30 Days of Movement & Creativity Practice

If you committed to 30 days of practice for the month of August, what would you practice?

Would it be a creative practice or movement or stillness practice or a combination?

Would you do the same thing everyday or mix it up?

I've been enjoying the dynamic summer balance of family, work and play and am more and more clear how important it is for me to create space for my own movement and creativity practices.

I'm excited to share a new free experiment with you and you’re invited to join me!

⇨ Join me for 30 Days of Practice. Engage in your own movement and/ or creativity practice for 30 days with support of community.

In this playground / experimental space (on Substack), I’ll share daily inspiration, fragments, themes, elements, process, play, gems, highlights, questions, invitations, beauty and connection--- from my own practice(s) and invite you to share what's alive for you in your movement & creativity practice(s) throughout the month of August.

✷✷✷ Practices in my toolbox:

The Jeremy Krauss Approach is a unique and effective approach that creates changes in attention, sensation and overall sense of self - physically, mentally & emotionally.

The Feldenkrais Method® is a process of embodied learning through movement and awareness that gives you access to your potential.

Organic Intelligence® is the art of attuning to your nervous system’s naturally arising impulses that move you into your life path.

Authentic Movement is a practice of following your impulse to move or be still that connects you more deeply to yourself and others.

Creative process is a powerful way to integrate the fullness of your life experience and connect to the world around you.

Finding Our Own Handwriting

→ Audio and video clips of Moshe Feldenkrais © International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive. Amherst Training, June 8 & 9, 1981. All rights reserved. Used with kind permission.

You and what you are
are distinct from me
distinct from anybody else.

You are like a piece of gold
Did you know that?
And you're distinct from anybody else.

You can, like changing the form of gold, the shape of it, the use of it, you can act in any way you want.

You can act in any way you want, but provided you know what you're doing.

If you don't know what you're doing you can't act the way you want because you don't know what to change and how to act to get it, how to change your action.

Therefore, your action can be varied as your handwriting.

Look there are 4 1/2 billion people, there are 4 1/2 billion handwritings and it's the same thing. It's handwriting.

It's an individual and therefore, unless you find out in which way(s) (you) fail to realize the intention…

You have to get the whole function: That's why we call it Functional Integration.

The function is the intention and the realization of the intention. That's the function. Each time a different one.

The entire person must get that sort of thing, clarified, make it click, make it oiled, grease it, so that it's quick and it's good and it gives you the feeling of, oh!

“It's elegant!”

I don’t do anything else—- just your intention and it's realized. That's all.

You don’t have to do anything

And then you can feel aesthetically satisfied and that means that you don't think at all.

You just feel that you could do it again because it's pleasant to do.

"One we can learn a movement, we know it well—in every direction, in every detail We are now free to write our own handwriting.” - Moshe Feldenkrais, June 18, 1980

This video montage was originally created as part of the Feldenkrais Mixtape series, also available in Movement and Creativity Library.

On Simplicity and Complexity

Make it easy, simple, slow.

All simple things are complex.

There is an easier, simpler way of doing it.

...spontaneously to your entire being (you)
...suddenly feel life to be beautiful,
simple, pleasant, comfortable.

There is not a thing in our life, in our action, that is just a simple thing. It's maybe simple because it's familiar, but it's not simple. It's very, very complex.

Do the simplest movement you can do.

Make that simple and easy.

Nothing is simple in this world.

Simpler.

It’s not so simple.

...you can see that unless you yourself make your life connected with society, connected with the future of humanity ... unless you think that way, you will never be able to help anyone, really… it’s not simple and it’s very
simple at the same time.

- Moshe Feldenkrais

This is a found poem created from Moshe Feldenkrais’ teaching in his last professional training in Amherst, MA in 1980-81. The word "simple" comes up 370 times in the transcript!

Shared with permission from the International Feldenkrais Federation.

Movement Puzzles, Pain, and an Open Mind

Puzzles in Movement as Problem Solving Skills

Learning how to solve a movement problem is a skill that we use as a learning strategy in Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement®. This skill is very useful for dealing with pain and the skill can be generalized in one’s life. Problem solving or figuring things out is something one does daily. It can be as simple as learning to use an unfamiliar washing machine or complicated like learning how to play a musical instrument. Creative solutions may come spontaneously when you have practiced problem solving with your whole self.

