais was great because it was just sort of helping me understand where my body was then – because there were benefits from the surgery, but there were restrictions on what I had been able to do before. Feldenkrais helped me the most with the idea that, “Things take some time and then you are going to go slow. “There is a lot of stuff I’m not going to do, because I don’t have a confidence to do them – but also I think it is stupid to do for my body right now”. So for me Feldenkrais was this like, “Come on over here: it will make sense, you will feel better about yourself – and go slow.” So even if I didn’t know what I was doing, it gave me so much patience with myself to say, “I’m going to go slow with this because you are not going to screw yourself up by going slow.” And [with] really simple tasks and sort of saying, “Thank you. Thanks body for getting that together and sticking with me” – and it’s not lost on me. So there’s little tiny things that when I’m walking down the street, I’m just happy to be walking down the street because… I’m like, “Oh I’m really aware of what’s going on in there” – all that anatomy information and experience about [of] awareness, I’m feeling that. Theme E7: Developing body awareness. Feeling in touch with parts of my body that I hadn’t really thought about before. Waking me up to other parts of my body – and the integration that happened from that. [The classes] put me in touch with parts of my body that I hadn’t really thought about before. It was like waking me up to other parts of my body and the integration that happened from that. It is really fun. It is like a whole ‘Pandora’s Box’ of parts of your body that you have been introduced to. “You have been with me my whole life and now I’m just meeting you?!”: it’s weird, and exciting at the same time. I feel like maybe I have one fourth of my body that I know about, and there are all these other areas that am still learning about. That’s a kind of a fascinating thing to me. ...it was a slowing down

295 process where you are actually looking at yourself more carefully. I just felt greatly lifted by that whole process... Yeah, little tiny things too, which I hadn’t thought about before… and I thought I was super aware person. I have been dancing, I have been doing yoga, I have been doing all that stuff that is kind-of body related, but really had a lot of strange habits. Once that’s pointed out to you… My practitioner said, “The good part is that with this body awareness [is that] you can correct yourself.” Theme E8: Developing awareness of life habits from movement habits. Making these reflections about myself in a bigger sense. It’s like, “Geez, that’s very indicative of how I do a lot of stuff.” So that in this lesson [that Awareness Through Movement on the recording] I was just really noticing the parts where there is isolation – and how different the movement is with that isolation. When you lift your leg up without moving your pelvis it weighs a ton. As opposed to like, “Oh jeez, that’s easy [if I] use the rest of my body!” – which seems painfully obvious when you’re doing it, but that’s not how I did it initially and [the teacher on the recording] hadn’t really given that instruction yet. I just did it the hard way initially. [That’s] just kind of my motto; it’s just like, “Get it done.” So that’s the part where I’m always making these reflections about myself in a bigger sense. It’s like, ‘Geez, that’s very indicative of how I do a lot of stuff.’ Theme E9: Noticing and changing habits. I came to understand my habits – that I may have been like, bringing something along that I didn’t need to, and also about habits that, “If it’s just learned, it can be unlearned.” I understand some of those repetitive patterns or habits I have, or I’m not thinking about. Some kinds of movements in Awareness Through Movement undo that. I feel its unraveling... I came to understand that I may have been like bringing something along that I didn’t need to. [For example] one example of a small thing that had huge benefits to changing that habit, or being aware of that habit [was] asking myself, “Where is your chin in the whole scheme of things?” That one little movement was so great to me, because it changed the prescription of my eyeglasses, the way I was looking at the computer... I had headaches that went away... because I was looking at stuff like this… So once I would, sort of, correct… then it would be a trail of [questions for myself], “What’s the next step? What’s that connected to?” Each one of them led to, ‘What’s the next step there?’ [For example] getting into what the shoulders are doing – there was a small movement of pushing your elbow out and tucking your elbow in as a way to, kind

296 of, release the shoulder. I had been doing all kinds of pushing, tugging, and pulling, and tucking, and all kinds of things to get shoulder relaxation – and then there is this one little tiny thing from Feldenkrais could create such an impact on me. Because we are just learning, it’s not an exercise routine. That was part of my “deprogramming,” that I really enjoy now: “If it’s just learned, it can be unlearned.” So, that gets back to that hope part we were talking about earlier too. Like you’re just going to unlearn that. It’s not, you know, ‘naughty’ – it’s just you’re just going to unlearn it. Theme E10: Using movements to change mind–body habits. Using a small gentle exercise during the day to alter a habit that’s causing some pain or restriction – say I have got my shoulders up to my ears! That goes hand in hand with dealing with the attitude associated with the movement habit. So it is a mental benefit, but then also there is also the physical part. I don’t know how I could get one without the other. It goes hand in hand for me – about the attitude and the benefits of breaking that habit – that’s causing me some restriction or pain later on. So it is a mental benefit, but then also there is also the physical part. I don’t know how I could get one without the other. Instead of doing something sort of self-depreciating by getting so uptight about stuff that’s really out of my control… Or you are [I am] sitting in a boring meeting… Just all these kind of things that you have to do during the day that you can bring that to it, and change your attitude about things as a result. [For example] If I’m standing on a line and I’m uptight – I have got my shoulders up to my ears! [speaking ironically] “Because when I’m uptight, I just need to just pull up that for my physical wellbeing!” Now there is a whole different thing that I do right there. I think, “This is a long line, I’m going to do my shoulder thing” – a small gentle exercise for my shoulder. “Okay I’m breaking that habit…” So it goes hand in hand for me – about the attitude and the benefits of breaking that habit that’s causing me some restriction or pain later on. So it is a mental benefit, but then also there is also the physical part. I don’t know how I could get one without the other. That’s the fun part – also that’s definitely a benefit... in that I am taking in every situation wherever I am, [and] through that situation I am benefiting myself. Theme E11: Incorporating awareness and movements in daily life. I didn’t really have a whole lot of success of having a whole routine in a more formalized Feldenkrais manner, as much as the smaller things that I would do – noticing, making observations, and exploring small movements. Those sorts of things are fun to do for me as I’m just going through the day.

297 I have a good little repertoire of little tiny things to do. Because I drive around [a lot], there are also all kinds of funny little things that I do also in the car. If I’m in a meeting, I try to let go of the edge of my chair and do my little movements. I didn’t really have a whole lot of success of having a whole routine in a more formalized Feldenkrais manner, as much as the smaller things that I would do. [For example] Like waiting outside in the hallway for a class to come in and sort of putting your arm out in certain way and paying attention to how that goes. Or, how I stand on my foot – the bones of my feet and where they are is another thing that I’m incorporating and focus my mind on. To be thinking about that ...how I’m meeting the earth, you know, “Are you pounding? Are you gently touching down?” So there’s been a whole lot of things about how I touched down... how many toes are touching, walking with only my big toe down... Those sorts of things are fun for me to do as I’m just going through the day. Theme E12: Feldenkrais is noncompetitive. It is a huge relief that Feldenkrais is not competitive: not striving for any perfection or outlandish movement. In Feldenkrais you are not striving for any perfection or outlandish movement that no one else can do. It is not competitive, and it [that] is good for your body. All those other things – yoga in the United States, and dance – where I was always competing with other people, are not good for your body when you [are striving to] achieve the movement or position. I think if you have that in that [focus on achievement in the] environment [then] that’s the name of the game. So I really appreciate that there is none of that in Feldenkrais. It is a huge relief! Theme E13: Settling and finding comfort. The experience of settling in to meditation by starting with the Feldenkrais. Meditation for me was something I liked to do, but I’m a little antsy in my body – I’m very, like, wriggly. So if I couldn’t do yoga, if I couldn’t do these other things that kind of exhausted me, I couldn’t meditate. I just would start meditation and couldn’t settle into it – but I could settle in to it by starting with the Feldenkrais. Before I would just sit there and be uncomfortable: where I was focusing on, “This is really uncomfortable,” and, “How am I going to get comfortable?” – because that’s all I was thinking about. So that [doing Feldenkrais] sort of freed me up: “Okay now I know how to get comfortable in my own body right now – regardless of what’s going on with it.” So that just allowed me to clear my head and get to the meditation. Theme E14: Connection and integration between body parts. An experience of the connection between all of the body parts – and the integration that happened from that.

298 [One aspect of Feldenkrais] is the connection between all of the body parts. In contrast to perhaps my other experiences in dance or yoga... Like you concentrate on a certain part of your body in a movement for dance, without really getting into the connection between all the other body parts. It was like waking me up to other parts of my body and the integration that happened from that. Theme E15: Imagined movement and a sense of possibility. Being able to make imagined movements allows a feeling of freedom from a sense of not being able to do things. Being able to make imagined movements allows me feel free from a sense of not being able to do things – this is also associated with the sense of liberation. The whole concept is so wonderful because, if you are in a position where your body can’t do something... then you think you are kind of doomed. I think a lot of people have chronic pain... there’s this list of stuff they can’t do, and that’s what they sit with. I had experienced that before but the whole idea of like, ‘I’m going to close my eyes and I’m going to have this experience, I’ll be doing whatever that it is. That’s really amazing to me because it offers you another way to get into it, instead of ‘You just can’t do this’. So, it’s just another opportunity in Feldenkrais to take part... Theme E16: Self-image: Disability and identity crisis. Having a disability was an identity crisis. So doing Feldenkrais was a huge attitude change. It was important to me, in my self-image, to be able to say to myself, “There’s something else that you can be doing.” When I had this [the] disability – that was like an identity crisis in some ways: ‘Oh my God, I can’t do what I did for years.’ It was important to me, in my self-image, to be able to say to myself, ‘There’s something else that you can be doing that’s just as wonderful for you. Instead of having this mourning process, it was like, “Look, over here. There are things that you could be doing for yourself that were really satisfying.” That was really important to me – and the joy that I felt in my body. It was a big deal to me, because I thought that was a letting go process of that instead of always [thinking] like, “That’s going to be my identity – is the injury.” [My identity] in the injury, instead of just saying [to myself], “That’s a pattern from the injury and now you don’t have that, or now I am correcting that, so now I can work out [how] to undo that pattern and let that go.” Theme E17: Clarifying perceptions and changing attitudes to self. Learning to be more generous with myself through making simple observations. Not to look my body in a not emotional or territorial way like, ‘My body, my body!’ – but just as a spectator. To be able to

299 look... without any conclusions or judgment... not trying to regain something you were... but to have goals based on‘right now’, “What is achievable? What’s beneficial?” [Feldenkrais] changed my kind of being stingy about everything, to be more generous with myself and what my process was, because I could see that these very small things were very attainable – and the payoff was greater. It was a slowing down process where you are actually looking at yourself more carefully. I just felt greatly lifted by that whole process and I felt like, “Oh, I could do this kind of stuff, and now, if I don’t know how to do it, I know where to go and they will help me to get there.” Being realistic about what the goals are here. Where you as the client or student is ‘right now’ is really important. I think that’s the other thing that the individual classes have clarified for me, is that you are not trying to regain something you were... but where I am ‘right now’: ‘What is achievable?’ ‘What’s beneficial?’ [in Feldenkrais lessons] ...you’re not making any of those judgments: “This isn’t for anything, there is no perfect form for this particular...” You know, “Just let all of that kind of… go.” I think that was definitely part of the freeing experience, like now you’re just making simple observations, it’s just sort of collecting data, it’s not saying, “This is too this or that.” It’s just a lot easier [to do that] now. Oh my God I used to wear myself out thinking of all of the stuff that doesn’t really matter. How tainted the whole thing is. I mean it’s comical to me when I look back and I say, “Gosh, I wasn’t any more accurate [in my self-perceptions] – because of all that judgment [was] affecting my accuracy.” [In classes] I could look at that [my body] maybe in a not emotional or territorial way like, “My body, my body!” – but just as a spectator to be able to, kind of, look at it without any conclusions or judgment – and from the outside just take a peek at what’s going on. It was better after Feldenkrais [sessions or lessons], so I would walk out of the door and I would be like, “Hey this is pretty good.” Instead of walking out of the door and being like, “Jeez I sucked today, and couldn’t keep up with the group…” Like that competition in me. So opening up these little chinks in yourself: “Why I’m I feeling like this? I need to stop that. That that is not doing any good for me.” Theme E18: Curiosity and collaboration. I am curious about what is happening and why. With the Feldenkrais practitioner, I was able to explore what I was doing, notice things and bring... my own understandings into the process, [which] gave me things I could do and explore for myself. Working with an individual Feldenkrais practitioner was different from working with conventional physical therapy: in physical therapy there was an expert model, based on a

