Moshé Feldenkrais

And consequently, movement variation might not be evolving as we on this podcast would prefer it.

So with that in mind, so you just brought up like a whole giant pile of things, right? Thinking about what I know of your evolution, I think one of the first influences for you that really took you in a different direction was Feldenkrais.

Feldenkrais, I think of it as having many things, but a lot of it is helping people explore unfamiliar movements, like finding ways to move that they didn't know they had.

So getting you out of those well-worn grooves in our motor control system and our nervous system and opening up new possibilities.

And in some ways, I feel like that has always been the path you've been on.

How, let's see if I can ask this the right way.

When you take a perspective like that and you take kind of a thought process going into your movement, can you explain how that happens? That's a terrible question, but do you get what I'm getting at? Like, how do you take that scientific cognitive information and turn it into movement? I think that's what I'm asking.

Yes, thank you for the opportunity to explore that and just not wanting to shortcut or detour around the significant work of Moshe Feldenkrais.

Richard's work is amazing.

He worked with Stanley Kellerman and Moshe Feldenkrais and was also an Aikido master.

And he blended that into an approach.

But he talks about this as sites of shaping.

I'm not trying to diminish anything.

Some people practice martial arts and they also are engaged in somatic traditions like Alexander Technique or the Feldenkrais method.

That's what's called an ecology, right? So your life is made up of this ecology.

You have this practice, this practice, this practice, your job, your work, your relationships with people, your activities and hobbies.

Why am I here? Or Meister Eckhart, right? Why am I here? What is the meaning of life? Why do bad things always happen to me? Why can't I never get ahead? Whatever those are, those are different things that also should be brought into this ecosystem and are part of this ecosystem, really.

And then somatic practices, and how is that different from, for example, the internal arts or martial arts? Well, somatic practices are practices that work within the body.

So these are things like the Feldenkrais method, right, or the Alexander technique, body scanning, breath awareness, pandiculation.

And then relational practices, and what are they? Well, many levels, right? So that's how we relate to ourselves.

I haven't sort of done it before.

This is tying into somatovisceral movement, which is kind of like Feldenkrais from Moshe Feldenkrais.

So it's slow, soft.

Somatovisceral means organin.

Neuroscience supports before bed for brain rewiring and for locking in movement patterns.

Neuroscience will s- support, and Moshe Feldenkrais, who developed the method, he also said do, do the lessons before bed because the neuroplastic changes get locked in during your sleep.

And so before bed.

But for me to, to get through my workday, it was finding the time before work.

Hmm.

It's not fixed.

And Moshe Feldenkrais in the 1940s said that he was not after flexible bodies, he was after flexible brains-

Hmm

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's a weird name.

Um, it's the last name of Moshé Feldenkrais, who was-

Mm

...

Yeah.

And I think that you probably, along with Ida Rolf and Fritjof Capra and Moshe Feldenkrais and, and, and, um, and all, and, and all the great sort of visionaries, I think that you had to come to California because it was the only pl- it was the best place on the planet to develop new ideas.

And those are, and there was a wonderful freedom there.

Do you still have it? How is it being in America right now in terms of everything that's going on? I mean, does it implode upon your personal life? I mean, do you read the papers every day and discover the latest cruelty that, that your, that your president is inflicting on people? Or what's it like being in, being in California now?