Self-Image, Movement, and Awareness: My “Out of Control” Radio Interview

Article Summary

In this “Out of Control” radio interview, I explain Moshe Feldenkrais’s idea that we move according to our self-image. Host Tammy Lynn Davis, co-host Decimus Varro, and I explore how the sensory and motor maps we carry in the brain relate to movement, posture, emotion, asymmetry, and the way other people perceive us. We also discuss how Feldenkrais lessons use movement and awareness to make the self-image more complete and give a person more freedom in action.

How a Conversation About Self-Image Became a Radio Interview

I joined Tammy Lynn Davis and her co-host, Decimus Varro, on Tammy’s radio show, “Out of Control,” in Madrid, New Mexico.

By the time we recorded the interview, I had given Tammy several private Functional Integration® lessons. When the subject of self-image came up, she invited me onto the show.

We began with the common meaning of self-image: how we see ourselves, what we believe about ourselves, and what we imagine other people think when they see us. Then I introduced the way Moshe Feldenkrais used the term. In his work, self-image also includes the sensory and motor map through which we know our body and organize movement.

That distinction gave us a great deal to discuss. We talked about development, the brain’s representation of the body, posture, emotion, symmetry, effort, and how a private lesson can change someone’s felt sense of support. It was a blast.

Recording Details

• Program: Out of Control Radio Show, KMDR
• Location: Madrid, New Mexico
• Topic: Self-image
• Host: Tammy Lynn Davis
• Co-host: Decimus Varro
• Guest: Al Wadleigh
• Published by: AchievingExcellence.com
• YouTube publication date: February 5, 2019
• Runtime: 31 minutes, 57 seconds
• Format: Radio interview presented as video
• Source: Watch the interview on YouTube

Self-Image Is More Than an Opinion About Yourself

When people hear “self-image,” they often think about confidence, personality, appearance, or reputation. Decimus describes the difference between what his friends might say about him and what he privately thinks about himself. Tammy describes how her image of herself has been influenced by what she assumes other people think and by things she was told when she was younger.

Those are genuine parts of self-image. Moshe Feldenkrais added another dimension. He described the self-image as including the representation of ourselves that we carry in the motor and sensory areas of the brain. That map is not a small anatomical portrait in which every part receives equal space. The lips, tongue, hands, and other areas used for detailed sensation and action occupy a disproportionately large part of the representation.

We move according to our self-image. —Al Wadleigh, (paraphrasing a central idea from Moshe Feldenkrais)

The map also changes with experience. A guitarist develops distinctions in the fingers that someone who has never played an instrument may not have. A person who has trained a highly refined sense of smell may develop a different sensory relationship to the nose and to olfactory experience. Our self-image grows through what we do, what we sense, and what we learn to differentiate.

Movement and Awareness Can Fill Out the Map

Some parts of ourselves are vivid in awareness, while others remain vague or almost absent. We see our hands in front of us throughout the day. We use the mouth and face constantly. The back, shoulder blades, spine, and other areas outside ordinary visual attention may be much less distinct.

Tammy describes discovering that much of her back had been missing from her felt experience. Through private lessons, she began to sense and use her back differently. I could also see a change in how she sat. Instead of adding muscular effort to hold herself upright, she was allowing the skeleton and the chair to provide support.

We can use movement and awareness and sensing to improve this image—to fill it out. —Al Wadleigh

This is learning rather than correction. Instructions such as “pull your shoulders back” or “sit up straight” often add effort on top of the organization a person already has. A lesson approaches the problem differently. It helps the nervous system discover another way of coordinating the skeleton and musculature, after which the change can become second nature.

Posture Is the Ability to Move Without Preparation

We also discuss Moshe Feldenkrais’s understanding of posture. Good posture is not a symmetrical shape that someone holds in order to look correct. It is the ability to move in any direction without first rearranging yourself.

Human beings are naturally asymmetrical. We have a dominant hand, eye, and ear. We chew more on one side, stand more often on one leg, and use the other leg differently. The right lung has three lobes, while the left has two. A face may be judged according to an ideal of symmetry, but human function does not follow that ideal.

How do we inform our habits so that we have the freedom to move in any way we want to? —Al Wadleigh

The aim is therefore not to erase asymmetry. It is to expand choice so that a familiar preference does not become a limitation. Power can arise through the pelvis, hip joints, and other large central structures, then be refined by the more distal parts. Tammy connects this organization with walking her dog, practicing yoga, and feeling less clumsy because she no longer needs as much effort to manage force.