300 script, with no place for feedback or engagement. “I am curious about what is happening and why,” and with the Feldenkrais practitioner I was able to explore what I was doing, notice things and bring them and my own understandings into the process, [which] gave me things I could do and explore for myself. It gave me seeds of things to explore. In classes the teacher acts as a guide who is an expert in the process to ‘wonderful thoughtful experience’ of ‘getting you into your body.’ I did the traditional physical therapy and I thought, “This is not really good for me.” I mean, it was very temporary, it was extreme, and it was from the PT’s viewpoint that they were focusing on, but not… Like it wasn’t that I participated in that process with any of my ideas or feedback. So that’s when I went to the individual Feldenkrais sessions and that I had that opportunity to actively participate, and I just felt that it changed my recovery completely. [My Practitioner] would prompt me about the specific area to get feedback on it. So it was collaborative and it was growing, because I didn’t have all the information that she had. She could take one little thing, and could grow that for me and I could get up the next rung of the ladder, and then say, ‘Okay now this is happening’. It was very much all the building blocks were there, and there was a progress. I would go home during the week and I would notice little things that I was unsure about. I would remember them, and bring them back to the session and then we would work on that particular thing. So I just felt my recovery was greatly improved because of the Feldenkrais process compared to the PT process from the hospital. Theme E19: Rehearsing movements with practitioner. Analyzing and practicing movements for the work that I do, such as lifting. The work that I do is very physical, there’s lots of loading stuff, and so my Practitioner worked with me on that. You know she’ll fill up boxes with things: “How are you going to pick this up? How are you going to approach this? How are you going to move this from here to there?” Analyzing the movement – and practicing that lifting thing. That’s helped too. Theme E20: Focusing on the body in a caring way. Feldenkrais offers a way to just check in on yourself: in such a caring way. It was a whole true altered state.... That concentration on a small movement – you really can’t think about a whole lot of other things. Resting; not in a way that I was checked out but resting, and... aware of the things that my body was doing – on this little journey where I can just really focus on my body. [Feldenkrais offers] a way to just check in on yourself: in such a caring way. That was a whole true altered state for me. It was that I was not having concerns about anything else because of that concentration for that small movement – you really can’t think about a

301 whole lot of other things. So that was kind of the relief – and whatever the actual benefit of the movement is, [th]is having its effect [too]. I was resting; not in a way that I was checked out but resting, and I was really aware of the things that my body was doing. Because it might just be ‘flat line’ doing it on my own, but this person is telling me little things to focus on, and my response is, “Like hey, that’s really cool.” If you could sell that state you could be making a lot of money: “This is so good, this is just so good, when I’m lying here it is just so great.” I just thought it was the guidance of somebody else is really a relief that you are not in your own head. I am just not doing this by yourself but somebody else is there that knows a lot more than I do, and is taking me on this little journey where I can just really focus on my body. Theme E21: Sense of spaciousness. Space – not just in my body, but it was almost like I was free floating: not feeling tethered to the body... just in a peaceful state in the middle of your body but it’s not contained at that point. When you are feeling the pain, you are confined by it – whereas, when that pain goes away and you are in a relaxed state, there is so much more space. The space in my body – it wasn’t just in my body but it was almost like I was free floating. So it wasn’t confined to my body, it was just you are a part of this spaciousness where I wasn’t feeling the pain. That state was just... you’re very much conscious, but you’re super relaxed and not feeling tethered to the body, or not feeling like, “Oh my ankle hurts” or any of that stuff, you’re just in a peaceful state in the middle of your body but it’s not contained at that point... I think is what happened because, when you are feeling the pain, you are confined by it. Whereas, when that goes away and you are in a relaxed state, there is so much more space. You have space to look at other things – or recharge your self. I felt that that was important. It didn’t happen like immediately, the teacher is talking through this process, and first they started with more physical movements and then they got smaller detailed movements… So that I was kind of lead to this place of this internal area that I was paying attention to, like, “Where your eyelids meet” and [other] small little details… “Where do you think your hair is growing above your ear.” Those kinds of little things... Theme E22: Feeling-and-seeing into the body. If I can’t imagine a movement in a class... I’ve approached [that] from a couple of different angles. One is that I’m inside of central part of my body and I’m concentrating on the limbs – trying to imagine the movement of this arm or leg. And the other way is to imagine it from up above – I’m looking down at my body... and almost puppeteering it... So there’s a visual imagining and a felt imagining.

302 If I can’t imagine the move properly, I think I’ve approached [that] from a couple of different angles trying to get there. One is that I’m inside of central part of my body and I’m concentrating on the limbs. I am inside, my eyes are closed, and I’m trying to imagine the movement of this arm or leg. When that wasn’t working so hot, that maybe I’ll go up and look down on myself, and see what that body looks like and imagine it from that way... to imagine it from up above – I’m looking down at my body and you know, almost puppeteering it... When I’m looking down on myself I am also sensing myself physically. I don’t really have a system to figure it out. I’m just trying to... in relation to doing it, depending upon how difficult the movement was for me to imagine. Just as a starting point to say [to myself], “If you can get the hang in this movement from some angle, then you can imagine it and incorporate it into your what you can do easily.” So there’s a visual imagining and a felt imagining. I think that [this experience] pops up in conjunction with being in that relaxed state because I’m changing my perspective. Theme E23: Having choices, and the accessibility of Feldenkrais that results from that. Because the teacher gives alternatives to whatever movements one is supposed to be doing... classes had such a big window of what one could do – there were lots of adaptations made. There were people of all different levels of mobility in the class [and] there was lots of room for everybody to succeed. [Feldenkrais] was very accessible. Even while I was still in pain, there was a lot of accessible things that I could do in Feldenkrais – and overall there wasn’t a lot accessible to me at that point in time. It is also the ‘opt outs’ that they give you, you know [like]: “If this isn’t working for you try this” – because there were also alternatives to whatever was going on. What we were supposed to be doing in classes had such a big window to it – that your possibility for the success was pretty great, as opposed to like a little narrow thing you were supposed to accomplish. So I felt like there were lots of adaptations made. There were people of all different levels of mobility in the class [and] there was lots of room for everybody to succeed. In dance it is very exclusive, and in a lot of yoga it is very exclusive. That’s the exact opposite of Feldenkrais – [which] is completely accessible regardless of what your stature is, and in your mobility… To me that was really welcoming – compared to other approaches, where it is like, “You are no longer perfect – you can’t be here anymore. You can’t do that stuff you used to do…” It is a whole other case with Feldenkrias, and I just thought, ‘This is very natural and friendly and that incorporates you being able to do this on your own. You carry that with you.

303 Theme E24: Not the usual strategies: slow, small, not pushing or overdoing. In Feldenkrais lessons one moves slow and its small. I was overdoing it; I was pushing into something that wasn’t really natural to my body, or was not really attainable. You could do a small movement and feel relieved. Doing it a little bit... thoughtfully – how powerful that can be. Part of that slowing is being conscious or conscientious to your body. Just that concept [of going slow], in and of itself, is so big for me, because it is the opposite of how I had grown up in competitive sports. Before I had all the stuff with the hip thing, I was a ‘Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah’ person – kind of hyper. Anyways, so now I still have those inclinations. But [now] when I’m watching some other people just zipping around and I think, “I used to just like jump right in the river and go with them...” That experience of classes too, that not everything has to be fast and big. That was my introduction really to say, “Wow this is really amazing because you could do a small movement and feel relieved.” Or you could do a small thing – like tucking your chin, and that will affect every other part of your body... Doing it a little bit, that’s really great – and a little bit thoughtfully, how powerful that can be. [Feldenkrais] it’s very different from any movement [practice] I’ve ever done before, because I’m not trying to overstretch myself. I’m not trying to have big, bold movements. All that stuff [about going small] was just a total brain twister to me... Now I say to myself, “No, just a little bit. Like what is this little bit?” I can, I can [do a little bit now], but I still really am getting kick out of that, because my first inclination is like to just give a big ol’ stretch somewhere. I mean there are all kinds of sayings in the gym about ‘burn’ and whatever… So yeah, doing it a little bit, that’s really great – and a little bit thoughtfully, how powerful that can be. The Feldenkrais teacher said like, “Okay you don’t need to do those because big movements like you were on the stage, this is another thing that you are training to do.” So that slowing down increased my awareness and increased the benefit of the movement – because I was overdoing it; I was pushing into something that wasn’t really natural to my body, or was not really attainable. [I] say to myself, “I have never had a bad feeling from Feldenkrais. I have never overdone that.” Instead of saying, “I’m going to do a bunch of reps; I’m going to build muscle, and...”, [speaking ironically] “Oh my God that does feel good?” What that chain of thinking does to your body! For example, doing all sorts of different kinds of trainings around dancing – and Feldenkrais is the exact opposite: that you are going to go very slow and it doesn’t take a grandiose movement to have an effect on your body. That was totally foreign to me. I overdid every single thing that [the teacher] ever asked me to do in Feldenkrais classes initially... The idea of muscling through as a coping strategy…. for a variety of reasons – I mean for survival reasons or to try and prove something to somebody else, [or] sort of prove something to yourself in your capabilities. I think there’s also the whole age element in

304 there of coming to terms of what your body will do at this point and whether you’re just trying to push yourself or something you used to be able to do – and for what purpose? That’s definitely part of that slowing, being conscious or conscientious to your body. Informant F: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme F1: Experiencing better movement and improved function. ...anything where there’s movement involved... I just function more efficiently, I move better. I’ve been into exercise all my life: playing baseball and basketball and then... see I’m 84. When I was 50, I was having major back problems and foot problems because of not doing any stretching and of doing anything about the exercises… really stressful for the knee and for the back. I went to a foot doctor who said, “Oh, you need to have a back operation.” So then I went to my regular doctor, and he sent me to a sports orthopedist. [He] ...told me I had totally unbalanced my body, and I needed to do weights, and I needed to do stretching and do yoga. And so I began doing that... and then things improved. And I began even being able to continue to run and continue to play tennis. Then I got into doing some Hatha Yoga too at that time. [In the 1980s] I became the editor of [a] magazine... which looked at mind, body and spirit... and checked out a variety of different modalities for healing in and of course one was Feldenkrais. So I looked around to find a Feldenkrais practitioner and found my first Feldenkrais teacher. And so I did a number of sessions with her, they were a group sessions with her – and I still do a couple of the movements that I learned from her that in that period. But one thing I did notice, as soon as I did a Feldenkrais lesson: I was getting balls on the tennis court that I wasn’t getting at before. That my movement was more ‘functional’, that I was... I said, “Wow, that’s interesting, you know, because after Feldenkrais session, I was hitting balls I wasn’t hittin’ before.” I have back issues and she’s worked on and helped me with. I’ve got the knee issues. I have shoulder issues because I play tennis, still do and… So I put my body through a lot of stress. If you play tennis three days a week – singles... I don’t run real well, but I can move around on a tennis court well enough to do it, because this knee isn’t nearly as bad [shows Researcher his other knee]. But [my practitioner] worked on it because it was really bothering me… my hip and my knee and my ankle… on Monday – and Tuesday morning I played a lot better tennis. I was more mobile. I’m always looking forward to going to my Feldenkrais practitioner once some months’ time is up. Because I know I always come out feeling better. Just put it that way. And I am always kind of feeling, “Wow this is working a little better.” Now, see, the phenomena that aging is that, for me, it’s more difficult to walk distances. Strangely enough I can play tennis, but one of the things we do every two games we sit for about five minutes… or three or four minutes. If I was just standing and hitting for an hour, I don’t think it would work. Now I’ve gone on some walks with my wife up in the mountains... did an hour and a half walk last in the summer, and I made it, but I used to

305 be able to do two and a half hour walks. And my body just doesn’t take that any longer... especially the knee. Oh, I’ve learned to do [listen to my body’s needs]. Absolutely… Theme F2: Moving more fluidly. Feldenkrais for me is about making my body move more fluidly. Feldenkrais for me is about making my body move more fluidly. [After individual sessions I] move more easily, more fluidly. It’s a subtle feeling, hard to describe, it’s just that you notice it. It’s a whole body thing. Not a metal thing, as far as I can tell. I’m sometimes ‘out of whack’. I’m not moving quite as fluidly as have been, and there’s something going on in my back. She’s usually working on my back to straighten it, it make it function more efficiently. Feldenkrais for me is about making my body move more fluidly. That would be the bottom-line. Theme F3: Enables staying active and being more skillful. I played better tennis. That’s a major one….when I get the balls I wasn’t getting to before…that’s big. See the bottom-line is: tennis. Whatever gets me on the tennis court and enables me to play for an hour and a half singles... that’s what I’m up for. I liked my first Feldenkrais teacher and did the movements with her, and like I said my impression was that I played better tennis. That’s a major one. When my body gets… when I get the balls I wasn’t getting to before… that’s big. If it does that well... keep doing that. I did a couple of years [of Awareness Through Movement classes] with [a particular practitioner] on Tuesday mornings, and I’d go out and play tennis afterwards. I notice on the…my body worked better after an hour of [the] group exercises that he did with us... he would do various different movements. Well, I could play tennis much better. It felt better on the tennis court…because usually I do that [class], and then go and play tennis. [Before my last individual session with my practitioner] My knee was giving me more trouble. And so she spent most of the session working on this part of the joint, here and knee. [Informant points to an area above the knee and to the kneecap.] And also the ankle. So she spent most of the session on that. And after the session is over you are not... doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to have a different experience of walking right away. But I was planning [to play] the next day, and I was not sure I was going to be able to play because of the way my knee has been feeling. And I got up in the morning and I was fine to play the ball. So is it a cause and an effect? I don’t know, could be. Well, I just worked better; it didn’t hurt – as much, because it always hurts. Theme F4: A sense of an altered state from doing something really well. Doing something really well... you have this sense of awe and sense of wonder... joyful.

