short 56 years that I have been on the planet, I have seen Nicholas
Tinbergen accept his Nobel prize with a lecture on the work of F.M.
Alexander and Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist and the designer
of the tank used by the Israeli Army taking lessons with Somatics
pioneers Alexander and Elsa Gindler and beginning a thorough research
into the effects of the human nervous system on movement. His three
books, Awareness Through Movement, Body and Mature Behavior,
The Potent Self and another book on a case study, that I cannot
remember at the moment, are classics in the field.
Ilana Rubenfeld, a symphony conductor and director of the NYCity
92nd Street Y music school, became a world famous "Alexander
teacher" as well, as a result of study brought on by a back
injury.
She continued advanced study with Feldenkrais for six years and
was certified by Feldenkrais in his work in addition to the Alexander
techniques. She also completed advanced study with Fritz and
Laura Perls in the psycho-therapeutic Gestalt therapeutic techniques,
and later in many varied areas.
She combined the work into the Rubenfeld Synergy
Technique and was given the 1995 Most Significant New Advance
in Psychotherapeutic Techniques Award by the American Academy
of Psyco-Analysts. (I'm not sure of this exact name, I can reference
it for you if you would like.)
I would add to this list the developer of the movement and awareness
technique trademarked as Kinetic Awareness.
Elaine Summers,
who was also from the Elsa Gindler training through Carolla
Speeds an expert in movement and therapeutic techniques
using the breath, was a respected pioneer dancer, choreographer and
filmmaker as well as the Director of both the Experimental Inter-media
Foundation and the International Inter-media festival at the Guggenheim
Museum in New York City. She has saved many dancer's and
athlete's
careers with her Kinetic Awareness therapy and
much of the work that
she developed in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s is now a part of standard
rehabilitation therapies for people recovering from injuries and surgery.
Many of the greatest names in the field of modern dance have
studied with her including Trisha Brown and Meredith Monk. My
relationship to the above is that both Rubenfeld and Summers
were two of my long term teachers and so I can vouch for both their
rigor and their success.
Karl Pribram was different from the above in that he was an academic,
I believe, from the USo.Cal. Feldenkrais, though not an
academic, taught
at Tel Aviv University. Rubenfeld still teaches at the New School
in
NYCity although she has her own private school, the Rubenfeld Center
in
New York City. And Elaine Summers, since retiring from her dance
company, teaches classes in her therapeutic work at New York University.
The point of all of this is that modern medical science has drawn heavily
from the research into the limbic region by both Pribram and Feldenkrais.
Pribram was well known before his holographic theories. I attended
a
lecture by Pribram in Rubenfeld's training school and and the theories
he spoke about were much in line with the current work being done in
cloning. The Holographic research according to my understanding
didn't
only have to do with the brain but related to the entire person being
encapsulated on a cellular level in each cell as well. He theorized
that
this could include memory and the cells were not just dumb meat but
contained the essence of consciousness as well. I could
be wrong in
that this is memory and not notes but that is what I remember.
As to
whether that particular theory has been explored or borne out over
the last
twenty years, I don't know but he was a uniquely original thinker and
a
member of the establishment as well as being thoroughly committed to
the development of theory through the filter of the perceptions and
their
development.
The validity of all of this has primarily been borne out in the area
of
preventative health and the curing of injuries by performers
without
surgery. Although many medical doctors have studied
with these
people, there were always MDs in the classes that I took with Rubenfeld
and Summers, they rarely are credited as developers of the
techniques that the medical profession absorbed. As a result
Feldenkrais,
Rubenfeld and Summers, trademarked their systems and teaching methods
and now can sue those who use there material without serious study
or
giving credit where due.
The performing arts must stress a very high level of physical competence
in order to minimize injuries. As a result of a slow development
in this
area by the medical profession and the disasterous result of surgery
on
dancers and singers with major careers, the private practitioners sprang
up from the arts themselves, and studied and trained for the specificity
of the
body as a primary instrument.
From this place of success in the arts, it moved out into the world
as processes that could cut back on costs and foster general health
in the population. The Health Maintenance Organizationss in America
are now using these same methods, pioneered by these practitioners.
