The Feldenkrais Method

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[David Orange]

I thought you might find these interesting in regards to a Chinese Martial artists experience in learning Daito ryu’s internal aspects.

i think a lot of it is to do with subtle and rapid manipulation of a persons natural reflexes. (ie their "intent"....i guess i'll write here what i've been thinking about so i can use the word "intent"...: i'm starting to develop an idea of intent as being something which is happening outside of our conscious control most of the time, for example: when eating and trying to observe, i discover that i am chewing but not deciding when to chew, i reach for another bite without thinking about it, my hands and body shift around all over the place, and very interestingly my eyes move by themselves and also in response to sounds/shapes/movements, before i have time to notice. so now i think this is "yi", and although "yi" can be focused and trained, still a lot of it - most of it - will inevitably be going on constantly responding to the infinite and ever-changing external and internal environment.

Again I bring this here only to -once again- add support for a position of commonalities between the internal skills in all Asian arts.

Dan, this is why I posted the thing on Feldenkrais on the Training forum. Noticing our own functions on the levels described above is exactly how Feldenkrais works. First, noticing things on that level, then learning how we semi-consciously interfere with those processes; then learning how we can best help them by letting them function as they are intended to function; then applying that improved functioning to intentional efforts.

This is the approach Feldenkrais took to doing and teaching judo back in the 1930s. And he also got many of his ideas for his method from learning judo from Kano and direct students that Kano sent from Japan to teach him. Those included Kawaishi and others.

If you haven't read the interview with Feldenkrais yet, I urge you to go through that and comment on what he was doing.

I believe that even in what you are doing, the Feldenkrais method can give you tools to become even more subtle and effective.

Best to you.

David

[DH]

Hi Dave
I don't know anything about Feldenkras except that I have been approached tiwce by fellas who wanted to "fix my movements" and show me their Feldankras method. Always open... I said "Cool. But first, before I waste my time can I test you?" Both men were a mess. They had no connection, no cohesiveness and while one was better than the other when we started moving (always a test)-he- fell apart and I cuould do what wanted. So I simply looked at em say "YOU want to fix me? How? How about I fix you if you want to do martial arts?"

Bujutsu movement is true to itself. I dunno about all this funny language and microscopic stuff or Gyrotonics natural movements in babies, and rotational dynamic models. I'm a simple guy. I just put my hands on ya. That and if ya can't explain it to me standing there and show me how your doing it-I'm not going to be standing there long. The only guys I have met lately I wanted to talk to about what THEY were doing after putting my hands on them and they on me were two taiji master level teachers. I think most every guy here knows all too well what you mean about "Its all in the kata." "go do more, train harder, train smarter. The secrets in the sauce....sure it is. Other guys teach.
I think I know a few guys who will never buy that kata line again.

I don't think you should overplay the Mochizuki thing. You know I was a fan but he really didn't train long with Ueshiba before he got his Hiden Mokuroku, nor the next one. I think it was six months or so. Try writing that out in a sentence today on the net. I'll have to look it up tonight.
He also didn't do a demo at the 50th- he was the moderator. The only time his -guys- demo'd is because he got pissed at the way Kondo was demonstrating and using a sword. He had his men go out to their cars and get their swords and he did an impromtu sword demo. Stating "You Daito ryu guy's don't know Shit about swords."

As for his apearence there being any sign of approval that he was a Daito ryu master level teacher... thats a stretch.
The Aikikai did a demo as well!! As well as many others who were by no means major players. It was a celebrations and frienship thing.
Not to take anything away from Mochizuki mind you. Every source I knew called him a veery capable and cantakerous guy in that he was blunt and to the point. I have heard from a few guys that if you said you could do something he'd say "Really show me." And one fellow -a menkyo kaiden- was put in his place on the spot in no uncretain terms. Some of those old budo guys were interesting characters even outside a dojo it seems.
I know one Koryu jujutsu guy who got sick of a young MMA saying Japanese jujutsu is crap. In a restaurant parking lot he grabs him throws the guy and chokes him almost out cold and said "Where's your "street-fighting now?"
Budo guys...ya gotta love em.

Dan

[David Orange]

Hi Dave
I don't know anything about Feldenkras except that I have been approached tiwce by fellas who wanted to "fix my movements" and show me their Feldankras method.

Well, that whole idea shows they don't know Feldenkrais too deeply. It's just like your thing: it's a method you, yourself, have to apply to what you, yourself are doing. You take his exercises and try them and you find out little, bitty things you're doing that you might not have realized you were doing. You might or might not be able to reach a deeper level with what you've been doing after you, yourself, explore some of Moshe's movement exercises. I guess that depends on how deeply you've been looking at your own movement.