306 You know, I get in an altered state hittin’ a great shot in tennis... I mean I get in an ecstatic state after a great shot in tennis. That’s an altered state! I’ve been into sports since I was a young kid, and played baseball, played basketball, and have played tennis since I was in high school as well and in college. ...and here’s the thing that I find in sports, and that is that, there’s an opportunity when you’re playing to have these, kind of, wonderful, joyful, mystical experiences that comes from hitting your great shot, from playing particularly well. You don’t have to win, but doing something really well... you have this sense of awe and sense of wonder. ...and I am doing it myself... and so it’s, kind of, like a drug. I do it every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and I get my hit. I just watched Roger Federer played today... and the guy is totally amazing. And so, watching tennis, I also get this uplift feeling of delight and joy in seeing something done really well. And he was playing phenomenally today and it’s a real pleasure to watch that. So, I get the same, kind of, pleasure on seeing sports played really well—like, The Warriors are playing this year. Theme F5: Dealing with being ‘out of whack’ and experiencing alignment. I seem to function physically more in alignment after I’ve had... Feldenkrais. I’m always looking forward to going my Feldenkrais practitioner every month, because I’m sometimes ‘out of whack’. I’m not moving quite as fluidly as have been, and there’s something going on in my back. My back will be hurting me, or my shoulder will be hurting me. My knee is always hurting me, because my knee is not great shape... [Those parts will be] more, either stiff or [in] pain. Alignment is what it seems to me. In other words, I seem to function physically more in alignment after I’ve had the Feldenkrais, especially with my practitioner. Yeah I move more efficiently, walk better, back doesn’t hurt, doesn’t give much as much trouble, I can move better. [The sense of alignment is] whole body – bones, muscles, joints. I’m going to my Feldenkrais practitioner all these years… What she does is realigns me. That’s what we are talking about, is alignment. And so she’ll work on my back, she’ll work on my hip, she will work on various parts of my body. And so I’ll say, “So what’s happening?” And she’ll say, “I’ve lined you up...” And then I move better. So I credit it [for me] being able to play the tennis this much partly to Feldenkrais. I’m not sure I would if I didn’t have this continuing opportunity to get lined up. Theme F6: Experiencing less pain after Feldenkrais sessions. My practitoner will work on my back and I definitely have less pain, after finishing a session. [After sessions] I can even walk without I’m noticing it [the knee pain]. It’s really pretty well... The arthritis is really pretty advanced. [Feldenkrais sessions do] not necessarily [take away the pain, but] sometimes, yeah, sure. A number of occasions [I have] come in

307 [to an individual session] with my back not feeling right. [My practitioner] will work on my back and I definitely have less pain, after finishing a session. Boy, one time I had a major problem with this left shoulder – it was a kind of psychological thing, I think. Anyway I had to come in and see her on a Saturday afternoon... I was in severe pain in this shoulder. And she jumped me back into the shape. I don’t know what she did but there is magic in Feldenkrais, you know... [There was a] group that I moved out of that I had been in for about 15 years…and I was it very painful psychologically. And the shoulder just acted up. It just went crazy and I wasn’t sure what was going on. Also I called my Feldenkrais practitioner on Saturday, and said, “This arm is killing me.” She said, “Well, come right in.” Saturday afternoon she goes down and she worked on it for an hour I was feeling better. Yeah, lot of less pain. She was a magician. She fixed it. Well, I’m not sure what it did, because with Feldenkrais never quite sure what’s… what actually is happening. I don’t know what she did, but there is magic in Feldenkrais, you know... [But] It’s real – based on results. I don’t think [Feldenkrais has an impact or shows up] psychologically; I wouldn’t say is any psychological effect. I know I heard that supposedly it has an impact that’s what I couldn’t identify... So, anyway, I have back issues and she’s worked on and helped me with. I’ve got the knee issues. I have shoulder issues because I play tennis, still do and… So I put my body through a lot of stress. The fact that I play tennis three days a week – at age 84, I mean something is happening right in my body. So, it’s a way in which my body functions better as a result of the practice [of getting Feldenkrais sessions]. Functional Integration isn’t that the name? If you wanted a bottom-line that, that would be what it is. Just movement in general... climbing stairs, walking, doing an ExerBike, anything where there’s movement involved... I just function more efficiently, I move better. A number of occasions come in with my back not feeling right. She will work on my back and I definitely have less pain, after finishing a session. I told you the situations that will come in which I have a crisis and then my practitioner works on it. Not very often… If I know something that is really going wrong... and that has happened a few times with my back. Not recently – my back has functioned better doing this kind of stuff [the new exercise regime from the sports Physical Therapist]. I’ve been surprise at less back issues with working with those. But at times I have call her and say, Look my back is really bugging me.’ So she will fit me in. And it helps. [After doing the recorded Feldenkrais lesson, there was] not really [anything I noticed], not when I walked around. Nothing new … nothing unusual. I didn’t notice I walked any better. Although, I didn’t have any pain in my knee – I noticed that. [Breathing]...was easy. I have had my friends go there [to Feldenkrais sessions] and come back… and ‘Oh, it didn’t work’, because it didn’t give them the immediate fix they were looking for. A

308 couple of friends… [I tell them] Try it. But it’s so subtle. I just tell them, “It’s worked for me… is helping me with these various issues...” Theme F7. Experiencing relaxation. I noticed that I was heavy. I was kind of relaxed... [After doing the recorded Feldenkrais lesson] I noticed that I was heavy. I was kind of relaxed and so I’d rather have just gone and gone back to sleep. It put me in a very relaxed state I went to sleep once during it… It was heavy. And a little tired. Well, I just said, if I’m not well relaxed I’m tense, irritated, I’m annoyed, I’m… You know.... tension in the body. There wasn’t any of that. I could’ve gone right to sleep after that lesson, again.  Theme F8: A sense of peacefulness. ...nothing going through my mind that’s irritating me, nothing that I’m worried about or fearful of... [After doing the recorded Feldenkrais lesson] I wrote, “relaxed, heavy, sleepy, peaceful” [on the cards]. Peaceful? Well, nothing going through my mind that’s irritating me, nothing that I’m worried about or fearful of or that… nothing that, “Oh well, I’ve got to go do this now or tomorrow.” So I wasn’t in the planning mode, lets put it that way. It’s just [my usual] experience in [my] daily life – I have a mind that’s very active and continually going, and the problem is keeping it out of going into the negative side, instead of going to the positive side or the neutral place. [So at the end of the lesson then, my mind] [It] was more peaceful.  No, [reduced irritability didn’t that happen with classes], it happens with [individual session with] my practitioner, you know, when I find that I am done [with a session] with my practitioner I’m, kind of, in an altered state and I had to, kind of, get back to normal reality. It takes a while. [I walk] a little bit so I feel ready to drive. You know, I get in an altered state hittin’ a great shot in tennis... I mean I get in an ecstatic state after a great shot in tennis. That’s an altered state! When you meditate… when I meditate I get an altered state as well. But I wouldn’t say after a Feldenkrais session… Sometimes I go to sleep. I’m so relaxed and say when I wake up, “Has it been half an hour; has it been 45 minutes? What’s going on?”  Theme F9: Paying attention to the body in lesson. I was just focusing on the body. [In the recorded lesson] I was pretty much paying attention to my… the movements. I was paying attention. I was in the moment, I wasn’t fantasizing about anything. I wasn’t daydreaming. I was just focusing on the body. Theme F10: Comfortable movements and not straining in lesson. Well, it was gentle. The movements felt good, it wasn’t straining.

309 [The recorded lesson] Well. I liked it. It’s good. Well, it was gentle. The movements felt good, it wasn’t straining. It was familiar because I had done them before. And I’ve done these movements with my knees and with the … so it wasn’t … there was not straining. I was hoping that my back would feel better after I got up, but it didn’t. Theme F11: The importance of the practitioner’s touch in Functional Integration. They always feel good. So it’s human touch. Individual sessions feel so good. My Feldenkrais practitioner is working on parts of my body, it’s not like a massage, but you know… she’s manipulating parts of my back and parts of my shoulders. They always feel good. So it’s human touch. Well, one of the major differences is that individual sessions feel so good. While you are doing [the movements] yourself on the floor and there is no human contact. Theme: F12: Experience of Feldenkrais practitioner as healer. My practitioner has a healing, kind of, gift in a certain sense. With my Feldenkrais practitioner I know exactly what I’m going to get, and I know it’s going to feel good, and I’ll come away happy. I also think that my Feldenkrais practitioner has a healing… She’s kind of a healer herself. So I think there is something in addition to the Feldenkrais, just out of the fact that she has a healing, kind of, gift in a certain sense. That may be in addition to Feldenkrais… I don’t know. So I always look forward to the session because I feel so good in the session. It’s not like and doing chiropractic, you are going... all through the session you were wish it was over with. It is not like a massage, but it has some of the same effect as a massage... [and] there is something more. I’ve been very careful about who I go to for a massage. If I am with somebody I don’t know I give him strict instructions, which they sometimes don’t follow… because they have their own way of doing things. With my Feldenkrais practitioner I know exactly what I’m going to get, and I know it’s going to feel good, and I’ll come away happy. Theme F13: Doing a daily maintenance program, which includes Feldenkrais. I do a Feldenkrais exercise every morning when I get up. And that releases my back. I do an exercise on the floor for my back, it’s a Feldenkrais exercise it that my Feldenkrais practitioner gave me, that I do every morning when I get up. And that releases my back. ...my back is always a little… ‘talking to me’ in the morning, and so it takes me a while to work it out. I do a warm up in the morning. It starts with Tai Chi. I do five minutes of Tai Chi. The first thing I do in the morning is this series of Tai Chi movements, and they are the breathing exercises and they get the body moving. Then I do some Hatha Yoga. But then I work this [Feldenkrais movement] in with the Hatha Yoga. One [series

