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Riding with Awareness- Part II

Posted on May 29, 2013 by

In the second part of this blog  series, we continue our conversation with MBS students involved in horseback riding and riding instruction. In this installment, Tellington Touch Practitioner and riding instructor Martin Lasser joins in the conversation.

 “You have to be there, open with them, and if you’re not, they will tell you. It’s a great way of knowing your mind, to be in this mindset. If you’re not, the animal will take off!” – Suzy Van Eijs

In the course of interviewing multiple riders and riding instructors, one particular horse fact kept coming up. Though it first seemed simply to be a stunning bit of trivia, by the end of our conversations, it became clear how central this little piece of information was to understanding horses and the people who really get to know them: It turns out, horses can feel a fly land anywhere on their bodies. A horse may weigh a thousand pounds, but it has an image of its body that’s dazzlingly detailed. As MBS student Suzy Van Eijs points out, “It’s not that because a horse is big, it has no feeling of its body. It’s actually very subtle.” As the various equestrians and teachers emphasized how much they learn from their horses, the skill they seem most to share with their equine partners, and most to value, is sensitivity.

 

Better Listening For Better RidingIMG_3556

Each of the current MBS students I spoke with noted how their experiences in MBS and with Feldenkrais have refined their perceptiveness, both internally and in the world around them. In describing what has most enhanced her riding, Ulrike Reiffenstein first notes the change in how she perceives her own body in relation to the horse. Through attending Feldenkrais workshops over many years, and now participating in the Foundation course, she reports, “I’m more aware of all of these connections through my body, and that helps in riding, that’s obvious.”

Certainly, with heightened sensitivity, a rider can better respond to a horse’s feedback. And that’s huge when you’re asking an animal five or ten times your size to perform highly complex maneuvers. While plenty of lip service is paid to the benefits of increasing awareness and improving one’s connection to the horse, MBS students who ride point out the importance of really learning to focus on simple, concrete differences in movements. That skill forms a foundation for what can become a deeply nuanced, intuitive interaction through extremely complicated feats. In essence, the rider learns to break down the horse’s feedback – a massive amount of information – into discrete, observable chunks. With practice, riders pick up on feedback of ever increasing subtlety.

The Murdoch Method

The Murdoch Method

Wendy Murdoch, founder of the Murdoch Method and returning MBS student, contrasts such a grounded approach with the vague kind of advice she finds that riders receive all too often from well-intentioned instructors. She explains, “People tell them that their movements influence the horse, but they don’t say how.  It’s about your connection to the ground and how that moves through your body so the horse gets the message.”

Ulrike identifies the changes in her sense of her own body in extremely specific terms, since she first began attending Feldenkrais workshops:

“I notice it makes a big difference for riding a horse if you feel your pelvis as one thing, or if you feel that these bones you sit on, these sitting bones, as two halves and how they move, not separately, but in relation to one another. That changed  my riding a lot. And still, there are situations when I get some stress or something, and the first thing that happens is that I contract the muscles in the pelvis, and then you lose the clear contact to he horse.”

As Ulrike describes her development as a rider, she notes, “My whole body is softer and more…” She pauses, searching for the English word for dürchlassig. A German-English dictionary only offers up “permeable,” though a strictly literal translation would be something like “letting it go through.” As Ulrike becomes more aware of the connections throughout her body, impulses from the horse can “go through” more easily. Getting quieter makes it easier to listen.

 

Dance or Domination

Riding instructor and current Foundation student Tessa Roos describes a recent interaction with a horse that took place entirely through nonverbal questions. “I used these very simple things that they teach us at MBS: just putting your hands there with a question. With a question in my head, I went, ‘Where does this go?’” With one hand on the horse’s sternum and one on the withers, she engaged the horse in a mutual exploration, simply asking “Where is your sternum?” By the end of the session, Tessa found dramatic changes not only in the horse’s movements, but in how the horse related to her, and in the sheer eagerness to follow Tessa’s continuing line of questions, as well as her requests.

martinTo be sure, when a rider introduces this questioning approach with a horse, instead of solely giving commands, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the horse takes over. Tellington Touch practitioner and riding instructor Martin Lasser uses the metaphor of dance to describe how he works together with horses. It hardly seems a coincidence that the same comparison is so often used to describe hands-on MBS sessions. In each case, a dialogue takes place through physical interaction.

ttouch logoIn the Tellington Touch Method, as Martin explains it, specific touching techniques are only one half of the equation. The other side is “the philosophy of respect to every living thing” and the gradual development of intuition. He stresses the importance of building up an intuitive sense of what’s needed at a particular moment, beyond learning a menu of maneuvers. “Of course,” he notes, ”you can touch the mouth for emotion and the ears for respiration and the heart… but, if you touch in the right time at the right spot, you can really change a lot.” Martin points out that in dancing, as in riding, someone must lead, but “in a kind way. If you’re a really good leader, you don’t be dominant. If you lead in this way, it will give the horses a lot of trust, so they will follow you because you are good. Not because you are dominant.”

For contrast, Martin points out the military underpinnings of most modern traditions of horsemanship and riding. He notes the historical precedent of a rote learning style, through force and conditioning, as much for horses as for soldiers.

“Of course,” he exclaims, “they used to train soldiers so they should not think so much, because otherwise they wouldn’t go to the war! So they trained them in a certain way, that they don’t think and are really obedient, and do the work without thinking. And so they trained also the horses in this way.”

The approaches offered through MBS as well as Tellington Touch couldn’t offer a more striking contrast. Instead of simply conditioning an animal to respond to an increasing number of commands, the rider engages in a learning process together with the horse.

 

fast_horse_ridingLearning From Your Horse  (And Learning Like A Horse Does)

Most of the riders and instructors I spoke with have been riding for most of their lives, and they each have at least one story of coming to a personal realization, a career change, or a simple riding discovery thanks to the counsel of some four-legged companion. Suzy talks about how her experiences with horses and with MBS helped prepare her for motherhood. When communicating with a newborn baby, she points out:

“You cannot explain what you want in words. You have to do it in feeling and intention. Actually, I learned from MBS how important intention is with people. I knew it from horses, but I hadn’t realized really that when someone touches you, how much their intention matters. From horses, I’d already known.”

This kind of non-verbal interaction isn’t just a necessary means of giving commands or asking questions. Both Wendy and Tessa chime in that often the most direct means for a rider to learn is completely non-verbal. As Wendy puts it, there’s an opportunity in riding, as in MBS and Feldenkrais, to learn “in the way animals learn.”

Wendy notes the widespread tendency to what she calls “frontal lobe”-type thinking, in which we heavily rely on those cognitive functions that horses do without. An example: “Horses look in the mirror and don’t recognize themselves. But they still experience the relationship to the ground, as whether they’re steady or unsteady.” The beauty in learning with a horse, Wendy suggests, is the chance to experience this “different sense of learning about balance. It’s using the parts that horses have, and learning to use them.” After all, she continues, ”if both the horse and rider have a better sense of their connection to the ground, they can get calmer, they can process, they can move. If they’re unsteady, without the sense of stability, then all the other things come in. You get a little off balance, your weight shifts, you’re gone.” Getting too caught up in the “flowery elaboration,” as she puts it, can interfere with the learning process and with your basic connection with your horse, in gravity.

Tessa, too, describes her new teaching and learning style as being more direct, more able to bypass whichever elements turn out to be excess trappings. From early on, she suspected that engaging multiple senses would help her students. She found partial successes as her students learned through looking, feeling, and sometimes even drawing their way to grasping horse physiology and movement. Yet, Tessa continued to come up against some limitation, feeling certain there must be a way the lessons could more fully translate into changes in her students’ riding.

Tessa makes a distinction between an academic orientation and a simpler kind of inquiry, which she sees produce much more lasting results. For example, in an academic approach, it wouldn’t do to point to a place on a horse skeleton and simply say, “Hey, this is an interesting bone!” or ask, “Which way does it move? How does it move?” In the past, she would have felt obliged to explain, “This is an interesting bone because it’s located here on the pelvis, and it corresponds to you there and….” (Which version sparks your curiosity more?)

Tessa adds, “There’s nothing wrong with the academic side. It’s just that at the end, I’m trying to teach [my students] to be better riders, which is about movement. It’s a conversation in movement.” “In the old days,” she considers, “I would have thought that was a roundabout way of saying something.” Now, she finds that saying less and feeling more often proves most accurate and most direct. As she sums it up, paraphrasing something Mia said in a recent course, “The movement teaches. We don’t answer the question – the movement does.”

