The all-important gap b/w intention & action

“You can do what you want, if you know what you are doing.”

Moshe Feldenkrais

This is perhaps the most famous quote from Dr. Feldenkrais.

It is also somewhat confusing.

Don’t we know what we are doing? For the most part, anyway, or else how are we able to do anything?

So what did Dr. Feldenkrais mean?

More importantly, how will understanding what he meant, help you?

It’s worth finding out.

Begin by bringing your attention to what you are doing as you read this statement.

You are probably seated, at your desk or your favorite chair. As your eyes scan the screen, different parts of your brain are working together to convert these symbols into meaning which you can understand.

This journey from sight to comprehension is almost instantaneous and happens without any conscious effort from your side.

Yet it is also an incredibly complex process that science has only begin to scratch the surface in terms of understanding.

And more incredible still, each and every one of the things that I just mentioned, sitting on a chair, reading and even moving your eyes in a coordinated fashion, are things that you learnt to do!

If you stop to think about it, the last part is “blindingly” obvious.

For when you were born, you could do none of these with any proficiency at all! 

A newborn cannot lift its head or focus its eyes in a manner which would allow it to read, leave alone know the alphabet or interpret language.

All these things must be learned, just as sitting, crawling, standing, walking and then running must be learnt by every human child in order to function in the world.

It can be said, and with only a little exaggeration, that every child learns to do so not with the help from parents, but despite the help from parents! The child learns through the repeated interactions of her nervous system with an orderly and predictable environment.  

As we saw in “Chapter 1 – Do You Feel Old?” the child’s nervous system forms new connections during the critical period just by being exposed to her surroundings.  Her brain makes increasingly more sense out of the “noisy” signals coming from the environment through the five senses, as well as the touch and proprioceptive sensors in her body.

Consider, for example, the effects of gravity.

From the moment we are born, all of us are under the influence of gravity. It is a constant throughout our life and has shaped our movement right from the start.

If you observe an infant, you will notice it makes seemingly random movements with its hands and legs.  Over a period of time, these movements become more controlled and more deliberate, with a clear intention, for example to reach for a toy or an interesting object.

This learning happens on its own, not through intervention by an adult.

This learning applies not only to movement and other physical processes, but to mental and cognitive ones as well.

We learn to recognize faces, emotions and even our own bodily sensations such as hunger and thirst, through consistent repetition at more-or-less regular intervals.

This marvelous ability of the nervous system to learn and grow in response to an orderly environment is vastly underappreciated till we stop and take note how extraordinary it really is.

However, as with anything that is learnt, something can go awry with time. The initial learning may itself be incomplete, or may become faulty over a long period.

Or we may pick up some bad habits.

We briefly touched upon the topic of habits in “Chapter 2 – Why Do You Have A Brain?” Habits are essential for survival and without them, we would not be able to function. Habits are also very efficient. They save time and free up the brain’s resources to focus on other things.

However, there is one big downside.

Once a habit is formed, or rather learned, a complex activity is chunked into a program that executes in totality as a pattern. When the task is handed over to the subconscious to execute, we lose some, if not all, awareness of the individual components of the task.

As an example, try untying and then retying your shoe laces.

You can probably do it very fast, maybe even with your eyes closed.

But if I were to ask you to describe each step in a sequential order, or what each finger or hand does, you may be at a loss to do so.

The process of tying your laces has been in some ways “automated” and you have limited or no awareness of the movements you actually do while tying your laces. Any imperfections in your “shoelace-tying-technique”, if one can call it that, and which you learnt when you were five years old, are hidden from your own self.

That is part of what Dr. Feldenkrais was referring to. And it goes way further than that and it affects us in ways which are central to our existence.

Tying your shoelaces is an example of a deliberate action repeated enough number of times to become habitual. There are habits, however, that we acquire without even being aware of.

For instance, when we pick up the mannerisms or behavioral patterns of people we admire. These never go through conscious awareness in the first place.

Some habits are perceptual. They are “self-concealing” and they skew the apparatus through which we perceive the environment. Similar to how wearing red glasses affects would affect how we see the world. If we were not aware we were wearing red glasses, we would believe the world to be different than it really is.

These habits can be as subtle as the way you begin to breathe when you think of a troublesome situation at home or at work.

