What would an intelligent, brain and heart happy "exercise" and/ or weight loss program look like?

Barefoot rock lifting

for the brain

spine

ribs 

pelvis

arms

breathing

awareness

brain

joy of it

Let's say you or anyone wants to:

lose weight and be healthier
or
just plain be healthier, their weight is fine and they know
they aren't really feeling "fit" as a human being
or
improve an ongoing skill in tai chi, yoga, music

How could we/ they/ you/ I
go about this?

Let's take some steps from the Anat Baniel Method
and
the Feldenkrais Method
and
a whole lot of other things that say:
Do something, no matter how small,
to get the ball rolling.

And the Buddhist and other traditions
that hint either subtly or not so subtly:
either we are mindful
or
mindless.

So:

If you keep being and doing the same thing,
nothing will change, so let's start with some small changes:

One:
In moving, I'd like to suggest ten minutes worth of "moving"
with awareness that could make a huge difference in
somebody's life:

One five minute package,
and set the timer, and quit at five minutes,
you can work up to more,
or do another five,
but for three or four days,
quit at the buzz or harp or marimba of the timer:

Go outside if you can
Get barefoot if you can
and do this:
Touch the ground (bend your knees all you want)
in whatever way comes easiest to you
and then
lift one or both hands up toward the sky.
Find a pattern and repeat what you have picked
for five to twelves times:

As you go up and down notice:
the shape of your spine
your breathing
(go very slowly on this, so you can feel/ sense and
savor yourself at every point of the movement)
where is the weight on your feet

which foot has more weight
what's going on in your ribs
are you keeping your neck soft
where are your eyes focused
are your fingers and toes and jaw soft and relaxed
what is the "five line" shape of you, two legs, two arms, one spine
how is your pelvis shifting in this


After a number of times,
stand up and just notice yourself,
and then pick another way of going down,
maybe a little twist
or just touching with one hand
or touching between your legs, or out to the sides
and as you come up
find another variation on what to do with your arms
and then
feel
sense
savor
learn from and enjoy doing this a number of times

Then stand and rest

Now, if you want to get a little strength from this
get something,
a rock
a broom
a gallon jar partly filled with water,

and touch that object to the ground,
and lift it up overhead

Have a pattern that you decide on
and repeat it
slowly
and with great awareness
a number of times

You can lift the object with one hand
lower in with the other

Lift it near your body
or farther away

Make circles in your lifting

many many choices

Pick one at a time
and enjoy really feeling and sensing this in yourself

Do all this for five minutes
and then stop

And what of the other five minutes:
get a bicycle and go ride it somewhere uncrowded

Play around with what is about 50% effort,
what is 30%, what is 80% and so on.

Then start at 20 % and increase up to 80%,
keeping your back easy
your jaw relaxed
your arms relaxed
your breathing through your nose

When you get tired,
slow to any amount of effort you pick
less than 50%,
keep breathing and recovering
and making sure the rest of you that isn't pedalling
is as relaxed as possible.

Then, when you pick, speed up to something above 50%,
you pick the amount,
you pick the duration,
but don't go until you are panting and unable to easily
breathe through your nose.

You pick when to slow back down to
less that 50% effort.

Notice where your attention is.
Can you look out at the world and sense inside yourself
as you do this.
It's only five minutes.
Enjoy.

And if you don't have a bike:
walk out of your house,
this has to be something you can do
as often and easily as possible,
walk out and
walk like this,
alternating less than 50% of what you feel like your
maximum effort could be
alternating that with some figure/ guess you pick
above 50%

This again: with looking
and breathing through your nose
and keeping all the places not involved in walking (neck, nose, jaw, fingers,
even toes except to push off and press into the earth) keeping
all of you as soft and aware and relaxed as you can
while you change up your speed and effort

Again, just for five minutes.

Later, a longer essay on eating,
and you can see the page at my website:
Food, Health, Weight Loss: Discoveries and Suggestions
from halfway decent shape 66 year old

Here's some starter ideas:

A green smoothie each day

Consider a diet without these:
flour products,
pasteurized dairy,
fruit out of season,
sugars like sugar and agave and the fake stuff,
soy that isn't fermented
nuts and seeds that aren't presoaked

Figure out what sort of high grade protein
might be wonderful for you

You can eat lots and lots of what's left:
high grade meat, eggs, vegies, soaked nuts, smoothies,
beans if that's your thing (not mine), butter, especially raw,
fish

Lots

a study went like this:
people of semistarvation diets
of 1000 calories:

90% fat lost .9 pounds a day
90% protein lost .6 pounds a day
90% carbs gained .24 pounds a day

raw fat,
in a raw meal,
will lose you weight
and build your body
and feed
your brain

(see Nourishing traditions, below)

Think about how a meal or two a day of
raw eating could figure in with the above ideas

Don't worry about it.
Make one shift today
and see how fun that could be.

Consider a "cheat day" per week where you go out,
buy and consume out of your house,
the various "left behind" elements.

Alight

Here's some "Eating a cooler and smarter way books:



For non raw this is amazing, and cured me from the vegan trap:
Nourishing Traditions



And for Raw eating,
this chick is 50 and hasn't been sick in 14 years,
eats raw meat, cheese and milk,
and has a lot of fun:
Raw Fifty



And these people
found at RawFamily.com
are sweet, amazing,
and the inventors of the
extremely useful and delicious
and life changing
GREEN SMOOTHIE:
Green Smoothie Revolution

Landmark Forums, or Can You Wake up in a Herd?

This is a beginning impression of the Landmark scene,
or top of many glimpses before I stepped foot into
one of their introductory evenings.

Before I arrived I'd seen people
who used Landmark as a safety,
as a church
as a home for finding safe friends
and a world view that they found "worked"
and that was part of the safe friends thing:
they really really wanted other people to see the world
through the Landmark lens.