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Riding With Awareness- Part I

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

While attending a MBS seminar, you may find yourself rolling vigorously on your mat or using your fingertips to gently trace the vertebrae along the back of your neck, perhaps getting a picture of them for the first time. Whatever the lesson’s focus, the learning always uses the movements of the human body as the means of developing one’s awareness. So it may come as a surprise, even to those seasoned in MBS or Feldenkrais work, that the same principles learned through group class, demos and hands-on partner work also find useful application when used with horses and other animals. Whether using touch to enlarge a horse’s awareness of its own body, or leading a class of riders to better understand and refine their own physical organization, both professional and amateur equestrians can benefit from an enriched picture of their own movements and those of their horses.Tessa training

The students who come to MBS courses hail from a diverse range of backgrounds, including performers from the arts and athletics; therapists and coaches who treat both body and mind; as well as many individuals looking to alleviate pain, expand their capacity as learners, or simply enhance their sense of well-being. In the current MBS Foundation Program in Bad Toelz, Germany,  many students come from the world of horseback riding. Now entering their final year of training, they already report changes in how they teach their riding students or train and connect with their horses.

 

Becoming One’s Own Teacher

The riding instructors currently training with MBS identify a primary goal as helping their own students to become more independent. Current student Suzy Van Eijs points to the danger in riders becoming overly reliant on their instructors, those situations where over the course of years “you’re going and going,” unable to achieve the same performance without a trainer standing by. She’s long worked to help riders teach themselves; as she recalls, “I’ve always had the intention of getting them to know themselves and to solve normal daily problems by giving them a place to start.” As Suzy describes it, her original orientation of helping students to become their own problem-solvers has only strengthened through training in the Foundation course. “At first, it was more a gut feeling…. Now I’ve gotten to test it out, with my own body or with horses.”

In order to give them that “place to start”, Suzy has focused on getting her students to refine their sensitivity to differences. “MBS taught me how to see, how to help someone else to see the little differences. Getting to the simple stuff – what’s getting longer, what’s getting shorter? Getting the sensitivity back into the rider’s eye and the horse’s body, that’s a great thing.” She’s also well aware of the challenges she faces, even in presenting something so simple. “Not all students want it, because they want to do the difficult stuff.” She laughs, “I think you have to get the basic movements first, and then the difficult movements aren’t so difficult anymore!”

Wendy Murdoch of the Murdoch Method of Horsemanship

Wendy Murdoch of the Murdoch Method of Horsemanship

Wendy Murdoch, developer of The Murdoch Method of Horseback Riding (http://murdochmethod.com), aims to equip riders to become more responsive, empowered learners. As she puts it, “My goal is not to have them  [the students] dependent on me, but for them to think about it. Instead of just doing what somebody tells them, suddenly, they become their own teacher. You still need the objective observer, but they start to look for themselves. They can see, ‘Oh, I did that…and (the horse) did that!’ Self-investigation rather than the dependency on someone else.”

Riding instructor and current Foundation student Tessa Roos underscores how her students are expanding a sense of independence in their learning. “The important part is not just teaching people the what, why and how of riding skills, but it’s the learning how to learn part.” She contrasts her earlier teaching strategies for unmounted classes with how she conducts them now, noting how much more her students are able to integrate what they learn into their everyday riding:

Tessa horseback riding

Tessa Roos, riding her horse

“In the past, (my students) would get it in the moment itself,  and yet it didn’t change much of how they would look at their horse or the riding or the training. So in the end, it kind of didn’t work. In the moment they understood, but I couldn’t see much change in the way they were riding or thinking about their riding. What I learn at MBS about learning through touch and movement gives me a way to connect thinking and doing that make my classes way more effective .”

Much, as Tessa describes, can be traced back to keeping her approach grounded and focused on simple differences. “What MBS teaches me is how to be learning and feeling in the moment, and then responding to it with simple things- in both my riding and teaching.”

Back to the Beginning

In a group MBS class, students are often prompted to notice how or where they initiate a movement. In the very beginning, right on the cusp between imagination and motion, the entire “DNA” of the movement pattern is already available. In many respects, listening to riding instructors reflect on their continuing development as teachers and riders has been a study in beginnings. Many report that their ongoing studies are dynamically changing how they teach, though often in a way that ultimately brings them closer to underlying principles they had already intuited. Instead of adding complexity to their lessons, they stress the importance of simple, grounded instruction. As they see their own students become increasingly sophisticated and sensitive riders, they often aid the progress by helping to rediscover a sense of playfulness and exploration.

Wendy says of her continuing study with MBS, “I think what it does more than anything is reinforce what I’ve always looked for and given me more tools. I’ve always felt the rider has to be in an organization in gravity that’s going to be efficient and lets the horse do what it needs to do.” As for tools, she praises the grounded techniques that help students stay present, retaining the ‘beginner’s mind’, in Zen-speak. Wendy adds, “That’s the art, staying there, staying present, not abandoning it. That’s the thing that Mia’s work has really helped with, just keeping it simple and keeping very clear parameters that anyone can find.”

Wendy Murdoch

Wendy Murdoch

Suzy, too, describes how her most recent developments in teaching ultimately bring her back to the initial sense of fun and curiosity from her earliest years of riding. Even before joining MBS, she had found tremendous value in starting from scratch when necessary. As an accomplished competitive rider, herself, she hit a point when she “just went back to zero to get myself sorted out, in a way, because I lost my fun. Then, I started off from zero, as far as you can when you’ve been on a horse for fifteen years, doing stuff that you usually do when you’ve been riding for two weeks. So, building up your feeling again. Letting all tension go and seeing, ‘How far can I go when I make this movement without struggling?’” With unmounted group MBS classes, she’s starting to help other riders recognize the benefit in returning to the beginning and exploring from there.

Current MBS student Ulrike Reiffenstein notes how her own riding has changed as she attended Feldenkrais seminars over decades, and now in the Foundation program. Each time she gets on a horse after a seminar, things have changed and she begins freshly. “Every time I get on a horse, it’s new. I have to adjust myself. I have to listen, ‘Okay, what is coming from what is underneath me and how do I react to it? Or what impulse do I give and how does this animal react? How smoothly can I react?”

 

Riding With Gratitude

Ulrike echoes Wendy’s sentiments of the great benefit and privilege of receiving feedback from a horse. “Even people who don’t ride, who don’t want to learn riding, could learn something about their capacity to let go of things,” she suggests. (Within twenty-four hours of our conversation, she has her interviewer on horseback for the first time, in true MBS style, directly demonstrating the difference between conceptual and grounded, somatic learning.) She continues, “in a way, the horse replaces the floor, and that’s another kind of feedback. You can very well feel your ability or your way of receiving feedback. Whether you go with it, whether you don’t notice, whether you follow.”

A sense of gratitude fills the conversations with each of the riders: gratitude to their various teachers, both human and equine. As Ulrike puts it, “What I want in riding is to have a good time with the horse, to be in a good contact with it. That’s what I like. And of course, hopefully, it’s changing the experience for the horse. They are so patient, these animals. And it’s so amazing how willing they are, finally, what they are willing to learn and what they are willing to do.”

Tessa describes working in-hand with a so-called “problem horse”, simply holding “a question in her murdochhands”: “Problem horses are often even more sensitive than other horses, which is what gets them into trouble in the first place. There is major potential for disaster there. But when you get it right with a horse like that, you can get beautiful, beautiful things.  I was just standing next to her, holding the reins and doing nothing more than thinking of a question, and she would go, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and move off exactly as I had asked. At the end, she lightly rested her nose on my hand, which they do if they want to make contact. It feels like a gift.”

Stay tuned to Part II of our Riding with Awareness Series!

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Recovery after Surgery

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

 

The following email correspondance took place between an current Foundation student and MBS Master Trainer, Leora Gaster. This student’s close family member has experienced a trauma to his body and his system triggering pain and challenging adjustments apart from his normal functions. After a complex, and physically enduring surgery, he is now experiencing difficulty with his recovery. Looking for help in this stressful situation, Claudia (name changed for privacy) turned to her instructor for guidance and wisdom.

Hi Leora,

Hope you are keeping well since we last met at snowy Bad Tolz, where I had a great time learning and enjoyed reconnecting.

I am going to be in Australia for about 1 1/2 months and hope that Mind Body Studies can help my brother who is still in hospital recovering from post-heart by-pass surgery problems.