For example, when faced with a situation where your pain is increasing, or maybe you are worried that there is something you want to do that might increase your pain–you have a problem to be solved.

If you have practiced solving movement puzzles with your body, you can draw on this skill, such as noticing what you are doing, thinking, or feeling. Are you breathing, or holding your breath or using too much effort for the task? Are there ways to use yourself that could make the action easier or less stressful? Are you flexible in your attitude towards accomplishing the task and when and how fast?

Shifting Your Attention and Mode of Action

You can figure out how to move in a different way that doesn't increase pain. For example, if you are sitting in a booth in a restaurant with cramped space, how do you organize yourself to get up and out without triggering more pain. Could you go more slowly, use your arms to help you slide to the edge of the booth’s seat? Do you need part of the table cleared in order to have the space you need to maneuver? Could you do it bit by bit? Are you in a negative self-talk loop? Can you ask for help? Are you okay with taking more time?

Some strategies that are used in ATM lessons that could be helpful to solve movement problems are: shifting your attention to other parts of yourself and looking for other possibilities for moving? Can you relax enough to shift your attention, change your usual mode of action, alter the timing, attend to your breathing, or adjust your attitude?

Embodying Open Mindedness

We all have habits of mind and body. We rely on a set of ways to act in the world, it’s a big part of our self-image. For example, many people will continue doing a task until it's finished, even when they notice it is hurting them. There is often a push back for changing up one’s usual way of acting which can seem to make us freeze up and resist changing a behavior. It can be disorienting to do something differently, to think differently. Can you be okay with this. This is an important part of embodying open mindedness, and it can be practiced in an Awareness Through Movement lesson. For example, pausing, resting, changing your pattern of action, including your thoughts. Then the quality of open mindedness will be more readily accessible and skillfully deployed.

This is an excerpt from a Q & A with Deborah Bowes from her Chanukiah Feldenkrais series.

Students appreciate these kinds of ‘pearls of experience’ that Deborah shares her classes.

New Feldenkrais series with Deborah Bowes: Legs in Action

About Deborah Bowes:

Deborah Bowes is a Feldenkrais® Teacher and Trainer. She initially trained as a physical therapist at Columbia University in New York and later earned a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Shenandoah University in Virginia. She holds a B.S. in Biology and Physical Education from Rhode Island College.

As a Guild Certified Trainer of the Feldenkrais Method® since 2000, she has taught widely in the United States, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Colombia in over 35 training programs.  Her other related in-depth studies and practices include Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, yoga, sensory awareness, meditation, and dance.

Deborah had a private practice in San Francisco at the Feldenkrais® Center for Movement & Awareness for over 30 years. She now teaches and consults online. She is an adjunct faculty member at Saybrook University, teaching Movement Modalities for Wellness. Her doctoral research demonstrated the benefit of her Feldenkrais Method program, Pelvic Health & Awareness for Men and Women. Her other courses are on Movementandcreativity.com

Begin

Let's begin.

What has already begun?

What do you want to begin?

What happens in the beginning of your inhale?

And the beginning of your exhale?

What seed of an idea, impulse, project, curiosity is alive in you?

I love these words from Goethe:

“Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now.”

​What's beginning?

share below :)

One Word

"Be sure your intention is clearly present in your movement. The movement organizes itself when your intention is clear." - Moshe Feldenkrais

What supports you to clarify your intention?

Is it thinking & awareness?

Or movement itself?

Both/ and?

It’s a bit of a koan → ← a loop ◯

Experiencing clarity
in movement
expands the ability
to clarify intention,
which then supports
more refined & nuanced
clarity in movement & life
​and on and on...​​
​∞

I invite you to play along—-

Choose 1 word

could be an intention, theme, thread, wish...

Share it below

then see what happens….

