Category Archives: Feldenkrais

A few words on the foot in relation to shoes and the environment

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The following is an excerpt from Chapter 22 of The Mass Psychology of Fittism (Undocumented Worker Press: ’15)

The Foot
To understand how humans might have looked, felt, moved and behaved before we entered the modern to postmodern era—that is, before the advent of liquid crystal display monitors and multinational shoe corporations—it is instructive to turn once again to Mr. Darwin, the environments in which our human genome developed, and cultures in which efficient and varied movement continues to flourish.

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Learning (long version)

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“[In the] humanistic conception, with its roots in the Enlightenment… education is not to be viewed as something like filling a vessel with water, but rather, assisting a flower to grow in its own way… in other words, providing circumstances in which the normal creative patterns will flourish.”

-Noam Chomsky, Chomsky on Mis-Education

What is learning?
What is improvement?
What is Feldenkrais?

by Edward Yu

The Feldenkrais Method could be considered the art of learning how to learn or, put another way, the art of learning how to improve. Feldenkrais is in this manner a radical departure from conventional approaches to learning and improving because where Feldenkrais emphasizes exploration, thereby encouraging people to learn how to learn and learn how to improve, conventional approaches focus on mimicking and performing, which commonly results in trying to learn and trying to improve.

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How helpful is “expert” advice?

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“To improve, we must first discover where we are contradicting ourselves.”

A short article on running (and a few other things)
By Edward Yu

Why is it that even after heeding expert advice we rarely improve? Is it because we don’t know how to follow directions? Do we simply lack the willpower to maintain a strict training regimen? …or is there a problem with the advice?

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A few words on Feldenkrais

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“We have forgotten that the first maxim covered life as well as sport judo and few of us seem to have ever learned the meaning of the second (which means simply love).”

                                                                                                            -Robert W. Smith

The Feldenkrais Method was born out of a childlike curiosity that all of us possess, even if it lies dormant beneath layers of assimilation to our fast-paced culture. Its founder, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, exemplified the same fiercely independent way of thinking that we see in all great scientists, musicians, artists, writers, dancers and athletes—indeed, anyone who values exploration, uncertainty and playfulness. It is also the same sort of mindset that we see in infants, toddlers and young children and that we ourselves embody in our more spontaneous, less defensive and perhaps more vulnerable moments.

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