Volume 7, Number 9, October 2008

Quote From Moshe: “Imagine a dancing party attended by a man who never dances…He always declines all invitations to participate saying that he does not know how. One woman, however, likes the man sufficiently to persuade him to take the floor. Moving herself, she somehow manages to make him move too…In saying that I work with people I mean that I am ‘dancing’ with them. I bring about a state in which they learn to do something without my teaching them…” The Elusive Obvious, pp. 8-9

The Chicken With the Egg

A lot of people make a fundamental mistake. They think that because two things happen at the same time, that one of them caused the other.

You can say that this is true sometimes. If you get a runny nose at the same time you get a cold, it’s reasonable to deduce that the cold caused your nose to run. Other times, however, this kind of thinking can get you into real trouble. You may notice that a lot of people who go to the hospital die there. Is it reasonable to assume that going to the hospital was the cause of their death?

When one has begun to use the Feldenkrais Method to explore, one discovers that things that seemed to be causing us trouble are really not the causes at all. This is because the Method gives us a global look at the way we are organized.

By “organized” I don’t mean knowing where our checkbook is. I mean the way in which we structure ourselves to function. For example, when we sleep, we close our eyes. We may curl into a ball. In this way, we are “organizing” ourselves for sleep.

Organization is partially individual, and partially universal. For instance, closing the eyes for sleep is something nearly everyone does. On the other hand, only those of use who find it more comfortable to curl up will do so for sleeping. Others of us will lie flat on our backs, or on our stomachs.

In all cases, however, we are optimizing our system to achieve our goal. If the goal is rest, then we assume a position which offers us the most bodily support so that we can relax our muscles to the fullest extent. If we habitually tense our stomachs, it is in our best interest to contract those muscles as much as possible through our skeletal position (that is, curl up) so that we are in a posture that is most natural to us.

When we recognize our tendency to organize through things like Feldenkrais lessons, we discover we have choices. Some of these choices feel better than others. Previously we might have gone with the good-feeling ones without thinking, but now, if we choose, we can explore those that are less familiar, or even scary or uncomfortable. When we do so, it offers us the opportunity to discover what we are like in a different organization.

Many Feldenkrais lessons start us in a physical position that limits our choices. We might be lying on our backs with our left foot standing to the right of our right leg. In this strange position, certain types of organization are impossible. We cannot do what we usually do to get into a position that is more restful, so if we want to get more comfortable we will have to reorganize something else. Perhaps there is something we can change in the shape of our back that will make us happier. Maybe we need to be able to move some of our ribs to change our back. Maybe this is the first time we’ve intentionally moved those ribs in a long time.

Those of us who have had a stroke or a debilitating injury know what it’s like to suddenly lose our favorite way of getting around. If we are clever or have help, we learn to reorganize so that we can function again. The Method can make such reorganization easier through the process it offers.

But what about cause and effect? Well, once we fully realize that we make active choices in our organization, we can begin to look at familiar situations in new ways. Take anger, for instance. We may be accustomed to thinking of anger in the following way: “When I get angry, it makes my whole body tense.” We are assuming that the anger caused our tension.

With a little Feldenkrais under our belts, we may suddenly realize that the reverse may be true. “When I tense my whole body, it makes me get angry.” The reversal is interesting, but it isn’t sufficient. The truth is, neither element may cause the other. They are related as two parts of a single idea.

We organize ourselves for anger. We may assume a fighting stance, or a protective one, or one of complete surrender, depending on the way we have learned to deal with certain situations. The anger and the organization come at the same moment as part of a human response to a challenge.

If we can get beyond cause-and-effect thinking in this situation, we enable ourselves to deal with the situation in two ways. If we wish to reduce our tension, we may address our anger. If we wish to reduce our anger, we may address our tension. Neither is causing the other, but because they are intimately related, where one goes, the other must follow!

This is a great revelation, and offers us lots of opportunities to recognize new solutions to old problems. Having such an outlook offers us more choices in our struggle with injury, but also with relationships. It may even offer potential solutions to certain kinds of sickness. The sky’s the limit in such exploration, and the goal of achieving a greater sense of self offers ever deepening rewards.