The ability to learn and master skills keeps evolving in the internet age. It is no longer a matter of learning distinctions fast, but learning at a rate that accelerates. And one evolves independently, studying what one wants outside of any hierarchy (professional or otherwise). You can acquire genius-level skill without submitting to the whims of an outside “authority.” Many people are only vaguely aware of the possibilities. Here is a bit of where I started, where I am going and where you can go. Feel free to adapt for your own purposes.
My approach to learning has been outside the mainstream for decades. Not only with Feldenkrais, but learning Spanish and most recently going deeper into Ericksonian hypnosis. If you are reading this, you are likely outside the mainstream as well.
Perhaps in more ways than you realize consciously!
I do not know exactly, because I have not met all of you. But from my conversations with many, people have massive, untapped and unrealized potential.
(Though, strangely enough, not everyone wants to know about their untapped potentials. So I do not always explicitly mention it.)
Analog Learning Using Feldenkrais
Before I engaged in formal Feldenkrais training, I had about 5 years of studying and practicing his methods independently, without any formal training.
Have you done something similar?
I call pre-internet learning, "analog" because for me it largely involved reading sessions from books, doing them from audio cassettes and also recording transcripts on tape and then doing them.
The changes that I underwent exploring Feldenkrais on my own were very deep. And as I had no one to tell me otherwise, I began coming to my own conclusions and integrating Feldenkrais the with the work of Milton H. Erickson and many of his direct and indirect students such as Stephen Gilligan, John Grinder, Steve Andreas and many, many others.
From 1994 to 1998, I took a formal “Guild Certified Training.” The training was useful. But it was still largely analog. I could only review sessions via cassette tapes and paper notes. It was expensive to buy transcripts of sessions and they were still in paper format.
Digital Accelerated Learning (Feldenkrais, Spanish Hypnosis)
Fast forward a few years starting around 2003 and my experience began to accelerate, as it did for others.
I was able to scan my old physical transcripts of Feldenkrais sessions and acquire others in digital format (pdf). And I quickly amazed a database of over 1000 sessions (that is just an estimate, I did not count them).
Using text-to-speech software built into my Mac laptop. I was able to have my computer read the sessions to me. I did three sessions per day, every day, for months.
I estimate that I had the experience of doing 5 years of Feldenkrais classes, in about 3 months. To put that in perspective, Moshe Feldenkrais created and taught around 600 sessions at his studio on Alexander Yanai street in Israel. He taught there for about 27 years. One would have to go daily to Moshe’s classes for 5 years or more, to receive what I did in several months.
This strategy of leveraging technology for my Feldenkrais practice turbocharged my development in ways that were both astounding and sometimes painful. My feelings and actions changed so rapidly that I stopped fitting into my life contexts. It was psychologically and emotionally painful.
Feldenkrais trainings and trainers began to bore me. I could see how they were warping the ideas to fit their limited understanding and agenda of selling the work piece-by-piece to maximize their income and feed their egos.
My professors in grad school began to bore me as well. There were times in grad school meetings where I sometimes had to pinch myself to stop from laughing. I was in this altered physical state from doing Feldenkrais and they were talking about latent variables, manifest variables and all kinds of made-up ridiculous bullshit that I couldn’t take seriously anymore.
Don’t get me wrong. I still deeply study certain aspects of language and cognition. There are hugely valuable distinctions to learn and use. But the most valuable ideas are - like Feldenkrais - outside the mainstream (for now). And while trainings and classes are useful, they are not always necessary as you can get access to source material outside of Universities and professional organizations.
I didn’t have the language for it at the time, but I realize now that many of my teachers and colleagues were living in an analog, hierarchical, dominance world while I had shifte into digital, emergent ways of living without realizing it.
Many people are doing the same.
Gentle But Accelerated
When I started doing massive amounts of Feldenkrais sessions via computer I was speeding up my developmental time. I think of it now as a form of computer-augmented time-shifting (see comment section). By having my computer read the sessions, I was able to condense what would typically take a decade of weekly classes and sensory-motor learning into just a few months.
This concept has been on my mind a lot lately as it's becoming widespread. From chess to poker to software development, child prodigies and newly-minted adult superstars are emerging everywhere.
People can learn more deeply and quickly than ever before and they can do so outside dominance hierarchies, such as a University Department, Feldenkrais Guild or other professional organization.
My self-directed learning experiences led me to create an online practice in two different fields (Feldenkrais series and Psychotherapy conferences) and then sell most of my belongings, and leave the United States to live in Mexico.
Next
Now, I am in the process of making another significant shift. That is why I am writing now. I want to share it with you to stimulate your own processes. I am adapting using the same strategy that I used to do Feldenkrais to also master Ericksonian language patterns.
I have done this before, but not as intensely as I am doing it now. I am reviewing dozens of digitized books and papers by Milton Erickson to immerse myself in Ericksonian hypnosis, just as I did with Feldenkrais's work.
My basic process is this: When I am interested in a certain idea in the area of hypnosis and language, I will search my personal database of digitized books (using a software program called DevonThink Pro Office). DevonThink will give me each and every example in the books. For example, I search for “double bind” “post hypnotic” and every unique group of words that interest me.
And those that do, I write down on index cards (yes, physically). And then I create audios of myself reading those words and experience them. This is very close to what I did when learning to teach Feldenkrais. I would record sessions in my voice. And then I would do the sessions. That would give me the experience of being the teacher and the student.
You can do the same, if you want. Pick any transcript from any teacher. Record it and then do it. Over the course of days, weeks and months, you will start to create your next transformation almost automatically.
Whether that transformation is teaching live for the first time, or creating a new product or workshop it does not matter. By experimenting with whatever materials that you can get your hands on, you begin to see yourself (bit by bit) as a knowledgeable person who has a ton to offer.
Or, perhaps you already know that.
🙂
And knowing that you create your own next-level transformation.
Just some ideas.
I hope you find them useful at some level.
Ryan