Power of 3

Here’s a simple, fun 5 minute video inspired by the Jeremy Krauss Approach® to support you to:

1. Experience movement
in an area in your life that feels fixed, stuck or ready for next steps

2. Clarify
what is unclear, complex, overwhelming, confusing or exciting

3. Create space
to digest, prioritize, ideate or celebrate

Share about your experience of this little process in the comments below.

Experience the physical & emotional
benefits daily JKA-ATM +
Solvents and Glue practice

Creating a Daily Feldenkrais Practice (or other mind/ body/ creativity practice)

How can I create a daily practice?

One way is to use Movement and Creativity Library. How can I access the Movement and Creativity Library more consistently? How can I do that? I want to do it more. There are often things that I want to do that fall off my to do list. I'm also a Feldenkrais practitioner, so I'm focusing on doing lessons that I may be teaching.

I just want to come back to doing lessons because they're fun.

They are fun for me even when I'm doing them for teaching, but I want to do lessons without that sense of them having another purpose (for teaching)—- To just to be able to do lessons as part of my daily practice. I'm curious about it…

I know from doing training that immersion in lessons, in doing something every day really shifts things in a big way for me.

I'm really curious about how to having a daily practice will support me and others. A practice that is mostly Feldenkrais lessons, but also a range of practice—- I'm interested in creative practice, in the intersection of Organic Intelligence® and Feldenkrais and a whole range of other things that really interest me in Movement & Creativity Library, but I often haven't quite managed to make the time for it.

Maybe I've looked at a series or lessons of lessons that I thought, Hmmm, I’m not quite sure I have enough space to do all of them or I may be put off by the the length of them. So I just thought:

How can I make this easy for me?

To engage with this resource that I really love and that I want to engage with in a more consistent way, but also in ways that may just really springboard my new year in a range of ways that gives me greater capacity for learning, for expanding myself and enjoying the year ahead. That's where the idea came from.

What I'm going to be doing for the month of January is a practice a day from the Movement and Creativity Library and I'm inviting other library members to join me. Sign up for a free 7 day trial here

I thought how can it be the easiest, most enriching, most enjoyable? —- Doing it with other people for sure, hands down ✋🏿

Also how can we support each other? Because many of us might have had these ideas before, but it can be a bit of a challenge to do, to maintain that sort of commitment to ourselves.

I thought having a group would be a way of us supporting each other and making it more fun and enjoyable and a pleasurable journey.

We're going to have a page which is going to be Creating a Daily Practice for the month of January. On the page there will be a section for short lessons and those short lessons will be anything from a couple of minutes up to 40 minutes. And there will be also a section for longer lessons that will be from 40 minutes to over an hour. There will also be a section for talks.

3 sections per week:
1) Short Lessons 2) Long Lessons 3) Talks

Create your practice however you’d like

It may be that your month or your week could be five days instead of seven days… You can create it however you want. The curated lessons are there for a guide — to choose what resonates with you. I really encourage people to dive in and just do a part of the lesson, maybe a beginning, and that could be something that you want to do throughout the week. Okay, I'll do ten minutes of this and maybe go on and do another 20 a bit later on.... Also, there may be a live lesson in the library that you want to do instead of the curated practice…

Favorite lessons you like to return to anytime

When you find a practice that you like, click "add to favorites" to be able to easily return to lessons that you enjoy in the future.

Optional Check in sessions

Attend optional weekly check-in sessions with Neruma Ankti as another layer of support, connection and fun Mondays 10:40-11am ET (these will be recorded if you can’t come live)

+ Experiment with the new Movement & Creativity Community online space (not on Facebook!)

This new community space is a distraction-free zone (off Facebook!) where you can share practice highlights, reflect on what’s moving you, what you’re creating, your intentions, hopes, wishes, questions, inspiration—- a place to connect in simple ways so that you feel the presence of community alongside creating your daily practice.

