The Elusive Obvious: We can transform, or What is the Feldenkrais Method® all about?

THE FELDENKRAIS WORK
Moshe Feldenkrais lived from 1904 to 1984. He was born into a Hasidic Jewish family in what is now Poland and died in Israel. When he was fourteen, in 1924, he walked, on his own, from his hometown in Poland to Palestine and began his life as a laborer. By the time he died he had achieved a doctor of science in physics from the Sorbonne, had worked as both an engineer and a physicist in France and Israel, had become fluent in four or five languages, had been trained as the Western person to first bring judo from Japan to Europe by the top Japanese judo master, and had invented a system of mental/physical improvement that has helped thousands around the world.

This system, the Feldenkrais Method®, has been useful in enabling children with cerebral palsy to walk for the first time without crutches, for enabling people who have had a stroke to regain use of both sides, for radically increasing the rate of improvement of people recovering from accidents. It also has helped highly skilled musicians like Yo Yo Ma and Yehudi Menuhin, and star athletes like Dr. J, formerly of the Philadelphia 76ers. In between it has been of great use to those feeling the various aches and pains of growing older, or those with sore backs, shoulders, hips and knees, and then also people wishing to add more ease to walking, skiing, dancing, golfing and so on.

So what is the core of this system that can be useful to people at so many levels of physical ability? The core is our innate human ability to learn, and the vast reservoir of forgotten and untapped connections in our brain that have to do with efficient and clear movement in our whole organism. This method is about re-learning and deepening our learning of such relationships as right hip to left shoulder, relationship of toes to spine, relationship of breathing to bending forward and arching back, and the hundreds of other relationships that go into walking or skiing and pushing a wheelbarrow.

One way to understand this is to examine the stimulus for Dr. Feldenkrais’ invention of this system. Knees. It was his knees, deep in trouble for repeated soccer injuries. For all his intellectual skills, he couldn’t stay away from judo, soccer and other activities. He once said that exercise was for lazy people, because if you lived a full and vital life, your zest for living would take you dancing or gardening or all the many fun things we can do, and that would keep you as in shape.

Anyway, his knees were a wreck and this was back before fancy surgery, at the end of the forties, I think, and the doctors told him an operation would yield a 50/50 chance of improving or crippling him. He thought this was the same as flipping a coin and opted to figure it out himself. Immersed in anatomy, physiology, movement systems existing, learning theory of the time, he put full attention of his own knees and what small movements there could reveal. What he discovered not only cured himself, but began to be useful to his acquaintances, and then, as it developed, to wider and wider groups of people.

What did he discover? The title of one of his few books is The Elusive Obvious. All his discoveries where of this nature. Movement in the knee must involve the ankle and the hip. Movement in the ankle must involve the foot and the toes. Movement in the hip must involve the pelvis, and that the spine and that the ribs and that the neck and that the eyes. And all of it, the brain, with its patterns and habits of neck and ribs and spine and pelvis, all having limiting effects on the knees moving in a free and natural way.

Also elusively obvious: as creatures out of the womb, our connection to gravity and to breathing shapes everything we do. Also elusively obvious, especially to anyone who has studied marital arts, the pelvis as near the center of our movement, and central to our balance, and the eyes as the key to our orientation as we go about moving. From his pediatrician wife, he may have tuned in on the amazing journey an infant takes from being able to suck and turn the head, to being able to walk as a toddler. Each of those stages was full of movement that had to be efficient because the baby didn’t have a lot of extra muscle to fling around the body in off kilter ways.

Core elusively obvious: LIFE IS MOVEMENT. THE BRAIN ORGANIZES MOVEMENT. OUR BRAIN THINKS / LEARNS ORGANIZES IN FUNCTION. Bringing food to our mouth, the function of hand to mouth is deep, deep, and can be used and understood, and retrained (say after a stroke, or in retraining a wrecked/ injured/ surgically repaired shoulder) without any regard to muscles, range of motion, relaxing or not relaxing. Functional movement is how we walk, talk, eat, make love, chop wood, play golf, dance. Functional movement is where the most bang per buck can be gotten in relearning how to move with more Ease, Skill and

Basically, this is the Feldenkrais method, the use of our attention to discover more of ourselves, how we relate from one part of our marvelous organism to another, what are our habits and what can be possible if we begin to break free of those habits. Learning who we are, and more important, how we are, and how we could be if we had more options in our movement repertoire.

Enough theory. Feldenkrais work is nothing if not concrete. Let’s start with our left leg, from toes and foot to knee to pelvis to back to neck and shoulder.

Wait. That sounds like a lot more than the left leg doesn’t it?

Oh, well: good old elusively obvious again: the leg is part of us, and we are a whole. The is the major difference between the Feldenkrais Method and various treat a troubled body as if it were a broken car systems, i.e. Western medicine, chiropractic, deep tissue massage and whatnot.


Okay, blah, blah on the theory, to hell with the theory: lie on your back on the ground or the grass and notice this: how does this change and calm your nervous system right off the bat.

Learning is what?

Another elusive obvious: millions of teachers out there that thinking that teaching is telling someone something or demonstrating something.

Not really: teaching is creating conditions so that THE LEARNER LEARNS.

And what is learning?

Ah, all those millions of teachers who think learning is when the student “gets it,” which means: can copy them.

Wrong.

Learning is when the student notices, wakes up to, is changed by noticing a difference INSIDE THEM, IN THE PRESENT, that makes a difference.

And when this difference is noticed: LEARNING IS INSTANTANEOUS.


Okay, back to your back on ground or the floor. WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YOUR FEELING OF YOU-NESS IN THE UPRIGHT STATE AND THIS STATE OF LETTING GO FROM THE WORLD OF GRAVITY AND LYING ON THE GROUND?


Okay, learning is happening.

Now please bring your right foot toward your read end, and a little to the outside and stand it up so the sole of your right foot is on the ground, as if you were walking. This is called, even in lying down, “standing the foot.”

Great, stand the left foot and notice what changes in you. If you don’t notice anything, great, slowly, slowly, put the left leg long and bring the foot slowly to stand and see if you can stand to understand and feel and sense any difference.

This is fun.

Don’t worry about “doing it right.” Just pay attention to your experience.

And what is the best advice to any meditator? Pay attention to your experience in the present.

And the best advice to an athlete or a musician wishing to improve? Well, it’s more: create some intelligent variation and pay attention to your experience.

So let’s do that. We are all athletes and musicians, at least the kid in us was (or wanted to be), and we are returning to what kids do best: learn (by playing around).


Okay, left foot standing, and push, easily, slowly, gently the foot into the ground, and feel the transfer of force through your ankle, and your knee and your hip joint (where is the hip joint, anyway), on up to your back and spine and vertebrae and ribs and shoulders. Which shoulder feels this the most? Which way does the spine rotate?

Then “undo” this movement, bring the raised side of your pelvis down, letting go of pushing in the left foot, and become calm and empty with your left foot standing before you slowly and with curiosity do this again. And again. And again.

Each time: make it different than the last time.

Each time: look for more pleasure, for less effort, for letting go of strain, for discovering parts of you and connections you never realized before.

Each time, treat the “undoing” as a real and worthy movement, well worth being awake and attentive and joyful in of itself. Make sure to come to complete ease before each repetition. And stop after six or eight or ten and rest for awhile before doing the whole thing again.

Keep one side of your pelvis on the ground, and let the other lift and rotate.

Try these two out to discover maximum ease and pleasure: tighten your belly, clench your jay and stiffen your chest as you lift and rotate whatever side of the pelvis is lifting and rotating.

Now, soften your stomach and letting it come out a bit, and feel your back muscles working and allow your chest and jaw to be soft as you do this movement. Which allows more ease and pleasure of movement?

So: do this a bunch, take rests, do it some more and then slide your left leg down and rest fully. Rest to let your nervous system relax.

Rest to let the experience reform in your mind.

Rest to notice the difference in how your left and right sides feel, and what that might mean about learning taking place.


Now,. Bring your left foot to standing again, and play around with slowly doing this movement, with the left foot in slightly different spots. See if you can find what feels “best” for you right now, as far as being able to push down straight into the floor, as if you were walking or something like that.

Once you’ve found where you like you left foot, begin to play this game: for three times as you do this movement, let your head slowly turn to the right as the same rate your pelvis is rotating, and come back to the middle as your pelvis comes back.

