How can we know what we don’t know?

The other day, the 8:00 AM Pacific Time meeting of the international peer Awareness Through Movement (ATM) study group did Alexander Yanai (AY) lesson number 28, ‘Legs crossed and expanding the chest and abdomen,’ together. We identified that steps 6 and 6A are incorrect. In them, the students have their right legs crossed over their left legs, and the instructions tell them to tilt their legs to the left.

This Awareness Through Movement class is a variation on the classic Coordinating Flexors and Extensors lesson. Actually, it’s a combination of that ATM with See-Saw Breathing, another paradigmatic Feldenkraisian creation. In that lesson, the student almost always tilts the legs in the direction of the crossed-over leg.

Moreover, AY 28 consistently asks students to switch from one side to the other, and this direction doesn’t align with the overarching structure of the lesson. While it’s not uncommon for the founder to introduce a surprising or unexpected new way of moving into a sequence, the overall composition of his lessons remains consistent and congruent.

It’s one of those “if you know, you know” situations where familiarity with Moshe’s methodology makes it crystal clear that these instructions just don’t make sense.

Did the error arise in the original Hebrew transcription of the reel-to-reel recordings or their translation to English? Or did Moshe misspeak? All of these are possible. No matter the source, should the flaw be continued?

This instance is not an isolated one. I’m raising a broader concern about the accuracy of these vital documents. Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to have a repository where we could collect corrections?

While some argue that the transcripts should be left as they are, meaning as historical documents, problems arise when a mistake gets introduced after the fact. Over the years of teaching and discussing these lessons, we have discovered that this is often the case. As useful and significant as this precious collection of Moshe’s creativity and insight is, these transcripts are inaccurate. These errors aren't just a minor detail; they can directly impact how teachers teach and, more importantly, what and how students learn, potentially leading to confusion, injuries, and a diluted, distorted understanding of Moshe's brilliant work.

Wouldn’t it be worthwhile to collect these corrections? Perhaps they could be reviewed and vetted by a trusted group of colleagues so that we don’t inadvertently introduce new errors. I can’t help but think that it would be valuable to have a resource, perhaps a new, updated edition, where these mistakes have been identified and rectified.

It’s not just that truly knowledgeable people would know what’s really going on in these documents. What about these transcripts being of use to historians, future teachers, interested students, and colleagues in the moving arts and sciences, all of whom may not be familiar with the rigor and structure of Moshe’s approach?

What about any sections of lessons that have gone missing? I’m not talking about the ATMs that weren’t recorded from the beginning, or where the ending was obviously lost. I’m referring to sections that were never transcribed and, therefore, couldn’t have been translated. I am referring to sections that, at one step along the way or another, for reasons I can’t fathom, disappeared. How would you, or I, or anyone else know that they’re gone?

For instance, I learned ahead of reading Alexander Yanai lesson 24, ‘The body image, a lecture,’ that the final paragraphs don’t appear in the text. A stalwart member of the group, Yaelle Kestin, discovered that the talk went longer than the transcript when she listened to the Hebrew recording.

Yaelle was kind enough to share this section with other members of the group. With her permission, I’ll share it with you:

The teacher is standing and looking. He sees a man swimming, so he says to him: "Look, you are trying, you make an effort with your neck, you are trying to let your head out of the water. You are holding your head by efforting, which is why you cannot swim." The man is not only not aware of it. The moment he distinguishes that this is true, he starts floating differently. The same thing happens with his legs.

He thinks he is closing his legs, that he is pushing them together, both of them, but in fact, he is only making a push with his legs as if to jump, and he continues doing this for a very long time.

If the teacher has no brain and does not understand that the man cannot realize what he is doing, and does not teach the man to become aware of what he is doing, the man will never learn to swim. Of course, after some time, he will float, he will advance. But it is not . . . With the whole amount of energy that he puts in, he could have swum like a world champion. But in fact, he advances like a turtle.

Because, of course, when a man gets used to the water a little bit, some of these images become a little more known, they become clearer.

So, this is the aim behind the exercises that we did a moment ago. And now, we will try to do them with you. So that you can see — so that you will realize for yourselves — that just as much as you get to know these images, just as much as the images become clearer, something changes in the organisation of the muscles of the body, in the organisation of the face, in the movement organisation, the breathing organisation, and in the sensation of the relationship between the body and the space around it, and this, of course, is something very important.

No transcription or translation is perfect. Why can’t we have a way of correcting and refining these central documents for our benefit as well as for the good of those who will come after us? Isn’t it our responsibility to ensure the accuracy and integrity of these documents, as they are crucial for preserving the legacy of the Feldenkrais Method? If not us, then who?

Feldenkrais often spoke about learning not happening all at once, but instead requiring recursive approximations. Without a repository of corrections, without a way of collecting and sharing these rectifications and restorations, we will be poorer as a community, and the depth and meaning of Moshe’s work will be diminished forever.

This photo comes from AXP Photograph. I found it on www.pexels.com.

A tip of my hat to Yaelle Kesten for graciously, generously translating the original recordings of the AY lessons and sharing them with the community. She provides us with an invaluable connection to Moshe’s original work.