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Moshe Feldenkrais
AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT - EASY-TO-DO HEALTH EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE, VISION, IMAGINATION, AND PERSONAL AWARENESS HarperOne. 1991. Paperback: 192 pages ISBN-10: 0062503227 Reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 03/22/2011 Would you recommend this book to other readers? YES! * * * * * review: Did you know that AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT by Moshe Feldenkrais (1972 and in later editions) is more than the name of a book? It is also a "movement" within health and fitness studies, with its own acronym, "ATM." Some specialists are busy doing scientific studies of Feldenkrais ATM to see whether and to what extent it really "works," i. e., does what it claims to do. Other experimenters are extending ATM to solving problems that I doubt were tackled by Moshe Feldenkrais himself, including obesity and eating disorders. Moshe Feldenkrais's text is built around a fair number of "do-it-yourself" exercises, most illustrated but some not. The exercises can be as simple as how to get up from sitting on a chair to breathing, using either side of the lungs consecutively. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) was a brilliant, extraordinarily well educated scientist, at one time a student of radium pioneer Marie Curie. A major goal of Dr Feldenkrais is to help people sit, stand, walk and move comfortably and pleasantly. We are to become as conscious as we can (in time we shall improve!) of every part of our body, including eyelids straining as we strive during a dull lecture to stay awake. I, for one, have been taking weekly one hour "Feldenkrais" classes off and on for nearly a year. I have found the book AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT a great help in forming a "big picture" of what all the scrunching, twisting, contorting and rolling I have been doing as directed in class is supposed to accomplish. Balance while standing and walking is a large part of it. Not doing any exercise to the point that it hurts is another part of ATM practical lore. Different cultures inculcate different postures. Think of the Japanese who "sit" on their haunches. Moshe Feldenkrais teaches that there are better and worse ways to reach any culture's habitual posture. And most adults do many things wrong. Hence, we experience avoidable, correctible pain. Replacing old bad habits with new good ones is what ATM shows us how to do. We make tiny, tiny movements of neck or torso or shoulders. After each series of repetitions (Feldenkrais's favorite number in the book is 25), we relax and pause. I was surprised to read that those pauses were perhaps the most important parts of an exercise. We are to use pauses to remember what we had just been doing and then try to make what we were doing correctly stay with us as new good habits. The author also stresses (something I had not heard in ATM classes with two different teachers) how very important it is to be doing our exercises while listening to and following the instructions of the teacher. This is consciously intended multi-tasking and the authorized Feldenkrais instructor is carefully trained to make her every word count. This book AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT carries credibility. The author gives his view of how spirit, imagination, memory, muscles and bones are meant to work together in humans for good posture, easy, pleasant motion and exertion of no more "will power" than is absolutely required. If you are not taking ATM classes already, this book should motivate you to sign up somewhere near your work or home. If you are already taking classes, then AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, the book, will likely deepen your sense of where all the minutiae you are exposed to in class are leading you. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/381351095.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 03/23/2011 name of review: Ideally, your bones should move as if linked only by ligaments, without muscles! rating: * * * * review: I cannot imagine that the first information that you will ever receive about "the Feldenkrais method," aka "Awareness Through Movement" ("ATM") will come from reading Moshe Feldenkrais's 1972 AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT: EASY-TO-DO HEALTH EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE, VISION, IMAGINATION, AND PERSONAL AWARENESS. This is not a book for novices. Nor have I, alas, heard of a beginner's book called FELDENKRAIS FOR DUMMIES or AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT FOR DUMMIES. At some point either in your classes, practice sessions or detached study of "ATM," you will, however, I predict, reach for, open the pages and draw much fruit from this book by the Master himself. But the book's fruit is not low-lying, nor will it fall into your lap without effort. This is a book about noticing your body and its movements. You are shown through dozens of examples how to become aware of your eyelids as your muscles strive to keep them open, lest you fall asleep from boredom. You learn how to pay attention to your neck or your elbows, etc. If you ever pause and ask yourself, says Feldenkrais, "what am I doing?" and then try to describe it minutely and precisely in words, you probably cannot. At least not before you take part in formal ATM classes about noticing the linkages between staying awake, attending to a bodily movement (e. g., dropping your jaw), the emotions involved, the tensions, possibly the pain. If there is pain, you are probably doing something wrong and you will be advised how to "shock" your old bad habits out of their rut and learn something new and better to replace them. Dr Moshe Feldenkrais prefaces his Part II "Doing to Understand" and its twelve practical lessons with sometimes knotty descriptions of human anatomy, bones, ligaments, muscles, of lungs and