The man who used a Feldenkrais session to begin the process of coming back from being legally blind.
Have you heard about David Webber and his experiences?
In 1996, David was diagnosed with an immune system disorder that caused severe inflammation in his eyes.
And in his words:
For the next six years, I was in pain and afflicted with complications including significant damage to my optic nerves, cataracts and glaucoma. I had five operations. My ophthalmologist told me that my condition would probably get worse and that I could expect to be on immune suppressant drugs for the rest of my life. By 2002, I could barely count fingers in front of my face and my visual acuity was 20/200. I was declared legally blind.
He consulted with students of the Bates Method. And with Yogis and Buddhists who had eye exercises. And he spent hours a day working with various sessions. But eventually, he gave up. It was not working. In his words,
...to my great disappointment, my damaged optic nerves and visual system threw off a continuous stream of visual “noise” in the form of white/grey flashing lights in the center of my visual field. As I tried these various exercises, I grew even more anxious and frustrated. Eventually I gave them up.
The point at which his story began to pique my interest is this quote:
In 2002, I discovered an early Awareness Through Movement lesson by Dr. Feldenkrais that explored the essence of Dr. Bates’s relaxation method for the eyes and three of the four Buddhist eye exercises I had learned. To my great surprise and delight, during the lesson, I suddenly experienced a release of unnecessary tonus in the muscles of my eyes. At that moment I knew, for certain, that I had found what I needed to heal my eyes. And so, I began to explore these three practices in concert.
An early Awareness Through Movement session? hmmm...I got very, very curious as I had an idea of what session he might be referring to.
And after doing a little digging, I discovered that David gave a talk in which he mentioned the exact session:
Two years into the Feldenkrais training process, we were able to access some lessons that Moshe had taught called the Alexander Yanai lessons...and very fortunately I was given the transcript of number 10, called "Covering The Eyes."
That is the session that I have sent the people on my email list several times over the last few years.
How cool is that?
I have put the link here again in case you missed it the first time.
Covering Your Eyes: A No-Cost Feldenkrais Sessions (transcript included)
Just click to play
And for good measure, I have also attached a transcript of the session to this blog post: Click here to view and download.
To be clear, it is not a transcript of the original session taught by Moshe. But a transcript of my recording of it.
Many people have achieved stunning levels of relaxation in their eyes from the session.
Though, as always, your mileage may vary.
That's all for now.
I hope everyone is doing great out there.
Ryan
My streamable and downloadable Feldenkrais sessions for the eyes can be found here:
https://ryannagy.samcart.com/products/easy-eyes-volume-1/
And here is a pdf that tells more of David Webber's story:
https://www.ryannagy.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/DavidWebberArticle2010.pdf
