By Richard Adelman
“We die of our unlived lives.”—Rainer Maria Rilke, German poet
“How do you use your body?” can be a confusing question. It might seem to imply that you have two selves—a bodily self and a mental self that observes and “uses” the bodily self. This sounds suspiciously like some kind of Cartesian dualism or separation between mind and body. But is this mind-body split apparent or real? Many people feel that the mind-body split is responsible for many of the problems of Western Civilization, such as man’s estrangement from and exploitation of nature, including his own animal nature and his own body.
Yet we could never revert to being purely instinctive creatures. Our ability to observe and dialogue with ourselves gives us a subjective life, making us distinctly human animals. These capacities, however, do open the door to a whole variety of challenging experiences that presumably do not trouble our animal brethren. As we age or become ill, for instance, many of us come to feel disappointed or betrayed by our bodies. Self-rejection is an understandable response if one’s body is the source of great physical pain or inconvenience. We have all had moments of wishing we could have escaped from our troublesome body—a bad cold or flu, not to speak of a severely strained muscle or ligament or a serious illness. But being at odds with our body for extended periods as a lifestyle is another story. Then it is time to begin asking how did I use or misuse myself bodily to arrive at my present state: Can I now learn to use myself more appropriately?
The term “self-use” originated with F. Matthias Alexander, an Australian actor whose career began in the late 19th century. He used to do one-man performances in which he would read all the parts of a complete play. He started trouble-free but would begin to fatigue and lose his voice during the reading. Medical consultations and treatments were not helpful until one doctor suggested that maybe something about his physical manner of reading was straining his vocal apparatus. By extensively observing himself through 3-way mirrors, Alexander was able to identify the root of his problem—a postural distortion he was making with his neck in holding his head. He discovered that this awkward posture was a result of what he called “end-gaining” —trying to achieve.
His solution was learning to focus on the process, “the means whereby,” instead of the results. By carefully attending to how he was using himself, Alexander was able to inhibit his habitual pattern of misuse. He evolved a more functional posture which enabled him to continue his acting career. Meanwhile, droves of other actors with voice or postural difficulties (as well as curious lay people) came to him seeking help. He eventually developed a second career as the first teacher of the Alexander Technique, which is notable for emphasizing the importance of head position in influencing the posture of the whole body.
Moshe Feldenkrais, with whom I was fortunate to study personally in 1973 and who founded his approach to body awareness education in the 1940s in the process of healing a long-standing knee injury from soccer, had been a student of Alexander. While earning his doctorate in physics at the Sorbonne, he became one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt in judo. His original contribution was to integrate the principles of these two disciplines, judo and physics. Differently from Alexander, Feldenkrais placed a greater emphasis on fluid overall body coordination, thereby enabling ordinary people to move with the grace of a cat or an advanced martial artist.
“How are you using yourself/” lies at the heart of both approaches: How do you prepare to act? What mental and emotional attitudes do you invoke? How do you organize your breathing, your eyes, your overall body posture, your pattern of alertness? When we make a specific effort to prepare ourselves to act it could be said that we are implicitly assuming that we need that effort. We have an unconscious belief system about what we need to do to act and how much intensity and effort we will need. Getting more deeply in touch with how we are doing this opens up the possibility of moderating our efforts. This can lead to a subtle or radical reorganization of how we are in the world.
Other questions we could explore include: Do we brace and stiffen ourselves before acting? Do we inflate ourselves with an attitude of self-importance (which could be a bluff attitude)? Do we protect ourselves by hunkering down and compacting ourselves?
Or do we start to collapse in defeat or withdrawal before we have even begun? These kinds of questions can help to elucidate the emotional experiences within our postures and gestures.
Such questions emerge from the work of Stanley Keleman, who was one of the two people who first invited Feldenkrais to teach in the US. Stanley was my most important teacher for 50 years, starting in 1970. While Alexander and Feldenkrais had been mostly concerned with developing ease and efficiency in movements and postures, Keleman was concerned with what he called “the life of the body.” The flavor of his approach, which he called “formative psychology,” was captured in some of his book titles, such as “Embodying Experience,” “Your Body Speaks Its Mind,” “Somatic Reality,” and “Living Your Dying.” He came from a Reichian/bioenergetic psychotherapeutic tradition which he enriched with existential psychology. Using his original methodology, one can learn to directly experience how he forms his postural and gestural attitudes and therefore be able to regulate and influence this process.
Many people have found that working with the emotional basis of how we use ourselves opens the door to living a more vital and more authentic life allowing the body to fulfill its destiny.
Richard Adelman (M. A. Psychology) has 50 years of experience with the Feldenkrais Method and Somatic Psychology. He teaches classes in Feldenkrais for Seniors in Salón Semilla, Mercado Sano (Mondays and Wednesdays 12-1:30). He sees patients privately for gentle hands-on work and movement reeducation in San Antonio and at their homes.
He is a member of the internationalformativepsychologyinstitute.com
Contacts: richardadelman@gmail.com, cell/whatsapp: 415 197 7895
