Author: Moshé Feldenkrais

Publication Date: 1972

Summary:

This book showed me how using movement and conscious, directed attention does improve how much I know about myself, and changes what I believe is possible.

The Book in 3 Sentences

• Self development is best achieved by focussing on improving our sensitivity to, and control over, our movement
• In general we use way more effort than is necessary. Effort that is not converted into movement leads to energy losses and eventually, damage to our structure and system
• To be awake, and to be aware are not the same thing. When we direct our attention and become conscious of what we are doing, we can make change.

Who Should Read It

You’ll enjoy this book if:

• You are interested in self development
• You have tried other things to change your breathing, mindset, behaviour etc. with few or no results
• You want to take care of yourself and maintain your ability to move comfortably for as long as possible

How the Book Changed Me

I am reading this book only now, having been aware of Feldenkrais for over 10 years. It's filled in a lot of background for me and gives me a greater appreciation for where Feldenkrais was coming from. I was particularly struck by what I learned in Lessons 11 & 12, these really unlocked some sticky spots for me and after completing them I felt a rush of ideas, inspiration and confidence. I felt differently in my body, and therefore things started shifting in my mind.

My Top 3 Quotes

The great majority of people live active and satisfactory enough lives behind their masks to enable them to stifle more or less painlessly any emptiness they may feel whenever they stop and listen to their heart.

Man's life is a continuous process and the improvement is needed in the quality of the process, not in his properties or disposition.

Force that is not converted into movement does not simply disappear, but is dissipated into damage done to joints, muscles, and other sections of the body used to create the effort. Energy not converted into movement turns into heat within the system and causes changes that will require repair before the system can operate efficiently again.

My Top 3 Actions

1. An easy and fast illustration of using extra effort - try this movement from the first lesson:
   • Sit on the edge of a chair and place bathroom scales underneath your feet (note that the weight should read roughly 1/4 of the total, which is the weight of the legs - this may already tell you something about whether you’re holding tension or how you’re sitting)
   • Stand up in your normal way and observe the scales - Typically the needle will swing beyond your normal weight and then settle back once you are upright
   • Sit back down, and then stand up again and repeat a couple of times. Can you reduce the effort it takes to stand up so that the needle gradually increases to your normal weight without wildly swinging back and forth? What do you need to let go of and how can you use the natural mechanics of your body to make this movement easy? (Hint: there are specifics in the book to help you!)
2. Lesson 12 was my favourite. I loved the description of what happens when we breathe, and to use that when exploring what's getting in the way during inhale and exhale. I realised that the air through my throat was particularly constricted and by noticing this I could change it. Try this little segment:
   • Lie on your back, knees bent. Breathe normally and try not to change it. Imagine the passage of air as it enters your nostrils and goes to the back of your palate and your windpipe. Think only about this every time you breathe in. Does the airflow easily? Or does it get stuck or restricted?
   • What do you need to soften in your throat and chest to allow the air to flow freely? Follow the inhale for several breaths until you can let go of the tension. If it's difficult, don't give yourself a hard time. You can always try again later.
   • If you manage to soften your throat, does this make breathing easier?
3. Begin to observe yourself, not only in movement but also in thought. What are your assumptions about "good posture"? How do you describe your own posture? Is there something you'd like to change? Can you start to notice where in your body you are tight? When you make familiar movements what are you actually doing?

My Honest Opinion

Ironically, this book does take a little effort to get through! It's a small book, but there is wisdom in literally every sentence. The text is a little hard going in places, so I recommend just keep reading, go through some of the lessons and then revisit. The more you dive into the practice the more the words will make sense.

There are still parts I don’t fully get, or don't understand how they fit with the theme of the book, but that just means there's still more to learn. Some of the lessons were either uncomfortable or still a bit baffling. I love the emphasis on not trying so hard and yet I didn’t find that sentiment reflected in some of the instructions. Other lessons were simply mind-blowing.