Self-Image Includes Emotion and Social Feedback

The conversation then returns to the familiar psychological meaning of self-image. How we feel influences muscular activity and posture over time. Sadness, anxiety, confidence, and other emotional experiences have bodily expressions. When those expressions become habitual, they shape what movements are readily available and what sensations feel normal.

Change also creates a social feedback loop. When a person sits, stands, walks, and responds differently, other people may perceive that person differently. Their responses then become part of the person’s developing self-image. The process moves in both directions: internal organization affects social experience, and social experience affects internal organization.

This does not require a person to supervise every movement consciously. Awareness is useful during learning. The resulting organization can then become automatic, leaving attention available for living rather than for continually managing posture.

A Lesson Is Organized Around the Individual

I explain that I do not work with every student in the same way. Some people want to explore sensation, self-image, emotion, and the way they organize experience. Other people arrive because their back or hip hurts and they want help with that difficulty. A lesson can be quiet and primarily nonverbal, or language can become an important part of guiding attention.

Even when a person arrives with neck pain, I do not work only with the neck. I work with the person as a whole and create conditions in which the person’s overall organization can improve. Direct work with the neck may become more useful after the rest of the system is prepared to learn and change.

That is one reason a lesson is called a lesson. It uses the same broad capacity for development through which infants learn to roll, crawl, stand, and walk. Adults can continue using movement, sensation, attention, thought, and feeling to learn new possibilities.

Edited Transcript

Editorial note: This transcript was prepared from the recording and its automatic captions. It has been edited for punctuation, sentence boundaries, repeated filler, and unmistakable recognition errors. The speakers’ ideas, humor, qualifications, personal experiences, and conversational relationship have been preserved. It is a readable edited transcript rather than a verbatim record of every sound.

Introducing Al and the Subject of Self-Image

Tammy Lynn Davis: We asked Al to join us this evening because of our discussion last week about interpretation. I think it is a great segue into what we are talking about this evening, which is perceived self-image.

Al is here to join us. He is a brilliant practitioner in this work, and I have had several lessons from him. I love the terminology “lesson” because it really is about helping the body’s interpretation—the way it communicates. I would say the communication system is in the body, but that is my interpretation. What would you say?

Al Wadleigh: The nervous system, the brain, and the whole somatosensory system work together to facilitate easier and more comfortable movement. It is a learning process, which is why we call it a lesson. We use some of the same principles of developmental movement that we used as infants and children while learning to crawl and walk, and we use them now as adults to improve ourselves.

Tammy: Even after my lesson today, it did not take long for me to sense that something was happening. Walking back from the office, I could tell that the system was integrating. What really caught my attention was the idea of perceived self-image. I assume that affects how we carry ourselves.

Al: It affects how we carry ourselves and how we move. Moshe describes self-image as the basis according to which we move. So what is that self-image? Let me put that out as a question. When you think of self-image, what do you think about?

How We Commonly Think About Self-Image

Decimus Varro: Do you mean how I think of myself—how I see myself?

I have thought about this a lot, and I do not want to go too crazy because I could talk for the rest of the show. Most people who know me would probably say that I am modest. My close friends might say, “No, he is pretty braggadocious.” The truth is that in my head I am quite egotistical.

I do not mean that as a bad thing. I do not try to portray myself as a rude person who thinks everything is about him. But when I was in school, I was not the most popular kid. I always wondered why. I thought, “I am so cool. I know I am the coolest person here. Why don’t you guys like me?”

It was after high school, when I stopped caring so much about what other people thought of me, that I started to become “cool.” I am probably not cool to a lot of people, but my friends might say I am. So it is a weird self-image.

Al: Let me push the pause button there and review what you said. The first thing you mentioned was how other people see you—what your friends would say. Then you described characteristics about yourself in the past and in the present.

Tammy, when you think about self-image, what do you think?

Tammy: For me, self-image is tied, unfortunately, to what I believe other people think of me. It is all interpretation. Nobody necessarily comes up and says something derogatory. I receive compliments, and occasionally I hear something derogatory, but for the most part it is an assumed idea of what people think. It may be based on things I was told when I was younger.

What I have noticed about myself, especially through the work we have been doing, is how I carried myself. I was always somewhat hunched over, almost as if I were protecting my heart.

Al: That is interesting. Your idea about yourself involves imagining what other people think, taking that in, and creating a loop through which you shape yourself.

Moshe’s idea of self-image is quite different, although it includes ideas about how society, culture, and other people shape us.

