"Language and movement are one for me''
"Language and movement are one for me''
Feldenkrais trainer Lea Wolgensinger
By Cornelia Berens
In the third year of the Heidelberg Feldenkrais Training: Roger Russell and Ulla Schläjke welcomed Lea Wolgensinger as a guest trainer On our mats we eagerly awaited Roger's invitation to "Lie on your back!... and what came instead? Lea Wolgensinger told us quite extensively about her arrival at the guesthouse, how she settled into her room, and what she had noticed in the breakfast room that morning, she told us about other guests, how the waitress acted, and how she herself had finally found her way into the gym to join us. I was getting increasingly nervous and also sensed that some others were feeling the same way. But suddenly I realized that we were already in the middle of an ATM(IJ, which introduced us to an essential aspect of the Feldenkrais Method, the orientation itself.
My restlessness was gone, I listened attentively ... and was and remained fascinated by the way Lea works with the Feldenkrais Method.
Lea Wolgensinger had known Moshe Feldenkrais since her childhood, she had published an essay on "Moshe's Zurich Years" in Roger Russell's anthology Feldenkrais at a Glance in 2004 and now vividly conveyed to us what kind of person Moshe was and how he acted. In 2010 she also did this in the Feldenkrais training in Bern and gave me this material for transcription Our conversation is based on this recording and on
THE ANSWERS COME FROM ...
Lea Wolgensinger was familiar with Moshe Feldenkrais since her earliest childhood and was trained as a practitioner by him in Amherst, USA, from 1981-1983. in Europe, she was subsequently intensively involved in building up the political structures for the Feldenkrais Method. Since 1988 she has been an assistant and since 1998 a trainer in her own and other training. From 1987 onwards she has undergone further training in communication and coaching. Lea Wolgensinger is a federally diplomated adult educator, she lives and works in Switzerland, in Tegna in Ticino, and in Zurich. Lea Wolgensinger's website: www.simplicitych
Lea's answers to my current inquiries.
Dear Lea, you have just returned home from rehab after a bicycle accident and the subsequent complex shoulder surgery.
How did you fare there and how are you doing now?
Lea Wolgensinger: When I look back on my last two and a half months after the accident, I can only say: that was life par excellence, inside and out. Almost unbearable pain, the confrontation with two worlds, the conventional medical world and the resource-oriented Feldenkrais Method, and now finding out how these two worlds work together most effectively so that I can fully recover and even emerge from this experience enriched, was a great challenge. I am therefore very pleased with the result and especially happy that I was able to educate some doctors, therapists, and nurses about the effects of the Feldenkrais Method "on a concrete case", so to speak, namely mine. Never before have I spent so much time every day explaining and showing our work. And it was always easier, I never remained theoretical, because they saw how quickly I could restore self-confidence and flexibility when I was guided by all that was available to me as before. In other words, after the terrible accident, I got the best out of it for myself and my helpers, and now I am largely able to act on my own again. And therefore very satisfied.
- Many people in the Feldenkrais world know that Moshe Feldenkrais was a close friend of your parents, the photographers Luzzi and Michael Wolgensinger. The author Christian Buckard, who is currently writing a Feldenkrais biography (3), has described your family of origin and your Zurich home here in Feldenkraisforum (No. 86) as "Moshe's family of choice in Europe". You were still a small child when Moshe appeared with you, how did it come about much later that you took the big step of training with Feldenkrais?
Originally Moshe wanted to do training in Europe, which was a big concern for him. He had met a woman in Luxembourg who wanted to organize it. Unfortunately, that didn't work out. When I found out, I decided at the last minute to fly to Amherst to do the training there. This was only possible because my mother took over the children - without her help, I would not have become a Feldenkrais teacher. For Amherst was Moshe's last training, and he himself was only able to teach during the first two years of training. After that, his first students from the Tel Aviv training, then called "assistants", today's "Senior Trainers", completed the training according to his instructions.
