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Avowing a dreamI have a dream...an unavowed dream that is about to become avowed... It is a dream that ca. US$300 a year per practitioner could buy Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioners a professional organization that wouldn't respond to its members' requests for support in practice-building with veiled suggestions that real grown-ups don't expect their professional organization to support such trivial and grubby things. A dream that we had something, well, like our beloved FGNA only...a little less disparaging of us. But alas the latest issue of In Touch came today. I'm so sorry to say that what we have is like FGNA, only more so. Mission statements are important things. At some point when I wasn't paying attention, the FGNA adopted a mission statement that reads:
That might be a nice mission statement for FEFNA, the Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America, whose membership is the public. But for the practitioners' member organization? In Touch features a dreamy lead article gathering and sharing the fruit that such a confused mission statement could be expected to bear in an organization with a culture like ours, disparaging the very notion that the practitioners' professional organization should serve practitioners. The analogy with IBM -- yes that's it! Behind the member request that FGNA act as an organization serving practitioners is the selfish demand that FGNA turn out diet pills instead of doing that dream magic thing FGNA does so well! Diet pills to fill my personal bank account! Legacy of Moshe be damned. The public encounters the method through practitioners. Practitioners look to their professional organization for support in practice building because small or non-existent practices mean two things at one and the same time: they aren't making a living and they aren't getting to share the magic they love with the public. These two things, making a living and sharing the method, are not separate, and they certainly are not opposite. If they were, why in the world would we have this whole apparatus of training programs and service marks and a Guild?
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Recent comments
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The last teacher
Hey Daniel, your comment reminds of something very Important, that I was losing track of. I got this a long time ago from 'SemioPhysics' articles and had kind of forgotten it!!!
"I am going to be your last teacher. Not because I'll be the greatest teacher you may ever encounter, but because from me you will learn how to learn.
When you learn how to learn, you will realize that there are no teachers, that there are only people learning and people learning how to facilitate learning."
With those words Moshe Feldenkrais began his first North American training in June 1975. None of us were really prepared for this remarkable man or his method.
Thats the kind of stuff that turns me on!
http://www.semiophysics.com/SemioPhysics_article_learning.html
Enjoy!
Nelson
I always used to wonder why
I always used to wonder why more people do not know about Feldenkrais and do ATMs. I live in England and I used to go to a class and sometimes there were only about 2 people in the class. So the teacher could not really make any money. Accross the road there is a yoga centre and I went there a couple of times and there were about 100 people and they were turning people away for lack of space. So there is a huge appetite amongst people to do movement. Yet Feldenkrais is not really known and that is a shame because it is so effective much more so than Yoga.
Now that I have gone on the internet and tried to become more involved in Feldenkrais It gives a good sense of why this is so. There seems a big divide between teachers and students in terms of access to the work. Whenever I try to join a group or website that discusses feldenkrais I am not allowed to because I am not a practitioner or on a training program. There is almost a kind of Feldenkrais Mafia that guards much of Moshes work and sees it as there own. I am not saying people should get everything for free like Audio ATMS or videos of Moshe working but it should be made more available to the public in my opinion. This would help Feldenkrais grow and become more popular.
That is why I think this site looks very good because it goes against the grain and it seems to try and make feldenkrais and ATM exercises availale for everyone not just a closed group run by self proclaimed big shots.
Maybe though I am too greedy and have got used to downloading music and stuff from the internet for free.
Thanks for the site. Daniel.
Well its a wet morning in
Well its a wet morning in Sydney I have taken the day off, so why not... You guys have touched on interesting topics, so let me add some of my thoughts.
I first heard of Feldenkrais in 1984 when I was just begining my university studies and launching full on into the crazy world of NLP. I was pretty much a head person and Feldenkrais only registered in me as the NLP of the body. A couple of years later a woman came to work to the healing center I was part of. she told me she was a Feldekrais practitioner and soon we became friends and she invited me to experience FI and ATM with her.
Eventually her work made an impact on me but I was busy with NLP, Hypnosis & uni and I did not see myself as a bodyworker. Eventually my perceptions changed and Feldenkrais came more into my field of awareness and thats when my frustrations began.
I'm telling you all this cos I think is relevant in that i have been thinking and observing the Feldenkrais movement in Australia since many years ago and have gone to classes,FI's , met Practitioners, had discussions and even arguments with them. I somehow even managed to atend a practise group for graduates for a while, yes all this without attending any professional training programs at all!
As I write this I realise I could go on for a while, so I'll try and cut it down. Maybe i should write a blog on the subject!!!
Lynette you say " think it's a deeply interesting question, what promotes the growth and development of our work " Well I can make a few comments on that.
First. Being such a closed shop does not help. I think having such a tight and controlled attitude to feldenkrais work does not aid in the spreading of the work. Contrast this to NLP were the opposite is true, most people know or have heard of NLP than Feldenkrais. The NLP material is out there for everyone to see and acess. This makes its spread far more reaching and easier. of course there are problems with this approach too, but I bet there are far more NLP certified people out there.
