Make 2020 the Year of Reaching for An Excellent Life!

3 Steps to Unlimited Learning

A Simple, Do It Yourself Process to improve the Quality of your life!

What’s the most rewarding work you can do? Attain mastery and skill:  when you learn to master the process of learning easily, so that you can apply it to whatever you want. Reach for the stars!

Time to reset your thermostat! You’ve already become aware Step One, which is to notice that limitations seem to be creeping in as the years go by. But what can you do about it?

The range of what you do every day over years sets your unconscious thermostat, meaning it creates a set-point for what is “normal” for you. But when you consider the difference between the range of moves that children make, and the range of moves that adults make, it becomes clear that the sheer diversity of things we do in a day diminishes as we move into adulthood. From childhood to young adulthood, you are expected to expose yourself to new situations which always promote new learning. As an adult, however, most people contract in terms of what they expose themselves to, if only because most work environments are repetitive.

What happens when we stick to a routine? Some things get easier, it’s true. Those are the kinds of things that we need to be able to do without thinking. But just like it’s good to do the dishes and clear out the cupboard once in a while to inventory what’s useful and what’s not, you need to do the same thing with yourself at least once a year. This allows you to make sure you are doing what you intend, what is most fun, and what feeds your soul as well as your wallet.

For example, in the hurry and scurry of life, it’s easy to forget that we work to live well, not the other way around…How can a movement class such as Awareness Through Movement (ATM) improve Quality of Life (QOL)? It’s an opportunity to check inside, to assess if you are living with as much freedom as you would like. Movement is just the canvass for learning. It’s just a very concrete way to learn the process of ATM which allows you to assess, improve and refine anything you wish to learn.

Some might say that it’s better to focus on helping others than on yourself, but if you allow yourself to get depleted, it becomes a catch 22 situation. When your life has become a series of choices that diminish your options out of habit, rather than expanding your range of options, you become more and more stiff, sore and irritable over time. This is a sure-fire way to land in a state of burnout. In that state, no one has anything much to offer when it comes to being of service to others…

When you don’t take time out periodically to renew, to refresh, to assess, it leads to a life lived on autopilot. This is like making NO decision to take care of your own wellbeing. The consequences of making no decision to alter things or to look at what and how you do things is that your self-image of what is possible for you either remains static or diminishes over the years. Because whether you are conscious of doing so or not, you HAVE made a decision about what you can and cannot do, about what’s possible for you. Think about some of the things you used to do that you miss, but somehow don't even consider doing now! When you take the time to reassess, you don't loose so much of yourself along the way.

To enter into this process of resetting your internal Thermostat of what you assume is possible for you, take a brief trip back to beginner’s mind.To enter into the process, have the humility to get comfortable with being uncomfortable for a short period of time while you are exposing yourself to new understandings. This is a pre-requisite for any kind of learning.

If you want to expand your limitations, it’s as simple as being willing to do what you ask any high school student, or any student to do, for that matter: be willing to sit in the momentary discomfort of not-knowing, trusting that the discomfort will go away quickly as the learning is initiated, as understanding dawns.

Understanding is actually a very rewarding feeling and satisfying in its own right. But what’s really rewarding is mastery and skill: learning to master the process of learning easily, so that you can apply it to whatever you want.

The Steps of Unlimited Learning:

1. Awareness - of a limit to understanding (be it how to move more freely after injury - or in any other realm – as mentioned earlier, movement is used in ATM because it is more concrete than ideas. Movement offers a topic to practice with that yields concrete results: you feel the improvement in your body. You feel lighter, more grounded, more secure. Your mind also participates. It calms itself through focus on movement, which is much easier than focusing on not thinking the way mindfulness meditation stipulates! You slip easily into a state of receptivity: which makes fun, love, inspiration and spontaneity much more openly accessible.
2. Differentiation - is the act of noticing a difference between what works, and what does not work, instead of mindlessly doing things one way because that's what you always do...This is done by exploring different ways of completing the task, whatever it might be. The best learning happens in an environment that is safe, comfortable and without pressure. Then, when you do the task under pressure, it’s easy, because you have allowed some time for it to become habitual on some level, requiring much less thought to accomplish than ever before.
3. Processing Time: is the key element that allows the brain to make sense of the data, or the experience you present it with, so that it can assimilate the new into the already known. This is where the neuro-plasticity of the brain takes over, but it must be given that time and quiet to work quickly and easily. The biggest mistake people make when teaching or learning is to just cram in as much information as possible as if the goal was to just get it over with. This actually impedes learning because it kills the requisite time-out for assimilation. 

