Tilting knees, coordinating eyes, 37 min
I love this lesson not only because it releases the neck like crazy, but it also focuses on the inner and outer worlds, dividing one’s attention between the inner sensations and the outer environment.
You cross one knee over the other and make very small movements of tilting the knees, head, and shoulders in many ways. At the end, the arms are behind the back, which also lets the low back settle. The whole mission is to challenge the soft, quiet movement of the eyes while attending to the inner and outer worlds. My new favorite lesson. Very soothing and down-regulating as well.
(AY266)
(From Eye and Neck lessons in the FeldenkraisTREASURY.)
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Thought for July 18: How to learn
Moshe Feldenkrais wrote up ten short points on how to learn. Here are the second and third points. I like his comment that learning the way to learn is more important than the skill.
His points mirror the book I am reading by Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living, where the first chapter is, remarkably, “Learning to Learn!” Her view is very similar to Moshe’s, which leads me to believe that acquiring skill in learning is a vital and universal trait.
* * *
Moshe writes:
2. Look for the pleasant sensation
Pleasure relaxes the breathing to become simple and easy. Excessive striving-to-improve impedes learning. It is less important to learn new feats of skill than it is to master the way to learn new skills.
You will get to know new skills as a reward for your attention. You will feel you deserve your acquired skill, and that will add satisfaction to the pleasurable sensation.
3. Do not "try" to do well
Trying hard means that somehow a person knows that unless he makes a greater effort and applies himself harder he will not achieve his goals. Internal conviction of essential inadequacy is at the root of the urge to try as hard as one can, even when learning.
Only when we have learned to write fluently and pleasurably can we write as fast as we wish, or more beautifully. But "trying" to write faster makes the writing illegible and ugly.
Learn to do well, but do not try. The countenance of trying hard betrays the inner conviction of being unable or of not being good enough
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