They, in turn, had been taught by Moshé in a completely different setting. For the ATM lessons, they went to Alexander Yanai Street three times a week, to an underground room covered with old straw mats, not in their " small setting, but together with 20 other people. These ATMs were recorded in Hebrew on large Revoxi tapes that Moshé could listen to and develop at home. The
Functional Integration (4) they learned in Frug Street by watching Moshé teach adults and children. Afterward, they discussed the
Afterward, they discussed the lessons, discussed his theory, the philosophy behind it, and his thought processes, and asked questions. Gradually, they were able to begin teaching F# themselves and continued to be supervised by Moshe. This learning process must have been extraordinary and very personal because Moshe did not hold back his observations and personal opinions. One could not have learned more authentically from Moshé. Back to Amherst: In the third year we had to make ends meet without Moshe. Every day an assistant taught 220 students a different subject: demo, practice, ATM. The days were tedious, confusing, and we were increasingly uncertain how long this was going to last. Jerry Kar zen put us off from day to day, however, we had great doubts that there would be a reunion with Moshe in Amherst. So the nine weeks of the third year of training passed rather sadly because it was somehow clear to everyone that Moshe would no longer be teaching himself.
- On June 12, 1984, the same year that Moshe Feldenkrais died, you founded the "Feldenkrais Institute" (since 1986: SFV Swiss Feldenkrais Association) together with Franz Wurm and Gregor Risi in Zurich. How did this come about? Franz Wurm had already founded the Feldenkrais Institute in Zurich together with Moshe Feldenkrais in 1971, where you then "joined", so to speak.
The work of my parents and Franz Wurm bore fruit, the Feldenkrais lessons were broadcast weekly on Swiss radio and there was an excellent article about Moshe in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, so at the end of the 1970s, I began to contact my fellow European students in Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Holland, Norway and England. My intention was clear: we should form a European organization and see to it ourselves that the Feldenkrais Method was made known in Europe, and in each country in its own native language. The way Moshe was put on a pedestal by most Americans did not suit me. This was not the Moshe I had known for years, not the one whose personal issues, conflicts, doubts, and struggles I knew and who was for me a human being at eye level. For me, he was a human being and not a guru. This motivated me to make sure that Moshe remained a European, a multilingual person with a rich background in many different cultures. How could one who satisfied physical pleasures in the form of the best Provençal and multi-course meat menus, fine deep red wines, the most sumptuous desserts, and strong cigarettes be a guru? Moshe was a gregarious person, loved jokes, and could laugh so wonderfully beautifully, even if he sometimes had to cough terribly long afterward.
Moshe had commissioned Franz Wurm and me to register and legally protect the terms "Feldenkrais Method", "Consciousness through Movement" and "Functional Integration". It was obvious that I should start doing this in Switzerland after we had found out that only an association could apply for such name protection. The Swiss Feldenkrais Association was thus in 1984 the first European professional association, consisting of Franz Wurm, Gregor Risi, and myself. The second became the Feldenkrais-Gilde Deutschland e. V. in 1985, after I had commissioned a lawyer, Dr. jur. Ehler in Munich, to draw up the statutes for it.
During this time Franz Wurm took time off to devote himself more to his writing, which was his real profession. He had not become a Feldenkrais teacher voluntarily, so to speak, but only because Moshe interested him as a person and his method, and it was necessary to pass on the ATMs, as the only one in Europe to do so. Franz did not do FI, he did not want to learn it. But he traveled a lot and especially in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland he gave workshops, also weekly ATMs, the so-called lessons in the evening in Zurich and also in Basel. So he practically helped to spread the method, because it needed a certain continuity. You can't do a workshop and then return in a year if you want to spread it sustainably. Today there are so many of us that continuity has been established.
Back to Arnherst: In my fourth year of training, the group was split up. One could choose whether to do the last year without Moshe again in Arnherst or rather in Tel Aviv. Gregor and I went to Tel Aviv like most Europeans, we just wanted to be near Moshe. But we knew that he would no longer be our teacher because he was already in need of complete care at that time. He could no longer speak and we already suspected what the consequences would be. He had not issued any guidelines, did not want to, or could not decide how with whom, and with which competencies his method should continue to be taught. This has been very difficult for his successors. I am more comfortable with this "leaving us alone" today because Moshe probably put into practice here what he always said: try it out for yourself and find your own! What he forgot: as a loner, fighter, and inwardly free development-oriented person, he probably could not imagine that certain things under the same name (Feldenkrais method) must have room for commonalities as well as room for individual developments, which take into account the language and culture of the different countries.
