George Krutz (English)

The sense of working on something really creative

Interview with George Krutz, Feldenkrais Guild of North America, in Berlin, March 2005
by Uta Ruge

George, up until some months ago you have been president of the FGNA. And you are in Berlin now for the IFF-assembly as delegate of the FGNA. How did it all begin?

There is a number of things that brought me to the Feldenkrais method. One of them was that I had some injuries to my neck and my back that were interfering with my ability to work as a designer and woodworker, which was what I did before I came to the Feldenkrais method. At the same time I had been studying Aikido for probably six or seven years before that. And there was a lot about the changes that I went through, that I saw other people go through as they learned Aikido, that was really interesting to me. This became a very pronounced interest when our Aikido club started working with kids between 6 and 13 years old. Most of them were just normal everyday kids but some of them had some difficulties. I remember one girl had cerebral palsy, another young boy had fetal alcohol syndrome, some kids were just sort of problem children and difficult children to work with. It made visible differences almost in real time, almost that you can watch them as they learned. Also, I had been interested in science and philosophy and learning especially in things about the brain for a long time, much preceding my involvement with Feldenkrais.
My Aikido teacher heard of Feldenkrais, he lent me his tapes which I studied, and when I had the opportunity I went to a workshop with Gaby Yaron. By the end of the three day workshop I  felt transformed. After that I took up the training.

So this combination of mental and physical change in yourself and others through Feldenkrais was not new to you because of Aikido. But how about learning and teaching?

Engaging in the process of learning was central. I mean this is looking back, but I think most of us only do things we’re good at, do things we’re comfortable with. Initially, I was terrible in Aikido but I had the right teacher at the right time. My teacher (Stan Letham) had the philosophy of everyone in the club teaching, so you were always teaching with the newer people in the class, so you would learn something and you had to bring it into teaching somehow.

How was your start into then actually practising the Feldenkrais method?

I was teaching regularly by the second year of my training. It was frustrating at the beginning, but then it is for everyone. I had four, five, six students in the class… By the end of the training I was much more comfortable teaching functional integration. It took me a while. It was not my profession handling people, I handled tools. I worked with my hands but touching in that way was a new thing for me. At the time I had the good fortune to work for a company making concert grade harps; a friend of mine owned the company and since he really valued my work for him he supported me and was very flexible with me. When I started to do the Feldenkrais method after my graduation I took two days every week to work to build my practise and then I practised three days and four days.

How many years did it take you that you could go back to your woodwork for only a day a week?

I would say that within two years I had three or four days consistently full – and even now I keep it four days full of actual practise and spend the rest of my time doing work for the guild, or my own bookwork or have a couple of days to myself.

How many practitioners do you have in Chicago now? You yourself graduated in 94.

There were possibly four practitioners in the Chicago area when I graduated. Then it was maybe 20 practitioners. Now it is probably close to 50 or 60.

You were instrumental to that increase in numbers yourself by organising trainings later on.

I would have wanted to work more with Gaby Yaron who was scheduled to do another training in Chicago. I had approached the organiser of that training. I would work as staff on site. But unfortunately Gaby died before that training began. Jeff Haller became the educational director and so I was there every day for that training with Jeff. Then in about 1999 Julie Casson-Ruben and Paul Ruben invited me to be part of the organising team of the training that they were planning on doing in Chicago. And I did that and was able to work in that training more as an experienced practitioner and as the site co-ordinator...

So, you became part of that group of people in the community who stayed somehow involved with trainings – and also the Guild…

Yes, I was invited to help organising the next trainings. We were in that process in 1999, when some people approached me about the idea of running for the president of the board. I’d been involved with the FGNA as an associate editor of the newsletter, I had organised a conference in 95 with another practitioner, and had actually run for the board in 96 or 97. So I wasn’t new to the guild, but I was new to the board, when I ran for president.

What made you go for the presidency and what were the most important developments during your time as president?

I think one of the impetuses to run was that we had the law suit in the United States. It was a curious thing. It was in Chicago that Anat Baniel announced that she was planning to do a training on her own, so to speak.

She announced it in Chicago?