310 of movements] that my first Feldenkrais teacher taught me, that I still use... and so it loosens up my back. See, I’m an experimenter. I experiment with a lot of different things. Like went to Esalen and learnt how to do Tai Chi practice. So I spend…. the first thing I do in the morning is this series of Tai Chi movements, and they are the breathing exercises and they get the body moving… And so yeah, I’ve gone to chiropractors too, but not since I found my Feldenkrais practitioner. Chiropractic is too hard. It’s too cracking and just... too forceful. I still go to the gym and do an Exerbike for an extra half hour four days a week. So I really am doing two hours of exercise six days a week. I’ve done that for forty years – since I was 38 or so. And so I feel like Feldenkrais is a part of this. Feldenkrais for me is about making my body move more fluidly. That would be the bottom-line. [Tai Chi and yoga...] Well, yeah they are all part of the same thing. It’s a combination. And so if I say oh, 50% here, 20% there… you just can’t do that. Theme F14: A self-care practice – using Feldenkrais to deal with back pain episodes. If my back is trying to bug me... I will get on the floor and do those movements – and I feel better. [Earlier in my work with Feldenkrais, my practitioner gave me some recordings] For my back; for my back basically. They worked, and I used to use them when my back was giving me trouble during the day. Often [now, there] are times that my back is really hurting me, I will get on the floor and do those exercises that I’ve told you [about]. I will very often do that. If my back is startin’ to hurt me in any way, I will get on the floor and do those movements – and I feel better. If my back is trying to bug me, I’ll do that. Doesn’t take long, five to seven minutes. ...the movement my Feldenkrais practitioner gave me really does help. If I start having some back pain – there’s an exercise that my practitioner gave me, of using the knees and using the knees moving up and down, and sideways, I should get on the floor and do those, and my back feels better. I can be just doing too much work in the kitchen or something like that, I start [to] notice my back is bugging me. I can finish the game at tennis and notice my back is bugging me a little bit, that, kind of, thing. I’ll show you the movement my Feldenkrais practitioner gave me really does help. [If] I do it. [Lying on you back, knees bent, feet standing on floor – tilting both legs.] Maybe do a couple here… like this. I’ll tell you when I really noticing this thing is when I start doing this…[One leg long, the other leg with knee bent and foot standing – lifting the hip of the leg that is standing]. I do the same thing here…[the legs reversed]. That’s when I notice the back starts feeling better.…Then I’ll do some more of these. [My back] – it just feels better. I went there this morning and I came back, and my back was hurting me

311 and it hasn’t… and I asked. ‘What’s going on?’ So anyway so it has been lower back right here. Now this feels good just doing that... [lifting one hip a small amount with one leg for a number of repetitions.] It will help. Informant G: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme G1: Feldenkrais helps me to come back to myself. Feldenkrais helps me to come back to myself: It is my backbone; my place to go; it as a cumulative agent for change. Just the movement and the bringing of awareness brings... something... different. Feldenkrais is my backbone, it’s my place to go. I may not do it for a while but then at some point... [I] just that I know it works, the teachers are really skilled... and it helps me to come back to myself. I continue to come to Feldenkrais sessions and classes because I like it, and I really do have faith in it as a cumulative agent for change. Awareness is really important in this. Having had that intense experience with [my practitioner] gave me deep respect for the power of Feldenkrais. I have a sense that things are changing even when they don’t feel like they are changing. Just the movement and the bringing of awareness brings... something... different. And most of the time I’m not aware of what it is. I just have confidence. I have faith of that it is so... Just the movement of it, something happens. Something else that has happened – it’s so important to me, I have a lover now, and I haven’t had anyone in my life for a while. There’s just, um…a space of energy that is so open and tender, it’s just – and it's like everything else plays in with that and it reinforces each other, its lovely…a very gentle good soul. It’s very wonderful; believe me. At almost 77 that’s a quite amazing. Theme G2: Confidence in body and possibility of change. Feldenkrais gives me some confidence with my body, that there are ways to move my body that I can change and that that can make a difference. There is just more and more confidence that there is [are] ways to move my body that I can change and that that can make a difference. I’ve learnt that what seems to be impossible at first kind of opens up. So it can change. So that gives me some confidence with my body, then I don’t get hysterical about getting old, and not being able to do things. [For example] I keep wanting to talk about putting my leg over….[lying on the back crossing one leg over the other] where you do one side, and then you do the other side, and you are supposed to notice how are they different, or how are they the same, and how are your legs different after you have finished. I mean, when you put your knees together

312 and then you let them go one side and let them go the other side, and then you take your head and you do it the other way. And I know that [is] training the body-mind... and I love that. I have the sense... [from] when I first started [with Feldenkrais] – if you put your knees up and then you put them one way and then you put them the other way and your head [goes opposite]… that relaxes something. So I got that. Now, it’s much more complicated than that. How can I put the words to it…? I can put the foot in different places and it makes the difference – and also I’ve learnt that what seems to be impossible at first kind of opens up. Theme G3: The principles as practiced in Feldenkrais make it easier to live. Feldenkrais makes it easier to live a life: not stressing; not pushing; patience; opening, awareness is so key, and it shouldn’t hurt. I don’t know... whether this was from the Buddhism or from the Feldenkrais, but patience is certainly one thing that find I more of. Not pushing the limits for sure. I mean, Feldenkrais has so many principles that are so clear. It makes it easier... to live a life. There are certain precepts…[such as] don’t push yourself because the opening doesn’t happen from a pushing. The opening happens from the opening. Not pushing the limits for sure. We don’t have to go long, push to the limits, because it’s actually a little bit better if you don’t push to the limits. Slow and small movements were just as powerful… and not stressing, not pushing. Be kind to my body. It is just [that] awareness is so key, and it shouldn’t hurt. Reading the Doidge71 chapters were very instrumental also in my awareness of what was happening and so some of his principles, which my long-term practitioner would mention, or my more recent practitioner would mention... But if I didn’t realize until I saw what his principles were, that they were stressing these things. Theme G4: Kindness toward the body. The behavior of the teacher and the atmospherics in Feldenkrais sessions encourage being kind to your body. [Feldenkrais affected my psychotherapy practice] a little bit. At that point I was moving more towards retiring. I think that Tibetan Buddhism more affected [my psychotherapy] – just the awareness... and the love and compassion. In Buddhism it’s very explicit. [In Feldenkrais this is not] particularly [explicit], but it certainly there in the teacher and the atmospheric, yeah... Somehow: how kind you are to your body. I do have more compassion. And it’s nice. Just that something that feels like this [makes a gesture of placing one hand at center of chest].

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A little before these interviews, a new volume on neuroplasticity from author and doctor of medicine, Norman Doidge (2015) was published. It contained several chapters on Feldenkrais Method.

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Theme G5: Habitual patterns shift: something shifts that is in your being. Habitual patterns are worked on without even knowing they are habitual patterns, you just change the way you move and then you experience something different. And something shifts that’s in your being. It’s as if the habitual patterns are worked on without even knowing they are habitual patterns in Feldenkrais, and just... you just change the way you move and then you experience something different, “Oh.” One of the things that really is true in Tibetan Buddhism and Feldenkrais, is that it takes you beyond words. And something shifts that’s in your being. It just does. Describe it? ‘Kinda.’ It’s just like there’s something there, but I can’t quite get there... and that’s what’s is so challenging and wonderful in these disciplines, is that these disciplines allow you to go to that deep place. And you can’t put words to it but you know when it is happening or it’s not! And since you are searcher, you want to go there. And your habitual way doesn’t [take you there]! [ironic:] “Uh ah, I’m just going to go to sleep!” Theme G6: Not going away, learning to be present, going with the circumstances. Not liking something was not the answer it was the clue to letting go and just trusting what was inside of me. It’s really affected my life a lot, that tendency to leave rather than to stay with what’s going on. I just disassociated, like, before. Well, obviously I fall asleep. Or I lose consciousness. I may not... I do fall asleep sometimes, but other times I just lose awareness. And there is a resistance... in me. And it’s part of it, definitely... ‘ugh.’ Well, part of the – it feels like ‘baby.’ I mean, it feels like early stuff and there’s just... “No… I’m not going there!” [Feldenkrais helps with this] a little bit, by my awareness... Yeah. I mean, just the awareness that, “Oh woops, I have gone.” [For example] I had one class... this is interesting. I had one class, my long-term practitioner was away and another one [Feldenkrais teacher] was substituting... Okay. So [it was] the second time I’ve done something with her... she was just fine. But this time her voice was grating. “I didn’t like her.” I didn’t know my regular teacher was gone, or I would not have chosen to go that day. And then... you know, [I thought to myself], “I’m here just fine, let’s do it...” And it was a very good session... because I threw aside my hesitations and you know, I just did it. So I learned something from them.... the discipline of... these practices are very well thought out... and work. Just stop the resistance... and go with the circumstances. I said [to myself], “...you’re here. My long-term practitioner is not here, you’re here with this teacher, and she’s leading you. So just do it.” And I did it, and experimented with doing it, with what worked for me rather than resistance, and it was a very good class. So it was a learning for me – my not liking something was not the answer it was the clue to letting go and just trusting what was inside of me.

314 Theme G7: Finding the movement that works for you; your authentic movement. You go into the root of moving... to find what works, what is your authentic movement. ...having read about Feldenkrais, and realizing what a genius he was, he really wanted to bring each individual present for what was right for them and their movements and I just appreciate that so much. It’s kind of like going to the root of. That’s it [in] Feldenkrais, you go into the root of moving slowly to find the base, to find what works, what is your authentic movement. So that’s where Feldenkrais is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness [too]. I mean, one thing that Feldenkrais does is respect the [your] learning, whether you can do it [the movement] well or not. Theme G8: Learning not doing the habitual. Working with the mind to learn how to... not do what’s habitual, but do what is intended. [For example] when you put your knees together and then you let them go one side and let them go the other side, and then you take your head and you do [move] it the other way. I know that [is] training the body-mind... and I love that. Well just being disciplined and working with the mind to learn how to be disciplined and not assume. Not do what’s habitual but do what is intended. Theme G9: Reduced pain. After that first session something shifted for that particular chronic pain situation I had. Feldenkrais... it’s the only thing over those three years that made a dent on that [hip pain]. The practitioner only had one session with me, but after that session something shifted for that particular chronic situation I had. Just that whatever she had me do, or she did – relieved something, some tension. When I came home [from Europe], I knew [that] for bodywork I was going to do Feldenkrais. I saw [a practitioner] for a year individually. And it [the pain] went away. Sure, [I still experience pain], that’s not a question... Is the problem that I went to Feldenkrais for resolved? Yes. Theme G10: Improved balance. After lessons I usually feel more balanced... [After Feldenkrais lessons] I usually feel more balanced. [After activities to improve balance after recorded lesson] That’s better. Yeah. I’m back on the earth. [I notice] Just energy. I feel it in my legs. I think what you did with me was very good and… In my legs, in my pelvis – and my hips, this is my hip, right, and that’s my calf. Yeah. I can feel my feet on the floor, lightly. Yeah, subtly...

315 Theme G11: Fluidity of movement and whole body congruence. I experience a... fluidity of movement. It’s like everything’s together. There is congruence in the body. It’s just this fluidity of movement. Your whole....It’s like everything’s together. There is congruence in the body... There is this ease of movement all through me. Doesn’t happen every session at all, but once in a while that does happen, things just kind of click and “Oh yeah... mmm, let’s do that lesson again.” Theme G12: Slowness and awareness. One of the things is the slowing down and the awareness that comes with it. There were some sessions [classes] that were [are] just delicious... I think one of the things is the slowing down and the awareness. Awareness is really important in this. Well you know... we all comment on how we move slowly after the lessons. Just that moving slowly out of the room... “Moving… oh, yeah…” We can hardly walk down the street. My thinking? Yeah, it’s so slow... to slow everything down. So that’s where Feldenkrais is so lovely because it helps bring the present, to be in the present, and in that slowness, too [After doing this lesson] I can feel my shoulders and my arms, because it’s as if I can feel different parts of my body in a way that I had not been aware so much before. It’s nice. Theme G13: Changes in time perception. Perception of time can change in classes, sometimes I think,…will it ever end?, and at others ...it really went fast. I was surprised when it [the recorded lesson] was going to end, whereas sometimes I am just thinking, “Oh will it ever end?” But not this time, “It really went fast.” Theme G14: Ways to move differently in everyday life. I can change how I move in my daily life... I can stop myself and think, “Hmmm... I could move differently…” Once in a while I can stop myself and think, “Hmmm... I could move differently…”, but it isn’t exactly that but something like that – that I remind myself that I don’t have to. I can do something a little bit different and make a difference, and I’m not surprised because it does. Reaching, standing, getting my spine straight. Theme G15: Importance of relationship with practitioner, and touch. I felt like I was in good hands with my practitioner.