You were also in Tel Aviv one other time during this period. How did you experience Moshe and his environment during this time?
Yes, in Tel Aviv, it was like in a beehive, Moshe was lying in the parlor in his normal bed, not in a hospital bed, and there everything was full of books and in the middle, there was a long table, and Moshe had two nurses for twelve hours each. He was always with someone, his brother was there - his mother had died a long time ago - and then the best friends and the Feldenkrais colleagues, actually his students, and they made Fis with him. Everybody was trying to get something out of Moshe, "Who should now, who may now, how should we?" - and nothing came. So, we sort of took over chaos, in the sense that everybody thought they were capable and they were the ones who ___ and now, as this generation is getting older and also slowly doing less, the next generation is coming, which Moshe didn't live to see, but for that now everything is nicely structured all over the world. So, there were always a lot of people sitting at this table and there was a very happy atmosphere, there was chatting, listening to music and discussing, and eating and cooking and drinking - it was total, Moshe was fully involved in life, so he was not in his room and alone, but he was integrated. Someone always went to him, touched him and talked to him and came back again and so on, so it was actually how you can wish it, you are there, not just away and cared for and left alone, but you are in it, and that I actually found something very beautiful, to witness how it was. Yes, that's how it ended, Moshe's life.
- I thank you for this atmospherically dense description of Moshe's last days. - From your essay in Roger's book, I understand that you also received private lessons from Moshe. When and where was that? And how did you incorporate this experience into your work, or how would you describe your own "Feldenkrais style" developed over the decades, especially in the way you give the private lessons? I have experienced you as hands-on and with great clarity.
I received two consecutive Fis from Moshe in Frug Street in 1968. During the first one I was asleep, I only remember that I was lying on my back and felt noticeably lighter after sitting up. He had worked a lot on my neck and head. The following one was similar, Moshe didn't talk and I went into a trance, but I remember that he also worked on my pelvis. My issue had been namely that I was not getting pregnant. His advice was that I should have more sex. Well, neither the advice nor that fis did the trick. (Four years later I was able to adopt my first son, followed by two pregnancies with other sons as if out of nowhere).
Unfortunately, I lack detailed memories of these Fis, but I think I can still feel his hands - he had very large hands and long fingers, after all - when I watch the FI series from Amherst. His hands were the executors of his thoughts. So clarity, power, questioning, uncertainty, searching, trust, inquiry, solution, joy. He was always inventing new things and trying them out. His FI was noticeably different from the grips we learn in training today. Moshe also breathed very strongly and loudly. He often had to make decisions and he made them quickly, almost abruptly. For me, his conscious thinking was directly connected to his hands. That is exhausting. The cigarette in between then gave him a little relaxation.
The way I teach with Fis today is based on the following criteria: I perceive visually very precisely, for example, the physiognomy, the breathing, very small and also large movement sequences, and the whole appearance of the person. I perceive my own thoughts very well and pay attention to my inner evaluations and interpretations. These may then need correction. I use language naturally in an FI and find the right moment for a question, a hint, or an explanation. I know that language has a great effect on my clients, which increases the impact of my touch and its integration into everyday life. In addition, it is a great concern of mine to let the person feel and also experience how immense their resources are and that they can make their life enormously easier with them. Basically, I don't believe that I learned FI through my Feldenkrais training in Amherst, maybe a few techniques - with eight different teachers.
I believe that the countless conversations between Moshé, my parents, and Franz Wurm, which were always about "Feldenkrais work", life, and the development of this life, have shaped me quite unconsciously. Not intellectually, but very much unconsciously and therefore intuitively. I did not contribute anything to it but was simply there - at the dining table or on the sofa.
- Now I have also experienced you as the leader of a very special training that you have been offering for several years under the title "Consciousness through Language". What do you actually understand by this and what do you convey in these trainings, which could also take place in your hospitable house and in your magnificent garden in the early summer glow of Ticino?
