for love of Now: or Awareness unlocks the door

what door?
what lock?

let's say a shoulder is "stuck"
or a mood, like depressed
or a life, like doing the same job someone doesn't like
or a relationship, where A says xxx and B says yyy and A says zzzz
and they get all huffy angry sad
even how they react is a rut

so, life can be rutted
can be stuck

what is the way out?

well the other day,
my gal was in a funk
and I said, oh good,
you are de pressing yourself,
pressing yourself down

how could you do it more?

she came up with some answers:

talk more harshly to herself

tighten chest and belly more

cut off breathing more

I suggested, make the tone of the inner voice more unpleasant

we came up with, dont' see the blue sky
or remember any joy

and so what?

so, by exploring making things "worse"
she's not only laughing her head off,
but realizing, that this "depression" thing
has parts,
and any part she can make "worse"
she can do less of
or
stop

so  that's an unstuck thing

and with a stuck
shoulder:

ah, so much fun
with a shoulder and our neck
or our ribs
or our spine
or our pelvis

how to get shoulder and these
to know each other,
move in the "easy" way,
the opposite of that way

what sorts of multiple layers of possibilities
can we create


and any old stuck thing:

how to get more stuck

what connections to some other part, way, understanding, approach
might we add on

where will curiosity and discovery take us?

we don't know

can we tolerate the "I don't know"
that sets us free?

I hope so

This is short today,
on a plane back to Austin

the book is pretty good,
link above to the contents

108 ways to play with new actions
toward a more enjoyable
and free
and interesting life

good

subset of Monday post at special needs children blog, a movement lesson/ demo

On Monday's I post at http://specialneedschildren-chriselms.blogspot.com

here's a movement lesson subset, just to keep building the repertoire of them
on this blog


see Movement Lessons in this blog, for the whole gamut

okay, here's the lesson:


back away from the computer a bit and lift both your right and
left arm one at a time
from your knee, forward and up in front of you

go slowly and notice the difference

pick the arm that is easiest
and
lift in again up and forward again
8 times

2 times rocking forward on your pelvis as you lift

2 lifts pushing out your belly and smiling and releasing your belly
as you lift

2 times feeling the ribs on that side as you life

and 2 time actually looking down with your head and pushing out your belly
while you lift

then sit quietly

sense both sides

then lift both arms

feel the difference

and
be happy and excited for yourself and your child
if you have one

you have not been fixed

one side has a lot more connection of
you to you to brain to you to you
than the other

doesn't learning feel great?

alright
short and sweet

happy Monday

arms and legs from the middle

Lie on your back.

1. Take a beginning impression: here I am.

2. Feel the surface below you.
Feel the top and bottom of you.
Feel the front and back of you.
Feel the breathing of you.
Feel/ sense ( all feel above= sense) the five lines:
2 legs
2 arms
1 spine
Sense your breathing

2.b.Take a next impression: here I am after scanning myself.

3. put a weight or rock in each hand and place both hands above your head,
which means, up in the opposite direction that your feet are down,
as if standing,
so up in lying means hands on the floor above you

rock in each hand

lift the right arm and rock and little bit
feel/ sense this
not high
slowly,
breathe out as you lift toward the sky
keep doing this until the sensation of doing this from the middle of your stomach oecurs to you
rest a lot
feel ribs back stomach stomach muscles shoulder
leave your head on the floor
make this pleasure

rest ( leave the rocks up there on the floor or ground
and bring the arms down beside yourself each time you rest)

4. Lift your left leg slowly and easily
and just a little
and many times
and slowly
and gently
and find pleasure
and feel the stomach as the center of this

breathe out as you lift toward the sky

rest

5. Lift both right arm plus rock and left leg
feel the connection through your diagonal
the usual:
breathe out as you lift toward the sky
slowly
low effort
not much distance
lots and lots of awareness
and learning
and pleasure

rest.

6. roll to your belly
same rocks in each hand, same hands and arms above the head on the floor

Same sequence:

lift your right arm and bunch of times as above
feel this into your back
push out your belly
try with tight abs, tight belly
try with loose and relaxed belly
get to know and love your anti-gravity muscles
pause halfway up,
and make the lift low, as only a couple of inches
so pause at one inch
breathe easily
breathe out as you lift toward the sky
move your head side to side,
with your eyes going in the opposite direction
finish going up
notice going down, even two inches is a movement

rest

7. Lift your leg slowly, which leg, your left leg
all the same slow, feel into back, release stomach muscles,
use your back,
breathe out as you lift toward the sky
slowly
easily
awareness expanding
pleasure increasing

many times

rest.

8. Right arm with weight, left leg
together
breathe out as you lift toward the sky
learn how beautiful and awake to the present
slowly and aware can be
enjoy your back
and the diagonal that is so intrinsic to walking
and throwing a ball
and all sorts of other moves

many times
enjoy
slowly
learn

rest

9. Go back to your belly
and two times do each
the arm
the leg
arm and leg as before right arm, and left leg

rest

10/ take impression of yourself now
notice differences:

one: the right arm left leg diagonal and the left arm/ right leg diagonal

two: the youness of you now vs before the lessons

good

The importance of options

Something goes wrong
in our emotional world,
and it's usually a rift on the same darn thing:
we don't get out way,
don't get what we want,
someone disapproves of us,
or doesn't like us,
and the last too are just:
Me no get my way,
once more.

What are our options:
The downhill slide: discouraged, angry, sad, withdrawn

And then real options:
curiosity: what's with the person

Being present: oh, well, they are what they are and I'm in the
now
of my breathing
and sensing gravity
and knowing my arms and legs and spine

the joy of a movement lesson

or taking a walk

or remembering all the things we love

or doing the Katie work and seeing that what the "other" is
"doing wrong"
is something we do, too

All these options
require:
awareness,
stopping/ pausing/ inhibiting the automatic downhill slide
using more of ourselves: attention, thinking, moving

And now we return to the world
of eliminating pain
and refining and making elegant and pleasurable our moving
and our
life

and guess what:
it's the backing off from the way we always do it
and using more attention
and
trying a new action
and
adding on the whole of ourselves to our movement
and
using less effort and more awareness
and
using less speed and more awareness
and
taking rests, being aware of the moment
being
at one with ourselves

This is short and not "enough" if you came here
looking for a deep insight today
and
really:
think of times you turned around an emotional deal
that could have gone bad
and
times you released yourself from physical pain
or used classes or private lessons to
release

an think of times
you created something new and amazing in
your life

and YOU
search for the commonalities

so,
happy hunting

and won't it be fun,
this looking for how we work
when we work well
instead of the "normal" way
of paying gobs of attention on how we "Don't do well."

maybe even apply the principals
you are discovering
to the next
new thing
that is coming into your life?

what is that?

