Ralph

When you introduce yourself to the readers on this blog you write “I was trained in the Feldenkrais Method by Moshe Feldenkrais, the originator of the Method, and have been in practice since 1983.” I am still very puzzled by such a self distortion by a fellow teacher who spends so much time discussing the method in terms as we read in this blog. I would expect you to be correct and informative and explain to the common readers who might not know the historical facts of the teachings of Dr Feldenkrais and the training named Amherst in particular. You were only partly trained by Dr Feldenkrais, Ralph, isn’t that so? Your statement is from the point of view of professional authorization false. In fact Dr Feldenkrais trained Amherst for two years and fell ill and never taught the important teaching of FI. Over the years I have spoken and exchanged letters with many teachers and trainers alike about this fact and it is even published in IFF documents as an ad hoc teaching after his illness. It seems a remarkable slip of mind, or is it something else? Many of us discussing with you, here or at Feldyforum are not trained by him either but you are one of the more extreme in on one hand stating that you received the best of his knowledge and on the other hand denying its existing as a teaching built upon certain principals and defined as a method. I think it would be very proper for you to correct the information under the title “Ralph Strauch” and make the public find you as trustworthy in Feldenkrais as a degree from Harvard of Yale would be.

I am by no means generalizing about any competence & qualifications held today by the teachers from Amherst after their long scholarship. I can see that over the world there are different authorizations and seals to practice the feldenkrais method as a profession. I have written extensively about it in my article “humility of learning”. If I draw conclusions from the facts I have discussed in this paper you are, by this presentation of yourself, showing the very opposite of humility and that is arrogance. Why not simply declare where you come from so we can understand your paths and where you are going? Then we are apt not only to evaluate you as a potential reliable pathfinder but also have evidence to realize when or why you are heading astray and getting lost.
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Eva

He begins by defining movement as including “all temporal and spatial changes in the state and configurations of the body and its parts . . .” Using that definition, he argues that movement is a necessary and central component of the other components of human functioning — sensation, feeling, and thinking — and that without movement, they would not be possible. He concludes that:

Finally, and most important of all, there is one more reason why we should chose the action-system as the point of attack for the improvement of man. All behavior, as we noted before, is a complex of mobilized muscles, sensing, feeling, and thought. Each of these components of action could, in theory, be used instead, but the part played by the muscles is so large in the alternatives that if it were omitted from the patterns in the motor cortex, the rest of the components of the pattern would disintegrate.

To answer Russ’s question, I find the passage a highly instructive summary of Moshe’s thinking on the subject, and central to his teaching and his Method. I might quibble with a few of the details, but basically I believe what he says there. I’m not sure quite why Russ asked me about this passage, but I find it a wonderful example of both the richness and depth of Moshe’s thought and the potential difficulties in absorbing and understanding all its nuances.

As the term is normally used, “movement” refers to a perceptible change in position or configuration. That’s how we use the term in ATM lessons — “move your arm, lift your leg,” etc. We distinguish “real” movement from “imaginary” movement, where the student thinks about moving but doesn’t actually move. That’s what most people think of as movement, most of the time. Let’s call that movement1, for concreteness. (As a mathematician I’d normally use subscripts for this kind of distinction, but the Wordpress editor doesn’t seem to offer that option.)

The meaning of “movement” that Moshe employs in that passage is different. It includes any change in the state of the body, no matter how subtle and miniscule. Let’s call that kind of movement movement2. The distinction between real and imaginary movement doesn’t exist in movement2. Even imagining movement creates changes, albeit subtle and miniscule changes. Those changes constitute movement2, as Moshe is using the term.

Moshe didn’t always distinguish between movement1 and movement2 in his teaching. He talked at times about movement2 and used his understanding of it in FI, but most of what he did in ATM was movement1, and that is what was most obvious to observers in his FI. It was easy for students who weren’t accustomed to thinking in these nuances to pass over them, and see his teaching primarily in terms of movement1, This is another way of looking at the distinction I was trying to make in the previous posting, between the Method as a movement discipline and the deeper and more subtle levels that Moshe had in mind.

Ralph

My reference to “pathology of contemporary civilization” was not directed at elementary education, per se, but at the broader largely unconscious social conditioning we all undergo that teaches us to deaden our awareness of ourselves and our surroundings, and to act in accordance with strictures imposed by a variety of external authority structures. The larger impact of this conditioning is a bigger issue than I want to get into right now, but I do see it as a major source of many of the dysfunctions we encounter as Feldenkrais Teachers.

I realize that the group dynamic between teacher and students is far more complex that it is represented in my little vignette, and that much more is going on than simply the conditioning I described. That conditioning is present, though, and is a component of the larger pattern of conditioning to which we are all subject. That’s the point I was attempting to make.

