Aspect of a technique: Bodily expression Moshe Feldenkrais

 

Aspect of a technique: Somatic Expression 

First International Congress of Psychodrama, Paris 1964

Éditions Chiron, 40 rue de Seine Paris 6ème

Aspects of a technique

1. A self-image? 

2. Muscular action. 

3. The essential unity of mind and body.

Instead of a preface.

This text was hastily written in a few days. I can do no better than to quote the words with which Paul Valéry began his dialogue on "L'idée fixe":

"This book is a child of hate. It is given for what it is: a work of circumstance and improvisation. Even though it was intended for the most attentive of audiences, the medical profession, it had to be done quickly and therefore had to assume all the risks, imprudences, and uncertainties that rushing into work entails. When the term presses on the mind, this external constraint prevents it from sustaining its own. It neglects the beautiful models it has formed for itself; it retreats from its rigor; ul discharges itself by the shortest route, according to its least resistance, and responds by its hazards." Paul Valery

                                                                                   

Moshe Feldenkrais

August 6, 1964.

49 Nachmani Street, 

Tel Aviv.

1) Self-image?

Every person's behavior is determined by his or her self-image. If you want to change your behavior, you must change your self-image. 

What is self-image? We see a body image: that of contours, limb relationships, i.e. spatial and temporal relationships, and kinesthetic sensations. Then there are feelings and thoughts. All this forms an interrelated whole.

How is the self-image formed? Everyone has the impression that his way of speaking, walking, and behaving is the only one possible for him, unique and unchanging: he identifies with it and believes he was born that way. His judgment of spatial relations and movements, the way he holds his head, looks, etc., seems to be innate to him, and he believes that it is possible to change only the speed, intensity, and extent. However, everything that is important from the point of view of social relations, i.e. relations between one human being and another, is acquired through a long apprenticeship: we learn to walk, to speak, to see the third dimension in a painted picture or a photograph, and it is the chance of a person's birthplace and environment that determines his movements, his posture, the language he will speak, and so on.

So when we learn another language, we always import an accent, i.e., a previously acquired training hinders the acquisition of a new one. When we try to sit in a Japanese or Hindu style, we find it difficult to reorganize our body for this new configuration, because the habit hinders the training. So, just as the first formation is due to the accident of birth, the discomfort of changing a habit, whether physical or mental, has little to do with heredity and individuality but is specific to each change of habit already acquired. 

We can see that the discomfort is not related to the substance of the habit, but to its temporal order, that is, to the fact of the priority of the habit formed, which is due to chance. This highlights the fact that self-image is also acquired by chance. So the question is: is it possible to bring about changes that would enable us to acquire new ways of behaving, different by choice and as unique to the individual as those we have acquired without realizing it in the course of our lives?

It is important to understand that we don't want to simply substitute one action for another (what we call "static"), but to change the mode of action, i.e. to act on the "dynamics" and the process of activity in general.

Before we go any further, it might be worth doing a little experiment to get a sense, not just an understanding, of this possibility.

If you lie on your stomach and bend your right knee so that your foot is pointing up, you will see that the relationship of the foot to the leg is entirely personal, i.e. the angles in the cardinal directions will not be the same for everyone. For example, if we place a book on the sole of the foot, the plane of the book will not be parallel to the ground, but will have a particular inclination for each individual, and the points of contact of the sole of the foot with the book will have an equally individual distribution. It will be seen that the muscles of the leg and foot maintain a contraction ratio to each other, and even without bearing weight, the musculature does not assume a neutral configuration (as would be expected if the foot had no function in the gravitational field except to bear its own weight). It acts according to its self-image, and this very personal configuration is subjectively perceived as the easiest, accompanied by the impression of doing nothing in particular. Thus, habitual configurations are imprinted on the nervous system, which reacts to external stimuli with this ready-made habitual configuration and is unable to form another at the request of external reality. In the dynamic change we're considering, the goal is to free the nervous system from its compulsive configurations and allow it to act or react in a way dictated not by habit but by the situation at hand.

Let's return to the suggested exercise. For example, as you bend and stretch the sole of your foot, try to focus your attention on the movement of the heel in space and follow its movements at the same time as those of the big toe, the little toe, and the others around the roll. Each toe will experience its own order of difficulty. The difficulty lies in the varying degrees of clarity and discontinuity that occur in the thread of orientation images.

If you now try to make a circular movement with the ball of your foot and clearly locate the position of the heel in space during the rotation, when you stop the rotational movement at any point you can clearly see the position of the heel, you will be surprised to find extraordinary difficulty at some points and simple ease at others.