And if you don't know,
aren't you lucky,
you'll get to find out

and I said I'd have an invented lesson for you today:
gads
okay
check back way later in the day
and i'll have one

Monday's posting at my new special needs children blog

Even on the road
and out in CA
being support staff for Anat's amazing new training
I'm getting out my blogs

On Mondays
it's now my new special needs children blog

Tidbits from Anat's first day,
not counting the movement lessons and
the hands on the spine demo:

One:
Moshe Feldenkrais invented his system
when his cruciate (? spelling) ligaments
on one knees were worthless.

What did he do:
thought through
and then set out to discover
how human beings could walk ,  stand and move
if they all didn't have cruciate ligaments.

This about how our work can use
brain plasticity
and learning
and awareness to have suberb
function even though
"Something is wrong"

Two: In the middle of the first movement lesson,
which she calls TMLs
Transformative Movement Lessons,
which can sound pretentious until you experience
how one is taught
she was coaxing and or demanding people slow down
and she told the story
of a young boy
who come to her very limited
and by six
was amazing and could speak 2 and a half languages
and did better work in school
that all the other kids,
except he was slow

So his teacher,
wants him to speed up
and work as fast as the other kids,
whose work isn't as good

Anat, via the parent back to the teacher
suggests:
teach the other kids to slow down,
so they too can do excellent work

okay,
wednesday
I'll have an invented lesson for you all

ciao
chris

And a little p.s. in here:
Anat's book, though simplified a bit,
gives a grand overview of how lifelong learning
takes place
in a 90 year old
in a world class athlete or musician
and in a special needs child.

Here is is:'

Move Into Life

new blog, a movement lesson in using your hip and brain

I have started a new blog, on Mondays,
about special needs children.
It's label is http://specialneedschildren-chriselms.blogspot.com

The first posting was about a 5 session weekend I spent
with an 11 month old baby, of name Maggie

there's some pictures
like this:

And here's today's message/ essay/ idea

This is the one thing I recommend to people to improve
back
neck
hip
ankle
knee
breathing
brain
it's this simple movement:

Lie on your back

Start with the nicest, easiest, least injured leg,
bring that foot to standing
push on that foot

here's the start:
foot pushes into "ground"
(like life, eh, standing up for yourself,
getting grounded,
walking,
moving forward)

(weird things happening in blogger, enjoy the big foot standing demo)

push with that foot,
rotate your hip to the opposite direction,
push your belly out
(try it with belly tight)
and sense, feel, notice, enjoy, improve:

foot connection to "ground"
what happens in ankle
in knee
in hip joint
in pelvis
in lower spine
in mid spine
in ribs
in upper spine,

which way does your head want to turn

do it slow
slower

slowly

and sense at least 6 areas,
one by one
foot and toes
ankle
knee
hip joint
pelvis
spine
ribs

and coming back down,
is a movement too
sense at least six areas,
both one at a time
and
all at once as you come down

rest
lengthen your leg
feel the differences
then do the other side

Good

What Can We Learn, Right Now

All this moving and learning
is so great

and then the grand question:
why aren't we in awareness and learning
all the time?

Think about how great you feel when you do a movement
lesson.
BE curious: what would it be like to be
like
that all
the time

Or, hey, since perfection and always
is the hobgoblin of the attached ego mind:
more of the time.

(Remember the discussions in here about "getting better"
as a lifelong joy
vs "getting it Right" as lifelong hell).

So, you sit in front of a computer reading this.
I sit in front of a computer writing this.

What shift can we create by awareness and variation
and a bit of playful exploration?

One:
What shifts if we become aware of our breathing?

Notice this isn't about: Thou shalt be aware of thy breathing.

This is about: what shifts when we become aware,
now,
this now,
even before this sentence ends,
as this sentence is unfolding,
aware
of each breath?

It goes in.
It goes out.

We don't command it, and it goes
and goes.

Nice.

And curiosity is our game here:
what shifts when we wake up to our breathing?

Okay, that's one.
Next must be two:

Two:
Let's do two things at once as per the hint
of the number two.

Let's look up, and beyond the computer, and look for the farthest away
thing we can see.
Let's pay attention to how we use our backs to be part of/
or not to be part of looking up and beyond.

And then come back to the computer.
Two objects of attention in looking: the computer, the up a bit and farthest away thing,
and two places of attention in our bodies: our neck shifting
and something happening or not happening in our bodies.

Three:
rest a bit, and see how the idea of following our breathing is faring.

Good, breathing awareness in the movements and in the reading this
and in the rests and in and out throughout your day
IF YOU LIKE THE SHIFTS
THAT BEING AWARE of your breathing brings.

Pleasure should/ could/ might/ delightfully be a motivator in
our lives, think you / feel you not?

Okay,
three:
feel your pelvis on the chair.
Rock forward and back a bit on your pelvis,
and then make this more pronounced by pulling in your belly and
slumping down a bit in the front
as you rock back on your pelvis
and then
when you rock forward on your pelvis
push your belly out a bit
and raise your sternum some.

Do this slump and unslump
back and forth
two ways:

way the first:
breathe out as you slump down
and
breathe in as you unfurl up

way the second:
breathe in (feel it in your back lower ribs area) as you slump down,
and
breathe out as you rise up and push your belly forward

rest,
and breathe
and notice
whatever you notice

Four:
Now combine
looking up beyond your computer
to the farthest thing away
with unfurling a bit and pushing your belly forward,
and then don't curl up/ slump,
but do come back just a little on your pelvis
as you look at the computer
and then come forward on your pelvis a bit as you look up
and
beyond
and let your belly come forward

This is enough for playing with now
and movement today.

I hope you enjoy this.

Chris

A learning/ awakening game for a tennis player

Stand easily as if about to hit a right handed
forehand shot,
which is to say,
left foot forward and toward your direction of hitting,
right foot back, and more or less, facing to the right
of the direction you want to hit.

Pretend to have a tennis racket in your right hand
and come back for the swing
EXCEPT
in this and all movements of this lesson,
go at about a third to a fifth of your normal speed.

Bring your right hand and arm back,
and feel the weight shifting into your right foot.

Do this several times, from arm in "neutral" to arm
back,
and feel the shifting of weight in both the left and right feet.

Rest.

Do this again,
and see if you can differentiate the various areas
of your foot
where this pressure is in each foot.

Both preparing to hit,
and coming back to neutral.

Now come back as if to hit,
all the while going so slowly
you can feel what's happening in your feet,
and add on
awareness of your pelvis and ribs and arms and eyes.

In other words, come back, aware of all of your body,
keeping special focus on the pattern of weight bearing in
each foot.

This time
aware of feet
ribs
pelvis
eyes
arm
hand
head,

take a practice forehand shot all the way through,
and go so slowly you can track
and be aware of
your feet, hips, pelvis
ribs neck back
arm hand
head and eyes.