Or it can be as pervasive as the way you hold yourself in gravity.

Consider for example the person who walks with hunched or lifted shoulders.

Rounding the shoulders is a natural response to stress. It part of the body’s generalized flexion response called the “startle reflex”. It is an involuntary reaction to a sudden threat and serves to protect the vulnerable parts of the body including the neck, head, and abdomen.

The threat may be actual or perceived, the danger physical or mental.

In the presence of ongoing stress, however, a person may develop a habitual posture of having the shoulders hunched at all times.

Hunched shoulders place the shoulder blades and the shoulder joint at a mechanical disadvantage in terms of movement. The habitual contraction of the muscles of the chest will also inhibit the movement of the shoulder joint, making movements of the shoulder less than optimal and causing additional wear and tear.

More importantly, the brain, re-sets this position of the shoulders as the new “normal”.

An action in response to a particular situation has become a generalized habit. Walking with hunched shoulders now seems normal to the person.

We saw in “Chapter 1 – Do You Feel Old?” that brain maps are plastic and can be altered over time.

In a way, the person’s image of herself has been altered in a way that she cannot sense that she walks with her shoulders raised.

Or that she is making an extra effort to do so.

The most damaging consequence however, is that the very thing that helps us to learn become erect, our ability to sense ourselves in space, has become what Dr. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) called, “debauched”.

Since the hunched position of the shoulder now feels normal to the person, any change to its compromised alignment of the shoulder feels “off”.  It is not what she is used to.

Even if by chance or through guidance, she is able to bring her shoulders into a more functional position, it does not feel “normal” and she quickly reverts to the habitual way of carrying herself.

With her ability to sense herself compromised, she is not able to function as effectively in order to realize her intention.

In other words, she is unable to do what she wants since she does not accurately know what she is doing!

We all have such habitual responses or behaviors in different areas of life, which through repetition have become automatic and in many ways, hidden from our awareness.

As an example, consider the actions of the parents, who in their interactions with their children, do not realize what they are doing and often end up doing the opposite of what they had intended.

The father who insists on his daughter doing things his way, is in that moment, more concerned about preserving his authority, than he is about what is best for her.

Or the mother who reprimands her teenage son for not asking for permission before taking the car, is acting out of anxiety rather than a wish to instill manners in her son.

They are, in both cases, most likely unaware of what they are doing versus what they think they are doing.

That they are in some way, acting in opposition to their intention. Both will however, end up perpetuating what they do not want.

When faced with a difficult situation, especially when stakes are high, we often revert to our tried and tested ways in order to overcome the difficulty. Even if it may not be the most appropriate response under the circumstances.

And given the nature of habit, we are not even aware of what we are doing!

The father complains to his friend over a beer how the young no longer respect their parents, while the mother confides in her best friend about how she now has to keep the car keys hidden.

“Kids these days”, the friends respond sympathetically.

It may seem like a lost cause now, but both started out with an intention to do the best for their children.

Habits were initially learned as they served a purpose, just as hunched shoulders is a normal response to sudden danger. However, they may not be appropriate for the current context and may need some refinement or modification.

This is especially true of compulsive behavior learnt during the dependency period when we faced situations we were ill prepared to deal with (Please read “Chapter 3 – Are You An Adult?” for context).

We can all think of situations, where despite several attempts, we have been unable to achieve what we want.

In such cases, it is helpful to look for what is it that you are doing which is contrary to your intention. If you can identify the action where you are doing something different from what you think you are doing, and modify it, you will improve your chances of success.

As we saw in “Chapter 5 – Why Doing Less Is More?,” in most cases, we are doing much more than what is essential.

In each of the above circumstances, we end up being less that what we can be. Dr. Feldenkrais said, “We organize our life around which we can do to our satisfaction, and avoid those acts where we feel we are inept.”

We are then able to quickly convince ourselves, that something we are unable to accomplish was not meant for us, and is not really that important after all. This compromise allows us to move on with our lives.

But at what cost?

How many options for being do we leave unexplored because we had a bad experience to begin with? Or came up against a self-limiting belief when we attempted a new, and possibly fulfilling, activity?

What can we achieve once we are able to do what we want?

Dr. Feldenkrais believed that we act in accordance with our self-image.