After the surgery, he developed an infection and to aid him to “eat” and “drink” safely, tubes were inserted via his throat. As a consequence, he now can’t swallow food or liquids and has also lost his voice.

My query to you is: could you please refer to me MBS material that could give me a head start? My thought is that I could specifically use what I learnt in Bad Tolz in February.

Appreciate your thoughts,

Claudia

 

Dear Claudia,

I am sorry to hear about your brother’s illness.  It is very difficult for all of you.

First,  do not dwell on the places of difficulty. Look at the whole person!  Look for patterns and connections. Remember what we worked on during all of the seminars in Singapore and also thereafter:  PDQ!  Look at the whole, the Pattern, within it, look for Differences: between sides, between easy and difficult places, between clear and not so clear, and then ask the simplest Questions(this time, with your hands):  feel for soft vs. tight (in the feet, legs, arms, ribs, arms, hands, neck – neck last – as it is so close to the trauma).  If you get the whole system to be more at ease, more in balance, you give it the best chance to find its own best way, its resources.  The system knows how to be well – he was well for a long time and all these cellular, neurological and muscular programmes are still there.  Your job is to remind them.  Remember, you can’t ‘fix’ things, what you can do is to create a framework which will enable him to recover in his best way.  This is what a great teacher is about – not imposing our ideas of how it should be, but getting his own system in its best balance, guiding us together for what to explore and suggest next.

At this time, it is very difficult for him to feel this:  so many interventions, traumas to the body, medication.  Of course it is not easy.  You can bring more ease by focusing, first of all, on the places that are still less hurt.  And remember again:  don’t dwell on the places of pain.  There is so much attention on them already, so much anxiety, too much discomfort.

Look for the easy places; compare side to side and just look for these differences with your hands.  Ask yourself, in your head, as you touch: ‘what is the difference between this side and the other?’ ‘how far does this difference spread?’  ’how come here it is easy to move a little and there less easy here?’  Really get curious and investigative, especially in the areas that are not traumatized.  I think you will find that these areas begin to expand until you can create ease in larger and larger parts of his body.

This not only help get the system to focus on the healing process, but also the easy places remind the others how it was to be well.

You don’t need to ‘know’ anything. Just keep asking simple questions.

Please let me know how you get on with this!

I send you blessings and wishes for calmness.  I am sure it will be great for you to know you can do something – anything – to ease this situation.

Best regards,

Leora

 

Dear Leora,

Thank you for your quick response and I am very touched by the content and care in your email. Your advice in principle is much more useful to me then any specific “movements” to do and less intimidating.

I will keep you in touch with developments.

Thank you warmly,

Claudia

 

You are most welcome.  I wish you strength and courage as you face this time with your brother and I know your love, resourcefulness and sound judgement will prevail and make the best of a most difficult situation.  You are not alone – we, all your friends, are all with you, and waiting to see you again.

Take care of yourself too, it will make you more able to help him, right?

Hugs,

Leora

 

As Leora recommended that Claudia focus on one of the important principles of Mind Body Studies, she reminded her to think back to what she learned during training, about asking simple questions, and finding patterns within the body. This open-mindedness would lead her to let the traumatized system figure out, on its own, how to be recover and adjust to the changes. In situations where we feel helpless and unsure, Leora wanted to remind Claudia that this work does not enable us to ‘fix’ people, but assists them in finding their own way. 

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Judo and Mind Body Studies: The historical connection

Posted on April 15, 2013 by

MBS Academy promotes continuing education in the form of workshops, DVDs, news articles and blog posts to keep our students and practitioners up to date with industry happenings. With the recent inquiries, and forum postings centering around Judo and its relation to Mind Body Studies, we have compiled information to help bridge the gap in understanding the connection and history between the two. 

We hope you enjoy!

martial art banner

An excerpt from our website page on Martial Arts:

“Martial Arts practitioners find great insight in how Dr. Feldenkrais’ MBS work breaks up each movement into the elements of initiation and progression through the system. “

Shared beliefs and principles in action:judo

The ground as feedback-

  • In judo the practice of falling and getting up gives you stability and teaches you not to fear falling, which translates psychologically into life lessons in all your endeavors.
  • In MBS, contact with the ground is utilized as your feedback system, giving you the ultimate autonomy and confidence of being your own best teacher.
  • The concept of learning to befriend the ground and not fear falling builds a fundamental sense of balance and security. This safeguards you throughout life from losing your balance and is hugely important in older age.

The study of balance

  • Martial Arts and MBS are a studies of the integration of movement.
  • In both disciplines you learn how to return to your center and keep your balance intact.
  • Working with a counterpart teaches you by providing another perspective on yourself.
  • The play of balance – Looking for key places that affect patterns of movement.
  • As you get to know yourself and value your center and balance, you find respect and value in others.
  • By finding your center and balance, you are able to move in many new directions physically and psychologically.

Integration and congruence of movement

  • Congruence of direction primes the system so that all parts move with the same intention.
  • Going with your opponents’ direction in order to get to a desired outcome. In Judo, you take your opponent out of balance by learning to be precise with direction. In MBS, you move yourself or your client in their way and pattern, in order to expand possibilities.
  • Through learning about your counterpart’s balance and organization, you learn to know your own.

Patterns and Precision

  • Finding and working in patterns defines connections within each system.
  • Learning precision in each pattern provides keys to unlocking the possibilities.
  • Precision is the key factor in getting you more results than power or size.

Combining these principles in action, from both points of view and both techniques, strengthen each and adds competence and depth to your practice and your life.

 

As for the connection between Judo and MBS Academy, Leora tells us how she was first introduced to Judo:Mia, Leora and Moshe-10

 “[Moshe] often pointed out the limited ways of conventional teaching – based in so many words, children sitting still and required to memorize rather than understand, never involved or taught by real experience.

 Teachings and philosophies of the East were very avant-guard.  No one knew about martial arts – and Moshe was a great Judo teacher and at home we studied Judo from a young age.  Today it is hard to imagine how closed were people’s thoughts.”

How Mia was introduced to Judo:

“Moshe had told wonderful stories about his experiences in judo. He was a great story teller, and he had so many amazing experiences.”

 “I began to study judo by getting a copy of Moshe’s book on judo. A very good friend of mine from Australia was also interested in the martial arts; and, together, on the living room carpet, we followed the exercises laid out sequentially in Moshe’s book. The next day, I could not walk, nor could my friend, who commented, “My whole back is split near the tailbone.” Of course, I was in equal agony.

            Later, I said to Moshe, ‘Your book and your teaching – just look what happened!’

He retorted, ‘You must be stupid to think you can learn judo that way. You need a proper mat and the right teacher.’ “Mia, Leora and Moshe-13

 

An excerpt from the interview by Thomas Hanna with Mia Segal for Somatics Magazine:

When asked how Judo influenced her learning and how it led to her stance on teaching Mind Body Studies, Mia replied:

“The ]apanese master’s traditional style of teaching was new to me. For example, I found out immediately not to ask questions–that I was to copy…copy…just copy…You had to get the feeling of the whole thing yourself. If you asked a master how to do a certain movement, he would reply “I do not know. One minute…”; and then he would do the movement in order to demonstrate it. He never explained; he just did the movement, saying, “It’s like this…and like this … ” It was similar to the way Moshe taught me: you felt it; you knew it-except that Moshe would then discuss it.”

Mia, Leora and Moshe-11Mia, Leora and Moshe-12

The above pictures are of Leora Gaster practicing Judo in Japan. Leora was the first non-Japanese female student to earn her black belt in Judo.

Please feel free to view our complete photo gallery of Mia and Leora’s experiences in Japan and of learning Judo.

Mind Body Studies and Judo: Video

Below is a video about Mind Body Studies and Judo, which is also uploaded to our Facebook page:

Judo and Mind Body Studies

Coming soon: a more in depth look at who influenced Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Mia Segal and Leora Gaster while studying and living in Japan.
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An interview with Patty, MBS Trainer

Posted on April 9, 2013 by

MBS Trainer, Patty Underwood, will soon be bringing the MBS program to South Africa, where she will teach two introductory public workshops in September 2013. From her home in Fairfax, California, Patty answered questions on the upcoming workshops in South Africa and the influences Mia and Leora have had on her, both professionally and personally.