Do this with your eyes open
and your eyes closed.

Once you get a deep and true
and hopefully pleasurable map in your brain
of how you do this,
begin to swing in pretend
at slow speed
and create variations:

sometimes your pelvis keeps moving and the arm lags back,
sometimes you take an entire swing and keep your weight back on your right foot,
sometimes you let your arm get ahead of your pelvis
sometimes you raise your head up "too high"
sometimes you let your head drop down so your chin in on your chest

and in these
and any other variations
feel your feet
and toes
and neck and back and pelvis
and hip joints
and knees
and arms and shoulders
(what about the "unused arm, and it's shoulder blade,
what about the lower and upper ribs on both sides)
and head and eyes

Is your mouth and jaw and neck
relaxed
are your eyes

Can you keep feel exactly what's happening
in your feet
and pelvis?

Do this, rest, do this rest.

Now,
in the same stance,
play with a left handed back hand.
All the pieces and patterns as above.

Then switch around to face the other way
and play/ experience/ experiment/ discover
with
first a
right handed back hand
and
then
a left handed forehand.

This can take at least half an hour
and can be like a meditation.

Afterward walk
or nap

Stay away from cars and computers
and even the "real" tennis racket.

Just let your learning sink in.

Get excited about all you don't know
and how much you can learn the next time you
play this game.

Good

Landmark Forum thoughts, with two links to Moshe

Link one:
in Potent Self,
the contradiction between being in school
forced to be a good little robot
learning about "great people" in history
exactly those who threw off their robot

Link Two:
Werner at an EST gathering saying
"All you asshole don't even know how to walk"
and Moshe's reactions to that:

read on,
if you wish,
and don't stone me
if Landmark changed your life

the technology is there
but there's a reason so many people are repulsed
by the cult thing
(hey, it even happens when we practitioners really
"get into" Feldenrkais. or Anat Baniel)

here goes

Well, I went to the Intro Evening

which with diabolically clever packaging,

was the last 3 hours of a weekend training

people were all whoopie do about their 

training

and for some good reasons

and their last night assignment:

bring in the newbies

and it clearly had 

"worked"

(recall a statement I annoying make now and then,

our three choices as humans:

low grade robots, high grade robots, awake--

worked meant, it appeared to me, radically upgraded robots)

And yet,

and yet,

this work is obviously hugely effective

for those

not having done anything like the work of Byron Katie

or encountered, apparently,

the difference between attachment and non attachment

or story vs not believing the story

or identification with programming vs not identifying

a huge gob of people

had woken up to their pre-judging

and had made phone calls to parents

ex-mates

and so on

apologizing for narrow mindedness

needless to say,

lots of breakthrough

but back to the diabolical

because the "sharing" some of these breakthroughs,

plus the clever pitch that this was an invitation not a demand

and then throwing in some hints about the power of

realizing we are run by our "view" of reality

and the frenzy built

and by the end

the pressure was on:

if you came,

as a guest and didn't sign,

your life was forever lost, you'd blown it,

you really were making a mistake

huge pressure

after the promise of no pressure

I'll talk some in tomorrow's slow sonoma essay

on the difference between trying to push (hard)

someone to give up their story (done in the example time

at the end by Mr Trainer, an ex-Marine with all the 

suitable breakthroughs)

and Byron Katie's loving the person with and without their

story

and having no attachment to them "getting it"

or 

even 

doing her work

But, if you've come this far,

the thing,

and the way it's set up for a lifetime of associates

and friends who all "get it"

in the way of Landmark speak/ understand/ breakthrough

(dating services, huge crowds, endless keep up with it courses)

reminds me of Moshe in Potent Self

 talking of "great men" in history,

studied in books in school

in exact circumstances to stiffle the originality

and thinking for themselves that made the "great men"

(or women, of course)

the wild weird contraction:

wanting to bring freedom

to a herd

and not giving them the internal experiences

that say

a movement lesson

could give

leaves people in a weird bind

almost a double bind

 a cult devoted to deprogramming you from the ongoing

cult

I'll have to mull it over

because it's fun seeing how useful and effective their 

work is

and how

convoluted the pressure to bring in everyone you know

OR ELSE

is compared to / distinct from the thrust for freedom

and if you are still reading

good,

here's a

story from Denis Leri on Moshe at an EST

thing

and Werner up front ranting about "all you assholes don't

even know how to walk"

and Moshe standing up and walking across the floor

so

Werner

modified:

"All you assholes except one don't know how to walk."



And now,
ala Landmark:
an ad for "something to buy"

over to the right
a book
an ebook
written by yours truly,
has 108 practical and deep
activities/ meditations/ games
to "Wake Up"
in
Movement
Thinking
Emotions
&
"Soul"

there's links to a table of contents
and plenty of chance to try out the first eight
"games"

go there and play/ learn/ wake up
if you so wish

no cult approval for having done
so
and then again
it might up your happiness/ being present
quality
which, after all,
is the main
"inner weather" of our own going life

that and love
and there's TONS
in the book to improve love

ciao
for
NOW

Chris

Feldenkrais' Contribution to Humanity: Gurdjieff, Jesus, Buddha, Moshe and more !!!!

What was the Buddha's contribution to humanity?

That we live, as it were, behind a glass darkly,
hidden from our real lives,
in a slumbering existence,
disconnected from the Present,
and that from that,
ta da
we can Wake Up.

What was Jesus' contribution?

Well, that gets messy:
it could be the lesson that beautiful words
can lead to ugly Inquisitions,

or it could be the idea
that this is possible:
Love your neighbor,
Love your enemy,
Let go of all your possessions,
come into the Kingdom of Heaven,
which is within us right now.

Okay,
that's sort of spiritual stuff, isn't it?

Why am I setting up Moshe,
a great skeptic in these matters
in such a way?

Because

one: various places it has been said that he mentioned
in an unpublished Playboy interview (wouldn't he have been
great there?) that Gurdjieff was his foremost influence.

And what was Gurdjieff about?

We are asleep,
wandering along with no real center
at the mercy of every tide that sways
first one personality one way
and then some other personality the other.

solution: remember ourselves and wake up

and Gurdjieff also said,
to the staid St Petersburg crowd to whom
he taught in the early part of the 20th Century:
what we are after
is to be real Christians,

by which I'd say he meant,
really able to love

And what's that go to do with rolling around on the floor?
And being touched very gently and with great intelligence
and listening?
Or touching others with gentle intelligent listening?

Lots.

Say you clarify rolling your head to the right,
and lifting it just slightly.

And you stand your feet,
and clarify tipping your knees to the right, so that
your right knee falls almost to the floor,
or to the floor.

