"Do a little less than your utmost while learning... continuing to do a little less than your utmost, you go on improving.... The wisdom of doing a little less than one really can pushes the record of achievement further and further as you come nearer to it, similar to the horizon that recedes on approaching it."
This is Chapter 20 from Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, excerpts from the writings of Moshe Feldenkrais, edited and illustrated by Tiffany Sankary.
"We are beginning to place enormous emphasis on creativity, but there is a tendency to think that being creative is limited to “producing” something. I would suggest to you that the basic creativity of the human being consists in his working toward his own fullest development, the realizing of his own potentials, the allowing himself to grow. What we create first is ourselves and it is out of ourselves that the producing comes.” - Mary Whitehouse
We can improve the use of our eyes but not without improving all of ourselves. Feldenkrais said:
"...we have to learn to listen and think and feel and feel the length of our body and the width of the body and feel the movement and the voice and the thinking that we do and yet move your eyes."
"The principle of organization is built into nature. Chaos is self-organizing. Out of primordial disorder, stars find their orbits; rivers make their way to the sea...The same miracles are happening in our heads (and bodies) day by day, minute by minute." -Steven Pressfeild
I added "and bodies" in the quote above because that is my experience.
In the Feldenkrais Method, paradox is a generative tool for learning, the proverbial door that opens when another shuts. Perhaps inspired by his Hasidic childhood, with its culture of questioning rather than answering, Feldenkrais saw paradox as a way to give the nervous system the opportunity to improvise new habits by noticing and questioning old ones.
This context begins to bring us to appreciate the brilliance of Moshe’s work. When one’s attentional pathway is continually being fostered through the limbic system—in the continual maintenance of the sense of safety and the sense of self, one is not going to give up behaviors unless there’s something better in place.
If you live in Massachusetts, please take a few minutes out of your day to call/email your rep to ask that they oppose or amend SB 2621 "An Act to regulate bodywork therapy" (formerly 2599), which would impact virtually all holistic modalities (their practitioners and their recipients) in Massachusetts.
"There is no waste in creative process." -Amy Walsh
The little things, big things, stolen moments, mess, serendipity, inspiration, education, devotion, mistakes, misspellings, struggle, dust, dream---all of it.
When you stay in the process, with the practice, in whatever imaginable and unimaginable ways, all the little drops add up.
If you are a human being, you have a deep natural wellspring of creativity that is your greatest resource for vitality.
The Feldenkrais Method is most fundamentally about rediscovering your inherent creativity and learning to apply and embody it in each moment. Your creativity is your most potent tool for diminishing your aches and pains!
"Do a little less than your utmost while learning... continuing to do a little less than your utmost, you go on improving.... The wisdom of doing a little less than one really can pushes the record of achievement further and further as you come nearer to it, similar to the horizon that recedes on approaching it."
This is Chapter 20 from Feldenkrais Illustrated: The Art of Learning, excerpts from the writings of Moshe Feldenkrais, edited and illustrated by Tiffany Sankary.
"We are beginning to place enormous emphasis on creativity, but there is a tendency to think that being creative is limited to “producing” something. I would suggest to you that the basic creativity of the human being consists in his working toward his own fullest development, the realizing of his own potentials, the allowing himself to grow. What we create first is ourselves and it is out of ourselves that the producing comes.” - Mary Whitehouse