The self-image is a loose collection of thoughts, feelings, sensations and movement potentials that we carry about ourselves and our position in society.

The self-image forms over time, through our experiences in the world. Dr. Feldenkrais writes in “Awareness Through Movement”: “A man tends to regard his self-image as something bestowed upon him by nature, although it is, in fact, the result of his own experience.

His appearance, voice, way of thinking, environment, his relationship to space and time – to choose at random – are all taken for granted as realities born with him, whereas every important element in the individual’s relationship to other people and to society in general, is the result of extensive training.”

No two individuals have the same self-image and even within the same individual, the self-image will vary over time, depending on the experiences of the individual.

Dr. Feldenkrais believed that in order to change someone’s behavior, we have to first change their self-image. That the systematic correction of the self-image is more effective than correcting individual actions.

For instance, people with anorexia, which is an eating disorder, have difficulty in accurately sensing their body dimensions. As a result, they see themselves as being grossly overweight, even though the opposite is true.

This leads to extreme avoidance of food and even death by self-starvation.

New, experimental treatments have found it effective to have anorexics wear a tight cat suit made of rubber. The suit presses on the skin all over the body and helps them recalibrate their bodily perceptions.

This approach, which aims to correct the self-image of the person, is more effective than providing information on diet or the side-effects of not eating.

Dr. Feldenkrais believed that our self-image is smaller than our capacity. This is because our self-image is based on our individual experiences and is limited by our use of ourselves. It does not come close to what we are capable of.

For example, there are individuals who are fluent in over a dozen languages. There are also circus artists and performers who can perform amazing acts of athleticism such as walking on a tight rope, and even doing summersaults as they walk the wire.

There may be small differences between the genetic endowments of these athletes and regular people, but the greater difference lies in their training and use of themselves. Their functional maps in the brain are larger and more refined than for normal people.

With the right amount of training and perseverance, almost everyone can learn multiple languages or dramatically improve their athletic abilities.

Dr. Feldenkrais believed the reason most people do not reach their potential is that “we stop learning when we have mastered sufficient skills to attain our immediate objective.

Thus for instance, we improve our speech until we can make ourselves understood. But any person who wishes to speak with the clarity of an actor discovers that he must study speech for several years in order to achieve anything approaching his maximum potential in this direction.”

The same applies to movement. We stop improving how we run before reaching adolescence, unless we follow an athletic program.

Minimum development of the individual satisfies the needs of the society while the potential for individual improvement and mastery are unlimited.

Dr. Feldenkrais placed the responsibility for our growth and reaching our potential squarely on our own shoulders, through “self-education”. He continues, “Further training after early adolescence is, in fact, confined to the acquisition of practical and professional knowledge in some field, and basic development is continued only by chance and in exceptional cases.

Only the unusual person will continue to improve his self-image until it more nearly approaches the potential ability inherent in each individual.”

Not having persisted in improving our self-image in areas important to us, most of us resign ourselves to a much smaller life than we are capable of living.

In fact, for most people, the trajectory is in the opposite direction. Due to lack of use, or from sitting in front of the computer all day, we begin to lose even the basic motor skills we learnt in our childhood.

Instead of leaping with the lightness of a ballet dancer, we limp as we walk. Instead of painting with the virtuosity of Picasso, we let our dreams perish without even an attempt to bring them to life.

Is it too late, is everything lost?

I believe that Dr. Feldenkrais’ message is an optimistic one. We all carry within us the ability to come close to the heights reached by the best of humanity, in any field that we choose to pursue.

To keep improving even as we age. And it is up to us to pick up and continue our education in the areas that makes the light shine within us.

So what to do and where to start?

How can we learn to know what we are doing, so we can do what we want?

To begin, let’s return to an earlier topic from this article: habits and their power over us and look at what can help us improve our abilities and change our habits.

Dr. Feldenkrais said, “Habits are when we decide to act before we are aware we have a choice.” Several disciplines, however, assert that that there is a delay between a thought process and its translation into action.

And it is in that gap between intention and action that awareness can arise.

Dr. Feldenkrais says, “This possibility of creating the image of an action and then delaying its execution – postponing it or preventing it altogether – is the basis for imagination and intellectual judgement.”

