Improvement of Ability
<Feldenkrais is> designed to improve ability, that is, 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 only those
activities that are easy and pleasant will be part of
a person’s habitual life and serve them at all
times. Actions that are hard to carry out , for
which man must for himself to overcome his inner
opposition, will never become part of his daily life.
...
We should differentiate clearly between improvement
of ability and sheer effort for its own sake. We
shall do better to direct our will power to improving
our ability so that in the end our actions will be
carried out easily and with understanding.
...
Ability and Willpower
To the extent ability increases, the need for conscious efforts of
the will decreases. The effort to increase
ability provides sufficient and efficient exercise for
our will power. If you consider the matter
carefully you will discover that most people of strong
will power (which they have trained for its own sake)
are also people with relatively poor ability. (n.b.
ouch!) People who know how to operate
effectively do so without great preparation and
without much fuss. Men of great will power tend
to apply too much force instead of using moderate
forces more effectively.
If you rely mainly on your will power, you will
develop your ability to strain and become accustomed
to applying an enormous amount of force to actions
that can be carried out with much less energy, if it
is properly directed and graduated.
Both these ways of operating usually achieve their
objective, but the former may also cause considerable
damage. Force that is not converted into
movement does not simply disappear, but is dissipated
into damage done to joints, muscles, and other
sections of the body used to create effort.
Energy not converted into movement turns into heat
within the system and causes changes that will require
repair before the system can operate efficiently
again.
Whatever we can do well does not seem difficult to
us. We may even venture to say that movements we
find difficult are not carried out correctly.
Moshe Feldenkrais
pp57-58
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