FINDING NEUTRAL through the EXPERIENCE of REVERSIBILITY
Moshe Feldenkrais made a series study of the martial art of Judo achieving black belt efficiency and went on to help bring this practice to the west. This, along with his scientific mind, greatly influenced what would later become known as the Feldenkrais Method. One of the principle tenants of his method is the capacity to reverse. Reversibility is the sensitivity to stay within a range in which you could stop mid action (or thought) and return from where you came with equal ease. This ability to adjust in real time where you are going, and how you are returning is critical in efficient human functioning. Playing with the idea of reversibility, I believe, is partly what helps us discover our neutral state. Neutrality, as my teacher Francois Combeau, describes it, is not a particular place, nor a location or a thought. Being neutral is exactly that, a neutral being. It is something experienced in the present moment and continually adapting to that moment rather than something found and held onto. It is a state in which there are endless possibilities because we are not already, consciously or unconsciously, predisposed toward some action or contraction. It is dynamic and not static. Similar to Moshe’s idea of maturity and what he coined as the potent self.
In these 15 days we will play with both challenging and simple movement patterns through reversibility and imagination to experience your neutral being, to evolve your notion of maturity.
In his 1949 book Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning, Feldenkrais states, “Maturing usually conveys the idea of reaching a stationary stage where no further change takes place. This introduces an element of fixity which is contrary to the dynamics of life. What I understand by maturity, is the capacity of the individual to break up total situations of previous experience into parts, to reform them into a pattern most suitable to the present circumstances…..Maturity, in that sense, is an ideal state where the uniqueness of [humans], [their] capacity to form new responses, or to learn has reached its ultimate perfection.”
Imagine if we all had the capacity to reverse and change course with ease; if we could experientially evoke our neutral being, when charged or triggered and act with more integrity and aim. My hope, as always, is to continue to move ourselves, individually and collectively, toward a better and better humanity.
In these 15 Days we will explore movement and breath as research. Diving into the interconnected relationship between reversibility and neutrality, to develop the potent self. Will you join us?
The aim of education should be to help [us] achieve the state of an evolving being.
– Moshe Feldenkrais
Join Kelly this January to evolve the quality of your life.
HOW
For 15 consecutive days enjoy a 45-55 min Awareness Through Movement Class in the comfort of your own home. Classes are live each morning and recordings are sent out following each class for you to explore again in the evening.
WHY
Habits of movement are developed over a life time and under stress older, less efficient habits reemerge. To make sustainable change, our nervous system needs consistent exposure to new sensations, new ideas and new options. Participating in an intensive, regular exploration of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons is an excellent way to experience the truly transformational potential this method has to create major changes in our selves, our thinking, our wellbeing and how we act in the world.
We will need a minimum of 10 participants to hold this series of classes.
INVITE YOUR FRIENDS!!!