Rome Built in a Day?

"Rome wasn't built in a day."

I grew up on that proverb. My mother would say it any time progress toward a desired goal met an obstacle. I learned to have patience and a philosophical attitude toward life, and to value processes as much as achievements.

And now, someone HAS built Rome in a day. Read the story here.

How did she do it?

• She got a friend to help her. Projects are much less daunting when you're not alone.
  
• She scaled down "the ideal." It looks like her Rome fits on a table top, and she used paper and wood.
• She approached it as play, with curiosity. She didn't know how it would turn out.
• She lowered her standards. She created something that pleased herself. She's apparently not too worried about what anyone else thinks of it.
  

This story appeals to me because it resonates with the Feldenkrais Method. Although the work has many benefits for people who desire pain and stress reduction, and improvements in posture, coordination, and well-being, I also value this work as a method of learning and problem-solving. The Feldenkrais Method is useful for anyone who is dealing with overwhelm, or even with just "whelm." We have so much on our individual plates -- work, family, relationships, deadlines, projects, goals, physical issues -- that easy proverbs and platitudes lose their ability to encourage us. The Feldenkrais Method teaches a comprehensive approach for thought combined with intelligent action.

• The teacher or practitioner is not in the role of "therapist," but rather more like a tour guide. I'm there to help, to witness, and to acknowledge. I've got a map, and I know the landmarks of your experience. There's much you can do for yourself with this type of assistance.
• By "scaling down the ideal," the task, whatever it is, becomes more manageable. Remove your pre-conditions and pre-judgments, and see what happens. Many small steps lead surely to your goal. Celebrate each one. For example: you don't have to redesign your entire filing system TODAY. Spend 5 minutes trashing the junk mail. Want to keep something? Find, or make a file folder and file it. You've made progress.
  
• Get curious and "muck about." Experiment and explore. You will find unexpected resources as you go. You'll discover how creative you are.
• By "lowering your standards," you make space for change to begin. If everything has to be perfect, or nothing -- frequently you are left with nothing. Action stalls out under the judgement of perfection, and always comes up short. Anything worth doing is worth doing badly. After you have begun, you have surmounted the biggest obstacle. Improvement is inevitable.

Whether you are a skilled high-achiever at the top of your form, or a person with serious challenges, you can benefit from working with the Feldenkrais Method. As you become more aware of what you are doing, you become more adept, more adaptable, more effective. You can "build your own Rome," whatever that looks like. Let's get started!

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• To Go Harder, Go Easier (malepatternfitness.com)

You Won't See These in 2009

What do Bill Blass, Polaroids, and Chocolate-Cherry Dr. Pepper have in common? All will be moving on in 2009. (Click here for the complete list.) Having run their course, become obsolete, or just wanting to try something different, they will move aside to make room for The New, whatever that is.

Even people who are not particularly introspective will take the opportunity at New Year to take a personal inventory. We make our resolutions like sorting through a crowded closet: most people occasionally see the need to clear things out, and we use certain universal criteria. What don't I wear anymore? What has gone out of style? What needs to be pitched? What do I love?

People are at their most ambitious around New Year's Resolutions. We are pulled toward the grand statement and the bold gesture. We love the drama of the complete overhaul, especially if it comes with great sacrifice. Because of our love of overdoing, most New Year's resolutions are not sustainable. Any new behavior, whether we're starting something or stopping something, has a learning curve. Behaviors are learned, and get better with practice. It's no surprise, then, (since I'm a Feldenkrais teacher) that I favor incremental action, baby steps, and successive approximations as a way of sustaining our good intentions of the new year. If you learn as you go, and make small adjustments along the way, you'll vastly increase the likelihood of success. We can return to the image of cleaning out a closet.