Continue the movement at a very slow speed, making small arcs and circles instead of complete rotations, and at each stop try to become aware of the position of the ball of the foot and the heel in relation to the leg, then turn back, returning to the trajectory followed by the heel and the ball of the foot, and repeat until a certain ease has been achieved. Having done this, try turning the toe from right to left, following the movement of the heel in the opposite direction.

You'll easily notice that the heel doesn't make a horizontal line, but behaves quite differently at the right and left ends of its movement.

To change this, place the toe on the inside, i.e. the heel on the right, and then turn the toe to the left and the heel to the right to achieve the diagonally symmetrical position, but sometimes going through the lower arc of the circle of rotation, sometimes through the upper arc. Continue very slowly until you can rotate the heel in a circle, mentally following the position of the ball of the foot. The tip of the foot should alternate with the tip of each toe. Reverse and rotate the toe while mentally following the heel until the spatial configurations become increasingly clear, simple, and easy - like the personal movements that are part of the self-image because they alone, from all points in space, seem simple, clear, and easy from the beginning.

In following the exercise, you don't have to make any effort of will or insist on difficult points, but when you come to them, just start again from the beginning. You'll notice that at each point where you have difficulty following the thread of the orientation images, there will be a corresponding change in your breathing. All you have to do at the difficult moment is stop what you're doing and you'll find that your breathing returns to its normal rhythm. As you pay attention to the continuity of the breathing rhythm, you'll find that the continuity of the spatial orientation images of heel and toe becomes easier and easier. You'll be amazed at how time flies and how half an hour passes in a few moments.

If you now stretch your (right) leg, you'll notice that it (the right leg) feels the longest. You'll experience a change in kinaesthetic sensation not only in the articulation and musculature of the (right) foot, but also in the whole right side of the whole body: the right eye will seem more open - and it is - the whole right side of the face will seem - and it is - longer, its musculature relaxed, and so on. As you stand, you'll notice a radical change in the use, kinaesthesia and sensation of the (right) foot in contact with the ground, and multiple personal changes throughout the right side. The rotation of the head will be greater and easier to the right than to the left. If you gently raise your right arm above your head, then lower it and do the same with your left arm, you'll notice that the movement of your right arm is much easier...

If, instead of the heel, we were to do a similar exercise in technique and detail with the head, tilting and straightening it in slow movements, focusing attention on the details of spatial orientation and the relationships of different parts of the left side, say the head to the shoulder, collarbone, spine, etc., we would also find a latent change in tone of the entire left side down to the toes of the left foot.

This leads to a very important conclusion:

1) While both sides participate equally and symmetrically in the movements of tilting and straightening the head, the tonic change and increased sense of well-being on the left side and the ease of control achieved are only on the side where the spatial relationships of orientation have been made conscious. In other words, the movements themselves, the control of the musculature and its functioning, are of negligible value apart from the improvement in circulation and the other benefits of movement in general. The change achieved by symmetrical movement on both sides is only on the side where the spatial relationships of orientation have become clearer and more conscious. It is interesting to note that the change occurs on the entire side of the limb worked on and not on the opposite side, i.e. the change has taken place via an extrapyramidal pathway.

2) Another finding is that the change has occurred somewhere in the central nervous system since it affects the entire side worked on.

3) The change does not disappear immediately but may take several hours or even days, depending on the time devoted to the exercise and the clarity of vision of spatial relationships, as well as the mnemonic retention of the difference between the two sides.

The importance of what happens in the nervous system through this technique can be further emphasized by the fact that the same effect can be obtained on the opposite side to the one where the change in question was obtained, this time by purely mental work, i.e. without any movement, just by methodically directing attention to the different kinesthetic sensation on each side. Whereas the first effect was obtained in half an hour or an hour, methodically directing attention, point by point, to the difference felt in the musculature and articulation of the two sides, from the toes to the top of the head, will take only 2 or 3 minutes. If you continue until the sensation is completely equalized on both sides, the effect will be enhanced on the original side as well.

Perhaps the most important thing to emphasize is that the habitual use of the head or foot on which we have just worked may have given the person complete satisfaction, but the contrast obtained should make us realize how much our use of care is out of habit and far from what the person could do or even was destined to do - which we believe we will be able to demonstrate next.

Theory and practice show that there are parts of the self-image on which work is more effective; or rather, there is an order of priority that makes work easier and more methodical.