And what is the Landmark lens.
Well, you can go online and get the syllabus to the three day training.
And they hand them out when you show up for the intro night.

It's something like this:
we are programmed beings,
and out programming creates our VIEW
and our VIEW determines how we'll perceive and
act in reality.

We have a story that seems to validate the view,
we confuse and conflate the story with What Happened,
and the story is an illusion,
and once we see things the Landmark way,
we can "get on the bicycle" and ride
in the world of possibilities.

All that at the end sounds vague,
and it works,
because in part they are trying to have their cake
and eat it too:
deprogram people
almost with a hypnosis about "and now you
will be deprogrammed once you know it
our way."

It's all words.

Sort of
because they are big on action,
especially making phone calls to apologize for
being lost in "the story" about
some person you've been on the "outs" with.

There are no internal movement lessons
that give a feel for the new in a person.

There is no practice of being present,
though there is gobs of talk about the past and
the future not being real,
they are good on that,

and what about this now,
outside of the leader's words
and our / the audience's words
about the leader's word

is there a way to
be
to be now
okay now,
to be present,
follow your breathing,
or sense your arms and legs and watch light
and notice the sounds as they are happening.

or sense your big toe and your tongue and your thumbs
as you eat and talk

not really

life as a meditation
or an ongoing experience
is not offered

"possibilities"
are
"transformation" not change are

it's cool stuff
in a way
and....

So, you have a leader,
and he's been through "breakthroughs"
which are the currency of the L F,
you give up the "story"
and you get on the phone
and you apologize to people you've had trapped
away from your love with your VIEW

This is all very good,
and could be done with the Byron Katie work,
but she doesn't say
you need to/ should/ have to
do her work,
she doesn't want you to get everyone you
know
in
she leaves that up to you,
the work is to be done any time you are feeling
bad,
and only if you want to know the truth instead of suffering

And then the Feldenkrais/ Anat Baniel work
is a set of movement possibilities
that help us feel younger, more free,
clearer in our thinking,
but they are an approach to lifelong
discovery.

And in Landmark, too,
the world of possibilities is the cool
place

and it is

but,
the way to that,
the pressure to come to more and more trainings,
to get every one else in so they'll all "get it,"
the push to "get on the bicycle"
all mitigate against real inner clarity.

And it feels good, though,
to belong,
to be around people who are changing,
to be around people who have the same world view,
to be around people who have the same "born again"
experience,
not Jesus here, but Landmark.

And there is more
and this is hard to articulate,
but at the end of the introductory evening
the trainer brought up
some new people,
and had them admit an overview
that seemed to dominate their life.

One was: "I'm not good enough"
one was "I can't do it"

These two people were pushed to see
that these statements were illusion
(Which isn't all true:
sometimes all of us aren't good enough,
say, to fly a plane,
or can't do it, like quadratic formulas,
but as a blanket over view, both VIEWS aren't so useful).
And thus they didn't have any power over the people.

When the second person said she was fine when
she didn't believe her story,
the trainer pushed her around emotionally,
told her that wasn't so,
that she could NOT believe or disbelieve something
that was an illusion,

which is bullshit

that's the history of the world
falling apart
with
 couples and neighbors and nations
all going to war over the illusion:
you should change
you are wrong
I am right and you should see/ do/ feel/ think it my way

So, he's demanding she get with the program
He's denying an absolute full proof way out of suffering,
which is to stop believing the story,
He's promising her the Landmark pie in the sky
if she signs up for her $485 and learns to "ride the bicycle"

But the worst is,
unlike any person in the present,
who can't demand others shape up,
he isn't present to her,
he's present to the problem of solving her
to get her to demonstrate to the audience how
cool his method is

so he's not listening

oh, well.

that's my view,
and man do I fail at it,
sometimes,
don't we all,

this listening to others less enlightened than I

and that's always a false story of mine,
and to my mind,
was a false story of his

So, that enough.
Except the huge dishonesty of saying at the beginning of the night
that this wasn't a pressure thing,
and then pretty much making it almost impossible
to leave
if you didn't sign up at the end

And yet,
they were so happy

one almost wants to join the cult
to get that "oh, my, now I fit in" rush
and to
"get with a program"
that opens a lot more doors than "ordinary living"

and not to "disappoint" all the smiley faces,
if you'd just join our club
we'd smile even more
and love and hug you
and take you in
in
in

and there are boyfriends, girlfriends
a whole world,
like a megachurch
all is contained

come on in
come on in

all is safe

join the Hitler Youth
the born again
the we love the 49ers
the Tea Party
the communist party
the party party

join us
join us
and we will love cherish accept
take care of you

the Scientologist club,
wow, that's probably the closest

and then again
to just
"just"

be present

and including the ideas of making small changes
and noticing differences
and slowing down
and living in the emptiness of
now
and no story
and waiting and seeing

ah,
life as it is in the moment,
and seeing what happens,
in movement
in thought
in emotions
in spiritual work

that, too, will set us free

but without that warm mob family tribe feeling

and we can always do the work
as in TheWork.com (Byron Katie, again,
and you don't have to do that,
and you CAN do that
all on your own,
and Katie/ me/ others
won't love you more
if you do or don't do it)
on any feelings that it's wrong/ bad/ scary/ hard
to be alone

la,
la

and
I thought this was going to be short

Oh, well

feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais... a movement lesson to accompany

I recently, in my Life Potency Blog, had an essay of the sort: Feeding, F...ing, Fighting and Feldenkrais. Someone asked me to come up with a movement lesson for this.

Here it is.

Sit comfortably in a chair, with both feet on the floor and your back away from the back of the chair.

Feel yourself more or less upright, and feel what that is like. Perhaps closing your eyes can help you get a more clear Sensing feel of yourself.

Now, slowly, begin to bring your right hand to your mouth, and then place it back down in your lap. You've done this a zillion times, so go slower than slow and see if you can notice anything new about this life necessary movement.