"Awareness through language" means for me to continue something that Moshé himself neglected. After my own Feldenkrais training, since 1984 I have been trained in many communication seminars, a multi-year NLP master training, and also as a coach. To consciously perceive one's inner language, to learn to listen carefully, and to ask constructive questions makes one's language patterns recognizable and thus changeable. Inner speech can be transformed into movement and also movement guidance. The conversations that accompany an individual lesson take on a new meaning when we learn to recognize, for example, the assumptions behind them. Feldenkrais teachers gain clarity and competence for themselves and their work through these seminars, which strengthens their self-esteem. The
ease, joy, and desire to talk about the Feldenkrais Method are significantly increased. In the basic seminar, participants learn for themselves what language is all about, which enhancing possibilities I can activate in myself, what I need to know about communication in general, what the concept of man is that underlies Feldenkrais's work, and how I can implement this in my practice. In the advanced seminar, we train our abilities to listen beyond the words of what is said. We learn how to use constructive questions to create more clarity in ourselves and our counterparts so that our intentions go in the same direction. In the final seminar, participants put what they have learned into practice in a field study. This experience is analyzed together, supplemented by new insights, and own goals are set and anchored. Incidentally, an ATM is also taught daily. The first master class focuses on learning and experiencing new questioning techniques as well as clarifying where I stand: how I can learn more about my own inner processes and what my time means to me. The second master class is about trying out the interventions I have learned and about working with Time-Lim techniques, which I combine with elements of the Feldenkrais Method in a meaningful way.
- My last question takes us back to the beginning, so to speak. You have just published a beautiful book called Dimitri Stands Up, and the subtitle continues with Learning-Moving-Healing: Feldenkrais. (5) In it you tell the story of two people and their respective recovery processes with the help of the Feldenkrais Method, and I find it very moving that this book is being published right now since you yourself are now walking this path of healing, as we heard at the beginning of this conversation. What is in your Feldenkrais book?
How my neighbor from Ticino, the famous Swiss clown Dimitri, founder of the "Teatro Dimitri" and the associated theater school in Verscio, who was completely unable to move due to unbearable pain, became pain-free again and was able to return to the stage, we remember, Dimitri and I, in a recent conversation. Three months of daily collaboration brought about this result. We describe in a lively dialogue the way we got there - how we both succeeded in building trust in the work and how we jointly shaped the process, which was entirely based on Dimitri's physical and mental resources, his rich treasure of imagination, and his differentiated power of imagination. In the case history that follows, I tell how "Philip and his right leg" found each other again, so to speak, and how this client learned to give up his victim attitude after an accident through no fault of his own and his orientation to failures, how he began to question his performance thinking, and how he gradually understood "that there was more at stake here than just fixing his broken leg."
- At the end of the book, you summarize the "Basic Principles and Ways of Working of the Feldenkrais Method." Please tell us here at the end the thought that is most important to you and thus make our readers curious to learn more about your understanding of Feldenkrais and to dive into your book!
I think it was a great help for me that I always trusted this method. Although at the beginning I knew little of it or didn't know what I knew, for me it was so free, so open, so spectacularly successful, that I began without doubt to share it with others. Now I have found in it my own version, the Lea Feldenkrais, and continue to unwind it. The magic of language is my greatest helper, and I use it with as much pleasure and playfulness as I treat people in FI.
I also treat people in FI. Both should become one and therefore language and movement are one for me. I convey to my clients the desire to perceive their resources, to appreciate them, and to use them at the right moment. In doing so, I give them the responsibility for their own learning process and the joy of meeting themselves with more love and respect. What could be more beautiful?
- Lea, thank you very much for this interview, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you continued good recovery! -
THE QUESTIONS ASKED...
Cornelia Berens lives and works as a lecturer and Feldenkrais teacher on the East Sea. She has been acquiring and editing contributions for the Feldenkrais forum since issue no. 79, 2012.
1 11 . Birthday of Moshe Feldenkrais on
May 6, 2015, she will give a lecture at the end of April at the
Preetz at the end of April.
movement on the topic "What is and what can ... and who was actually
Feldenkrais?"
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