I just bumped into an anecdote in my personal notes about Feldenkrais and his thoughts on the training programs he was teaching in the United States from the mid-1970s to 1981. Moshe was talking to his friend of many decades, Franz Wurm.
Have you heard of him?
He chose to stay outside of the Feldenkrais Guild and other organizations, so not many people within those organizations talk about him.
Franz wrote that he and Moshe would discuss and argue about Moshe’s training courses.
And Feldenkrais said,
“They’ll pick up a bag of tricks. That’s all, and that’s not what my work is about. But, they’ll make a living by what they’ve learnt, and that’s something, too - for them, anyway...Perhaps in fifty years, somebody will pick up the threads, and grasp them, and make something better of them.”
Fascinating, no?
My personal view is that Moshe was more correct than he realized - and maybe in a way he didn’t intend. Perhaps his students were learning a bag of tricks, because that is what he was teaching: a set of procedures, distinctions, lesson-structures, and demonstrations that can be copied, repeated, and sold.
And that’s the point: “bag of tricks” isn’t just an insult - it’s a format. It’s what happens when living inquiry gets turned into teachable units, repeatable scripts, authorized sequences, and status markers. Once the work becomes a curriculum, the center of gravity shifts from exploration to preservation - and the organization starts protecting the container more than the emergence.
Which is why I think the next phase of learning about Feldenkrais - his ideas (and their limitations) - will come from outside of any hierarchical organization such as the Feldenkrais Guild. Hierarchies are reasonably good at maintaining a basic body of knowledge.
But generating new knowledge and new forms of action?
Forget about it!
Einstein didn’t come up with the theory of relativity while working within a hierarchical structure. Neither did Darwin come up with his theory of natural selection inside a university.
Feldenkrais was independent and did not submit his work to a committee for approval! But unfortunatly, he wanted his students to submit their ideas to HIM for approval. And forty years after his death they are still seeking his approval and trying to fit their life within his world view.
Awareness, like spontaneity, freedom, and empowerment cannot be taught nor imposed hierarchically.
It must emerge.
One can perhaps create the conditions for someone to empower himself, be free, and develop awareness - but it cannot be forced.
Anyway, just some rough form thoughts for now.
I hope you are doing well,
Ryan
