January 21, 2022
The Magazine By, For, and About
Feldenkrais® Practitioners and Trainees
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Welcome!InTouch is a monthly e-newsletter about developing one's competence as a Feldenkrais® teacher. Issues will contain articles about teaching the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education, running your own business, and more.
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Photo by Fares Hamouche on Unsplash
Self-Image of a Feldenkrais® Teacher
From the Editors
The way we see ourselves shapes how we live our life and how we practice as Feldenkrais® teachers. Gaining clarity about your own self-image can help so much in seeing your clients with more clarity.
For this issue of InTouch, we were lucky to interview two great trainers, Larry Goldfarb and Zoran Kovich, who offered their perspectives on how the idea of self-image affects our thinking and work with clients. Al Wadleigh offers an article on how maps of reality are created and the primary components of creating and maintaining our map of the world. Margot Schaal shares a beautiful evolution of self-image for one of her clients. We also included an unusual and poetic piece by Dorothy Kristin Hanna on self-image to inspire all of us to think outside of the box.
Happy mapmaking to all of us!
Lavinia and Yulia
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Using Self-Image Concept in Teaching: Interview with Larry Goldfarb, Ph.D., Feldenkrais® trainer
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Larry Goldfarb shares his ideas of how self-image affects Feldenkrais teachers and students. Interviewed by Yulia Kriskovets.
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About Larry:Larry Goldfarb, Ph.D. is a movement scientist, certified Feldenkrais® trainer, pioneering practitioner, and multimedia author known for articulating the thinking behind the method. Besides directing and teaching in professional training programs in Europe, Australia, and North America, Dr. Goldfarb teaches public workshops, professional seminars, and post-graduate courses the world over. He is also the founder of Mind in Motion (MIM) and Mind in Motion online (MIMO).
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This is Not a Piece of Paper
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Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
By Al Wadleigh, GCFP CM
"A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness." (Korzybski, 1958).
I'm seventeen years old, a senior in high school. I'm sitting in the third row of Mr. Bliss's "General Semantics" class. Mr. Bliss is standing in front of the class, holding up a piece of paper, asking, "What is this?"
"Paper," students say.
Mr. Bliss replies sternly, "No!"
"A piece of paper!"
"No!"
"Yes, it is, Mr. Bliss. It's paper!" someone shouts.
"No!"
This challenge continues until the class is out of ideas and confused.
Mr. Bliss goes on to explain that "paper" is a word. And the word is not the thing. The thing is an experience—a sensory experience. You can see it, you can feel it, you can hear it, you can taste it, and you can smell it. And that sensory experience is not the word.
(...)
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About Al: Al Wadleigh is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner based in Longmont, Colorado, for over 20 years. Al is deeply passionate about the Feldenkrais Method. He owns The Feldenkrais® Store, one of the largest collections of Feldenkrais audio, books and videos. He co-hosts the Feldenkrais for Life Podcast with Donna Ray. He is the publisher of the books by Dr. Feldenkrais: Hadaka-Jime (Practical Unarmed Combat) and Thinking and Doing. Al has taught thousands of classes and individual Functional Integration® lessons. His background includes immersion in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and Ericksonian Hypnosis. His website is AchievingExcellence.com
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Using Self-Image of a Feldenkrais® teacher: Interview with Zoran Kovich, Feldenkrais® trainer
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“We each tend to identify with a particular sense of self. Often that identity is overly associated with a societal role. When we completely identify a social role -- when we believe that this is who we are -- and that role is disrupted, or eventually ceases, one's sense of self is perturbed. In ATM® classes and FI® sessions we intentionally perturb. What's imperative is learning how to do so discerningly so the person matures, rather than diminishes, in their sense of themselves as a vital human being.”
- Zoran Kovich
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About Zoran:Zoran Kovich, MSc, Certified Feldenkrais Method Trainer, Educational Director of Feldenkrais training programs has been learning and practicing methods of somatic education for 35 years.. Since 1990 he has been lecturing in higher-education performing arts programs. He manages the Mindful Action Studio in North Sydney, and is currently the Educational Co-Director of two Australian Feldenkrais training programs. His website is mindful-action.com.au
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Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash
By Margot Schaal, GCFP CM and Assistant Trainer
Ultimately, how we treat ourselves says everything about what our self-image is.
Am I as kind to myself as I am to my neighbor, or a stranger on the street, to my clients or even my grand/child?
A client who showed up curved forward in her upper torso, wanting to “stand up straight” for her daughter’s wedding, had a sad, almost sour, facial expression. She ran a business and carried the work of family gatherings. Would she be a primary organizer of the upcoming wedding – oh, yes. After a few sessions, the Feldenkrais® office clerk noted – “she is smiling now.” Yes. As this client developed greater sensitivity to herself and became more upright, her habitually drawn down face shifted into softness, fullness with a more ready expression. Without mentioning this, she had begun to alter her self-image.
Why do you think that there is a lot in the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education that we don’t mention in classes and individual sessions? I believe it is because Self-discovery is the most powerful path of understanding, and this supports a healthy Self-image. (...)
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About Margot: Margot Schaal currently sees clients and teaches classes online. Her upcoming Playshop series combines Feldenkrais and Qigong to explore the hips and pelvic area. Her website is www.margotschaal.com
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Artistic Reflections on Self-Image
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Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
By Dorothy Kristin Hanna
Self-image comes from the core of the being.
Being what?
A human being?
Being still?
Being moving particles?
Being pure spirit?
Self-image, initially, is constructed from perceptions of the mirror-image of the person that is carefully examined by our eyes. We live in our bodies as a “lived body,” as one of my teachers, Sondra Fraleigh, often writes about in her books about dance and somatics. We live in our body and the decisions we make on our path create our self-image.
We are nothing more than a series of images that thrive moment-to-moment on the breath. Breath, being the most vital function, works in harmony with all our physical body’s systems and including our emotional, spiritual, and mental states.
Time is a telescope where our memories continue to color, change and evolve our present moment leading us into an unknowable, but somewhat predictable, future--depending on how we resonate with negative and positive experiences.
What we eat, what we read, what we hear, what we touch, and what we see--all create a response in our self-image. We share our self-image differently in different situations, taking in our environment in a wide or narrow or perhaps completely blinded scope.
We widen our scope for reality as we understand that there is nothing separate from us. We are all living in the world the same way: in a body, with our self-image changing moment to moment.
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About Dorothy: Dorothy Kristin Hanna is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner CM and multidisciplinary artist. Enjoy her work here: www.dorothykristinhanna.com
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Books recommended by Zoran Kovich on further explorations of self-image ideas:
- The Bodily Self, a book by Jose Luis Bermudez, Jose Luis. 2018.
- The Body and the Self, a book by Bermudez, Jose Luis. 1998
- The Body has a Mind of Its Own, a book by S. Blakeslee. 2007.
- Sensorimotor Life, a book by Di Paolo, E Z (Ed.). 2017.
- Deviate: The science of seeing differently, a book by Lotto, B. 2017.
- Self, No-Self, a book by Thompson, E (Ed.). 2011.
- On Becoming Aware, a book by Varela, Francisco J. (Ed.). 2003.
- The Embodied Mind, a book by Varela, Francisco J. 1991/2016. Ch.2: The eye of the storm
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