The Sensory and Motor Maps of the Body

Al: In Awareness Through Movement, Moshe describes the self-image as including the map of ourselves that we carry in the motor cortex and the sensory cortex.

If you could stimulate particular points in the motor cortex with an electrode, certain parts of the body would respond. Stimulate one place and an arm moves. People who work with the brain have mapped those relationships, so there is a map in the motor cortex and sensory cortex of what the body looks like.

It does not look exactly like a human being. Some parts are represented as much larger than others. The face, lips, tongue, hands, thumbs, and feet occupy much more of the map than their physical size would suggest. This is a generalized self-image that we carry in the cortex.

If you put the representation together in a humanoid form, you get a strange little figure. His hands are larger than almost anything else. His head is nearly as large as his hands, his body is tiny, his feet are fairly large, and he has huge lips and a large tongue.

We all have a version of this, but it is always changing as we develop. In infancy, the lips and tongue are a primary way of sensing and interacting with the world. We interact with our mother and receive nourishment in that way. As the hands develop, they become a larger part of the self-image. Eventually, the hands, lips, tongue, and feet all occupy a great deal of cortical real estate.

The representation also develops individually. Consider Steve Vai, the guitarist. His motor and sensory cortices will represent his fingers in much greater detail than those of someone who has never played an instrument or perhaps never learned to write.

Tammy: I understand. The fingers on this picture would be bigger for him.

Al: Right.

Tammy: If this were my self-image, I would have a large nose.

Al: The nose is not strongly represented in the motor map, but it has a sensory representation. Look at how large it is relative to other sensory descriptions.

For you, it would be more developed because you have spent time refining your sense of smell. That is one of your areas of expertise. You were telling me earlier that you studied with a professional nose.

Tammy: I did.

Decimus: That is interesting. You should be on the show every Monday.

Al: We would run out of things to say every day.

Decimus: We do not get paid, though. You know that, right?

Al: I did not know that. Darn.

Decimus: I will give you five bucks. I will buy you a beer.

Al: I like beer, so I will change my mind.

Filling Out the Self-Image

Al: This brings me to my favorite idea.

When we sense ourselves, we are primarily sensing through the fingers, the face, and the front of ourselves. Other parts may be missing from our self-image because we do not sense them very clearly. Many people have difficulty sensing the back and the shoulder blades.

When parts are missing, we do not feel them, sense them, or interact with them very well.

Tammy: I was explaining this to Decimus. We are born into this body, and it seems like one big thing. We do not realize that it contains so much differentiation.

I never realized what my back was for. It was just there. Yesterday, I realized that I needed to do some back-body yoga—something that would expand the back side of my body. You forget about it. Even in yoga classes, instructors may suggest feeling the sides of the spine, and I used to think, “What do you mean by feeling the side of my spine?” It was never there for me.

This is what you present to the world: the front, your hands, and what you can see. Since receiving lessons from Al, the back of my body has definitely improved in my awareness. I have been able to use my back more, even when I walk my dog, Mimi, who is very strong.

Al: I can see a big difference in how you sit now compared with when I first met you. At that first meeting at the Engine House Art Studio, you sat very differently. Now you sit in a way that allows the support under you to respond easily.

Tammy: I feel stronger, even though I have not strengthened muscles in the usual way.

Al: That is your skeleton supporting you.

Tammy: That is incredible.

Decimus: Is that also part of her self-image—a level of confidence?

Al: It can bring out confidence. Her change in posture and her ability to sense and use her skeleton do not require her to think consciously, “Now I have to sit this way.” It happens automatically. Her nervous system organizes around the skeleton so that it can support her with minimal muscular effort. It becomes second nature.

She does not have to do the nonsense many of us were taught as children: “Pull your shoulders back. Sit up straight.” That is unnecessary.

Tammy: You are allowed to say that word on the radio.

Decimus: There is a list right there.

Al: Should I read it out loud?

Tammy: No. Just remember those seven words.

Decimus: George Carlin—the seven words you can never say on television. We had that album when we were kids and listened to it repeatedly.

Al: Anyway, Tammy does not have to consciously sit that way. It becomes second nature, and she can sit easily and comfortably.

It is a reorganization of the nervous system, the cortical maps, and the musculature in service of the skeleton, which supports you easily and comfortably.

When people are told to pull their shoulders back, they may succeed by adding effort. They layer additional muscular effort on top of the posture they had before in an attempt to correct it. That adds another layer of difficulty.

Moshe’s idea about development as adults is to take away learned layers that prevent us from being who we are and from actualizing our dreams and fulfilling what he called our organic potential.

