Volume 7, Number 1, February 2008

Quote From Moshe: “…the head is righted by labyrinthine and exteroceptive reflexes, while the body is righted by proprioceptive and exteroceptive reflexes. The exteroceptive stimuli are seen to control both the head and the body and bring them into the normal position. But the righting function of the head and the body have a second individual mechanism insuring proper functioning when the other mechanisms are injured or prevented from operating.” Body and Mature Behavior, p.87

Getting A Head of Myself

Once a t’ai chi instructor whom I held in very high regard took a look at me, struggling to do the task he had assigned. He said with a mixture of pity and challenge, “You need to find the top of your head. Solve all your problems.” He was the kind of instructor who didn’t say much, so you knew that when he gave you a comment, it actually meant something.

Unfortunately, he might has well have said, “You need to find a million dollars in a trunk somewhere. Solve all your problems.” I had no idea where the top of my head (or a million dollars) might be found. True, I could point to the top of my head, but I couldn’t sense it from inside, nor did I have any way of doing that.

“Slowly, slowly,” my t’ai chi instructor used to say, and by that he meant, “It’s going to take years. Maybe twenties of years.” So I sighed and put the thought in the back of my head (I knew where that was) hoping that one day my quest for healing and self-fulfillment would eventually lead me to the top of my head.

Currently I have a job where I spend a lot of time standing in one place, watching children go by so that I can admonish them not to run. After a year or so of this endless standing, one does get a chance to get to know the act of standing pretty well, at least as it relates to one’s own self.

My drive to this job is very long, so to pass the time I’ve been listening to Robert Kaplan’s Seeing Beyond 20-20 program, which contains a series of “eye-fitness” games. Everyone who reads this column regularly knows I use my eyesight as a kind of gauge for the rest of myself. The eye-fitness-games have been expanding my consciousness about how I see and what I am seeing.

So it was that one day not long ago, I decided I was really tired of the way my head seemed to way a thousand pounds because my neck and my shoulders were achy and tight. It occurred to me then and there that if I listened internally to where my head was in space, and then adjusted my body under that, it would probably be a lot better.

So I did it. And it worked.

Now, you may be saying “You spend all day thinking about Feldenkrais, but you never thought of that before?” Ah. There’s the rub.

Have you ever been given a puzzle to solve, and gotten impatient with it, so you peeked at the solution? “Oh, that’s obvious,” you thought, completely forgetting how impossible it had been before you had the information.

The human state is very much like that. I would have loved to have adjusted my body a long time ago. In fact, I’ve been wiggling and adjusting for years to try and find a good way to stand. What’s been missing? If you’ve been reading carefully, you know.

Something’s changed for me in the last few months, an internal sense of where my head is, its shape, its dimensions. I never really had that before. I just saw out of my eyes and hoped for the best. But with these eye-fitness exams, I’ve suddenly been able to use my vision to orient myself. Even with my eyes closed, I have a sense of where I am in space, where the horizon is, and so forth. I’m now using the sensory information that comes into my eyes in a more sophisticated way. The fringe-benefit? I know where the top of my head is!

If I’d only known where my head was and had no sense of my body, I’d be lost in another way. But I have my body and my head, and I’m now engaged in the task of putting the two together. This is the beginning of a closure I’ve been seeking for a long time, comprehension of the length of my spinal cord.

What can you do with my information? Recognize the following: One) The most obvious solution may be hidden when we lack enough information; Two) Thinking of one part of our body as “the object” and another as “the support” is a very limited way of working with ourselves. It’s far preferable to imagine two equivalent parts of a puzzle, or a balancing sculpture; Three) The Feldenkrais Method is a very useful way of getting information we lack, and using it most effectively (You knew I was going to get around to that eventually!)

I’d ask you what you’re waiting for, but I already know. You either have what you need to begin the journey, or you don’t know you’re missing it. Either way, you and I have work to do.