Adam Cole - Years of Possibilities: Essays on the Feldenkrais Method. Vol. 1

Introduction

In 2000 I became a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. I completed four years of intensive training to learn how to use clients self awareness to improve their functionality. By 2002 I decided working with the public was not enough.

I created an online magazine called Possibilities in which I explored a different topic of the Feldenkrais Method each month. The magazine proved popular and I maintained it for ten years, producing 120 issues. At some point I took down that particular website and the issues were no longer available.

The essays in those issues were more than just discussions. They served as a journal of discovery for me as I moved through my 30s. Now I am sharing the best of them.

This volume includes selected essays from Possibilities from the first four years. If youre interested in the Method, this is a good place to start. If all you want is some inspiring ideas to help you change and grow, you might find what youre looking for.

If you have questions, comments, or want to see more, please feel free to reach out at www.acole.net

Volume 1, Number 4 May 2002

Quote from Moshe: "A violinist, an actor, a writer, or whoever, who is not aware of the importance of awareness of the way one directs oneself in acting or functioning in life will stop growing the moment he achieves what he considers to be the right way of doing." (from The Elusive Obvious, p. 96)

Did You Know You Were Missing Information?

Have you ever tried to solve a problem? (Id like to see if anyone doesnt have their hand raised!) How about this: Have you ever worried because you couldnt solve a problem, fretting because it seems unsolvable, pacing the floor at night, not getting any sleep? Have you stressed yourself sick, not knowing how it will ever be resolved? And then, all of a sudden, something shifts, and information that you didnt have before comes to you? Then you go to solve the problem and its easy.

I had a friend who had to take a trip to Birmingham from Georgia one afternoon. He was required by his employer to give a speech at a special convention for the Association of American Caterers at 7:00 PM . The speech would mean a big promotion for him if it went well, and it wasnt an option in any case.

My friend had a problem. The trip from Atlanta to Birmingham takes about two-and-a-half-hours, as long as one doesnt run into any traffic, and my friend only had two hours to make the trip. He looked after his baby son during the day, and his wife got home at 5:00 to take over for him. He was unable to find a babysitter or a neighbor to help him through the crunch on that particular day. It was a week before the trip, and he was sweating bullets. Even if everything went perfectly, hed have to make a two-and-a-half hour car drive in only two hours, and then rush up to the podium. Nothing could go wrong. His wife couldnt be late getting home, he couldnt run into any traffic along the long, well-traveled route, his car had to be in perfect shape. He worried so much that he began to lose his voice from the stress. He thought through the trip again and again and considered all his possibilities, but he just couldnt see any way to solve his problem.

Finally, a day before the event, he confided in an acquaintance. The acquaintance listened to his problem, then laughed. Youve got nothing to worry about, he said. Theres a time change from Atlanta to Birmingham! Youll be leaving at 4:00 their time. That gives you three hours!

Problem solved. Suddenly what seemed impossible became easy because of a little information that my friend not only lacked, but didnt know that he lacked.

Thats an important piece, his failure to know that he lacked an important piece of information. We should always assume that were lacking information when we attempt to solve a problem because, in this imperfect world, none of us know everything about anything. But we forget that a lot, dont we? Most of us act as though what we knew were all we needed to know to base our opinions and make our decisions.

A lot of children in abusive homes often face problems such as How do I deal with my parents violent behavior? Often lacking adult help with these dilemmas, the children often come up with their own solutions. The decisions they make may get them through the of trauma but may have equally harmful consequences that an adult in the same situation would recognize. Obviously, the child has only their own experience and information to draw on, and so running away, or closing off all vulnerability, for example, may be the only solutions they can come up with. As adults, we know that these options can put the child in equal or greater danger, and we would choose differently. What we would hope is that someone would provide such a child with information that they didnt know they were lacking such as, Its not your fault, Its not supposed to be this way, and There are people who you can call for help. When the child has this information, other solutions present themselves which may be a great deal easier and more effective in addressing the problem.

So what does all this have to do with Feldenkrais? A lot, actually. Our lives are full of unsolvable problems that relate to the way we learned to move, problems that can often be solved when we get new information.

Many of us had a parent who told us to stand up straight. Have you heard that before? I bet you can still hear it. You heard it as a child, and you tried to obey. You stood up straight. The problem was, you didnt really know how to do that. You were happy with the way you were standing, and someone told you, No, thats slouching. Well, there are lots of ways to change the way we stand to look straighter. You can tighten up your lower back muscles and keep them contracted all the time. You can stiffen your neck. You can clench your jaw, so that you dont ever have the urge to relax these muscles again. Then, according to someone, youre standing up straight.

But is it possible that both you and the observer didnt know some things about the way humans stand, and worse, you didnt know that you didnt know? What if I told you that standing is not a static state, but in fact a state that requires you to be in constant motion, albeit tiny motion? What if I reminded you that the spine must be curved in two places in order to provide the strength to hold the torso and head, and if it were straight it would most likely snap under the stress? What if I told you that forcing yourself to stand up straight using those constantly tensed back muscles would cause you all sorts of problems, not the least of which would be an inability to move that region of your body at all?

When you lie down on the floor and take an Awareness Through Movement lesson, or experience a Functional Integration lesson, youre getting information from the floor and from the hands. The sensation of movement is interesting to your brain and provides information. The Feldenkrais lessons themselves also pose problems that you may or may not be able to solve, such as How can I hold my foot in my hand and straighten my leg?

If you run to the floor and try to solve that problem right now, consciously, vigorously, no pain no gain, going at it like a dog after a tossed bone, youll most likely fall short of the best solution. Youll try all sorts of combinations of movements that youve always done and you will either do the movement painfully or find you cant do it at all. Consequently, youll decide that doing this movement easily, without strain or pain, is impossible, at least for you. (The other possibility is that its easy for you, in which case Id suggest asking yourself why you cant play the piano as well as that six-year old prodigy over there.)