316 [Those early sessions with my long-term practitioner, its] Just that they made a difference, and I enjoyed them, and we got along really well. It helped with the pain and it was fun, it was reassuring, I liked her. I felt like I was in good hands. Theme G16: Individual sessions can be powerful. In the hands-on lessons it is very powerful moving with the Practitioner’s direction and getting direct feedback from the practitioner. The hands-on lessons are much more powerful, much more. I think I go further faster when it’s individual; because it is all geared to me! A whole hour of me! Well some of it I do myself, and some of it the teacher moves my body, and so there is more direct feedback. She is pretty intense. The teacher is focused right on you, and so you are moving with her direction, and getting direct feedback from her. [For example] The first session I had with my long-term practitioner [it was like – informant make a ‘phew’ sound]. I could feel that feeling that I had gotten years ago when I did that kind of work, that is very intense work – Rolfing. I mean, it was like, “Okay, let’s see, I’m in my body... Okay, this is...” It was just that she went so deep like, “Oh my God. Who am I? Wow. This is incredibly deep.” It was beyond... Like everything had been rearranged and I could hardly move. Well I had that feeling after that session and I told her that. And then OK, she never went [worked] that way [again]. I never had a session with her where I didn’t know where I was and who I was. So [there’s] just different ways of working. Theme G17: Focus on ease supports discovery of what is possible and comfortable. Remembering that the movement is supposed to be easy encouraged me to discover what works and what doesn’t and do what I can. One day I had an awareness that it was, like... “It’s supposed to be easy,” and it wasn’t easy from putting my hands back…and finally I thought, ‘Well if it is supposed to be easy and I can’t do that, why don’t I just put it as far as I can?’ And then I just stayed with that and it felt really wise. That was a good lesson for me. I remember that. Noticing what works, and what doesn’t. And doing what I can. Theme G18: Awareness and directing attention. The experience of ‘...getting lost’ in as lessons reminds that the process is about awareness and bringing my attention to the movement. [One familiar experience in Awareness Through Movement is] “I’m getting lost!” Following, knowing that the directions have to do with following directions – with

317 thinking, your mind; and placing it here or here. [Quote from researcher’s notes] “Oh, it’s about awareness!” It was, “I haven’t brought my attention over here to the other side in the end! Informant H: Themes and Descriptive Texts Theme H1: Experiencing wholeness, health, and hope. Doing Feldenkrais gave me hope. It was comfortable; there was room for change – it was something I could do myself for my recovery. It gave me... confidence that as we grow older that there are things that you can do to address past problems. The nonjudgmental quality of Feldenkrais practice – I could feel that. How it really was about meeting [you] where you are... But it’s more than that, because you are learning to do something; but there’s no assessment; there’s no goals exactly. At that moment in my recovery, that was really interesting and a good thing. Like, I could participate in this thing. This where I get... always get emotional… [crying lightly] because it was comforting and hopeful. My practitioner would say in class, “Well, if you only think about moving. If you start to get a headache then just think about moving. Or don’t do it. Or just rest after doing one movement instead of three or four.” So why does that matter? I felt like there was room… there was room for change because we were starting so small. Well, it [the class] was comfortable; felt comfortable. So, it was nice, because it was something I could do myself. And I could feel like, “Maybe this will help.” The class definitely feels like a process. The kind of a beauty of it is little small things that you do, that kind of collectively build up into just better health, or to change that makes you feel more whole; physically whole... It gave me more confidence that as we grow older that there are things that you can do to address past problems. Like my knee is not just going to perpetually get worse because I’m getting older. Theme H2: Helping reduce pain. The headache, “Its gone” – sometimes the pain would be gone completely at the end of the session, and I also learned the connection between how I was holding, and to do the different exercises that were helping reduce the pain. I think the two biggest things that it helped me with the worst of the headaches, was the hands-on Feldenkrais, there was often like a real change that I felt when I walked out the door. Like, the headache, “It’s gone...” I just remember just having this headache that wouldn’t go away… kind of all around my head, because it moves around, and being on the table and having my practitioner… she just like moved different parts of my shoulders and my neck. The experience of that lifting… that pain, lifting... One thing that contributed to the headache is like a pull – like a whole half of my body, I felt like I

318 didn’t have the movement that normally I do. [My practitioner] helped with getting at what was at the root of that problem – loosening it all, so that I got my range of motion back and the headache was able to go away [even if it came and went sometimes]. [And also] I could tell the connection between how I was holding here, to pain here [points to jaw], and [the head]ache [points to forehead]. Then over time, as I was working with my jaw... and I continued to do the different exercises and things, it felt like that it was helping. Theme H3: The experience of decompressing and the pain lifting. The experience with the headache pain was a crushing, compressing feeling, and with it going away – a lifting; it’s an opening... The headache feels oppressive; it’s like a crushing feeling; compression. I think when the pain goes away, particularly with the headache... the experience with going away is a lifting; it’s an opening [feeling]. Themes H4: A tool for calming. Feldenkrais is one tool I can use for that mental whirling I can get into. It helps me shift away from ‘spinning up’; getting hyper-aroused – ‘the spin cycle’. It will calm me; help me focus on the body. Part of the concussion thing is my mind was also going so fast all the time. So, it’s really hard to get myself to rest, my mind to rest. So that [Feldenkrais classes] help[s]. [Feldenkrais sessions] had the effect of helping me to fall asleep, because that would help my mind stop moving all the time. When I think of that ‘spin cycle,’ I think more of my cognitive activity, but the…it’s part of this whole system of getting hyper-excited. This.... kind of feeling like, my heart beating faster... [and] whatever it might be. I’ve been trying to work with myself to get... myself better in balance, and to kind of pull myself out this hyper-excited state that... that the injury caused. I think that the Feldenkrais has been one tool that [I] can use for that spinning up; getting hyper-aroused. I say I have it now [that ‘the spin cycle’]... it’s nothing like it was. The jaw, I am much more aware of it. I know that when I go through a period of high intensity work and I have big deadlines, and I’m worried about something – some sort of pressure, I hold it in my jaw. I do it at night and wake up in the morning with the [jaw tight]. I do Awareness Through Movement lessons moving the tongue and jaw – the TMJ Health (Bersin and Reese, n.d.) recordings. You practice moving your tongue around your teeth... between your teeth and lips... and [then the] opposite direction. I have [those recorded lessons] on my phone. Sometimes when I’m on the airplane I’ll do it. Because I’m shifting my attention to my body, and particularly if it’s a focused, directed thing, then it helps me shift away from the – I wish I had a good word for that mental whirling that I can get into. My husband [says] I can get into a ‘spin cycle!’ I’m not as bad with the spin cycle as used to be, but yeah, it is definitely still there. So [the jaw lessons] help

319 [me to] shift out of that; it will calm me; it will focus on the body. It’s not like I fall as[leep] – like with meditation I will fall asleep sometimes. I don’t think I would fall asleep with the [Feldenkrais]. All I know is that the mind shifts, and I would assume that if my mind [is] able to shift then the body shifts too. I was thinking about that this last time I did [it] on the airplane. And I was thinking how calming it was... Theme H5: Awareness and curiosity builds over time: Reveals habits and possibilities for movement. A sense of building a structure of awareness over time and maybe some new habits: more aware of not holding myself in a way that aggravates pain, more aware of different ways of moving, and how I could make that movement easier and more comfortable. What I’ve noticed about Feldenkrais, is it’s less of an [experience of an] amazing moment... I feel like it’s building, building... The benefit of the class[es] is more things that I could integrate over time. I’ve been thinking, “Why do I keep goin’?” I think over time it’s just these little bits that you gather... it’s subtle... One of the things that worried me when I [first] came here [for individual sessions]. I was like, “Whoa, whoa, okay. You’re helping me today but how can I maintain this or what can I do to integrate, so I can preserve this better feeling?” So, in the class in a series [on a theme], we’re focusing on one thing... like you’re doing certain things, and [it] all seems very modest in terms of the movement. You might feel [it is] relaxing at the moment, but it doesn’t kind of like feel anything big. And then, over the series you might kind of see how everything is connected. Then, over time, I have become more aware of these different ways of moving, and how I could make that movement easier, more comfortable. [Aware of] that I might be holding myself in ways that are not good – in a way that accentuates pain or that aggravates pain. So, I think that awareness is what builds, and maybe some habits... Each lesson is a little different each series is a little different... but there are repetitive concepts. Theme H6: Skeletal awareness and making movement easier. Ways to understand how to connect with my skeleton moving so that it would make all kinds of movement easier. I was learning about my body and learning about ways to understand how to connect with my skeleton, and how my skeleton is moving so that it would make all kinds of movement easier. The skeleton awareness it has been important... Like, I can feel having that awareness, maybe that’s a grounding thing... I want to use my hands to do that gesture again [directing the hands down]. Coming together into this connecting with this frame... [the skeleton, which is] our central axis that we are bound to.

320 Theme H7: Moving more comfortably – explorations and practices. Noticing and discovering things about my movement, then doing little exercises, and being more receptive, so I could move more comfortably. I was concerned about this painful knee. [My practitioner and I] talked about how I was standing leaning back.... and about getting myself more standing into my feet. She did some stuff with my legs, and how I was moving [in] my hip here. She was having me show her how I move my leg. We discovered something. Then there were some things she wanted me to do to loosen that up... that would help me walk more comfortably. I remember with the leg, I was just noticing, ‘How do I walk?’ and ‘Is there a way I could walk differently that would maybe be better or...?’ – and some of the little exercises. And so it wasn’t... it wasn’t a dramatic change right off the bat. We [also] did some lessons around the eyes. I could say that it helped, because now I know some things I can do when my eyes start to hurt; when my eyes get tired. What I might do [is] like rub with my hands, just do this, it’s like covering up – ‘palming.’ ....the neat thing with the eyes was how the visual field, with the eyes closed, gets darker after a while. Also trying to think about not pushing my vision out so much, but letting things come to me. Also [the recorded jaw lessons] will calm me... and then there’s the extra benefit of getting this physical training, I guess, that will eventually get implanted in my brain and muscles, I hope. Theme H8: Bodily feel: Integrated, grounded, and more ease. Not feeling like the parts of my body are ‘flying all over the place.’ Instead, a feeling of being pulled back together, and down – which is associated with a sense of being integrated and grounded, or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth, and which also has to do with feeling more ease. I feel more ‘integrated.’ and essentially that what I have meant was [a sense of being] integrated and grounded or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth. As well as, all the parts of my body [were] even more connected to each other. Then you’re not like ‘flying all over the place,’ and... it pulls you back together, and down, and in. The other thing I feel is... that I’m just in less effort. I guess it has to do with feeling more ease, and connecting that with... I’m not sure how that connects with being more grounded, but I guess it is... [connected] somehow. One of the things that I have noticed with the concussion is that as I get better, I feel more integrated. And so, [if] in that way, maybe Feldenkrais is particularly good for this kind of situation [of dealing with post-concussion syndrome], because you feel so unintegrated. Just in... [a] little [Awareness Through Movement] lesson... we’re integrating maybe two or three different things or parts or movements, and so that’s helping my whole self become more integrated. It feels important. If your body is sort of not

321 connected and going a lot of different directions, and especially if your mind is disconnected... All these things have been exaggerated for me post concussion – I could feel it acutely. Then you’re not like ‘flying all over the place’, and [doing Feldenkrais] pulls you back together, and down, and in. [Informant makes initial gesture with hands moving apart, and away when talking about ‘apart’, and then, bring the hands towards each other, and then, down toward the ground when talking about ‘coming together’ and ‘integration.’] I do remember every time I would finish with an individual session with my practitioner, I would say I feel more ‘integrated’, and essentially that what I’ve meant was integrated and grounded or more present, and stable, and connected to the earth. As well as, all the parts of my body [were] even more connected to each other. ‘Reducing effort’: It seems like it’s an important concept in Feldenkrais... it feels so promising. It just feels like there’s a lot of potential there and not quite what we’re used to….I wrote down [on one of the cards] was “less effort,” and that turned out to be the most important one. One thing I feel [is] that I’m just ‘in less effort’. I guess, it has to do with feeling more ease. I’m not sure how that connects with being more grounded, but I guess it is somehow. Theme H9: Nonjudgment, and a feeling of freedom and possibility. Being in something called “a lesson” where it is totally nonjudgmental—it’s a feeling of freedom and possibility... and maybe release. A nonjudgmental approach... meant a lot to me. In part because of the state... that I was in right then, and the vulnerability that you feel after something like that. I felt like Feldenkrais creates a lot more room for change and growth... because here’s not a ‘supposed to’... And I got a feeling there’s not an even right way to do things in Feldenkrais. And that in a way that was good... the good part is that it does give you so much room for adapting something to your needs, I guess. That being nonjudgmental as a process, may [have] contributed... it might have... because [the nonjudgmental quality] was so present in the interaction [with my practitioner]. I don’t know if I’ve ever been in something called ‘a lesson’ where it’s totally nonjudgmental. So, I guess it was the incongruity of it that made it more affecting – it affected me. It’s a feeling of freedom... and possibility...release maybe. I got a feeling there’s not an even right way to do things [in Feldenkrais]. And then in a way that was good and it was bad, because you ‘kinda wanna...’ I want to walk out thinking, “Okay, this is the right way to walk... or this would be better for me if I walked this way.... Or it will better for me if I move my arms this way.” And then, my practitioner is saying, “Well, it is how you do it?” So, that’s a little, in a way, confusing – because even if it’s how I do it... I’m still learning these new things so I must be... there must be a better way. So that’s a little bit of... confusing.