Neuroplasticity and the Changing Self-Image

Tammy: I am fascinated by the science of this. I think about how we are integrating the nervous system and how this affects neurochemistry. Have there been studies on that? Researchers are beginning to study yoga and meditation, but I do not know how many studies have been done with the Feldenkrais Method.

Al: In terms of neurochemistry, we would look at studies that parallel what the Feldenkrais Method does and use those to map over to how the Method may be working.

Neuroplasticity plays an important role. We know that the motor cortex and sensory cortex continue changing depending upon what we do. There is plasticity in those systems, so we shape the motor and sensory cortices through our activity.

The Feldenkrais Method does that in a broad way by taking us through many different lessons. In a class, we explore different ways of moving while bringing in awareness and sensation. Through that process, we begin to change how we represent ourselves.

That changes how we feel and move. It changes how other people perceive us. We receive feedback from them, begin to act differently, think differently about ourselves, and feel differently about ourselves. That creates a loop that further shapes how we sit and stand.

The process can begin in an Awareness Through Movement® class or a private lesson like the ones you have experienced. A private lesson can be especially potent because it is tailored to the individual. I work with your habits and sensory system. I sense you and interact with you in a way that is precise and unique to you.

In a class, I give verbal instructions to everyone. I guide the group through a particular sequence of movement combined with awareness, sensation, thinking, and feeling. That begins to reshape the self-image.

Tammy: I had a lesson last week in which I was experiencing numbness when I lay on one side. After the lesson, it stopped, and I did not have to think about it. It was amazing.

Changing From the Inside and Receiving Different Feedback

Tammy: Earlier, we were talking about perceived self-image, which is different from what Moshe was describing. How do these two ideas come together?

Al: Let’s return to what happens in a Feldenkrais lesson. We begin to fill out more of the self-image and feel ourselves more completely.

You experienced your spine during a lesson. Now you are sitting differently—more solidly, with skeletal support and minimal muscular effort.

At the beginning, you and Decimus talked about seeing ourselves through other people’s eyes, or through what we think other people see. When changes occur from the inside and you sit, stand, walk, and feel differently, people start responding to you differently. That creates a feed-forward system. Someone seeing you now may have a different response than they would have had four or five weeks ago.

Tammy: We all have our stuff. Today there was a distinct difference after we worked first with the right side and then moved to the left. During the pause between sides, I experienced the difference.

A couple of lessons ago, I felt as though I had lost fifty pounds. I suddenly felt that my body was supporting itself with little or no effort.

Today, even while lying on the table, the left side of my body felt dense. The right side felt supported and lighter, even though my whole body was resting on the same table.

When I think about my personal self-image, that makes sense. When you have a poor self-image, you may feel heavy. You carry emotional and mental weight, and that seems to weigh upon the body and alter how you move.

Emotion, Muscular Activity, and Posture

Al: One of the things Moshe said—and I agree with him—is that posture is shaped by emotion. We carry emotions and feelings about ourselves through time. We all have an emotional body, so to speak: a characteristic way of feeling that we carry through different situations.

For some people, a depressed or sad feeling contributes to a rounded organization. Emotion shapes people in many different ways. Muscular activity is part of the expression of emotion and helps create its felt sensation.

The emotional patterns we carry through time may be outside ordinary awareness, yet they shape posture, affect the skeleton, and create habitual patterns of muscular tension. Those patterns allow certain movements and limit others.

People can get into trouble when muscular tension is habitually contracted and something happens that requires a quick response outside the person’s known range of movement. They may strain themselves, trip, fall, or be unable to organize the required action.

Why Symmetry Is Not the Goal

Tammy: That brings me back to our earlier conversation about one side being dominant and the other being more passive. Could you say more about that?

Al: We can begin with the idea of symmetry. Many people are preoccupied with being symmetrical. They think the skeleton, sitting, standing, and movement should be perfectly balanced.

That ideal is associated with beauty. A beautiful face is often considered more symmetrical than an asymmetrical one, and people generalize that idea to the entire body. But human movement is not symmetrical.

We have a dominant hand and arm, a dominant eye, and a dominant ear. We chew more on one side of the mouth. We may smell differently through one nostril than the other. The right lung has three lobes and is larger than the left, which has two. We tend to stand on one leg more than the other and use the other leg as the gesture leg for kicking a ball.

There are many asymmetrical uses of ourselves. It does not make sense to insist that we should be perfectly symmetrical when we sit, stand, or move.