And say you get this idea of the , of your, left arm coming across you
to the right,
as you lift your left shoulder and bring it forward and down

and you begin to do
legs to the right
and left arm to the right
and head to the right and toward your right knee as if to
kiss it

and your right elbow kicks in as something like a hand,
and you
go slowly
and roll your head so it is near and then above your
right knee
and
you are something like sitting
and then you are sitting

You have changed.

You were a lying down person.

Now you are a sitting up person.

You know and love and like
and understand your arms better,
your head better
your knees and legs and pelvis better
and they
with your awareness and knowing
all come together
and you are sitting from lying down.

That's change.

That's practical being present.

That's loving yourself in this way of a child:
not,
oh yeah, let's just lie in the sun
and all is groovy,
but let's learn to jump across a pond,
let's learn to climb a tree,
let's learn to fingerpaint with a new color,

it's the love of life
that comes from expanding out into more
of living

And is that like Buddha?

yes. Waking up in perhaps its easiest form,
with aware movement.

And is it like Jesus loving the enemy?
No.
But it does take you away from all thought
of enemy
and help you make friends with all sorts
of parts of your body
and when you body feels sweet and friendly to
you,
is it easier to love anyone
and everyone.

I'd say so.
You say what you want to say.

But if we are all a genius inside
and were that genius when we were children
learning to roll over
and come to sit
and crawl
and walk
and talk

surely recovering that genius
(and didn't Jesus say, become like the little children)
again, is
to my mind
Moshe's gift to humanity:

You are never to old
to re activate
awareness
and the genius of learning that we had
as children

This is our birthright:
to be awake
to be in the joy and thrill and fun
of learning
and waking to now
and loving ourselves more
not as vague "self esteem"
but as happily more potent people
able to do something we couldn't do
an hour ago.

Good.

Over at 4brainfitness.blogspot.com

Which I wish I'd named 4 brain mindfulness,
the Monday post
is about:
Waking up to the sensation underneath
emotions,
and going deeper than the so called
positive
and
negative
emotions
to
the mainstay of the Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel work:
sensing ourselves.

What is the sensation
of various good feeling
and
not so good feeling feelings
and how might the distinction be better
made than Positive and Negative
feelings?

Check it out and see
if you wish
4 Brain Mindfulness, weekly essays on a Monday

Feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais... a movement lesson to accompany

Sit comfortably in a chair, with both feet on the floor and your back away from the back of the chair.

Feel yourself more or less upright, and feel what that is like. Perhaps closing your eyes can help you get a more clear Sensing feel of yourself.

Now, slowly, begin to bring your right hand to your mouth, and then place it back down in your lap. You've done this a zillion times, so go slower than slow and see if you can notice anything new about this life necessary movement.

Rest.

Now bring the back of your right hand just to the left of your mouth, and bring your hand back down, and as you repeat this movement, move toward bringing the middle of your right forearm to your mouth. After it's there, go back and forth from lap to middle of right forearm at your mouth.

Rest.

Now please come to this last position of middle of your right forearm on your mouth and begin to round and arch your spine. What does that mean?

To round your spine: bring your belly in and back, rock back a bit on your pelvis, let your sternum sink and your nose lower as if you are going to look between your legs.

All the while your arm and mouth are united, and this gives your elbow a downward trajectory as you round your back.

Then when you arch your back, your elbow will lift, your eyes and nose will look up, your sternum will rise, your belly will come forward a bit and you will rock a bit forward on your pelvis.

Go slowly and with pleasure and awareness in the arching and rounding, paying attention to all your parts:
spine,
ribs,
sternum,
elbow,
nose
belly
and pelvis.

Take rests if you get fatigued, or lose concentration, but do come back to this until you can feel and unity of sorts between your pelvis rocking forward and back, and your elbow raising and lowering.

Have thoughts, if you wish, about how this motion in the pelvis region could have something to do with s-e-x.

Rest.

Now, play with this a bit. Put yourself in the same position of the middle of your right forearm touching your mouth as you sit forward on your chair, and arch up so your elbow is more toward the sky/ ceiling and your pelvis is rocked forward more, and from here bring your pelvis into a kind of hula hoop circle on your chair, and allow your elbow to make a corresponding circle that you discover.

Enjoy this a bit, and then reverse the circle. Go slow enough to get a nice realization of your pelvis and spine and head as a grand team.

Rest.

Now for a bit of the fighting part;
Sit with your left hand on your left knee, and bring your right hand down and outside of your left knee, going down and twisting slowly and easily. Then rise up from this with an arching of your back as earlier, but this time raising your right hand forward and up and to the right, as if slapping someone with the back of your right hand, or slashing a sword up and to the right, and any other image you'd like (hitting a backhand tennis shot way to high, flinging a frisbee to the right and upward), whatever the image, feel your whole self participating in this curling down and twisting (as if to load your strike, throw, fling, slap) and then unfurling and letting your back and pelvis participate in a powerful move of your right arm and hand.

Rest.

This is all one sided. Please feel free to read the instructions and then imagine this all on the left side, and then perhaps do it just once on twice to see how clear your imagining was and what you you would need to remember if you were to imagine it again.

Qigong part two, balance is not falling over, lengthening is reaching to heavens above and Earth below

Stand on the easiest foot

Bring the other foot back, and lightly use your toes to balance

Form a ball with your hands in front of your standing leg, opposite hand of standing leg on top

Reach up with top hand, down with other hand, arch your back, breathe out and lengthen

Come back to the ball near the hip of your standing leg with the other hand on top, ie same hand as standing leg

Then lengthen up and breathe out

Rest and do this to the other side

Now,
the advanced version

Stand on one foot; I'll say left to make it easier

Bring your right knee up toward your chest and your hands in a ball, about six inches apart,
right hand on top

Bend/ fold in a bit, so your stomach in back,
shoulders head and sternum down
pelvis tilted up (as in tailbone under, sex toward nose)

From this fold/ round/ crouch: breathe in
I know it's weird, but do it, breathe in,
and

breathe out
and lengthen,
right leg behind you and still in the air
right hand easily high above your head
arch your back
look up easily without shortening your neck toward your hand,
left hand down

Breathe in
and come into a crouch again
still on your left foot,
right knee forward again,
this time a ball with the left hand on top,

Breathe out,
lengthen left hand high, right hand down,
right leg back again,

Do this back and forth about 3 times.

Then switch to standing on your right foot
and reverse everything

this will do ya
good

ciao
chris

Feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais

Before I launch forward on my 4 F essay, I'd like to recommend you try and
play with
and benefit from
the little qigong exercise I presented yesterday.

This morning, in the local park where I do my morning Tai Chi,
I played around with it,
and came up with a sweet variation that takes it to a whole new
level.

that, with pictures I hope, I'll present tomorrow.

For today, though, practice at least as much breathing out during the expansion
hand floating into the air phase of the movment.