A first observation is that a newborn's first contact with the outside world is through the mouth, disregarding (for the moment) the tactile sensations of the skin. Even these first contacts through the mouth require the head to orient itself in space in a special way. Gradually, the use of all our senses: hearing, sight, smell, and sound production - in short, the use of all the teleceptors - requires the head to move.  Since the double organs, distant from each other, allow the judgment of distance and direction by the orientation of the head, hearing, seeing and smelling have a very complex organization in the nervous system, which requires the rotation of the head until the equal excitation of the two organs, which orient the head in the direction of the origin of this excitation; so that the head serves as a kind of periscope for the nervous system to bring information through the senses.

Ultimately, the only part of the body that has any connection with the outside world is the nervous system, with the senses and the body serving only as devices for information and action. It's obvious that the movement of the head, which carries all the telepathic senses, will participate in all the movements that form our relationship with the outside world. The movement of the head, therefore, will form the essential part of the self-image; and the spine, resting on the pelvis, will allow the orientation of the head, especially those parts of the spine that allow rotational movement, such as the cervical and lumbar vertebrae, will also form an important part of the self-image.

This rough sketch already shows the importance of the skeleton in the self-image, since the head, placed on the pelvis via the spine, will be involved in any orienting action, passive or active, about the outside world. The thoracic cage, with the respiratory apparatus suspended on this column, will be affected by and color every movement; hence the first indication for holding the thoracic cage, which not only must not hinder the orientation movements of the head but on the contrary, must facilitate them. Without going into too much detail, which would inevitably go beyond the scope of this article, let's return to some instructive aspects of self-image.

If we lie on our backs on the floor and try to scan our whole body mentally and methodically, we'll find that some parts are more accessible to attention than others and that in general, the less accessible parts are not present to consciousness during the action. Moreover, we will find that, in every action, other parts will become inaccessible to consciousness, and even, more than in some people, we will find certain parts rarely appear in the self-image during action.

A complete self-image, giving equal clarity and importance to the whole body in front, behind, and on all sides, is an exceptional and ideal case. Everyone can see that the way they use themselves corresponds to their self-image and that this is only a very small part of the ideal image; they can also see that the relative importance of one limb or body part about another change with the position and action they are undertaking.

For example, try closing your eyes and using the index fingers of your hands, to represent the width of your mouth in front of you: it's not uncommon to find deviations of up to 300% in the direction of exaggeration or underestimation. 

Try again - always with your eyes closed - to represent the thickness of your chest with your hands, moving back and forth, then sideways, and finally vertically. You'll be amazed to see how your judgment changes with the position of your hands, and from these three trials you'll obtain three results with differences between them that are sometimes hundreds of per 100.

One last little experiment: close your eyes, place your hands comfortably outstretched in front of you, and imagine the rays of light from your left index finger going to your right eye and the rays of light from your right index finger going to your left eye; imagine these regions frozen, materialized: so that they cross at a certain point. Hold all your hands and head in this position, frozen so to speak, and try to grasp the intersection of these frozen rays with your right index finger and thumb; open your eyes and note the error (if any). Do the same thing again and try to grasp the intersection with your left hand; open your eyes and notice that you've grasped a different point. This approach helps to distinguish between ocular errors and manual errors of kinesthetic origin.

If we examine a large number of people in detail, we'll find that if the discrepancies between the values in the self-image and the more objective or real data are in the order of hundreds of "per 100", the use of that part of the body is generally defective. For example, people who habitually hold their chest in a state of exaggerated exhalation will find that their self-image represents the chest as 2 or 3 times thicker than it actually is; and conversely, people who habitually hold their chest in a state of exaggerated inhalation will find that their self-image underestimates the thickness of the chest. A detailed examination of the entire body, especially the pelvis, genital and anal areas, will reveal more than one surprise.

If we think that self-use has no other reference than the self-image, we understand the difficulties we experience in perfecting any action. One imagines that by approaching and improving the self-image to a better approximation of reality, one will improve the mode of action in general, and this will produce results much faster and across the whole range of activity than would have been obtained by an exercise conceived and applied to each particular action.

2) Muscular action.

Without the musculature, smooth and striated, which translates what happens in the nervous system into meaningful, comprehensible terms for us, all that happens there would be no more than a series of slow chemical reactions and an activity of electrical impulses, which itself contains no information of human significance, except what concerns chemistry and electricity. From its reactions and impulses we could never know, without muscular translation, whether the nervous system perceives beauty, sees red or green, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the smooth muscle that translates its impulses into the inner life of each of us, and the striated muscle that connects the nervous system to the environment.