Already a Movement & Creativity Library member? Check your email :)

Abilities Lessons in Movement with Jeremy Krauss

Jeremy Krauss discusses JKA-ALM and Feldenkrais ATM (12 min)

Topics: Differences and similarities between JKA-ALM (Jeremy Krauss Approach Abilities Lessons in Movement) & Feldenkrais ATM (Awareness Through Movement) / Variations in ways of attending to yourself in movement / Self-regulation / Awareness as an ability / The mechanics of change / Novelty / Perspectives on efforting more or less

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How do physical changes in JKA-ALM influence emotional well-being and creative thinking? (13 min)

Topics: Creating change in movement influences emotional, cognitive and sensory domains / Ease, anxiety, stress and relationship to environment / Going slower or faster / Reducing or increasing effort / How to listen to a pleasant sensation / Avoiding emotional life through feeling good in movement / Limbic resonance through mirroring / Changes in mood, aliveness, feeling taller / Loosening patterns of behavior / Feeling more connected to yourself and other people / Secure and insecure attachment / Attaching on to yourself and listening to your own needs / Self-regulation / Resilience / Feeling better to gravity, feeling better with yourself

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JKA-ALM Intro lesson to Creating Change Workshop (25 min)

Some experiences from the intro class: Change can be so quick! / I feel emotions release. Great! / Such simple things create clear changes and open new spaces. / Legs feel larger and longer / Range of motion in trunk increased / My legs feeling more active and participating in stand and gait. / I have a real sense of well being. It especially helps a knee issue on the left side"Lumbar relaxed / Increased awareness and articulation of joints / Feeling much freer :-)

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About Jeremy Krauss

Jeremy Krauss has been teaching and having a private practice for over 40 years. He is the Founder and Director of a new and unique understanding and perspective of early movement development for working with Special Needs Children and adults in therapeutic learning situations – The Jeremy Krauss Approach (JKA). He has created an interdisciplinary training program to educate people in the JKA and teaches and presents JKA worldwide. Jeremy has also been a Feldenkrais Educational Director for over 25 years. Jeremy’s knowledge of the early development and classical Feldenkrais is unsurpassed. He is recognised worldwide as an excellent teacher for both his clarity as well as his creative abilities in presenting practical and theoretical aspects and in developing new and unique materials. His specialty is his extraordinary ability in working with Special Needs Children with developmental challenges and disorders as well as teaching and presenting complex skills in developmental and Functional Hands-on. Learn more about Jeremy’s work here: https://jeremy-krauss.com

Hey Marvelous is Marvelous! Celebrating our new course/ membership site!

I began Movement & Creativity Library in 2018 after my private practice filled and I wanted a way to make the Feldenkrais Method accessible to more people. I searched and searched for the right membership platform but I didn’t like the way anything looked until I found Hey Marvelous (affiliate link).

I looooove making images and creating beautiful spaces and I felt limited by the computery feeling of all the platforms I saw and tested, like Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific or other LMS platforms. I landed on Squarespace. I created a membership before they had their current membership features. I changed the password each month it each month inspired by a different Feldenkrais principle or theme.

I’d open up the library the last few days of the month for free to anyone. It’s been an amazing 4 year journey, growing the library to 40+ courses, with 400+ lessons with dozens of somatic and creative teachers from around the world. It’s been an evolving, enjoyable, enlivening experiment.

About a year ago I went down a rabbit hole researching platforms that could be the next iteration of Movement and Creativity Library + be a home for our self-paced online Feldenkrais courses. I settled on Wordpress and Acessally because that would give me the flexibility to create the beautiful site I imagined. I hired someone to help me and long story short—-it didn’t work out… (at all) :(

That drove me down another rabbit hole searching for a solution. Maybe something I hadn’t tried yet? Or maybe something I tried before that would be somehow different now? I had no idea that it was actually possible—- I found something marvelous!

Hey Marvelous (affiliate link) was originally created for yoga teachers. I had actually looked at their site in my 1st online course platform wormhole dive— but since then they’ve made some major changes and updates. A miracle emerged—- this could actually be a place I could play, grow, collaborate! And it’s true:

Hey Marvelous is Marvelous

1) Beautiful, Simple, Intuitive

Hey Marvelous is beautiful, simple, clean, intuitive—- super easy to get around and works great on mobile! I felt like I could easily create a home filled with my images/ aesthetic and begin to create the website I imagined (and beyond that to what I haven’t yet imagined!)