And then for three times, let your head turn to the left and back as your pelvis rotates and your back arches and you come back to starting.

Back and forth, three times of each for awhile and then another rest.


And now: one last thing, for the starters: Do all the above, and notice the ribs, and play with your eyes.

Eyes and ribs.

And foot and hip and back and pelvis and neck.

It’s a lot. ( A real human being is a lot; that’s why we like children so much: they haven’t been squeezed down to be so much less than what they really are like most adults.)

Notice your ribs and as your head is turning to the right, slowly, slowly turn your eyes to the left. Just a little. Go slow. If you “can’t” do this, make everything smaller and slower and keep playing.

Playing around. It’s not important to get it. It’s fun to experiment, to play around, to try new stuff.

Eyes to the left as your head goes to the right, eyes to the right as your head goes to the left, the pelvis is rotating, the foot is pushing, the ribs are doing some stuff, you are breathing and noticing a lot and having fun, I hope.

If not, rest.

Go slower.

Make less effort.

Notice your experience.

Smile.

Play with this. See what you get.

Rest;.


That’s learning. If you got in over your head, that’s real learning: if you only do what we can already do, how can we change. If we try too hard, we just learn to try too hard.

But farting around, playing, exploring, somehow this, in the world of the elusive obvious, is the fastest way to real change.

Really?

Find out for yourself. If it comes from inside you, then it’s real learning. As if it’s the best and most real food.

YUM.

head and pelvis, without a real lesson, except the wake up lesson

the head is heavy
life is long
the pelvis is big
life is juicy

what more is there
to
say?

lots
but first:
sense the stick
the rod
the magic wand
the wee wee wonka
betrix and between

how long
which way
how could it be longer
stronger
happier
freer?
?
?

let is sway
let it play
have a waking up
day

yes

head down to rise up from the floor... really? who knows: try it and find out

 (This picture is something that would be good to eat. It may or may not-- probably not, knowing me-- have anything to do with the below, but pics of doing the thing would take all the fun out, wouldn't they?)

What if we had this puzzle:
how to most easily get up from the floor?

Okay, we like puzzles:
here we go
(After all Moshe our man said that the overcoming of difficulties is one of the great pleasure in life)
(( In The Potent Self a potent dense book well worth a bunch of reads or jump in and read a bit here a bit there reads))

Let's say the lesson could evolve like this:
stand and look down at the floor
hmm
what about hands on it, too

okay, that's not so bad

now play a little the usual ways, one hand up, one foot
now play advanced: lift one hand (which did ya pick), and then what foot matches
ah, that's kinda fun

now pick the nicest hand foot pair and think about, plan, imagine the butt down on the floor
somehow
figure a way or two
do 'em, breathe down there
see how far you have come

and wouldn't it be fun to try again?
sure
so we need to get up to standing to go down again
might as well reverse whatever we did

somehow in the reversing and spiralling,
if that's what we like
a hanging head and a lifty butt might
be interesting
yeah, that's the ticket, the good old head butt, head pelvis combo
how do they twirl,
counterbalance each other and so on

hey, this could lead to something like sitting
cross legged and noticing which leg is in front
and put the opposite hand back
and then...
more discovering, it would seem
in the spiralling  head down butt up
world

Not knowing what we are doing next

In this moment
we can experience exactly this:
what we are experiencing right now

it sounds so silly
and
yet
think of all the misery we get into wanting
to be better happier richer sexier more loved
instead of getting
happy
or
at least getting reality
from what is going on right now

what's that got to do with Feldenkrais?

hey: it's the one system, well there are probably many more,
but it is one system
where we put out attention on sensing ourselves
and another right now
and from there find small
sweet
and real pathways to slightly improving
what was thought to be stuck

slightly improving
is as big as the sun compared
to bad and heading toward worse

so huge
and
so small

kind of like
the small and huge
little jump
into the
now

good

The Elusive Obvious

In his grand and glorious
book
The Elusive Obvious
our man Moshe
is prattling on about babies,
and he finds
himself
saying something he has said
over and over and over



and he is disgusted to catch
himself repeating one of
his favs
like a robot

" Every time I hear myself say

something by habit as the previous phrase.

I catch myself thinking like a machine,'
albeit maybe a clever one." p. 81

and i can write this
like a robot
too

how to
be in the world of
words
and be
awake

tricky
tricky
tricky

and worth a try
without out it
life is
......
fill in the blank
with some of your old phrases
or let's empty our minds
and see
if anything new
comes
from:

without the awakeness
life
is
........

Babies as learning heroes, and they ain't in any hurry

FOR THOSE WHO DIDN'T COME TO THE CONFERENCE
AND HAVEN'T DISCOVERED THIS YET,
A
REAL
TREAT

A Feldenkrais Class by Baby Liv from Irene Gutteridge on Vimeo.

Freedom is the other side of being a child once

The underbelly of the golden rule

Moshe Feldenkrais talks about:
(In The Potent Self)
if you want to train a bear, first you have to make it dependent; and from there talks a great deal about human childhood’s huge amounts of dependence and how that leads to frightened and constrained living, thinking feeling and moving.

And what does that have to do with the price of beans in Peru?

Everything.

We are meant to be happy, I believe, and this could be right or wrong or just nonsense, or a useful lie. Doesn’t matter, I’ll say it again: we are meant to be happy.

Or saying it another way (I’m a Feldie, if I can do, think, say, feel something at least three ways: I’m not free): the underlying current, if nothing is added on is either peaceful or happy.

Or another: if we are unhappy, or in pain, it’s a grand gift of life to us that we are doing something “wrong,” i.e. we could wake up, shift something and have a “better” life.


Okay: so we are meant to be happy. Dependency is a elusive obvious undercurrent to human development.

Where to go from here?

Enjoy your life and when you don’t, look into dependence being at the root of un-enjoyment. Dependence on an idea, or the way we are using and holding ourselves, dependence on others to make us happy.

And so on

If you’re a Feldie, come up with some variations of this understanding for yourself.





See The Potent Self,  by Moshe Feldenkrais, to learn enjoy and change your life.

The Potent Self

Up and down with a sweet twist to start the day

Awaring of twisting and awaring of lengthening

Stand somewhere pleasant, perhaps in a yard or a park. Feel your feet and ankles and pelvis and spine and legs and arms and rib cage and head. Breathe. Be present to the wonder of being in a human body.

Now, leaning your left hand on your left knee, and bending both knees, easily and with pleasure, bring your right hand down the inside of you left thigh, down towards the ground, and then bring your hand back up again. Go slowly, let your head hang loose, feel and sense your breathing, and feel how this could lengthen and release various areas in you. Feel going down and coming back up equally with pleasure.

Rest in standing. Close your eyes and feel yourself in gravity and life.

Again: left hand on left knee, take your right hand as before, down your left thigh towards the ground and this time as you come back up, keep your right hand going up and to the right, so you spiral a bit to the right as you lift your right hand above your head and to the right. Watch your hand as you do this. Go easily, and slowly.

Let your neck be soft. Go up and down with this a number of times, and after a while, stop at the bottom and gently move your head side to side, with your eyes moving opposite your head. Same at top.

Rest. Then do the other side.

What to do after the Surgery: Or, New Wine in New or Old Bottles/ Skins?

NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES




How to be kind to yourself after a “big shift”

Sometimes Life throws us what could be called a “big shift.” In the Bible Jesus talks about this “big shift” as the creation of ourselves as a new person, as New Wine. And He says, Why put the New Wine in Old Bottles, it will just go to waste that way. Put the New Wine in New Bottles.

The quote from my version of the New Testament, a highly recommended, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas by Willis Barnstone, goes like this:

“No one pours new wine in old skins,
Since the wine splits the skins,
And both wine and skins are lost.
No, put the new wine in new skins.”

This is hugely applicable today, in the era of so many hip, shoulder, knee replacements. This is the New Wine. Because without a New Bottle, we really are not getting any where near all the benefits and improvements we could.

We had the shoulder or hip or knee surgery because we weren’t using ourselves in an ease-ful and pleasurable and efficiently masterful way. Basically, we were using our body as a neglected step-child, not really paying attention to our dis-ease and pain until they became intolerable. And truth be told, for people who don’t know about, or know and haven’t tried yet the two methods recommended here, there is often little effective that can be done.

Come to think of it, a chiropractic “adjustment” could be another way to set us up as New Wine.

