A Detective Story
By Maureen McHugh
So, IS there a secret of youth?
Most of the people who take my individual and group classes in the Feldenkrais Method are adults in mid-life who have aches and pains of some sort. They have the sense that they can do better, and they want to know how.
When we talk about where they are and where they would like to be, no one, as
I recall, has ever used the word "youthful." But nearly everyone has
expressed wishes that I can boil down to their wanting to enjoy again the
freedom of action they knew when they were younger.
Certainly, it is an appealing prospect. Imagine aging, and, not only getting wiser, but also more flexible!
I can vouch that such a development is possible because I see it in my practice. Often.
Here is an example. Susan, 48, came to see me because her lower back hurt all the time. Although she used to be athletic and in general loved to move, now even a short walk was uncomfortable. She missed working out, she was gaining weight, and she was irritable. In our first session I told her that I see our work together as a detective story. I have certain specialized information--about body mechanics and about the role of awareness in learning—that I bring and that is external to her. And she lives within herself, all the time, and brings that knowledge. Together we will be searching for clues about what is going on, and how improvement can come about.
The first task is to help Susan develop her observational skills. Recently, I read one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, "A Scandal in Bohemia," that describes well the type of effort that I am talking about. Early in the story, narrator Watson (the "I" in the excerpt below), asks his genius friend Holmes the secret to his success:
When I hear you give your reasons," I remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.""
"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette and throwing himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to the room."
"Frequently."
"How often?"
"Well, some hundreds of times."
"Then how many are there?"
"How many! I don’t know."
"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen."
Taking the great detective’s example to heart, this is the type of training we undertake. We lovingly, patiently delve into the detail of how exactly the body executes common movements, such as rolling over, bending, lifting, and reaching. Over the course of our work together, this is what I ask Susan to do: to explore movement patterns that help her learn more about how her body moves and how the different parts relate to each other.
One of the most common discoveries of this process is the location of the "white spot in the map of Africa." I learned this phrase from Yochanan Rywerant, one of my trainers. The first time I heard about the spot, Yochanan was working with a student who was lying on his side on a low table. Yochanan first sat near David’s head and made some exploratory movements of David’s head and right arm. After a while, Yochanan repositioned himself behind David’s back, pointed, and said, "Look! There’s the white spot!" A group of students were watching the lesson. We looked at David’s back. We looked at each other. We didn’t know what the teacher was talking about. Then Yochanan explained that it was like those old European maps of Africa. The coastline is richly detailed, but there are large blank areas in the interior.
Yochanan meant his metaphor very physically, but, of course, it can also be taken on other levels. He meant that David needed to learn more about the interior of himself, his back, in order to help his arm and neck. This is the type of relationship between body parts that is crucial to one’s comfort but escapes notice until we make the effort to observe.
In Susan’s case, we discovered many "white spots" and were able to fill in the details. She became more observant of her patterns of stress on the job and in particular of holding her breath. She observed how hunching over the computer for hours at a time froze her upper torso. Her neck muscles were overworked, and her shoulders had forgotten that they could move independently of her back. As all these upper body areas gradually improved, the benefit rippled down, and her lower back felt better, much better! She walks now with bounce in her step, swing in her arms, and good cheer in her eyes.
In my experience, there is a secret of youth. It has to do with breaking away from the fixed patterns of adult specialization. Living exclusively by fixed habits, including mental, emotional, and physical habits of all types, is what prematurely rigidifies and ages adults. It is the process of observation, of taking an interest in all around us, which adults lose and need to regain. The ever youthful embrace the joy of exploration and movement throughout all their years, and not just their first ones.