Feldy babies! (also: Sensational Sitting?) (also: Miriam's Effortless Squatting: Is it *TRUE* Effortless Squatting?)

THE TIME HAS COME FOR FELDENKRAIS "FELDY" BABIES! - please see the very end
of this post...

THE GREAT BIRTH ROBBERY: Attn Feldenkrais practitioners: MDs exclude the
**at-term sacroiliac** movement pattern thereby denying babies up to 30% of
pelvic outlet area at birth!


PREGNANT WOMEN: It's EASY to allow your birth canal to OPEN the "extra" up
to 30% - just roll onto your side as you push your baby out...

Just make sure you read the TWO WARNINGS in Lina's failed back surgery (Can
we rehab squatting ability?) (Squatting NOT necessary at birth!)
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/2221


SENSATIONAL SITTING?

DID MIRIAM TEACH **TRULY** EFFORTLESS SQUATTING?

"I personally had one 76-year-old woman who had never squatted in her life
(and she had knee problems as well), who learned to squat in a day at my
Effortless Gardening workshop. I was impressed, to say the least. If she
could do it, so can others..."
--Miriam Levenson, on her Feldenkrais Effortless Squatting Lesson

OPEN LETTER (archived for global access***)

Miriam Levenson
Effortless Action, LLC
P.O. Box 2379
Madison, WI 53701-2379


Miriam,

I heartily support your squatting educational efforts.

(Usenet readers, to order Miriams Effortless Gardening video, see the very
end of this post)...

Although I support your squatting educational efforts, I am *highly*
skeptical (respectfully) that you taught a 76-year-old woman how to recover
her *innate* squatting ability.

Then again, if you *did* - and I sincerely hope this is so - I want to learn
how! See the postscript.

If you are "just" saying that you are helping people get back to squatting -
there is nothing "just" about that - BRAVO!

Regardless Miriam, THANKS for explicitly advertising squatting education -
and thanks also for posting my Preface to the FeldyForum (no responses yet).

Here is the URL for the version of my Preface that I posted to chiro-list:
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/2212

Here is the URL for my orginal post to you: "Feldenkrais lesson: Effortless
Squatting" http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/2211


SENSATIONAL SITTING? DYNAMIC SITTING?

I recently found Feldenkrais web articles/courses titled "Sensational
Sitting" and "Dynamic Sitting," as in,

"Sensational Sitting...an hour workshop using the Feldenkrais Method...learn
ways to reduce the fatigue associated with sitting
for extended periods... Organisation: Australian Feldenkrais
Guild...Contact: Sarah Wiin...Phone: 1800 001 550
Email: ...
http://www.adultlearnersweek.org/show/Western+Australia

"Sitting Pretty: How to Sit Dynamically...Mark Reese, Ph.D., Certified
Feldenkrais® Trainer, is one of the world's
foremost authorities on the Feldenkrais Method®...studied with Moshé
Feldenkrais from 1975 - 1984 in San Francisco, Amherst and Tel-Aviv...Mark
has trained practitioners in more than 30 Feldenkrais® Professional Training
Programs...co-author of Relaxercise...You may find Mark's website at
http://www.feldenkraisglobal.com

"Dynamic Sitting...Our Feldenkrais classes, and lessons taught in the
Relaxercise book and tape
series, teach the art of dynamic, stress-free sitting. The first principle
of 'dynamic' sitting is that sitting is an activity, full of movement and
life...[BUT - TDG]...place a pillow behind the small of your back so that a
healthy arch is maintained..."
http://216.239.53.104/search?q=cache...hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://www.feldenkraisglobal.com/art...ing_pretty.htm

ARRGGHHH!

There is NOTHING dynamic about maintaining an arch. (!)

Indeed, in circumstances where most humans on the planet OBLITERATE the
arch - "spine experts" - some of them Feldenkrais - with NO experimental
evidence - are exhorting chairdwellers to MAINTAIN the arch ("maintain the
lumbar lordosis")....(!)

See Lina's failed back surgery (Can we rehab squatting ability?) (Squatting
NOT necessary at birth!)
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/2221

Sensational Sitting and Dynamic Sitting Feldenkrais articles/courses...

