The Elusive Obvious

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The Elusive Obvious - by Moshe Feldenkrais

Having just finished this book and thinking it is absolutely fantastic, I have distilled the main ideas and added quotes from the text.

Introduction

Moshe is super cool - I won’t bore you with a litany of his achievements except to say that he is a smart Russian guy who opened the first Judo club in France, and hangs out with Nobel Prize winners.

As a child Moshe seriously injured his knee, then one day his knee was cured out of the blue. It was this miracle that he quietly questioned over decades which finally led to the publication of several books and an international school of Physiotherapy - The Feldenkrais Method.

The way this book is written is great. From the beginning he outlines the limitations words put on our thoughts and our reality, encouraging the reader to understand on a new level.

Trying to sum up: I guess the general idea is that as a ‘physiotherapist’ he focus’ more on the Central Nervous System than the manipulation of localized physical problems. (The CNS is basically the bridge between our bodies and our environment. It communicates the signals from our brain to the part of our bodies we wish to manipulate and vice versa. )

In today’s modern worldwe are all encouraged to communicate effectively with each other. So it makes sense we should be doing the same within our own bodies. It’s all about being aware and having attitude. Which results in a better quality of life.

Interested?

Chapter One - The Organism

This chapter covers basic concept that humans require movement as a fundamental to life.
Human’s apprenticeship to learn these basics is very long, especially when compared to let’s say, a giraffe, who is running minutes after birth.

‘...all living entities have three activities in common: 1) self-reproduction 2) self-maintenance and 3) self-preservation..... Animals (humans) have a fourth 4) self-propulsion.’

This fourth one allows us to achieve the first three. Plants do not need movement to do so. Hence movement is important to our continued existence. In fact ‘Movement seems to have preoccupied man since he can first remember himself.’ For example animals that fly are birds, ones that swim are fishes are so on.

‘...the lower the species’ place on the ladder of evolution the more complete the wiring of the nervous system at birth.’

Which is why the giraffe can run off so quickly after birth - it is pre wired with this instinct. Humans come with just one or two things wired. The rest is learned! How do we learn? Through our CNS!

Nervous structures look for order and when it cannot be found they create it by introducing order to randomness. By finding repetitive patterns we are able to learn.

So essentially we humans have the choice to wire ourselves as we wish. Unlike animals we have intelligence, knowledge and, you guessed it - awareness.

Chapter Two - On Learning

There are two types of learning: Organic and Scholastic.

Organic learning has no set purpose or goal. Good organic learning is learning at our own pace with the right external feedback.

It is ‘lively and takes place when one is in a good mood and at short intervals. The attitude is less serious and the spells are more erratic compared with a day of academic learning or study.’

In regards to children: ‘Pushed by parents or anyone to repeat initial success by the learner may regress, and further progress can be delayed by days, even weeks, or not occur at all......it seems that well meaning parents interfere with organic learning...’

Earlier I mentioned the limitations words put on our thoughts - well they also limit our ability to learn organically and individually.

‘When thinking in words....we are logical and think in familiar patterns.’

‘Learning to think in patterns of relationships divorced from the fixity of words allows us to find hidden resources.....we think personally, originally, and thus take another route...’

Later in chapter seven he shows us how our body’s best go from a standing to sitting position that illustrates this point perfectly. That is learning by doing and understanding beyond the rigid structure of words.

Moshe: ‘This kind of learning , such as you will achieve if you are try and follow me is also the kind of learning produced by Awareness through Movement lessons where the accent is put not on which movement you deal with but on how you direct yourself doing it.'

Chapter Three - Biological aspects of posture

This chapter basically says that human posture is a bit odd.

For example, isn't it odd that it is easier for us to move for long periods of time than to stand still. We also have a very high centre of gravity due to our heads being so bloody heavy!

‘Where ever a group of humans settled, lions, snakes, boars, elephants - the fittest, strongest, heaviest animals - all had to recede, retreat or perish because they were no match for the most precariously balanced and weakest of them all, the human hunter. To achieve the great variety of movement, the ability to halt, to change, or to continue, a fast brain had to develop apace. It is the inherent weakness of the human frame which certainly had something to do with humans getting together and developing tribal habits and clan life.’

