Low back on a blanket, 28 min
On the lesson
As advertised, you will need a rolled up blanket for this lesson, about four or six inches thick.
This is an amazing sequence to let go of tension in the hips, low back, and ribs. Any tightness or scrunchiness you feel from driving or sitting will subside. Breathing gets easier, digestion improves. All that contraction in the lower back lets go. Legs swing with lightness.
Ironically, I’ve been sitting on the old couch researching a new couch, and just doing that puts my back into a cramped, rounded state. This lesson unravels all that. Even my eyes feel softer! I love it.
This week’s thought: Why Humans Stop Learning
The other day I was talking to someone who works in artificial intelligence. Algorithms help the machine’s neural network guess with greater and greater accuracy what’s a dog and what’s a cat. Then the machine differentiates between a collie or a Bernese mountain dog.
The machine’s neural network keeps differentiating patterns, over and over again.
I have been thinking all week about why artificial intelligence is artificial and how humans learn new skills in the context of our deeply ingrained sense of self.
At some point, and for many reasons, humans will stop differentiating patterns. Instead, we think, “This is good enough. I’ll just put up with this pain/dysfunction/challenge forever.” The narrative is set.
We have this thing called a self image, an idea of who we are. Our self-image says, “I am a person who does not turn to the left,” or, “I’m a person who can’t bend down to the floor.”
My teacher, Dennis Leri, called this, “settling for a C+ life.”
We stop taking in new information because we have a fixed idea of ourselves. We’ve really closed ourselves off to new possibilities because of this hidden narrative of who we think we are. Perhaps we feel defined by an accident, disease, trauma, or injury.
What if the narrative could change?
I remember the exact moment in my Feldenkrais training when I realized I didn’t have to stay stuck in the repetitive feedback loop of my experience. I was experiencing completely different inner sensations, which gave me such an alternate view of myself that my world was never the same.
Yes, novel input creates new neural pathways in both machines and humans. However, our meta-awareness does the rest: we know we are aware and machines, as yet, are not.
The joy of humanity is that we can choose to expand our self-image as we continue to learn. Machines do not do this.
What are you feeding your narrative today?
More lessons:
This lesson is from Creating Effortless Posture in the Feldenkrais Treasury.
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Quote(s) of the week:
“A puppet is free as long as he loves his strings.”
“I believe that at the end of the century the use of words and general educated opinion will have altered so much that one will be able to speak of machines thinking without expecting to be contradicted.”