Rest.

Now bring the back of your right hand just to the left of your mouth, and bring your hand back down, and as you repeat this movement, move toward bringing the middle of your right forearm to your mouth. After it's there, go back and forth from lap to middle of right forearm at your mouth.

Rest.

Now please come to this last position of middle of your right forearm on your mouth and begin to round and arch your spine. What does that mean?

To round your spine: bring your belly in and back, rock back a bit on your pelvis, let your sternum sink and your nose lower as if you are going to look between your legs.

All the while your arm and mouth are united, and this gives your elbow a downward trajectory as you round your back.

Then when you arch your back, your elbow will lift, your eyes and nose will look up, your sternum will rise, your belly will come forward a bit and you will rock a bit forward on your pelvis.

Go slowly and with pleasure and awareness in the arching and rounding, paying attention to all your parts:
spine,
ribs,
sternum,
elbow,
nose
belly
and pelvis.

Take rests if you get fatigued, or lose concentration, but do come back to this until you can feel and unity of sorts between your pelvis rocking forward and back, and your elbow raising and lowering.

Have thoughts, if you wish, about how this motion in the pelvis region could have something to do with s-e-x.

Rest.

Now, play with this a bit. Put yourself in the same position of the middle of your right forearm touching your mouth as you sit forward on your chair, and arch up so your elbow is more toward the sky/ ceiling and your pelvis is rocked forward more, and from here bring your pelvis into a kind of hula hoop circle on your chair, and allow your elbow to make a corresponding circle that you discover.

Enjoy this a bit, and then reverse the circle. Go slow enough to get a nice realization of your pelvis and spine and head as a grand team.

Rest.

Now for a bit of the fighting part;
Sit with your left hand on your left knee, and bring your right hand down and outside of your left knee, going down and twisting slowly and easily. Then rise up from this with an arching of your back as earlier, but this time raising your right hand forward and up and to the right, as if slapping someone with the back of your right hand, or slashing a sword up and to the right, and any other image you'd like (hitting a backhand tennis shot way to high, flinging a frisbee to the right and upward), whatever the image, feel your whole self participating in this curling down and twisting (as if to load your strike, throw, fling, slap) and then unfurling and letting your back and pelvis participate in a powerful move of your right arm and hand.

Rest.

This is all one sided. Please feel free to read the instructions and then imagine this all on the left side, and then perhaps do it just once on twice to see how clear your imagining was and what you you would need to remember if you were to imagine it again.

one more time, "tired" and whatnot, so let's see what happens

how about a few pictures first,
to avoid the writing;

Sonoma garden

Orcas, in the winter,

which I'm avoiding this year

Austin one morning this winter,

just to show how far 

"avoidance" will get you

Okay, time to "get to work"

and is that true?

I'm at an airport in the middle of california,
waiting for a plane.....

The plane will take me to Austin,
so this seems like a  journey, right.
going somewhere
i've never been to Austin.

i know two people there,
one a friend of my son's,
who my son is sure will turn me on to lots of people
for the amazing work i do
and a friend I met at a conference, in chicago last summer,
a friend who has disappeared since our time together

my friend's son won't call back,
has answered one email,

no one is interested in helping me get started in Austin.

it's october 16 of 2010,
that's last fall

october 16 of 2009 I started living on Orcas island full time,
and wanted to do something else for the winter

i'm 65 years old

so I'm on a journey
that you are on:
I was born,
way back here,
and now I'm here

and I lived up here,
and I'm going to here

and before Orcas,
which was a couple of months in the summer of 2009
i lived in.


okay,
the facts of all the places aren't interesting right now

born 1945
so far 65 years later,
i'm at an airport
on the way

where was I halfway between 0 and 65,
let's call that 33
and I was in Berkeley, my son is two years old,
he was born in Berkeley,
the son who grew up to have the friend,
Jake Silverstein,
who is now the editor of the TExas Monthly
and maybe he'll get back to me someday
maybe not.

so,
journey:
Southern California to Northern California
Betkeley to Sonoma
Sonoma to cutting loose in February of 2009

12 years of Sonoma
22 of Berkeley,
two of the great places and why would I want anything more?

have you ever got tried of "really great" according to everyone,
but you wanted something more

like awakened people

or a climate less jolted by global warming

or a different scene just for a different scene

or you didn't think your work was respected enough in the "home town," a
and wanted to take it somewhere

or, a relationship was over
and that seemed the end of an era
and it was time to move on

Marile
sweet gal
8 years
we decided to split
blah, blah,
I'm tired of that one,
i'm tired of why I left Sonoma

I wanted to see the world

on January 31, 2009 my former girlfreind of 8 years,
holds me in her arms and i hold her,
and she cries and we part

we have been friends
lovers
gardeners and bike riders
explorers of Byron Katie, and yoga and Feldenkrais and hypnosis
together
we've read books together
created two gardens
slept outside for months on end in two different location
gone on some great camping adventures
had some fine talks
created a lot of healing for each other
helped raise her second daughter together a bit,
had some sweet times
and 5 months before we decided to part ways

why wait until january 31?
we'd found the almost perfect place in the country
and neither wanted to give it up,
and we'd started there feb 1, 2008
so I said i'd leave feb 1, 2009
we'd part

why did we decide to part?

the journey of awakening,
she didn't want to join

the journey of the Feldenkrais Anat Baniel work,
she didn't want to join

i wasn't being allow to ply my trade craft art on
the almost perfect land (picture of the roses in the
garden above)

reasons, reasons,

time to go

she drops me off,
I'm in Berkeley, and I've set up a month in Tuscon starting a week later in February.