2) Membership + Courses

I now have my membership & courses all in one place! People can navigate easily between all their courses and the website only gives you access to what your have purchased/ registered for. (I moved over 400+ lessons from my old site! It was epic!)

3) Search by multiple tags

This feature is at the center of Movement & Creativity Library. You can choose lessons based on parts of the body, positions, movement patterns, teacher, amount of time or different ways to orient to the process. You can also narrow your search results, so you could can a teacher you like, with a lesson on your back with breathing in the 15-30 min range… Exciting!

4) Favorites

This is one of my favorite features. You can add and remove lessons from your favorites so you can easily go back to them. And they are searchable!

5) Playlists

This is what made it possible for me to go all in. Playlists are the way that I structure all the series in Movement & Creativity Library and they have this adorable little menu on the side that helps you orient to where you are in the order of lessons in that series.

6) 1 click event sign up and Zoom Integration

There’s a super cool calendar feature that integrates with Zoom where students who click on events inside of their membership or course, they automatically get emailed a confirmation are sent the Zoom link and hour before each event.

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7) The backend is as beautiful as the front end (this is truly marvelous)

I know where I am. Everything is beautiful. Clean, Simple. Intuitive.

8) Their team is supportive and responsive

They have practically 24/7 chat with some down windows during the weekends. Very friendly & helpful. I have reported several bugs and the issues were quickly resolved. There are other things I am waiting for and fingers crossed they will happen. Overall there is a feeling of trust and mutual respect.

9) There are many things I want to change but it feels so worth the wait

I’ve got a wishlist of tweaks here and there + what they have on their roadmap is super exciting! I’m looking forward to growing alongside them :)

Because I love Hey Marvelous so much, I’ve signed on to be an affiliate for them. If you sign up for Hey Marvelous with this link you can get a 1/2 hour Zoom call with me to connect about creating/ setting up your site (or anything else Feldenkrais/ nervous system/ creative process related)

Imaginary Meeting between Dr. Martin Luther King and Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais

Introduction

I was born in 1967, a year before Dr Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated. For a long time, I thought I was much older than I was when the assassination took place. I remember being a little girl, in our front room, watching a black and white TV program about Dr Martin Luther King Jr and his assassination.

Did I dream this? Was it a documentary with a recording of the assassination? I don’t know. All I know is that I grew up knowing about Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I grew up knowing his speech “I Have A Dream.”

His legacy spoke to me about what was possible. It spoke to me about power, courage, dignity. It infused me with a sense of black people being worthy, important, equal, however unequal society may be. It gave me hope. 

Another great man whose legacy had a huge impact on me, is Dr Moshe Feldenkrais. His development of the Feldenkrais Method® has transformed my life and continues to assist me in learning and in actualising my dreams. 

Dr Feldenkrais was 25 years older than Dr King. I am sure he would have known of him and his work. Moshe used his deep understanding, scientific knowledge and compassion about the human experience to devise thousands of movement lessons. Moshe’s Awareness Through Movement® lessons enable people to find ease, comfort and optimised functioning so that they can have a happier fulfilled life.

He celebrated differences and made it clear that it is our differences that connects us to the human family. 

Dr Feldenkrais was a Jewish man. As I am a black woman, who is not Jewish. I do not feel qualified to speak about the horrors of the Jewish holocaust or anti-Semitism.

I feel it was important to bring it into this fictitious piece, because had Martin and Moshe met, I think they would speak about this. It would be another moment of deep connection.

Could Dr Feldenkrais have missed the impact of systemic racism on black people and on humanity in some way? I think that it is entirely possible. It is my view that no one is unaffected by the influence of systemic racism. However, I also believe that the man who said that we are genetically human[1], who believed in the latent genius[2] in all people and who said that what other humans can do, even if it is only one, all the others can[3] - that this man, Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, was speaking as much to the black man and woman, to people of colour everywhere and to all people.

“It is, however, true that we are genetically human, and that what other humans can do, even if it is only one, all the others can.” -Moshe Feldenkrais, Elusive Obvious, p. 106.

I believe that if Moshe Feldenkrais were alive today, he would be actively engaged in using the Feldenkrais Method as a means of social change more explicitly as I believe he intended the Feldenkrais Method to be a means to both individual and societal change.