‘Harmonious efficient movement prevents wear and tear. More important, however, is what it does to the image of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us.’

In the summary, we are reminded that the way he hold ourselves / our posture is all learnt, and can be re-learnt! How is it that someone can walk on a wire across Niagara Falls or juggle with ten objects or type 300 words in a minute? It is learnt! We have the ability through our CNS to be able to teach ourselves these things!!

Chapter Four - The Body Pattern of Anxiety.

I mentioned earlier that there was only a couple of ‘things’ pre wired into a human brain. Any ideas as to what??

The fear of falling: when we moved from living in the tree tops to the ground one anxiety has stayed with us. Even within a few moments of birth, a human baby will flex muscles if it has a sensation of falling. A baby’s habit of holding onto an adult’s finger is also a ‘wired-in’ instinct left over from this time.

‘Fear and anxiety are here seen to be the sensation of impulses arriving at the CNS from the organs and viscera.... The arrival of such impulses to the higher centres of the CNS is sensed as emotion.’

Fact: Every emotion corresponds to a muscular contraction. If this is true it suggests that our emotional state could be identified by our posture.

Now I am going to take a moment to see if I have picked up what is going on so far. See if you agree: The CNS, or our bridge between subjective and objective reality, learns by finding repetitive patterns and responding to them. These lessons are like pathways. So when something happens and we are most likely to react in a predictable way.

After time we do this unconsciously and forget that they even exist. This means that the way we are is the result of a pattern recognised by our CNS as being acceptable to our objective reality / society / environment and applied to our subjective reality / ourselves.

Our CNS thinks it is an acceptable response, but we may not have finished learning something; we may have learnt it wrong or perhaps not at all....because we decided what we had learnt was acceptable enough to get by. I guess the guy who walked over Niagara Falls on a wire didn’t think walking was enough!

This fear of falling that we have originates in the eighth vestibular branch. (I know it’s a little sciency but Moshe did discover this and is pretty famous for it, so I should mention it.) Our fear of loud noises also originates here. As a result we find the second thing that is ‘pre-wired’.

So other than these two things everything is learnt. Evolution has led us to an interesting place. We really are quite complex yet decidedly simple..... Perhaps the elusive is obvious after all!

Chapter Five - A second Look

This tiny chapter points out that our CNS starts out with layers of primitive lessons like suckling, eating etc, and as time passes new sophisticated layers are learnt.

Slipping on a banana skin will trigger primitive layers to remain upright. The newer structures will then allow us to decide and deliberate about the action to take when the emergency is over. ‘Shall I clean the pavement more often?’

Surprising fact: ‘By the age of two, the nervous system is about four fifths of what it will finally become.’ No wonder so many psychiatrists look back at your childhood to figure out why you cannot function as a successful adult.

So we all the same body - skeleton, muscles and CNS, but those first years when we are figuring out our objective reality is what makes us unique. It also makes how we learn unique.

Chapter Six - Subjective and Objective Reality.

Imagine a baby. They only have a subjective reality - him or herself:

‘Subjective reality is the first, the richest, and the most important to our emotional, mental, and physical well-being.’ Subjective reality will slowly give way to new sensations - approval and disapproval. Then an objective reality will begin to form.’

‘...objective reality is only a part of subjective reality.....only one cell in every 10,000 is bringing in information from objective reality, and that subjective reality is immensely richer and more complex.’

Well all you hedonists - there it is!!!

‘Today, ‘reality’ is only the sum total of external and internal processes that we do not suspect to be alterable by us.’

Chapter Seven - Awareness Through Movement.

Now that we have navigated through all the thick theory of the thesis we arrive at some practical applications.

‘...how I did a movement was much more important than what the movement consisted of.’

‘In life an act must be accomplished at the right speed, at the right moment, and with the right vigour. Failure in any of these conditions will compromise the act and make it fail.’