Who is going to promote the Feldenkrais work? and how effectively?
What is Feldenkrais any way? a way of fostering flexible bodies or flexible minds?
Feldenkrais is a bit of a non event here in Australia, the last Syney training finishedI think more than a couple of years ago and no sign of a new one yet. In the premier city of Australia?
I can now see how big this subject is so I better stop for now.
All I can say I think the best way foward for Feldenkrais work is to set it free. Give it to the people and it will spread far better. People will still want that certificate, people will still came to the best trained, qualified practitioner. But if you give ownership of the material to them, they will feel more incline to promoted. NLP is there in books, tapes etc yet people still pay money to be trained and certified.
Thats all for now folks!
I do suspect...
and I have to say I don't know but only suspect...that indeed broader dissemination doesn't have to rob us of our "trade secrets." On the contrary, it may be essential for growth.
making a living
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local conditions
1) If you have two classes a week, four successful workshops a year and 10 FIs a week, you make what a lowest level secretary or daycare worker makes, with 2 weeks off for advanced trainings and 2 weeks for personal vacation. This is poverty line.
2) If you have two classes a week, four successful workshops a year and 20 FIs a week, you make what a beginning secondary schoolteacher makes, with 2 weeks off for advanced trainings and 2 weeks for personal vacation.
3) If you have two classes a week, four successful workshops a year and 20 premium FIs a week (priced as a trainer in Toronto), you make what a beginning university professor makes, with 2 weeks off for advanced trainings and 2 weeks for personal vacation.
But you get those two weeks at Christmas when no one is doing feldenkrais, and no other vacation, because you have no choice about timing. That's all calculated on 48 fully working weeks a year.
Only in 3) could you think to have a family, own a house, if your spouse does not have a job that lets you have a hobby career, or you have some family money, or you are a monk.
Your debt from the training will be comparable to the university degree you need for cases 2 or 3, though you get much less education for the price than you do in those cases.
I know of no one in Canada who consistently has 20 FIs a week unless integrated as a physio into that referral system. The reality is that people work very hard to have 10.
As Fl is currently taught/learned and as we are placed in society, option 3 happens after ca. 15 years of work with the method. Producing reliable Fl skills in a shorter training time (less than 4 years training plus five years postgrad) would address one side of that problem.
Your options: work from the home that your spouse supports to lower the 30% overhead I calculated into that. Treat it as a spiritual calling and accept poverty. Do it as an expensive hobby with another job in hand. Have two or three other things you do on a contract basis to complete your income.
Or become a trainer, and take home $US1000/day you teach other people something you claim is a profession. (Assistant trainer for $US600.)
Yes of course there are more connections!
training issues
I very much agree with Ruthy Alon's statement made at the European Feldenkrais Congress in Berlin, 2005 (click here).
Regarding what you write about what trainers, assistants and practitioners earn: I think there should be something in between. Or rather: more trainers, smaller trainings. I'm happy to pay 80-100 Euros a day in a group of 10 people, with individual supervision etc. I'm not happy to do so in a group of 30-40 people. (I still do it, because currently this is the only "officially accepted" way of becoming a practitioner).
Regards, Julius
thanks
for the link to the text of Ruthy's talk.
The community got so concerned about exposure to a variety of teachers, that the rest of what she has to say gets lost. Looking back on it, I would trade the limited diet of teachers for the more intimate and sustained, "part of daily life" and PRACTICE environment, which she describes so well. I don't really buy what she says about a variety of teachers confusing us at an early stage, but I do think that it's a worthwhile tradeoff.
Moshe insisted people wear street clothing because this is part of life. Our "vacation" trainings can be useful for deep self-transformation, but I think it contributes to our "floatiness". Only so much deep self-transformation fits into life anyway.
perspective
This is uncomfortable information and the question is if it reaches people before they invest? Would you have chosen not to do the training if you had known? Would you have preferred to take lessons instead for all that money you spent? But then you couldn't have had your ATM classes would you? that brings you joy! And you couldn't buy AY... and go at advances...Both of us are disturbed by the sect, the economical interests of the "click". The fear component is so strong, the control for wrong reasons. I had a talmudic saying at my website before. To save a life is to safe a world. That is enough the rabbis said for the same reasons that we write. I think we have to be in the FK community and take what is good there and then make it our own in circumstances that is reachable...
disclosure
In the era when I entered my philosophy PhD program, they advertised to applicants the information that it was virtually impossible to find secure work in academic philosophy. This was the ethical thing to do.
What I have laid out is the most simple information that anyone should understand deciding to go into a training program--we see our practitioner charge $60/FI and we think, well, that's a superb hourly wage. We should understand the reality of any private practice, especially one not integrated into our health and educational systems, before setting out $50K to learn.
Would I have done it anyway? Would I rather not have learned to the level of a practitioner?
Two answers--personally, this was the price I payed for my own rehabilitation; I may well not ever have been fit for full-time work without this investment in myself. And this is commonly said: you do the training because you want or need it for your own growth; in an economic sense it doesn't pay. If you can use it in and with your profession, you may make some of that investment back.
