Puzzle lesson for clarity
Moshe Feldenkrais wrote that, "... it is bad in Judo to try for anything with such determination so as not to be able to change your mind if necessary..."
(Higher Judo, pg. 94)
Problem-solving is at the heart of the Feldenkrais Method. How many ways can you think of to do something? Sometimes, when explaining this method to new people, or in social situations, I challenge someone to pick up a glass in as many different ways as they can.
How many possible configurations of arms and hands and elbows and chest and head and feet are there? (I didn’t say it had to be the hands, which is most people’s first assumption!) I’ve asked this question for years, and even now I can still be surprised by some of the solutions people come up with.
This little puzzle demonstrates a bit of what Feldenkrais does, which is in part to:
alter the environment of familiar tasks
alter spatial orientation
alter proximal and distal
alter the context of learning to a non-cognitive space
I’ve heard that Moshe Feldenkrais used to ask students to show him twenty-five ways to move a client’s shoulder. He would say, “That’s very nice, now here’s a hundred.”
The human brain has a powerful creative force that can generate iteration after iteration if we keep testing our options—and smile!
Our repertoire widens by increments and degrees—not by correcting an entire pattern, but by making small little shifts generated from our current patterns. Then we ask questions about where to go from here.
This strategy helped me discover what was possible in my own life, and the incredible degree of plasticity that comes about from entering into a novel learning environment is what got me hooked on this method in the first place.
Try this lesson and see what happens for you. (Feel free to email me if you get really stuck!)
More lessons:
This lesson is from More light, easy arms series in the Feldenkrais Treasury. I recommend doing all fourteen for a strong, coordinated torso.
Not a subscriber? Subscribe here for hundreds of movement lessons to do at home.
Download more lessons on easy arms from my audio shop, $39 for each package of five.
Quote of the week:
“Mystification is simple; clarity is the hardest thing of all.”