Ralph

I don’t think you understood what I was saying about mathematics, Paul. I wasn’t talking about the evolution of mathematics so much as I was using it as an example to clarify the distinction I was making between the source of a piece of knowledge and the authority for the validity of that knowledge. At some point I’ll try to articulate that whole theme in greater depth, but for now, let’s just leave it.

I agree with you that the boundary question — what counts as Feldenkrais and what doesn’t — can present some thorny issues. I don’t think we agree, though, on which issues are the thorniest. You seem most concerned about people using the name when they are doing something you don’t see as Feldenkrais. You seem to be asking for a narrow definition of the Method which can be used to exclude those who don’t fit, and a mechanism to keep them out.

I see the opposite boundary issue as more important. How can we come to a broad enough understanding of the Method to encompass the diverse forms of knowing and practice which can be said, in some sense, to legitimately flow from Moshe’s teaching? I see that playing field as quite large, encompassing a wide diversity of understanding and practice, but still somehow all connected through a common heritage. These aren’t easy questions, but Moshe wasn’t a simple thinker. I don’t think his intellectual and practical heritage can be reduced to an unambiguous “method,” at least not in the narrow dictionary sense of that term. I’ve begun to explore these questions in the earlier posts in this series, but my views are still unfolding.

In this particular blog entry, though, I wasn’t really looking at the boundary issues.  My focus was more on autonomy, which I think this may relate to what you’re referring to as maturation. You ask what a “mature” individual would do in a series of hypothetical situations involving expanding the family business beyond its historical roots, as you put it. You seem to conclude that the “mature” decision, in every case, would involve breaking his connections with the family and striking off on his own — in other words, that the “mature” decision is the one you would have him make in the situation as you choose to frame it. 

You haven’t said, though, how you understand maturity in this context. My understanding of the term, at least as Moshe used it, is that it had to do with the nature of the decision-making process — not the particular decision eventually chosen. From that perspective, a mature decision would be one that was based on aware consideration of the factors involved, as the decisionmaker understands them at the time. This could lead to your preferred decision or a different one, but in assessing maturity the nature of the process counts more than the end result. Do you agree, or do you mean something different by the term maturity?

Ralph

Thanks for your comment response, but you really didn’t address what I said at all. I was describing a relationship of teacher to students that was different than you envisioned. I’m not suggesting that elementary school teachers are just doing their best with a bad situation. I’m saying that the situation is more complex than you either realize or are describing for your readers. To reduce the complexities of the situation to “pathology of contemporary civilization” is inaccurate and prevents you from really dealing with what I’m saying.
I hope you’ll take another look.

Your friend, Adam

I agree that it is a problem to have certified practitioners “who were taught to always start on the good side”, that this is a complete perversion of Moshe’s teaching. Well, you didn’t assert the second clause in that sentence, so that’s my opinion. You wrote that “it happens often enough that I think it should be a concern to all of us”. Well, that’s pretty strong in its own way, isn’t it.

You also wrote: “I’m quite comfortable with the existence of multiple perspectives on the Method. I have no desire to argue with anyone who sees it differently than I do, and no need to convince anyone that I am right. But I’ve found that many people find my insights useful, so I do intend to continue writing about them.”

So. An expression of ‘concern’ is a choice not to ‘argue’ and evinces an absence of ‘need’ to be right or to make anyone wrong. Perhaps the sharpness of contrast between one view of the Method and another is, in fact, more readily perceived by some when put so softly.

Then again, a concise [and as comprehensive as possible] list of concrete concerns such as the above example might be very helpfully addressed by collecting relevant written and spoken remarks of Moshe for each. The point would not be for one ‘side’ to ‘win’ but for everyone to gain familiarity with the depth of perspective, the multiplicity of ‘angles’ provided by Moshe.

I understand how counterproductive it could be to attach these concerns publicly to individual trainers or others. And I feel that invoking a cloud of unspecified concerns poorly serves both the Method and the clear presentation of your own understanding of it.

I understand how counterproductive it can be to have quotations of Moshe used as clubs and barbs in arguments. And I feel that leaving his relevant written and spoken words out of the discussion is as big an emptiness as to fail to include one’s own understandings.

Inevitably, I think, any decent collection of what Moshe said about anything will tend to lead someone to the necessity of thinking out their own understandings. At the same time, it will tend to improve the quality of those understandings, so that very few ‘always do this’ statements will be acceptable. One occurs to me, from a video of him doing FI. He says something like “It [always?] begins with a certain quality of touch.”

Russ Hall

For me those innate abilites are not autonomy-limiting at all. As they are defined and explored, my experience is is that the limits become very freeing. Much like constraints in our Method, they organize functional movements towards self-acceptance and hence, foster healthy relationships.

Authority, responsibility, accountability, maturation, independence, freedom, autonomy are all evocative words, maybe provocative words, that try to name a fundamental human desire and drive – to know oneself.