Possibilities, Volume 2, No

Possibilities, Volume 2, No. 5 – June 2003

Quote from Moshe: “Objective reality grows slowly [in our consciousness], eroding subjective reality, and alongside this process, the curiosity to try anything once to see what happens...is diminished.”

Why Feldenkrais, Why Not Feldenkrais?

Let’s get down to it. Nobody’s heard about this stuff but you and me. Why can’t you ask your doctor about Feldenkrais and get an enthusiastic response? Why can’t you look up Feldenkrais in an encyclopedia? Why aren’t people starting Feldenkrais clubs? I want to tell you the real reason.

It’s not because the work has a difficult name. (What’s so easy about Reiki or Pilates?) It’s not because it’s new, and it’s not because it’s a fad. It’s not because of false claims for the work’s effectiveness. Time and time again people experience the most amazing results from Feldenkrais. Often, people whose situations had been considered to be hopeless or impossible are able to change their entire way of life.

So where are the trumpets? Why isn’t every newspaper in the country proclaiming the miracles of this marvelous work? Because Feldenkrais isn’t about fixing, it’s about learning.

Moshe Feldenkrais was able to create an effective Method because he understood how people learn and grow. They don’t learn and grow by doing repetitive exercises. They don’t learn and grow effectively by being reminded how unsatisfactory they are. Most importantly, they don’t learn and grow because someone tells them to learn and grow.

The degree to which we are able to recover from stress or injury is dependent upon how well we are able to pay attention to ourselves. The more non-judgmental the attention, the quieter the mind as it listens and watches, the more curious we are, the more powerful is the reaction. Feldenkrais teaches: “Know what you’re doing and you can do what you want.” But what kind of “knowing” is Feldenkrais talking about?

He’s talking about knowing from the inside, about exploring the very notion of who you are in terms of how you get what you want, how you move around, or how you respond to stress. He’s talking about paying attention to yourself, about being quiet and observing as you move, as you breathe, as you react to a challenge. That kind of attention creates in your autonomic nervous system a reaction which is self-correcting, instinctive and natural to your learning ability.

That kind of attention is scary.

It’s scary and we don’t want to do it. We absolutely don’t want to learn anything. Remember what it’s like to learn? Usually you have to admit you don’t know something. That’s bad enough. Then you have to take that helpless vulnerability to a place where someone or something offers you a possibility for filling that gap. You might not like that possibility. It might conflict with your values or your sense of self. What if you find out you need to accept something in order to grow, but that something is contrary to everything you’ve always been taught? You’d have to make a difficult choice. You’d also have to live with that choice in the real world. Very scary.

Nobody wants to do that. Not even me. But I do. Every day. Why? Because I have a Method that makes it easier. The Feldenkrais Method reminds me that, when I’m learning, it helps to be gentle, to go slow, to take my time changing, to focus on the pleasant as opposed to the painful, and to always believe I can improve more.

Many people don’t realize there’s a safe way to grow and learn. Too often learning is painful, horrible, scary. It’s much easier to get better at what you already know, even if it’s not the best thing in the world for you, than to consider tossing the familiar out the window for something unknown. It’s true, the Method provides challenges in its lessons which can be daunting, even unpleasant, but the choice of how you meet those challenges is always up to you. We as practitioners encourage you to go slowly into them, to pay attention to yourself as you meet them, not to go into pain, to remember you can always improve.

That’s the value of the work, refining your ability to meet those challenges, because the better you are able to meet them, the more you will be able to change. Those who do so are the ones who get out of the wheelchair, who play the piano more gracefully, and who live more satisfying lives. Don’t avoid the Method because you want to avoid unpleasant questions. Use the Method because you want a safe way to ask them.