And after our chiropractic help, we still haven’t addressed the underlying need to organize and sense and move in easy and efficient and pleasurable ways.

So here’s where the Feldenkrais Method, or the Anat Baniel Method come are crucial.

They are the most powerful, and most gentle ways on this planet to create inside of ourselves a new organization, a New Bottle for the New Wine of post operation, or post chiropractic. (Post alcohol, and post dis-ease, too, and during cancer and depression, and that’s a longer story, but thing of this: if we improve ease and comfort and breathing and pleasure in life, how much will that help our Whole Life.)

Almost invariably, people who have had one knee or hip replacement, need the next, and it is almost always from not having created a new organization from the one that created the stress and dis-ease and harm that necessitated the first operation.

Does that mean after two knee operations, or the second hip operation you should do FM or ABM? Only if you want to have a low level of ease, comfort, awareness and functioning for the rest of your life.

Don't worry, also from the Bible, but that doesn't mean "do nothing," it means: put your energy into love and improvement and into making the world a better place, and stop fretting. See, if you'd please, yesterday's posting: Don't Worry, Be Happy

Good.

thinking as action, life as options

This is a post from slowsonoma.com, the ongoing blog,
and
it is about the power of the method of Feldenkrais
in that
one: it uses thinking as an action we are doing
two: it plays with options to habitual action
three: it creates a new context (walking) for the ongoing "worry/ thinking" wasting of our lives
four: it creates a demand, taking 3 walks a day, that shuffles up our own habit of just doing what we always do

good





Don’t worry, be happy

In the Bible, Jesus urges people to think of the lilies of the field, urges people not to worry, counsels: Who by worrying has added an hour to their life.

And Mehr Baba said the famous: don’t worry, be happy.


And, easier said than done, though I’d venture that a vast percentage of drug and alcohol and over eating is based on trying to get the worrying to go away. Which means: it’s not easy.

Good. Something to learn.

Here’s the ticket: take a walk today, three times. That will spring you from the rushed schedule you think you have to maintain.

And on that walk, look at what is present, and listen to what is present and feel your feet on the Earth.

And notice: when does thinking as worrying creep in. When it does:

One: say hello.

Two: shift the words to a sort of gibberish that conveys the tone but not the particulars.

Three: See if a no thinking/ no word option is briefly available.

Four: one all three walks compare: empty, worded, gibberish. Enjoy.

Be not good, if you can stand it

In this moment,
we are neither right
nor wrong

We just are

This can be a wonder
and
a relief,
to just
be
in this moment

Because the experience
we are having
right
now
is life
and us
experiencing life

any add
on
is from the word world
telling us:
this is the "right"
thing to do,
or this is the "next" thing to do
(or feel, or think)

The voices telling
us what to do

What if we don't listen
and follow
our present based experience?


And if a lesson,
giving
taking
inventing,
experiencing,
we are interested in
the variety of ways we
can do it
"wrong"

Because if one way is
"right"
then everything else is "wrong"
and there are hundreds,
millions of
"wrong" ways,
all of which
might be leading to a better
way,
or an easier way,
or
a more pleasurable way.

This applies to movement lessons
and
almost anything
else

Good.

Head pelvis, two ends of a beautiful stick, and where is awareness in all this?

Pelvis, head, spine, eyes

Sit in a chair, and do whatever you “naturally” do. Lean back, or not, sit forward in the chair or not. From that position, see if you can sense your head and pelvis and spine, and begin to do these two motions:

One: bring your nose toward your pubic bone (sex area) and tilt your pelvis (pubic bone/ any other name) toward your nose, and let your belly come in and your back round out behind you.

Two: unfurl from this, and bring your nose up, maybe toward the sky or the top of the wall or window in front of you, and push your belly out and arch your back and tilt the back of your pelvis, aka your rear end, toward the back of your head.

Go back and forth on with these two end points, looking for an easier and more interesting and pleasant way to do this movement each time you do it.

Rest after six or eight or ten or twelve times.

Then come to a sitting at the front edge of your chair, and do the round and arching, slowly and pleasantly a number of times, while moving your eyes, slowly and as continuously as you can, in the opposite way as your nose (up when nose down, down when nose up).

Rest and consider eyes and head and arching and rounding all day.

Doing it right, vs. Doing it better

To "do it right" puts the pressure on,
don't you think?

Either we've got it, or we don't.

Sometimes when people do the movement lessons,
at first they pay attention,
and figure out what the new configuration of action
is,
and then,
once they "get it,"
they just go into automatic and "crank it out."

And I tell them:
hey, you've figured it out,
you all get an A plus,
now how can you slow and discover
something new and pleasurable and interesing
and a connection
you didn't know about before.

So: it isn't getting it right,
it's creating a pattern and then using that pattern
to be present
and to slow and learn
and to increase pleasure and ease
and discover connections we didn't realize before.

So: instead of "doing it right,"
we play in the movement with
"doing it better" in the sense of ease
and
pleasure
and
discovery
and
connection
and
efficiency in the sense of less effort
and
reversibility
and
using of the whole self

And,
this can be applied to learning music:
doing it right
or finding all sorts of delightful ways
of a process of ongoing improvement.

This can be applied to
learning golf, or tennis:
"doing it right" means
once you've reached "right"
you don't get to improve anymore.

You're stuck.

This is the human delimma:
to stay at good, or stuck in trying to go for good,
or to be at ease and pleasure and curiosity
in the ongoing discovery of ways to
improve.

Good.

thinking without words, eyes and head, oldie but goodie

Creating a garden bed by 'sheet mulching"

Not the usual type of “thinking”

What often passes as “thinking” is the spilling over of words in our head, the “chatter” as some call it, “monkey mind” others say, the “yap, yap.” Another way to put it, is “auditory hallucinations.”

Thinking can be very different than this sort of inner talking.

So far, each day, with a noticing of differences, we have been using our brains for real thinking. Today, we’ll notice some more differences, and get more clarity about and feel for thinking without words.

Turn your head easily right four or five times, and then left four or five times. Can you notice a difference one way and the other?

Now turn just to the left with your head, but keep your eyes focused on something in front of you. Notice a difference in how you turn, and in your neck. Go very slowly.

Rest after seven or eight times, and then turn to the left with your eyes and nose together and feel what you feel.

Now turn your nose to the left and back to the center a number of times while turning your eyes in the opposite direction. Go very slowly and clearly notice eyes and neck and breathing and spine. Rest. Turn both left and right in the “normal” way and notice what you notice.

Spend today awaring eyes and neck and right left differences. See what difference rotating your ribs might make. Go slowly, rest a lot, learn.

Everyday awaring, every day awaring

We have a spine.


This is good. And how often are we aware of this amazing piece of our architecture?


Think about the two ends to this flexible stick of ours: the head at the top, up high to see things and hear better, and at the base the pelvis, rooted in our legs, with Seitz bones on which to sit. Either way, standing or sitting, the pelvis is there, here now, at the bottom of 24 vertebrae, holding up our head by giving the base to our back.


The back is a collection of muscles and ribs and our spine.


Can we play today with noticing whether our spine is more in the rounding position, or the arching?


Can we feel the shape of our spine, and feel how it is holding up the head. In sitting, is the push from pelvis up through the spine, or is a back of a chair propping up part of our back, so the weight is somewhat down into our pelvis, and somehow down and back into the chair?


No right or wrong. Just notice: spine more as if stomach in, or spine more as if stomach out? Spine somewhat upright, way upright, curled in, or arched deeply?


This is a big part of being human, the pelvis spine head thing. Let’s notice it, sense it, aware it as much as we can enjoy today.

Music and Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel Method

It's like this:

how to teach a rat to get dystonia:
have it do the same thing over and over and over again.
Zap, there goes the old nervous system,
twang comes to stiffness, pain, restriction,
probably nature's way of curtailing
insane self-usage.

And hey,
what do musicians do:
the same thing over and over and over again
It's called practice.

And what if the practice,
where
the practice of staying present
and seeing how much ease
they could create as they "played,"
and how
much
"playing" could be part of their playing.

What little differences
could make a big difference.

Hey, that's what our work is about:
discovering,
teaching,
learning
the little differences that make
a big difference.

I love working with musicians.

They often really thrive on discovery.

What a cool group of people.

I've added a musicians' page to my website,
and on it are links to two great articles
by
two people who are Feldies and musicians,
one of whom was in my training with me.