Patty Underwood 

MBS:      During a recent Foundation Training in Bad Toelz, Mia recounted her wonderful story about speaking with Moshe after she’d first watched him work. He asked if she had any questions; she assured him that she had many, but certainly more than he would have time for just then. After all, there were others waiting for him. And then, when Mia tells the story, she really stresses how well she can still hear his response today: “If you know the right question… it will only take a minute! View: ‘The Art of Questioning’ video. 

During the course of your own training, what are the really decisive moments or particular touchstones that you regularly recall?

Patty:     I still vividly remember the first FI that Mia gave me. I was attending a training that she gave in Berkeley, and I really don’t know what got into me, but somehow I got the idea that I wanted to feel “the Master’s hands”! I’m not normally the type of person who just goes up and asks to feel somebody’s hands. But, as it turned out, I was very fortunate, as at the end of the training, Mia demonstrated FI for the group – on me. I still remember it so clearly. It was completely different from anything I had ever experienced before – and I had already done a good deal of training by this time! Mia had such absolute clarity and curiosity in how she asked my body questions, or rather, how she asked me questions, using her hands. It was such a clear and direct conversation of discovery, which I could feel going all the way through my body.

I’m friends with some people who were there at the time, and they still chuckle at my expression when I stood up afterwards. I was blown away. I could move without pain!

MBS:      Was that when you decided to begin training with Mia and Leora?

Patty:     Yes, this was the missing piece for me. It was after that that I started doing the Post Graduate Training, which was a sequence of 30 days. And then, as you know, I continued on to the Master Practitioner Training, followed by the Trainer’s Training.

MBS:      From your days as a student, to now as a Trainer, have you found that any particular strategies or pearls of advice have proven most helpful to your development and to your understanding of this work?

Patty:     One of the brilliant things I have found about working with Mia and Leora through all of these trainings is that over the years, Mia and Leora have discussed together what is important in this work. Mia tends to be intuitive while Leora tends to be analytical. Leora has come up with what I call a schematic, through her own experience and through working with Moshe and Mia. Both Mia and Leora continue to practice, develop and teach what they learned directly from Moshe. Together, they have created an incredibly clear curriculum.

“Bringing this work to Africa is very important to me. The opportunities open to people elsewhere in the world should also be available to Africa and other developing regions.”

MBS:       From your days as a student to now, as a Trainer, have you found that any particular strategies or pearls of advice have have proven most helpful to your development and to your understanding of this work?

Patty:     Being inquisitive. Really, it’s all about approaching life with an attitude of curiosity, without any agenda, and with openness for discovering when you’re working with someone. MBS keeps everything so clear and simple that it actually becomes really easy to identify the next question to ask with your hands.

I’ve really found that Mia and Leora have developed a way of teaching ATMs that is just remarkably clear. Students really learn, from the beginning, how ATMs and FIs are two sides of the same coin.

MBS:      Could you talk a bit about how the idea for these South Africa workshops came about, and your hopes for the trainings there?

Patty:     You know, I often think of Moshe’s quote, “Health is the ability to realize our avowed and unavowed dreams.” For me, getting this training together is a part of my dream. I love Africa, I’d love to bring something back to Africa, and I don’t see why it’s not possible! I would just like to see the opportunity for people, that the MBS teaching could go around the world. In Africa, people are open to new ideas, they love creativity, and they don’t generally have the same opportunities for continuing education the way that you do in the United States or Europe. For a long time, I’ve thought how fantastic it would be if we could bring our kind of a training to Africa.

These public introductory workshops are both going to be in September, one in Gauteng and one in Cape Town. If the interest is there, we could eventually start a full Foundation Training program. There’s such a rich diversity and culture, and such extraordinary beauty there.Principle Diagram

MBS:      I know that you have a very extensive professional background in multiple therapeutic and medical modalities, with ongoing practices in CranioSacral Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Lymphatic Drainage/Lymphedema Therapy. Could you talk a bit about what’s it’s like for you to work with so many methods, and how MBS fits into the picture?

Patty:     Yes! Often, I work with people who have had node removal due to cancer treatment, which results in edema of the limbs. Alongside the Lymphatic Therapy used for those cases, very often I teach these people how they can use principles from ATM to improve lymphatic flow.

I also do assistant training in both CranioSacral and the Lymph curricula for IAHE (The International Alliance of Healthcare Educators). As part of that, I recently taught a group how to use some strategies from MBS to complement their work. Of course, when somebody comes to me specifically for CranioSacral work, that’s what we do. But, I’d say that with every person, I end up using some aspect or quality of the MBS work.

In fact, I had an extremely interesting experience recently. I worked together with another CranioSacral Therapist, both of us working with one client at the same time. As you know, in our MBS Foundation Training, we’ll often work in groups of three, with one person at the feet and another at the head of the third partner, all of them learning to be in touch with one another – to be connected in a unified movement. We did something very similar, in which I used FI while she used CranioSacral Therapy. We were able to have a very clear and very useful “conversation” – and the client noticed the difference.

“The more aware of yourself, your organization and your self-image you are, the more your work is enhanced.”

MBS:      For professionals coming from various backgrounds, including many from therapeutic as well as performance-oriented fields, how do you think that learning from MBS can complement their own practices?

Patty:     It’s made such a huge difference in my life, both personally and professionally. In my Occupational Therapy and Lymphatic and CranioSacral background, I’ve seen how using the MBS work can improve people’s function and their quality of life. Whatever your skill set, this can enhance it, whether that means you’re making better use of your own body, changing how you think about what you’re teaching your clients, or whether it changes your speech and language. Whether it’s for Physical Therapy, Occupational therapy, rehabilitation, or for performance, music, sports: in each of these fields, the more aware of yourself, of your organization and of your self-image you are, the more your work is enhanced.

MBS:      Mia and Leora regularly focus on curiosity as an underpinning of this work, and it’s something you’ve brought up a good deal, too. Is there anything in particular that you are curious about lately, or that is just really surprising you?

Patty:     The thing I’m playing with at the moment is really about the many different layers and levels in this work. It isn’t just about lying on the floor and moving! It is about how you introduce these many layers and levels while your students are doing a movement, whether at a training or in your own ATM class. How many different ways can you say something without giving away the information, so that those doing the movement discover this for themselves?

This may sound very simple, but it’s actually not so simple. It is complex and we, as teachers are learning to make it appear simple.

“This method isn’t about fixing. It really is about ongoing human potential and about learning. It’s a method about finding patterns, noticing differences and asking questions.”

MBS:      Your teaching and assisting for MBS has you regularly flying around the world. When the person sitting beside you on your next flight asks that question, “So, what do you do?”, what’s your favorite way to answer?

Patty:     (Laughter.) Well, it’s interesting – it really depends. And I think one really has to gauge it. So, if you say, I’m going off to train people in Mind Body Studies, they may say “What?” and just kind of switch off, as far as I can tell. But, if I get chatting with somebody and it would prove interesting or useful to them, then I can start talking about the subject so that it’s relevant to their life. That’s really how I like to do it. You may not believe this, but I’m actually quite a shy bird!

Sometimes, I’ll get into the conversation of how, actually, it’s a method of learning. It’s using movement, it’s looking at your habits – it’s about human potential.

One thing that is really clear, especially when you study with MBS, is that this isn’t about fixing. It really is about ongoing human potential and about learning. It’s a method of questions:  finding patterns, noticing differences and asking questions. Being very precise, being very simple and being very clear and curious!

MBS:      One last question, could you talk about what students can expect at these workshops?

Patty:    We keep everything very clear in these introductory workshops, so people can sense and feel the differences. You want to give lessons in such a way that people notice when they stand up at the end, that there are differences.

_____________________________________________________________________

Patty has studied under Mia Segal and Leora Gaster at MBS Academy since 2005, completing the Master Practitioner Program in 2011 and continuing with the Trainer’s Training. She has now joined the MBS Academy faculty.

A Feldenkrais Practitioner for 15 years, graduating from the FGNA (Feldenkrais Guild of North America) 1998 training, Patty has studied extensively with other trainers in the United States. She has assisted in or taught workshops and trainings in USA, Thailand, Singapore, Germany, and Zimbabwe. Patty is also a Certified Teaching Assistant in both CranioSacral Therapy and Lymph Drainage Therapy and assists regularly with International Health Alliance Educators. Read Patty’s full bio here:  http:www.iahp.com/pattyunderwood

To Contact Patty, email her at: Zimbo1@earthlink.net

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Riding with Awareness- Part II

Posted on May 29, 2013 by

In the second part of this blog  series, we continue our conversation with MBS students involved in horseback riding and riding instruction. In this installment, Tellington Touch Practitioner and riding instructor Martin Lasser joins in the conversation.