Thus, the process of Unlimited Learning is superior to random learning that is done without understanding how the brain works. Unlimited learning evolves from an awareness of a need, to a curiosity about how something could be done differently, to a willingness to sit temporarily with not-knowing, while trusting the process. From this place of opening, the mind will run over options automatically, because the mind runs through open questions until it finds some explanation or solution. When you add awareness to the mix as you try new options and new possible ways to do something, an easier way is found more quickly. It is assimilated more easily and with fewer repetitions. It quickly becomes part of the unconscious repertoire of known skills or understandings.

Find a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement Class near Medford, Oregon:

ATM classes meet on Tuesdays in Jacksonville. Classes resume on January 7th, 2020.

In only a few lessons, you can discover a whole new world of enjoyment: a process that allows you to learn from your own experience. You can learn to tune in, to refine, to hone the perfection of your own pitch-perfect ability to discover new ways to access ease, comfort, freedom and joy!

BeingHuman 2012: Perception From Both Sides of the Fence

"The developmental learning process involves creating integration of movement and perception into a coherent pattern..." - Carl Ginsburg, The Intelligence of Moving Bodies: A Somatic View of Life and Its Consequences

Life is chaotic (a pattern). Everyone seems to have their own agenda (a pattern), or at least their own strongly held convictions (a pattern), about how things should be done, their own lens (a pattern), through which they see the world and make sense of the seemingly incoherent movement of time, technology and ideas, not to mention politics, economics and power. Neuroscience sees the world through the filter of it's own studies, which of late, have brought new insights into the discussion about how we make sense of experience. 

For example, what if, because of the way our brains are designed, we only understand reality through the veil of past experience (another pattern)? For example, you recognize the logo above as a bar code (yes, it's a pattern!), even though you didn't think about it; it was a visual recognition that occurred below the level of conscious awareness. You made sense of the image without thought, based on past exposure to bar codes over a lifetime of shopping in supermarkets that use them on every item they sell.  If its true that we can only perceive an experience based on past experience, neurologically, then given that knowledge, we can be a little more detached from 'being right,' (a seriously deeply ingrained pattern!), and a little more objective and compassionate in realizing that others see the same situation as we do, but from an equally valid perspective. This could be a huge step in the direction of creating a coherent integration of understanding among peoples across a world divided not so much by geography as in past centuries, but more by minds that are set in peaks and valleys of righteousness, which, like walls of certainty, interfere with coherent integration and living with each other in a way that makes sense.

Consider this: At the first Being Human Symposium held March 24th, 2012, in San Francisco, Beau Lotto, who holds a Ph.D. from Edinburgh's Medical School in cellular and molecular developmental neurobiology, demonstrated just how differently we understand the meaning of experience based on the perspective we are coming from. He runs the Lotto Lab in London: an experiential public research lab that specializes in perception. By means of a number of ingenious illusions, he demonstrates the divide between what we perceive and what is actually there.  He began clarifying the divide by using a visual illusion based on the perception of color, since, he says,  'Its is one of the simplest things the brain does,' which is remarkable in and of itself when you think about it. For years I have been reading about these kinds of visual illusions, never really understanding their relevance to reality. Lotto is a vivacious presence with a mischievous sense of humor which you can get a sense of by viewing an older version of his presentation from a TED talk given in 2009.

By showing a variety of images in successive illusions that challenge you to discern which colors are held in common, you begin to realize experientially, that context is everything. Without understanding that the context, or the lens through which we see a thing either puts certain distinctions in bold relief or tends to cast them as minor by setting them in the background, we will never realize how biased our most cherished perceptions are; including the one that holds that we are unbiased.

One of the things that was so moving and powerful about this symposium, was that it was a true attempt to create a meeting of the minds between the hard sciences and the social sciences, and between how the brain makes meaning of reality through the senses and how our environment, our familial, social, and cultural assumptions and perceptions dictate our behavior 'below the hood;' in other words, without our conscious awareness. Psychology proclaims that at least 80% of anyone's behavior emerges out of subconscious impulses. If we behave in ways that are driven by things we don't even notice, no wonder we are at loggerheads with each other on most issues that impact us all. All this and more is the domain of AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, hence, my enthusiasm: this is a major move in the direction of understanding how somatic experiencing contributes much more than an understanding of movement, it's trains us to refine our perceptions, be clearer in our communications, to evolve a functional life and a functional ability to survive on a planet we have compromised by our lack of understanding of these principles up to now.

