These excerpts from The Potent Self capture features of the Feldenkrais approach I find most compelling. Unconsciously at first but more consciously through time, these principles informed my bodywork. Added emphasis appears in red, and my reactions are enclosed in a box: (Note 55)

In certain acts, we are aware of something resembling "taking off the brakes;" in others, we have to start our executive machine. In still others, we find ourselves acting before we know what we are doing. . . . Spontaneity is a subjective and relative notion, and only a trained observer can tell whether a given action is spontaneous or compulsive. It depends on the internal sensation of resistance experienced while acting or inhibiting action. . . .

Compulsive action inhibits The Intuitive Self. When behavior flows from the core of my being in rhythm with the Tao unfolding from the implicate order, a child's spontaneity returns to my presence.

Spontaneity is indeed a very relative and subjective notion. . . . In humans, where the bulk of activity consists of learned acts, there appears a kind of activity that is best described as potent activity. It is the sort of behavior we encounter in well-matured persons. . . .

"Potent" - one of my favorite words. When a symbol has that much meaning, I look for its shadow message. The search for potent action led me to the door of The Intuitive Self which is potency incarnate.

In those planes of life in which our maturity is least developed, we continue acting compulsively; we do (or we do not do) things knowing perfectly well that we want the exact opposite. Under these circumstances, impotence appears. It is important therefore to investigate closely how we learn to act, how internal conflicts arise, and how they are expressed, so that we are better equipped to deal with impotence when it arises. . . .

Diffused tensions originate in the higher nervous centers in many different ways and are rather difficult to identify, because the sensation they produce is not connected with a definite part of the body and because they rarely repeat themselves in identical conditions. . . . When these sensations persist to the point of interfering with the joy of life, it becomes very important to be able to identify the tensions so as to know what to do to find relief, and not just wait for that to happen. . . .

Varying degrees of impotence were evident as my body tensions became so acute that awareness could no longer shut them out. It took awhile to recognize these diffused tensions were calling out to pay attention to my actions in the world.

The common association of good posture with poise - that is, mental or emotional tranquillity - is in fact an excellent criterion of good posture. Neither excessive muscular tension nor emotional intensity is compatible with good posture. Good posture means acting fast but without hurry; hurry means generally heightened activity that results not in faster action, but only in increased muscular contraction. Good posture means using all the power one possesses without enacting any parasitic movements. . . .

The Chinese goddess Kuan Yin evokes the quality of poise and equanimity. My prayers have included petitions that she grant me her poise as a way of being in the world. Her statue occupies a prominent location in my living room.

Bad posture is the externally observable physical counterpart of internal conflict or contradiction. It is cultivated during the dependence period when the child is called on to perform acts for which she has not the means; that is, when she is induced to act by heightening her emotional tone and not spontaneously, in the sense we have defined that word earlier. . . .

Faulty posture always expresses the emotional stress that has been responsible for its formation. The most frequent and observable one is the stress of insecurity in its different aspects, such as hesitation, fear, doubt, apprehension, servility, unquestioning compliance - and their exact opposites. . . .

As a young man I assumed family responsibilities for which I did not have skills. To this day my posture reflects those aspects of the disturbance that I have not resolved at the physical level.

It is very important to realize that incompetence does not mean lack of the essential action for achieving the end, but consists largely in enacting unnecessary, parasitic acts. Unaware, we enact all that is sensed as resistance. The incompetent man produces so much unnecessary and often contradictory action that the intended act is accompanied with an overwhelming sense of resistance. . . .

To get rid of incompetence, one must learn to distinguish the parasitic elements that one enacts unaware, by habit, and thus become a real adult. The competent adult's action is so simple that he can never understand the complexity that bewilders the incompetent person, who erroneously tries to achieve (without knowing how to throw overboard the impeding ballast) an action that needs poised simplicity and serenity of attitude. . . .

As my bodywork progressed, sensitivity to wasted energy and lack of simplicity became apparent in a greater range of experience. A deeper part knew my behavior was less than desirable but body reeducation was necessary to complement the psychological discoveries.

The whole man must move at once. The inability to do so is lifted when the contradictory motivations are lifted; this coincides with relieving the contractions enacted with or without awareness. To make this possible in all situations, we must learn to bring ourselves into the state of potency in which we can enact what we wish correctly. . . .

The main feature of the technique consists in making available the full range of functioning in all planes, the idea behind it being not that spontaneity is enacting any wild urge that happens to exist, but that all action is spontaneous when it is not compulsive. This formulation sounds evasive, but only at first, for compulsion is a positive parasitic addition. . . .

As I progressed from superficial to deep tissue work, physical manipulation made me aware of underlying rigid structures that were not severe enough to manifest like the migraine headaches.

The compulsive acture (posture related to action) is not bad in itself; it becomes compulsive only because it is enacted out of place, in a manner in which it was enacted in previous experience when it was fitting. The person - being unable to dissociate previous experience - is enacting past experience now, as an automaton responds to all experience by setting off with the same response. . . .

The inability to do is almost without exception due to compulsive fixity of the function in question to only one rung of the ladder of function, all the others being excluded. Action interests the large parts of the cortex, and areas that are constantly inhibited interfere with all action. Impotence is not a local inability, but a general failure of acture. . . .

Forty years later, patterns learned to survive in a situation beyond my means affect the efficiency of typing these words. Given my bodywork progress, compulsive action does not loom as large as it once did.

Full orgasm accompanied by intense gratification is a physiological necessity for the smooth running of the protective, self-assertive, and recuperative functions. . . . No matter how varied one's life may otherwise be, without the occasional absolute abandonment of the protective and sell-assertive habits - as occurs only in frank, spontaneous, and harmonious relationship between a man and a woman - there always remains an anxious longing for something sensed as an ideal state of peaceful well-being.

Shunning sexual activity seemed inconsistent with expression of the larger self. My experience resonated with the idea expressed here. A few lines from my poem "Trembling on the Brink" expresses this:

They taste of passion in their sexual embrace
Suggesting the promise of the larger life beyond
As they lie trembling on the brink of ecstasy
That lies just down the road and to the left.

More vivid images appear in "Plunging," "Wild Bill" or "Liquid Earth," but the site would have to be X Rated for their inclusion.

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