 “You have to be there, open with them, and if you’re not, they will tell you. It’s a great way of knowing your mind, to be in this mindset. If you’re not, the animal will take off!” – Suzy Van Eijs

In the course of interviewing multiple riders and riding instructors, one particular horse fact kept coming up. Though it first seemed simply to be a stunning bit of trivia, by the end of our conversations, it became clear how central this little piece of information was to understanding horses and the people who really get to know them: It turns out, horses can feel a fly land anywhere on their bodies. A horse may weigh a thousand pounds, but it has an image of its body that’s dazzlingly detailed. As MBS student Suzy Van Eijs points out, “It’s not that because a horse is big, it has no feeling of its body. It’s actually very subtle.” As the various equestrians and teachers emphasized how much they learn from their horses, the skill they seem most to share with their equine partners, and most to value, is sensitivity.

 

Better Listening For Better RidingIMG_3556

Each of the current MBS students I spoke with noted how their experiences in MBS and with Feldenkrais have refined their perceptiveness, both internally and in the world around them. In describing what has most enhanced her riding, Ulrike Reiffenstein first notes the change in how she perceives her own body in relation to the horse. Through attending Feldenkrais workshops over many years, and now participating in the Foundation course, she reports, “I’m more aware of all of these connections through my body, and that helps in riding, that’s obvious.”

Certainly, with heightened sensitivity, a rider can better respond to a horse’s feedback. And that’s huge when you’re asking an animal five or ten times your size to perform highly complex maneuvers. While plenty of lip service is paid to the benefits of increasing awareness and improving one’s connection to the horse, MBS students who ride point out the importance of really learning to focus on simple, concrete differences in movements. That skill forms a foundation for what can become a deeply nuanced, intuitive interaction through extremely complicated feats. In essence, the rider learns to break down the horse’s feedback – a massive amount of information – into discrete, observable chunks. With practice, riders pick up on feedback of ever increasing subtlety.

The Murdoch Method

The Murdoch Method

Wendy Murdoch, founder of the Murdoch Method and returning MBS student, contrasts such a grounded approach with the vague kind of advice she finds that riders receive all too often from well-intentioned instructors. She explains, “People tell them that their movements influence the horse, but they don’t say how.  It’s about your connection to the ground and how that moves through your body so the horse gets the message.”

Ulrike identifies the changes in her sense of her own body in extremely specific terms, since she first began attending Feldenkrais workshops:

“I notice it makes a big difference for riding a horse if you feel your pelvis as one thing, or if you feel that these bones you sit on, these sitting bones, as two halves and how they move, not separately, but in relation to one another. That changed  my riding a lot. And still, there are situations when I get some stress or something, and the first thing that happens is that I contract the muscles in the pelvis, and then you lose the clear contact to he horse.”

As Ulrike describes her development as a rider, she notes, “My whole body is softer and more…” She pauses, searching for the English word for dürchlassig. A German-English dictionary only offers up “permeable,” though a strictly literal translation would be something like “letting it go through.” As Ulrike becomes more aware of the connections throughout her body, impulses from the horse can “go through” more easily. Getting quieter makes it easier to listen.

 

Dance or Domination

Riding instructor and current Foundation student Tessa Roos describes a recent interaction with a horse that took place entirely through nonverbal questions. “I used these very simple things that they teach us at MBS: just putting your hands there with a question. With a question in my head, I went, ‘Where does this go?’” With one hand on the horse’s sternum and one on the withers, she engaged the horse in a mutual exploration, simply asking “Where is your sternum?” By the end of the session, Tessa found dramatic changes not only in the horse’s movements, but in how the horse related to her, and in the sheer eagerness to follow Tessa’s continuing line of questions, as well as her requests.

martinTo be sure, when a rider introduces this questioning approach with a horse, instead of solely giving commands, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the horse takes over. Tellington Touch practitioner and riding instructor Martin Lasser uses the metaphor of dance to describe how he works together with horses. It hardly seems a coincidence that the same comparison is so often used to describe hands-on MBS sessions. In each case, a dialogue takes place through physical interaction.

ttouch logoIn the Tellington Touch Method, as Martin explains it, specific touching techniques are only one half of the equation. The other side is “the philosophy of respect to every living thing” and the gradual development of intuition. He stresses the importance of building up an intuitive sense of what’s needed at a particular moment, beyond learning a menu of maneuvers. “Of course,” he notes, ”you can touch the mouth for emotion and the ears for respiration and the heart… but, if you touch in the right time at the right spot, you can really change a lot.” Martin points out that in dancing, as in riding, someone must lead, but “in a kind way. If you’re a really good leader, you don’t be dominant. If you lead in this way, it will give the horses a lot of trust, so they will follow you because you are good. Not because you are dominant.”

For contrast, Martin points out the military underpinnings of most modern traditions of horsemanship and riding. He notes the historical precedent of a rote learning style, through force and conditioning, as much for horses as for soldiers.

“Of course,” he exclaims, “they used to train soldiers so they should not think so much, because otherwise they wouldn’t go to the war! So they trained them in a certain way, that they don’t think and are really obedient, and do the work without thinking. And so they trained also the horses in this way.”

The approaches offered through MBS as well as Tellington Touch couldn’t offer a more striking contrast. Instead of simply conditioning an animal to respond to an increasing number of commands, the rider engages in a learning process together with the horse.

 

fast_horse_ridingLearning From Your Horse  (And Learning Like A Horse Does)

Most of the riders and instructors I spoke with have been riding for most of their lives, and they each have at least one story of coming to a personal realization, a career change, or a simple riding discovery thanks to the counsel of some four-legged companion. Suzy talks about how her experiences with horses and with MBS helped prepare her for motherhood. When communicating with a newborn baby, she points out:

“You cannot explain what you want in words. You have to do it in feeling and intention. Actually, I learned from MBS how important intention is with people. I knew it from horses, but I hadn’t realized really that when someone touches you, how much their intention matters. From horses, I’d already known.”

This kind of non-verbal interaction isn’t just a necessary means of giving commands or asking questions. Both Wendy and Tessa chime in that often the most direct means for a rider to learn is completely non-verbal. As Wendy puts it, there’s an opportunity in riding, as in MBS and Feldenkrais, to learn “in the way animals learn.”

Wendy notes the widespread tendency to what she calls “frontal lobe”-type thinking, in which we heavily rely on those cognitive functions that horses do without. An example: “Horses look in the mirror and don’t recognize themselves. But they still experience the relationship to the ground, as whether they’re steady or unsteady.” The beauty in learning with a horse, Wendy suggests, is the chance to experience this “different sense of learning about balance. It’s using the parts that horses have, and learning to use them.” After all, she continues, ”if both the horse and rider have a better sense of their connection to the ground, they can get calmer, they can process, they can move. If they’re unsteady, without the sense of stability, then all the other things come in. You get a little off balance, your weight shifts, you’re gone.” Getting too caught up in the “flowery elaboration,” as she puts it, can interfere with the learning process and with your basic connection with your horse, in gravity.

Tessa, too, describes her new teaching and learning style as being more direct, more able to bypass whichever elements turn out to be excess trappings. From early on, she suspected that engaging multiple senses would help her students. She found partial successes as her students learned through looking, feeling, and sometimes even drawing their way to grasping horse physiology and movement. Yet, Tessa continued to come up against some limitation, feeling certain there must be a way the lessons could more fully translate into changes in her students’ riding.

Tessa makes a distinction between an academic orientation and a simpler kind of inquiry, which she sees produce much more lasting results. For example, in an academic approach, it wouldn’t do to point to a place on a horse skeleton and simply say, “Hey, this is an interesting bone!” or ask, “Which way does it move? How does it move?” In the past, she would have felt obliged to explain, “This is an interesting bone because it’s located here on the pelvis, and it corresponds to you there and….” (Which version sparks your curiosity more?)

Tessa adds, “There’s nothing wrong with the academic side. It’s just that at the end, I’m trying to teach [my students] to be better riders, which is about movement. It’s a conversation in movement.” “In the old days,” she considers, “I would have thought that was a roundabout way of saying something.” Now, she finds that saying less and feeling more often proves most accurate and most direct. As she sums it up, paraphrasing something Mia said in a recent course, “The movement teaches. We don’t answer the question – the movement does.”

