News & Notes from Larry's Laptop

The worst part of my accident wasn't the injuries, the pain afterwards, the limits on what I could do physically, the surgery, or the pain after that.

The worst part was the cognitive and emotional consequences of the anesthesia . . . and the worst part of that was not realizing how bad off I was while this was happening.

At first, I thought being in a funk and foggy-headed was a consequence of the trauma and the painkillers, but then the dark, hazy state continued. And continued...

Even after weeks of rest and recuperation, I found myself zapped of my usual enthusiastism and bubbliness. I couldn't get motivated; I was tired all the time. Sleep often seemed like the best—and sometimes the only—choice.

Email started piling up and projects kept backing up. I had to postpone some engagements and cancel others. What's worse, I kept making mistakes that were out of character for me, thinking each was a seperate incident . . . until they started adding up.

The first module of Mastering the Method began in Melbourne as scheduled—even though it was only two days after the accident where I had broken my right arm and sprained my left knee. Those few days were haunted by one question: "How can I teach a course that highlights hands-on technique with my arm in a sling?" 

When I spoke to colleague Anastasi Siotas about my dilemma, he acknowledged the challenge, pointing out that my favorite response when someone asks a technical question is “let me show you.”

Of course, there is much more to this advanced Feldenkrais training than specifying hand position & shape, clarifying the reason for each technique, and refining self-use. The five-day module takes on one Functional Integration composition, and this time it was a lesson for developing length and support done with the student lying on the side.

Examining the FI as if it were an Awareness Through Movement lesson, I unpacked the learning logic step-by-step, revealing the overarching strategy and detailing how the lesson unfolds. The technical, hands-on aspect plays a larger role in understanding the how and why of each technique. I know if the techniques don’t make sense and aren’t comfortable then the participants won’t incorporate them into their practice.

After a bit of worry, and considerable reflection, I managed to come up with several approaches—some tried-and-true, others novel & untested:

"We have a brain for one reason and for one reason only...and that's to produce adaptable and complex movement. There is no other reason to have a brain."

That's how neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert, who calls himself a movement chauvinist, begins his beautiful TED talk: The real reason for brains. He updates classic movement science themes, such as muscles being the final common pathway of the brain's activity and the idea of corollary discharge, bringing them to life with vivid, understandable examples.

What's particularly wonderful is how Dr. Wolpert touches on some of the basic concepts in Feldenkrais pedagogy. Let me tell you how the concept of self-image and the strategy of decreasing effort find new scientific foundations:

Wolpert introduces the sea squirt, a creature distinguished by its ability to eat its own nervous system. Then he's off and running, illustrating how to reverse engineer the way humans move, taking examples from control in tennis, tickling, and children's fights. Along the way Wolpert points out that the sensory signal the mover receives is noisy and, therefore unreliable.

Considering how the brain deals with noise and with unpredictability—or variability—in the world leads him to a presenting of the role of memory in perception. By doing so, Wolpert offers another way of understanding the importance of self-image in the coordination action. Here self-image isn't a static picture in the brain, instead it's what dynamically arises as the brain compares a prediction of the action with the sensory consequences of that same action.