"What don't I wear anymore?" Has anything become obsolete? This question doesn't just apply to articles of clothing. It can apply to your total self-image, and thus to your actions. What groups do you belong to, but never attend? (Include online groups as well as in-person.) What about all the email newsletters, blogs you read (including this one)? What about your relationships, clients, activities, beliefs? Anything just "taking up space," bandwidth, energy? Anything no longer useful, or fun, or joy bringing? Pass them along, throw them away, make a decision.

"What has gone out of style?" What has just run its course? That was then, this is now. Is there anything you keep doing, "Just Because?" All forms of over-indulgence can go here. It's fashionable to think of eating, spending, or things in the "Vices" category at New Year's. How about overworking, over exercising, spending too much time online? Realistically, it's not like we can stop anything completely. We must eat, we must spend, we must work, we must exercise. Our resolution can be to be more mindful about the quantities and make actual choices rather than staying on auto-pilot. Who do you want to be this year?

"What needs to be pitched?" Anything broken, and not fixable? Threadbare and worn? Recycle and reuse what you can, but let go of the rest. In movement, we can discover patterns that emerged long ago, after a physical or emotional injury, that helped us to deal with the pain. The guarding here, the holding there. The slump or slouch, the ramrod-straight back. Shallow breathing, muscles tensed. The pattern remains, although the danger has passed. It takes special awareness to shift away from these unconscious patterns of action.

"What do I love?" What can't you do without? What's really worth the investment of your time and attention? What would you like to make even better than it is now? What would you like to explore, discover, enjoy?

At the end of the process, you will have less "stuff," but more happiness, satisfaction, pleasure.

Moshe Feldenkrais was one who observed that the difference between the person who has mastered a particular discipline, and the person who is incompetent. Oddly, the difference is not in the level of skill, or dedication, or focus. Incompetents are often highly skilled, committed, and single-minded in their quest for achievement. The difference is, the incompetent person is always doing more than is necessary, usually unaware of this fact, and thereby gets in his own way. The master's efforts are efficient, streamlined, almost minimalist in comparison. Nothing is wasted, everything is conscious. It seems so counter-intuitive to us that we can achieve our goals by learning to do less. I like to think of each Feldenkrais lesson as being a little laboratory experiment, where I can learn how to reduce the effort, the noise, the stuff. Is it any surprise that everything works better, looks better, feels better, when the way is clear?

Perhaps you'll develop your own personal list of "Things You Won't See in 2009." What you WILL see in 2009 is the continuing presence of the Feldenkrais Center of Houston, and the Feldenkrais Method worldwide. We look forward to assisting you in your learning in the coming year!

What I Want

Time was, you didn't discuss religion or politics, ever, except with people with whom you were intimate, and except if it was your job, like if you were a political commentator on TV. That's the way I was raised, and it has some practical value. I generally keep my views private, especially in professional or social situations. My job is to create conditions where people are able to learn something new about themselves. If I express my belief, and my client agrees with me, then all we are doing is reinforcing a habitual pattern. If I express my belief, and my client disagrees with me, then I've just put her in a position where she must resist and defend. Neither path creates conditions for real learning.

In the last several weeks, I've been fortunate to be able to learn from two of my peers visiting Houston. Fernanda Zamar, from Argentina, was visiting family and initiated a get-together for Feldenkrais exchange. Last week, Thomas Spring, a Feldenkrais teacher from New Zealand, was visiting Houston. I've been amazed at how much we had to learn from each other. It's interesting to experience another teacher's touch, to hear how they express themselves, to listen and observe the ways they bring and give attention during a lesson. After meeting and working with them, and learning from each other, I know that I have grown.

I have a magnet on my fridge that says, "Always make new mistakes." After all, if you keep making the same mistakes, it's a pretty good sign that you're not learning from them. It takes no talent, imagination, or originality whatsoever to keep doing the same thing. A mistake is the risk you take for trying something new. It's an opportunity to learn. It can even be an opportunity to explore a familiar idea, but in a new way. In this sense, Feldenkrais work is like live music. Even if you play or hear the same piece several times, it's never exactly the same. The audience, the moment, the acoustics, the emotional background of the experience all influence the final outcome in subtle and profound ways.