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Riding With Awareness- Part I

Posted on May 10, 2013 by

While attending a MBS seminar, you may find yourself rolling vigorously on your mat or using your fingertips to gently trace the vertebrae along the back of your neck, perhaps getting a picture of them for the first time. Whatever the lesson’s focus, the learning always uses the movements of the human body as the means of developing one’s awareness. So it may come as a surprise, even to those seasoned in MBS or Feldenkrais work, that the same principles learned through group class, demos and hands-on partner work also find useful application when used with horses and other animals. Whether using touch to enlarge a horse’s awareness of its own body, or leading a class of riders to better understand and refine their own physical organization, both professional and amateur equestrians can benefit from an enriched picture of their own movements and those of their horses.Tessa training

The students who come to MBS courses hail from a diverse range of backgrounds, including performers from the arts and athletics; therapists and coaches who treat both body and mind; as well as many individuals looking to alleviate pain, expand their capacity as learners, or simply enhance their sense of well-being. In the current MBS Foundation Program in Bad Toelz, Germany,  many students come from the world of horseback riding. Now entering their final year of training, they already report changes in how they teach their riding students or train and connect with their horses.

 

Becoming One’s Own Teacher

The riding instructors currently training with MBS identify a primary goal as helping their own students to become more independent. Current student Suzy Van Eijs points to the danger in riders becoming overly reliant on their instructors, those situations where over the course of years “you’re going and going,” unable to achieve the same performance without a trainer standing by. She’s long worked to help riders teach themselves; as she recalls, “I’ve always had the intention of getting them to know themselves and to solve normal daily problems by giving them a place to start.” As Suzy describes it, her original orientation of helping students to become their own problem-solvers has only strengthened through training in the Foundation course. “At first, it was more a gut feeling…. Now I’ve gotten to test it out, with my own body or with horses.”

In order to give them that “place to start”, Suzy has focused on getting her students to refine their sensitivity to differences. “MBS taught me how to see, how to help someone else to see the little differences. Getting to the simple stuff – what’s getting longer, what’s getting shorter? Getting the sensitivity back into the rider’s eye and the horse’s body, that’s a great thing.” She’s also well aware of the challenges she faces, even in presenting something so simple. “Not all students want it, because they want to do the difficult stuff.” She laughs, “I think you have to get the basic movements first, and then the difficult movements aren’t so difficult anymore!”

Wendy Murdoch of the Murdoch Method of Horsemanship

Wendy Murdoch of the Murdoch Method of Horsemanship

Wendy Murdoch, developer of The Murdoch Method of Horseback Riding (http://murdochmethod.com), aims to equip riders to become more responsive, empowered learners. As she puts it, “My goal is not to have them  [the students] dependent on me, but for them to think about it. Instead of just doing what somebody tells them, suddenly, they become their own teacher. You still need the objective observer, but they start to look for themselves. They can see, ‘Oh, I did that…and (the horse) did that!’ Self-investigation rather than the dependency on someone else.”

Riding instructor and current Foundation student Tessa Roos underscores how her students are expanding a sense of independence in their learning. “The important part is not just teaching people the what, why and how of riding skills, but it’s the learning how to learn part.” She contrasts her earlier teaching strategies for unmounted classes with how she conducts them now, noting how much more her students are able to integrate what they learn into their everyday riding:

Tessa horseback riding

Tessa Roos, riding her horse

“In the past, (my students) would get it in the moment itself,  and yet it didn’t change much of how they would look at their horse or the riding or the training. So in the end, it kind of didn’t work. In the moment they understood, but I couldn’t see much change in the way they were riding or thinking about their riding. What I learn at MBS about learning through touch and movement gives me a way to connect thinking and doing that make my classes way more effective .”

Much, as Tessa describes, can be traced back to keeping her approach grounded and focused on simple differences. “What MBS teaches me is how to be learning and feeling in the moment, and then responding to it with simple things- in both my riding and teaching.”

Back to the Beginning

In a group MBS class, students are often prompted to notice how or where they initiate a movement. In the very beginning, right on the cusp between imagination and motion, the entire “DNA” of the movement pattern is already available. In many respects, listening to riding instructors reflect on their continuing development as teachers and riders has been a study in beginnings. Many report that their ongoing studies are dynamically changing how they teach, though often in a way that ultimately brings them closer to underlying principles they had already intuited. Instead of adding complexity to their lessons, they stress the importance of simple, grounded instruction. As they see their own students become increasingly sophisticated and sensitive riders, they often aid the progress by helping to rediscover a sense of playfulness and exploration.

Wendy says of her continuing study with MBS, “I think what it does more than anything is reinforce what I’ve always looked for and given me more tools. I’ve always felt the rider has to be in an organization in gravity that’s going to be efficient and lets the horse do what it needs to do.” As for tools, she praises the grounded techniques that help students stay present, retaining the ‘beginner’s mind’, in Zen-speak. Wendy adds, “That’s the art, staying there, staying present, not abandoning it. That’s the thing that Mia’s work has really helped with, just keeping it simple and keeping very clear parameters that anyone can find.”

Wendy Murdoch

Wendy Murdoch

Suzy, too, describes how her most recent developments in teaching ultimately bring her back to the initial sense of fun and curiosity from her earliest years of riding. Even before joining MBS, she had found tremendous value in starting from scratch when necessary. As an accomplished competitive rider, herself, she hit a point when she “just went back to zero to get myself sorted out, in a way, because I lost my fun. Then, I started off from zero, as far as you can when you’ve been on a horse for fifteen years, doing stuff that you usually do when you’ve been riding for two weeks. So, building up your feeling again. Letting all tension go and seeing, ‘How far can I go when I make this movement without struggling?’” With unmounted group MBS classes, she’s starting to help other riders recognize the benefit in returning to the beginning and exploring from there.

Current MBS student Ulrike Reiffenstein notes how her own riding has changed as she attended Feldenkrais seminars over decades, and now in the Foundation program. Each time she gets on a horse after a seminar, things have changed and she begins freshly. “Every time I get on a horse, it’s new. I have to adjust myself. I have to listen, ‘Okay, what is coming from what is underneath me and how do I react to it? Or what impulse do I give and how does this animal react? How smoothly can I react?”

 

Riding With Gratitude

Ulrike echoes Wendy’s sentiments of the great benefit and privilege of receiving feedback from a horse. “Even people who don’t ride, who don’t want to learn riding, could learn something about their capacity to let go of things,” she suggests. (Within twenty-four hours of our conversation, she has her interviewer on horseback for the first time, in true MBS style, directly demonstrating the difference between conceptual and grounded, somatic learning.) She continues, “in a way, the horse replaces the floor, and that’s another kind of feedback. You can very well feel your ability or your way of receiving feedback. Whether you go with it, whether you don’t notice, whether you follow.”

A sense of gratitude fills the conversations with each of the riders: gratitude to their various teachers, both human and equine. As Ulrike puts it, “What I want in riding is to have a good time with the horse, to be in a good contact with it. That’s what I like. And of course, hopefully, it’s changing the experience for the horse. They are so patient, these animals. And it’s so amazing how willing they are, finally, what they are willing to learn and what they are willing to do.”

Tessa describes working in-hand with a so-called “problem horse”, simply holding “a question in her murdochhands”: “Problem horses are often even more sensitive than other horses, which is what gets them into trouble in the first place. There is major potential for disaster there. But when you get it right with a horse like that, you can get beautiful, beautiful things.  I was just standing next to her, holding the reins and doing nothing more than thinking of a question, and she would go, ‘Yeah, sure,’ and move off exactly as I had asked. At the end, she lightly rested her nose on my hand, which they do if they want to make contact. It feels like a gift.”

Stay tuned to Part II of our Riding with Awareness Series!

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Recovery after Surgery

Posted on May 2, 2013 by

 

The following email correspondance took place between an current Foundation student and MBS Master Trainer, Leora Gaster. This student’s close family member has experienced a trauma to his body and his system triggering pain and challenging adjustments apart from his normal functions. After a complex, and physically enduring surgery, he is now experiencing difficulty with his recovery. Looking for help in this stressful situation, Claudia (name changed for privacy) turned to her instructor for guidance and wisdom.

Hi Leora,

Hope you are keeping well since we last met at snowy Bad Tolz, where I had a great time learning and enjoyed reconnecting.

