New York Quest Workshop 1981 Audio Set – Moshe Feldenkrais

Salepage link: At HERE. Archive:

The Quest series were Moshe Feldenkrais last public workshops, and are an important part of his legacy, representing the apex of his creative output, and the height of his public teaching. This extensive recording of the five-day New York workshop, contains seven lectures and 19 Awareness Through Movement lessons.

Description

In 1981 Moshe Feldenkrais taught a series of four outstanding public workshops, sponsored by the Quest organization. Feldenkrais Resources is very pleased to announce the republishing of the five-day New York workshop. The Quest series were his last public workshops, and are an important part of Feldenkrais’ legacy, representing the apex of his creative output, and the height of his public teaching. Each workshop contains original ATM lessons which do not exist anywhere else and demonstrate how Feldenkrais’ thinking and teaching evolved. He is at the very top of his game, full of excitement and inspiration. The depth and originality of his ATM teaching and the lucidity of his explanations are remarkable, and a significant departure from how he has taught before. This high-quality audio recording provides an especially pleasurable ATM immersion experience unlike any other. The workshop start on a Friday evening and goes through Wednesday morning including many talks and nineteen lessons.

“The brilliant lessons of the Quest workshops mark the transition to Feldenkrais’s most mature teaching and are arguably some of his very best.-Dennis Leri”

“The Quest workshops represent the apex of Moshe Feldenkrais’ creativity and originality. The Awareness Through Movement lessons he developed for these workshops are essential for understanding the arc of Moshe’s thinking and practice.” -David Zemach-Bersin

“Twenty years ago I first went through the Quest recordings. Some of the ATM experiences I had are seared into my being from that time, as vividly as if I did them yesterday. Moshe is on, and working with incredible depth.” -Elizabeth Beringer

Lessons & Chapters 

Friday Evening

1. a) Introduction b) Instruction
2. Finding lightness and ease in teh arms and in yourself: Rolling with interlaced hands on the back
3. Rolling interlaced hands continued: coming to stand

Saturday

1. Lifting the head on the back: simple flexion, one side in imagination
2. Rolling from sitting to lying and back again
3. The bell hand: soft opening and closing movements of the hands

Sunday

1. Perfecting the self image: tilting the legs and lengthening the spine on the belly
2. Rolling from sitting to lying on the back continued, including taking the legs over the shoulders
3. Discussion: Habits. Fear. We are not interested in moving but in how the movement is performed
4. Lengthening through the arms to roll from the back to the side
5. Rolling from sitting to side-lying

Monday

1. Lecture: Learning, Free Choice, Individuality
2. Increasing ease in teh head, neck and shoulders. a) Sitting; rolling the head b) Bell hand, rotating arms on back c)Sitting, rolling the head continued
3. From straight leg sitting to rolling on the back, opening and closing hand

Tuesday

1. Discussion: imagination, the unconscious and memory
2. a) Pressing and lifting on the side, opening and closing hand to stand b) Variations in standing c) Pressing again on side, making a wave
3. Discussion: Relationships, Change and the Self
4. Softening the neck affects the whole self: Lifting the head with lapping movements of the mouth and tongue in many different positions
5. Lecture: Learning is doing things in a different way. Even in simple things we have lost contact with ourselves

Wednesday

1. Lecture: Change, Habits and Good posture. Includes demonstration of helping a man touch his toes more easily
2. Hands-On Functional Integration Session with a woman with cerebral palsy. Feldenkrais talks very little during the lesson but does describe it at the end
3. Rolling from the belly to sit, bringing in many themes from the five days
4. Tilting legs on the belly to sit. Whole group moves together at the end

Program Note: During the lessons participants should continue to move and rest in their own rhythm, while Feldenkrais speaks.

Practioner Information

(The students are preparing to gently open and close their fist as they move a leg.) Feldernkrais says to them “What we are going to do now, that simple thing, very, very simple, is actually one of the major achievements of my life, not this very thing, but the fact that I’ve learned and I have evolved a Method which allows me to turn abstract ideas into complete simple acts so that every human being can do it, feel it and realize that there is actually not only a body but actually a brain because without a brain the body would not be worth anything. Anesthetize your brain and see what your body would be worth. Nothing. Now, there are very simple things we say. We say life is a process and not a thing. And what do you mean by that “life is a process.” What is the process? What sort of process? Is it like making rubber? Is that life as a process?
What sort of process. I want you to feel what sort of process life is. (Here he proceeds with the lesson, having people open and close the fist softly and slowly.)