If they fail to mention that maybe we *shouldn't* be chair-dwelling - they
PERPETUATE "exclusion of an unconsidered movement pattern" (flat-footed
squatting), as in,

Feldenkrais Method is interested in "RECOVERING excluded and unconsidered
movement patterns or actions."
http://www.feldenkrais.com/standards/index.html (emphasis added)

Feldenkrais Method "DIRECTLY ADDRESSES" the question of "THE LEARNING
NECESSARY" to recover excluded and unconsidered movement patterns or
actions.

(Copied to: Mark Reese, PhD - Dynamic Sitting - via )

Miriam, your Feldenkrais lesson titled "Effortless Squatting" at best
INDIRECTLY addresses the learning necessary for recovering the excluded and
unconsidered movement pattern called squatting...

Many adults who have lost their innate flat-footed squatting ability have
children who have NOT yet lost the ability.

At a minimum, when one charges people to learn how to recover that which has
been stolen from them one is obligated to at least MENTION the robbery - The
Great Squat Robbery - and how easily it might be PREVENTED - no learning
necessary.

A culture of parents can PREVENT - if they get THE LEARNING NECESSARY - if
they are reminded that kids flat-footed squat *spontaneously* until they are
robbed.

You apparently failed to mention this to your 76-year-old Effortless
Gardening student...

As noted above, you wrote:

"I personally had one 76-year-old woman who had never squatted in her life
(and she had knee problems as well), who learned to squat in a day at my
Effortless Gardening workshop. I was impressed, to say the least. If she
could do it, so can others..."

When your 76-year-old student said she never squatted in her life - that was
your cue to call the obvious error to her attention...

At the risk of dulling my point: It is quite likely that 76-year-old
student DID squat - as a child - but was subsequently robbed - because in
our culture the squatting movement pattern is "excluded and unconsidered"...

I SAY AGAIN...

Many adults who have lost their innate flat-footed squatting ability have
children who have NOT yet lost the ability.

At a minimum, when one charges people to learn how to recover that which has
been stolen from them one is obligated to at least MENTION the robbery - The
Great Squat Robbery - and how easily it might be PREVENTED - no learning
necessary.


THE GREAT BIRTH ROBBERY...

The obvious PRIORITY of course is stopping the related Great Birth Robbery -
which was the reason for my Preface.

As MDs commit The Great Birth Robbery, closing birth canals up to 30% - some
MDs are blaming The Great Squat Robbery!

Since Feldenkrais practitioners/teachers indicate they are experts in
RECOVERING "excluded and unconsidered movement patterns" - they should be
leading the way in recovering the MD-excluded sacroiliac movement pattern at
birth!

Again Miriam, thanks for posting my Preface (no responses yet).

I will be posting this reply to the uncensored version of chiro-list;
hopefully you will post it toon - to the FeldyForum...

Thanks,

Sincerely,

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo


PS MIRIAM'S EFFORTLESS SQUATTING: IS IT TRUE EFFORTLESS SQUATTING?

Miriam, sorry to repeat myself but...

I wrote at the end of my first reply to you...

#### Emerson said, "Your goodness must have some edge to it -
else it is none."
snip
#### Let us reserve the term "Effortless Squatting" for the innate
posture that is robbed. Let us call what you are teaching something
LESSER (it is something lesser certainly than PREVENTION).

#### I hope my "edge" here has not offended. The (loss of) squatting
question IS (as you say) an essential one - particularly with MDs blaming
loss of squatting for their bizarre birth practice of senselessly closing
birth canals.


You apparently sincerely believe you are teaching the innate posture that
has been robbed.

Again quoting your reply:

"I personally had one 76-year-old woman who had never squatted in her life
(and she had knee problems as well), who learned to squat in a day at my
Effortless Gardening workshop. I was impressed, to say the least. If she
could do it, so can others..."

I want to meet this 76-year-old. (!)

What you say is incredible! She had "knee problems" - she "never squatted
in her life" - yet you say she "learned to [effortlessly] squat IN A DAY" at
your Effortless Gardeninig workshop. (!)

Miriam, even if it takes you MORE than a day to teach truly Effortless
Squatting - you have a gift - I want to learn it. I mean this.

But, as I indicated to you, I strongly suspect you are "only"^^^ helping
patients recover something LESS than Effortless Squatting.

^^^I put "only" in quotes because helping patients start to squat again is
MAJORLY important in my book - Go Miriam!