I am going to be in Australia for about 1 1/2 months and hope that Mind Body Studies can help my brother who is still in hospital recovering from post-heart by-pass surgery problems.

After the surgery, he developed an infection and to aid him to “eat” and “drink” safely, tubes were inserted via his throat. As a consequence, he now can’t swallow food or liquids and has also lost his voice.

My query to you is: could you please refer to me MBS material that could give me a head start? My thought is that I could specifically use what I learnt in Bad Tolz in February.

Appreciate your thoughts,

Claudia

 

Dear Claudia,

I am sorry to hear about your brother’s illness.  It is very difficult for all of you.

First,  do not dwell on the places of difficulty. Look at the whole person!  Look for patterns and connections. Remember what we worked on during all of the seminars in Singapore and also thereafter:  PDQ!  Look at the whole, the Pattern, within it, look for Differences: between sides, between easy and difficult places, between clear and not so clear, and then ask the simplest Questions(this time, with your hands):  feel for soft vs. tight (in the feet, legs, arms, ribs, arms, hands, neck – neck last – as it is so close to the trauma).  If you get the whole system to be more at ease, more in balance, you give it the best chance to find its own best way, its resources.  The system knows how to be well – he was well for a long time and all these cellular, neurological and muscular programmes are still there.  Your job is to remind them.  Remember, you can’t ‘fix’ things, what you can do is to create a framework which will enable him to recover in his best way.  This is what a great teacher is about – not imposing our ideas of how it should be, but getting his own system in its best balance, guiding us together for what to explore and suggest next.

At this time, it is very difficult for him to feel this:  so many interventions, traumas to the body, medication.  Of course it is not easy.  You can bring more ease by focusing, first of all, on the places that are still less hurt.  And remember again:  don’t dwell on the places of pain.  There is so much attention on them already, so much anxiety, too much discomfort.

Look for the easy places; compare side to side and just look for these differences with your hands.  Ask yourself, in your head, as you touch: ‘what is the difference between this side and the other?’ ‘how far does this difference spread?’  ’how come here it is easy to move a little and there less easy here?’  Really get curious and investigative, especially in the areas that are not traumatized.  I think you will find that these areas begin to expand until you can create ease in larger and larger parts of his body.

This not only help get the system to focus on the healing process, but also the easy places remind the others how it was to be well.

You don’t need to ‘know’ anything. Just keep asking simple questions.

Please let me know how you get on with this!

I send you blessings and wishes for calmness.  I am sure it will be great for you to know you can do something – anything – to ease this situation.

Best regards,

Leora

 

Dear Leora,

Thank you for your quick response and I am very touched by the content and care in your email. Your advice in principle is much more useful to me then any specific “movements” to do and less intimidating.

I will keep you in touch with developments.

Thank you warmly,

Claudia

 

You are most welcome.  I wish you strength and courage as you face this time with your brother and I know your love, resourcefulness and sound judgement will prevail and make the best of a most difficult situation.  You are not alone – we, all your friends, are all with you, and waiting to see you again.

Take care of yourself too, it will make you more able to help him, right?

Hugs,

Leora

 

As Leora recommended that Claudia focus on one of the important principles of Mind Body Studies, she reminded her to think back to what she learned during training, about asking simple questions, and finding patterns within the body. This open-mindedness would lead her to let the traumatized system figure out, on its own, how to be recover and adjust to the changes. In situations where we feel helpless and unsure, Leora wanted to remind Claudia that this work does not enable us to ‘fix’ people, but assists them in finding their own way. 

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Judo and Mind Body Studies: The historical connection

Posted on April 15, 2013 by

MBS Academy promotes continuing education in the form of workshops, DVDs, news articles and blog posts to keep our students and practitioners up to date with industry happenings. With the recent inquiries, and forum postings centering around Judo and its relation to Mind Body Studies, we have compiled information to help bridge the gap in understanding the connection and history between the two. 

We hope you enjoy!

martial art banner

An excerpt from our website page on Martial Arts:

“Martial Arts practitioners find great insight in how Dr. Feldenkrais’ MBS work breaks up each movement into the elements of initiation and progression through the system. “

Shared beliefs and principles in action:judo

The ground as feedback-

  • In judo the practice of falling and getting up gives you stability and teaches you not to fear falling, which translates psychologically into life lessons in all your endeavors.
  • In MBS, contact with the ground is utilized as your feedback system, giving you the ultimate autonomy and confidence of being your own best teacher.
  • The concept of learning to befriend the ground and not fear falling builds a fundamental sense of balance and security. This safeguards you throughout life from losing your balance and is hugely important in older age.

The study of balance

  • Martial Arts and MBS are a studies of the integration of movement.
  • In both disciplines you learn how to return to your center and keep your balance intact.
  • Working with a counterpart teaches you by providing another perspective on yourself.
  • The play of balance – Looking for key places that affect patterns of movement.
  • As you get to know yourself and value your center and balance, you find respect and value in others.
  • By finding your center and balance, you are able to move in many new directions physically and psychologically.

Integration and congruence of movement

  • Congruence of direction primes the system so that all parts move with the same intention.
  • Going with your opponents’ direction in order to get to a desired outcome. In Judo, you take your opponent out of balance by learning to be precise with direction. In MBS, you move yourself or your client in their way and pattern, in order to expand possibilities.
  • Through learning about your counterpart’s balance and organization, you learn to know your own.

Patterns and Precision

  • Finding and working in patterns defines connections within each system.
  • Learning precision in each pattern provides keys to unlocking the possibilities.
  • Precision is the key factor in getting you more results than power or size.

Combining these principles in action, from both points of view and both techniques, strengthen each and adds competence and depth to your practice and your life.

 

As for the connection between Judo and MBS Academy, Leora tells us how she was first introduced to Judo:Mia, Leora and Moshe-10

 “[Moshe] often pointed out the limited ways of conventional teaching – based in so many words, children sitting still and required to memorize rather than understand, never involved or taught by real experience.

 Teachings and philosophies of the East were very avant-guard.  No one knew about martial arts – and Moshe was a great Judo teacher and at home we studied Judo from a young age.  Today it is hard to imagine how closed were people’s thoughts.”

How Mia was introduced to Judo:

“Moshe had told wonderful stories about his experiences in judo. He was a great story teller, and he had so many amazing experiences.”

 “I began to study judo by getting a copy of Moshe’s book on judo. A very good friend of mine from Australia was also interested in the martial arts; and, together, on the living room carpet, we followed the exercises laid out sequentially in Moshe’s book. The next day, I could not walk, nor could my friend, who commented, “My whole back is split near the tailbone.” Of course, I was in equal agony.

            Later, I said to Moshe, ‘Your book and your teaching – just look what happened!’

He retorted, ‘You must be stupid to think you can learn judo that way. You need a proper mat and the right teacher.’ “Mia, Leora and Moshe-13

 

An excerpt from the interview by Thomas Hanna with Mia Segal for Somatics Magazine:

When asked how Judo influenced her learning and how it led to her stance on teaching Mind Body Studies, Mia replied:

“The ]apanese master’s traditional style of teaching was new to me. For example, I found out immediately not to ask questions–that I was to copy…copy…just copy…You had to get the feeling of the whole thing yourself. If you asked a master how to do a certain movement, he would reply “I do not know. One minute…”; and then he would do the movement in order to demonstrate it. He never explained; he just did the movement, saying, “It’s like this…and like this … ” It was similar to the way Moshe taught me: you felt it; you knew it-except that Moshe would then discuss it.”

Mia, Leora and Moshe-11Mia, Leora and Moshe-12

The above pictures are of Leora Gaster practicing Judo in Japan. Leora was the first non-Japanese female student to earn her black belt in Judo.

Please feel free to view our complete photo gallery of Mia and Leora’s experiences in Japan and of learning Judo.

Mind Body Studies and Judo: Video

Below is a video about Mind Body Studies and Judo, which is also uploaded to our Facebook page:

Judo and Mind Body Studies

Coming soon: a more in depth look at who influenced Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, Mia Segal and Leora Gaster while studying and living in Japan.
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An interview with Patty, MBS Trainer

Posted on April 9, 2013 by

MBS Trainer, Patty Underwood, will soon be bringing the MBS program to South Africa, where she will teach two introductory public workshops in September 2013. From her home in Fairfax, California, Patty answered questions on the upcoming workshops in South Africa and the influences Mia and Leora have had on her, both professionally and personally.