Check the page and the articles out,
if you wish:

Music and Singing page (almost typed sining page. hmm)

ANOTHER GRAND RESOURCE:
ANAT BANIEL'S BOOK:
MOVE INTO LIFE

a baby lesson sent to a disbelieve: try, notice and ye shall learn

Cactus doesn't have to "learn" to live and move in gravity.
We do.
Good for and God for
us both.



These lessons are about learning almost each minute as we go along. All that is required is being present and attentive to your body and sensations in the moment.

Any time differences are noticed in the present, learning takes place. and when the small learnings are savored, and really enjoyed, and the pleasure of learning and nowing is felt, you change.


and try this:

lie on the floor.
work with the easy arm.
raise the foot on that side so the sole is standing on the floor.
raise the easy arm toward the ceiling.
in a relaxed way, lift the arm a little more toward the ceiling and gently bring the shoulder blade back to the floor.
feel the ribs rotating.
feel the shoulder blade lifting.

put the arm and leg down and feel even that little bit wakens to now and eases that arm.

now, come to the same position:
raise the arm and look to the left a number of times
and then raise the arm and look to the right
go slow enough to feel pleasure in each way.
go slow enough to feel the differences when your head goes one way and the other.

rest and notice the differences, the learning, in this much movement

Now,
put the foot standing and the arm toward the ceiling again
push the foot into the ground/ floor as you lift the arm toward the ceiling
notice, pelvis rotating, ribs rotating, shoulder blade lifting, back arching and ...
do this many times slowly and easily and feel pleasure
and
being present
and
learning about how an arm works with all of you

rest
enjoy
get up and have a good day

What is the Feldenkrais Method®?

If you move slowly
you can wake
up to yourself.

If your movements begin to
follow a function,
like reaching forward with your arm,
or rolling to your side,
or rolling to your belly,
or coming to crawling,

you can begin to understand how you
have learned to move in this world
of
gravity
and 2 arms
2 legs
a spine
a head
ribs
a pelvis

and so on.

Feldenkrais Lessons help you uncover these delightful
mysteries
that aren't mysteries
just outside of our usual awareness.

By slowing down
paying attention
using less effort
varying things around
taking lots of rests
treating the lesson as a lesson
i.e a place to learn
rather than to "Get it Right"
people can, you can, I can
realize options we might
never have realized before.

These lessons can be
self generated,
guided by a teacher in a group,
guided by a teacher in one on one sessions
of gentle touch and guidance
and moving.



I wrote an essay twice in here
building up Feldenkrais one word at a time
and then one sentence at a time.

The last time I went through that
was in March of 2007:

It started like this:

What is Feldenkrais:

One word:
Learning

Two words: Neural rewiring

Three words: Refining Our Awareness

Four words: Learning how to Learn

Four words: Increasing Our Self Connection

Five words: Transformation thru Undoing Stuck Habits

Six words: Expanding horizons thru Learning and Awareness

You can reread the whole thing here: MARCH 2007 WHAT IS FELDIE ESSAY/ EXPLORATION

But, hey.
life is new
now is now

what might I say today,
now,
tired and in a library
and excited to try all sorts of new things,
including writing a novel,
and writing an essay or two a week,
and .....

Okay:

What is the Feldenkrais Method:

One word: Learning

2: Slowing Down

3: Awareness Through Movement

4: Coming Home to Ourselves

5: Explorations in Gravity and Pleasure

6: Group and private lessons for transformation

7: Discovering Again how to Learn to Learn


Or

1: Awakening

2: Sensing Now

3. Judo + Physics

4. Learning how to Learn

5. Slowing to Now, and Discovering

6. Gifting ourselves with slowing, nowing, learning

7. Happiness from returning to life in the Now (that's 8, oh well)

Okay, friends
Next: What is a lesson?
How to create a functional integration lesson.

Ciao
Chris

p.s. email me, if you'd like. I'd enjoy it.

Tango, Dance, Walking, Learning and Love

Most of us learned to walk along the way.

It was hard, easy, fun, amazing.

Mainly, if you think about, or really feel how small the feet are
under such a tall, large thing this body of ours,
you'll see that standing (harder than walking)
and walking (harder than being three or four legged)
are
both almost miracles.

And then, we grow up and want to dance,
and sometimes have fun and then we go to dance classes.

And the teacher, good old teacher, shows the "right way."
Once: we get it or don't.
Okay, the teacher shows it again: we get it or don't.
Then the show the "other" (usually follower) part, once, twice.
People get it or don't.
Put on music and you're on your own.

But every move is right foot, left foot, or some pause with the weight on
one foot or the other.

What if we learned dance as a fancied up walking,
where we get to try by ourselves as the pretend "leader"
a bunch of walking to music variations.
Then we explore, by ourselves, as the pretend "follower",
a bunch of walking to music variations.

Then we pal up, guy and a gal, gal and a gal, guy and a guy, father and a daughter,
mother and a daughter, or son, and so on.

Play around.
Invent some steps.
Learn to float around the floor with the music.


Would this be nice?

I think so.

Come and find out.

Here's the word part of a flyer I have around town on Orcas Island in Washington.

Tango,
Feldenkrais® &
Learning how to Learn
A 4 class series at Odd Fellows Hall
Thursday, 6:15-7:15 PM, June 17- July 8
What if we went about learning Dance (anything)
as a process of discovery,
rather than a determination to “Get it Right?”

Chris Elms is a beginning Tango student and an advanced Practitioner
in the Feldenkrais Method®.

He teaches private lessons to Undo Pain, Relieve Stress,
and Increase Mobility & Skills.

A BABY LEARNS TO CRAWL, NOT BY FOLLOWING ANY RULES, but
by experimenting with hundreds of movements, many of them “mistakes,” then one
day, she puts 30 of them together and crawls, not so show off or accomplish anything,
but to get the toy across the room.

DANCE CAN BE LEARNED AS PLEASURE, EASE, and LISTENING.
Listening to the music, listening to your own body, and listening to your partner’s
ease and movement.

EVERYONE DANCES “LEAD” & FOLLOWER”

IF YOU DON’T LIKE DANCE: come and learn as if walking to music.

IF YOU DO LIKE DANCE: come and treat yourself to a way of learning that
can improve & relax many areas of your life.



That's it.
Let me know, if you are a practitioner,
and want to collaborate on teaching any form of dancing
this way,

or collaborate working with and getting mentored working with,
special needs children.

Chris.

Sitting and folding, for fun and...

“Anti-aging” and happiness #2, Leaning forward:
Sit in a chair. Sit up more or less straight. Feel your pelvis at the chair or bench or rock or log below you.

Breathe and feel what that’s like and how that involves or doesn’t involve your ribs.

Lean over and move toward touching the floor. Easy, go a few times, breathe, explore.

Sit up again and rest.


Now, put your left forearm on your left knee, and prop yourself a bit, and from this position take your right hand down your left calf, caressing this and letting your head and eyes look to the left and right , while your neck hangs freely. So you’re “bending” forward, but just with your right hand, and it is taking the easy path of caressing your left calf. If it gets to the shoe or sock or foot, fine, it can keep going. But don’t effort, and come up to a “neutral” position each time: leaning on your left elbow on the left knee and leaning your right hand on your right thigh. Pause and integrate a bit each time before lowering yourself again.

Go up and down, and then after twelve or so times, come upright and rest.

Imagine doing this on the other side.

Now do this on the other side.


Now: take your left knee in your left hand and put your right hand behind your head. Do three things here: 1. Gently, gently bring your knee up toward your head. 2. Gently, gently bring your elbow toward your knee. 3. Gently, gently bring your elbow and knee toward each other.

This is not gym class, not “ab” strengthening, though it will. This is learning to love and use your spine and self and brain.

Do this slowly a number of times. Sometime take the hand from behind your head and press on your sternum so it goes down and you lean forward and lower your head and bring your knee up.

Rest. Imagine doing this on the other side.

Then do this on the other side.


Now go back to the first position. Left forearm on your left thigh. Lean down to the left, caressing as before your left calf with your right hand. Do you go farther and easier?

Go up and down several times, and then when you get to the down and left position, easily circle your right hand. On the floor. On your left foot. In the air. Doesn’t matter. Feel the circle releasing you a bit, and let your head hang easily the whole time. Circle both directions.