And barefoot, barefoot, especially outside on an uneven surface: great for you and your learning, lvoing, connecting self.

Okay:
Feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais.

Feeding, F…ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais.

Why in that order?

Because if we don’t eat, we’ll die, and so a system that is about increasing happiness and well being and vitality in life has to keep us alive, and to stay alive we need to eat. And let’s have some fun: what is the most important movement to a human being who is no longer sucking at the breast?

Answer: bringing at least one hand to our mouth.

This is a movement that has a FUNCTION.

 If you come to a practitioner for a private lesson, they are called Functional Integration lessons, and if you were to lie on your back on that pleasantly firm Feldenkrais table, and the practitioner were to begin to bring one of your hands in the direction of above your head, she or he would first bring your hand toward your mouth, and then in front of your face, and then, bit by bit, probably, toward above your head.

This function, hand to mouth is a big deal to our brains. The brain doesn’t think about muscles and bones (as far as I know), but it really loves and knows this movement apple to mouth, fork of yum food to mouth, celery stick to mouth, glass of water to our mouth. So if a practitioner were to just “make better” this movement of hand toward your mouth, in sitting, and lying on your back, and lying on your side, that “better” would spill out into all sorts of ease and clarity in movement in back, neck, ribs, shoulder, pelvis, breathing, hands, fingers, and probably even more.

The goal isn’t to get your hand to your mouth. If you couldn’t do that, you probably wouldn’t be coming in for a lesson. You’d either be dead or hospitalized. The goal is to piggy back onto the importance and deep seated nature of this function to improve all sorts of things: your use of your shoulders and neck and pelvis, just for examples.

And then there is the “bigger” picture of feeding as in where does the food come from? And can Feldenkrais help that?


Sure.


Let’s say you want to raise some healthy food, save some money, get fresh air, sunshine, exercise, slow down your life a bit, reconnect with the Earth. Where am I leading us? 


 To a garden, of course, 
and all that leaning, kneeling, pulling, shoveling, swinging a pick around, up and down, all this is a great chance to limber up and keep young and flexible feeling and moving in our bodies.



To say nothing of the pure meditative value of being outdoors, assisting Life to be even more abundance, sensing our movement and our breathing and our connection to the Earth in the moment.

Yes, yes, and what of the various “aches and pains” that keep some of us from gardening?

F to the rescue. 
Group classes, private lessons, follow various blogs (click on movement lessons from labels to the right) that include lessons, make up your own, but have a garden: it’s good for you and good for the Earth.


There are other foods, the meats, cheeses, fish, seeds, fruits, and so on, which you could raise, or go out and hunt or fish or plant trees for. F would help with that.

And then that unfortunately or not disconnected feeding necessity of going to the store and paying good old fashioned money, can F help us stand on our own two feet and earn our living?


Yes. 


It’ a long story, but let’s just say, that part of the “side effects” of lessons seems to be a sense that we can start out on a path with an intention, and by awareness and flexibility, keep pursuing that intention much more easily and enjoyably than if we hadn’t been doing lessons.

Or so it seems to me.




Okay, feeding and F. One helps the other.

Now F…ing, which I’m tired of typing so will just use the well understood three letter calling card to modern day attention: S-E-X.

Do we need sex?

As a species, yes, though a strong case could be made for having a lot less reproduction, and for having the population headed back to something like a fourth of what it now is, and boy is that a trouble to the economies based on this endless growth idea.

And a long and amazing discussion could be had about the awareness part of Feldenkrais and the focus on the process and how that could all contribute to a world not so hell bent to consume itself into extinction, and we won’t have that discussion here.

We’ll just say this: sex seems to be good for people who can find a decent and loving partner, good for the spirits, good for old fashioned mammalian needs to be touched and to touch, good for balancing the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, good for the breathing, the sleep, the practicing of paying attention to someone beside to usual “me, me, me.” 

And good clean exercise for the pelvis and spine, some nice opportunity to move a central part of our moving organism. That is either a sloppy sentence or a way of viewing ourselves that I think is useful, and part of Moshe Feldenkrais’ contribution to seeing the human being as a marvelous engineering project. 


What is this pelvis between two legs that walk and run and stand us and the spine that holds up head to see and hands to grab, hug, put apples in the mouth, shoot arrows at moving future meat, what is this pelvis about?


A lot.


And my F trainer once said, perhaps even on the first day of training, that “the punch line to every Feldenkrais joke is the pelvis.”


In my training since with Anat Baniel, the key to the huge shift she and her students get with special needs children is kicking in their lower backs and the power of the pelvis.


Same with results of all this work with high powered musicians or athletes: get the pelvis and lower back to hold up the head, so that shoulders and head and arms and free, and you have a happier, more easily moving person.


So sex and Feldenkrais go together like the hands on a pelvic clock. That’s sort of an inside joke, but if it doesn’t make sense, buy Moshe’s book, Awareness Through Movement


and read and do the lesson called… the pelvic clock.
Will Feldenkrais help your sex?
Yes.














And now fighting, which is silly, or not to include in this list.

Let’s think historically, as in why you and I are still here. Somewhere back there we probably had ancestors that fought off the cold, or bad guys, or wild animals, or forest fires/ floods and so on.

Moshe Feldenkrais himself, learned of necessity, hand combat and judo for survival reasons in the early days of Palestine before Israel became a state.
Many a martial artist has or could improve their tai chi, karate, judo, aikido, boxing, with two hints that Moshe stressed as central to martial arts: one having the power connected to the pelvis region and that region always clear and connected to gravity, and two: having a flexible and mobile neck and eyes, so we can always look around to find the enemy.

Or friend.

Or lover.


Or food.



Any Feldenkrais lesson could and perhaps even should increase our clarity, ease and power in our pelvis, and ease and mobility in our neck and breathing.


What’s breathing got to do with it?


Well, even more important that eating, we need to breathe. And the easier our breathing is the easier our life is.


Or so it seems to me.
How about for you?