Patty Underwood 

MBS:      During a recent Foundation Training in Bad Toelz, Mia recounted her wonderful story about speaking with Moshe after she’d first watched him work. He asked if she had any questions; she assured him that she had many, but certainly more than he would have time for just then. After all, there were others waiting for him. And then, when Mia tells the story, she really stresses how well she can still hear his response today: “If you know the right question… it will only take a minute! View: ‘The Art of Questioning’ video. 

During the course of your own training, what are the really decisive moments or particular touchstones that you regularly recall?

Patty:     I still vividly remember the first FI that Mia gave me. I was attending a training that she gave in Berkeley, and I really don’t know what got into me, but somehow I got the idea that I wanted to feel “the Master’s hands”! I’m not normally the type of person who just goes up and asks to feel somebody’s hands. But, as it turned out, I was very fortunate, as at the end of the training, Mia demonstrated FI for the group – on me. I still remember it so clearly. It was completely different from anything I had ever experienced before – and I had already done a good deal of training by this time! Mia had such absolute clarity and curiosity in how she asked my body questions, or rather, how she asked me questions, using her hands. It was such a clear and direct conversation of discovery, which I could feel going all the way through my body.

I’m friends with some people who were there at the time, and they still chuckle at my expression when I stood up afterwards. I was blown away. I could move without pain!

MBS:      Was that when you decided to begin training with Mia and Leora?

Patty:     Yes, this was the missing piece for me. It was after that that I started doing the Post Graduate Training, which was a sequence of 30 days. And then, as you know, I continued on to the Master Practitioner Training, followed by the Trainer’s Training.

MBS:      From your days as a student, to now as a Trainer, have you found that any particular strategies or pearls of advice have proven most helpful to your development and to your understanding of this work?

Patty:     One of the brilliant things I have found about working with Mia and Leora through all of these trainings is that over the years, Mia and Leora have discussed together what is important in this work. Mia tends to be intuitive while Leora tends to be analytical. Leora has come up with what I call a schematic, through her own experience and through working with Moshe and Mia. Both Mia and Leora continue to practice, develop and teach what they learned directly from Moshe. Together, they have created an incredibly clear curriculum.

“Bringing this work to Africa is very important to me. The opportunities open to people elsewhere in the world should also be available to Africa and other developing regions.”

MBS:       From your days as a student to now, as a Trainer, have you found that any particular strategies or pearls of advice have have proven most helpful to your development and to your understanding of this work?

Patty:     Being inquisitive. Really, it’s all about approaching life with an attitude of curiosity, without any agenda, and with openness for discovering when you’re working with someone. MBS keeps everything so clear and simple that it actually becomes really easy to identify the next question to ask with your hands.

I’ve really found that Mia and Leora have developed a way of teaching ATMs that is just remarkably clear. Students really learn, from the beginning, how ATMs and FIs are two sides of the same coin.

MBS:      Could you talk a bit about how the idea for these South Africa workshops came about, and your hopes for the trainings there?

Patty:     You know, I often think of Moshe’s quote, “Health is the ability to realize our avowed and unavowed dreams.” For me, getting this training together is a part of my dream. I love Africa, I’d love to bring something back to Africa, and I don’t see why it’s not possible! I would just like to see the opportunity for people, that the MBS teaching could go around the world. In Africa, people are open to new ideas, they love creativity, and they don’t generally have the same opportunities for continuing education the way that you do in the United States or Europe. For a long time, I’ve thought how fantastic it would be if we could bring our kind of a training to Africa.

These public introductory workshops are both going to be in September, one in Gauteng and one in Cape Town. If the interest is there, we could eventually start a full Foundation Training program. There’s such a rich diversity and culture, and such extraordinary beauty there.Principle Diagram

MBS:      I know that you have a very extensive professional background in multiple therapeutic and medical modalities, with ongoing practices in CranioSacral Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Lymphatic Drainage/Lymphedema Therapy. Could you talk a bit about what’s it’s like for you to work with so many methods, and how MBS fits into the picture?

Patty:     Yes! Often, I work with people who have had node removal due to cancer treatment, which results in edema of the limbs. Alongside the Lymphatic Therapy used for those cases, very often I teach these people how they can use principles from ATM to improve lymphatic flow.

I also do assistant training in both CranioSacral and the Lymph curricula for IAHE (The International Alliance of Healthcare Educators). As part of that, I recently taught a group how to use some strategies from MBS to complement their work. Of course, when somebody comes to me specifically for CranioSacral work, that’s what we do. But, I’d say that with every person, I end up using some aspect or quality of the MBS work.

In fact, I had an extremely interesting experience recently. I worked together with another CranioSacral Therapist, both of us working with one client at the same time. As you know, in our MBS Foundation Training, we’ll often work in groups of three, with one person at the feet and another at the head of the third partner, all of them learning to be in touch with one another – to be connected in a unified movement. We did something very similar, in which I used FI while she used CranioSacral Therapy. We were able to have a very clear and very useful “conversation” – and the client noticed the difference.

“The more aware of yourself, your organization and your self-image you are, the more your work is enhanced.”

MBS:      For professionals coming from various backgrounds, including many from therapeutic as well as performance-oriented fields, how do you think that learning from MBS can complement their own practices?

Patty:     It’s made such a huge difference in my life, both personally and professionally. In my Occupational Therapy and Lymphatic and CranioSacral background, I’ve seen how using the MBS work can improve people’s function and their quality of life. Whatever your skill set, this can enhance it, whether that means you’re making better use of your own body, changing how you think about what you’re teaching your clients, or whether it changes your speech and language. Whether it’s for Physical Therapy, Occupational therapy, rehabilitation, or for performance, music, sports: in each of these fields, the more aware of yourself, of your organization and of your self-image you are, the more your work is enhanced.

MBS:      Mia and Leora regularly focus on curiosity as an underpinning of this work, and it’s something you’ve brought up a good deal, too. Is there anything in particular that you are curious about lately, or that is just really surprising you?

Patty:     The thing I’m playing with at the moment is really about the many different layers and levels in this work. It isn’t just about lying on the floor and moving! It is about how you introduce these many layers and levels while your students are doing a movement, whether at a training or in your own ATM class. How many different ways can you say something without giving away the information, so that those doing the movement discover this for themselves?

This may sound very simple, but it’s actually not so simple. It is complex and we, as teachers are learning to make it appear simple.

“This method isn’t about fixing. It really is about ongoing human potential and about learning. It’s a method about finding patterns, noticing differences and asking questions.”

MBS:      Your teaching and assisting for MBS has you regularly flying around the world. When the person sitting beside you on your next flight asks that question, “So, what do you do?”, what’s your favorite way to answer?

Patty:     (Laughter.) Well, it’s interesting – it really depends. And I think one really has to gauge it. So, if you say, I’m going off to train people in Mind Body Studies, they may say “What?” and just kind of switch off, as far as I can tell. But, if I get chatting with somebody and it would prove interesting or useful to them, then I can start talking about the subject so that it’s relevant to their life. That’s really how I like to do it. You may not believe this, but I’m actually quite a shy bird!

Sometimes, I’ll get into the conversation of how, actually, it’s a method of learning. It’s using movement, it’s looking at your habits – it’s about human potential.

One thing that is really clear, especially when you study with MBS, is that this isn’t about fixing. It really is about ongoing human potential and about learning. It’s a method of questions:  finding patterns, noticing differences and asking questions. Being very precise, being very simple and being very clear and curious!

MBS:      One last question, could you talk about what students can expect at these workshops?

Patty:    We keep everything very clear in these introductory workshops, so people can sense and feel the differences. You want to give lessons in such a way that people notice when they stand up at the end, that there are differences.

_____________________________________________________________________

Patty has studied under Mia Segal and Leora Gaster at MBS Academy since 2005, completing the Master Practitioner Program in 2011 and continuing with the Trainer’s Training. She has now joined the MBS Academy faculty.

A Feldenkrais Practitioner for 15 years, graduating from the FGNA (Feldenkrais Guild of North America) 1998 training, Patty has studied extensively with other trainers in the United States. She has assisted in or taught workshops and trainings in USA, Thailand, Singapore, Germany, and Zimbabwe. Patty is also a Certified Teaching Assistant in both CranioSacral Therapy and Lymph Drainage Therapy and assists regularly with International Health Alliance Educators. Read Patty’s full bio here:  http:www.iahp.com/pattyunderwood

To Contact Patty, email her at: Zimbo1@earthlink.net

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