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Livinia Plonka
WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? A BODY/MIND GUIDE TO COURAGEOUS LIVING New York. Penguin. 2005. 192 pp. Paper ISBN-10: 1585423939 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com 12/17/10 Would you recommend this book to other readers? Yes. * * * * * review: In her many years of working with people in severe pain, Lavinia Plonka, author of the 2005 WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?, has formed certain hypotheses guiding her practice. The Asheville resident writes that many people approached her in virtual desperation, as a last resort after all else had failed. It is worth emphasizing, I think, that normally healthy, happy, personal integrated, socially altruistic people do not make up the core of Ms Plonka's clientele. Many of her clients are in deep, deep distress. That said, Plonka has learned that behind much (not all) physical pain there lies fear and its relatives like "insecurity, pride, anger, territorialism, to name a few" (Introduction). WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF contains a raft of techniques. Not all lead from body to emotions to spirit. But some do. Perhaps the most important technique has you relaxing for 20 minutes, attending to your breathing, nodding off and as you nod off, noticing what are your thoughts and emotions. You then come up from the exercise and jot down the non-breathing things that were going through your mind, say, anxiety about a son's spending habits or getting hungry for supper. You repeat this exercise for a week and then read your accumulated notes from each session. If there is fear in your life, this exercise will find it, or, perhaps more ominously, detect mechanisms by which you deny that you fear. Lavinia Plonka moves in the orbit of "somatic education": a field filled with people who may do yoga, tai chi, Gestalt therapy, group creative arts therapy, etc. Plonka hypothesizes (and cites sources) that spirit manifests itself in posture, hand gestures, eyebrow lifting, tongues circling the gum lines. We can leap over theory and treat our body and its movements as mirrors of the soul. Mere noticing, attending to, a body function changes that function at least a little bit. And as we make our body more relaxed and open, we may also make ourselves more congenial and useful to others. Coach Plonka is there to guide people who seek her help into making motions and changes that improve or correct old bad habits, not make them worse. -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/books/317622678.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 01/05/2010 name of review: Calm your mind by calming your body rating: * * * review: Calm your mind by calming your body by qigongbear Jan 5, 2011 Rating: +3 * * * The sub-title of Lavinia Plonka's 2005 book WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? is A BODY/MIND GUIDE TO COURAGEOUS LIVING. The author postulates that for any given situation the motivation to act, after you peel away the layers, is either love or fear. Human babies begin life with only one innate fear: falling. For all other fears the child's parents are the best teachers. Admittedly oversimplifying, Ms Plonka further assumes that our initial fear reaction to any sudden frightening stimulus (if we are standing), is "shock": to recoil, to arch our back away from the threat, close our eyes, scrunch up our face, grit our teeth, lift shoulders toward ears, stop breathing and also throw our arms up, with hands next to our ears (Illustration 1.1). We next (if we don't run) protect our viscera. We bend forward, cover our face with our hands, crouch (Illustration 1.2). An abnormally frightened person may go through life habitually looking either shocked or cowed or combinations of both. Fear is revealed in posture. A fearful attitude that has become habitual can cripple. A fearful person may find it hard to look into a personnel officer's eyes when applying for a job. Spinal tension can impact ease in walking. Simply rising from a chair can hurt. Lavinia Plonka's many years of coaching in movement practices have made her confident that fears can be mastered, little by little, especially (but not exclusively; chi kung, ball room dancing and other movements can also help) by the Feldenkrais method in which you pay close attention to how your body (especially your spine) reacts during a series of very small moves. You "stay within your comfort level." Pain is not gain! You learn to relax, to stop using more muscles than you need to, for instance, when lifting your head off a mat during a Feldenkrais class. Bottom line: as you slowly but consciously achieve normal, fearless body postures (called "actures" by Moshe Feldenkrais), you apply what you have learned to confront fear. You learn that a panic attack cannot last forever. After 20 minutes adrenalin automatically stops flowing. You calm your fears through "Bell Hands" (Illustration 6.1). "Then
gently let them open apart." You are telling your brain that all is
well. "You can't do this kind of movement while running for your life:
terror does not allow you to pulse your hand; however, pulsing your
hand can keep terror at bay"
