Fixing what isn’t Broken

Image by Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL via Flickr

24 high school students have come to lie on the floor for their first experience of  Feldenkrais® Movement class. I’m in an a large open atrium surrounded by  classrooms. Leaning against one wall is a box of brand new yoga mats  still wrapped in their factory cellophane. Painted on this wall is an oversize quotation from Albert Einstein;

“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious…”

A timely reminder for me that curiosity is key to discovery.

I have the opportunity to introduce this work, and my passion for it,  as part of a forward-thinking  PE-wellness program that the high school has just implemented. The students have been allowed to choose from a pallet of excellent movement classes. More have chosen Feldenkrais than any other option.  So where do I begin?

Feldenkrais® is often described as a way for older people to regain lost comfort in movement. It is that, but so much more … When the floor is populated by star athletes of every varsity team in the absolute prime of their physical lives, what approach might best engage their curiosity? Advice from colleagues suggested that it had better move faster than a typical class. Big movements that result in surprising connections might work best with younger participants.  Impress the best with evidence that they can learn to achieve  better. Good advice that I chose not to follow.

Instead I  start with a gentler offering. A chance to get to know each other,  and the flavor of the work, in a slower and more controlled exploration. “Lie on your back and bring one foot to standing. Place the diagonally opposite arm, long on the floor, in the direction of the wall above your head…” A simple pushing of one foot into the floor. The effort makes a request in the hip, in the pelvis, through the back to the opposite arm. The arm moves just a bit in the direction it is facing as a result of the pushing of the foot. Exploring a connection of parts that form the whole. Simple, slow and kindly methodical. I’m a bit concerned that it might not challenge them enough.

But what I discover is that more than half the class is decidedly uncomfortable just lying on their backs. Most of them can’t imagine how to  place their arm on the floor in the suggested direction. Many can’t rest their arms comfortably in any direction. Several drift into desperately needed sleep the moment they downshift from their perpetual overdrive. Teaching a class is often an exercise in broken field running. Changing directions based on the current perceptions and needs of the students, so that they might continue to move in the desired direction of the lesson.  But as I was changing course, It became clear to me that they had no map for where I was guiding them.

It seems to me that we have all unconsciously  agreed  that we are fine until we’re broken. My experience with this group of highly intelligent and capable high school students has informed me that we are mistaken in this assumption. We do the best we can to meet the demands of our situation. At some point in our personal development we stop exploring how it is to be and start trying to figure out what is expected of us. These kids are the best and the brightest at following that course. They are on the crest of the breaking wave of knowing how to figure out what someone wants them to do. They can anticipate the desired result and deliver their rendition of it faster than most around them. This is how we  pattern for success. But how do we respond if we can’t anticipate the desired outcome?

People over the age of thirty often come to me with a simple complaint in mind. There is usually some activity or body part that is not performing as well as remembered.  A tennis serve that once had powerful accuracy seems now to be failing, or a golf swing that was once deliciously invisible in it’s elegance and power, now seems to painfully grind in the turning of the spine. Whatever the activity or experience of it, It provides us with an experiential  comparison of how any action  seems to be now when held in the same space as the memory of how it was. This remembered experience and its current counterpart allow us to map points in the space of our own experience. With two points in space we can draw a line. With a line we can attempt to calculate difference and distance. The possibilities for exploring this internal sense of space seem endless when we discover our ability to look outside of what we currently know.  But how do you start this investigation if you don’t yet have a map, or even the idea of a map? If your first best idea of how to respond to any situation is the only pathway allowed, how can you improve on that first idea? How can you hope to learn what you don’t yet know if you don’t yet suspect that it is possible to do so? It seems that the best and brightest of us, in the very prime of  life, have no map. We are fettered by the assumption that attempting to find out what we don’t yet know might be misconstrued as weakness, or slowness, or failure. We meet the vague confusion of new possibility with anxiety and withdrawal. Fear of failure and falling behind keeps us just out of reach of one of our most powerful allies, Curiosity.

Since this beginning, the class has gone forward now for nearly three months. Great progress has been made by most, (a few still slip into needed sleep). Many are experiencing  benefits  from this exploration of  personal cartography.  I believe the class can be considered a success. If they’ve learned half as much as I have in this time it will serve them well forever. They have helped me to retool and refocus  my opinions of what it is that I do. They’ve helped me to clarify for myself what it  it is that Feldenkrais Method® does so amazingly well; It fixes what isn’t broken.

The process is ongoing forever. This mapping of who we are and where we are in space. And when I fear I might be falling short in my current ability to serve their unknown needs, I am gently reminded that my map is expanding as well. I am reminded that I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.

I’ts like riding a bike

Image via Wikipedia

Humans learn complicated tasks and then make that sequence of efforts invisible to our conscious minds. Think about it the next time you’re driving your car, making dinner, or riding a bike. Try walking across the room while listing all the component parts of the action (lift left foot and bring it forward while rolling across standing right foot toward ball of foot while shifting weight to….) Even if you don’t trip and fall, chances are good that you’ll forget where you were going.

This ability, to move a complex stream of organized functions into the shadows of our conscious awareness, is a critical step in  allowing us to build upon what we have already learned.

But moving our accomplishments into the shadows of forgetfulness can also have its downside. We forget where we put the blueprints for our actions. Forget we even had blueprints. We  continue to execute our hidden programs with little or no recognition that they are our own learned patterns of  behavior. We become the victims of our own process,  compensating for unsatisfying results with extra holding and meaningless “parasitic” efforts. We try to regain the original vibrancy of our actions, but we’ve forgotten how.

Feldenkrais Method® of movement reminds us we can shine a light into these forgotten places. We can re-evaluate our choices and update them to better meet our current needs.