In our present state of knowledge, muscles are the only means of expressing in human terms all the chemical and electrical activity of the nervous system.

Therefore, a thorough study of muscular activity from the point of view of the functioning of the nervous system is of paramount importance. Let's say right away that any event in the nervous system only becomes conscious and is perceived by us as a sensation or feeling, as a mood or action, when it reaches the peripheral musculature. If by the periphery we mean the mucous passages from the mouth to the anus, we must also include the musculature of the capillaries and the entire blood system.

The brain itself seems to be insensitive to most of the stimuli to which the periphery reacts violently. We become aware of a harmful action on the brain matter insofar as it produces an action in the periphery, which thereby becomes conscious.

Bones and internal tissues can be destroyed or burned away by short-wave radiation or X-rays, and we don't feel it; we only become aware of it when the periphery is affected. We have no idea what's going on in the duodenum or bladder until their sphincters are stretched, and then we become aware of it. The formation of kidney or gallstones goes unnoticed until the corresponding sphincter is stretched by their passage. The destruction caused by tooth decay is not felt until it causes a reaction in the capillaries and the outer gum tissue.

Throughout the evolution of life on Earth, the nervous system and musculature have had to adapt to the gravitational field of the globe from their primary formation to the present day. Most of the activity of the nervous system and musculature, apart from maintaining the temperature and chemical environment necessary for the survival of these two systems, is devoted to survival and movement within the gravitational field. Our very classification of animal life in general was originally based essentially on the mode of movement: we distinguish between fish that swim in water, birds that fly, animals that crawl, slide, or climb, those that walk on 4 legs, bipeds, and so on.

There is a very general property of muscular action: if you try to move the index finger a little, then the whole hand, then the forearm, then the whole arm, and try to estimate the effort involved in each of these movements, you will find that they are all done with the same ease. From the point of view of work in the gravitational field, the movements of the index finger require work of a few grams x cm, those of the hand a few thousand grams per centimeter, those of the forearm a few tens of thousands of grams per centimeter, those of the whole arm considerably more. We can see that the muscular sensation of effort does not measure the work done, but something else. This something else is the quality of the organization of the movement.

The amount of work done can vary from one gram per centimeter to a million grams per centimeter, and the sensation of effort always remains the same. It's only when there's an obstacle, an impediment, and we mobilize in an inappropriate way to overcome it that we feel the sensation of increased effort, and that sensation of increased effort doesn't necessarily correspond to the greatest amount of work done. It could be said that, very generally speaking, sensations and feelings tell us about internal organization and mobilization, and not about the differences that can be verified by objective reality.

Since feelings and sensations do not give us an account of the action actually performed, we are obliged to use mental process, judgment, understanding, and knowledge to adjust our feelings and sensations to the desired effect. Without these means, the mistakes we make could be fatal in most cases.

Since we act according to the image of ourselves that we have formed in a very arbitrary way, and since this image is essentially made up of feelings and sensations, it is easy to show that in actions that invoke the use of the self in those parts of the self-image that are not clear, that is, in those parts that are not an integral part of the self-image, we can make mistakes that go so far as to substitute an action that is contrary to the one we think we're doing, or to do an action that has no relation to the one we think we're doing, without realizing it.

In the heel and toe rotation exercise, you're likely to have moments when you make movements contrary to what you felt you were doing: you'll often be aware of this, and this awareness will cause a break in the thread of orientation images. Normally, however, it's very rare for us to lose control of our heel or foot to the point where we don't know where it is in space or what we're doing with it. This is because we don't usually use the mental process of checking whether our actions are having the desired effect; we limit ourselves to acting according to that part of the self-image that was formed in childhood up to the age of 14 or so, and which gave us more or less satisfaction, and we rarely venture to complete that image.

That is why we continue to use only what was formed in youth when the vital impulse allowed for efforts that became more difficult later. What's more, the time available for learning is rarely rationed in youth as it is in adulthood. Needless to say, this subjective rationing of our time dries up all our creative resources.

