How do You do it?

Moshe Feldenkrais on Patterns: from Amherst, MA, 1980-81

"Our brain was wired-in by our own experience of the external world. There’s no other way for the brain to learn because the brain has no contact ... no contact ... no direct contact with anything in the world but through our senses. Therefore the senses have learned from the external world to organize the patterns in the brain so that it does what we do."

"All the anti-gravity muscles will get rid of some of their useless contractions. In other words, some of your brain will be cleaned with soap and detergent, so that some of the cells can fire and recombine into new patterns; patterns, which are today impossible to do and nobody can alter them even by a real effort.

"In other words, you can see where the training should be: not in the muscles, not in the lifting the weights, but the way we do it. And not in stretching... Not in jogging, but the way we jog... Not in swimming, but the way we swim. Not in skating, but the way we skate."

"In the brain... the organization with the intention must be such that the intention itself can be performed directly without contradictory patterns coming up. Contradictory patterns means patterns engaged in doing something else which I don’t know I’m doing."