LIFE - THE HOW - HOPE
Thoughts on what makes a Feldenkrais exploration unique
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Life
It is possible to disassemble the entire life process as four components:
movement, sensation, emotion and thought.
Life is a process.
Improve the quality of the process and improve life itself.
Definitions
I draw your attention to the fact that in the book Improving the Ability, a Theory that Can be Put into Practice Moshe Feldenkrais equates action with life and since he differentiates action with four components, action is not the same as movement.
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Last in deed, first in thought /
Made at the end and planned from the start
Know what you are doing, and you can achieve what you want.
In order to implement a thought one has to know how.
The How in ATM - The attitude to the Inquiry and the Learning to Learn
These are some summary statements that I give to my students when they come to my school, to then help them establish a process by explaining and filling the statements with understanding and content.
They are originally from the literature I present as the theoretical basis for Classical Feldenkrais, albeit in my own words.
- look for a pleasurable experience
- practice slowly
- complete easy simple actions
- it is easier to feel differences when the effort is small
- switch between details and the whole and relate to the room
- don't try to do the exploration well, nice and right
- don't say at the beginning what the final goal will be
- do a little less than you are capable of
- don't force yourself to be efficient
- learning and life are not the same thing
The hymn in question is Lecha Dodi which is sung during Friday evening service, Erev Sabbath.
The line of verse in the Kabbalistic hymn is about the Sabbath, the holy day, which is the seventh day, the last day of God's creation. The other six days are completed with the creation of the seventh day, a day of rest. The Sabbath was made at the end and planned from the start writes Shlomo Halevi Alkabetz, the author of the hymn.
Moshe Feldenkrais adopts this stanza for his path, both in The Epilogue and in Improving the Ability, chapter 5:9 The structure and virtues of its function, which is essential for his model of teaching.
The word Sabbath derives from the Hebrew root ש־ב־ת. Translated to “strike” - meaning ceasing [from work], and frequently translated also as "rest" (noun or verb). On Sabbath all creative work must cease and is prohibited. The creative work is defined in rabbinic Judaism as the thirty-six tasks used to build the tabernacle. The Abrahamic religions have different holy days of the week, Islam has Friday, and Christianity has Sunday. It is a day that is separate from everyday life as a holiday.
What happens during a Feldenkrais lesson is a natural process in the brain. This process is heritable, natural and organic.
During lessons, the process is activated externally through handling, or through spoken instructions. The human capacity for abstraction and autosuggestion is called upon. In FI, an active cessation is asked for (inhibition), as well as acceptance of the proffer, so the student is not passive [the brain is active, the senses are active, inhibition is an active property, as opposed to death which is... a passive state, a real rest.
My statements of the “how” in exploring ATM invites an intentional state of reflective consciousness, which is distinct and different from the everyday and the habitual. MF defines awareness as the correlation between intention to achievement in his textbook.
- There is no work being done, hence MF’s resistance to using the word “work” about his model of learning.
- It is not relaxation, as this can be associated with the sleeping state, but a lesson is an awakened attentive state.
- The instruction is to explore effortlessly, pleasantly and with ease.
In an ATM, the person concerned lie supine on the floor, with the legs long, and ideates that he is standing upright. Actions must be imagined, abstracted with an intention and direction but without a specific goal. These actions should be approached unlike those of everyday life.
I say that this state of reflective consciousness is reminiscent of the Sabbath rest, or for that matter, any holiday rest. I have many years of experience in following students' processes of how they gradually enter this mental state of exploration. They can be overwhelmed with the need to fix a problem (by themselves). They usually start by doing gymnastics and externalizing movements. Using this metaphor with the rest day as an approach, many of my students arrive at a eureka moment, with better results from lessons, whether it is FI or ATM.
Read more in article 6) paragraph 6A & 6 B & in article 7 E) paragraph 7
Rest
"You rest in the middle, not because the fatigue is so great, but in order to notice that something is changing in the body, during and after the action. You rest in order to learn practical, sensory anatomy - a culture far more important than exams.”
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Hope
Hope was part of M. F.s’ teachings already from childhood and adolescent.
I did not know Moshe Feldenkrais in person but for reasons my personal history touches upon his history and when I search my vicinity, his often come in my way.
In 2006, Michele Selice, MF's nephew, released a small book with stories in Hebrew by the 11-year-old Moshe Feldenkrais. Two of them particularly touched me and I have translated one of them. The other is a megillah, a story, about how religious Jews were hanged in this ordeal and is reported in the language of a child as being told about the events from someone who was there.
My mother in law E L died April 15 2006, almost 94 years old. She was born in Kaunas (Kovno), Lithuania and emigrated 1931 to Israel. In the eulogy, the speaker reminded us that as a small child, she was expelled from Kaunas to Poltava in Ukraine with her mother and elder sister and the father was drafted. The mother found hard labour to make a living and the small family survived despite great suffering. Ukraine of the period of WW I is a far larger part of my family history. My mother’s paternal grandmother T.R. was expelled from Courland, Latvia to Ekaterinoslav at the same time and died there in 1918.
I wrote about it then in Feldyforum, where I wrote often and learned even more. Writing the YR.com and about Classical Feldenkrais this article is a discussion of the hope being so central in a Feldenkrais process and important for students who come to learn when they are in any personal crisis/pain/disabled.
This is a revised version in November 2024, 18 years later, during the time of war in both Ukraine and Israel/Gaza and children are suffering.
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I take you back 109 years to April/ May of 1915 and the Expulsion of the Jews from Lithuania to give a context what Moshe Feldenkrais experienced and knew, as a child.