So, no, I wouldn't put much stock in someone who thinks he can fix your movement with his Feldenkrais. So I'd say read that article I linked to on the Training forum. It doesn't actually give that much information about the Method itself, but it shows how Moshe applied his observation and thinking to martial arts and teaching/learning of martial arts--remembering that his primary purpose with his Method was to teach optimal function of the human mind/body. More precisely, his Method taught how to teach yourself these things. And I repeat: it sounds very similar to what you're doing.

Bujutsu movement is true to itself. I dunno about all this funny language and microscopic stuff or Gyrotonics natural movements in babies, and rotational dynamic models.

Like I've said many times, failure to recognize jargon doesn't mean you're not talking about the same thing. From your descriptions of what you do, I'd say "microscopic" movement describes it well--looking for almost imperceptible efforts, stopping those that aren't helping and activating those that do, to add up to total efficiency.

Gyrotonics and rotational dynamic models are outside my thinking. I do go for "gyromental" effort, but that's another thing entirely.

Natural movement in babies IS something I subscribe to, and there's a lot of that in Feldenkrais, but it's not necessary for this discussion.

I'm a simple guy. I just put my hands on ya. That and if ya can't explain it to me standing there and show me how your doing it-I'm not going to be standing there long.

If I were a little younger, I would have quit my job already to come up there to your area and flip burgers while I come to your classes. Now I'm trying to work out a way to get up there. I won't bother you with the obstacles. I'm just going to work them out and get up there when I can. I've been reading and I'm convinced that you can do these things. I know I can't do them, but I'm also convinced that I can learn something of these things if I meet you. So that's that. My only difference is that I thing the old methods taught this over a lifetime. I also think 1) it's almost impossible to find that method any more; and 2) if you do find it, it's almost impossible to follow that way in this modern world, for many, many reasons. In any case, I'm sure at this point that it's too late for me to reach that level through the traditional method.

I think most every guy here knows all too well what you mean about "Its all in the kata." "go do more, train harder, train smarter.

Well, I'm quoting Ushiro on that and everyone has been touting him as the proof of the universality of the skills between various arts. But HE said he got it through dedicated training in the kata. He gave no other reason. But what sets him apart from many other people who have done the same kata for twenty years or more, yet haven't developed the same kinds of abilities?

I say that where karate is concerned and also judo and aikido, we mainly are not seeing "the kata" as they are intended to be seen. For one thing, the outer forms are not really the same. The karate kata were introduced and propagated by people who had not been baked all the way through with them and then they promoted people and we have many generations of people with whom the content got a little shallower and a little shallower until, doing kata that you learned from them will not yeild the same results even with 20 years' effort because the original kata they gave you was not the original kata that was taught--and by that, I mean from the outer to the inner and all the way through instead of just surface "katachi" or shape of the postures and sequences.

With judo, I think the narrowing down of a given individual's repertoire of techniques and especially the development of right or left side over the other side has created an imbalance the prevents developing what you describe.

And in aikido? fugeddaboutit. I know there are pockets of people with something real, but the rest is a big old fat boy's overhauls. For the most part, it doesn't resemble budo aikido at all.

So just "doing the kata" in itself isn't enough. You have to put in the real effort to understand if you're not doing the real kata and to find the real thing if you're not and overcome the wrong learning. Ushiro seems to have gotten the real thing from the beginning, so he was able to skip the mis-learning (or experience it at a minimal level) and develop real content with every practice. So doing "the real kata" is, in my opinion, a valid way to get what you describe--to the degree that Ushiro is doing what you describe.

I don't think you should overplay the Mochizuki thing. You know I was a fan but he really didn't train long with Ueshiba before he got his Hiden Mokuroku, nor the next one. I think it was six months or so. Try writing that out in a sentence today on the net.

I've pointed out before that it was less than a year. But how long did it take Tenryu before Ueshiba told him he didn't need to learn any more? Anyway, what you refer to was not the length of Mochizuki's association with Ueshiba--it was just how long he was uchi deshi at "the hell gym". Ueshiba gave him those scrolls on one of his many, many trips to Shizuoka, where he would stop off on his way home from Osaka. They said he used to stay in Shizuoka so long his son or someone would have to come and get him to come back to Tokyo. He would stay and sleep and eat and train at at the yoseikan because Mochizuki was a real kindred spirit. He often taught classes there. This went on quite a while. And when you read other masters' accounts of meeting Ueshiba, it's common for them to mention Mochizuki being there. I recently read an account of some well-known Japanese master's first introduction to aikido at the Iwama dojo. He went there to meet Ueshiba and one of the first people he saw there was Minoru Mochizuki. Sensei consulted with Ueshiba frequently, even after the war. When Sensei came back from Mongolia, Ueshiba sent Kisshomaru to Shizuoka with a big, square bamboo backpack loaded with vegetables and had Kisshomaru stay there for some time training with Mochizuki. And when Mochizuki was supposed to go to France, he went and told Ueshiba and Ueshiba said, "I had a dream that someone was going to introduce aikido outside Japan. So it was you!"