It's not easy for me to give an example of an action that is outside of an individual's self-image, so it's difficult to convince everyone through the same exercise that we often do the opposite of, or something quite different from, what we think we are doing or intend to do. Let's try the following exercise, which is often successful. Place the palm of your right hand on your navel with the fingers pointing to the left. Now try to bring your right elbow in front of you to create a right angle between your forearm and the back of your hand. If you don't succeed, try leaning on the table or the floor to see that it is not difficult to get a right angle between the back of the hand and the forearm. Now try again in a different way, holding the right angle between the fingers of the hand and the forearm, and try to place the palm of the hand, already organized in this way, on the navel as you did at the beginning. See if you've succeeded. If not, have you noticed or noticed the moment when the hand left the fixed configuration of before to bend - which means to do exactly the opposite of what you want to do - and make contact with the navel? How is it that the hand, which is the part of our body most used and most skilled in performing voluntary movements, doesn't obey you to the extent that the flexor muscles act on their own while you want to maintain a contraction of the extensor muscles?

Learn to produce this movement correctly at will. It only takes a few moments, but as we've said, it's not a matter of learning one action or another. It's the dynamics of using general care that interests us.

This preoccupation with the completion and clarification of the self-image, produced by the application of attention to spatial and temporal orientation in order to increase self-knowledge, is not as much of a novelty as one might think. The artist who creates as a painter, musician, poet, scientist, philosopher, etc., without explicitly thinking about it in the terms we've just expressed, is constantly engaged in enlarging and clarifying his or her image of the evening in the particular field in which he or she is engaged. Thus, for example, the painter, in front of his canvas, trying to paint a portrait, whether figurative or not, tries to be aware of the feelings and sensations he experiences in front of what he sees, as well as the state of mobilization and the weight of his hand that guides the brush, so that the latter is oriented with the intensity that his sensation deems necessary to accurately translate what he feels. Often he will circle the desired line more and more closely until he is satisfied, and many painters leave traces of their research on the canvas.

The poet weighs the words, their length, their sound, their relationship to each other, and not just their meaning, until the whole conveys his feeling or thought. So he does with words what we did with our heels, and he too expands, clarifies, and makes more precise and conscious his self-image in this area. In these two examples, as in the movement of the foot, a mechanical repetition of the action would only be muscular work and not its development. This brings us directly to the requirements of the essential quality of an exercise useful for expanding and clarifying the self-image: it must somehow advance conscious orientation to enable new or improved actions: just as the exercise of talent leads to a better use of the leg in general.

Mechanical repetition, in the sense of paying attention to what has happened and what is felt during the action, without directing this attention to the overall picture and its repercussions in the entity, can only be considered as work that is certainly useful, but that adds nothing to development. For example, a P.T.T. postman who walks all day will only be a walking champion if he uses his attention to make the modalities of his action conscious, i.e., if he pays attention to the spatial and temporal orientation of his self-image. What we've just said applies equally to the athlete who, if he relies entirely on mechanical repetition, will trample on the spot and make slow and minimal progress.

When trying to develop the self-image, it is advisable to do so in its generality, to complete the image in its broad outlines in all directions, and not only in those areas in which we have more or less extensive experience. For example, we don't yet know how to improve respiration through hygiene, or digestion, or how these two functions affect vision or memory. Experience shows that a mathematician is not a musician like any other, that a poet-musician is not a poet like any other, and that a more or less complete self-image gives us Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare.

Turning now to our own muscular action, let's sketch the broad outlines. The same muscle responds to stimuli or impulses from different sources. For example, the eyelid muscle may make a clonic movement in certain states of fatigue, respond reflexively to the flight of an insect towards the eye, or respond to the desire to close or open the eye, the quality of the muscular contraction is very different from one case to another. Voluntary movements are unique in that they are reversible, i.e. each time the body part in question moves, we can stop the movement, turn back, resume the initial direction, or do something else. In the part of the self-image where learning leaves something to be desired, reversibility is non-existent or also leaves something to be desired.  If, for example, we try to turn our head to the right and at the same time turn our eyes to look to the left, we experience non-reversibility right from the start. If you try to do both movements about twenty times, paying close attention to the continuous rhythm of your breathing during the execution of the movement, until you manage to do both movements as simply as looking with your eyes in the direction of the head rotation, you'll notice a change in the tone of the neck musculature on the side of head rotation, such that if you try to turn your head to the left and to the right, you'll find the right side favored, the angle of rotation will be much greater there than on the left, and rotation to the right will be easier and smoother. There is now greater reversibility on the right side, and over a wider angle.

The advantage of the notion of reversibility is that, by applying it to any action, it not only becomes more fluid, but also the domain and extent of the action's applicability becomes wider.

In the (...), the eyes and head turn to the same side, and this combination becomes habitual; the opposite combination is rarer, and it will be found that many people have never used it.

