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Old 10-21-2007, 02:25 PM   #29
Mike Sigman
Location: Durango, CO
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 4,123
United_States
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Re: Feldenkrais, Nature and Martial Response

I've been thinking and,you know, to be fair and to use a bit of extrapolation, I can actually see how Feldenkrais movement could be someone's interpretation of some of the ki/kokyu skills. It's a limited interpretation (bear in mind I'm only guessing based on what I've seen and read and felt), but suddenly I can see how it's an attempt to do some of the same things. And heck, I've seen a lot worse guesses/attempts in the martial-arts communities at ki/kokyu skills, so it's not really a bad attempt.

Assuming my guess is roughly in the right direction, then here's my opinion: Feldenkrais's movement principles would be based on the kind of movement that Tohei espouses where you relax and let the body and mind hopefully coordinate for such an optimum movement that you get seemingly better strength, etc., from the approach.

It's sort of like the example Tohei uses where someone holds his wrist and yet he calmly reaches up and scratches his head. Tohei's approach to doing that particular demonstration (and other similar ones) is to just relax, etc. My preferred approach would result in the same results ultimately, but would be much more explicative, initially, in order to (IMO) refine and extend the range of skills. However, I suddenly see how the Feldenkrais approach could be a derivative of the general approach that Tohei uses. Since I haven't felt anyone in Feldenkrais (and of course I haven't felt them all) using any real jin skills, I tended to not look very close at any potential relationships (I'm pretty results-oriented, admittedly).

If my tentative guess is correct, then OK I can see a vague relationship between Feldenkrais' perspective and the ki/kokyu/jin/etc stuff in Asian martial arts. However, results-wise, I don't see it as being effective enough for anyone to divert a lot of attention to. To be fair (remember, this is all just a guess!!!), I'd suggest that with the proper pointers a bona fide Feldenkrais person *might* have a somewhat easier job of picking up ki/qi/jin/kokyu skills.

Yours in Rumination.

Mike
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