322 Theme H10: Acceptance and nonstriving. The acceptance that was part of Feldenkrais Method is very powerful. Not striving toward some way of being – like a particular way of holding your body or trying to get yourself into an extreme position. The thing that I really thought was so interesting, is that you’re not striving toward some way of being – like a way of holding your body or anything like that. Even with my standing, I said [to my practitioner], “Well, how should I stand?” or “I want to work on that” and like she said, “No, you’re not striving for something.” That felt really good because… I mean, it felt good and frustrating at the same time – because I wanted her to tell me something, like to tell me something I can do that will make me feel better. But at the same time the acceptance that was part of it is very powerful too. Ideally, you’re not striving [in Feldenkrais lessons]. Like you’re not trying to get yourself into an extreme position [like you might]... with yoga. Theme H11: Imagined movements create the possibility of success. Doing movements in my head a little bit and seeing what happens put me in a place where I could be successful – even with all those pretty severe limitations I had at the time. [When I began Feldenkrais], in that moment [doing movements in my imagination] was especially important because... like, here I was someone who wants to achieve, wants to be really good and the best in the class. Well, maybe not best in the class, well maybe, I don’t know – but at least top of the class. And so, being in a... in a space where, or a time in my life, where I just could not be there or anywhere close, then that was good. And in a place where I could be successful – even with all those pretty severe limitations at the time. Yeah, it’s kind of amazing once [my practitioner] told me we don’t even have to do the movement and just think it. And I did. I can’t even tell you when I come back to that, but... I know that there are times when I, when I’ll say to myself, ‘You just have to think it, and that will be a benefit.’ I guess it’s a learning... from Feldenkrais, it is not even really specifically related to the things that Feldenkrais is to teach you. You’re not even thinking it through... because it’s not like you’re trying to solve it. You’re just... “I’m, going do this in my head for a sec... for a little bit, and see what happens.” And it’s openness to... and [a] seeing what happens, too. Theme H12: Not focusing on causes. Trying to avoid pointing to a cause that locks you into this way of thinking that, “It will always be that way...” The other thing [my practitioner] was trying to get me to avoid doing point[ing to a cause]… Like, going back to my knee, [thinking] “This is because of my falling down and breaking my knee.” I don’t quite understand why that’s important not to do [focusing on causes], except, maybe that it locks you in to this way of thinking that, “It will always

323 be that way because I broke my knee.” But we’re always looking for causes too; so that part was frustrating. Theme H13: Developing curiosity and interest in the body is fun. How often do we think about our bodies as just interesting? The classes are fun because of the curiosity part that comes from exploring how the body works that can be felt when not doing very much (making small and slow movements) and attending to the little things. One of the things that I think I like about Feldenkrais... is the curiosity part. I think it’s fun. It’s just enjoyable to take some time to be curious about how your body works. I mean something is ‘interesting’... it’s kind of like, how often do we think about our bodies as just interesting? And I wrote down “Fun,” because I think the classes are fun for that reason even though you, in a sense, you’re not doing very much. Like, after [class] was over – the first time [I came].... we didn’t do very much, but it was still fun. I guess because of that thing where you’re just exploring these little things. Theme H14: New ways of thinking about the body can be transformational. The language and thinking behind Feldenkrais can be kind of transformational – in things I have discovered about habits of how I am using organized in my body, and as a way of thinking about my body. [There] was something to do with how I sit into my hips – so I was playing with that. I think I still trying to do that even though I can’t articulate it. [It’s one of] the different things I was doing with experimenting with walking… I don’t know if I’ve changed the way I walk or not. I don’t think that I lean back like I used to. I think I was leaning back in part because… I was leaning away; I was trying to pull myself away from the world a little bit. So, do I use that? I think mostly in just the way of thinking about my body. [Here is another example:] “Standing on the floor with your feet.” The reason I wrote that down… [is] because it’s an example of how the language and the thinking behind Feldenkrais can be… like that’s a really simple statement, to have your feet stand on the floor, and yet it’s kind of transformational because I never thought about being able to stand... my feet on the floor without actually standing on my feet. So, when we’re standing on our feet, I mean I thought that was just sort of a resting thing. Like you’re resting, but maybe you’re actually learning by putting your feet like that. Theme H15: Learning to stop or rest, identifying needs is an important self-care step.

324 Learned to figure out what were the precursors to headache and fatigue, and to stop or rest when I need to – more aware of that as a really important tactic and self-care step. Going to Feldenkrais [class]... these people around, and it was a pleasant experience. [But] It was more taxing than I realized. It was good, because you were lying down, like, that was a relief. But I found that I got headaches really not far into the [lesson]. So, my practitioner... suggested that I stop, and that that meant that I was working... [too hard]. So [she] just told me to rest: that meant I should rest! Yeah, I would stop during the lessons, [if I felt a headache coming on.] So, I was learning at the time to figure out what were the precursors. I mean, it’s hard for me, because I tend to want to do everything, and be an A student. I wasn’t watching for that moment, then it would start to hurt. I kind of learned how to rest when you needed to. I won’t say I learned it completely, but I learn… I began to learn. I think I’m more aware... [now] – like [that awareness of needing to stop or rest] has translated and this is so I’m more aware of that as a really important... tactic... and self-care step. Theme H16: Working individually with practitioner on particular needs and integrating practices into life. That really personal attention and really attending to my specific needs was an important part of individual sessions, along with suggestions and practices – something I can take something back with me, help me sustain the benefit. Finding ways of incorporating these concepts in my life... The benefit of getting individual sessions was that like that really personal attention and really attending to my specific needs. She’ll do some hands on, and then afterwards she’ll have suggestions. I find that really good because I can take something back with me. Usually there is something that she offers to help me sustain the benefit, one way or another. [For example] I don’t know if this was the first time, but it was close to [it]... there [my practitioner] gave me something that I could do just to loosen up how I was holding my jaw. The ‘singing lesson’ was the best. We were kind of singing the whole time, the whole lesson. I do it sometimes when I feel like [a headache is coming on] because least some part of the headache is connected how I am holding my jaw. I know… if I’ve sensed that that is happening then I know I have one thing that I can do... like taking the voice really high, and then low; high, and low. [Another example] Looking back, I realized that having that head injury, not only was it truly difficult mentally and physically, but it must have had emotional effects too that I wasn’t aware of at the time that related to anxiety, and the ‘spin cycle,’ and then, lack of confidence because I couldn’t rely on myself to be responsible when I needed to be. And so I use the yoga ex[ercise]... the sort of ‘Hero’ pose... modified... and I am just

325 saying something to myself about how I…it’s kind of a silly thing, but how I felt confident, and I feel strong. And then after that, what our teacher has us do is that you go down to the floor you’ve still got one [leg] back and one leg forward, then you drop your arms down to the floor – I used that to release my jaw and the face. So, I just go [informant makes ‘bleeh’ sound]... like that, like my Feldenkrais practitioner had me do. And so with the noise, and I do the noise – at least if I’m not in public, and I use that to let go….[My] yoga teacher […] has you think about... about letting stuff go... because you’re in that shape and you’re loosening your hips, so there’s things to let go of. So I think those things that I want to let go, and then I combine it with the jaw release thing and the sound... because I know I’m holding all that in my jaw: those things. [Another example] We stood on a foam roller... balancing on that, and I think we were turning our heads...while we were standing or turning our bodies... In that moment it was good for me, because it was a little scary to step onto this moving thing – I had just had this horrible fall, but I did it; and it felt safe, and comfortable. The roller thing is about that, and it’s so interesting because it’s like taking yourself out of feeling grounded, and [then] you do feel grounded... through awareness... because your feet feeling... feeling that motion in your feet, and feeling the strength in the bottom of your foot, the muscles are adjusting to the movement. It’s like a massage at the same time. So, that was a good step forward, and it was like, “I’m coming home with this.” [So now] when I’m brushing my teeth, or doing something routine, I’ll stand on a minute near my sink counter [on the roller]. I’ll just stand there, and practice balancing, and I love the feeling on my feet. Because that was one of the things I remembered. I remember my mom’s [Feldenkrais] practitioner... [talking about] the importance of the awareness through your feet... It’s a fun thing to do, it’s a pleasant experience, and then, I figured it probably had some benefit. So, maybe that’s what also I meant about ‘building’... Like this starting to find ways of incorporating these concepts in my life... [One] thing that my practitioner does is she really attends to who’s in the class in the sense that I suspect that she will create classes, or choose classes around who’s in it. Because I think she mentioned the jaw thing [in our individual session], and then pretty soon we were doing a lesson [in class] about the jaw. Theme H17: Learning together while recognizing differences. Part of learning from Awareness Through Movement classes is being in a group situation where you see people benefiting. So part of... [the] learning from... [Awareness Through Movement classes]… is being in a group situation where you see people benefiting. Because the lesson is… a group experience and you’re trying out things together, and feeling them together, and you have a group feedback. And this recognition that we’re all different; each of our bodies is completely different.

326 References in Appendix C Bersin, D., & Reese, M. (n.d.). TMJ Health: Sensory-motor exercises for mouth & jaw [Audio recordings]. Available from https://www.feldenkraisresources.com/TMJ-Health-AudioMark-Reese-David-Zemach-Bersin-p/2052.htm Doidge, N. (2015). The brain’s way of healing. New York, NY: Viking. Krugman, M. (2005). The insomnia solution. New York, NY: Warner Books.

327 Appendix D: Notes on the Terms Movement and Awareness A Note on the Use of the Term Movement In this chapter I will mostly make use of the word movement. However, Feldenkrais made use of action to discuss his ideas, which seems to reflect a desire on his part to convey movement as intentional and meaningful movement. This is similar to Sheets–Johnstone’s (1998, 2015b) view that human movement is much more than just physical displacement of a body, but as discussed previously, is a rich and meaningful experience of self-movement. At the same time, Feldenkrais (1972) argued for a broad conception of movement that includes the ongoing movements of respiration, circulation, and digestion, as well as the action in the muscular and nervous systems associated with preparation for moving or with imagined movements. A Note on the Use of the Term Awareness Feldenkrais considered basic consciousness to involve what might be called the prereflective aspects of experience, including the experiences of gravitation, space, and time. It is the subjective, background aspect of experience until it is brought to conscious awareness. In contrast, Feldenkrais used awareness to mean “part of the thinking mechanism that listens to the self while I am acting” (Feldenkrais as cited in Ginsburg, 2010, p. 167). He saw that through awareness one could gain a perspective on one’s own experience, and for him this was most useful when grounded in pragmatic awareness of bodily phenomena. This understanding of awareness as being about aspects of experience (perceptions, feelings) of which one is or can become consciously aware, is a meaning close the to the contemporary use of mindfulness (Clark et al., 2015). In mindfulness there is attention to experience and to a secondary awareness (or meta awareness) of what is attended to, and a recognition that one knows what one is attending to (Brown & Cordon, 2009).

328 The kind of attention discussed here, as part of Awareness Through Movement, embraces what might be considered ‘internal’ bodily sensation and feeling, much of it stimulated by movement. At the same time, attention is directed to sensations that are generated by the movement of the body in relation to aspects of the world (gravity as experienced in contact with surfaces, location in physical space, the air entering and leaving the body). That is, attention is directed to the experience of the body in the world, and the world, as it were, in and through the bodily experience. These are perceptions that might be considered external.

