Grounded....the ground is desire: we want to move because...

This is a rerun
on the exploration of "being grounded."

GROUNDED:

It's still as simple as noticing
gravity,
our pull down
into the earth.

And as humans, that is important,
not for the wonderful bliss of knowing we are on planet Earth

but because we want to be non-trees on planet Earth.

We want to MOVE

we want to move to eat,
the play,
to hunt,
to work,
to hug,
to mate

movement is simplicity itself:
we go over there to get something we want
we reach out and bring something to ourselves we want

we want to enjoy a dance together,
we move with
we want to enjoy sex 
we move with
we want to build a house
we pick up, saw, carry, hammer, nail,
we move things around and
create something we want
or get paid to create and we want the money

and any good carpenter wants the
satisfaction of making something that wasn't there before

a painter paints
a poet writes

stuff happens,
moving thoughts
moving emotions
and someone in there,
moving the body

you name it,
almost any it and it's about movement

AND WHAT'S THAT GOT TO DO WITH GRAVITY/
WITH BEING GROUNDED AS CONNECTION TO AND USE OF SELF IN GRAVITY?

EVERYTHING:

a baby who can crawl is not the same being
as one who can't crawl

this is where a lot of the "babies are Buddha" people
get a little nutso:

The goal of babies is not hanging out in bliss:
it's eating when they want to eat,
and being held (that's bliss, surely)
and
crawling across the room to
get the toy
to explore
to get in trouble
to eat the dogfood
to drive their parents crazy

kids want to move in the world

and when they can crawl they are
GROUNDED

they know,
hands push down to hold the front part
up
knees push down to hold the hips up

and this is their transformation:
they know how to PUSH DOWN INTO THE GROUND
in just the right sequence of hand and knee and hip and back
and shoulder and all that good stuff
and that moves them forward

they like that

the are CONNECTED inside,
back to arm to hand to floor
inside back to pelvis to thigh to knee
to floor

it's not that simple
it's really complex
and it's simple to say:
they are grounded because they know feel and use the ground

MOVEMENT WITH ATTENTION
this is Anat Baniel's first essential in Move into Life
and her children with special needs book:
Kids Beyond Limits

and it's central obviously to the Feldenkrais® work:

Awareness comes thru Movement
because
we need love enjoy have to move

and until we are in space
we have to move in and in spite of
and in connection with
and in coordination with gravity

this is good
life is good

happy grounded day
happy moving day

let yourself be moved by the glory of
life

if you wish


good

Babies love to learn, help them along

I had a nice talk with a parent on the phone
the other day.

Her daughter does not yet use
much language.

I suggested that she could have a lot of fun
and be of huge use to her child
by playing with differences in the world of sound.

It could be differences
in pitch,
going eeeeee in a high pitch
and eeeee in a low pitch.

It could be differences in long and short:

laaaaaaaaa and la
la and laaaaaaaaaa

It could be differences in sound
ma ma ma ma
ba ba ba ba

It could be differences in fast
and slow
ma////////////////ma//////////////////ma////////////////////ma
and ma ma ma ma

All sort of combinations
could be invented and played with
ba ba baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ba ba
ma ma maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ma ma
and the ba and ma could be different pitch

When the child hears the difference and begins to play
with them
she is learning the basis of language.

"The dog is in the house" can
wait,
first play with da da da n nnnn nn n nnnn hoooooooooo
huuuuuuuuuuuuu haaaaaaaaaaaa heeeeeeeeeee
ssssssssssssssssss snake salad slippery and so on

the "dog in the house" will come


It's like how I explain our system is so different that the rest
by talking about crawling.

Take a child who doesn't crawl
and do
accupuncture
energy work
spinal adjustment
stretching
and you'll get no results, and probably a lot of
discomfort in most of these,
since babies aren't masochists yet

Take a child who can't crawl
and show her connections of pelvis to shoulder
and to knee and to ribs and to head
little soft
showing of connections

and you've given information
and information
which is the learning of differences
that make a difference
is what the nervous system
lives for

it's called learning

it's great

go out and have a learning day


ciao
Chris

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.

Excerpt From: UP, Improve Mood, Posture, Thinking, Backs, Necks and Sex, ...and Help "Save the World"

AND THEN WHAT? (in book, paragraphs are "regular," here I spread things out, for easier viewing in computerland)

These prior 4 activities/ meditations/ practices/ lessons (first four of 21 activities that will be in the book) will increase your awareness of how you fit together as a human being on this planet Earth.

They will bring you into the present.

And soften and moderate your breathing.

And will lengthen your spine and improve your posture.

By involving your pelvis they will increase your sexual awareness and skill.

By involving your attention and thinking and awareness they will help you to solve problems better.