I go to various places, one in
atlanta, I work on a table like this with a special needs child,
bently grace,
her picture is in my composite

and the Tucson sunset

and the Arcata farmer's market

finally in June i arrive in Orcas

many places have been touted as reallly great

to me, Orcas is.

reasons, reasons:
hitchiking
exchange
keys in the car
everyone knows permaculture
library as social center
interweaving fun house people taking care of each other

and it's heaven

and this and that happens which would take too long to explain
and some travelling to Gunnison Colorado

and the back to Orcas in Ocober of 2009
and then there for a year,
but for training in the Anat Baniel systen

which is.
anyone want to move better

anyone want to lie of the table and feel better

and october 16 2010
I'm on a plane to Austin,
and someone I don't know is
picking me up

John Green and Brigette Reece,
who live on Reese street in Sunset Valley
are going the couch surfing thing for me

three nights
i help them with their garden


22 minutes

man, this is great
and i'm still tired

luckily a friend has designated herself
as the pull this together person

good luck
and
thanks to
Amparo

try 3, something must be being learned, is that true?

I don't know
and
here we go:

in the airport
on the way:
where to: Austin, Texas
why?
more special needs kids
musicians
warmer winters
son suggested it, his buddy is a supposed "in" to lots of people
met someone at a conference in Chicago in July: they made it sound amazing,
hippy church, open people from all over

why special needs kids
where from:
small island in the pacific northwest, orcas island
amazing place
and only 4000 people there in the winter
and
supposed to be a cold winter
and
dark, even if not cold
and only a few special needs kids
one of whose parent is how I met Orcas Island,
he's another
Anat Baniel Method practictioner

okay:
two journeys so far:
Orcas to Austing
What is Anat Baniel method practioner
and what does that have to do with this:

the table,
in front of me, on the stage, unopened

couple behind in line:
are you some sort of body worker

me: well it looks to outsiders like body work,
but it's brain learning, repatterning, helping the person
learn and move and think and especially, be present to themselves in new ways

c:
huh

m: well, i didn't really say that>
brain work that looks like body work

c:
we're both accupuncturists, we have a real fondness for seeing the
tables where the work takes place, what do you call your work

m: the anat baniel method is my deepest training
originally trained as and am practitioner in the Feldenkrais Method

c: oh, yes. we know it well.
where are you going?

m
where am I going
Austin

which is here,
and I know two people, well three, though two fairly well,
and both haven't time patience curtousy whatever to contact me
back
when i tell them i'm thinking of moving here

so why move?

wanted a change
wanted bigger client base

wanted to see what a place would be like
that I didn't already have set up

because i'm always on the move?

not really,
but in February of 2009 I left behind 12 years in
one of the world's supposed paradises
and took off for a month at a time in
various pre set up places,
all with a friend, or almost friend waiting with a place
to stay for a month

And before Sonoma,
where I was established enough to have designed
and created a 3 acre garden
and run for city council
there was
22 years in Berkeley,
where I raised to kids to high school, and beyond
and transitioned out of sitting on the butt work of
doing therapy
to moving around and making thing work
of design build and landscaping

And that's another journey
the spiritual journey of sit on the butt
and do goody goody meditation
and the reading of sufi stories
to the Gurdjieff work where the mediation
is to sit in the morning
and do
,,,,,
and then get up and do
,,,,,
all day

sense both arms,
both legs,
notice sound come in my ears
light coming in my eyes

something i could much more easily do
building decks and additions
and putting in gardens
that sitting in a room
talking to people

and the journey away from therapy
and back, later,
to being able to help people with any of that
via the work of Byron Katie

so:
at the airport:
on the way to Austin

Oakland airport, October 16
and the previous Octover 16 I'd come to Orcas Island,
leaving it several times for training in
the Anat Baniel method

that journey: getting more skilled

what is it?

move ourselves,
alone,
in groups,
hand guided

someone want to lie on the table?
anyone in the audience want a little journey
of guided movement,
and your brain will be a little better tuned
and you'll feel more flexible and younger and
more present
probably

all bets are off for humans,
exactly,
but each lesson
is a journey of discovery:

so journey:
Of you in your seats
Of someone here on the table
of me spiritually going out to do gardens and build gazebos,
fun for the Stanford book learning man
and the spiritual work is fine
but if the back hurts
the back hurts and in Berkeley
where I'm raising kids and making money
and being awake to arms and legs and breathing and light
and sound
or not

and what if we
now shift to arms and legs
and light and sound
and begin to turn your heads

no first

no first

and does coming back to now shift your
self
and is that shift a journey
and is to create an opening for that inner shift
why we take these outer journeys

and the back hurts in the work
and Berkeley is full of Feldenkrais classes
and I lie down on the floor and make simple
movements
and feel healed
whole
wonderful
better

so that is a start of my F/ ABM journey

and then Berkeley becomes the garden journey,
Berkeley Botanical Garden,
and landscaping
and
finally a Permaculture training
and I have to move to The Land
to begin to grow food,
become a farmer

looking many places,
22 years in Berkeley
what is the "right" spot
Santa Cruz

and so on

22 done,

I like this

Good.

let's throw in some Sonoma pictures

Coming to Austin, art 2

Another day
another 22 minute run through

Sonoma Coast, in the middle of California,
called Northern California,
and near the OAK where the story/ talk
starts
and same time of year, October of 2010

So, I'm in the OAK airport, I'm in line, I've got all sorts of stuff,
I don't travel light,
if you come to dance, this is the full backpack I carry just for a couple
hours away,
and I've got this massage table like thing.

And I'm going to a place I've never been.

I'm on a journey.

The table is a journey.

My life since February 1, 2009 is a journey.

My life since April 13, 1945 is a journey.

This moment is on a journey, and either I'm awake to this moment,
on not.

And learning to wake to each moment,
to lots of moments
is a journey.

And you listen, you sit in a chair,
and if we did a few things besides what you usually do,
it would be a journey.

Yes, yes, listening to me talk, that is a journey, if I'd ever tell the story:
why am I going to Austin,
why am I leaving from OAK,
what's this about living on Orcas Island,
and what's THAT journey about?