The lucrative practice of Sports Medicine now uses the exercises
and techniques for the same purpose in preventing the continued
destruction brought on by physical injuries to multi-million dollar
athletes.
As a result of my ex-wife (a Ph.D. who is trained and taught at Columbia
University with her Post Graduate psycho-analytic certification
at the
prestigious William Alanson White Institute here), moving her
area of
study into this brain, awareness and movement domain, I feel sure
that
the regular world is beginning to catch up with these pioneers just
as
they have with dietary researcher and discoverer of Folic Acid Roger
Williams and his assertions about folic acid in the 1960s.
My ex-wife's
papers have been presented at conferences, here, in Italy and in Canada.
They have been well recieved and are in the process of being published
here. The problem for ordinary science has been that they
didn't
know how to test for it so their approach was to put it down.
Like the dietary approaches in the 1960s that were so ravaged by the
establishment, the approaches that the establishment is now finding
far
superior to their chemical/surgical intervention approach are
studies in
somatics. Studies that prevent the problems before they develop.
These
in turn are being called forth because of the simple issue of
the cost of
the more academic and, need I say, mechanical approach to knowledge
that has held the sway in the past.
There is also a built in conflict of interest when the very people doing
the
standard medical testing benefit from the breakdown of the physical
systems they are healing and studying as well. Committments
to long
cherished beliefs always last longer if they reward you financially,
even if
they are wrong.
Eva, we have all spent our time getting the required degrees and teaching
in
the prestigeous institutions. We are not fuzzy heads making the
statements
that we make. I have taught at Universities and the Major Conservatories
in
the United States and my students have performed and taught in every major
performing venue in the U.S. and most in Europe, including Covent Garden
and
La Scala. I have my listings in the International Who's Who and
taught for six
years at Manhattan School of Music, the largest music conservatory
in the U.S.
But as a performer working in venues where people's lives are literally
at stake
when an ill-trained or doctrinaire artist is unable to handle the work,
I must be
sure that what is involved is not just good theory but that it works
in application
when the artists are forced to do the physically rigorous work of the
modern
stage. That is why I ventured into these areas in the first place,
and I have never
been sorry.
Well, I don't have any more time for this Eva. I also earn
my living in theater,
and my Wife is going to shot me if she can't work on this computer.
So,
it was good to talk to you and the list. I will keep reading and posting
as I have the time.
Sorry Jay, but this is a good illustration of how the scientific model
has its
limits, IMHO.
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Chamber Opera of New York, Inc.
Durant wrote:
I just querried some of your references, here
is a response from the skeptics list...
using a lot of foggy scientific sounding
expressions always makes me suspicious... Eva> mean to do that? However, if you want to
> put down the New Age people, (of which I
> am not one) then you must talk also the
> works of Neuro-physiologist Carl Pribram
> who has done much of the seminal research
> in the brain including the works on
> holographic connections that the local
> sci-fy shows call holo-suites.Pribram made a name for himself among
New-Agers in the early 80's or so, by
comparing the brain's memory storage to a
hologram. He pointed out that destroying
parts of the brain might degrade certain
memories, but enough remained distributed
throughout other parts to be recognizably
the same memory. Sort of like a hologram.
Then, of course, you make the leap to saying
memory operates in a "nonlocal" fashion.
And leap to saying our brains work like this
in general. And bring in parapsychologists
who like to talk about a "nonlocal mind" and
drop references to quantum physics.I still see Pribram mentioned in the works
of psientists, but not much in mainstream
neuroscience. Memory is not *that*
"nonlocally" distributed in the brain. And
the distributed, gracefully degrading
property appears in neural nets as well,
which are obviously a lot more relevant to
the brain, and yet are physically very
different than holograms.Taner Edis
"So this," mused Philip as he watched
Zen master Steve repeatedly bend the
severed piece of limb in half, causing
the bones to produce a faint but audible
crunching noise, "is the sound of one
hand clapping."
-- Murray J. Munro
(Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest entry)>
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