Another piece of somatic understanding that was implicit, although unfortunately not explicit, at this symposium, was the importance of balancing different ways of perceiving: via the intellect versus the non-verbal, via cognition versus imagination, via information versus the arts. Some might frame this as left brain versus right brain 'thinking,' although that model is also being questioned by neurology currently.  My only suggestion to improve this event, would be to include the awareness that experiential movement could have augmented learning for both audience and presenters, by providing relief from eight hours of sitting and by instigating a mental state change to prevent intellectual overload and further cement new learning as a somatic experience.

So, although the lack of the inclusion of movement as a way of perceiving and sensing our environment, was an oversight that demonstrates the need for a better understanding of the efficacy of accelerated learning models as well as somatics on the part of the organizers, it was a really nice start to what I hope will be a continuing conversation about the intersection of understanding that can further human evolution when the linguistics department speaks to the education department, and the social sciences speak to the neurologists and when artists, musicians, poets, writers and movement educators are in conversation with philosophers, microbiologists, psychologists, and neurologists about how we shape our reality in functional ways.

This is the very foundation of AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT: it's the development of a learning process that integrates our perceptions, internal and external, with our actions into a functional relationship with reality. To use the language brought into the conversation by Carl Ginsburg in his new book quoted at the beginning of this article, this is exactly how we create a agency, or the ability to direct our actions in functional ways as individuals and as a society: there can be no functional act without integration. And integration involves improved understanding of our own perceptions, sensations, awarenesses, how to augment them, how to develop them, and how to make them useful, intentional, coherent and organized so that function can occur with ease and grace like a symphony moving in apparent synchronicity.

Oh, and to add the salient question of the symposium, lest it be overlooked: 'What does being human mean to you, now, in the 21st Century?' And from my point of view, biased, I know, 'What, in your experience, does AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT lend to Being Human?'

What's Up With These Changes?

photo - http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/silhouettes

They don't stick.
Or, do they?
The significant ones do stick.

So you do an Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson and most of the tiny changes you notice in the way your body is lying on the mat have disappeared from the day before, so what's the point? Here's the deal: the exercise of noticing these little changes is really about growing our ability to tune in and be connected to the physical body. It's how we learn, but it's also how we can learn to move through pain, trauma and limitation.

This apparent paradox is not to be resolved. Some changes don't last. Some changes do last. It's to be accepted. It's the changes that affect more than your contact with the mat on the floor that usually stick. It's the changes in how you move, how you are organized that stick. It's such a fundamental shift that it changes how we relate to everything we do. How quickly we are able to absorb these changes depends on our ability to tolerate things unknown,* and our openness to new learning.

Yesterday, I was delighted to work with some new recordings that I am unfamiliar with. In contrast to regular exercise, what's fun is the adventure of not knowing what's coming. This is an especially useful aspect of ATM because it gives access to beginners mind, the ability to sense one's own body from the point of view of someone who has never had a body before. It's kind of like experiencing yourself for the first time with the newness of the newborn babe.

Anyway, based on my history of seven or more whiplash injuries to my neck, compromised by too much time learning dysfunctional software on the computer (Who comprehends what goes on in the minds of programmers?!? - but thank you anyway - lest I be deemed ungrateful for some of the things computers can do!) - I meet the mat in a certain way. I find my silhouette bears the traces of a lifetime of proclivities. It's a certain expression of who I am in the same way that my thumbprint is unique to me alone.

It changes a bit from day to day, but not in huge ways. Depending on the season, for example, when there is more gardening or digging to do in the early spring my body manifests a slightly different shape than when I spend a lot of time raking leaves in fall, because it's an activity that makes for using oneself in a different way. Or, if I have been on a road trip and sitting on a motorcycle for six hours for days on end, I notice a completely different set of small changes. It's a miracle I am forever grateful for that I can do any of these things given my history of injuries. Feldenkrais, you rock! (An aside to Moshe, wherever you are.)

So, to get on with my tale, I was doing a very interesting ATM with the pelvis that woke up the residue of an incident I had on horseback a couple of years ago. It's not something that bothers me much, but it's like a residual reminder of what was going on at that time. Like all injuries, I figure it was a wake up call. Question is, a what was it saying? I believe the issue will be completely resolved when I completely get the message. In this case, it has to do with traveling through time back home to where I grew up, and letting go of ways I relate to that that no longer serve me. But that is a different story, for another time.