That's what makes it difficult to answer a seemingly simple question, like"What does Feldenkrais do for bad knees?" or back pain, or carpal tunnel, or anything? It's hard to answer, because lessons are not a pill or a protocol. The Feldenkrais Method is a remarkably ingenious way of interacting with people to help them discover new possibilities in any arena of their choosing. Since every person is different, I must constantly adapt to their needs, their learning style, and their sense of progress and accomplishment. If I don't adapt to and learn from my client, he won't be able to learn from me.

Developing your own ability to learn and adapt is your best strategy for making it through turbulent times. Learning doesn't stop when you leave your formal education. Learning is necessary to be able to use new information that can benefit you in business, in relationships, in your own health. Learning is necessary to keep pace with technological innovation. Technology shapes our lives in myriad ways. Our survival as a species through millennia has depended upon our ability to learn. Without the ability to learn, we go off-course quickly, put ourselves in danger, or become obsolete.

Here's my bias: I was an academic for over a decade. My frustration was that the emphasis was on KNOWING rather than LEARNING. The only way to "security" was to know everything. To admit that you didn't know everything, by pursuing opportunities for learning, was professional suicide. I never understood why They thought learning was a threat to knowing--didn't they support each other? Well, I'm no longer in academia, for a variety of reasons. I felt too constrained, and a majority of my colleagues felt I was not constrainable enough. The experience left me with my perception that KNOWING is static, unchanging. LEARNING is a dynamic process. Here's an illustration for you. A few years ago, I was clearing out storage boxes and bookshelves, and came across the family set of Encyclopedia Brittanica, purchased proudly in 1960. I thought for sure there would be some collector's value there, but the reality check came when I was advised that it was so outdated, I'd be better off just taking it to recycling. I couldn't get a penny for it. The major compendium of knowledge for 1960, now worthless. Today the world is changing so rapidly, information is out of date as soon as you print it. So for me, I'd rather be learning.

Which brings us back around to politics. So much of the discussion has centered around "who knows more," or less. Indeed, knowledge is vitally important. If I didn't value it, I wouldn't have stayed in academia for so long, and I wouldn't have held on to that old set of Britannica. As I look at the world, I see vast unpredictability. I want a leader who is a learner.

Obviously

Today, Louisiana and parts of east Texas are feeling the landfall from Hurricane Gustav. Thankfully, New Orleans received relatively minor damage yesterday, and Houston will only see a few rainy days this week. Like many in this region, on Sunday and Monday I clicked between The Weather Channel, CNN, and our local news stations to track the path of the storm. It's "TV worth watching" to see the meteorologists getting drenched and blown to smithereens as they fill in the color commentary for viewers who still have electricity, and time to kill.

The outdoor weather forecasters always amaze me. They and their crew are in harm's way, both from the storm and from flying debris. While this does spice up the broadcast, I quickly get so anxious that I start to bark, "Oh, go inside already!" News is now entertainment, and I guess most people stay tuned to see whether that nice weather guy gets taken out by a flying carport, like it's "America's Funniest Videos"or something. One broadcaster was standing on a balcony, harnessed to the structure as a precaution in case he were to be blown off his feet. Several others were stationed on beaches or street corners, wiping off the camera lens every minute or so as their feed cut in and out. In these conditions, they kept their voices calm, objective, and conversational so that we, at a distance, could experience the hurricane. Under this kind of stress, and with 24-hour continuous coverage to produce, it's no wonder these people sometimes say silly things.