Okay.
Let's come out of journeying, just a moment,
feel ourselves in this moment , in this chair,
or standing on this floor.

Can you and I sense the gravity of a spine holding up our head.
Can we find arms and legs and feet, and are our feet touching the ground.

Can we feel gravity.
Can we feel the air coming in and out of our lungs.

Once upon a time: no gravity.
Once upon a time: no breathing.
The womb.
We came out.
Wow: light, gravity, breathing.

Sound there had been all along.

So, I'm in Oakland, and I'm on my way to Austin,
and I'm a little scared.
I don't know anyone in Austin who's willing to depart from
their rut, their pattern, their hurry, their program,
their ongoing life
to welcome me at the airport, to put me up for a few
nights, to orient me to Austin.

They don't give a shit.
They are too busy.
I'm not important to them.
All could be true, or could be stories,
and the two people behind me in the line start the trip
off nicely:
What's the table for?
Feldenkrais and the Anat  Baniel Method.

Oh, we know that well.
We are both accupuncturists and going back to Vermont
and it does our heart good to see body work tables.

What I do isn't really body work, it's

We know, we know, Feldenkrais is fantastic, where are
you going?

Austin.

Do you know people there?

No.

You're moving there?

For the winter, October till April.
I want to work with more special needs children and musicians
as well as the usual aching backs, necks, shoulders.

In the summer you live in the Bay Area here?
(Does everyone know that OAK aka Oakland is in the Bay ARea,
next to Berkeley, but more wild and wooly and integrated and multilevel
and both right across the Bay from San Francisco, and that Bay
in Bay Area, is San Francisco Bay,
second biggest estuary in North America after the Cheesapeake Bay)

No, summers a small island up in the Pacific Northwest,
in Puget Sound, above Seattle, north of Victoria the city
at the tip of Vancover, Canada.
The island is called Orcas Island and I imagine it's beauty
is kind of like Vermont's.

We've heard of Orcas.

So you know people in Austin?

Two, but they won't get back to me, so I'm starting it with
couching surfing this couple I know over the internet.

Good luck.

And the line moves on


And they go to on plane, and I go to another,
and on my plane, more evidence of "good luck"
The people next to me are a nice young couple,
both in jeans,
and by the end of the flight they've had the three minute
elbow shoulder lesson,
and are excited about my work
and the two men in front of us, older
(as in my age, but the usual silver hair that accompanies
"my age" in the chronological sense,
look like lawyers, businessmen,
both handsome, obviously doing well,
and in jeans)

Austin is going to be good.

So, I've got this table.
I didn't always have this table.
I didn't always take off for new towns not knowing anyone.

How did I get the table, the craft, the skills to heal special needs children,
and radically improve the tone and ease and quality of a musician's playing,
and enhance sleep, or dance, or sex, or yoga or tai chi?

When did that start?

How did that start?

Mid fifties.

Why?

Went to a weekend workshop while living in Sonoma.

What am I doing in Sonoma, which is in the middle of California,
though that part is called Northern California?
I thought this was a journey from Orcas to Austin.

Well yes.

And
(damn 22 minutes is up)

And I might have a one man show here,
if I weave in a group lesson,
and someone lying on the table,
and how I learned Feldenkrais
and the whole
Sonoma, Tucson, Atlanta, Arcata, Orcas,
leaving Marlie
living together for five months though
we knew that end was Feb 1, 2009

and so on,
exciting
and
"I don't know" what I'm going

which is fine:
I'm in the discovery mood
mode
manner


tune in this afternoon, all seven readers,
and I'll take a continuing gander at this adventure tale

love
chris


And the journey to love
ah,
and
the one
to waking
ah

we'll see
we'll see
said the blind man

1010: Reflections on Movement in Life of the Journeying Sort

Twenty two minutes to begin the journey
of talking about
journeying

I am at the Oakland Airport, familiarly know as OAK, and am in the Southwest Line.
Medium sized suitcase, normal. Duffel bag, pretty full over one shoulder: sort of unusual.
Very full backpack: normal, but usually for the young travelling suitcase free.
Duffel bag to carry on, not so unusual, though no one else ever has one.

And this stands out: a table of some sort, massage, or something, folded in half it's
about this high,
gesturing to three feet high,
and this wide
same

There are ropes around it, and the ropes hold a packing blanket,
that provides it some protection.

This is a lot in the line
and it's October of 2010,
and I'm in Oakland, and on my way from a year living on Orcas
Island,
with three times off in Northern California, coming in and out of OAK,
though before without the table,
whatever it is

A year of living on Orcas Island,

this tiny jewel Brave New World, amazing social microcosm
beautiful cedar and apple and eagle and wild happy book reading eco loving
funky smart artist hardworking sort of hippy folks mixed with retired
people like Richard Bach of Johnathan Livingston Seagul and Richard Donner of Superman
and blah blah
names

A year of living on Orcas came October 16 2009
and left OAK to go to a new supposedly amazing place Octover 16 2010

And this new amazing place is.....
going to be....
I've never been there

know only two people there, both of whom don't answer phone
calls,
nor email,
nor have interest in helping me establish there

but supposedly amazing place

which is....

Austin, Texas

Ah, so.
We are in Austin now, listening to me,
if you are in the living room the first Saturday of March, 2011
and now you are .....

and in the story I am on this journey,
from a year of living on Orcas Island, Washington
to trying out winters in Austin, Texas

And in the year before living on Orcas for a year,
I'd living a month or thereabouts in
Tucson, Arizona
Atlatnta, Georgia,
Arcata, California (the real notth, of redwoods, and pot growers and endless rain, fog mist ecological correctness to put even Berkeley to shame)
Gunnison, Colorado,

And I'm 65 years old, standing in line with 5
items, three to check,
but it's Southwest and I only have to pay for the table

And what's that table about,
is that a journey?

Yes.