I think Moshe would have realised that enough of a shift hasn’t taken place - that it was time to do something different to help as many people as possible and create a more humane world. It is in this vein, that I have come up with an imaginary meeting between Dr Martin Luther King and Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, to celebrate Dr Martin Luther King Day, imbued with all the possibilities that the Feldenkrais Method has to offer people today.

Imagination

Story telling is a huge part of my cultural heritage, and I would say, that of the human family, in a wonderful variety of ways.

In my particular, African Caribbean, Jamaican, heritage, storytelling was passed down to me, principally, by my mother, who was a fantastic story teller. She used her whole self in the telling of stories. She would move not only her face and hands, but also her chest, pelvis and legs as the story required. She had great tonal range and would include songs in the telling of stories. These were traditionally Jamaican, as well as stories about her experiences. I was mesmerised – in the story. And she was funny too.

As a little girl, I loved both listening to and writing stories.  

“I tell them stories because I believe that learning is the most important thing for a human being. Learning should be a pleasant, marvelous experience.” - Moshe Feldenkrais, The Elusive Obvious

Feldenkrais and Imagination

Many Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons take us back to early developmental stages as a way of reminding our nervous systems that we know how to organically learn in easy, light, pleasurable and playful ways. This also enables us to learn new things more easily and integrate this learning.

Moshe also knew, that using imagination was an invaluable aspect of learning. Therefore, many lessons involve doing parts of lessons in our imagination.

The piece that I have created here comes entirely from my imagination. It has no basis in facts other than the fact that both men existed and their age.

“The essence of creativity is to look at the world around us, see how it is and imagine other possibilities. Creativity is seeing the possibilities and trying to make those imaginings into material reality.” - Agustin Fuentes

Invitation to Imagine, Play and have Different ways of engaging with this piece

I invite you to use your imagination as you read this. You can create your own story of Martin and Moshe’s fictitious meeting or maybe there’s a part in my story that makes you think - Martin or Moshe would have said this or done that. Use these thoughts or feelings as a springboard for creating your own story. Or write / draw / compose a different story involving people that have influenced your life.

Or you might want to use this story as a means to have a somatic experience.

Orienting

Before you begin reading spend a few minutes looking around your environment, allowing your eyes to rest on whatever is interesting to you. Get up and move around if you have the impulse to do so or you can do this as you this or sit or lie down.

Use this practice of orienting yourself in your environment throughout the reading of this piece, pausing throughout and looking around with light curiosity.

Sensing Yourself

Notice how you are sitting, your sitting bones, how your back rests on the chair, if it does.

Notice your feet – how the they contact the floor.

If you are lying down – how are you lying – on back? Legs long or feet standing? Lying on one side – which side?

You could pay attention to your breathing – where do feel move as you breathe? Are you breathing? Do you stop breathing at any point?

Which hand or fingers do you use to scroll the page up?

Where is your gaze – straight ahead, a little to one side or the other, a little upwards or downwards.

Does one eye feel more engaged in reading than the other?

Do you spend the entire time reading, or do you look away – if so – do you look in a particular direction? Is this familiar / unfamiliar?

Do you close your eyes at any point?

Do you pause? If yes, what made you choose to pause or take a rest?

Do you pay attention to impulses that arise – like, for example, to go and make a drink or alter your position or do you ignore these?

What else do you notice? This could be feelings, thoughts or other sensations – Can you be curious about these?

“What I’m after isn’t flexible bodies, but flexible minds and to restore each person to their human dignity.”​ -Moshe Feldenkrais

Butterfly on the Wall

As a little girl, I loved both listening to and writing stories. I write in the tradition of oral story telling as if someone is narrating this story of the meeting to me. In this story, the narrator is the butterfly on the wall.  Deeply empathic, this butterfly is part Martin and part Moshe.

The Invitation

Dr Moshe Feldenkrais wrote to Dr Martin Luther King after being moved by his stature - his way of expressing his authentic, potent self in the service of his work.

Moshe was touched by the presence of this man and wanted to meet him particularly to see if he was open to exploring how his work could assist him further. Also, ever curious, Moshe wanted to learn from Martin, whatever he could, to assist his own evolution and work.