Moshe’s definition of posture was the ability to move in any direction without preparation—to respond to a situation without first rearranging yourself. That is good posture. It is not pulling the shoulders back and sitting “properly.” That may be useful for a tryout for Downton Abbey, but in ordinary life it limits your ability.

Tammy: I like that. It makes sense because it is about being in your body and being aware of it. During lessons, you bring awareness to what is happening: “Pay attention to this. Pay attention to that.”

I have discovered that when I am present to where my body is and how I am using my back, it does not matter whether I am standing on my right leg. If I am walking Mimi and she pulls, I do not have to turn it into a wrestling match. I do not have to exert a lot of force to get her to respond with me.

Power Begins in the Center

Al: That is a good point. Powerful movement comes from the center, so to speak—from the largest muscles and skeletal structures around the pelvis and hip joints.

When movement originates there and disseminates outward, the more distal parts can be organized more effectively. The movement is more powerful, while the distal muscles refine and articulate it into something graceful.

In a martial arts orientation, you might call the center the tanden. In skeletal terms, we are talking about the pelvis, hip joints, lower back, and the large musculature around them. Movement comes powerfully from there and is then refined by the parts farther away.

Tammy: I have noticed that I do not feel as clumsy. Even in yoga, we talk about the solar plexus as a power center. If you can harness that, the rest begins to flow and there is grace.

I have practiced yoga consistently for more than ten years, but adding Feldenkrais lessons has made a significant difference in my ability to translate that information into my extremities.

Lessons Support Whatever a Person Wants to Do

Al: That raises the question: What are Feldenkrais lessons good for?

Whatever you do in life, the lessons can help improve how you do it. If you love yoga, they can improve your yoga. If you practice martial arts, tai chi, or Pilates, they can improve those activities. If you are a construction worker, a chef, an artist, or a jewelry maker, lessons can help you do that activity in easier and more comfortable ways.

The lessons help free you from habitual constraints that developed over time. They bring you back to yourself so that you can express yourself more fully. In a town full of artists, I cannot think of anything more important. My art is bringing that forward for people.

Tammy: You are very good at it. I have met a number of Feldenkrais practitioners over the years, but when you and I spoke, I knew I wanted to bring you on the show. Your understanding and your ability to communicate make a profound difference.

The body is incredibly smart. We think we need to tell it which finger should do what, but there is an integration that occurs beyond description. You help incorporate that into the mental part of the body. We are constructed mentally, emotionally, physically, and chemically, and these systems need to function as a unit. That is what I think you bring to it and what I have learned from you.

Each Private Lesson Is Different

Al: I agree, and I would also say that I do not work with everybody in that way. I give many lessons with very little discussion. For you, that use of language is part of the lesson because you ask for it. I use language to guide your thinking and sensory experience in ways that take the lesson to another level for you.

Tammy: My lessons have been perfect for me.

Al: Some people come in and say, “My back hurts,” or “My hip hurts.” They want help with that issue, and that is fine. I work with people in that way as well. I help them with the difficulty so they can get on with their lives and do what they want to do.

Tammy: I find it an interesting healing technique. From my perspective, nothing heals the body but the body itself. What I see in the Feldenkrais Method is that it encourages the body to function again as a whole system. It is holistic and encourages the body to begin healing as those layers are broken down.

Nature communicates in ways that go beyond our words. There is always more occurring than what we see. Even if I arrived and said, “I have neck pain,” there would be more to it, and we would not necessarily have to label all of it.

Al: If you came to me and said, “My neck hurts. Can you help me?” it would be a different kind of lesson. I would help you with the neck, but I would not work only with your neck.

I would work with you as a whole person to create systemic change so that your whole organization and overall well-being could improve. Then the neck pain could begin to resolve. I would create conditions for the complaint to resolve. When I worked directly with the neck, it would be prepared to receive that information, learn, and change.

Closing Thoughts

Tammy: That is great. I really appreciate you joining us tonight.

Al: It was a blast. I love talking about the Feldenkrais Method. I could do this for hours.

Decimus: I want to finish by saying that I find it intriguing that different techniques have developed around the world with similar kinds of thought processes, each based on someone’s experience. The people who developed them may never have met, yet the ideas evolved.

People can align with what speaks to them. Tammy clearly aligns with Feldenkrais. I find it interesting that these people appeared and helped others find better ways of existing physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. If you carry yourself in a way that is mindful, that changes how you move through the world.

Al: “Mindful” is a good word. I like that word.

Tammy: Thank you again.

Al: Thank you. It was very enjoyable.