Come up and rest.

Then do this on the other side.

And rest again.


Put both hands on both thighs and alternate pushing your belly out and arching your back a bit, and pulling your belly in and letting your sternum go down, and rounding your back as if the look between your legs. Easily. Slowly. Gently. Many times.

Each time feel and enjoy something new about you.

Rest.

For extra credit, if you are in the mood, do the previous arching and rounding movement with these variations: your chin is tucked toward your chest; your head is vertical while your stomach and chest and pelvis go through the movement in their many shapes.

Rest.

Now, just feel yourself on the chair.


And…. tada: Reach down as in the beginning and see and feel the difference. Please enjoy sensing your spine all day long.

short and easy and standing, understanding standing, and now

Standing and awaring gravity and feet:

Stand comfortably, in your bare feet or just socks. Close your eyes. Feel the weight of yourself into your feet. Shift, ever so slightly, your weight from your right foot to your left, and then back again, many times. Noticing with ease, pleasure and non-judgment: your breathing and your body and your feet and the world of gravity and awareness.

Rest.

Now, move the length of yourself, only at your ankles, like a stick, forward and back, so you sway a bit, and feel the weight going to your toes and then your heels.

Small is better than big.

Slow is better than fast.

Aware is better than “just doing it.”

Pleasure is better than “trying,” “straining,” or efforting.

Rest.

Now, lift up on your toes and fall easily onto your heels five or six times. Rest. Feel how you feel now. Do this again, maybe even twenty times. Or thirty. Slowly, slowly, pleasurably, pleasurably. Rest.

Take a little walk around the room or wherever you are. Feel your feet and your skeleton and your awaring in the world of up and down.

Another turning in a chair lesson. Good

John the artist/ real one in Sonoma

Sit on a firm chair or rock or log. Turn to the right and then again to the left. Several times and notice the differences.

Now, turn to the right several times in the normal “try to do more” way, where you sort of crank on your neck and pull yourself farther to the right. Do this several times, see how far you go and what the quality of your turning is, and then rest.

Now, sit at the front edge of your chair and look to the left a few times, with as little effort as possible, only going about 80% of your “limit.” Go one time to the left, even less than this 80% and stay facing that way. Now rock back and forth from one side of your pelvis to the other, feeling our weight shift from your right “sit bone” to the left and back and forth. Go slowly and enjoy this. If you can let your head tilt the opposite way of which “sit bone” you have your weight on, even better. Lots of times with ease.

Then rest. Turn a bit to the left again, rock to your left side and stabilize yourself with your left hand on the chair beside and behind you. With your right hand, hold your right hip and let the right hip and right knee come forward and back to neutral a number of times, letting this move your head a bit to the left as it goes.

Feel and enjoy this in yourself. Notice ribs, spine, pelvis, foot, knee, as much as possible. Many times, each time learning.

Then rest, back in the middle. Feel how you are sitting in the chair. See if you feel different. Even if you can’t tell differences, just breathe and let your brain integrate any learning that has taken place.

Now come to the front of the chair again. Put your right hand on your right thigh and look to the left with your head and your pelvis, with the right hand pushing that knee a bit forward as you rotate to the left. Do this a few times, and then stop to the left but well back from your “limit.” Here, simply turn your head right and left, feeling how your weight is to the left and your head is pivoting on top of your torso. Make this nice and easy.

Come back to the center and rest.

Now come to the front edge of your chair, put your right hand again on your right thigh, and take your left hand across yourself and hold the right side of your ribs. Turn to the left with pelvis and head, and stay something less than your limit. Now gently pull your ribs to the left, so your torso is rotating to the left easily and then back. Many times gently.

Rest.

Do all the last movement, but now get fancier, as your ribs pull to the left, let your head go to the right, and as your ribs come back, turn your head to the left. Very gentle and slow on this. Do each time as if an experiment inside, you are your own research project. Feel what you feel. Try to learn something each time. Notice if the pelvis wants to go with the head, or the ribs, or changes around, or doesn’t want to move. Just notice. Then sometimes bring the pelvis and the ribs to the left and right at the same time as the head goes opposite.

Rest.

Extra credit homework: Go through the above movement with pelvis one way, ribs the other, and head opposite the ribs, so it is going the same way as the pelvis.

After your rest, put right hand again on your right thigh, and left hand at right ribs (you can try different locations up and down your ribs). Turn to the left with your pelvis and ribs and head, and stay there. From here, gently turn your eyes right and left, while everything else stays fixed. Then, keep your eyes fixed on a spot just in front of your face, and slowly, slowly, slowly, turn your nose right and left.

Come back to the center and rest.

One final wonderful movement before simply checking the new difference between right and left rotation. Here, sit at the front of your chair, and put the palm of your left hand on your belly and the back of your right hand behind your lower back. If you can’t reach there, go as close as you very comfortably can. In this position, rotate to the left, and stay there. And facing this new way, arch and round your back. In rounding your head comes down and forward, and your left hand pulls your belly in and you sort of “slump” and rock back on your pelvis a bit. In arching, you raise your head to vertical (not more), and puff out your chest a little, and push your belly forward with the back of your right hand pressing against your back. As you arch, you shift your weight to the forward edge of your pelvis.

Back and forth, rounding and arching, easy and enjoyably.

Then rest in the center. Feel how you feel. If you feel taller, lighter, younger.

Then turn easily to the right, and easily to the left and compare the two.

Enjoy.

Get up and walk around and see if you feel taller and lighter and younger, and if one foot and side seems more “organized” and “alive” and “how you really want to be.”

Good.

Lots

Day One: Awaring our Life
We are alive. Miracle. Gift. Burden. Curse. Blessing.
Call it anything you want, and still this is the fundamental of being who we are: we are alive.
This is a book of 108 ways to feel more alive, to connect to joy and skill and learning and ease and pleasure and happiness in our lives.
Today we’ll start with the basic: see how often and how enjoyably you can waken out of your ongoing set of activities and remember: this is me, this is my life, I am alive.
In this moment, I am alive. In this moment you are alive.
Feel what it feels like in this moment (yes, this one, while you are reading this page, or listening to this page.).
Both kinds of feeling: the emotional feeling, how do you feel.
The sensory feeling: what can you sense in your breathing, or torso, or arms or legs or spine or eyes or smile or toes or fingers about how it is to be you right now.
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE ALIVE, TO BE YOU, RIGHT NOW?
This is the game of today: wake up to the now of being alive. Sense and notice and feel what it is like, how the experience of you being you is going.
Notice yourself as a living being.
As much as you can, remember yourself. Do this in pausing to come back to awareness. Do this as an undercurrent of awaring while you are going about your daily life.

This is a wonderful start, and it could carry us all the way to an amazing new life, or an amazing deepening of all the wonder and joy in our present life.
Day Two: Breathing, Feet & Eyes
To be alive is to be in an amazing world. A world very different from the world of the womb, where there was no gravity, no light, we didn’t breathe air.

And so this is today’s game: to sense our feet. If we are walking or standing, we can feel our feet pressing into the ground, the floor, the Earth. If we are sitting, we can have our feet on the floor and sense them pressing even a little into the ground. If lying, or all comfortable in some laid back position, we can still sense our feet.
What does sensing mean? To feel the physical sensations of a certain part of ourselves, the bones and the muscles and the blood and fluids, and even the nerves if we can. The skin, and what’s inside the skin and what the skin is touching.
Sensing is the basis of movement and all the learning that was so crucial in our transition from more or less helpless baby, to walking and talking and functioning child. Sensing is why we like a warm bath, or a sunny day, or love making.
Sensing helps us make sense of our lives.
Sensing brings us back to the non-verbal experience of ourselves in the present.
So part one of today’s game: sense our feet.

Second part, we can feel and notice and enjoy our breathing. Try this right now, feet being sensed and breathing noticed and sensed. It’s a lot, and boy does it bring us to now.

Third part, add on the light coming in the eyes. What are we seeing, not as words about what we are seeing, but as pure sensation now.