And so I could have said: Breathing, Feeding, F…ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais, but that doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

Let's make up our own chi kung / qigong

In English, a q is always followed
by a u
sort of a poem,
that

but qigong is fancy,
no u
and still the q

and what is qigong

Well, in wiki, you can read this WIKI QIGONG

I'll just say that when I studied Tai Chi
with Ben Low
one of the foremost students of Cheng Man Cheng
(see this video
I'm you'd like to enjoy the form I learned)


Ben said that the way we did Tai Chi
slow,
putting all our weight one foot at a time
mindful all the way out to the fingertips
relaxed body
straight spine

that was qigong

I took a few classes from a friend in
Sonoma
and the part that impressed me most was how
much it reminded me of a book title of a book
I've never read,
something about how
Conductors live Longer

To me the conductors and the qigongers
like to wave the arms up above the head

this is rarely done
this is
"good for"
all sorts of things:

breathing
using the lower back
posture
understanding how to push down to raise up
ribs
head
neck
eyes (if you look up now and then at the hands
floating up)

So, here we go:
Try this:
stand mainly on one foot
say your left, whichever is easiest

put the other foot back
and just touch with the toes of that foot for balance

in this position,
raise from waist level your right hand forward and up
in a graceful arc
arching your back just slightly as you do this
and push your left hand down and a bit back on your left side,
breathe in or out
as you do this,
or better:
try both ways

after lengthening out like this
bring your hands together near your lower belly
and switch,
so the left hand floats up high and
your right hand floats/ pushes downward

go back and forth like this
more and more
feeling the entire length
from grounded left foot
up to the fingertips of the floated up hand
and also feeling all the way to the fingertips
of the pressing down hand

if you want to get fancy
and fold in a little rounding
your back and lowering your head
as you bring your hands together
and then arching out as you separate your arms
and float one hand up
be my quest. (guest,
got waylaid by the q syndrome,
and be my
quest,
is a nice little twist on the "habitual'
isn't it?)

do this a number of times

rest

and then switch the
forward
weighted foot
and do all this with your weight on the right side

something like high at your hand
and the sky
beyond

*****
if you can get to an outdoor place
and bare foot
yourself

all the better

Further Eating Thoughts, Slow in the Making/ Tasting

One of the great strength's of the Feldenkrais Method
and
the
Anat Baniel Method
is their love of
discovery....

discovery for the teacher,
discovery for the client

We, as practitioners, don't know where the lesson is going
to go,
we have an idea, and we change, explore,
discover what routes might work,
are working that day,
say something to us
and the clinet

We as clients,
know we can learn,
can discover new options is moving
and sensing and
understanding life, awareness
and well being

Good

And we make some soup.

And we taste it.

Or a smoothie,
if you do like I do: carrots, soaked pumpkin seeds, seed potato,
and a little ginger

and then you sit down
or exercise and then sit down, as is my habit,
about 5 minutes of gentle this and that,
sit down
slow down
and taste

and it's not quite right
oh, well
taste again

what might improve the lot

a bit of salt and some red cabbage
(choices, of necessity, limited by stock on hand,
as in a lesson, where we move next limited by
what we already know, can move easily, and
so on(

add some stuff
mix or cook it up

taste
slow down, sit down, mini meal, eyes closed
following the breathing taste

how we doing?

better

and what else

what does it need

some strength

a little buffalo liver
a little tumeric

try it

we can fail
failing is another name for learning

mix or cook it up
sit
taste

good,
really good

and it could be better
with butter
or olive oil
both on hand

and ask the stomach,
and the time of day,
do we all of us
want it better the yum rich high
quality fat way
just now

no

some days that is what we can add

today,
it's fine to stop at pretty great

so we've tasted our way
to a better and better
soup/ smoothie
and listened to ourselves

and used cooking and learning
and creating
and nourishing ourselves as all part of
a whole


see how much more interesting this is than calorie counting?

Awakened Eating, some tips from the Feldie world, common sense, Michael Pollen, and ....

Was I awake in this pic?

Maybe not, interested in the game of

"getting my picture taken."

And in my hand, not blackberries,

but seaweed right off the beach on Orcas Island.

In the link above for the Tao of Now book, you'll now get 64 segments worth of contents, and a sample of lessons 61 (Moving the Head), 62 Emotional learning: gratitude, 63 Thinking: Write a poem, maybe even two poems with two hands, 64, Soul, an amazing letter in getting free from old junk.

The amazing letter one I actually posted a few back in here, as a Valentine's/ freedom/ happiness/ love treat. But maybe you didn't find it, or try it.

Do.

And today, I feel like rambling a little about Feldenkrais and Food. The longer essay could be Feldenkrais and Food and Fighting and F...ing, but that's for a day when I feel like essentially starting a new non-fiction book, and once my Tao of Now 108 ways books is finished revision, it's time for a fiction work from me.

Be that as it may, lots of people are obsessed with eating, and there are a fair amount of Feldies who might enjoy thinking about how their eating is using, and is not using the principles of a system, one of whose descriptions is:
The Potent Self, a Study in Spontaneity and Compulsion.

And then the mind says, oh good: we'll just eat spontaneously, a little bagel here, a little candy bar there, non of this rigid stuff.

Well, here's the rigid stuff I suggest avoiding:
calorie counting
food groups
percentage of protein or grams of protein
zones
amounts of carbohydrates

What's left then, if we are to eat more healthy.

One: cut out the addictions in American food, the so called SAD diet, Standard American Diet.
Which are:
sugar
bread and pasta breakfast cereal, any grains that aren't whole grains
dairy that's pasteurized
non-food ( it's in a box, jar or package and has a big list of ingredients,
some of which is chemicals,
some of which is almost always sugar
and something from corn fructose, which means genetically modified corn)
all soy products that aren't fermented (everything but miso, tempeh, and nato)

Oh, dear, if that sounds like "everythng"
And it's just everything that we are used to because we
are used to what we are used to
because we are used to what we are
used to

and don't you forget the millions spent
to keep us hamsters running those same wheels 
of cheese, dairy, sugar and flour products, with
soy this and that as the pretend option

but drop the habitual food stuff it inners
and what else is there to do

lots
lots
lots

Two : awareness through movement.

Is eating a movement?
As in the mouth moves, the tongue moves and tastes.
And what would it be like to actually sense our tongue and teeth and mouth moving as we ate.

In a way back and quiet wonderful Gestalt book,
by Fritz Perls, of course, but also the radical educationalist and man of letters,
Paul Goodman,
called, I think Gestalt Therapy,
(yes it's Gestalt Therapy: Excitement and Growth in the Human Personality,
and it's now 37 dollars, wow, I had an old copy I carried around for years,
oh well)

They have an exactly experiement: chew each bite until it liquifies and then
swallow that.
Many people find this "disgusting," and isn't that weird,
it's our food, our mouth,
and we're so used to gobbling, that
we create ourselves as food shoveling in robots.

Not eaters.

Not aware and awake.

So anyway: talking uses the teeth and tongue and we usually go to sleep with
that,
and eating uses the teeth and tongue
and we usually go to sleep with that.

And if we want to wake,
waking in our most sleeping movements
seems the most "bang for the buck."

Wake up in eat and/ or talking
and we are well along the way
(wake up in a conversation where we are both eating
and talking,
whew)(

And what else in awareness as we eat:

What is the shape of our body,
or five lines,
how are we sitting,
what is holding us up in gravity,
or are we slumped back on a couch watching TV,
or snuggled up in an easy chair,
reading a book.

