Awareness through movement; Health exercises for personal growth: Easy-to-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness PDF
Preview Awareness through movement; Health exercises for personal growth: Easy-to-Do Health Exercises to Improve Your Posture, Vision, Imagination, and Personal Awareness
Learn how to make the most of your life, as Yehudi Menuhin, Moshe Dayan and Peter Brook have done. Moshe Feldenkrais has designed his unique and revolutionary technique for developing the body and the mind so that they work together in harmony. He has taught his methods all over the world with enormous success. They can be used by anyone,of any age,alone or in agroup. They are simple, painless, medically approved, and will have astonishing effects on your vitality, creativity and approach to life within a very short time. In a clear,simple and easy-to-follow text, here are twelve key lessons selected from those given at the Feldenkrais Institute in America. Penguin Handbooks Awareness Through Movement Moshe Feldenkrais has travelled around the world from his native Israel to teach his techniques to individuals and groups. AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT Health Exercises for Personal Growth MOSHE FELDENKRAIS Penguin Books Penguin Books Ltd. Harmondsworth. Middlesex, England Viking Penguin Inc.. 40 West 23rd Street. New York. New York 10010. U.S.A. Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria. Australia Penguin Books Canada Limited, 2801 John Street, Markham, Ontario, Canada 13R IB4 Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand First published in the U.S. A by Harper &' Row 1972 First published in Great Britain by Penguin Books 1980 Reprinted 1984, 1987 Copyright © Moshe Feldenkrais, 1972, 1977 All rights reserved Reproduced, printed and bound in Great Britain by Hazell Watson & Viney Limited, Member of the BPCC Group, Aylesbury, Bucks Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser Contents Part 1: Understanding While Doing Preface 3 The Self-image 10 Strata of Development 25 Where to Begin and How 30 Structure and Function 40 The Direction of Progres 49 Part II: Doing to Understand: Twelve Practical Lessons General Observations 57 Some Practical Hints 63 Leson 1 What Is God Posture? 6 Leson 2 What Action Is God? 85 Lesson 3 Some Fundamental Properties of Movement 91 Lesson 4 Differentiation of Parts and Functions in Breathing 100 vi Lesson 5 Coordination of the Flexor Muscles and of the Extensors 109 Lesson 6 Differentiation of Pelvic Movements by Means of an Imaginary Clock 115 Lesson 7 The Carriage of the Head Affects the State of the Musculature 123 Lesson 8 Perfecting the Self-image 130 Lesson 9 Spatial Relationships as a Means to Coordinated Action 139 Lesson 10 The Movement of the Eyes Organizes the Move- ment of the Body 145 Lesson 11 Becoming Aware of Parts of Which We Are Not Conscious with the Help of Those of Which We Are Conscious 15 Leson 12 Thinking and Breathing 162 Postscript 172 Illustrations follow page 108 PART ONE Understanding While Doing Preface We act in accordance with our self-image. This self-image—which, in turn, governs our every act—is conditioned in varying degree by three factors: heritage, education, and self-education. The part that is inherited is the most immutable. The biological endowment of the individual—the form and capacity of his nervous system, his bone structure, muscles, tissue, glands, skin, senses—are all determined by his physical heritage long before he has any established identity. His self-image develops from his actions and reactions in the normal course of experience. Education determines one's language and establishes a pattern of concepts and reactions common to a specific society. These concepts and reactions will vary according to the environment into which a person is born; they are not characteristic of mankind as a species, but only of certain groups or individuals. Education largely determines the direction of our self-education, which is the most active element in our development and in more frequent use socially than elements of biological origin. Our self- education influences the manner in which external education is ac- quired, as well as the selection of the material to be learned and the rejection of that which we cannot assimilate. Education and self-educa- 3 4 AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT tion occur intermittently. In the first weeks of an infant's life, education is chiefly a matter of absorbing the environment, and self-education is almost nonexistent; it consists only of refusal of, or resistance to, any- thing that is organically alien and unacceptable to the infant's inherited characteristics. Self-education progresses as the infant organism grows and becomes more stable. The child gradually develops individual characteristics; he begins to choose among objects and actions in accordance with his own nature. He no longer accepts everything that training tries to impose on him. Imposed education and individual propensities together set the trend for all our habitual behavior and actions. Of the three active factors in the establishment of our self-image, self-education alone is to some extent in our own hands. Our physical inheritance comes to us unsolicited, education is forced upon us, and even self-education is not entirely volitional in the early years; it is decided by the relative strength of inherited personality, individual characteristics, the effective working of the nervous system, and by the severity and persistence of educational influences. Heritage makes each one of us a unique individual in physical structure, appearance, and actions. Education makes each of us a member of some definite human society and seeks to make us as like every other member of that society as possible. Society dictates our mode of dress, and thereby makes our appearance similar to that of others. By giving us a language, it makes us express ourselves in the same way as others. It instills a pattern of behavior and values in us and sees to it that our self-education shall also operate so as to make us wish to become like everyone else. As a result, even self-education, which is the active force that makes for individuality and extends inherited difference into the realm of action, tends to a large extent to bring our behavior into line with that of others. The essential flaw in education as we know it today is that it is based on ancient and often primitive practices whose equalizing pur- pose was neither conscious nor clear. This flaw has its advantage since, having no defined purpose other than to mold individuals who will not be social misfits, education does not always succeed entirely in suppress
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