Book Notes

Part 1: Understanding Whilst Doing

We act in accordance with our self image. This self image- which, in turn, governs our every act- is conditioned in varying degree by three factors: heritage, education, self-education

• Genetics (heritage) is the foundation and over which we have the least control
• Education establishes a person within a society and its goal is to make everyone the same
  • Society is regarded as the sum of its individuals
  • The individuals within a society are driven by feeling accepted as a valuable member so they pursue success in material means over listening to their biological needs
  • We are too interested in fitting in to society that we have lost touch with ourselves
  • We convince ourselves that success will yield contentment but this denial of the self manifests in other ways, such as breakdowns in relationships
• Self education is largely determined by education but is the most in our hands, since it is subject to will and therefore suggests we can help ourselves
• The self image consists of movement, thinking, feeling and sensation and is generally smaller than our potential capacity
• Worrying about how we look to others must be put aside in order to recognise our true value
• Our self image is also related to how aware we are of our own bodies. Most of us have many blind spots in the body

It therefore follows that if we want to change the way we act, we have to change how we see ourselves

There are three successive stages of development for human activity:

• Stage 1 - natural - the things that all humans learn to do (e.g. run jump, dance, fight etc.)
• Stage 2 - individual - when someone finds a special way of doing a natural activity that then proves to be advantageous
• Stage 3 - method and profession - standardising and creating a process that becomes a trade, i.e. a teachable method

• We are in a society where stage 3 is overruling natural methods because we emphasise needing to study a profession before being able to perform it
• The emphasis on stage 3 means we lose what we learned naturally. We may end up struggling to function adequately outside of the professional sphere - this is the argument for improving the self image
• Stage 3 puts people off even trying stages 1&2, which are within reach
• However ”systematic study and awareness should provide man with a means of scanning all fields of action so he can find a place for himself where he can act and breathe freely”

Man's life is a continuous process and the improvement is needed in the quality of the process, not in his properties or disposition.

• Many methods exist that claim to create human correction
• The self image has four components:
  • Sensation - five familiar senses plus kinesthetic sense e.g. pain, orientation, passage of time and rhythm
  • Feeling - emotions plus self-respect, inferiority, supersensitivity, and other conscious and unconscious emotions
  • Thinking - intellect such as opposition's (e.g. good vs bad), understanding, knowing that one understands, classifying things, recognising rules, imagining, knowing what is sensed and felt, remembering all the above etc.
  • Movement - temporal and spatial changes in the state and configurations of the body and its parts, such as breathing, eating, speaking, blood circulation and digestion
• Attention on any one of these components influences the others but movement is recommended because:
  1. The nervous system in the waking state is involved in every method of self-improvement, and the nervous system is mostly occupied with movement due to the need to maintain the body against the pull of gravity
  2. It is relatively easier to determine the quality of movement than the other components
  3. We have more experience with movement than thought or feeling (in fact we often suppress them)
  4. The ability to move is linked to how we feel about ourselves
  5. Muscular activity is movement, all actions result in muscle activity
  6. Movements reflect the state of the nervous system, changing the system changes movement
  7. Movement is the basis of awareness because we are often not aware of what's happening until muscles start responding (e.g. how do you know you're sad? Happy? Anxious?)
  8. Breathing is movement and breathing is related to emotions, effort, disturbances etc.
  9. Effecting change in the motor cortex means the muscular patterns associated with thinking and feeling are decoupled. It is therefore easier to change thoughts and feelings if the underlying muscular pattern is changed.

Part 2: Doing to Understand

The lessons are designed to improve ability, that is, to expand the boundaries of the possible: to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy, and the easy into the pleasant. For only those activities that are easy and pleasant will become part of man’s habitual life and will serve him at all times.

Lesson 1: What is good posture?

We have a notion of “sitting or standing up straight” but what does straight really mean? It means something aesthetic

• Ideal posture is when we can be in a stable position (e.g. standing and sitting) without muscular contraction deriving from voluntary control (where consciously or not)
• Poor posture arises when we are using using excess muscular effort to stay upright
• Humans learn rather that act on instinct, therefore posture varies wildly from human to human since we have to learn it
• Muscles that respond to voluntary will are also at the mercy of other parts of the brain. When we are in danger for instance we react reflexively before we realise what’s happening
• Postural deviations are corrected through additional muscular effort. One of the main causes of the deviation is pain
• Pain increases the tension in the nervous system and reduces our sensitivity so we do not detect postural corrections, meaning our muscles are efforting without us knowing

Lesson 2: What Action is Good?