And am I a lifelong vagabond and this is just the shaggy
last one two or seven chapters of that story

Well, not really
or yes,
depending on young youth
of slightly mobile parents:
Ohio, Pasadena, Newport Beach, Denver, Cincinnati, back to Newport,
to college firss So Cal, then No Cal
that is movey aroundy

and then the 22 years in Berkeley
some call it the new Vienna, comparing it to the fermenting years
of Einstein and Freud
22 years in Berkeley, raising two children, they actually live in the same
house all through their public school years,
and
then 12 years in Sonoma California,
where I settle in enough to create a still ongoing 3 acre public
garden,
and run for city council and still visit and live with a friend
when I come to No Cal
and fly in and out of OAK

So, 22 and 12 years in two places
and then I get older and take to the road
to do what i couldn't
and didn't really want to do when I was younger:

to ply my trade at different places
to meet new people
to keep writing my book
to discover what is grand about living in other locals

to tell you the truth:
or, my truth,
okay:
to tell you my opinion;
the people in Sonoma were sort of narrow minded in
their idea that Sonoma was "the perfect" place
to live in the world

true is was an hour from grand culture
true it is a growing place among the best in
the world
true the hot summer days always cool down into the fifties at night
and the winters of rain, rain, always have scattered weeks, even
in january and February in the 60's and 70's
and...
the ocean is nearby
and....

but I wanted to discover a bigger world

and there where relationship 'reasons"
and
the trade,
that has something to do with the table, which is called a Feldenkrais table,
and the skill I had gained,
called either the Feldenkrais Method
or the Anat Baniel Method
or
both

and that's 22 minutes

and the talk is "supposed to be 10"
and we haven't even glanced at why Austin,

or what is the journey
to get to the table

or what is the journey of someone on the table

alas,
more torommow me thinks,
this same blogspot

ciao
for
now

Chris

A sweet way to present the Feldenkrais Method

A Feldenkrais Class by Baby Liv from Irene Gutteridge on Vimeo.

waking up and Feldenkrais

Feldenkrais is a name
and it's a shorthand for a method
and it's a way of exploring how
to improve

improving is an improbable thing:
most people don't want to change
unless things are really horrible

this is good
and
it's not so good

we all know those few people
who are running themselves raggedy trying
everything under the sun to cure this and that
and the other

most people
however could improve
their connection to their
bodies
and the grace
and ease of their movement
by taking advantage of the Feldenkrais Method®
which is what the simple word "Feldenkrais" implies.

Feldenkrais is
really a man's last name ( Moshe Feldenkrais,
physicist, judo teacher, inventor, 1904-1984)

So , how could someone get a taste of the Feldenkrais Method?
Come to one of my classes.
Okay,
but quicker than that:
Try to link to the right
that says this:

FREE intro lesson:
Desk Trainer
(actually,
you can link right here)

That's the quickest way.

Another way might be this

1: Notice that you are sitting on two sit bones, Sitz bones,
the part of your pelvis that is for sitting

2: Lean to the left enough so that you can feel
really feel
that the weight is mainly on your left side

3: When your weight is over there on your left side,
breathe easily,
and after your breath is easy, rotate your head to the left
and to the right.

4: Notice which way seems to be easiest to rotate your head
when you have your weight to the left

5: Come back to the center. See if you notice anything different
from side to side

6: Shift most of your weight now
to the right side
to your right Sitz bone
and become comfortable with your breathing here

7: And in this position rotate your head
right and left
and notice which was seems easier.

8: That is a beginning exploration:
what is our pelvis
where is our weight
how does our head move in space
how can we try something new and be at ease
what is there to learn in some new configuration

And if you want to go further,
there is more:

9: Sitting upright
rotate your head right and left, gently
and notice how your nose moves from pointing to the front
to pointing to the side.
This is rotating your head.

Now: slightly tilt your head to the right
and the left
which means this:
when you tilt to the right, your right ear
goes closer to the floor
when you tilt to the left, your left ear
goes closer to the floor.
In both tilts your nose stays
pointing forward.

10: Practice the difference:
rotate your head right and left
tilt your head right and left

Go slowly and be gentle with your neck
and your nervous system

11: Now:
shift your weight to your left hip,
to the left side of your pelvis

and come back to the middle

and now
as you shift your weight to the left
alternate between tilting your head to the left
and tilting your head to the right

See if when you tilt your head to the right
as you shift your weight to the left side of your pelvis
if you can let your shoulders help a little
as the left shoulder comes up a little
and the right shoulder comes down

This is easier with pictures
and my digital camera is broken

desk trainer
above mentioned has a little cartoon guy to follow
oh well

so anyway

12. Now try the other side:
weight to the right side of your pelvis
and tilting your head
right and left,
letting your shoulders
and maybe even your ribs
help out with this

If confusing,
try desk trainer
or go slower
or give me a call
or buy the book:
Awareness Heals

life on earth

tis saturday
cold




i'm inventing a blend
of yoga
Feldenkrais
Pilates
tai chi
and brain accessing
fun stuff

it's really great

maybe to be called
Nuga
or maybe
Nuga Yoga

it has core strengthening
fun rolling from judo
tai chi strengthening of legs and brains and chi
feldenkrais rewiring of our brains
all sorts of twists and surprises


i hope
if you are local
and read this blog
now and then
you'll come to classes

it's fun
makes for flexible
and strong
and brain flexibility
and discovery
way
cool

ciao
chris

Parenting, Dreams, Invitation to improvement and joy

Advice to parents:
Say nice things to your kids everyday.
Especially when they aren’t being wonderful.
Tell them you love them.
Tell them they are wonderful:
when they hate you
when they do poorly in school
when they “forget” to do their chores (and keep asking, just don’t nag
when they are unpopular
or confused

And, above all: talk to them.
Away from the television set.
Away from the computer games.
Just talk. Don’t give advice. Just talk.
Even better, outside together, enjoying nature together, and just talk.