POLARITY THERAPY

Randolph Stone, DC, DO (founder of Polarity Therapy) wrote a book about how
he recovered his ability to squat - I think in his 60s. He called squatting
"the Health Posture."

When I looked at the drawings (instructions) in Stone's book years ago, it
did not appear to me that he recovered truly Effortless Squatting.

It is not enough to merely regain the ability to assume a flat-footed
squat - one must be COMFORTABLE squatting for prolonged periods.

I have been working on squatting for years - though perhaps not as well as I
could - still no luck recovering COMFORTABLE squatting for prolonged
periods.

I am HIGHLY skeptical of your claim Miriam...but again (I say again), if you
are doing this - you have a gift - I want to learn it.

I want my innate flat-footed squatting ability back.

How bizarre that this culture robs its children of a fundamental all-terrain
on-your-feet rest posture...


PILATES...

Brent D. Anderson, PT, OCS writes:

"With a device called the rotating T-bar, a therapist can measure
weight-bearing asymmetries while squatting. Using the closed chain foot bar
on all reformers can assess asymmetries between hip rotators as they apply
to alignment through a squatting range of motion."
http://www.rehabpub.com/features/672001/5.asp

Most chair-dwellers taking Pilates are not squatting as nature intended them
to...

The term "squatting" doesn't always mean FLAT-FOOTED squatting.

See Biomechanics experts to help babies?
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/1693


MIRIAM WROTE...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Levenson"
To: "Todd Gastaldo"
Sent: Tuesday, October 28, 2003 3:10 AM
Subject: Did Moshe Feldenkrais address The Great Squat Robbery? (he must
have - but where?)


Hello Todd,

You haven't offended - just had a few other things to attend to before I
could get to your request.

Here is what I posted to the FeldyForum - I requested people to respond to
you personally as well as to the group, so you should get an e-mail or two
in the next couple of days.

Yours,
Miriam


MIRIAM POSTED THE FOLLOWING TO THE FELDYFORUM... THANKS MIRIAM!


Hello Fellow Feldies,

A chiropractor, Todd Gastaldo, contacted me because he saw that I had a
Feldenkrais lesson entitled Effortless Squatting. (It's part of the
Effortless Gardening Program.)

He is concerned about what he calls "The Great Squat Robbery" - he feels
our chair-sitting ways are having a negative impact on the population,
including women's ability to give birth easily (narrowing of the birth
canal).

He's quite passionate about the subject and sees that Feldies are in a
position (not necessarily a squatting position, but perhaps...) to
influence people in the direction of reduced chair usage and freer birth
canals.

He also wonders whether our non-squatting ways can ever be reversed because
of the effect on our ankles. He says "Once lost, the innate comfortable
prolonged squatting ability might not be fully recovered, eg., Westerners
lose (or never develop) bony "squatting" ankle facets."

THE QUESTION: Does Moshe or any living Feldies talk about the importance of
squatting? What came to my mind was an anectode about constipated Japanese
squatting in bookstores...but alas, my limited knowledge of Moshe-scripture
revealed no immediate squat-quotes for Dr. Gastaldo.

What are your thoughts on squatting? Are you doing anything to promote the
use of squatting in everyday life? Have you had any experience with
people recovering the ability to squat after not doing it for a while (if
ever)? I obviously thought it was important enough to include in
Effortless Gardening, and I'm sure many of you also teach squatting and its
benefits...

I personally had one 76-year-old woman who had never squatted in her life
(and she had knee problems as well), who learned to squat in a day at my
Effortless Gardening workshop. I was impressed, to say the least. If she
could do it, so can others...

Dr. Gastaldo also asks, "Are any [Feldies] calling for MDs to stop closing
birth canals?"

Anyway, please reply to the list (for our collective edification) and to
Dr. Gastaldo personally, as he's not a member of FeldyForum. His e-mail
address is: .

He also requested that I post the following "preface" - he has also
submitted this informational piece to SenseAbility.

**
And then I posted your preface in its entirety.

Miriam

END Miriam Levenson's notice that she posted Gastaldo's Preface to the
FeldyForum


No responses yet...

No response yet either from the FELDENKRAIS GUILD OF NORTH AMERICA...

So...