329 Appendix E: Forms of Directed Attention in the Feldenkrais Method This description of the kinds of attention present in many Feldenkrais lessons draws on Clark, Schumann, and Mostofsky (2015), Feldenkrais (1972, 1981, 1994–2004, 2008, 2010a, 2010b, 2010c), and Mattes, (2016). In Awareness Through Movement lessons students’ attention is directed toward the following aspects of experience. 1. Contact of the body with supporting surfaces, e.g. floor, chair, or stool. Students are often asked to note the pressure and shape of the whole body, and parts of the body, including possibly the sense of bony structures though the flesh. This directed attention is often done as part of an initial body scan at the beginning and/or end of lessons, as well as in pauses between movement sequences. In addition, attention to changing experiences and patterns of contact with the supporting surface are often included as part of attention while moving. 2. Direction of movement of parts of the body (limbs, or segments such as pelvis, middle of the torso, chest, shoulders, head, or eyes) during movement, in relation to one another, and/or the direction of the movement of the body as a whole. This awareness may draw on the proprioceptive sense (relying on perception of movements and angels of joints, muscular contraction and lengthening, of stretch in tendons and skin, changes in fascial pull – all in the context of a remembered body schema, in the sense used by Gallagher, 2006). Of course, parts of the body may also be seen, and so for many movements there can be a specific intersensory experience of the proprioceptive sense and the visual image, for example of the angle of the leg where it meets the pelvis. Direction may also be sensed in terms of changing pressures of the body against supporting surfaces, or in relation to referents in the teaching space, such as particular walls or the ceiling. In

330 addition, students are asked to notice what direction they are looking, or in some cases, if they are looking in the suggested direction. 3. The movement of different parts of the body in relation to one another – both relative differentiation and integration of body parts in movement and relative size of movements. 4. Qualities of movement, including (a) the effort involved in making movements, which may also be sensed as the relative ease in making a movement, (b) whether the movement is smooth or bumpy, with hesitations or jumps, (c) the sense of speed, acceleration or deceleration. 5. Parts of the skeleton or the skeleton as a whole. 6. Sense of balance. In addition to attending to a felt sense of balance, the sense of the horizon and the sense of the center of the earth as the center of gravitational pull are sometimes referenced as guides for directional, positional, and balance awareness. 7. The sense of relative comfort or discomfort making a movement; and if the movement is evoking pain, encouragement to find a way to make a movement without pain, the sense of strain or lack of strain in making the movement. 8. Whether the movement is to the end or beyond the range of comfortable or biomechanically available movement for the student, or whether the movement is within the range of comfortable and bio-mechanically available movement, and is being done with a sense that the student could do more but is choosing to not move to their ‘limit’ and therefore may possibly include a sense of ‘limitlessness’. 9. Where in the body or how the movement is initiated in the body, and possibly in relation to supporting surfaces.

331 10. Breathing. For example, whether breathing is easy or labored, comfortable or uncomfortable, halting or continuous, in rhythm with the movement or not, and where the sensations of breathing can be felt? Does the student hold their breath sometimes? When does this occur? Do they tend to hold their breath on an inhale or an exhale? 11. The students’ attitudes to their own movements, and their body-in-movement, and their ability or inability to make the movements or work out the movement sequence or not. For example, senses of judgment, wanting to achieve some particular thing or fixed outcome, or competition with self or others, or of kindness toward the self, self-caring, and self-compassion. In some lessons attention is direct also to • The student’s mood or affective state, especially at the beginning or end of the lesson. • The location of particular points in the body as relative spatial locations within the body (especially the shoulder and hip joints, the ends of the arms, the heels, and the top of the head, and imagined lines that connect them, such as the five primary lines of force within the body – the line of each arm, each leg, and the spine from the sacrum to the head, and including the head72). Other specific lessons involve directing the attention around the body to gain a sense of sizes of parts of the body and spaces within the body. • Attention to the experience of the whole body. In Function Integration the practitioner will also use similar forms of attention in observing the client, and may direct the client’s attention to these experiences.

72

These lessons are known with Feldenkrais Method practice as the primary image lessons, with the lines referred to as the five cardinal lines of the body. Versions of many of them can be found the transcripts of recordings of the Feldenkrais’s lessons, known as the Alexander Yannai lessons (Feldenkrais, 1994–2004). A brief discussion of the idea of the primary image in Feldenkrais Method can be found in Smyth (2007).

332 Appendix F: Reflections on the Research Process The research process achieved its goal of bringing forth testimony about the lived experience of the Feldenkrais Method from longer-term students of the Method. In this section I will critically discuss the research design used in this study; how it was implemented, and what was learned from the process. I will reflect upon (a) recruitment, (b) the interview process, including (c) the Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports used in relation to the informants doing a recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson, and (d) the Focused Recall process. This section addresses (e) the processes of exploring the texts, developing the themes, meta-themes and their constituents, and explicating the findings. I also will report on my (f) reflexive processes during the research process, and (g) the question of researcher embodiment in the research process. Recruitment The recruitment process for this study proceeded slowly. This partly reflects time lags built into the process of contacting and getting responses from colleagues who were sources of informants, and then the time lags between contacting potential informants, informing them about the project and screening them, and setting up interview times. It appeared that the time commitment for participation in the study – two and a half to three hours in two interview sessions, plus travel time, was a barrier to recruiting informants in the San Francisco Bay Area, where some potential informants had little spare time in addition to jobs that involve long hours of work and commuting. This meant that the interviews actually undertaken were done with retired people and people with flexible schedules (e.g., self-employed persons and academics), although two people with fixed hours employment were interviewed on Saturdays. In relation to possible future research, it is hard to know how to resolve this issue, since more time for

333 interviewing could have added to the depth of the data. Perhaps a shorter initial interview would help. Offering some form of compensation to informants may have aided recruiting. The Interview Process The interviews proceeded well overall. There were no significant difficulties and most proceeded in a comfortable and conversational way. The interview guidelines proved to be useful at the few points that the flow of description of a particular theme came to an end and the conversation needed to be moved along. While the questions in the Interview Guidelines were not used exhaustively – as they would be with a fully scripted interview questionnaire, it was useful to have to hand multiple variations of the basic question asking the informants to share their experience of the Feldenkrais Method. It seemed like having the Interview Guidelines supported my aim of not introducing particular areas of content, but instead provided a mostly temporal template into which the informants could fill in their own experience. Particularly important in my assessment of the process was keeping the focus of the questions on ‘experience’, without defining it or directing attention to particular aspects of that experience appeared to be effective in bringing out a range of experiences – from particular sensory and movement phenomena, to the impact of doing Feldenkrais Method on activities of daily living, to their sense of themselves. As part of my desire to minimize the impact of my fore-conceptions on the data gathering I tried as much as possible to not introduce content oriented topics or specific concepts into the interviews. In reading and analyzing the texts from the interviews, I was able to detect a small number of places where this occurred, for example individual instances where I introduced the terms ‘tool-kit’ and ‘felt sense’.

334 However, in the follow-up interviews this commitment may have been somewhat of a hindrance to collecting more in-depth material. On reviewing the material from the follow-up interviews I observed that I tended to stay within the topics and language generated within the initial interviews at the level it was presented. For example, I was more likely to ask, “Can you tell more?”, rather then probing more deeply or widely, for example asking questions such as, “What do you mean by this term” or “Could you describe this in another way, or in other language?”, or “Can you give me another example?” The result of this was, that for several of the follow-up interviews, while they did provide confirmation of what was said in the first interviews, overall, they did not necessarily draw out additional material on new topics. However, in many cases some more detailed and/or varied testimony on a previously discussed topic was uncovered in the follow-up interviews. In general, the process of doing follow-up interviews was useful. A couple of times in the interviews done after the Awareness Through Movement lesson, I did probe for more detail about the experience from informants who had noted very little about their experience on their cards or in the post-lesson interview. I suggested possible sensory aspects of the immediate bodily experience (e.g. heaviness or lightness, sense of length), but this did not yield additional material. The questions in the Interview Guidelines for use after the Awareness Through Movement lesson and Stimulated Written and Verbal Report exercise were effective. Through them I was able to establish that for all the informants the style and content of the recorded lessons used were broadly similar to their previous experience of Awareness Through Movement, and therefore did not seem to significantly impact their responses for this part of the data collection.

335 As the recorded lessons were from an introductory series of lessons, a couple of informants noted that they felt that the lesson has somewhat more didactic content about the principles Feldenkrais Method than was usual in public classes they had experienced. The informants appreciated the inclusion of this more explanatory or conceptual material, feeling it added to their experience of the lesson and their understanding of the Feldenkrais Method. If I were doing a similar research project again I would again use a semi-structured interview guideline. However, for both the initial interviews and the follow-up interviews I would prepare a greater variety of ways for probing answers, when appropriate in the interview process, to seek to deepen and open out the testimony from informants. Note-taking and observation. While I intended to take notes during the interview about the nonverbal aspects of the interview, such as gestures of the informants, this proved to be very difficult. The tasks of (a) listening to the content from the informant, (b) restating what I had heard, as appropriate, (c) using nonverbal and paraverbal signals to show understanding and keep the interview progressing, (d) mentally noting the informant’s particular use of language, and (e) noting possible follow-up questions occupied most of my attention. In a few cases I did make notes of topics to follow-up on and of what seemed to be key gestures. Where informants demonstrated habitual movement patterns or movements from Awareness Through Movement lessons (e.g. that they used for home practice and self-care) I happened upon the strategy of describing the movements aloud and therefore into the recording. This had the advantage of both affirming to the informant what I was seeing, and creating a record of what they were demonstrating. Observations of key gestures and descriptions of movements demonstrated by the informants can be found throughout the edited transcriptions of the individual informants’ themes.

336 In a future research study, it may be valuable to create video recordings of research interviews dealing with somatic practices like Feldenkrais Method. A proper gestural analysis could be an interesting approach, but even if this was not done, having recordings of key gestures and whole-body movements would allow for the observation of the qualities of action linked to the description of various aspects of the somatic practices being described, as part of moving toward a more bodily-informed approach to research. Video recording, of course, would raise its own issues as to whether it inhibits the gestures and other whole-body movements of informants, as well as the extra ethical issues in relation to data protection. Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports Overall the Stimulated Written and Verbal Reports exercise – used in conjunction with the informant and researcher doing a recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson, was productive. In many cases the exercise of writing notes on cards produced some useful additional material on important aspects of informants’ experience, although less so in some cases. There was not a large amount of material generated by the informant’s taking notes and interviewing them about their experience of the Awareness Through Movement lesson. However, in many cases that small amount of data yielded some valuable insights about their informants’ overall experience, and therefore the texts gathered from this process are quite well represented in the thematic texts from the informants. The amount of material gathered from this process was partly limited by the fact that this process came at the end of the initial meeting between the informant and researcher. That meant that for example, if the first interview had gone longer than anticipated, if an informant’s time was limited, or the informant was fatigued, then this process ended up being shorter in duration that may have been ideal. One solution, if this research design were to be used again, would be

337 to experiment with doing the Stimulated Written and Verbal Report exercise with the recorded Awareness Through Movement lesson as the first process with each informant. Alternatively, it could be done at a separate meeting, but this would mean additional travel time and coordination. A second limitation of using this process in practice was that some of the informants, despite being introduced to the note-taking task they were to undertake during the Awareness Through Movement lesson, did not do any or much note taking during the lesson. Some did most of their notes at the end of the lesson. Many made very few notes during the lesson. This may be because taking notes is simply not part of the usual practice of Awareness Through Movement – where the student is encouraged to become engaged in their own sensory and movement experience. Providing written instructions may have helped with this. I discussed other approaches to this data collection challenge, such as descriptive experience sampling, in the discussion of future research at the end of the Discussion chapter. Focused Recall Process The Focused Recall Process developed by Stelter (2010) was designed to use the process of focusing (Gendlin, 1978, 1996) as a research tool. As per the research design, I introduced the process at a time during the first interview where it seemed would be most useful in eliciting material, for example, where there was a lull in the process, to finish the interview, or where the informant was discussing their experience of a particular time in their history of doing Feldenkrais Method. Using the Focused Recall Process was not as productive as anticipated. This may be due to my actual rendering of the process during the interviews, where I sometimes used it to try to gather information about a particular experience of the Feldenkrais Method (usually the first or most recent experience). In others, I used it to seek information on an additional experience of Feldenkrais Method, or even their experience of the Method overall. It

