The Value of Differentiation

[I believe that I transcribed this from parts of Carl Ginsburg's book on Moshe Feldenkrais - The Intelligence of Moving Bodies Book. Forgive me a lapse in recall and poor notes...I did discover that some of the text could have been taken from an article that Carl Ginsburg wrote - The Roots of Functional Integration...] PMD

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Examples:

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A first attempt to write with the left big toe is most likely crude, but as we practice, our ability to form letters will improve. We increase our speed and precision. We learn. The match between "what we want' and 'what we actually produce' gets closer. The change is not with regards to the specifics of forming letters. It must be something else, connected to our self-image, our ability to act in general. In order to form letters well with the left big toe, we should also be able to do anything better with the left big toe. Moshe called this process: differentiation.

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One could say that learning requires differentiation. One begins with something global and crude, such as the first movement a baby makes. With differentiation, the child can move fingers and arms, legs and trunk. Differentiation brings refinement in speech, sensitivity, discrimination, etc. To perceive is to differentiate one thing from another. Note: that there is no real distinction between perception and movement.

(I am not sure I agree with this last sentence ~ PMD)

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The sensory experience of a Functional Integration lesson therefore involves all these elements: differentiation, skeletal connection, and integration. The thinking involves thinking in terms of function and how one can evoke a function through the process of the lesson. Lastly, the person must bring the changed perception, the new self-image to awareness and into action. This is the complete learning process.

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There are Eight Insights to be explored in the Method:

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The First Insight out of this work is that of having beings organize themselves to act and perceive.

 

• behavior is a process of self-generation and self-regulation of stimulation by movement to actively control both the external and internal environment.

 

• organisms do not react, they act.

 

The Second Insight is that Learning cannot be avoided.

 

• given the supporting conditions for reorganization, or some novel situation in which a person is actively exploring, the nervous system is ready, willing and able to learn. By learning we do mean organizing and re-organizing.

 

• learning alters behavior, but does not produce specific behaviors. (1973, p. 179) it also alters perception.

 

• this kind of learning is what we have been categorizing as a shift in the self-image.

 

A Third Insight is that learning is hierarchical, and that the organizations evolved in the process are basically what we call cognitions. 

 

• because of this, all higher cognitive levels are dependent on the acquisition of basic sesnori-motor intelligence. This is why Moshe believed that the improvements resulting from Feldenkrais® work would carry over to all other areas of life. 

 

• knowledge always includes a process of assimilation to previous structures.

 

• perception is meaningless without some accompanying action.  “…knowledge at all levels is linked to action."

 

• the schema always “…derives, by means of successive differentiations, from a series of earlier schemata having their origin far back in reflex or spontaneous initial movements.”  This is a description of what we do, and a description of the integrative process. 

 

A Fourth Insight is that the skeleton completes the loop between the environment, the musculature, and the nervous system.

 

• the one field of endeavor that I know of that recognizes the skeletal structure in this way is applied kinesiology, a chiropractic discipline.

 

• following the lead of Eccles, who was one of the great investigators of the cerebellum, [we] believe the representation of the skeleton is in the cerebellum.

 

• through matching the actual state of the skeleton with an image of functional organization as in an ideal state, the cerebellum regulates the organization of the musculature in action. 

 

• the musculature will organize through selective contraction and weakening to protect a disordered structure.

 

• organizing the skeleton to a functional state will allow for a reorganization of musculature.

 

A Fifth Insight is that the living system seeks optimal functioning and therefore optimal protection.

 

• Moshe’s observation that a nonfunctional injured knee will become functional if the other leg becomes more severely limited.

 

• Moshe noted how the nervous system reorganizes a situation with ease when survival is at stake. If reorganization is so available to the unconscious, what ability could we have with awareness. 

 

The Sixth Insight follows from the Fifth. That which expands choices for a person, expands the range of the optimal. True learning always increases choices.

 

The Seventh Insight is that a supported system will learn better, and be available to reorganization and assimilation. 

 

• there are so many applications, from supporting a cerbral-palsied child so that he/she feels safe enough of his protective reactions and therefore be available to learn.

 

• working with an injured person’s good side so that the injured side will be supported and thus available to reorganization and healing. 

 

An Eighth Insight is that in communication in a lesson, a person cannot refine his or her organization very much past the level of the practitioner. Practitioners then must continue to refine their own process and improve their own organization to be able to be a better guide to the learning of others. 

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