Martin agreed to meet with Moshe. He was doing everything he could to bring about justice, peace, and freedom for African Americans.

As far as Martin was concerned, ending the cruel and inhumane ways of treating African American people was freedom for all people. He was open to hearing about anything that could assist him to this end.

His advisor’s and bodyguards were more cautious. They knew there were people keen to infiltrate the movement and that Dr King’s life was in danger.

With this in mind, they insisted on meeting in an abandoned warehouse with rotting window frames holding cracked planes of glass that let the scorching sun into the barren room. There was a table and two chairs in the centre of this vast space.

Martin’s warriors, as he called them, formed the wall of the room looking both outwards and inwards, taking care to protect Martin, at a distance, that Dr King insisted on.

The Meeting

After a seemingly casual conversation with one of Martin’s warriors, where Moshe was looked square in the eye, for any trace of potential threat and then thoroughly searched, Moshe was allowed in. Moshe had great respect for the warriors. He would have liked to talk with them, well, let’s be honest, to engage them in a judo contest, but he sensed this was not the time.

Martin gets up to greet Moshe and holds out his hand. They shake hands, both meeting with a firm, yet, soft, and warm handshake. Martin signals for Moshe to sit down. He asks about his journey, giving Moshe time to settle. Moshe, senses Martin’s thoughtfulness and ease as he welcomes this older, white stranger into his midst.

Moshe notices Martin’s acture and the cadence and tonality in his voice that speaks to the very soul of humankind. Martin notices the ease with which Moshe inhabits himself with the qualities of both lightness and strength, an alert agility and an engaged presence of mind.

Empathy

Moshe shares his observations after a suitable pause in the conversation. He talks of his concept of acture that he is sure, both he and his warriors, possess. He explains this as the ability to be ready to move from any point in any direction and equally important, the readiness to reverse the movement. Martin is engaged and curious about these terms. He talks about vigilance and how as a Black man in America you need to have the ability to sense what is around you and move swiftly. It is a matter of life or death.

He said, it is faith that makes this a grounded experience rather than one of constant fear. It is faith - a sense of service to something higher and bigger.

He pauses. Then Martin says that having seen the dignity in the way his father, uncles, grandparents, mother, sisters and aunties, carried themselves, in the face of de-humanising treatment, by white people, enabled him to locate that place of strength in himself.

Moshe listens knowing that the most important thing that he can do in this moment is to hear Martin. Being present in himself and enraptured by the conversation, this is easy for him to do.

Martin looks pensive. He looks at Moshe and asks if his experience as a Jewish man was similar. Both men are filled with a deep sense of empathy for each other as Martin knew he was asking a rhetorical question. 

Moshe spoke in a deep, open way about his experiences of antisemitism. Martin listened, grateful for Moshe’s openness and generosity in sharing his own painful experiences.

Vision

Listening to Dr King, as Moshe likes to refer to him as, despite being told to call him Martin, Moshe was curious about his voice – about how the sound moved through and out of him. And yes, despite Dr King trying to reciprocate by calling, Moshe, Dr Feldenkrais, Moshe wouldn’t allow it. He said come on, indulge this older white man the privilege of calling you Doctor. Of course, Martin being raised to respect his elders conceded. He knew it was an important point and that on a deeper level Moshe was speaking about their vision of a world where it was commonplace for a white man to easily call a black man doctor. 

Vowed and Unavowed Dreams

Moshe notices the poise and certainty of this man living his vowed and unavowed dreams in a country that would deny him life. I knew it was possible, even in the most impossible situations, Moshe confides in Dr King.

I knew it was possible to be your potent self no matter what the conditions or circumstances of your life. You, Dr King are living proof of this fact, Moshe said. Dr King had a whole host of conflicting feelings on hearing this. He felt proud. He felt humble and a desire to say he stands on the shoulders of his ancestors.

That, but for the support of his wife and family and these warriors, his wider community and God, he may not be able to be who he is and do what he does.