(Ch 6, "Phobias"). Dancer, choreographer, former artist in residence at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Lavinia Plonka (http://www.laviniaplonka.com) in early 2011 is Director of the Asheville Movement Center in Asheville, North Carolina. The book is well written, clearly presented and helpfully illustrated. It does not take us very far into learning to reinterpret our current life in terms of inappropriate habits formed long ago of limiting our options in the face of fears, angst and related emotions. There is only so far that mere reading of WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? can take us. If nothing else, however, it makes readers want to know and consult author Lavinia Plonka face to face. -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/ubergizmo/reviews/d/UserReview- lavinia_plonka_what_are_you_afraid_of_-64- 1680220-198572-Calm_your_mind_ by_calming_your_body.html =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com 01/07/2011 title of review: Convert your fear from tormentor to partner rating: * * * * review: There are people who I think will not be disappointed if they take a chance and open the pages of Lavinia Plonka's 2005 book WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? A BODY/MIND GUIDE TO COURAGEOUS LIVING. --(1) People who have met Lavinia
somewhere around Asheville, North Carolina where she lives and works,
were impressed, and want to know what makes her tick;
--(2) people in enormous pain who have been referred to her Asheville Movement Center as resource of last resort; --(3) people who have taken from someone else subjectively "value free" courses in tai chi, pilates, Feldenkrais movements or other forms of "somatic education" and yearn to know if Ms Plonka can teach them that something deeper is meant to happen to them than improve their balance or unkink their pelvises. I recommend that you skim through WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? once over lightly. That should let you know whether the book is worth your digging into it a second and a third time. Some beliefs of Lavinia Plonka are sure to surface during the first reading: her beliefs (1) that fear and its kinfolk are in many
(not all) cases a major factor in physical discomfort and pain;
(2) that our bodies mirror our emotions and values and that by learning to notice, attend to our bodies, gestures and postures we can reach a deeper inner psychic core; and (3) that the mere act of noticing an angry scowl or a clenched fist can, at least minutely, change a bad habit. We can of course, Lavinia warns, exchange one bad habit for another. In the end, at least so I conclude, it is not enough simply to read the text, even intently, and to do the exercises of WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?. We also need a father confessor, a personal coach or trainer, a mentor who knows about phenomenology and Feldenkrais, aikido and tai chi who assures that we do not injure ourselves. The book ranges widely but popularly over a host of related fields: psychology, physiology, physical therapy, human relationships, stress, phobias, counterphobias, habit formation. This is a good read. But once will not be enough. To do justice to WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? you will have to come back and do at leisure the many exercises aimed at tamping down fear and converting it from tormentor to partner. One exercise that stays with me is "The Bell Hand." "You
can't do this kind of movement while running for your life: terror does
not allow you to pulse your hand, however, pulsing your hand can keep
terror at bay" (Ch. 6, "Phobias). --OOO--
recommended reading: -- Frances Gaik - Managing Depression With Qigong -- Peter A. Gilligan - What is 'Tai Chi'? -- Gay Hendricks - Conscious Breathing: Breathwork for Health, Stress Release and Personal Mastery -- Saint Ignatius Loyola - THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISES -- Maurice Natanson - EDMUND HUSSERL: PHILOSOPHER OF INFINITE TASKS -- Annette Wellings and Alan Herdman - Curves, Twists and Bends: A Practical Guide to Pilates for Scoliosis http://search.barnesandnoble.com/What-Are-You-Afraid-of -A-Body-Mind-Guide-to-Courageous-Living/Lavinia-Plonka/ e/9781585423934/?itm=2&USRI=plonka+-+what+are+you +afraid+of%3f =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- (4) amazon.com 01/08/2011 title of review: Are we fearful? Or just prudent? rating: * * * * review: Experience, in the hands of the talented and the hard working, begets both experts and expertise (this is the kind of word play which, I think, vibrates with similar excursuses in Lavinia Plonka's 2005 book, WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? A BODY/MIND GUIDE TO COURAGEOUS LIVING). I salute one of our two daughters-in-law, mother of six sons, as "expert" in home-schooling. She has done it for 13 or 14 years, cooperated with peer parents, shared teaching duties, joined associations, read and debated books and on and on. Similarly, I tip my hat to Asheville's Lavinia Plonka, expert in "somatic education." She has been at it a score more years than our daughter-in-law, has read more books, lectured in more countries. Most of Ms Plonka's hands-on clients, I infer, however, come to her referred by others. For them Lavinia Plonka is often their "last best hope" to free themselves from pain both physical, emotional and more deeply psychic. Lavinia Plonka's nicely illustrated (by the author herself?) and indexed little book shares with her readers cases of students with questions, clients in pain, excerpts from the author's wide reading and obiter dicta on this-worldly theories of wellness and the meaning of life. The book can be skimmed in an hour. That should be enough for you to decide if second and third readings -- taking the time recommended to do the carefully selected "exercises" -- are in order. I myself have happily opted for second and third readings. Debatably but ably, the