breathing, of the brain and its evolution through Rhinic and Lymbic toward characteristically human "Awareness". Much is made by Moshe Feldenkrais of "self-image" and how it limits what we think we can do. "If it hurts, I quit! Sitting up bolt upright like a heroine in a Jane Austen novel is just not who I am!" (That is an example of self-image holding one back.) Ideally, adult human postures (while lying prone or supine, sitting, standing, or while walking, working, exercising) should feel effortless and pain free. If your current standing posture is not erect, a Feldenkrais instructor will show you how to make the correct posture habitual, effortless and painless through your growing aware of tiny differentiations that you and your muscles are systematically making both toward and away from that posture. ATM is first and foremost brain work. But muscles, ligaments, imagination, memory, skeleton, breathing and emotion are also inseparable parts of a holistic approach to good posture. Breathing right is crucial as well. If you are accustomed to "bulling" your way through school or work or relationships by sheer will-power or through pure grit, then you are wasting precious energy unnecessarily. Notice that clenched jaw? Do you really need to do that in order to lift your right leg? Let me conclude with a provocative image and theory from AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, Part II. Lesson 3. There are a hundred or more equally challenging, provocatdive, informative paragraphs. For this is a very rich book. I hope I have given you enough of its flavor for you to decide whether you are up to tackling it just yet: "The ideal path of action for the
skeleton as it moves from one posture to another -- say, from sitting
to standing or from lying to sitting -- is the path through which it
would move if it had no muscles at all, if the bones were linked only
by ligaments. In order to get up from the floor by the shortest and
most efficient path, the body must be organized in such a way that the
bones will follow the path indicated by a skeleton pulled up by its
head. If they follow this path the muscular effort will be transmitted
through the bones and all the effort of the pelvic muscles will be
turned into useful work."
The substance of this book is FIVE STAR. The way it is presented need not, in my opinion, be quite so erudite or dense. Hence my FOUR STAR overall rating. -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/Reviews/d/Moshe_Feldenkrais_AWARENESS_ THROUGH_MOVEMENT-1718367.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 03/23/2011 title of review: "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Feldenkrais spring" rating: * * * * review: The title of this review comes from four lines In Alexander Pope's 1709 "An Essay on Criticism": "A little learning is a
dangerous thing;
drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." I cautiously transfer Pope's advice to potential readers of Moshe Feldenkrais's 1972 classic of healthy movements, AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT - EASY-TO-DO HEALTH EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE, VISION, IMAGINATION, AND PERSONAL AWARENESS. This is a deep, provocative, sometimes counter-intuitive book about how to shock your old bad habits out of their ruts and replace them with new good habits. The book's title coincides with the official name of Dr Feldenkrais's method to improve bodily postures through minutely attentive self-consciousness: Awareness Through Movement, acronym "ATM." He prefaces 12 Lessons of exercises on posture, breathing, carriage of the head, how eyes organize body movements -- and more -- with a series of mini-essays. One is on the human person as he evolves from his genetic givenness through societally imposed education/training in conformity, into fully self-conscious self education and freedom to choose between options. Another essay tackles three "layers" of the human brain and how they relate to muscles, ligatures, bones, lungs, memory, imagination, self-image, the human will and the dangers of trying to change bad habits by sheer grit and aggressive will-power. Dr Feldenkrais uses metaphors and similes well in explaining how we can change through noticing things we often do not, e.g., as centuries ago men were so happy to be able to keep reading after sundown that they didn't pay attention to the soot and heat poured out by their lanterns. Similarly, how often to we notice that we are unnecessarily grinding our teeth when we are lying on our backs exercising scissor kicks? Or do this mental experiment: imagine that our skeleton is held together entirely by ligaments, not muscles. Think of our supine or prone bodies then as rag dolls or marionettes and how they would be lifted to standing erect by a string attached to our head. Ideally, that is the same pattern we should follow when standing up aided by our muscles. We can learn from lowing like a cow. For normally when we talk, we make sounds while exhaling and "emptying" our stomach (raising our diaphragm). But we can learn something new from lowing like a cow or roaring like a lion and lowering our diaphragm. And on and on. Let me conclude by quoting a representative passage from AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT. It may attract you to want to read more. If you take a Feldenkrais (ATM) class with a trained practitioner, you will listen to his continuous instructions, shrug a shoulder, breathe into the right side of your lungs, or whatever you are told to do. You may repeat a tiny motion 25 times. Then you rest. Before reading the book, I was content and happy just to take a relaxed "breather" in class. But Feldenkrais says that there is more: "When you rest after a
movement carried out without much effort, it is not in order to regain
strength, but to study the changes that have taken place during the
action. It takes a minute or two, or even longer, before it is possible
to observe these changes." (Part Two, Lesson Eight.)
