The Feldenkrais Method, living in the world, & sorting out or not sorting out what the hell went on this week...
“That is why, in the type of work we are doing, when the person is doing a movement, thinks he is doing it, and can see that he is not—then he can learn. If he colors it with something, learning is far more difficult and less thorough.”
—Moshe Feldenkrais
This morning and I came across this comment (Awareness Through Movement lesson from Alexander Yanai #81: Washing the Face with the Feet) and I started thinking how nice it is to do a lesson and have a contained bit of learning that has to do just with me. This messy bit of learning is just between me and me and no one else. And I think about that thing that Max Schott, one of my teachers at the College of Creative Studies at UCSB, once said. And it comes to mind often—that people are beautiful messes.
And then I consciously decided to write after the lesson but to stop thinking about it right then and to think about my movement.
After a week filled with a more than the usual amount of people and information and conflict and pleasure and confusion, it’s nice to do a Feldenkrais lesson, which makes clear sense—even while it’s still mysterious to me—and gives information and puzzle pieces. It has a beginning and an end. There’s a question, maybe a struggle or a confusion, which maybe eventually I let go of. And then I just sink into what’s going on without trying to figure it out and without making any decisions. There’s usually real learning that seems to just appear: I see what I do and then I see what more I can do. Maybe there’s something to do differently. Maybe I’m holding something I don’t need to hold. Today I wasn’t contracting something I had no idea could be contracted in that way. Isn’t it funny and odd that muscles can contract and relax in a variety of ways and degrees and directions and…? I have to listen carefully to myself to discover this as of yet unknown and delightful element.
And it’s a relief that no one else is in it with me. Here’s another chance to see what I do, how I move and what I do and how I learn but within the context of this movement lesson. And I get to step outside the beautiful mess of being in the world with—or of—other people. I get to be inside just my own, well, beautiful mess.