The other answer--what I needed for myself ultimately is this sense of being my own practitioner, to learn at the level one can learn as you say from the materials and the educational experiences available when one is a practitioner--and the deeply, deeply important learning one gets from teaching.
Some of this I wonder if we can't share without asking such a commitment of the public, so I experiment now with trying to put this into my teaching with DIY ATM.
a coincidence
It pleases me enormously, this coincidence as it belongs to those matters that makes efforts meaningful. Writing articles like this one is a tremendous effort & also unburden a parasitic tension. The issues in it I carry since -88. I talked tonight to another teacher from the Stockholm trainings, asking him how important he thought his qualifications in teaching FI was for the fact that he has a full practice and he agreed fully with me. I finished -91, he -93. The same reflection has another teacher I met at the conference. Our opinions match with A. Stewarts comment recently at Feldyforum about her visit in the Tel Aviv TT training in December. As you can see my article is published at Kulturen, my closed website for Feldenkrais teachers in Scandinavia. I also published it at the Swedish guilds member site. I do not think it should be at my article collection at somatik.se. It is political and does not fit there. But I can foul myself here. I have only distributed it to a small group of people outside Sweden. One trainer who received it made comments that made its authenticity very reliable. I understand from your asking to link it that you find it valuable. Are you ready to comment more? I have to think where to publish it so teachers in the international community may read it.
cross-overs and cross-overs
When I think what are the connections in this coincidence, I only think of two people with strong views and the facility to express those views strongly, both finding it challenging to act (i.e. have effect) in the context in which we live and work. All the other big, big issues you raise I would not at the moment mix in with my particular concern about "my" Guild, which I am told now is not my Guild!
-Lynette
profession?
Every cell of my being reverberates in agreement with Lynette on this issue. I took a pass on joining the USA Guild after my graduation in 1987 and am pleased and happy that I took that position at that time and in these times. The grass roots practitioner is the 'moving body' in our communities of this beautiful work. Inherent in its design the first approximation of a USA Guild to support the 'alive Feldenkrais' is a shadow of what it could be.
I propose you consider stepping over this corpse of the USA Guild as 'a missed opportunity'. If that is too much then help each other and use the wonderful internet tools to house usefull information.
The grass roots Feldenkrais person of today, reminds me of gay Americans in the 1980's.
The book that helped me in 1987 and may be read today and transposed into affirmative action is listed on Amazon.com.
The book is by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen entitled After the Ball. You will most likely want to skip directly to Part 2 - Solutions: Driving the Wedge. Such highlights as: Don't just express yourself: Communicate, Keep the Message Focussed, Making News and improving Public Relations, Getting into the Major Media, etc.
I will join any Canadian Guild that offers membership to all North American graduates of a professional training program...to promote the lonely, isolated home spun practitioner who is making a difference one person at a time. After the Ball is such a good read because it takes up cinderella's life after the party is over...and with wonderful gay humour looks at obstacles as challenges with a simple cheap way to bring change. Civil rights also means making a living.
profession woes
I too have taken a pass on the USA guild - after altercations about an article that was published in our local paper and a caption that said 'woman uses Feldenkrais Method to relieve pain'. No mention in the article that I call myself a Feldenkrais Practitioner, just the caption to the story that the reporter thought was 'good press' for the method. Not so said the guild. Then I talked directly with Michael Purcell about why the guild is not pursuing being recognised by the medical industry for insurance purposes. He arrogantly replied that it is an educational method. I responded with 'does it help people heal', 'Oh yes' he said. Then how is it different than any other modality in the results?
When I suggested that I would talk to someone else at the guild Michael informed me he is the guild and not to bother. It turns out he is right and the guild prefers to spend all of its resources and time going after people like me with excellent success rates with clients for referring to the method as the foundation of what I practice.
Who needs enemies with a guild like that?
mouse & elephant
Hi Kathy,
In the other sense of dream, I dreamed last night of your refreshing suggestion of turning to After the Ball for strategy! I will look it up.
I think it's a deeply interesting question, what promotes the growth and development of our work given the reality of life as a practitioner making a difference one person at a time, as you say.
And of course the question of the mouse and the elephant housed together in North America is relevant here...
-Lynette
a coincidence
Eva,
I was reading the document of yours that you mention here when the In Touch arrived in my mailbox. Do you have it on your website so I can make a link?
-Lynette
I am awake, here and now
"If they were, why in the world would we have this whole apparatus of training programs and service marks and a Guild?"
I find your blog fitting well into issues that was dealt with behind the curtains and at stage at the annual conference of SFAF in Malmö last weekend.
I wrote & published an article, the humilty of learning in connection with that event in order to point out that a cross culture phenomena prevails and it is not necassary the call of the organsations to help practioners to be competent practioners. There has not been many reactions as yet from the Swedish teachers, but what you write about here again makes me strongly connected to your views and reinforced in my doings & makings. Thank you. I think one of the keys to build a practice is good comptence in teaching FI's.