The same applies to the movements of the torso and arms, which in everyday life always turn in the same direction as the eyes and head. There is therefore a lack of reversibility if we attempt movements in which one or both arms must move in a direction opposite to that of the eyes and head. For example, if you put the apple of your right hand behind your head and the left one on your forehead, and try to roll your head between your hands from right to left, a large number of people will substitute the rolling of the head between the hands for the usual movements of their self-image, This is the rotation of the entire torso, with arms and head, to the right and to the left, i.e. elbows, eyes and head will turn in the usual direction at all times without the person realizing it, even if their attention is drawn to it.

The combination of habitual self-image and, to a certain extent, compulsive self-image means that the person has no choice but to do otherwise: he or she substitutes the proposed action with a habitual one, without any doubt that he or she is not doing what he or she wants.

When the lack of reversibility is so pronounced, we have to resort to clever demonstrations to make the person aware of the difference between what they are actually doing and what they had proposed to do. By applying this reversibility technique to the whole of the eyes, head and shoulders, you'll experience something akin to the feeling you get when finding the solution to a riddle or difficult problem. It's as if you've found a new degree of freedom in the use of yourself.

Esoteric schools make ample use of a technique that consists of the following: adepts must remain frozen in an attitude in which the master's call can surprise them. This attitude is maintained, however painful and bizarre it may be at the moment of the signal. By maintaining it until the signal that would allow the suspended activity to continue, we become aware of the relative orientation of the limbs, of the useless efforts of the parts of the body, of the parts. Ignored or neglected parts of the self-image that don't take part in the movement: when activity resumes, we possess increased reversibility, since in fact this technique is analogous to the one we maintain. Gourdjieff called this technique "the STOP technique" and used it extensively.

By judiciously and appropriately choosing exercises of this kind, we can eliminate the limitation imposed by a stop in development, which restricts the possible configurations in the activity to those that habit has made familiar. Improved self-image thus has the effect of increasing and broadening the number and variety of configurations and actions accessible to use: and so improved reversibility goes hand in hand with a resumption of the general development of consciousness in its relations to orientation in time and space.

Orientation is so closely linked to consciousness that we are inclined to attribute to it the prerogatives of consciousness in general. Until the head and eyes regain habitual contact with space and orient themselves in their usual and familiar relationship to the vertical in the gravitational field, we do not possess self-control.

You may have woken up in an unfamiliar bed, or even in your own bed, oriented differently than when you went to bed. And when you do wake up, you don't instantly find yourself again. Familiar? With space, you'll feel an inability to regain control of yourself until you become aware of the habitual lack of nourishment or find this orientation again by chance.

Even in the waking state, we can experience a gap, an interruption in conscious continuity when there is a surprise or a lack of continuity in orientation. So, when climbing stairs, if for some reason you expect to find the last one and your foot doesn't, there is not only a mechanical shock to the body but also a clear break in the continuity of consciousness. In the same way, on a descent, if you find the floor where you expected to find another step. The same shock, the same break in consciousness is produced.

When someone regains consciousness after losing it, the question "Where am I? Subjectively, a gap in the sequence of orientation images is certainly felt as a conscious gap.

It remains to be seen whether the relationship between consciousness and orientation has a more general significance. The methodical and judicious application of the notion of reversibility, to the self-image, yields the following results over time:

1) It makes skeletal configurations and relationships conscious.

2) It reduces and equalizes the tone and expectation of the entire musculature.

3) It reduces effort in all areas of activity.

4) It simplifies self-mobilization and thus the undertaking of any action.

5) They increase sensitivity, i.e. they enable you to detect the slightest deviation from the norm.

6) It improves orientation.

7) It increases intelligence versatility.

8) It reduces fatigue, thereby increasing work capacity and perseverance.

9) It improves attitude. It rejuvenates the body.

10) They improve general health and empowerment.

11) They improve coordination in all activities.

12) They facilitate learning in any mental or physical field. 

13) They enable deeper self-knowledge.

The reduction and equalization of latent muscular tone, combined with the integration of skeletal awareness, enables the skeleton to fulfill its structural function in the gravitational field, i.e. to cancel out the vertical component of compression produced by the weight of the body or its parts. The musculature is thus freed from the burden of weight-bearing and, by the same token, enables the initiation of each act with less effort, which, in the ideal case, will be close to zero. To set the scene: if we stand with our legs apart, movement from right to left requires more effort than if the legs are not too far apart, and movement forwards and backwards is only possible if we make a preliminary movement to bring the vertical component of compression to pass longitudinally through the skeleton of the leg, which by its elastic forces will cancel it out and allow movement forwards and backwards with less effort, this effort being reduced in the ideal case to that of overcoming the resistance of the air and the resistance of friction in the joints.