By connecting more of you to more of you in pleasant and watchful ways, they will increase your ability to love yourself.

This way of learning and exploring and discovery is ancient to our lives. It is the way we learned when we were infants and the best learners we’ve ever been. When we discovered how to crawl and roll over and walk and talk, we were little geniuses. We didn’t have a program of action, we didn’t do what we were told. Rarely, at least in the first movements, did we imitate anyone. (Speech required a lot of imitation, and yet: it also was hugely about “playing around” with sounds and discovering how to make the noises we heard out there.)

This way of discovery will access our brains, and call us back into solving real and literally tangible “problems.” How to move the head down as the belly comes forward and the head up as the back comes back, is a real feat of attention, and awareness.
And learning.

Learning as discovery.

This is how this work can be anti-aging, by reconnecting us to that young state of heightened learning and awareness, where we are pouring on the new cells in our brains.

When we learn one of these new and complicated movements, we are doing just that: laying down millions of new brains cells.

When we make the new, we become as if young again.

Aging, so called aging, can be seen mainly as a solidification of old and familiar and unaware patterns. We move and talk and sit the same way, wearing down mental and movement and emotional and speech groves (ruts) that tend to get a little more rutted and stuck each year. We think the same things, say the same things, do the same things, have the same reactions to the same situations.

We become predictable and programmed, and boring, although we probably don’t realize that.

So, now, these activities offer a chance to move beyond old habits and get back in the way of living where being present, and being curious and discovering are what our lives are all about.

what are these activities??
come to a Sufia yoga class, or movement class
and find out.

It's so much
fun
and you
really do
expand
change
learn
and become better able
to love yourself

Humans and Learning: Our Core Activity, Maybe

Adults learning in a Bones for Life class.

HUMAN BEINGS
Human beings start out as babies. You and I started out as a baby. We knew hardly anything. We didn't know A, didn't know B, didn't know language, didn't know how to touch our nose, didn't know how to deliberately move our toes. We were more or less a blob.

We lay there. We knew how to curl up, the famous "fetal position," having, as that time in our just born lives, spend most of our "life" inside the dark, warm tropical waters of Mom. We knew sounds, but light was new. We knew movement, but gravity was new. We knew ????, who knows what we knew, and breathing, ah that too was new.

Light.

Breath.

Gravity.

Learning all about those. Learning how to bring our hands deliberately to our mouths, how to grasp something, how to move our eyes and focus and find where the voice and sound is coming from. Explorations in gravity, lifting this part of us and that, learning to roll over, which always means pushing off against the floor or Earth. Learning to lift our head as we lie on our belly, which means getting muscles in our back (and pushing the belly into the ground), which means learning to bring our head to vertical, which means beginning to shift our gaze right and left from an upright head.

Rolling around.

Messing around.

Learning.

All sorts of learning. Somehow we are fed. Learning who does that, and when and how it comes about. Being held, hopefully, picked up for feeding, picked up for love, cuddled for the joy of it, carried for the usefulness of it. As we are carried we feel our body moving, we feel the big body moving, we learn things, about our spine, about the Earth and the force through the spine of the one holding or carrying us, we learn our edges, we learn to be in contact. We are always exploring.

Always learning, and sleeping. And playing.

It's a wonderful life, but someone has to do it. The babies, the babies we were, this is how our life starts.

We learn a lot. Each little bit helps us learn more complicated things. We push down into the floor or the Earth with our hands, with our feet, with our elbows, with our chests, with our backs.

Learning, learning, hundred of things we are learning about how to move the fingers and toes, and arms and legs and neck and chest and spine and pelvis. We don't have many muscles in our arms. Our pelvis has the big muscles, so we use them the most. We are "centered." We are "grounded," and then one day, we put together 30 of the several hundred things we know, and we are crawling, zipping across the room.

Why do we crawl?

To meet in inner "developmental stage?" No.

To be like the other people? No. They are walking or sitting around.

To please the Big People? No. Later, walking will be an ego trip for some of them when we Achieve that, but crawling, nah, that's our game.

We don't copy. We don't know we are going to crawl, and then we do. Why? To get across the room or the yard or the dirt quicker. We've got important sticks to pick up, or cats to grab, or fallen cherries to put in our mouths. We crawl to expand our living.

This is why we keep learning. To expand our horizons. And for the pure joy of it. Learning is what we were designed to do.

This is why a life without learning is a life on the way to dying.

This is why the explorations and small movements and new configurations and delight in awareness and discovery of the Feldenkrais Method® are so good for keeping us young and vital and able to expand in all sorts of areas in our life.

Good.

Watch the Baby Show us How Amazing We All Are

U-tube, Helen Elizabeth video of Baby