As I moved my body according to the request in the ATM, trying to sense what other parts of me moved along with the focus on the pelvis, I went through a myriad of emotional states: I was alternately puzzled, curious, bored, tense, relaxed, overcome by huge, global yawns, and gradually more global in my movements. In other words, although the lesson appeared to focus on one specific area, it was a means to an end (as any ATM is). In this case, it was a way of using a local movement in the butt cheeks to awaken a more global neurological response: moving FROM the pelvis. The lesson was about tuning into, refining, improving how that affects the way the legs meet the hip sockets, how the knees accommodate that, how it affects the way the feet meet the floor. It was also about how the back responds to mobility (or lack thereof) in the pelvis, how the shoulders respond, and ultimately, always ultimately how the carriage of the head is achieved over the torso in any upright position or motion. Not only was it about all that, but my body got it without my brain having to understand it at the time; kind of like being able to get to your destination by following the directions without really knowing where you are going.

Hence, the answer to that question about changes. After I got up off the mat and walked up the hill to feed my small heard of two horses, I felt as if I was sashaying on the dance floor of civil war-era Charleston in a huge dress with flouncing petticoats - even though I was actually working my way up a dusty red hill covered with fist-sized rocks that try to trip you up every couple of feet. (We are rock farmers here in the Sierra Foothills; not unlike Wales, Ireland, or canton Graubuenden in Switzerland).

This morning I woke up to sashay up the hill again. Horses like to be fed regular and promptly, thank you! Those changes were still with me. I waltzed up the hill with a sense of gratitude for a new, amazing day in which I get to feel younger than I have any right to feel - if the pundits were allowed to have their way with me. But who cares about the opinions of 'experts' anyway? If I left the care of my body to others, I would most likely be on painkillers and living a pretty sedentary life, limited by the fear instilled in me by those who tell me what not to do, or that it's to be expected 'at my age,' instead of how to find solutions that allow me to dance, sing, run and ride (most importantly ride!) with a power born not of muscular strength alone, but of something much more primal, and fundamental to learning: the ability to notice small changes. Some stick, some don't, but the ones that do, watch out, 'cause they completely change the way I relate to the world and to life and to being in a body. The feeling of youth may be wasted on the young, but I ain't gonna let it slide again! I did miss the boat the first time around (long story), but, believe me, it won't happen again. This time we are gonna relish the ride with gusto...

* This is why the FELDENKRAIS Method is such a huge leap for humanity: it can provide a catalyst for tolerance that is powerful enough to completely change how we relate to others, so that we learn to tolerate diversity, all things foreign, even points of view we disagree with. It has the potential to further 'humans judging' into actual 'humans being' in peace with themselves and others.

What Is Integration?

Learning Without Trauma





The foundation of an integrated structure provides stability, and is an even, regular pattern that is solid and pleasing to the eye...


I have just come back from a long ride in the desert. As the miles fly by, the pieces of my life seem to fall into place of their own volition. But it has been a long time coming. That's one of the characteristics of integration. It happens in due course, when the time is right and not before. It happens as a result of work that has been done in advance, like the percolation of yeast that sometimes must be kneaded heavily and then left to rest before it can later rise in the oven of a willing consciousness.

The brain is like a topographical map with areas designated to provide sensory and motor function for specific skills, yet it's living, ever changing according to what we spend our time doing. If we do the same things over and over again, we tend to have less change in the way our brains function and some activities tend to fall away over time if not pursued. We all know that stimulus is what generates intelligence in babies. We have yet to realize the implications of the new research that proves the same is true for adults...FELDENKRAIS works with this principle of the extreme adaptability of the brain to experience.*

Any FELDENKRAIS lesson also works with the fact that it's often in silence, or in rest that the pieces fall into place. It's a concrete way of feeling the difference between not integrated and integrated. Not integrated feels vague, unsure, chaotic, sometimes frustrating. In movement, it looks disjointed to the outside viewer, like the uncoordinated walk of the toddler. Once integrated, it looks like a smooth, even pattern. It feels delicious, comforting, pleasurable.

There are many aspects of human experience, some seem at times to conflict. This is a lack of integration. Integration happens at a different pace for different kinds of intelligence (emotional, numerical, spatial, linguistic or survival skills just to name a few). Ideally, as we grow from child to adult, our ability to manage our emotions becomes more coordinated even as our ability to move in space or to survive in the world becomes more effective. Often, however, these different intelligences grow at different rates. Hence the experience we have all had of meeting people who seem old beyond their years, or others who seem incredibly immature, considering their age.

For myself, I have my own difficulties with being congruent: in Europe I feel very American, it oozes out of my pores. In America, sometimes people wonder if I am European, there's just something slightly different about me. It's not necessarily a problem, just a place where I am rough around the edges. A slight conflict that is more at odds with my well-being is that sometimes the workaholic in me takes over, sometimes the sloth, although I have not seen much of the sloth in recent years...