“This pause makes is possible to examine what is happening within us at the moment when the intention to act is formed as well as when it is carried out. The possibility of delaying the action – prolonging the period between the intention and the execution – enables man to learn to know himself.”

In that gap, we can ask ourselves, “Am I doing what I intend to do in this situation, or am I following my habitual pattern?”

Dr. Alexander (the founder of the Alexander Technique) used a similar approach to inhibit and ultimately break down undesirable habitual patterns. He did so by bringing in the element of choice and preventing the habitual response by doing something else in response to the stimulus.

As Michael J Gelb writes in “Body Learning,” his introduction to the Alexander Technique, “This ‘stopping off’ process does not involve ‘freezing’ in place or suppressing spontaneity. Rather, it is a matter of consciously refusing to respond in a stereotyped manner so that true spontaneity can manifest itself.”

In cases when an action is accompanied by a strong desire to succeed, the chances of success can be improved by separating the aim from the means of achieving it.

As Dr. Feldenkrais writes in “Awareness Through Movement”, “A motorist in a desperate hurry to reach his destination, for instance, will fare better if he entrusts the wheel to a man who is a good driver but not desperate to reach the destination in time.”

In areas where performance depends on the more ancient parts of the nervous system, over which our control is involuntary, “the action may be performed as if the aim were the means, and sometimes as though the means were the aim.”

Anybody trying to fall asleep, or improve their golf swing, will attest to the futility of trying too hard in the moment.

A focus on the means as the aim (relaxing the mind through slow breathing or reducing the effort in the swing) will have a much higher chance of success.

Conversely, one can also treat the aim as the means. Taking the same example, one could consider sleep as a way to achieve good health and excelling at golf as a way to improve one’s character. This approach will also create a more conducive state for improvement than just focusing on the aim itself (falling asleep or improving the swing).

Remember that in “Chapter 2 – Why Do You Have A Brain?,” Dr. Feldenkrais made a distinction between the states of being awake and being aware. Awareness is a recent development in evolution and is not necessary for life, for many creatures exist in nature without having awareness. Humans have the facility of being aware and hence being able to observe ourselves. 

Dr. Feldenkrais writes, “Many people find it easy to be aware of control of their voluntary muscles, thought, and abstraction processes.

It is much more difficult, on the other hand, to be aware and in control of the involuntary muscles, senses, emotions, and creative abilities. Despite this difficulty, it is by no means impossible, even though it seems unlikely to many.

We act as a whole entity even when this wholeness is not quite perfect. From this springs the possibility of also developing awareness control in the more difficult parts. The changes that occur in the parts where control is easy also affect the rest of the system, including those parts over which we have no direct power. Indirect influence is also a kind of control.

Our work is a method of training that converts this initial indirect influence into clear knowledge.”

Through prolonged training, martial artists can learn to control their instinctual reactions. To move towards the enemy instead of away and to stay relaxed when under attack. Similarly, some yogis have been known to be able to control the involuntary muscles and functions of the body including their heartbeat.

Through his Method, Dr. Feldenkrais laid out a way for each of us to become aware of and change our habitual patterns of acting and being in this world. 

During a Feldenkrais lesson, we retrain the senses to make finer distinctions and provide better feedback on how we are in this world, so that we can do more of what we want. 

Movements are done slowly, in order to become aware of habitual patterns and unnecessary effort.

A large part of the lesson is directed at improving the self-image of the student and enlarging the areas of voluntary control.

The lessons allow new, more efficient patterns to emerge along with the awareness to sense clearly what we are doing, while we are doing it.

In Dr. Feldenkrais’ words, “The lessons are designed to improve ability, to expand the boundaries of the possible, to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy and the easy into the pleasant.”

For it is only what is easy and pleasant to do that becomes a part of our life. Things which are hard to do, or require an act of will, will never become part of our daily life.

In my experience with the Feldenkrais Method®, I routinely see people being able to do movements that they were unable to do just moments before. Or a student may catch himself or herself doing something they struggled with a day or a week earlier.

The change is not in their muscles but in their brain maps and their nervous system.

Over time, these improvements add up to a larger self-image as well as an increased ability to do what they want to do, to come closer to their genetic potential.

In the next article we will look at how our current perception of what it means to be fit is distorted, and how this distortion prevents us from achieving a sense of ease and comfort. In movement, and in life.