-OOO- recommended reading: -- Peter A. Gilligan: WHAT IS TAI CHI? -- Lavinia Plonka: WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? WALKING YOUR TALK. http://my.barnesandnoble.com/communityportal/review.aspx?reviewid=1598392 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 03/24/2011 title of review: Moshe Feldenkrais's "Tuned Piano" Master Metaphor rating: * * * * review: I have just read with considerable pleasure all 17 (as of 03/24/2011) previous reviews at amazon.com of Moshe Feldenkrais's 1972 classic AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT. The author's related method for exercising is, of course, also called Awareness Through Movement, with acronym ATM. Perhaps unrealistically, I assume that whoever is reading my review for amazon.com will also have first read the others.That assumption allows me to be content with merely adding a thought or two to a fascinating on-going discussion thread. The notably varied reactions of the 17 other reviewers have, I think, a few insights in common with my own: -- (1) AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT was not intended to be a book for people who know absolutely nothing about the Feldenkrais method for physical improvement (ATM). The more you already know of ATM from other sources, the more you will get from the book. -- (2) The author's style is sometimes needlessly opaque. He pitches his message, the consensus seems to be, primarily to people trained in hard sciences, including neurology and physiology and in softer fields such as psychology and philosophy (possibly Feldenkrais was influenced by Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology). -- (3) AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT works best as a supplement, a framework to a reader's previous actual hands on (or perhaps "vertebraes on") participation in regular -- at least weekly -- competently directed Feldenkrais classes. The book will make it clear why and what about guided concrete ATM exercises are important: ---- that the instructor speak slowly and carefully telling you what to do (e.g. breathe in the three lobes of your right lung) and that you listen and comply while actively listening; ---- that the "resting" you do between directed repetitions and variations of an exercise be used not to loaf or "gather strength," but to reflect on and internalize what you have just been taught (teachers, alas, says Feldenkrais, have a tendency not to allow enough time for these meditative pauses). *************** Now let me toss into the discussion my own humble slant or two (after having taken weekly Feldenkrais classes for nearly a year now and only since reading AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT having grasped a preliminary, tentative "big picture" of what my two outstanding instructors have been doing to/for me). -- (1) A useful exercise would be for you to make a list of all (20?, 30?) major metaphors, similes and comparisons used by the author to link his often counter-intuitive ideas to real, ordinary living. The Master Metaphor of "piano tuning" is the one that I find most provocative and seminal of them all. If you are trying to make up your mind whether or not to start reading AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT, this passage resembles a hundred others in density of thought, challenge to preconceptions and stimulus to people seeking to improve some bodily failings: "From what has been said about the
self-image, it emerges that systematic correction of the image will be
a quicker and more efficient approach than the correction of single
actions and errors in modes of behavior, the incidence of which
increases as we come to deal with smaller errors. The establishment of
an initial more or less complete, although approximate, image will make
it possible to improve the general dynamics instead of dealing with
individual actions piecemeal. THIS
IMPROVEMENT MAY BE LIKENED TO CORRECTING PLAYING ON AN INSTRUMENT THAT
IS NOT PROPERLY TUNED. IMPROVING THE GENERAL DYNAMICS OF THE IMAGE
BECOMES THE EQUIVALENT OF TUNING THE PIANO ITSELF, AS IT IS MUCH EASIER TO PLAY CORRECTLY
ON AN INSTRUMENT THAT IS IN TUNE THAN ON ONE THAT IS NOT" (caps
mine). (Part One, "The Self-Image," final paragraph).