Originally, I had a text on a historical website, but it doesn't work. There was a comment from a Russian newspaper in the Saint Petersburg "Rechi":
"Expulsion of the Jews.
The administrations of the uezds of Kaunas Gubernia received the following order:
"According to the orders of the Army Command, all Jews must be expelled who are living west of the line Kaunas, Jonava, Vilkomir (Ukmerge), Rogovo (Raguva), Panevezys, Pasvalys, Salata (Salociai), Bauska. The aforementioned places must also be cleared of Jews. With respect to the Jews living in territory currently under German occupation, this order must be carried out as soon as possible following the clearing of these places of enemy forces and their capture by our troops. The expelled Jews must go to live in one of the following districts (uezd): Bakhmut, Marijupol (Zhdanov), and Slavianoserb districts of Ekaterinoslav Gubernia, and Poltava, Gadiach, Zenkovo, Kobeliak, Konstantinograd, Lokhvitsa, Luben, Myrhorod, Romen and Khorol district of Poltava Gubernia [translator’s note: both Ekaterinoslav and Poltava gubernias are now in Ukraine]. “
..
“At that time, in many Russian cities there were active units of the Jewish Committee to Aid War Victims, as well as local charitable societies. Journals and newspapers wrote: "At 3 o’clock on May 5th the first train with those expelled from Kaunas passed through Smorgon. As soon as it became known in the city that trains with those evicted from the city and gubernia of Kaunas had to pass through, all Jews spontaneously took to organizing aid for the expellees. By the time the second train had arrived there had been stockpiled at the station a large number of foodstuffs: bread, rolls, eggs, sugar, milk."
The general picture of the expulsion was, however, much darker than the statements in the censored press and in the reminiscences of people from Zeimelis.
"Local gubernia and uezd authorities who were carrying out these expulsions did it with the maximum possible cruelty. No deadline was given to prepare for expulsion that was more than 24 hours. Police agents drove those expelled into freight wagons, which sufficed for about one-tenth of the refugees, while others with children, old people and very ill people were driven out on foot (Vilkomir /Ukmerge), Zhagory /Zagare), Shadov/Seduva). During the expulsion or very shortly afterwards, the remaining local population plundered the property of those expelled, with the complete inaction of the police… In Gomel the gendarmerie prevented giving food to those passing through, who were exhausted from thirst and hunger… At the Belitsa station, gendarmerie did not allow persons bringing supplies to approach the closed wagons, under threat of shooting."
The Jews from Zeimelis’ neighbor, Pasvalys, were subjected to special mockery, being expelled in two hours’ time. Many of those from Zeimelis had family connections in Pasvalys. The train from Pasvalys took ten days traveling to Chernigov Gubernia, and the wagons were not opened once. When they were opened at the Unecha station, most of the people were half alive.“
PARAGRAPH 3 C
Beranowich, Moshe Feldenkrais’s town of residence was at that time a famous railroad junction between Warsaw-Minsk (-Moskow) und Vilna-Lemberg (-Budapest - Czernowitz).
Some of the expelled apparently stayed also in Beranowich because Moshe Feldenkrais writes in 1915.
"Condolence letter to the expelled children, my young brothers, children of Israel!
When I witness the efforts of all fellow townsmen for the benefit of the expelled and their children, I would also like to make an attempt for you. However, I am still a child and what good can I do to be beneficial for you?
Therefore, please accept from me a warm handshake as one of your friends who suffers as much as you do and is with you in your suffering although he sits in his father’s house and studies as usual in his school.
I know that you have stopped learning and certainly you are longing to your schools but do not pay attention to this, we are all brothers, children of Israel, part of a big family right now. In Vilna they have already built many schools for the expelled children and not only schools even shelters. Be hopeful and trust your God.
Be strong because you are the children of the people of hope, that their hopes are always fulfilled and even your hope will not be unanswered. Do not remove the hope from your hearts and when you hopes will be fulfilled and you will be rich as before, we will take part of your happiness, the happiness of the children of Israel.”
(Children of Israel, Bnei Israel also translates as Jews)
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Another person related to the Kovno, Lithuania of 1915, and Ukraine of that time is the French Lithuanian philosopher of phenomenology, Emmanuel Levinas.
He was born a year after Feldenkrais, spent important years in Ukraine and moved later to France where he made his contribution to philosophy and ethics. In the original article I have taken a quote. I can no longer find the article on the web with the quote is sustainable.
“In Levinas's case the difficulties were compounded by the hazards of biography. In many respects, his philosophy of "Otherness" reflects his own distinctive itinerary as a perennial outsider. As a youth, Levinas was displaced from his native Kovno by the upheavals surrounding World War I. His family relocated to Ukraine, where Levinas attended high school. But the Bolshevik Revolution, and the civil war that followed, made it impossible to remain. The Levinas family returned to a newly independent Lithuania, where they hoped at last to find tranquility. But Lithuanian nationalism had set in, making things uncomfortable for Russian speakers like the Levinas’s. Thus, in 1923 the family moved again, this time to Strasbourg, the French city geographically closest to Kovno.”
This is an article about Levinas
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What I bring with me from this learning about hope is a need to explore how the Feldenkrais method turned its direction towards phenomenology.
We are not only dealing with action and learning in a special way, but we also conduct our teaching in a very special not normative ethical way.
How did it come about? Was it the similar ideas and circumstances for Levinas and Feldenkrais back there in Ukraine 1915 I am asking?
The world is not just black and white, but rather it has all possible shades of grey.
It is easier to understand one another when we are friends, and have established a common meaning of words, than to speak precisely enough to be understood by those who do not wish to be led up the garden path.