This is a lot, these three are a miracle. Enjoy the miracle. Give it a sweet go and be nice to yourself when you forget, and very happy when you remember.
Day Three: Look at a Tree
Nature is out there, waiting for us to take a walk and enjoy her.
Or, nature is with us every moment, since each breath we take in brings the good old familiar to the point of being forgotten AIR into our lungs. Air is the environment, we breathe the environment, we breathe the air.
We are nature, our bodies are part of nature, and out there, outside, we can see a tree.
We can look at a tree.
We can enjoy this.
If we slow down and just look at the tree, we very often find a calm and sweet place in ourselves.
Why?
Because we are nature and looking at a tree reminds us of the life that we are gifted with.
Because a tree might slow us down and remind us that we are rooted in the Earth and rise to the Heavens.
Because we don’t have any expectations of a tree, we can love it easier. What does that mean? We don’t want it to love us more, or respect us more, or lose ten pounds, or “be there for us.” We are pretty clear that it just is what it is.
So we can love it.

Today’s game: look at some trees and feel, sense, realize how letting the tree “be what it is” makes loving it so easy.
Do this a little.
Do this a lot.
Enjoy the trees in your world, and if it’s winter and you are in some place with no trees, find anything else living, and see it as “just what it is,” and see if the love rises in your easily.

Good.
Day Four: Lying on the Floor
Gravity is a constant in our lives, until we do into outer space, or maybe when we have lucid dreams and can fly.
And on two feet gravity is amazingly complex and we have amazingly figured it out, and most of us have no idea of how amazing that is.
And if we sit down, gravity is a little easier to negotiate.
And if we lie down, say on our backs, it is as if our whole back is our feet. It’s easy. We can’t fall. We are safe. Our brains are free to pay attention more easily and clearly.

What are brains for?
Learning.
The perception of differences.
Creating order out of disorder.
Creating pathways of action that can enable us to fulfill our intentions.
Brains are amazing, perhaps the most amazing thing in the Universe.
So today’s game: notice little differences in your life, differences that you might otherwise have missed.

Start this way: lie on your back. Raise your left foot, so that the foot is “standing” near your right knee, but over to the side a bit. Left foot on the floor or ground, left knee toward the ceiling.
Begin to rotate the left side of your pelvis to the right, keeping the right side on the floor. Do this three ways: starting this movement in your pelvis. Starting by push your left foot into the ground. Starting somehow from your lower back.
Push your lower back and stomach forward (toward the sky) as you do this movement many times.
Go slow. Notice differences in your spine and ribs and breathing as you go through the movement. Rest after a number of times and notice the difference in your two sides. Notice the difference in your sensing of the floor. All day, notice differences.
Day Five: Five Lines, Fully Alive
Double day, amazing day, dig in, learn, thrive, fail or not fail, learn. Love the learning. Thrive.
Here’s one half of the game: feel your life. Feel being alive. Contemplate and see if you can sense at a deep and non-verbal level what it feels like in you, in the present, to be Fully Alive.
How does this feel in your breathing, and your eyes and your brain and your legs and your spine and your arms. How does this feel in your heart? Soul?
I’m pretty sure fully alive doesn’t mean being good, but it could well mean feeling of good cheer, even underneath almost anything else.
Check it out for yourself.

And two, let your love of now, and love of life expand to sensing your five lines. Which are?
Think of yourself as a children’s drawing of a person: stick line for the spine, nice round head at top, with smiling face, two lines out for the arms, two lines out for the legs.
This is your five lines: two arms, two legs, spine plus head.
That’s the double yummy for today of being fully alive: add to this feeling and exploration of this feeling, an ongoing sensing of both legs, both arms and your spine and head.
Sensing your arms can start at the shoulders and come all the way to each finger tip.
Sensing your legs can start in your hip joints (one leg at a time is the best way to fill in this awaring), and sense all the way out to each toe. We often forget our wonderful and amazing toes.
Hip joint to toes, knees, bones, two in bottom leg, one in top. All that stuff. Sense and enjoy.
Paying real attention to yourself, enjoy. This is you being deeply kind to yourself. You are worth it. Enjoy the learning and the peace and power this might bring.
Day Six: Pick up Sticks
Sit in a chair.
Sit up more or less straight. Feel your pelvis at the chair or bench or rock or log below you.
Breathe and feel what that’s like and how that involves or doesn’t involve your ribs.
Lean over and move toward touching the floor. Easy, go a few times, breathe, explore.
Sit up again and rest.

Now, put your right forearm on your left knee, and prop yourself a bit, and from this lower your head and right arm toward the floor. And then come back up, and slowly lower your right hand to the floor, letting your head hang free. (If you are confined to a bed, bring your knees toward the ceiling from lying on your back, and gently move your right hand down your left thigh and then calf.). Take your right hand down your left calf, caressing this and letting your head and eyes look to the left and right , while your neck hangs freely.
Go up and down, and then after twelve or so times, come upright and rest.
Imagine doing this on the other side.
Now do this on the other side.
Now: take your left knee in your left hand and put your right hand behind your head. Gently, gently bring your knee up toward your head. Gently, gently bring your elbow toward your knee. Take turns, elbow down, knee up, both together. Sometime take the hand from behind your head and press on your sternum so it goes down and you lean forward and lower your head and bring your knee up.
Rest. Imagine doing this on the other side.
Put both elbows on both thighs and alternate pushing your belly out and arching your back a bit, and pulling your belly in and letting your sternum go down, and rounding your back as if the look between your legs. Easily. Rest.
Reach down as in the beginning and play with spine and eye awaring all day.
Day Seven: The Kingdom of Heaven
Jesus says, the Kingdom of Heaven is within.
Thich Nhat Hhan says the Kingdom of Heaven is either now or never.
You are alive.
You are here, and each moment of your life is now.
What is being present like for you?
Can you almost as if taste the difference when you are present and when you aren’t?
Is that difference as if you are entering the Kingdom of Heaven, and forgetting it?

Is it for you as if the Kingdom of Heaven, and our true self is always there, waiting for us to return home to it, when we return to the present.

Search this out today, which might require more slowing down and being quiet and going a little or a lot out of the “normal” routine.

See what kind of day a Kingdom of Heaven is found through the door of now day could be.

Good.
Eight: Undoing Hate
Sometimes we hate things, or don’t like them, or get angry, or wish fiercely that someone would get the …. out of our life, or at least out of our “space.”
Oh, well. That’s human, if we aren’t perfect yet, and let’s grant ourselves the great joy of non-perfection.
So we hate/ dislike / are annoyed with someone.

Good.

Byron Katie, a gal who had a wake up experience from her life as alchoholic, chain smoking, overweight, depressed screaming mother, has developed something called the work of Byron Katie.
The first step is not to be good. To actually get into the judging of others. Get into it and write it down.
Judge your neighbor.
Write it down.
Ask four questions.
Turn it around.

Hmmm. This apparently is not about pretending we are “above” making judgments, since we are asked to judge and write it on down on some paper.
And how do we know we are judging?
When we feel stressed or unhappy.
So, anytime you are stressed or unhappy, write down a should or a shouldn’t about someone else. Forget that you “shouldn’t” have judgments. Just write it down.
And then read it. Slowly. Look at those words.
Are they true, or are they just an opinion.
Begin to play this game today, the write down any judging thoughts and asking: IS IT TRUE? And, hey, why not: sense your five lines today, too. Good.
Day Nine: What to Leave Behind
The house is on fire. You have five seconds to grab two things and get out. What do you take?
The ship is sinking. You jump off. What do you take?
You are leaving this life. You have an hour to look back: what is it you love and are thankful for and cherish as you depart this sweet world?
What are we when our stuff is gone?
Who are we without the words and stories we tell about ourselves?
What is good and sweet and easy and always there for us, with friends, without friends, with money, without money? Who are we?

Who are you?
What is the essence of your life, your You-ness in each and every moment of your life?

This is all today. This is everything today, and any day: who are we, deep and wonderful and miraculously at our core?

Inside.
Inside.
Clear and present and sweet inside.
Who are you?

Ponder and sense and breathe into this question today. If the answer comes in words, see if you can find the answer even deeper than words.

Go slowly, even in the midst of all else.
Go slowly, and feel with your being: when you’ve left all the other stuff behind, who are you? Who are we?
Good.
Day Ten: 4 questions and a turn around
So we’ve started this game, the Byron Katie what to do about suffering and stress game.
It starts like this: Judge Your Neighbor, Write it Down, Ask 4 Questions, Turn it Around.
The game goes deep, though it lacks the usual complexity of most systems that bring you to freedom (except the BE PRESENT system, the ultimate in simplicity). The Katie game though, goes on like this, with 4 Questions about the thought/ story/ belief/ opinion that is always there behind and tied up with stress and suffering. Take this thought/ story/ belief/ opinion and ask 4 ways:
1. IS IT TRUE?
2. CAN I ABSOLUTELY KNOW THAT THIS THOUGHT IS TRUE?
3. HOW DO I REACT, FEEL, BE IN MY LIFE AND BODY WHEN I ATTACH TO THIS THOUGHT?
4. WHO OR WHAT WOULD I BE WITHOUT ATTACHING TO THIS THOUGHT.