ATTENTION (again) SenseAbility - a quarterly newsletter of the
Feldenkrais Method® produced by the Feldenkrais Guild and distributed to the
public by Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitionerscm and by the Feldenkrais
Guild® of North America.

Content Editor: Lavinia Plonka
Managing Editor: Cinny Spomer

FAX: (503)221-6612
Telephone: (800) 775-2118


Address:
Feldenkrais Guild® of North America
3611 SW Hood Ave., Suite 100
Portland, OR 97239
USA

Lavinia and Cinny,

I've written before about The Great Squat Robbery...

See Feldenkrais practitioners and The Great Squat Robbery
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group...t/message/1062

Stopping the related Great BIRTH Robbery, of course, is the priority.

As I've previously noted, no one squatted in Gardosi et al.'s 1989 Lancet
"randomised controlled trial of squatting." (!)

And Gardosi et al. in effect blamed The Great Squat Robbery for The Great
Birth Robbery - the bizarre MD practice of closing birth canals at delivery.
(!)

See Sarah Key's huge balls (also: Kids can SQUAT motionless for hours)...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/2084

I hope you'll encourage Feldenkrais practitioners and teachers to help stop
both robberies.

Thanks for reading,

Sincerely,

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo


PS2 Interesting coincidence: Miriam/Meryem...

FELDENKRAIS STUDENT Meryem Primmer )
WROTE IN 1993:

"Human bodies were not made to sit in chairs. We all should be up walking
around or squatting on the ground! [exclamation in original]..."
http://www.kinesophics.com/newsgroupcull.html

Meryem wrote further:

"The Feldenkrais Method shows you how to learn from your body. It
doesn't leave you dependent on a specific program or practitioner (like
chiropractic does)..."

And then (LOL!)...

"I continue to go to Feldenkrais because...you can
never get enough of a good thing...My practitioner in Sacramento charges
$60.00 for a one-hour Functional
Integration session. She teaches 6 hour Awareness Through Movement
workshops for groups of 20 people on Saturdays for about $40.00..."
http://www.kinesophics.com/newsgroupcull.html

The Feldenkrais habit may be less expensive than the chiropractic habit -
but a habit is a habit!

I am pleased to see many doctors of chiropractic now emphasizing/teaching
their patients self-rehabilitation - recovery of function - JUST like
Feldenkrais practitioners/teachers.

Some doctors of chiropractic have always done this...and now rehab is one of
the most active areas of chiropractic practice.

My form of self-rehabilitation - which I call Chiromotion - looks a lot like
Feldenkrais - but I swear - I did not copy!

I am POSITIVE I could learn a lot from a Feldenkrais practitioner or
teacher. (MIRIAM, as noted above, if you rehabbed the innate squatting
ability in a 76-year-old in one day - I want to learn!)

My bet is that there are Feldenkrais practitioners who go to doctors of
chiropractic - and doctors of chiropractic who go to Feldenkrais
practitioners.

FINALLY...

FELDY BABIES!

I was PLEASED that Meryem alluded to The Great Squat Robbery - but I was
disappointed that there was nothing about Feldenkrais practitioners working
to END The Great Squat Robbery.

I KNOW there are Feldenkrais practitioners calling for an end to The Great
Squat Robbery - or words to that effect. (In my first email to Miriam, I
suggested that Moshe himself did so.)

Regardless, I would like to hear from any and all Feldenkrais
practitioners/teachers - I want them to help end The Great BIRTH Robbery...

Again, Gardosi et al. in effect blamed The Great Birth Robbery - the bizarre
MD practice of closing birth canals at delivery - on The Great Squat
Robbery!

See again: Sarah Key's huge balls (also: Kids can SQUAT motionless for
hours)...
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/chiro-list/message/2084

It is time to end BOTH robberies.

Let's start this culture producing Feldy babies - who maintain their innate
squatting ability!

Maybe we should call them Chiro babies? : )

Feldy...Chiro...

WHO CARES! Let's just get this culture producing babies without birth
canals closed!

Again, thanks for reading,

Sincerely,

Todd

Dr. Gastaldo


Readers: To order Miriam Levenson's Effortless Gardening video: Click on:
https://cedar.he.net/~effrtlss/order.html
Or Order by phone: Call toll-free (within the U.S.) at 1-866-EZ-GARDEN
(1-866-394-2733)

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