author focuses on "fear" and "phobias" as the often unperceived underlying causes (or contributing factors) of pains and other problems for which her clients seek her coaching and counsel. We are all born, Ms Plonka asserts, with one innate fear: falling. For most others of our acquired fears and their kin, "insecurity, pride, anger, territorialism, to name a few" (Introduction), we need search no farther than our parents. Face those fears. Convert them (via aikido-like techniques) from foe to partner, and we shall go far! When suddenly terrorized (a mother bear doesn't want us this close to her cubs; a mugger demands our money, etc.), we instinctively arch our backs and throw up our hands. Next we instinctively bend over and put our hands over our faces to protect our viscera and other vital parts. (Illustrations 1.1 and 1.2.) Many of Ms Plonka's clients had been mastered by fear very early in life and their adult postures still show (prior to mentoring) traces to this day of "The Startle Relex" or cowering or both. Ms Plonka argues that bodily posture reflects emotions and internal values. It is possible, therefore, to learn what ails us deep inside if we first study our skins, muscles and skeletons while slowly doing Feldenkrais exercises, watching, paying attention to ourselves as we make minute adjustments to relieve our physical distress. The book goes on, exercise by exercise, to give us hope that, mirroring Aikido ("Way of Peace") techniques, we can draw out via external and combined external/internal exercises our inner pains and replace our fears by love. This book is a notably better than average introduction to "somatic education." You soon sense that you are in the presence of a master. I give this book 3.6 stars, rounding up to 4.0. The more that you bring to a first reading of WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? from eastern lore, martial arts, the writings of Moshe Feldenkrais, from familiarity with Alba Emoting Method, etc., the more easily and confidently you will draw closer to the core of the author's "wisdom." Coming, however, myself from a different background (Roman Catholic religious and ascetic practices, Greek and Scholastic philosophy), there are some larger "framing" things that I miss in Ms Plonka's tentatively stated world view. --(1) For normal, healthy, morally adequate people, it seems to me, there is less fear and more of the virtue of (human) prudence than Ms Plonka gives us credit for. When we walk in snow we prudently not fearfully take small steps, plant our feet firmly and look for signs of black ice. Twice daily examination of conscience, as recommended by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, does some of what Ms Plonka advocates and can easily be adapted to do justice to some of her personal insights. --(2) Ms Plonka refers only once to any of the classic philosophers of any era -- Rene Descartes -- and that stereotypically. She does not propose to readers any personal cosmic or overarching systematic philosophy or world religion. We find assertions, linkages (body posture/emotion), stresses on paying attention and on and on: stylistic ploys, it seems to me, reminding of Hebrew Scripture's "wisdom" literature. Yet it is also fairly obvious to me that Lavinia Plonka does in fact, move, without knowing it or at least acknowledging it, within the modern philosophical framework of academic "phenomenology" as articulated by Edmund Husserl (1859 - 1938). Bright and creative and expert in teaching and learning as Lavinia Plonka has proven herself, I predict that she will happily delve into Christian asceticism and moral theology as well as Husserl and phenomenology, as soon as someone whom she trusts leads her to those fountainheads. And the new book that results will put us all deeper in her debt. -OOO- tags: lavinia plonka, feldenkrais, phobia, counterphobia, somatic education, aikido, breathing, phenomenology http://www.amazon.com/What-Are-Afraid-Lavinia-Plonka/dp/ B000BSFQIC/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292602502&sr =1-1-fkmr0 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com 01/09/2011 Review Title: Convert your fears from tormentors to partners Product Rating: * * * * Pros: Introduces fear as hidden factor behind many pains. Draws on Feldenkrais, Aikido and somatic education. Cons: Loosely organized case studies, asides, assumptions about body/emotions/mind interaction. Missing an overarching philosophy. The Bottom Line: Asheville's Lavinia Plonka draws on over 30 years helping people identify their pains and turning them from masters to collaborators. Find in exercises physical mirrors of emotional distress. Heal thyself! aohcapablanca's Full Review: What Are You Afraid Of? In 2005 Penguin Books published Lavinia Plonka's WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? A BODY/MIND GUIDE TO COURAGEOUS LIVING. DISCLAIMER:
The Author offers a very rich web site at http://www.laviniaplonka.com/. For the past several years resident in nearby Asheville, North Carolina -- my county seat -- Ms Plonka is Director of the Asheville Movement Center. She writes prolifically, including an amusing CosmicComedy column in which her absent-minded husband Ron makes frequent appearances. I met Lavinia Plonka in mid-2010 at Cheshire Fitness Center in Black Mountain, North Carolina. She substituted one day for my regular Feldenkrais exercises class instructor. I have since met her an additional four or five times in that same public setting. I knew her as Feldenkrais Lavinia long before I knew her as Somatic Education Plonka. END DISCLAIMER.