Seen in this way,
little meals throughout the day,
that we actually chew and taste,
of things like carrots,
or buffalo,
or spinach,
or salmon,
or garlic,
or celery,
we can taste in the moment what really tastes good
to us,
and since we aren't shoveling it in,
we can feel what's happening in our stomach and being as we eat.

And interesting prospect, this waking up to our eating.

And another Feldenkrais tip:
You know how important the time after a lesson is,
how to go slow,
not rush off to mechanical habitual stuff,
not talk a lot (not talk any is best)
take time to really settle it in.

Maybe this could be part of awakened eating,
taking some time afterward to lie down for a few minutes,
or take a walk,
a make a drawing,
or even meditate,
though most of the official meditators set up before a meal
as the time.

And we can discover on our own,
how a meditation in the Feldie way, fives lines and now
and breathing
and sensing our stomach and lungs,
how all that could be after eating.

So, that's a good start.
I will at other times say this and that about raw
foods,
and more about non-habitual eating,
but for starters,
this little essay has enough to begin a radical shift in many a life.

And will anyone try it?

Who knows.

As Moshe says: people love the idea of changing,
as long as they can stay exactly as they are. 


And here's more,
a review of Michael Pollen's Food Rules

It goes like this:


5.0 out of 5 stars You could buy a #3 at Mickey D's --- or start to save your life, January 7, 2010
By Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (Paperback)
If you got in on the ground floor, you chewed every page of The Omnivore's Dilemma, (464 pages, $8.00 at Amazon).

If you were a second responder, the first Michael Pollan book you read was In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto, (256 pages, $7.50 at Amazon), which boils theory and anecdote down to a tasty, healthy feeding strategy.

If you're new to the topic or haven't paid attention --- or love Pollan's work and want to spread the gospel --- here's Food Rules: An Eater's Manual (137 pages, $11 retail, $5.50 at Amazon), a skinny paperback that says pretty much everything you'd find in his longer books.

Or you can consider Pollan's reduction of his message to seven words --- "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants" --- and read nothing more because you know how to crack that koan and adopt a way of eating that just might save your life.

Why, you may wonder, does a clearly written 256-page book need to be boiled down to 64 general principles?

Two reasons.

Those of us who read about food have, in the last few years, been swamped by the language of nutrition. Antioxidants. Polyphenols. Probiotics. Omega-3 fatty acids. But you can know all about this stuff and still not be able to answer the basic question: Yeah, but what should I eat?

Then there are those who have never heard Pollan's message. They're the folks on the coach, eating pre-packaged snack food, sucking down sodas, serving vegetables as an afterthought. In short, people who are devotees of the Western diet --- which is, says Pollan, "the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!"

Pollan wants to help both groups --- and break the cycle of self-created disease.

And the quickest way to do that is through lessons so simple even the guy chowing down a Hungry Man ("It's good to feel full") meal can understand.

"Food Rules" may be short, but it's elegantly organized. Part I addresses the question: What should I eat? (Answer: food.) Part II asks: What kind of food should I eat? (Answer: mostly plants.) And Part II considers: How should I eat? (Answer: Not too much.)

These are un-American answers. Advertising trains us to shop in the center aisles of supermarkets. We've been brainwashed to believe that fast food is food. Because we're so busy, we're encouraged not to cook for ourselves. And that way of living works for us --- right up to the moment we're overweight and diabetic.

But if we break the cycle?

"People who get off the western diet," says Pollan, "see dramatic improvements in their health."

What does Pollan tell you in these pages? Here's a sample:

--- "Don't eat anything your great grandmother wouldn't recognize as food."
--- "Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce."
---- "Don't eat anything that won't eventually rot...There are exceptions --- honey --- but as a rule, things like Twinkies that never go bad aren't food."
--- "Always leave the table a little hungry.'"
--- "Eat meals together, at regular meal times."
--- "Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline. In the U.S., 20% of food is eaten in the car."
--- "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk."

Pollan would have you only eat junk food you cook yourself. He'd like you to buy your snacks at a farmer's market. He'd like you to use meat as a flavor enhancer, a condiment, an afterthought. And he'd like to see you hurt the bottom line of pre-packaged food companies by paying a little more for real food that's worth eating.

I can imagine a great many of of you nodding in agreement. And feeling superior. And still buying several copies --- to send, anonymously, to loved ones who are eating themselves to death. I can think of no better gift.

.......
okay,
that's a grand start
isn't it now?

Not so thanksgiving, or Valentine's day, but love of life and learning, yes

This happens, doesn't it:
end of the day comes, and we just want to "flake out."

For me, it's lie on my back and read a novel.

For others TV, a DVD, a beer.

And there's always getting on the phone and jawing away.

So, what could mindfulness show us about this "tiredness" thing.

Well, for a start, we could feel and sense where specifically in our bodies
this
"tiredness' seems to be the strongest.

Right now for me, it's around my eyes and in the back of my neck.

And in the lungs, my lungs, having a bit of a trouble breathing.

So here we have three areas for me to move, and as I do,
let's see if we together can create an opening back to the joys
of
"just being alive," that is always the fruit and
the sign of being mindful.

Okay: tiredness always seems to come to the back of the neck.
And we are in the Feldy and Anat Baniel fields of learning and exploration,
which gives us the delightful option:
how to move easily and slowly and in a way that connects down deeper
into
ourself.

How about this?
Place your right hand over your head to loosely hold your left ear,
or something close to that.
And here, begin to rock side to side, so your elbow shifts where it is pointing upward
right and left.

Feel your neck move
and
your back
and
your ribs

and do please
allow one side of your pelvis to raise up
each time you bend to the side,
the hip raising Up
toward the shoulder that is moving DOWN

Just do this say seven times
count them
and feel sense notice search
enjoy a little bit different about each one.

Take an eyes closed rest.
Feel if anything has shift.

Now put the other hand, left,
over your head to the right ear, or thereabout.

Slowly shift back and forth right and left as before,
but just a few times.

Then, when you get to the right tip (right hip up, elbow as far to the right
as you and it can easily go), stay there, and rock forward and back a bit
on the left side of your pelvis, your left sit bone.

It is as if you are coming more forward with your elbow
as your belly comes in
and you shift farther back on the left sit bone
(Ishium)

Go slow. Go slowly.

As you do this, close your eyes, and feel your
ribs
and spine
and neck
and breathing.

Then side bend your elbow to your left
raising your left hip and
sitting on your right sit bone/ ishium.

From there fold and arch, feel your spine coming forward at the top and bottom with the elbow
forward part of this,
and feel your spine top and bottom coming toward each
other in the back
as you push out your belly and arch.

Do this with your eyes closed.

Rest.

See if you can put both hands slightly over your head toward the other ear and do
something like a hoola hoop
with your pelvis,
letting the elbows makes their own form of circle.

Go slow.
Go slowly.