I hypothesize that "the tuned piano" is the master image and leit motif of the whole book. The comparison makes it clear that the book's aim is to teach you how to begin to "establish" a "more or less complete, although approximate" self-image. The average person's defective self-image, according to Feldenkrais, inhibits him or her from moving upward into a whopping unrealized 95% of capacity (to learn, e.g., 30 to 70 languages). It is therefore vital to bring into full consciousness your current pitiable self-image before you can improve it. Sure, you can and probably should focus on individual challenged body parts: like a bum knee or stretching a calf or breathing deeply. And you can and should at some time or other sing lullabies to this joint or that ligament that hurts. But you are likely attempting all such discrete, individual improvements within a systematically dysfunctional body, an out of tune piano. You need, therefore, a good piano tuner (like Moshe) to tune your body. Ideally, he or she is is also a good teacher happy to make you his apprentice and empower you eventually to do your own self-image tune-ups. Save concentrating on your bum knee or your right shoulder's range of motion for time outside Feldenkrais classes. In class, here is what you should do: listen carefully, obey, pause while actively assimilating and reflecting, and, while paused, tune that personal Steinway of yours in accordance with an ever improving self-image. Grasp that "tuned piano" master metaphor, I suggest, and you shall go far. -OOO- tags: moshe feldenkrais, awareness through movement-ATM, F. M. Alexander method, http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/ABABCND8BHUXC/ ref=cm_pdp_rev_title _1?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview#RYYON40QQG7P4 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com 03/24/2011 Title of this review: Moshe Feldenkrais's Classic Health Exercises Book: Focus on his Metaphors Product Rating: * * * * Product Review: I am still mulling over what I learned from reading earlier today 17 reviews on amazon.com of Moshe Feldenkrais's classic of 1972: AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT: EASY-TO-DO HEALTH EXERCISES TO IMPROVE YOUR POSTURE, VISION, IMAGINATION, AND PERSONAL AWARENESS. By the way, that book's title "Awareness Through Movement" is also the name of Dr Feldenkrais's general methodology, with widely used acronym ATM. The 17 amazon.com assessments of Feldenkrais's book range from two stars to five. The more a reviewer already knew about ATM before he read the book, the more stars he seemed likely to give this classic work on how to improve one's body through "tuning" the core but elusive concept of "self-image." Body image is a species within the genus self-image. Dr Feldenkrais can write as opaquely as Hegel, and more often than not he seems to have before him his fellow "hard" scientists as his intended audience (especially physiologists and neurologists) but also "softies" like psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and philosophers (especially, I suspect, phenomenologists.) Fortunately for us laymen, Feldenkrais is not at all bad when dishing up concrete examples of his abstract beliefs, and is especially effective with concrete, earthy metaphors, similes, comparisons and other homey linguistic relatives that relate his theory to our day-to-day non-scientific common sense world. AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT is almost impossibly difficult to finish if you have no previous knowledge of Dr (of Science) Moshe Feldenkrais or his ATM. If I am describing you, my advice is: just stop reading this review and go take a few classes of ATM exercises before you come back to the book. On the other hand, if you continue to read my review, you probably have had some ATM work under your belt or have read an easier book about Moshe Feldenkrais and his work or you have read his more accessible book, THE CASE OF NORA aka BODY WORK AS HEALING THERAPY. I am going to assume therefore that you know a fair amount already about ATM and Feldenkrais. This lets me elect to focus my review on one crucial aspect of the way AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT is written. Allow me, please, to argue that Moshe Feldenkrais builds his narrative around a handful of "master metaphors," similes, comparisons or just homey, even slightly corny concrete examples. Here are seven of them:
-- (1) To flesh out his Ur-Concept, "self-image," Feldenkrais compares the human body to a piano in need of tuning. You can, admittedly, play a sonata on an out of tune piano. But it will not sound as good as it should. Moreover, if you try to improve your rendition of the sonata without first tuning your instrument, you will have to work needlessly hard. And if ATM is about anything, it is about eliminating unnecessary, unpleasant, painful effort of any kind. ATM is also about tuning the instrument, your body. Let some physical therapist or other specialist work on your torn ligaments, tight calf muscles or the limited range of motion of your left shoulder. ATM will tune your body. A therapist will teach you to play a specific song with your body. -- (2) As we sense, take in information and