• Whether an action is efficient or not is based on whether the action fulfils it's goal but also whether it is performed more effectively next time
• Principles of well-performed actions:
  • Reversibility - at any point during the movement you can decide to continue or stop and back and both are as easy as each other
  • Movements should be light and easy, good organisation means movements are performed without strain or feeling of effort
  • There is no limit to improvement - looking for excess effort in movement leads from one thing to another until personality changes and previously unforeseen opportunities and abilities arise.
  • the large muscles of the centre of the body are designed for powerful work. In a well organised system, they can do that work and pass that energy along to the limbs without losing the power
  • Alignment breeds strength, angles in the body dissipate strength

Lesson 3: How To Do the Movements

• Pause after each movement, make every one afresh
• let breathing sync with the movement
• Rest and observe changes
• make movements slow and gradual
• Look for superfluous effort and try to let it go
• Changing the approach from using sheer will power to unravelling the layers of effort and looking for an easier pathway

Movements: Lifting Arms & Legs
My Notes: On the back - given everything he says about making things easy I find this position very difficult to be in. From the text it sounds like he expects that but gives no idea for alternative. Are you just supposed to stand it? Is that the point of the practice? On the front - difficult in the beginning! (Meaning i'm using a lot of superfluous effort) Gradually letting go of other muscles makes this easier. I find it quite similar to Lesson 11, which I prefer.

Lesson 4: Understanding the Body in Breathing

Movements: Breathing in different positions
My Notes: Personally I find these too violent and I create a lot of tension by holding my breath and moving it between chest and stomach, especially in my neck. The explanations of breathing are interesting but I don't follow the point of the movements. How can you repeat these? It's still not clear what the point is. I much prefer lesson 12 for improving breathing.

Lesson 5: Coordinating the Front and Back

Movements: Steeple Twist
My Notes: These movements really do soften the back. I like the rotation and how different one side feels to the other. I don’t think you need to do 25 though. It’s easy to lose concentration and then if you're not paying attention you're not getting the benefit.

Lesson 6: Finding Excess Effort

Movements: Pelvic Clock
My Notes: I enjoyed this movement, in the beginning at least, not sure about all the different leg positions. Really helped me understand that there's something in my left back mid ribs that blocks and when I touch it, it releases. At the beginning the description is not very clear - he is describing an Arch (like from Arch & Flatten).

Lesson 7: Improving Rotation and Using Imagination

Movements: Lifting arms & legs
My Notes: I liked the movements in this lesson and I definitely found improvement, although I still can't work out how to lift my knees from the floor effortlessly! More to learn here.

Lesson 8: Perfecting the Self Image

Movements: Raising the Foot
My Notes: This is one of the lessons I found challenging, and because of that I found it hard to "use less effort" so it's one to come back to for me. Two other interesting points though:

1. Why we rest after movements is not to recover our breath but to notice change
2. Most of our are used to moving from one activity to another without observing the impacts of repeated action

Lesson 9: Paying Attention to Relationships Between Moving Limbs to Improve Coordination

Movements: Face Circles
My Notes: I like this lesson, for me this is part of the beauty of Feldenkrais. He showcases perfectly how awareness and attention on what you're doing is so powerful.

Lesson 10: The Importance of the Eyes in the Organisation of the Body

Movements: Seated Rotation
My Notes: The first time I did (a version of) these movements was a real "a-ha" moment. I remember in Feldenkrais lessons the teacher saying "roll your head left and right. What is the quality of the movement?" Until doing a version of this lesson I didn't understand what the question meant. But after doing some of the movements in this lesson my neck had finally released such that rolling my head side to side was like my neck was cooked spaghetti! This was 7 years ago though, and now I'm a bit more cautious about rotational movements due to what I've since learned about myself. So I prefer to play with my eyes differently. Still, this is a fun exploration, just remember not to work too hard!

Lesson 11: Using Imagination to Become Aware of What We Cannot Feel

Movements: Rolling a Ball
My Notes: ♥️ Loved this. As someone who struggles with the Back Lift movement from Thomas Hanna, this was a revelation. Using the ball I could really sense where the diagonal connection between leg and opposite shoulder was going array

Lesson 12: Thinking and Breathing

Movements: Visualisation
My Notes: ♥️ Loved this. I have never felt such changes in my breathing and the front of my chest as I did after this lesson.

Have you read this book too? What did you think? Let me know in the comments!