Volume 1, No

Volume 1, No. 7, August 2002

Quote From Moshe: “The more one deals with the obvious, the more one sinks into deeper waters where the elusive is paramount.” The Elusive Obvious, p. 152

How I Remembered to Have Fun

I don’t relax well, but I’m getting better at it. Let me tell you, if there’s one thing the Feldenkrais work has done for me, it’s taught me how to relax. When I’m on vacation, just sitting around, I no longer have to be doing something. I can focus in on letting go. That keeps my mind so busy I don’t have time for anything else. And when I’m done focusing, I’m too tired and relaxed to want to do anything else. Voila!

The thing I like about the Feldenkrais Method is that it doesn’t just relax you. It tells you why you weren’t relaxed to begin with. It can take you from one place to the other, and if you so desire, back again. Why would you so desire to go back again? Let me tell you a story.

I was at the ocean last June with my wife. I love the ocean, but I have to admit I’m also afraid of it. I can’t wait to see the surf, and to play in it. But once I get in, I find the waves, which I thought would caress me, are instead dragging me under, knocking me upside down like your best dumb buddy who doesn’t know how hard he hits you.

I thought it would be different this time. When we arrived at Tybee Island, I was as eager as ever to get in the water. But no sooner had I breasted the waves and worked my way out to swimming range than I found myself again at the mercy of the surf. “Hey, this isn’t as fun as I thought,” I heard myself thinking, in my usual train of thought .

Usually, that would be the end of the conversation. I’d do my best to console myself that I really was having fun, and I’d stay in until I was sick of it. By the time I got out, I’d be glad I had gone swimming, but I wouldn’t be able to claim that I’d really had as much fun as I’d expected. I’m usually resigned to this process, but something about the experience this time made me a little angry.

“Wait a minute,” I demanded of myself. “Why aren’t I having fun? It’s my vacation. This is the first time in months I’m not being badgered by anybody. It’s just me and the waves. What’s wrong with me?”

As a Feldenkrais teacher, I endeavored to answer my own questions in a way that would help me understand my dilemma. What kind of experience was I really having out here? Despite the fact that I was surrounded by potential liquid fun, I noticed that my shoulders were tense, I wasn’t breathing easily, and all I could think about was how tired I felt.

I began to ask myself what I usually did when I felt this way, out of the waves. The answer was that I tried to discover the parts of myself that I wasn’t using. By doing that, I was often able to move on the road towards a more complete use of myself, and I would begin to relax or at least feel better.

What parts of myself were missing here in the waves? Let me explain: I don’t mean my gall-bladder. If we think of ourselves as being an arm when we lift a weight, we’ll lift the weight almost entirely with our arm. If we think of ourselves as a torso, we’ll distribute the weight throughout the torso. On the other hand, if we think of ourselves as a complete body, we can involve the whole self in the simple act of lifting, where the arm simply becomes a lever on a fulcrum. Thinking of ourselves as a complete body at all times makes nearly everything, including sitting around, more elegant, more pleasant.

What gets in the way of us thinking of ourselves as a whole self all the time? We’re in the habit of thinking of ourselves as parts. And what’s worse, we’re convinced that the parts of us of which we’re aware are in fact the whole of us. Some people go through their whole lives imagining themselves as a pair of arms with a head because they’ve lost all understanding of how they use of their legs. As long as they can still walk and stand, they won’t think of their lower body much at all. They’ll consider their self-image quite complete as long as they can get by doing what they need to do.

But if you put them in a situation where the pair of arms is insufficient, where they need their arms to coordinate with their legs to make a movement, then they suddenly are forced to either abandon the task at hand or discover how it can be done. Expanding their self-image, learning to notice what parts of themselves they have discounted or forgotten, is central to their being able to do what they need to do with ease. Once they are able to incorporate the use of their legs in the task once relegated to the arms, either through balancing or relaxing or making a certain effort, they find many things much easier. Suddenly, turning the steering wheel on that truck is a breeze because the lower body isn’t being dragged along, but is in fact contributing to the task, either by counterbalancing or some other way.

The Feldenkrais Method is superb in creating situations where you must increase your self-image to complete a task. Afterwards, you may feel strange, but generally, you are happier than you were before, because you feel more complete, more capable, more like a whole person.

So what was I, being buffeted by the waves, failing to do? I remembered that often, I go though my routine without really using my eyes to look. I flit them about from place to place to insure I don’t hit anything, but I often fail to use them in a way that a good ball-player will use them, or a recreational hiker walking through the woods, guaging distances, assessing details, not just seeing but looking.

I wasn’t looking at the waves as I played in them. Does it matter, you may ask? Does looking at the waves really make a difference? Isn’t that a little simplistic?

When I began to look at the water coming in on me, I was able to interact with the waves in a much more playful way. By constantly adjusting my vision to see things near and far, I engaged my neck muscles and was better able to balance my weighty head upon my shoulders. I was able to move myself around much more easily, and I found my movement more coordinated and pleasant. I swam and jumped more easily through the water. I had more control over my reactions to the waves as they came crashing down. And when they sent me to the bottom, I maintained my poise under the water so that I was able to keep oriented and swim back to the surface when I pleased.

Best of all, I found that interacting with the ocean directly, by looking intentionally at the waves, was much more fun than being a piece of flotsam. I was really playing in the ocean, reacting to things, being active, and it was a hoot! I felt like a little kid again. No surprise there. Kids do this sort of thing automatically. It’s only when we get older and we forget how to play that we lose the ability.

How do you play? Not just what do you do to play, but what does the act of playing require of your body? It’s a joyous question to answer, and replying to it provided me with the relaxation I so craved. I’m going back to Tybee in two weeks. I can’t wait to play with my friend again, but this time, I’ll be watching!

Notice.