---

Dreams last night:

Last night in the going
back
to sleep
a kind of half sleep
and dreams:
of a wolf/lion/skunk/bear
what was that creature
wondering even as I saw it
and a dancing with a cerebral palsy
man, by hugging from behind
the woman dancing with him
her pressed in between us
and I guide and heal and teach
his nervous system
as the three of us
dance

---

Invitation to Improvement and Joy

Let’s say: you have a soreness in your back or shoulders or neck as you move through life, and wouldn’t mind not only having that go away, but could enjoy learning how to function better from head to toe, from pelvis to ribs, from elbow to ear, from spine to sternum, from eye to brain?

In other words: are you game to become a more complete and aware and happy in your body and happy in your awareness person?

If this sort of improvement, about upgrading your nervous system, and rekindling your love of learning appeals to you, come on around and give yourself for awhile to this work, this Way of Conscious and Exploratory Movement.

Let’s say you want to play tennis better, or ski better, or golf with more ease and improvement and success. Again, are you willing to go inside and discover how you are and how you could be more, as this marvel of engineering, all these bones and muscles with a big brain on a planet of constant gravity and a body of two legs, and brain that loves to learn?

Good.


That’s my invitation for today.

Pelvis and Head

this organism has four
legs

we usually only have two

the pelvis
transmits and rotates
and powers
all the stuff above
the legs

see how their pelvises
do that
even
though
they don't have to balance
in their particular configuration

our head
is designed to bring in information
to taste, smell
and hear
and
see

in any position,
if our neck is mobile
we can look right and left
easily

while our pelvis
supports us firmly
and intelligently in either sitting
or standing

so,
today's monday yoga:

take any posture:

notice what your pelvis is doing
arch and round a little your lower back
and discover if your pelvis is free
to move
and if
it is using the muscles the way
that will make the posture easiest

and then,
comfortable there

let your head rotate,
slowly
and easily
right
and left

and allow your eyes
to move
easily
and comfortably
in the opposite way
your head is moving

still aware of breathing
and pelvis
and feet
and gravity

easy neck
easy eyes
easy brain
smart brain
intelligent pelvis

the brain body yoga
game

enjoy

For survival, read ferns not books

Good movie
out and about
sonoma,
of course,
getting it a bit later

and fine
by me

called: Into the Wild

young man,
full of hot and hairy fire
off to test himself
see the world

pissed at parents
fine
wants to be a man
fine
see the world
fine
get with nature
fine

twisted a bit
by parents
so what,
who isn't,
and worked up about the mes
of civilzation
fine

likes to work
good
likes people
to a point
good,
and a bit sad,
and

then off to Alaska
and instad of getting to
know the land
got lost
in his books

and starved to death
sleeping indoors.
not laying his head body bones
down each day and night
in the grass
and ferns
and weeds
and letting them
teach him
what to eat
what not

instead of
honest wet
dampness and stars all night
hiding away in
a tin box,
dumb ass,
"escaping" from civilization
and then putting himelf
to jail

not exploring to find
a bridge
a mile and a half up from his place
coulda got him over the river
he let his mind
tell him was trapping
him

shoulda had the place,
the land,
wild and free
and big
explored
for blackberries
and birds
and grubs ten
miles in every direction

shoulda listened
to dreams
and birds
and sky
and earth spirits:
eat this,
don't eat that
come this way,
not that,
sleep now
quiet now
shout now
rest now
run now
tune in to
the wisdom
of the world

looking to books
to teach him
the beneath books
wisdom
and it's all around
him

stay home
and bask
in the library
or go to the wild
and listen to the wild

can't be word
caught and
free
at the same time

even here
on the computer
unless words
wake up the place
beyond
and underneat the words

same old
stuck
stuff

anyway:
boy of the wild,
into the wild
almost

"almost" doesn't cut it

died in the spring
green spring
food all around


fine ideas
and then
didn't learn
from the wild
just went there
and died
dumb asshole

oh, well,
great movie
i'm going to see it again

nano nano NaNoWriMo.orgcontinues
roaring,
unthinking
mainly dialogue
all i know of therapy
and this and that
a lot
on schedule to get to 50,000
by day fifteen
and then double up by day thirty
fun, crazy,
some days i say i can't
and then
pull me
out with
the work
or the mornig pages
or
do feldenkrais
and get the thinking going
without words
it's so great
and so on

love
to anyone
who visits

and even better:
a hint:
now
is always
here

and if words
talk about it
not now
anymore

weird
wild

into that wild
always available

Beautiful Day

the sun
warm and sweet

i gave a brilliant
Feldenkrais lesson

and then finished a short story

started the day with yoga
outside

now some lunch

excited by the idea of
National November Writing Month

thousands of people
set out to write
a 50,000 word
novel in the month
of
you guess it
November

ciao
enoy the day

chris

Big Picture: We live, we move

if we are alive
we need to move

duh?

to get food
to make love and make more of us
to go to the car and drive ourselves crazy
or drive somewhere wonderful

we move to breathe
we move to think

really?

why does it take longer to count from twenty to thirty
than from one to ten?

think about it
try it out
see how something like movement
is involved in something as
"mental"
as counting

and getting up from the computer
going outside
to take a walk:

if we can do
that :
we have access to a good life

and if we can't
learning is at hand
and we need to recognize
the life we could be leading
is far more sweet than
that which we are leading

without comfortable
at ease movement
life is far less
wonderful than it might be

if you want to move
better,
all sorts of ideas
on this and the companion sites.

enjoy

maybe even check out
her new upgraded site at
Anat Baniel Method

and also the sweet new site
at Feldenkrais (rhymes with paradise) Method

and my other sites,
which you can find links to at the side

enjoy


ciao
chris

Home again, home again, jiggidy jig

Sunset from Plane, PDX to OAK

(And is it true,
I ever left Home?
See, as always,
TheWork.com)

Last phase off and
did
dad
done
last night,

Into a plane,
after sharing a taxi ride to the Portland
Airport with Sandy Buckhart
an old time Feldie
and even older time Physical Therapist,
who has made it one of his life's missions
to bring the wisdom of Feldenkrais to the PT world,
and the scientific rigor of the best of PT to the Feldie world.
(see FunctionalRehabilitation.Com)

So,
on the plane
we head south,
and that left the sunset on
the right,
where I was sitting at the window.