338 seems to me that this was in part a result of not having a fixed topic or timing for using the process within the overall interview. One informant reported not getting in touch with anything, while another informant felt that they had dissociated. The process was designed to help people get in touch with concrete details of an experience, and it did in some cases. In other cases, the informant got in touch with an overall sense of their experience of the Feldenkrais Method. This later result is consistent with the original design and function of Gendlin’s focusing process. This result did however generate some interesting text in itself. The Focused Recall Process has the potential to be useful in researching somatic practices and phenomena, however from my experience in this study, it should be used in a fixed point in an interview process, for example at beginning or end of the interview. Alternatively, it could be used in relation to a particular event (e.g., their most recent lesson), or a particular aspect of doing the Feldenkrais Method (e.g., the experience of Functional Integration, or the experience of observing the self while moving in Awareness Though Movement). These might be more productive uses of this Focused Recall Process. The Process of Exploring the Texts The process of exploring and analyzing the texts was profoundly iterative in two ways – it was a profound amount of work, and led to deeper and deeper insights into the many possible meanings to be found within. For the themes from the individual informants, the texts from the first two interviews were read several times to develop naïve descriptions and in preparing the questions for the follow-up interviews. All the interview material was then re-read several times in preparing the themes, which involved using tables, colored underlining, and highlighting possible texts. In the end, I mostly used plain MSWord documents with numbering and

339 highlighting as ‘buckets’ for texts on particular themes, as I found it time-consuming moving text into and out of tables. Likewise, the informant theme texts (see Chapter 4 and Appendix C) were read, themes noted, and relevant texts moved into theme documents for each of the seven Meta-Themes, and for the development of the Structure of the experience, as well as for each of the three sections of the discussion of findings. That is, a minimum of eleven times, but often more times in some parts as I checked and rechecked the possible meanings of selected texts in the context of the longer utterances from informants, and in the context of the individual informant themes. In this process, my research journal was the essential tool and support73. In it I recorded notes on my continued reading of (a) hypothesis and theory, (b) new research, (c) on research methods, (d) my observations on the research interviews, including (e) my embodied responses to the research process, and (f) emergent themes. There must be at least 20 entries that are lists of possible themes arising from the texts. Of particular interest, is how over time the notes of my current reading led to making connections to themes in individual informant’s texts, and even particular phrases from the informant’s testimonies. At the same time, increasingly, reflections on the informant texts and emergent themes brought forth notes on what literature may be relevant. I also reviewed the literature on methodological approaches, e.g. bracketing, development of themes, variation of texts and themes, etc. (Alveson and Sköldberg, 2000; Benner, 1994b; LeVasseur, 2003; Moerer-Urdahl & Creswell, 2004; Moustakas, 1994; Ricoeur, 1981; Smickering, 2010; Tesch, 1987; van Manen, 1990, 2014; Wertz, 2005, 2011) before beginning

73

study.

The research journal comprises two B4 journals from the pilot study, and ten B5 journals from the main

340 my thorough textual analysis looking for themes from individual informant’s texts, and in developing the structure and themes from all the informants’ texts. I know that in some approaches to the dissertation process, the suggestion is that one does not continue to read hypothesis and theory, or new research, once the literature review has been written and the research begin. This approach would have seriously diminished what I was able to present here. In many ways I feel that through my research journal, I was engaged in an heuristic research process, where the research question, the data or texts, the literature, and the reflective life experience of the researcher combine in an extended process over several years (Moustakas, 1990). What was most useful arising from these multiple readings was that I was able to draw out many different possible meanings even from the same utterances, depending on the context. I have already noted how the complexity of some utterances from informants made simple categorization impossible. I feel that the multiply iterative process helped me bring forth some of the complexity of the experiences of the informants, where many texts described multiple sensory experiences and ideas, which however pointed to more integrated, if subtle, feltexperiences or existential feelings. There were several points in the process where I felt stuck in the analysis of the texts, particularly with development of the structure of the experience for these informants, which came to me first in my process. Further exploring the texts, I was unable to find additional structures – aspects of the experience which all of the informants reported. It was a breakthrough for me to realize that ‘The experience of the Feldenkrais Method as self-caring’ and its constituents of “(a) The Experience of Coming to Feldenkrais Method, (b) Experiencing Improvement, (c) Feeling Good: Positive Mood, (d) How To: Discovering ‘How To’ Take Care,

341 (e) A Sense of ‘I Can’, and (f) Doing It”, was the structure of the experience for these informants – as best as I could determine. This meant that the other clusterings of meaning were themes with substantial commonality, but did not rise to the creation of another structure for the experience. Varying the themes and moving texts into different thematic categories did not create a different result for me. At times I made use of different heuristics. For example, thinking about the possibility of a ‘somatic reduction’ in addition to other forms or reduction referred to in the literature helped me move forward with identifying the structure of the experience and various themes. I also saw that there were similarities between the process of the reduction and that of Feldenkrais Method practice. Particularly, that many Feldenkrais lessons begin with an initial scan (whether as a student on the floor or as a practitioner observing a client), followed by an initial movement and observation of the results, and a continuation with other movements congruent with the initial movement, and drawing on the results of the initial movement exploration. In the process of textual analysis then, the re-reading of texts represents an initial scan, with the naïve descriptions and follow-up questions then indicating initial movements of understanding, and moving (quite literally with post-it notes, paper and scissors, or MSWord) parts (pieces of text, themes), and varying their position in relation to one another, allowed the emergence of new patterns of meaning. This extended metaphor from Feldenkrais Method, mapped onto the process of the reduction, proved to be very useful in developing my process of trying to uncover and organize the possible meanings of the texts. Researcher Reflexivity Gough (2003) describes three reflexivities that are important for qualitative researchers to engage in: personal, functional, and disciplinary (pp. 22–23). In this research I have tried to be

342 transparent and ethical in my research process. I have clearly stated that I have considerable fore-knowledge of the theme of this study, and that my over 25 years practice as a Feldenkrais Method practitioner is part of why I engaged with this topic. Indeed, my commitment to the potential benefits to human health and well-being through the Feldenkrais Method, are part of what has helped me sustain my motivation throughout the substantial work involved in a qualitative dissertation study such as this. I was clearly hopeful that the research would reveal positive and useful insights into the practice of Feldenkrais Method. At the same time, I have tried to remain open in the process. For example, there are certainly places in the texts where I would disagree with an informant’s characterization of the Feldenkrais Method, or find the language with which they describe the Method not to be the language I would use. In addition, parts of the experience of doing the Method which I have experienced personally, or my students and clients have reported, do not appear in the testimonies here. At the same time, informants also described aspects of the experience that I had not personally experienced nor heard from my students and clients – for example the experiences of imagining (seeing) and feeling into the body. They were, of course, welcomed into the descriptions presented here. As predicted in the literature, my own fore-conceptions definitely influenced my ‘reading’ of the texts, however I tried to reflectively read the texts for more than my initial personal understanding. I have two quotes from Tesch (1987) next to my work chair: “What is the existential question to which this story is the answer?” and “What is the realm of meaning that the data tend to conceal as they reveal themselves?” (p. 238). I tried to let these questions guide me and keep me open during the process.

343 At same time, I was clear that in the end I was engaging in an “hermeneutics of faith”, rather then an “hermeneutics of suspicion” (Josselson, 2004, p. 1). That is, that I was primary concerned with the “hermeneutics of restoration” of the meaning in the texts – the bringing forth of meanings more clearly, in a more organized way, and into a wider context, even if the meanings were more implicit than explicit (Josselson, 2004, p. 5). In contrast to an “hermeneutics of suspicion” (or “demystification”) where a skeptical attitude is employed, for example as sometimes applied in psychoanalysis where narratives may be driven by unconscious desires (p. 13). One key way I tried to minimize the impact of my biases was to present the reader much of the findings in the form of extensive presentation of the text from the informants – in the presentation of the individual themes (Chapter 4 and Appendix C), and also extensive use of informant texts in support of the Structure and Meta-Themes I identified. The texts were provided to me by the informants in good faith in conversational interview, and my personal preference is to honor that good faith, and while not wanting to be naïve, to also take their expressions as genuine attempts to convey their experiences. That fact that informants did share with me that they continue to deal with pain, that some lessons – including the recorded lesson we did together, did not meet their expectations, or that they get benefits from doing other modalities are signs that I created a situation in the interviews where many informants felt that they could be honest with me, and not feel obliged to only say things that were positive or pleasing. However, there was potential for bias in the recruitment process in that, while I did not ask the practitioners who referred clients to send clients with positive things to say about Feldenkrais Method but rather were articulate, it is possible that those practitioners chose people who would speak positively of the Method. Given that they knew I was a practitioner and that they did feel positive about Feldenkrais Method overall, it is also

344 likely that informants emphasized the positive in their experience to please me, or their practitioner. This brings me to the second of Gough’s (2003) contexts of reflexivity, that of “functional reflexivity” (p. 23). I certainly tried to behave in a positive professional manner in my interactions as part of the research. As I have noted, I drew on the interview guidelines and avoided introducing extraneous content into the research interviews. I went outside the research protocol to assist one informant who felt unsteady on her feet after the recorded lesson – this sometimes occurs when people return to standing and it is hypothesized that there is a reintegration of proprioceptive, visual, and vestibular information involved in balance. In standing I held her by the forearms and guided her through an Awareness Through Movement sequence that usually will help people feel more balanced. I felt I had a duty of care as the researcher and a Feldenkrais Practitioner to ensure her comfort and safety at that moment. The same informant also had trouble writing her observations on the file cards provided while lying on the floor during the lesson, so I acted as a scribe for her to capture her observations. In the category of “disciplinary reflexivity” I feel my commitment was reflected by my continued engagement with the texts and traditions of the field (Gough, 2003, p. 23). Re-reading and allowing myself to be influenced by the literature was one key process for me. In this discussion, I have made efforts to relate the findings from this study to the extant literature, again letting the literature guide my thinking to some extent, and hoping that engagement with it will make a contribution to the field. Researcher Embodiment in the Research Process I anticipated that my embodied engagement would be a larger part of the process than it turned out to be. I did use my research journal to note bodily responses to aspects of the research

345 process, for example in anticipation and preparation for the research interviews, and at various other times during the research process. I did not learn much from my bodily responses during the interviews. On reflection, as a Feldenkrais Practitioner, I practice being able to sense myself either simultaneously or near-simultaneously during a task like doing an interview. It is also true that there is a certain bodily professional poise that the Feldenkrais Practitioner deploys, for example, by maintaining a use of skeletal support that allows the practitioner to be very responsive to the client when one is interacting. On the other hand, this bodily organization also allows the Practitioner to not be disturbed in such a way as to have one’s functioning impeded – not to be “thrown off balance” in any way, as it were. I realize that in doing the research interviews, I adopted this professional embodiment, and in this way was not easily perturbed by any aspect of the interviews. However, in the long process of exploring the texts, there were definite embodiments that emerged in relation to the process. When I was feeling stuck in the process, I was more likely to also feel physically fatigued. When I did, I was sometimes able to alter this feeling of fatigue by shifting to working at my standing desk, or going for a walk with the aim of ‘enlivening’ the process and trying ‘to move it on’. Conversely, many of the breakthroughs in my thinking about the process of analyzing the texts occurred during taking a shower, or going for a walk, or doing my Awareness Through Movement self-care practice. Taking a rest from the textual analysis tasks by taking a bath or a nap also sometimes helped the process. There were certainly a few times when I found myself pacing in my study as I worked through a blockage in the process. Pacing however was particularly present after making a breakthrough, which necessitated taking a few steps, then dashing back to my journal to make some more notes before resuming pacing.

346 These are not unique insights in the relationship between bodily experience, physical movement, and the research process. I feel, however, that it was useful noting these things in my research journal, and being able to deliberately apply my knowledge of the relationship between physical movement (or rest) and creative cognitive processes to this dissertation process. References Josselson, R. (2004). The hermeneutics of faith and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Narrative Inquiry, 14(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.1075/ni.14.1.01jos

Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

Reproduced with permission of copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.