So that was a long, long relationship and Mochizuki was effectively 8th dan from 1932 until he was promoted to 10th dan by IMAF in 1978 or so.

He also didn't do a demo at the 50th- he was the moderator.

Well that's saying quite a bit, even if they only let him be moderator at an event like that. But he's listed on the Aikido Journal tape as a participant.

The only time his -guys- demo'd is because he got pissed at the way Kondo was demonstrating and using a sword. He had his men go out to their cars and get their swords and he did an impromtu sword demo. Stating "You Daito ryu guy's don't know Shit about swords."

Ha! That's Minoru Mochizuki!

As for his apearence there being any sign of approval that he was a Daito ryu master level teacher... thats a stretch.

Well, it does indicate a deep relationship. But there is the booklet I mentioned. It was produced by Daito Ryu as some kind of commemorative. I think they have pictures of about ten guys and Minoru Mochizuki is one of them. There are far more well-known "masters"of daito ryu who weren't even pictured. Why would they include him in an official publication like that if he had only a tenuous connection to the art?

Not to take anything away from Mochizuki mind you. Every source I knew called him a veery capable and cantakerous guy in that he was blunt and to the point. I have heard from a few guys that if you said you could do something he'd say "Really show me." And one fellow -a menkyo kaiden- was put in his place on the spot in no uncretain terms.

He liked to find people who could do something interesting, then have every person who came down the pike try them out. Someone new would come along and Sensei would call you over and say, "Hey, show this guy what you do." As uchi deshi in his dojo, I was often the guy he would call over to have the "interesting thing" demonstrated on.

Sometimes he did this to spread that interesting thing to as many people as he could. Sometimes it was more along the line of destructive testing, to keep new people working on it until he found someone who could break it. And there were always new people coming around from all over the world. So if you had something interesting, he would put you up against all kinds of people and see how they handled what you had and how your thing worked against them. He loved to see that kind of thing, to see new people's reactions and to see new approaches to a give problem. He was always curious and enthusiastic, even when he was very old.

Some of those old budo guys were interesting characters even outside a dojo it seems.

He sure was.

I know one Koryu jujutsu guy who got sick of a young MMA saying Japanese jujutsu is crap. In a restaurant parking lot he grabs him throws the guy and chokes him almost out cold and said "Where's your "street-fighting now?"
Budo guys...ya gotta love em.

And watch out for 'em, too. But that was one very interesting thing about Mochizuki. We might ought to call him "the first Mixed Martial Artist." Although people have combined methods for centuries, he took well-established arts and really blended them! His yoseikan was a really smoothie of high-level karate, judo, aikido, jujutsu and weapons. In an ordinary "aikido" randori, you could get a karate attack, a bo attack, a judo attack, a choke from behind, a bokken attack, foot sweeps, tackles--even a pistol sometimes! Of course, it wasn't competition. The goal was always to develop the people on the mat--not to beat them--but as the attacker, you had to give the defender all you felt he could handle and more if he was slow or fumbled around. It was an incredible place.

Anyway, I think you would enjoy reading Moshe Feldenkrais' interview and hearing his stories about Kano and street fighting in Palestine. And rather than having some guy try to fix you with the Feldenrais Method, you would probably get a lot out of seeing a Feldenkrais practitioner and doing an Awareness Through Movement class or getting what they call a Functional Integration session--a hands-on thing where you're lying on a massage table. Those things got me back on the mat at the yoseikan, doing sutemi with the black belts, after I had been hobbling around for some months with a cane--barely able to walk at age 38, much less get on a mat and do jujutsu!

Moshe's interview is fascinating and an adventure to read. Hope you'll take the time to go through it soon.

Best to you.

David

[kironin]

Hi Dave
I don't know anything about Feldenkras except that I have been approached tiwce by fellas who wanted to "fix my movements" and show me their Feldankras method. Always open... I said "Cool. But first, before I waste my time can I test you?" Both men were a mess. They had no connection, no cohesiveness and while one was better than the other when we started moving (always a test)-he- fell apart and I cuould do what wanted. So I simply looked at em say "YOU want to fix me? How? How about I fix you if you want to do martial arts?"


I have to say I have not been impressed by the Feldenkras trained people I have met. I ended up fixing their movements and posture after testing them. I came to the same conclusions Dan did but since came in to the school to learn and didn't try to offer to fix me and kept my thoughts to myself. Just saying now I don't think it's an answer to anything in the martial arts.

rock on Dan !