That’s it for the questions. The turn around is grand, and that’s for another day.

For today play with setting out to be happy and stress free and honest and present all day. From the present and honesty, notice when you aren’t happy, or are in stress. In those moments write down your complaint about reality, preferably in a should or shouldn’t sentence. Write the thought, a sentence, short.
Look at the sentence. See how believing it and being miserable are part of the same package.
Then ask the first two questions: Is it true? And, Can I absolutely know that this thought is true?
So and so shouldn’t have died? Can I absolutely know this is true? I shouldn’t have made that “mistake.” Can I absolutely know this is true? Ask all day, for any and every thought hooked into any and all suffering. Good.
Day Eleven: Back to Heaven
What if heaven is loving What Is?
What would that mean?
Who knows? You will know if you stay in the present and do the work of Byron Katie when we get out of loving the Now.
So let’s learn on forward, like this:
Stay happy and present if you can. And when you can’t, notice the stress and notice the suffering and WRITE IT DOWN.
Look at the sentence you’ve written. Feel and sense your suffering. Begin to get very clear how the two are married.
And today’s game: WRITE IT DOWN each time suffering comes along. Write down the thought/ concept/ idea/ belief/ story. Make sure the sentence is in some way a clear opposition to What Is. A should or shouldn’t in the sentence make this most clear.
And ask the first three questions: Is it true? Can I absolutely know that this is true? And three: HOW DO I REACT WHEN I ATTACH TO THIS THOUGHT?
The reaction is good to write down, writing down a laundry list of all the “benefits” to this thought.
Like this: “So and so should appreciate/ love/ respect/ accept me more.” And the first two questions, True? Absolutely true? Then, the third, when I believe this, I feel….. How? Bad, sad, mad, depressed? What ? And my body gets this way…. And I avoid this person, or snap at that person, and what? And do or don’t do what in my life?
Have the thought written down. Write the list of all the effects of believing in that thought. This is quite the liberating bit of inner knowledge. Here’s what so and so does. Here’s my belief about what so and so did. Here’s my list of suffering from believing that so and so should have been different in that instance.

Start to enjoy how good we are at making ourselves suffer when we attach to certain thoughts.
Day Twelve: Trying out Freedom.
Judge your neighbor. Write it down. Ask 4 questions. Turn it around.
Question 4: Who or what would I be without the story?
Question 4: Who or what would I be without attaching to the thought?
Do it today.
Not “let go” instantly, but do the write down, do the first 3 questions and then go to number 4: test out in imagination how your life would be without the thought, or if the thought is there, without believing in it.

Someone treats you poorly.
Write it down: “So and so shouldn’t have treated me poorly.”
First two questions: Is this True? Can I absolutely know this is true?
3rd Question: when I believe this, what goes on in me and my life.
4th Question: When I don’t believe this, even though “so and so” is still “treating me poorly,” who am I? What am I? What happens inside? How do I feel? What can I see and understand that I couldn’t when attached to the thought?
What openings happen physically when I don’t attach to the thought.

And check this out: there is no rule, as in: “get rid of the thought.”

It’s more like this: notice the difference: You have the story about the world.
One way to go, question 3, believe the thought and….. happens
Another way to go, question 4, don’t believe the thought and …… happens.

Compare the two.
All day: notice, write, ask and compare: Who am I with the story believed? And, Who am I when I don’t believe the story.
Enjoy, learn, thrive.
Good.
Day Thirteen: Turn Around One Way
Sit it a chair, on the forward edge of the chair, so that your back is upright and not leaning into anything.
Breathe and feel your feet on the floor and your bottom/ pelvis on the chair and your spine holding you upright.
Now turn to look to the left and to the right, a few times, easily, and slowly, comparing the two directions.
Now rest. Then turn your head just to the left a few times and notice how far you turn by noting what you see at the end of your turning. Go slowly. Don’t strain. Then rest, and turn to the right and see how far you go that way.
Rest again.
Now put your hands on the opposite shoulder, so the right hand is on the left shoulder and the left hand on the right shoulder. In this position, turn your head just left and back to the middle , but allow your chest to turn as if it wants to look to the left, too. Do this a number of times, slowly and without effort.
Rest. Lean back in your chair if you want to in the rests.
Now, come to the front of your chair and put the back of your right hand on your left cheek, and your left hand on the chair behind you. In this position, turn to the left and back to center a number of slow, gentle times. Feel the spine and ribs helping your turn to the left. Rest with hand down and eyes closed and feel yourself in the present.
Now, come to the front again, put your hands as above, and turn to the left and stay there. Begin to turn your eyes left and right a number of times as you stay slightly twisted to the left. Rest.
Now, come to the front and shift your weight from the right side of your pelvis to the left a number of times. Rest.
Now come to the front and put the back of each hand on the opposite cheek, and turn slowly to the left and back to the center a number of times. Then stay to the left with your hands and ribs, but rotate your head a little to kiss first the back of your right hand, then the back of your left hand. Rest.
Now turn both ways and compare the ease and distance to the beginning.
Day Fourteen: Another turn around
Judge your neighbor, write it down, ask four questions, turn it around.
Take any judgment and write it down in a should or shouldn’t form. So and so should be nicer. So and so shouldn’t lie to me.
Do the four questions.
Learn today and play with the turn around.

Like this:
So and so should be nicer to me.
One turn around: I should be nicer to so and so.
Another: I should be nicer to myself.

So and so shouldn’t lie to me.
One: I shouldn’t lie to so and so.
Two: I shouldn’t life to myself.

And for everything:
So and so should love me more.
I should love so and so more. (And you don’t have to live with a person, or even invite them to dinner just because you love them.)
Two: I should love me more.

And this:
So and so should be more present.
I should be more present.

Love and live and learn this.
Have fun, laugh at how human we all are, and come on back to the present, if that feels right and beautiful to you.

Good.
Day Fifteen: Turn around again
Sit in a chair and turn easily right and left. Rest. Now just turn to the right and see how easy that is, and how far you turn.
Now, lie down on the floor, ground or a firm bed. Turn your head easily to the right here, and see how easy it is and what is your range. Rest.
Raise your left foot so that the left sole is pressing into the floor, and the left knee toward the ceiling. Push your left foot into the ground and rotate your pelvis to the right and turn your head to the right at the same time. And come back to the middle with both pelvis and head. A number of times, very slowly and very gently.
Rest, which means bring your leg down next to the other one. Feel what is going on inside you.
Now stand the left foot again, and make the same movement, but this time move your head to the left each time your pelvis rotates to the right. And bring them both in synchronous timing, back to the middle and repeat a number of times. Each time try to learn a little more about yourself, and feel and little more ease and pleasure. After many times, rest.
Again stand your left foot, and put your arms toward the sky or ceiling, what we call forward, because if you are standing, this would be forward. Touch palm to palm and keep the arms straight. Now push again the left foot and rotate your pelvis to the right, pushing out your belly as you do this. After a few times with the arms simply pointed forward/ skyward, begin to take your arms three times to the right as your pelvis goes to the right, and three times to the left each time your pelvis goes to the right. Feel the differences.
Go slowly. Don’t push. Feel each time as different. Do many times, and rest.
Now: left foot standing, arms forward as above, and do all this: pelvis to the right with belly pushed out, arms to the left, and head to the right, then slowly bring everything back to the center. Many times. Easy. Joyous. Learning.
Rest.
And now come to sitting again and turn your head right and left and see if awaring your pelvis and ribs and eyes make this different than before.
Sixteen: Turn Around Again
Someone loves you.
You love them.
Times get tricky and they begin to act in ways that bother and disturb you.
Write down a big list of all the things they are doing wrong.
Read t his list four ways: one, with big seriousness and annoyance at how “bad” and “inferior” they are.
Two: with delight at how human and imperfect they are.
Three: with curiosity about the pain in their lives, or the patterns they are stuck in.
Four: with clarity about how stuck and limited we all are when we act from our patterns rather than the present.