The generalized and improved use of the skeleton may play all articular and intervertebral surfaces to the limit of their anatomical structural possibilities. More often than not, the self-imposed limitation attributed to lack of suppleness is due to muscular contracture and shortening which, through habit and lack of conscious appreciation, we unknowingly maintain and which, having become habitual, translates into deformation and uneven wear of the intervertebral and interarticular surfaces. The degeneration of the skeletal joints necessitates a further limitation of the musculature to avoid pain and discomfort in movement, and so a vicious circle is formed which ends in the deformation of the skeleton, spine, and intervertebral discs, rendering the body senile and reducing the range and variety of movement long before age warrants it. Experience shows that age has only a minimal influence on these limitations and that the body's ability to perform all the movements permitted by the anatomical structure of the skeleton can be restored.

Up to the age of 60, with more or less healthy people, free of serious illness, this remarkable state can be achieved with one hour's work per year of life. With limited intelligence, you need to buy about half an hour per year of life. Beyond the age of 60, intelligence and attachment to life will determine the time needed to achieve the same result.

3) The essential unity of chin and body.

The main idea behind this technique is that, at least during action, mental and physical manifestations are two different aspects of a single function. Physical and mental manifestations are not two sets of phenomena linked by some correspondence, but two sides of the same entity, like two sides of a coin. It's likely the serial formation of language in time, or linearity, that has determined the serial genesis of our thinking, making it impossible to express two aspects simultaneously.

It's up to me to invent a special vocabulary or notation, as mathematicians have done, but we are obliged to separate these two aspects, even if we wish the opposite. Even the most abstract thought, such as the conception of number, is not independent of the system's physical support.  The speed of thought is closely linked to the speed of motor cortex processes: the time needed to think and identify, one after the other, the numerical intervals from 20 to 30 is longer than that needed to identify the same intervals from 1 to 10, since thought is linked, even non-verbally, to the articulation of numerals, which are longer in the first case than in the second. Similarly, thinking right or left is linked to the speed and activation of eye muscles.

With appropriate training, the human nervous system can eliminate activation of the laryngeal and eye muscles, and thus speed up the mental process to a certain extent. However, it will always be limited to the speed of what happens in the motor cortex. Reading a page is linked to the speed of ocular perception, so you can't think about the page's content at the speed you want. In the latter case, it is still possible to accelerate mental processes by partially dissociating them from the associated muscular processes.

What matters to us is that thinking is an aspect of the functioning of physical support, of the mental process. The closer we look, the harder it is to find a mental act that takes place without being attributable to a function linked to its physical support. Modern ideas about the structure of matter may lead us to see it as nothing more than a manifestation of energy, or of something as attenuated as thought itself.

The familiarity of certain phenomena obscures them in a way that makes it impossible to see clearly. Speed is for us a real, tangible, measurable thing; yet we can't touch speed or measure it since speed is only an abstraction. To measure speed, we need to note changes in the location of a physical medium. We can go a step further, and measure an abstraction of the already abstract idea of speed; we can measure acceleration and deceleration, always on condition of observing the change in the mode of location of a physical support. We even make a sixth abstraction by plotting the variation of acceleration. Is this analogy really so far removed from what happens inside us when we think? 

I read a page mechanically, and examine myself: have I understood it? I reread the page, this time looking at myself to see if I understand. I reread it a 3rd time, observing why and how I didn't understand anything on the first reading. Other, higher-order abstractions are familiar.

It's impossible to give a more rigorous treatment of the subjects in question while limiting oneself to a summary presentation. Let us note, however, the reversibility in the 2 analogies, and in particular that a change in speed is not possible without a change in physical support, and that any change in physical support entails a change in speed; any mental process produces a change in its physical support, and any change in the physical support of thought is expressed by a mental change. In both cases, the pursuit of the origin of the change is artificial: neither the change in speed nor the change in thought is possible without the change in the physical support.

The waking state is made up of movements, sensations, feelings, and thoughts. By eliminating or preventing the continuity of these 4 categories of wakefulness for a more or less prolonged period, we fall asleep. That movement and sensation are aspects of nervous system functioning was obvious. We've just suggested that mental processes are too, and we'll try to demonstrate that feelings are too.

