Essential learning – just do it – make it simple

Whether working with Feldenkrais, TaKeTiNa rhythm or in personal consultation, the aim is always meticulous perception and differentiation, which subsequently allows a new integration of self-image onto a higher-than-normal plane. This applies to the treatment of physical complaints, like backache or stiff shoulders, as well as to providing new impulses in areas of high performance - in work with professional musicians, actors or others who are leaders in their field.

A gift or talent may not necessarily be something a person is good at, but it is always something that a person feels a deep longing for.* In order to bring this to fruition, we need to connect to our earliest and fastest stage of learning, one which was entirely sensual, embedded in movement and physical experience. This type of learning seeps into the essence of what is learnt, and touches the soul of the person who is learning. As a complex, multi-layered integration of all levels of experience it is learning in its fullest sense. Essential learning.* Cf. the writings of Barbara Sher.

Simplicity and complexity

Learning which promotes development is not usually a linear progression from the simple to the difficult, but happens through steps forwards and backwards, through leaps and a constant change between phases of order and chaos, out of which, suddenly, new order develops.

This increase in complexity is the key to experiencing simplicity. An example: the construction of the first automobile, compared to modern-day car manufacture, was not at all complex, but using it was: you had to push the vehicle or crank up the motor before you could drive it. Nowadays using a car is so much easier because its internal organisation has become so much more complex. The same applies to guiding movement and rhythmic-musical competence.

If someone with a limp, someone with a complicated way of walking, asks me for help then I offer it mainly by refining and differentiating that person’s sense of self and his/her ability to guide and control his movements. If it is possible to make the organisation of movement more complex, then he can simply walk again. This is what is meant by the term“doing it simply“.

Learning in your own time – non-linear learning

All learning that enhances the development of personality happens at its own pace and not in accordance with an external given plan. It also doesn’t happen consistently in a linear way, but rather through progress and setbacks, with chaotic phases and times of standstill aswell as sudden leaps to a new level. Learning that is derived from experience and therefore brings about a lasting change needs its own individual time to be integrated into a whole personality. Any attempt from within or without to speed up this process, however well-meant that might be, will just slow it down. However in a situation where a person has time and space to develop in his own time, then amazing things can happen.