‘...slowly learn to find your innate rhythm, depending on your structure..... Fast action when learning is strenuous, leads to confusion, and makes the learning unpleasant and unnecessarily tiring.... The kind of learning that goes with Awareness through Movement is a source of pleasurable sensations...’

And on that note: Let’s learn how to stand with the most ease.

Due to human’s cylinder like shape, the best movement for us - avoiding wear and tear - is rolling long ways. Like a cardboard toilet roll.

1) Sit on the floor with your knees bent and up with your arms out behind you supporting yourself.
2) Rotate your knees from left to right several times - all the way to the ground.
3) Notice how your weight moves, in fact your whole body moves including your head.
4) Repeat several times with your eyes closed and notice the movement of your pelvis and your arms - youonly use one at a time.
5) Now use this ‘free’ arm to come across your body and propel your body to stand up.
6) You should notice that this rolling movement comes more naturally that other methods.

Obviously this is a very crude instruction, but it does create awareness.

‘To me there is nothing correct. However if you do something and you do not know what you are doing, then it is incorrect for you. If you do know what you are doing, then what ever you do is correct for you.’

By knowing what we do and not doing it blindly we introduce freedom of choice into our lives. Having more modes of functioning available, allows us to feel more alive, to actually use the bodies we were given.

I can’t help but feel in our lives we move from computer screen to TV screen, from chair to couch to bed and don’t use these amazing bodies we have.

Chapter Eight - Functional Integration

The main idea of Functional Integration is how to send impulses to the muscles in the way that we truly intend. There are some more exercises to do that make you aware of your breathing and your posture: they are effective and induce obvious change.

Here is one to make you feel more balanced when walking - it takes 30 seconds and I love it!

1) Face a wall with bare feet.
2) Put your right arm on the wall, with the arm slightly bent
3) Stand on your right foot
4) Move the left foot back a little with the heel off the floor - enough to keep balance
5) This is the position your body takes when you walk
6) Gently move your body to stand on the outer edge of your right foot
7) Now slowly turn so you are standing on the inner edge of your right floor
8) Do this a dozen times - reducing useless effort in the right arm and hand, and breathe freely
Stay as you are - you have done the left to right movement of your foot now we need to the forward backwards bit: so
9) Lift your right heel off the floor and stand on the front of your foot
10) Rock back so you are only on your heel.
11) Repeat this a dozen times slowly, remember to breathe freely and only use the left for balance.

Now take a wee walk. Can you feel a difference between your left and right side? The right feels much more toned!

The general outcome will be more effective movements which will prevent ware and tear later in life - just by walking and breathing in a way suited to your ‘body’. (You are properly thinking that surely any exercise will do that and what is the big deal? Well this exercise is specifically designed for better balance and posture - which is what this book is about.

The idea being that this will also give us better attitudes - healthy body healthy mind!

Although most of Moshe’s work on Functional Integration is done with the injured and crippled he believes that, ‘Normal people are too busy and miss something that is priceless. They should try Functional Integration.’

Chapter Nine - The Elusive Obvious

What we have all been waiting for!

Moshe contends that thinking is not speaking - however we ‘obviously’ consider them the same. We have already looked at this before but a good illustration is when we say ‘I want’. Do we mean I desire, I lack or I need, or one of many other possible things? Do we communicate the difference? Do we even know ourselves?

Thinking contains many more expressions than just words - ‘A picture paints a thousand words’. Could it also suggest things that we may not have words for?

‘When we are trying to reach the main source of our thinking we come to depths where it is not easy to see if the elusive is more obvious than the obvious. Thus, it is possible to consider that free choice exists only in the process of thinking. As soon as the thought leads to an action, albeit only saying it, the die is cast, and the choice is gone forever. Obviously more inquiry and clearer thinking are essential to understanding why nervous systems are need in the world.’

Confused?

As I understand, the elusive can be obvious if we overcome the obstacle of words. If we can learn to learn, without words. If we can create AWARENESS OF OUR MOVEMENTS and understand them in their essence without the restriction of words, the elusive will be obvious.






Moshe has said to have healing hands, he often ‘cures’ people without speaking a single word.

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