The reaction to fear is a violent contraction of all the flexor muscles, especially in the abdominal region. A cessation of breathing accompanied by a series of vasomotor disturbances, the pulse quickens, perspiration becomes more profuse, and acute cases are accompanied by trembling, defecation, etcetera, many soldiers have experienced this after leaving the trench for their first bayonet attack. Violent contraction of the flexors is accompanied by inhibition of their antagonists, the extensors so that the knees bend and it becomes difficult to stand upright.

A newborn baby is practically sensitive to external stimuli, reacting little to light, noise, smell, and even moderate pinching. But if we lower him by a sudden movement, we observe a violent contraction of the flexor muscles, a cessation of breathing followed by an accelerated pulse, and vasomotor disturbances. The similarity between a newborn's reaction to a fall and an adult's reaction to fear is striking. This reaction to falling from the very first moments of birth is therefore innate, yet independent of individual experience. The lowering of the head, the bewitchment, the bending of the knees, the trembling, the general lack of tone in the extensors of a man in the grip of anxiety or fear are only the details of the generalized contraction of the flexors compatible with the act of remaining upright. After a few weeks, when the infant begins to hear, it will react in the way described above, to a sudden, very loud noise. In any part of the nervous system where myelination is still in a formative stage, there is diffusion of excitations from adjacent nerves from one branch to another. Thus, the 8th cranial nerve is divided into 2 branches, the cochlea branch and the vestibular branch. The semicircular canals are innervated by the vestibular branch. Sudden removal of a newborn's support produces violent excitation of the vestibular branch, as the semicircular canals react to the fall. When the cochlea can respond to a violent noise, the excitation of the cochlear branch diffuses into the vestibular branch, and so the loud noise produces the same reaction as the fall. The reaction we see in the anxious adult? Here, fear is produced by stimulation of the vestibular branch of the eighth cranial nerve. The vertigo, vomiting, and other disturbances that often accompany anxiety are the same as those that disordered irritation of the vestibular apparatus produces in general. We can thus see the outline of the formation of all the complexes of anxiety, fear, hesitation, doubt, etcetera. We have thus traced the interdependence of feelings and the functioning of the nervous system, and their repercussions on body posture and on the configurations of muscle tone that accompany them. We've examined these cases in a little more detail, rather than multiplying the examples, which it wouldn't be difficult to multiply.

We can summarize and reiterate the importance of muscular mastery and self-control. By methodically examining habitual posture and the tonus distribution of the muscle groups that produce this attitude, we can deduce which are the regions of abnormal and permanent excitation in the motor cortex, and which are the regions of equally permanent inhibition, remembering that life is a rapid succession of states of the entire system and that each state is a "Gestalt", which, however complex, cannot be divided; we cannot think yes and no at the same time. The conception of an idea, an act, or a movement of the soul may be highly complex, but it constitutes a single flight of integration of the whole being. Such integration will find interference in the regions of excitations where inhibition is permanent, so that in severe cases any thought and any act will excite the same affected regions - which is indeed the description of obsession. Modern pharmacology is familiar with a series of products that have the effect of equalizing and reducing excitations and inhibitions in the nervous system so that its functioning is smoothed out and normalized. 

Similar effects are sometimes obtained through psychotherapy, or in the case of success, attitude, posture, and muscular configuration show the changes in the state.

Let's repeat that the state of the cortex is directly and legibly visible in the periphery through the attitude, posture, and muscular configuration that are all linked to it; and any change in the nervous system will clearly translate into a change in attitude, posture and muscular configuration, and vice versa; the two states being, as we have tried to show, only two sides of the same coin.

The great advantage of a technique which allows tonus to be reduced in the affected muscle group, the whole self-image to be methodically examined and improved, becomes obvious. Its benefits cannot be overestimated. It clearly shows that defects in self-organization are a hindrance to self-development, and the correction of defects is neither conceived nor experienced as a treatment of disease, but as a general resumption of growth and development on all levels.

During its twenty-year history, this technique has developed in two directions, one involving individual work requiring manipulation, and the other involving very large groups of 50 or more people. We hope to publish details shortly.

We can't end this overview of aspects of technique without briefly saying that by considering the nervous system as a whole and classifying it according to its functions as rhinic - controlling the body's internal life - limbic - managing all activity, from the expression of internal needs outwards - and supral-imbic - which is the prerogative of the human being and is still in a state of evolution, enabling him to know what he's doing, what he's saying and not just saying and doing. We can see that making orientation conscious means knowing ourselves more deeply and clearly, and thus resuming our evolution. Personnel in the direction dictated by evolution itself.

M.F.