Wasted effort vs. potent work
"When a person continues to use a stereotyped pattern of behavior instead of one suitable to the present reality, the learning process has come to a standstill."
— Moshe Feldenkrais
Many people think Feldenkrais is about becoming calmer and more relaxed. We take rests, move slowly and with intention, and prioritize awareness over strain. That's true, however, we still use all the muscles in the human system, some of which require large contractions, which is most certainly work. The question, is how much muscular work is required, and when does it cross the line into effort?
We often start with slow and small movements because that way, you can notice what you are doing and discover the difference between work and effort. That way, when you do a bigger, faster movement, you can tell when you're sacrificing quality.
It's called the Fechner-Weber law of human perception (the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus) and it's taught in every Feldenkrais training I've ever seen. We talk about it a lot in this method because it means that when you reduce the effort, you increase your ability to sense. If you start with a large effort, your ability to sense only decreases.
Potent action over relaxation
I was talking to some students the other day about how Moshe Feldenkrais never advocated for relaxation. He proposed potency, vitality, and spontaneity. I love the idea of being prepared for the next thing in life. It doesn't mean being floppy, it means you get to choose whether to be floppy and take a nap, go for a long hike, fix the gutters, whatever you wish. You have a choice!
Being adaptable means you can adjust your muscular response to the task at hand. Usually, this happens below the level of consciousness—until we notice it, usually in the form of pain.
Learning is being willing to fall down
But how do you change a muscular pattern? You apply a sensory-learning model to everyday activities. Movement learning is a careful study of options using innate sensory-motor feedback to compare and contrast your experiences.
I often use the analogy of babies learning to walk: They pull themselves up to stand, wobble a bit on tiny, unstable feet, and promptly fall down with a plop. "That's what learning is like," I tell my horrified adult students. "Yup, that's right, get ready to fall on your butt."
Movement learning is falling down over and over as you find a more efficient pattern. It doesn't happen overnight, just like learning to walk.
Wasted effort
Impotent effort interferes with learning. it occurs when we contract a muscle that doesn't move a bone. The contraction is wasted, like unused vacation days. We repeat this neurotic behavior because we don't know any different. Plus, it's exhausting to waste so many muscle contractions.
I have clients with chronic fatigue, not from a medical condition, but from the tiresome task of holding themselves up. If only we could truly stand on our bones instead of "hold ourselves vertical," as Moshe says.
Impotent effort is also what happens when we try to move against a long-standing pattern of tension. Everything in life starts to feel difficult. For most situations, clenching your jaw, holding your breath, or bracing your ribs is in excess of requirements.
What about exercise?
"What about exercise?" everyone asks at this point. "Don't we need effort to build strength?" Yes, absolutely. Feldenkrais is designed as a general system of principles to increase your kinesthetic intelligence no matter what you love to do, whether horseback riding, weight lifting, or swimming.
Think about it like this: Exercise requires resistance, Feldenkrais invites connection.
Ideally, daily life is not lived in a state of resistance. You leave resistance behind when you leave the gym. I recently worked with a ballroom dancer who was also a weight lifter. He wondered why he was not progressing to competitions. He could not find fluid movement in his hips and given his weight-lifting background, it would take time to reset those patterns, which he was not wiling to invest. But it's absolutely possible to create connection, fluidity, and ease no matter where you start.
This doesn't mean we don't use big muscles in Feldenkrais. Rather, Feldenkrais seeks to distribute the work of big and small muscles throughout our entire selves so that we are not under-working or over-working in any one part. Ideally, we have balanced self-use, which my client—an extreme example—did not.
The importance of shifting gears
I know many athletes who are well-trained in their specific skill, but they do not experience easy movement in daily life. Even sitting at the dinner table is a challenge. It's the same with stress at work. Many people do not easily shift gears when they leave their work environment.
Shifting gears is a skill, one Moshe believed is linked to maturity. In his method, you don't learn "a movement" or "the correct way to sit." You learn how to meet this moment in life and change what you're doing to be effective without being stuck in the past.
Moshe called this degree of spontaneity maturity, which means you are free to choose something different from the default learned behaviors of your original family, social structure, or culture. (I have heard that Moshe, raised Jewish, famously ate a pork sandwich to "see what would happen." That's how much he experimented in life!)
The cost of resistance
Would you marry someone you felt resistant to? Of course not. But you’re stuck with yourself your whole life. We all want connection to our loved ones, not resistance. It's the same with our inner world: We want flow, ease, stability, comfort, flexibility, and grace. Intellectually we know this. Yet, we will all do a Feldenkrais lesson and start to pull, strain, force, tense, yank, stretch and then, on top of it all, judge our ability to perform! We believe the "correct" movement must happen at the cost of our connection to ourselves.
I am here to tell you that that cost is too high.
Feldenkrais is a process of exploring, like a baby exploring balance. Many lessons do require enormous muscular work, yes. You just learn not to add overwork and resistance. Slowly, through training and practice, you find freedom from any constraint.
“Learning, as I see it, is not the training of willpower but the acquisition of the skill to inhibit parasitic action and the ability to direct clear motivations a result of self knowledge.”