La, la,
Sweet Marlie
picked me up
and then home
for the first time since June 30.
Fun.

So,
what was Ananda?
A marvelous place.
A spiritual yoga.
A wonderful group of people.

Ananda 2007 yoga, fun, life and learning group

And we can't forget,
the river.

the waters near Ananda, plus Robert

And
the last phase
was Reed College,
a beaitiful spot
with shabby pretend healthy food,
lots of Feldie
wonderful people
including Annie Thoe,
an assistant trainer,
who is a fellow Nature Lover to the Max,
and a fine Garden
across the street.
One last pic
here,

Lake in beautiful Garden across the Way from Reed College,
in Portland, Oregon, site of this year's Feldenkrais Guild Conference

'cause all this computer time
is not being outside
time.

So
I'm back "home"
and was
"home"
so many times
thanks to being present
or great people
or waters
and land
and sweet moments
of stillness
or joy
or learning
or now
or pleasure
or
you know,
like
Living.


Love
to all and anyone reading this.

Stay tuned for the five
paths to happiness, peace of mind,
transformation,
and an overall
wonderful
Life.

common to the Work of Byron Katie and Feldenkrais

Both don't say:
you have to change.

Both open a door:
you can feel better,
be happy,
be more free.

Both don't tell you
what you are doing wrong.

Both allow you to discover
and at some deep level
decide
to make a change
if it's sweet and good for you,

by providing an options

by providing options.


If we are unhappy,
the katie work says:

judge your neighbor (know your pattern,
don't try to be too good)

write it down (slow down the obsessive thoughts
behind all suffering)


ask four questions
(let mind meet mind,
use the power of comparison
to heal,
not as often, to dig ourselves into a hole)

turn it around
(try a completely opposite pattern)


The four questions:
is it true?
can i absolutely know it's true?
how do i react when i believe that story or thought or belief?
who would i be without the belief?

Two sets of comparing:
is it true, vs, is it a belief, story, opinion, interpretation

how am i when i attach to the belief
who would i be without this attaching and believing?

no command to stop
the belief
an experiment


The Feldenkrais Method
allows
us to try our habitual pattern,
and
then add on this alternative
and that variation,

try it in different
configurations
than we usually do
(on ground, on side, on stomach, back and so on)

change speed pattern:
slow down

change unconscious moving pattern:
pay attention

change having to get something done,
and done Right pattern:
explore

we become young
empty
learners again

a whole new world
opens up


is this fine?

Yes.

The Power of Ananda Yoga Plus Wake Up Feldenkrais

The Feldenkrais Method, and Wake Up Feldenkrais
is superb at this:
allowing us
to come to the moment,
allowing us to train
and improve our awareness,
our brain,
and alongside that:
our grace and ease
in moving.

Yoga, of the traditional sort,
is pretty good at giving us
a guiding path of
how to place of bodies
in positions
that allow us to feel more full
of life,
a little more flexible,
more in tune
with how great it is to be in a body.

Ananda Yoga,
with an emphasis on affirmations
that accentuate and hone the poses
into arrows of direction,
directing our energy in
and up the spine
to our brain,
directing our attention
to higher emotions
(One, for example is,
"I radiate love and good will
to soul friends everywhere.")
and to
the Higher Nature in either ourselves
or some Higher Spirit (God??)
in the Universe.
(for example:
"With calm faith,
I open to Thy light.")

So with Ananda Yoga,
with not only have the body
and mental awareness of most yoga,
but we have a deep confirmation
and accenting of
the emotional
and spiritual basis of yoga.

And with a Feldenkrais companionship,
we have a deepening of
the immensely easy
and pleasurable
improvements in
awareness
and thinkng
and moving
that can come from a system based
on learning and discovery
rather than that old trap
of "Doing it Right."

what's missing in yoga therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic

In these three,
the human body
is like a machine,
a car say,
and when the car is broken,
you get it back into
alignment,
or you adjust this
or that,
and then it can go back
to being a good bone
and muscle
and posture machine.

in feldenkrais,
the job is more like
this:
you are a chetah
that thinks and acts
like you are a car;
how to wake you
back up to realizing
the grace
and power
and beauty
of being a chetah

and how is that done:
by learning
and discovery
and transformation

not therapy<
but expansion:
how can we tap
into forgetten abilities
to learn
and to change
and to become new
and newer
and newest

that's what's
possible

Happy Monday

One way of looking at yoga is as a chance to return to a
connection to our bodies,
to an enjoyment of moving in precise
and conscious way.

Another way of looking at yoga is as a chance to
slow down the rush of the world and
come inward with our attention and energy
and thus recharge ourselves.

Another way of looking at yoga,
is as a chance to become that which
we are at our core:
stillness
that is as vast as the universe.

Thus the second sutra of Patanjali:
yogas chitta vritti narodah:
Yoga is the stilling of the whirlpools of our feeling driven thoughts.

As if coming to the center, the eye of the huricance,
yoga can,
sometimes,
bring us to a stillness and peace
that is truly who we are.

And, as those who've read these remarks
over the years know,
the Work of Byron Katie
is another path
to still the rushing of thoughts
thoughts that lead us to suffering.

And the Feldenkrais Way
in a strange and beautiful way,
can lead us back to the glory
of awarenss and learning
as pathways to the Bigger Self that is
down there
inside our little self,
waiting to be discovered.