I have learned a good bit from WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? but am not unaware of limitations and weaknesses. Clearly written, indexed and illustrated (black and white sketches of the author, by the author, I think), this book draws heavily from Ms Plonka's 30+ years as "movement artist," dancer, actress and student of theatrical bodily movements (mime, mask, clown) in relation to holistic health. Much of her text showcases sketches of people who in more recent years have attended her classes in Feldenkrais exercises or seminars on somatic education, defined as "learning through movement and studying the body/mind relationship to the world" (Introduction). But what jumps out is that those people who come to the author for one-on-one mentoring or hands-on healing are generally in pretty bad shape on arrival. They hurt. They ache, physically, emotionally or deep down inside. They are not your stereotypical recreational martial arts trainees or people doing yoga, aikido or tai chi for fun. These are people in serious need of help. Not the population at large. Not normally well postured, integrated, amiable success stories. That said, it has been Ms Plonka's experience that behind many, many aches and pains that she has tackled lies one often unnoticed constant: fear or anxiety, and kinfolk such as anger, pride and territoriality. We are all born, she asserts, fearful of falling. Our parents teach us many other fears. Our standard reaction to sudden terror (our feet skid on the ice, a rattlesnake pops up in front of us) is instantly to recoil -- to lean backwards away from the threat, arch our shoulders and throw up our arms. Often our next move, depending on threat, is to cower: to bend forward, cover our face with our hands, even fall to the ground and play dead, to protect our viscera (Illustrations 1.1 and 1.2). There are people to whom life has been for years one confrontation after another with the frightening. Implicit in the postures of many who come to Lavinia Plonka for help there still lurk elements of the just described "startle reflex" or of cowering or both. Fear-based postures are unhealthy, unnatural and they hurt. Ms Plonka may now, it seems to me, go into healing sessions predisposed to find fear behind most pains. In her book, however, she provides a number of exercises designed to detect or dismiss fear as a factor in reported pain. She is especially complimentary of Feldenkrais and Aikido exercises, in the hands of an experienced mentor, as tools to surface and begun to address the fears behind frozen postures and knots. I have not yet done all the exercises described by Lavinia Plonka, but I intend to do them. I have ordered all three books that she recommends by her mentor Dr Moshe Feldenkrais. I hope that this by itself tells you that I value WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? I find myself instinctively assimilating Ms Polanka's ideas into my own. I frame the author's hypotheses, exercises and surmises within my larger personal spiritual/intellectual worldviews of Christian asceticism and classical philosophy. I think, for instance, that, if Lavinia Plonka knew the SPIRITUAL EXERCISES of Saint Ignatius Loyola (especially the recommended twice daily examinations of conscience) and the writings of modern phenomenologist Edmund Husserl, then she would feel at home in them. And if she explicitly drew on them, she would greatly broaden the context, perhaps even the appeal, of her somewhat scattered and limited experience-based expertise in noticing minute movements (Feldenkrais), converting fears from foemen to partners in growth and much more. I rate WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF? as a distinctly better than average while less than perfect introduction to body/mind holistic health: 3.7 stars, rounding up to 4.0. P.S. Thank you, Stefanie Crane, epinions Books category lead for making this book reviewable. Recommended: Yes =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= plonka_afraid http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/plonka_afraid.html |