Then do the Work of Byron Katie on each and every flaw of theirs and re-write the list in turn around mode:

So and so is selfish, careless, passive aggressive and sneaky becomes: sometimes at least, I am selfish, careless, passive aggressive and sneaky.

They are you.
You are them.
The trick: to wake up to now, and change ourselves in the moment and have enough humor and wisdom and honesty to ask them in ways they can hear to consider changing. Admitting we do the same nonsense will probably make it a lot easier for the other person to hear.

Love is slowing down.

Learning is slowing down.

Spiritual wisdom often comes from slowing down.

Chair lesson, for back ease and neck clarity, and joy of learning

Sitting and twisting in a probably new way

Sit in a chair. Let one elbow and forearm, your left, say, rest on your left knee, so you are bent forward and holding yourself up a bit with this left arm and elbow combination. Now take your right hand and place in behind your head, if you can comfortably do that. If not, put the back of your right hand on your check to the left of your mouth.

Either way, tilt your right elbow up toward the air, toward the sky, toward the ceiling and begin to make circles with this elbow. Imagine a long pencil or pen or feather dipped in ink with which you can paint on the ceiling or the sky. Make a nice circle from the elbow.

Go so slowly that your feel your ribs moving, so slowly you feel this in your pelvis, and so slowly most of all, so that you feel this in your back. Feel an arching when the elbow reaches a certain part of the circle and a folding in your back when the elbow comes to the other side of the circle.

Go slowly enough to notice where your circle gets away from a really round shape. Find the tension or hurry at those points and try to go even slower and with even less effort and see if that will help you draw the circle.

Bring your hands both to your lap and sit up and rest. Feel any changes.

Now, same left elbow down, and right elbow up and make your slow and interesting and pleasurable circles in the other direction

Rest again;

Now, switch arms and do the circle one way a number of times, and then rest, and then the other way a number of times, and rest then.

Feel on this side to a way to feel and connect and as if direct these circles from deep in your lower back and pelvis. Don’t strain. Don’t hurry.

Learn and enjoy.

Moving Toes and Heels and hey, what about nowing???

Dogwood in bloom in Sonoma, Ca, in April


Brendan, my son, at the Anat Baniel Method training, Special Needs Children, Segment 4, as part of some 60 people doing grand learning

Movement with attention
is one grand path to feeling
younger,
to sharpening up the brain,
and
waking up to now

Try this:

1. Sit in a chair. Don't lean back. Feel your pelvis against the chair, and your spine holding up your head. Enjoy that. Close your eyes, and sense two arms, two legs, fingers, toes, breathing, and spine.

2. Do this for awhile, as if a meditation.

3. Imagine doing this sensing and awaring all day long.

4. Now, begin to move the toes of your left foot back and forth,
rotating at your heel. Go slowly. Go so slowly that each time you
do this, and do it many times, you can feel and sense and learn something new about your nervous system and your bones and your feet.

5. Take a rest.

6. Now, move the heel of your left foot back and forth (to the left and to the right),
slowly, pivoting on the front part of your foot. Many times, slowly, pleasurably,
learning.

7. Take a rest and feel the differences, left to right, and before to now.

8. Come back, if you've forgotten, to being present.

9. Lie on your back, and put both feet "standing," which means the foot is on the floor and the knees are pointed toward the ceiling.

10. In this position, a number of times rotate the toes of the left foot to the right and left. Rest. Then rotate the heel of this same foot. Rest.

11. In the rests, come into a deeper meditation.

12. Bring both feet to standing again, and push up your pelvis into the air. Do this a number of times, more and more arching your back, and pushing out your belly.

13. Rest with awareness and pleasure.

14. Again, feet standing, pelvis up, and bring the toes of your left foot as if for running. Toes on the floor. Put your hands behind your head on the floor, and tilt your whole upper body toward the left, and then back to the middle. It is as if the ribs on your right get longer and the left elbow comes closer, staying on the floor, to your left hip.

15. Rest.

16. Do all of 14 again, and use that to get your left hand to your left heel. Once there, rotate slowly your left heel right and left. See if you can feel the toes pressing the floor most clearly between the big toe and the second toe.

17. Rest. Imagine other moves you could make. Imagine being aware of your ankles and which toes press into the ground as you walk forward today.

18. Get up to standing and go forth to a life of slowing and awaring and happying.

Good.

Getting to the toes of the matter, joy life love learning, backs and back to the present, which is always here, just waiting

We walk each day, many times pressing down into the floor and Earth with our feet, and this pushes goes through us all the way up our spine. We usually don’t notice this. We have five toes on each foot. We usually don’t notice this. Today is as good a time as any to begin more and sweeter and happier noticing of these things. And more.

Lie on your back, please on a firm but comfortable surface. A lawn, a wood floor with a carpet or blanket on it, or a very firm bed. Feel your back pressing down. Feel the Earth pressing back up. Feel each leg in the sensing way, sensing the bones and muscles and blood and everything of each leg, one leg at a time.

Then sense your arms, one arm at a time, from finger tips to shoulder blades.

Now sense your spine, along the floor, where does it touch, where does it lift up? Sense the top and bottom and back side and front side of your spine.

Sense your arms and legs and spine and see if your had your toes, as part of that. If not, add them in, and your head and ribs. Sense your whole self on the floor.

Good.

Just that much, if you stay present with it, can change your life if you do it a few times a day.


And let’s do more.

Please raise one knee toward the ceiling, so that one foot is as if “standing” on the floor, sole pressing down. Pick either your left leg if you are right handed, or right leg is you are left handed, unless one leg foot toes ankle are in some sort of pain. Then pick the un-pain leg and foot, or the less pain if both don’t feel so great.

Good. Now begin to press this standing foot into the floor, and use this push to raise your pelvis on that side, so it lifts and rotates. Go slow. Only have half the pelvis coming off the floor. The side of the pelvis on the straight on the floor leg side stays down.

Do this slowly, many times, push the foot down, feel the pelvis rotate, feet your back arch.

Many times, each time with a sensing of a different part of you: toes, ankle, knee, hip joint, pelvis, spine, ribs, neck, head, arms. Feel different parts and all of you at the same time if you can.

After many times, say twenty to thirty, take a rest, let your leg down and feel the difference side to side. Rest long enough so that you feel your body and brain integrating what you learned, then raise your same foot to standing.

Throughout this lesson, if will always be this foot. At the end, you can get up and walk around, and feel some big differences and ten or twenty minutes later come back and do all this on the other side. Or right before you go to sleep is a great time to review and redo this lesson on the other side.

So stand the same foot again, and press again, first three times so the your knee falls in toward the middle as you press, and three times so that your knee head out over your foot as you press. Go back and forth three times each way, and sense how this is very different in your hip joint and in your toes.

Rest again and integrate.

Now, stand the same foot again, and from now on in the lesson, press your foot so that the knee is heading toward over the standing foot. Begin to press, and as you press, raise one side of your pelvis, rotate, arch your back, and push your belly out.

Really notice your belly going out on the pushing and arching phase of this movement. And now practice sometimes breathing in as your belly goes out, and sometimes breathing out. Feel the difference. Enjoy both ways.

Rest and integrate.

Always find pleasure and learning in each movement.

Standing your foot again, and press a number of times, knee toward over the standing foot, and belly out, and add this on: for three times, as you press, start the press as you have been all along, in your heel but now for three times, as the back arches and the knee moves a bit down toward the foot, push through the big toe of that foot. Three times. And then three times through the next toe, the index toe. And then three times through the middle toe. Then three times the ring toe. And three times the little toe.

Rest and integrate.

Stand the foot again. Always move slowly, with learning and enjoyment, and finding out about all parts of yourself, not just the toe that is pushing, say. Now, go through the previous movement, but the other way: 3 times the little toe, and so on working your way back to the big toe and sensing ribs and spine and breathing and pelvis as you press through your heel and then the selected toe.

Rest. Enjoy. Breathe. Feel yourself on the floor. Feel differences side to side. Feel differences in your general state from the beginning of this short lesson.

Roll to your side and get up and walk a bit, feeling the lopsidedness and the learning and the amazing results from going slow, from being present, from giving yourself the present of learning.

Good.

Enjoy your day, sense your toes a lot, and sometime during the day, go through this game on the other side.