move, there are things going on that we pay no attention to, but should. Thus many centuries ago men were happy that lanterns allowed them to keep on reading even after the sun had gone down. Men were so happy that they stopped noticing smoke and the smell. ATM will begin by helping us notice those unnecessary clenched jaws as we work through the lessons. -- (3) There are several metaphors early in the book about the individual trying to realize his virtually limitless potential within a society that trains him to be like everyone else. Like it or not, society is a playing field where he must perform, never mind how hard society is trying to mould him. Secondly, in order to achieve personal goals, the individual must lead a mask-life. He may not enjoy conforming to general norms, but he mustn't let others find that out. -- (4) ATM trains us to pay attention to things going on in our body that we are usually unaware of. In ATM we begin with what we are aware of, our thumbs, for instance, and use them to lead the way into the unknown, perhaps the five lobes of our lungs. This is like someone who does not sing and therefore does not perceive "any vital connection between the hollow space in his mouth and his ears or his breathing, as does the singer." -- (5) Expect most bodily processes to be irreversible. You can't turn a burnt match back into a match or a tree back into a sapling. "Processes connected with time are irreversible because time itself is irreversible." -- (6) Our body-image is almost certainly too static when we begin ATM training. At times we come across to ourselves as one big undifferentiated clump. But we are in fact differentiated into bones, skin, ligaments, muscles, nerves, brain, emotions. As long as we are alive, something inside us is in motion. How achieve a dynamic self-image? Consider the pendulum. "In moving from side to side a pendulum passes through the position of stability at maximum speed. When the pendulum is in the stable state, at the midpoint of its path, it will remain there without moving until some outside force is applied to it. This stable position requires no energy for its maintenance." When our sitting, standing, walking, etc. postures are stable, no effort or only minimal, very pleasant effort is required. -- (7) Imagine "A clock dial" beneath your supine pelvis. Draw the number 6 at the tip of your tailbone. Place 12 at the top of the pelvis where it joins the spine (bottom of the fifth lumbar vertebra). Similarly it is 9 o'clock at the left hip joint (sic!), 3 o'clock at the right hip joint. Move counter clockwise. Shift recumbent pelvis pressure from one point to another. Observe how the muscles are behaving at different "times." Ditto lumbar vertebrae and coccyx. ***************
And so it goes. Comparison by comparison, example by example. Without such occasional infusions of images and language from daily life, AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT can be heavy sledding indeed. If you are in the hands of a trained ATM teacher, then the heavy sledding produces, fortunately, a constantly improving self-image, especially body-image. Feldenkrais believes that all around the world the average man or woman realizes no more than 5% of total human capacity (e. g. to learn between 30 and 70 languages). Steve Jobs might conceivably not have the inherent ability, let us assume, of an Albert Einstein. But Jobs might have a more powerful self-image than did Einstein. Much of self-image is genetic. But an average turtle constantly expanding his self-image via Feldenkrais's ATM exercises, may win a race against a more talented but lazy, less self-conscious rabbit. Bottom line: AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT is a keeper. You will not absorb its wisdom or its skills in one reading, slow or fast. Nor is it a substitute for taking ATM classes from a trained Feldenkrais practitioner. Consider AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT a pocket library. Carry it with you on trips. Wave it at friends as a politician does his copy of the Constitution. ATM's promise: "to expand the boundaries of the possible:
to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy,
and the easy into the pleasant" (Part Two, "General
Observations").
And whatever that ATM vision is -- it may be an exaggeration, it may be boasting -- but it is not a metaphor. -OOO- Pros: If you are already taking Feldenkrais exercises, this book tells you where you are going. Cons: The book is heavy on science and abstractions; at worst it is muddy and opaque. The Bottom Line: AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT teaches how to break through limitations of bad habits of posture and balance into ever expanding realization of your nearly limitless potential. Not for tyros. Recommended: Yes. p.s. thank you DramaStef for checking whether AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT was or was not in the epinions data base. =-==-=-=-==-=-=-= http://www0.epinions.com/review/Book_Awareness_Through_Movement _Easy_to_Do_Health_Exercises_to_Improve_Your_Posture_Vision_Imagination _and_Personal_Awareness_Moshe_Feldenkrais/content_545229082244 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/feldenkrais_awareness.html |