:D

[George S. Ledyard]

I have to say I have not been impressed by the Feldenkras trained people I have met. I ended up fixing their movements and posture after testing them. I came to the same conclusions Dan did but since came in to the school to learn and didn't try to offer to fix me and kept my thoughts to myself. Just saying now I don't think it's an answer to anything in the martial arts.

rock on Dan !

:D

You know, we have to be very careful about judging a style or a system by the folks we meet. As has been pointed out there just aren't that many people who take things to a high level. So in order to really have a picture, you have to look at the folks who really are at the top of their game in whatever style you are looking at.

It's like Ikeda Sensei says... "It's not Aikido that doesn't work, it's YOUR Aikido that doesn't work."

[Mike Sigman]

Just to speculate out loud..... my impression of Feldenkrais people was that they're talking about something else. They don't manipulate jin/kokyu forces. In other words, they're about correct body mechanics, not about "intention". Feldenkrais may quite possibly have gotten some of his initiating ideas from ki/qi phenomena, but my impression/opinion is that he didn't fully understand, except in a limited sense.

YMMV

Mike

[kironin]

You know, we have to be very careful about judging a style or a system by the folks we meet. As has been pointed out there just aren't that many people who take things to a high level. So in order to really have a picture, you have to look at the folks who really are at the top of their game in whatever style you are looking at.


This is not aikido,
and they were certified instructors.

I think I have the right out of numerous activities human beings think up to select and make summary judgements whether something is worth my valuable time especially when the goal of the activity is only obliquely related to my own goals.

I didn't say it wasn't any good for healing and rehabilitation which appears to be the focus of the method. That I can't say anything about that because I haven't seen scientifically rigorous studies.

you can watch an expert teaching Feldenkrais on youtube...
http://www.feldenkraisinstitute.org/calendar.html
and all the podcasts you desire if you want spend time looking to pick something out for your aikido practice
http://www.utahfeldenkrais.org/blog/

but I have better things to do.

uh - oh I feel Jun's presence -- another thread split may be coming...

[George S. Ledyard]

This is not aikido,
and they were certified instructors.

Hey, I am not arguing with you at all. I just know that these days, there are so few people who have real mastery of anything, it's tough know.

I see so-called karate "instructors" all the time who are completely incompetent, one could train with all sorts of Aikido folks who even run dojos and come away thinking Aikido sucked, the same with Systema, so I suspect it could easily be true of something like Feldenkrais. I know one my my good friends in Aikido who is a Rokudan is getting a tremendous amount out of doing the Feldenkrais training. But it's not just physical training, its a whole retooling of the way you look at things. That may be the part that is of more use to us than just the physical... just a thought since I haven't done any myself.

[ilona]

I realize it's strange to comment a thread that is 10 (!) years old but I found it during a Google search (I wondered if Feldenkrais and Ueshiba had ever met? Probably not...), plus I recently joined this forum.

For anyone still reading ... if it weren't for my experience in a Feldenkrais training, I never would have considered trying Aikido. Not in a million years! I would have dismissed as "too hard" or "not my thing" or "I'm too old", etc. But having done dozens if not hundreds of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons, I discovered it's possible to rewire one's movement patterns and habits and to "learn to learn", as we say, continuing to improve at any age rather than believing in limitations or holding onto an outdated image of ourselves.

If anyone is looking to fine tune their Aikido, the Feldenkrais Method has the tools for doing that. It breaks down movement into very small increments, done very slowly and also non-habitually, so the brain has a chance to find a more efficient pathway among the new choices. It's really an exploration of movement options to find the ones that are easy. For Aikido beginners, Feldenkrais lessons might help them sense where they are in space, especially when rolling. I'm happy to connect people with additional information if desired (I do not teach or practice Feldenkrais myself).

Cheers!

[Carsten Möllering]

Hi Ilona,

I think nobody is questioning that Feldenkrai Method can be very helpfull or at least very interesting in regard to praciticing aikidô.
I myself used to live with a Feldenkrais teacher and she showed me a lot of very "useful" things.

Here in this thread Feldenkrais Method is compared to certain ways or even methods of internal practice like they are taught by certain. And it is just said, that in comparrison to their methods the Feldenkrais Method is working in a different way on a different aim.

[asiawide]

Hi Ilona,

I think nobody is questioning that Feldenkrai Method can be very helpfull or at least very interesting in regard to praciticing aikidô.
I myself used to live with a Feldenkrais teacher and she showed me a lot of very "useful" things.

Here in this thread Feldenkrais Method is compared to certain ways or even methods of internal practice like they are taught by certain. And it is just said, that in comparrison to their methods the Feldenkrais Method is working in a different way on a different aim.

I like #6 from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGa5C1Qs8jA