Demystifying Feldenkrais

Kathryn Hume-Cook (left), Anna Kleinhuis (middle), Aya Delius (right)

When I received the following letter from Kathryn Hume-Cook, one of the participants in MASTERING THE METHOD in Hamburg, Germany, I just had to ask her if I could share it on our website. 

Thanks to Kathryn's letter I realized that no matter what I tell you about the content of the course, what matters most is how I teach.

I asked Kathryn for permission to publish this letter because I was touched and impressed by how she articulates her appreciation of my way of teaching. Perhaps better than I ever could, Kathryn outlines the values that inspire me. Along the way, she also illustrates how and why MASTERING THE METHOD provides the means, as she wrote, "to achieve results by design and not by default."

Thanks Kathryn!
Larry

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Dear Larry,

I would really like to let you know what I find so special about your work:

Firstly, that you don't assume that when we say we understand, we actually do understand. Just as our students in ATM groups often think they understood something, when they maybe didn't get the whole picture, so it is with us. 

So I love the way when you use a word like "lamina", or talk about "lengthening the neck" or somesuch, you then check everyone's faces. And even if 30% of us are nodding and a few looking enthusiastic because they've heard that word or that concept before, you just go ahead and define lamina anyway. I love that, because even if we HAVE heard some of it before, each and every time we hear it again, we get the chance to check our knowledge, compare our knowledge, question our knowledge etc. And we don't have to potentially embarrass ourselves. Thank-you for that.

Secondly, you don't just show us a complete FI and ask us to go and make an approximation. You give us the space and the time to listen and feel and experiment with each single tiny element of the FI. We don't all have to go and pretend we know more than we do or be worried about the others knowing more than us: we get the freedom and relief of just practicing a thing.

The theme of first three modules of MASTERING THE METHOD (MTM) is developing length and support. This is a central idea in the Feldenkrais^® approach: when movement is optimized, the skeleton provides support, and each of person is "long"—as tall as they can be without any unnecessary muscular effort.

In the first module of MTM, I teach an FI template that fundamentally re-organizes the trunk and spine. When I introduce advanced skeletal and muscular hands-on techniques, I so do in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step fashion, and make the underlying teaching tactics explicit. Participants work in small groups, learning with and from each othe,r in a collaborative and supportive fashion. Because FI isn't something that can be learned by watching and imitating, I circulate around the class to ensure that I coach each practitioner individually. Not only do I work the person who is in the "pracititoner role," often I also give the person on the table a "feel" for the technique so that her or his feedback can be on-target and useful.

Here's short video excerpt showing how I present one the techniques in the first MTM module:

In each MTM module, I contextualize the lesson, and show how it applies to learning to move without pain, improving posture, and enhancing performance. This means that I make explicit how to start and finish a lesson so that it is most meaningful—and most memorable—for your students. Most importantly, I guide you in both integrating what you learn and applying it in your practice.

You can begin MASTERING THE METHOD in:

Boston, MA - September 2010

Berkeley, CA - October 2010

Paris, France – January 2011

Please don't wait until the last the minute to sign up - these courses usually fill! To find out how to enroll and for more information about the MTM master class series, please click here.

In most endeavors in the world, improvisation comes last. Beforehand, the practitioner must learn the basics, study the classics, and develop basic competence. In my living room, I have a print of "Person at the window," one of Salvador Dali's early paintings. There are no dripping clocks, skulls, or strange apparation. It's a classic painting of someone looking out the window across an expanse of water. Í love the painting itself. What's more I appreciate that it demonstrates that even a great artist started by learning the fundamentals.

In some parts of the Feldenkrais world, the idea seems to be the exact opposite. The trainee or practitioner is expected to follow her intuition in giving Functional Integration lessons, to improvise from the get-go. There is little respect for technique and no appreciation for composition. Some claim that every lesson is completely different, an original creation for each student.

While each lesson is certainly unique, I think it's both misleading and dishonest to claim that there is no structure to our hands-on work, especially when it is clear that the exact opposite is the case for Awareness Through Movement classes.

As antidote to this mystification, I have been teaching a post-graduate program for Feldenkrais teachers called MASTERING THE METHOD. A series of five-day master classes, this program teaches the compositions of effective, lasting hands-on lessons from the inside out.

In each MASTERING THE METHOD (MTM) module, I "unpack" an FI template from start to finish, put the logic of the lesson in plain words, and teach the techniques step-by-step. Participating practitioners learn another effective and reliable lesson to add to their repertoire of Functional Integration lessons, deepening their understanding of the method and taking their skills to the next level.

If you're not familiar with my work, here's a video that introduces the course, and shows the all-important beginning of the lesson:

You can begin MASTERING THE METHOD in:

   Boston, MA - September 2010

   Berkeley, CA - October 2010

   Paris, France – January 2011

"We act in accordance to our self-image."

That's the opening sentence to Moshe Feldenkrais' book Awareness Through Movement and one of the main tenets of the method he developed. It means that what we do, the very way we move through life, is based on our conscious perception of our bodies, not on our structure.

With this notion comes the idea that the self-image can—and does—change as we grow and develop. Recent reserarch in neural plasticity has proven overwhelmingly that this indeed is just what happens. That's the good news of modern neurophysiology: your brain isn't set, it can change.