Extra posting, Valentine's day treat

This is the revised chapter 58 of my 108 day/ way Tao of Now,
for sale as Ebook, see link above




Think of “habitual talking.”

You have a partner, and they say a bit, and you say a bit. Usually people say no more than one or two sentences at a time, and then the next person has to chime in with their Very Important Thing to Say.

Sometimes this comes as an interruption, sometimes as just shoveling in the words at the first hint of slowing down or silence on the other person’s part.

Which means the talker has to rush ahead without any gaps, or their “air time” will be taken away. Which means: no time to pause, sense the moment, discover inside what we really want to say.

Most tragic: no time to wait for something besides our bundle of automatic speaking tapes.

Just like in movement: if we speak/ move fast, we have to do what we’ve always done. It’s the way the brain works. So, “normal conversation” almost guarantees two people’s robots spouting back and forth at each other.

Any way we cut it, we don’t have much time to say our bit, and we don’t give much time to the other. And what is said is the same old, same old, as if talking is some mental equivalent of taking a poop.

And another habitual process that contributes to the automatic/ robot nature of most talking is that when we are supposedly “listening,” we are most often formulating our next Very Important Thing to Say.

And it’s a wonder that the divorce rate isn’t any higher, because this description only hints as to how poorly we communicate when the “fur starts to fly” and our talking gets defensive/ offensive, when the couples of life go on the “warpath” / “argument trail” with the one(s) they supposedly love.

Grand if you want to be a robot. But what if you want to wake up?
Perhaps a little something different could come in handy. Like what?

Like this:

Find someone willing to spend some time talking with you in a way very different than “habitual” talking.

With this person, sit down with a kitchen timer, and set that timer to 2 or 3 minutes.

Take turns, so first one talks, the other listens, no interrupting, or face making. The talker can talk about present awareness, or likes and dislikes in their life, but not any either likes or dislikes about the one that is listening. When the timer goes off, the talker stops, and both people follow their breathing for a little while.

Then it’s the listener’s turn to talk and be heard without interruptions. Start the timer again, look into each other’s eyes, and begin, the second person now, to talk.

And how’s this for non-habitual: when we take our turn talking we don’t comment on the other person’s stuff. No advice, suggestions, one ups, theories, explanations.

Just speaking from what comes up in us when we leave the other person’s words and actions and ideas, problems and insights and successes and plans and failures alone.

No feedback, no advice, no criticism. Just staying with yourself for two or three minutes. Being listened to. Being witnessed. But not being helped, cured, fixed, one upped., questioned.

Each person gets to talk without having to live up to anything.

They just get to be. To pause. To explore within. To find out what if means to be present while talking.

This is good. This is big. This is huge, actually, and you’ll know that if you’ve tried to be awake while talking. And if you haven’t, this is your chance.

Good.

Back and forth. Maybe go for 4 minutes or 5, once you get the hang of it.

Back and forth and being present while you talk and present while you speak.

See if this is a kind of food, a kind of “intercourse” in a sweet and everyday meaning of that perhaps overloaded word.


Good.

Cheng Man Ching's short/ shot form of Tai Chi, the half roots of me Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel heritage

Cheng Man Ching
decided that he didn't want to do the "long" form, so he invented the
short form

Through some charming mistake somewhere along the way
this is called the "shot form."

Oh, well. If we watch this for a bit
(and in this day or Internet rush, rush, do we actually
have 7:41 minutes?
But surely we can hang in there for 3:33,
so let's see what we can see....
Be back in 3:33 (notice the simple minded rhyme scheme
creeping up on us.
Good, eh?)

Well, actually, he moves a bit fast for my taste,
kind of like I do on days I want to "get the form over."

However, he wasn't rushing, more like moving
seamlessly from one pose to the next
with no
"look at me, I'm here now"
feeling.

His weight shifted slowly and completely
like sand going from one foot to the other.

His hands seemed to float,
and knowing what I do of the form as taught
by his pupils, I'll guess that he had a great deal of
attention
in his hands

and feet

and spine

and feeling of soft arms

and knowing exactly where and how
his feet where.


Have you ever noticed that tai chi is a lot like walking,
weight on one foot and then weight on the next.

Unlike walking, but like some of the work we do in the Feldy/ Anat worlds,
his arms don't have a stable pattern vis a vis his legs.
In walking left leg forward pairs up with right arm forward.

In tai chi, many of the moves are like that:
in the punch (here right handed), the right fist is forward and the left foot

in brush knee, left foot and right hand and then right foot and left hand

However, many are right right and left left

the single whip is such a move

the kicks, which come later


and fair lady shuttles, again later, has same foot and same hand forward


early in the form here, the beginning,
pat the birds tail, or whatever it's called,
way at the start, coming to the front with the left foot and the left hand,


but hey:
don't watch him, too much,
don't listen to me


experiment on various moves that you make going more
or less perpendicular to the last direction,
change the weight of your feet,
and sometimes bring forward the opposite hand
of the foot forward


and sometimes the left left kind of pairing


it's pretty sweet


one, a tennis forehand
the other, the tennis backhand


...



And so it goes;
you/ one/ I could do worse than imitate Cheng Man Ching
for 30 seconds at a time, seeing if we can learn/ relearn the form,
bit by bit


(when I teach the form, I'll teach both ways, so everything can be done
equally to both sides,
and you can watch this video and do a mirroring version,
without having to "think"
of which foot is doing what


and that is good, too,
great actually
watching him not in mirror,
and seeing if you can translate translate translate 
right to your right, 
which looks "different" than his.


when I learned tai chi, the teacher turned his
back to solve this problem,
but it won't work on a video,
and I like the idea of facing my students 
as we learn along)

move slowly

put attention on gravity and both arms and both legs and spine

create variation in patterns of arms and legs




..............

It's a dance, don't you think?

And what's the other half of my roots for the Feldy/ Anat work.

Well, maybe I should have been dividing into thirds
with one third good old fashion NOW

and one third the Gurdjieff meditation of keeping attention
all day in both arms and both legs (plus light and sound)

Or maybe four:
add to Tai Chi
and Now
and Gurdjieff
a love of nature, and how natural can we get by being attentive to slow and novel and delicious movements
movements
learning
awaring
in the so called "body"

Waking us to Now.

Tai Chi can do that,
and it can be a "thing" we do.

So can reading.

So can writing.

It's all the dance: am I awake now,
and if so what is my experience.

Is that a good question for you?

I hope so.

Chris on Wednesday in Austin, where the cold was last week
and then it got warm and toasty this weekend
and now the cold is back.
Cold means 40s, sissy winter for most of the county,
and "too cold" for the spoiled Texans and all the immigrants.

In May I'll be back in the Northwest,
and in March visiting No. Cal.
If you are interested in connecting,
let me know.