And on another level, he knew that Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, for he was allowed to say his full name in his mind, at least, that, Dr Moshe Feldenkrais, was speaking to that thing that only a man can, and if he desires to live a full life, must, find for himself.

He said none of these things. He remained silent with all his feelings and thoughts. He then turned to Dr Feldenkrais and said, so what can you teach me?

The Lesson

Moshe was waiting for Dr King to invite him to be of service as he felt it really important for him to choose to learn something from himself. Moshe asks Dr King whether he brought the quilt he had asked him to bring to their meeting in his letter. Dr King, looking bemused said that he had it. Moshe explained why lessons take place on the floor or a table as it is important to give the nervous system a rest from all it has to do to keep us upright. It allows for the nervous system to settle and be available for really deep learning and integration of the learning. He went on to say that he wanted to make sure that his very fine suits maintained their pristine condition by lying on top of a fine quilt. They both laughed. Dr King took out a beautiful patchwork quilt made for him by his grandmother who had since passed. Moshe said that he wondered if there were any more tables that he could put together so that Martin could lay down. Dr King said he would ask the warriors. He thought this would be possible.

Moshe had wondered whether to teach an Awareness Through Movement lesson or whether to give a Functional Integration lesson and he wasn’t sure what he was going to do until the moment Martin enquired about the lesson. All he knew was that whatever he chose to teach, he would give the lesson with engaged and lively curiosity, with every part of himself fully involved, grateful for the opportunity to learn with Dr King.

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References

[1]  The Elusive Obvious, Moshe Feldenkrais, 1981, p106 / Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, Tiffany Sankary, 2014

[2]  The Elusive Obvious, Moshe Feldenkrais, 1981, p98 / Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, Tiffany Sankary, 2014

[3]  The Elusive Obvious, Moshe Feldenkrais, 1981, p106 / Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, Tiffany Sankary, 2014

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Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Tiffany Sankary for her enthusiasm, encouragement and support, for her invaluable work: Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning which provided inspiration and the source of some quotes, for her invaluable input which added significantly to this piece and for the artwork and everything she does behind the scenes to make this publication possible

Thank you, Suzy Merriam for valuable editorial input

Thank you, to my friend, Carol Williams for being a constant source of support, always open, courageous and truthful

Thank you, Dianne Hancock, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Writer, Editor, teacher of Creative Writing, who in her Feldenkrais UK Guild workshop, Finding Your Flow, for encouraged participants to write creatively about the Feldenkrais Method

Thank you, Dr Martin Luther King Jr, and Dr Moshe Feldenkrais

Thank you, mom

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About Neruma Ankti

Neruma Ankti is a Student Teacher, currently in the fourth year of her Feldenkrais Practitioner Training in Sussex, UK. She is a self-taught writer and artist – a creative person is more how she would describe herself, with a passion for art, learning and teaching. Prior to spending the last decade working at the National Portrait Gallery, London, she spent the best part of 20 years working for various National and local organisations working with children, young people, adults, volunteers and community groups. She facilitated groups and provided training, amongst other things, in these various, enriching roles. She is excited about merging her passion for art and Feldenkrais by joining the Movement and Creativity team. Her contributions will be in the form of blogs, podcast collaborations and community practice sessions in Movement and Creativity Library with the intention of joining the vision to create a world of equity and inclusivity.

Improvising as a Way of Life w/ Stephen Nachmanovitch

"Your nervous system is all the way outside your body and all the way inside and you're perceiving through every medium that you're present in."
-Stephen Nachmanovitch

Movement & Creativity Podcast #3:

Tiffany Sankary interviews Stephen Nachmanovitch, author of Free Play and The Art of Is. They talk about improvising as a way of life in teaching, learning, parenting, creative process and the balance of play, chaos, receptivity, self discovery, imperfection and connection. Stephen shares about his teachers & main influences: Gregory Bateson, William Blake, Yehudi Menuhin, and Jerome Bruner.

"Making art, whether you do it solo or in a group, derives its patterns from everything around us, in an inter-dependent network. We learn to work as nature does, with the material of ourselves: our body, our mind, our companions, and the radical possibilities of the present moment." - Stephen Nachmanovitch, The Art of Is

Video of interview:

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