One, from Gulfport, MS, standing in the pouring, pounding rain and surf, quipped, "What we're concerned about now is the possibility of severe weather." WELL, YEAH. It's a hurricane, for Pete's Sake! Please go inside! What he was referring to, from his location east of the eye of the storm, was the likelihood of tornadoes that frequently spring up along the outer edges. However, my warped sense of humor stayed in the present moment: Buddy, it looks pretty severe right now! On another channel, Anderson Cooper reported, "Well, it doesn't seem very serious. It just finished raining, and the skies are clearing." He was clearly unaware that he was, for the moment, between the circulating bands of showers ahead of the storm, and he would shortly get hammered again.

It's those "Well, YEAH!" or "DUH!" moments that provide amusement and occasional enlightenment. I remember our high school football coach responding to an interviewer's question after a loss: What do we need to do to win? He responded, "We need to score more points than the other team." He was not being sarcastic. He was earnestly stating the obvious. But just because something is obvious doesn't mean that it is also simple.

Moshe Feldenkrais wrote a book entitled, "The Elusive Obvious," and it's one of my favorites. One reason is that the book is full of "Aha!" insights. Each Feldenkrais lesson holds the possibility for an "Aha!" experience: the wonder of, "Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I see that before?" The moment of "DUH!" of, "Well, YEAH!" brings clarity and lasting change. Feldenkrais valued and developed people's ability to learn for themselves, through experience. The Feldenkrais Method, most fundamentally, teaches the ability to make distinctions, and then to be able to respond appropriately. We can expand our choices for action, for thought, for feeling, beyond our known and habitual reactions, and we can create new possibilities in every breath, in every action, in every moment.

Learning from Leonardo

What makes a genius? I thought about this over the weekend as I reflected on Leonardo da Vinci. Not only was he a genius, but the exhibit at Houston's Museum of Natural Science gave some pretty good clues about how each of us can create conditions for our own "genius moments" to arise.

First of all, Leonardo wrote stuff down. Did he ever! He filled hundred of notebooks, and sketch books, and journals. Whenever he had an idea for anything, he wrote it down. He didn't wait until the idea was perfect, he just wrote down what he was thinking about, or studying. He came back time and again to elaborate, refine, or revise. A rough sketch, then later more detail, then later to incorporate a new insight--everything was a "work in progress." Perhaps he was so prolific because he was not too much of a perfectionist at the early stages.

Secondly, he didn't let limitations stop him. He was limited by history: he was working a hundred years before Newton, and before Galileo, so there was no highly developed science of physics or astronomy that he could draw upon to develop his ideas further. He was limited by materials: his inventions were made of wood, canvas, and glue. No steel, no aluminum, no titanium, no plastic, no electricity! And yet, he kept having ideas, whether they seemed feasible or not. He was limited by resources and the imaginations of those around him: many, if not most, of his inventions were never built during his lifetime. Apparently, he didn't let any possible discouragement stop him: he kept thinking, kept writing things down.

Next, he allowed all of his interests to be expressed. Don't forget, this is also the guy who painted the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper. Painter, musician, engineer, inventor, he did it all, hence the term "Renaissance Man." This made me think of how in modern times we "track" kids according to their obvious strengths. We've gotten the idea that you're either good at math and science OR you're an artistic or literary type. Does this limit the possibilities that a "Renaissance Person" in our own time might emerge? Maybe if we let kids experiment more with what interests them, all of their abilities could grow. Maybe if you and I experimented with what interests us, those abilities could grow, too! He invented, painted, journaled, and wrote music throughout his whole life, so apparently he was not limited by the idea that "it's too late."

Moshe Feldenkrais was a genius and renaissance man of the last century. He was an engineer, physicist, accomplished athlete, and judo black belt who spoke multiple languages fluently. His genius, and the genius of the Feldenkrais Method, follows the same path of Leonardo. Work by successive approximations, let learning occur. Don't crash through a limitation, just keep experimenting and something interesting and useful will probably happen. Open up your mind, your viewpoint, your activities and do something you wouldn't ordinarily do. You may find more and more moments of your own genius bubbling up to the surface. Think of the possibilities!