A novel paradigm
East is East, and West is West,
and never the twain shall meet.
— Rudyard Kipling
When Rudyard Kipling was still right that East and West were inviolably separate and distinct, long before yoga became known throughout the West and fusion cuisine had become famous, Moshe Feldenkrais stood at the crossroads. Feldenkrais’ academic and professional training as an engineer instilled in him the quintessentially occidental perspective of the clockwork universe of classical mechanics and cause-and-effect reasoning. Years of practicing and teaching judo steeped him in the systemic and often arcane ways of the Judo master.
One of the hallmarks of the martial art Jigoro Kano crafted from jiu-jitsu in the late nineteenth century was that being good at it is independent of the practitioner’s size or strength. It was only by applying his comprehension of physics and analytical skills to the embodied abilities and practices of the black belt, that Feldenkrais decoded the underlying biomechanics of Judo, revealing how human beings when we move as well as we can.
Finding synergy in previously irreconcilable worldviews, Feldenkrais created a novel paradigm for understanding anatomy and ability. The resulting systematic and systemic model made efficient, effective action observable, measurable, and comprehensible. Perhaps even more importantly, it served as the basis of the revolutionary methodology Feldenkrais developed for realizing our innate movement potential.
If you would like to learn more about the Feldenkrais Method of neurophysical learning, I invite you to join me for Optimal Action in Everyday Life this coming Sunday.We will explore the systemic aspects of Moshe’s model that make it possible to identify what interferes with optimal action and provide the means for restoring it. To be true to the method’s first-person educational approach, I will teach a somatic movement lesson to help you discover your capacity for potent action.
The 90-minute webinar starts at 7:00 PM in the Netherlands on Sunday, April 7, 2024. (Click on this link to find out the time wherever you are located.) If you can’t make the appointed hour, please sign up to receive access to the recording.
To learn more and sign up, please click here. If you don’t have an account on the website, you’ll need to create one before you can register for my presentation. The process requires a lot of information, but if you find it too intrusive, please provide fictional details. If your country of residence isn’t listed, you can choose among any of the options. Finally, you can switch between Dutch and English in the upper left corner of the page.
This course is an introduction to the PRO-Feldenkrais International Teacher Training NL, which starts in August. Please click here to learn more about our state-of-the-art professional program and apply. If you know anyone who is interested in Feldenkrais teacher training, I would be most grateful if you would be kind enough to share this information.
I found the photo by MasterTux on pixabay.com.
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