Yet, thankfully, being alive is more complex than how we behave, there's the little detail of what motivates us to behave that way. Having spent most of the beginning of my life as the sloth, there may be a part of me that is overcompensating. This is a problem for me, knowing what I do about how the brain works, and how all systems of the body require rhythms of rest and action in equal proportions. Yet, the drive to keep going is strong, it's motives unconscious.

These are the pieces that must fall into place. When I am not clear about what I am doing, the result is bound to be failure. When I am not clear about why I am doing it, I loose momentum like a car running out of gas. Often the deeper layers of why are hidden in subconscious decisions made long ago in moments of emotional upheaval. The stories I tell myself about what my life has been about are clues to these hidden motives. Often these stories, when laid out in the light of day are tinged with judgment.

In rolling on the floor, doing FELDENKRAIS lessons in AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, I learn to practice the art of non-judgment. I learn to give myself a helping hand, to be the silent witness. This skill is transferable from observing movement of the physical, to observing behavior, thought processes and motivations. It's one of the most gentle, non-intrusive ways to allow integration to happen of it's own volition. It allows self-correction motivated by awareness of incongruity. It allows me to streamline my convoluted consciousness without force or trauma.

These lessons are a place to practice the skills that feed me inside and out. They are a place to practice integration in a very real setting: I can feel the changes almost immediately when things fall into place. I have time to notice it and I have created the opportunity to grow from it. This is worth taking the time for. In the rest of my life, it allows me to move along what I consider to be the culmination of a life well-lived: to move in the direction of integrating all the various intelligences I possess in varying degrees. As a practitioner, I am good at the movement part of the equation, but I still have plenty of areas to transfer these skills to. I am happy to make it a lifelong journey; it makes life entertaining, juicy, plenty interesting without tragedy, thank you.

I change as a result of being present rather than being pummeled by experiences that prove my lack of coordination. I gracefully lay down the baseball bat. I have learned from the drama. I have learned the greatest of all lessons: that the drama is not necessary. I can learn without it.


* See The Brain That Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge, M.D. (Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science)

Are You Response-Able?

On the surface, FELDENKRAIS seems to be about mobility. Fundamentally, it's about stability. The misconception is that stability is static, like a rock. This may be so for buildings, yet the architecture of a living structure is completely different in it's requirements than an inanimate object. The foundation of stability in living beings is mobility that is free enough to allow for constant, immediate responsiveness to the surrounding environment.

To make this idea more concrete, imagine being a little grey sports car riding down a country road. If your driver does not constantly adjust the steering to the twists and turns as they arise, the car will run off the road. As we age, over time, we become numb to our experience, we tune out our own bodies, we let go of our ability to move by discounting it's importance. Gradually we loose the ability to respond readily to the road. We start responding by rote, without really perceiving the road. Our vehicle, that was once amazingly fine-tuned, gradually turns into this Stephen King version of the same sports car, a vehicle out of control, veering dangerously close to missing the curves and seemingly responding only to it's own agenda.

Like a car whose shocks are defunct, we move through space and time in a lurching manner, reacting ever more slowly to our own reflexes. The impulse is still there, but the ability to be present is dull and the body's ability to respond is slow and limited. Then we retire.

Note to myself: if I want to retire in a state of restriction, ignore the warning lights on the dashboard. If I want to retire in a state of mobility that is so responsive that my reflexes are as sharp, both physically and in terms of mental acuity as they ever were, then FELDENKRAIS is like the nectar of the Gods, a delicious elixir of longevity. Especially if I am interested in being more than I was when I was young and agile by default. FELDENKRAIS is a magic carpet ride towards being more able, more intelligent, more accomplished and - what? you say this sounds like an ego trip? - I am merely referring to being more than I was, not more than you are! Try it, and then you'll know what I'm talking about! These lessons are like a primer in how to expand who you are, not to mention becoming more readily maneuverable - often in the most unexpected ways. It's perfect for me. I get bored easily. Why limit myself to linear learning, when in fact, I am a dynamic, multidimensional being existing on several planes of experience at once? Hello, friends, I'm baaaaaaack!

Warm virtual hugs and thanks to all of you who have emailed and encouraged and cajoled and requested more of my nimble fingers (after all these years of working with my hands!) on the keyboard - as a means of providing the stability of concrete words to stimulate further expansive adventures in experience a la FELDENRKAIS.