She was planning to do it in Chicago too, but she announced it at a workshop in Chicago that some practitioners had been at. One of those practitioners called me and we organised a regional meeting around the issue. I was really very concerned for the future. I had felt we were still very much at the beginning and in any process of development those initial steps determine very much what is possible later on. I didn’t want to see those possibilities too limited. I was pretty convinced that working in the Method was something I wanted to do with my life and I wanted to be in an environment that was hospitable to me. I wanted to help shape the environment that we are in.

Were you concerned about standards that can lapse?

I was afraid that standards would disappear. One of the things about  the nature of the suit was that it wasn’t just about getting Anat certain concessions – if she had been successful that would have meant that anybody could call themselves a Feldenkrais practitioner or announce trainings and say they would train Feldenkrais practitioners. And I by that time knew enough about the method to notice that it was easily misunderstood or easily misrepresented, that it would lose a lot by being oversimplified.  When I decided to run for president it was unclear if law suit was going to advance. I think before I even knew the results of the elections we heard that Anat had reinstated the law suit. So I came into the presidency with that being the first item on the agenda..

And the overriding issue for the next years…

Yes, but the suit itself was resolved in a settlement in 2000. But there was the aftermath to that to not only bring the rest of our membership up to date and qualm the feelings, but we also had to pay for it. It was a very expensive law suit. We raised a lot of money, but we still owed probably around 300.000 dollars after we got the final bill, after we had already paid a few hundred thousand dollars. So the Guild was on tight rations for a while. Most of the staff and the volunteers and the board were exhausted.

When was the settlement and what did it mean for the FGNA?

The settlement would have been October of 2000. I came into office in December 99. The whole process was just around a year, but it seemed like forever at the time. So then, as I said, we were short of money. We had approached our members. We had already plucked them quite heavily. We had a very aggressive fundraising campaign. But I think the most important development was that through it we became a much more professional organisation. This wasn’t because of the law suit but it helped to force it. In 96 or 97, I think, Barbara Greenfield was hired as our first executive director, and when I became president we were still very much in a transition mode from the board doing everything in the office to a board doing quite a bit of general management.

What were the terms of the settlement, and were you aware of the international repercussions it would have?

Let’s see if I can remember the particulars…  It was, I think, about a 12 or 15 % reduction in the hours for Anat’s training. It allowed Anat to teach more of the trainings, close to 80%. It gave her the opportunity in a larger training to actually name her own assistants without them being guild certified assistants. There was the ability for her to present the trainings in two parts. One that would allow people to be Anat Baniel Method practitioners. But they would not be allowed to call themselves Feldenkrais practitioners. – I mean the most difficult part was, no matter what kind of settlement we did, that we had to go outside all of our usual decision making processes once we actually made the decision that we will enter into settlement talks. There would be no way of going to the international community for approval. No way of even going to our membership. Because that had sort of to be hammered out and then signed! So there had to be trust given to the negotiators by the board, and the negotiators had been acting in awareness of all those factors. At the time we were very, very concerned about the international repercussions of doing that. I think I would say, personally that was one of my major concerns. It was always there. We knew that no matter what we did – unless we went to trial and had a clear decision in our favour, there would be international repercussions.

In hindsight there was quite an upset. At the time I was on the board of the German guild and when we heard of the settlement we were quite shocked. Because in a way the FGNA or NATAB or ‘The Americans’ as we Europeans(all too) often like to say, were regarded as stalwarts of the international regulations. In Europe we had had for some times already a lot of problems with Mia- and Yochanan trainees because of trying to keep to those regulations. But during the years some of the European Guilds had accepted them as full members. The German Guild though had always kept to the international rule of membership criteria and got into opposition to their European fellow organisations like the Austrian and British Guild. When the board heard about the settlement we felt we were suddenly standing in the rain without this umbrella, which we had always tried to help hold up.

I mean, from our point of view the situation is, that we had contained the damage that would occur as best we could and I think in hindsight, I see it as putting a certain amount of structural tension into the international system – but not as much as there could have been. F. i. the trainers by and large haven’t asked for the same kind of settlement that Anat got.

You are now one of the initiators and a member of a new international group discussing trainings.  Has this experience of the lawsuit made you even more conscious of the urgency of reforming the training guidelines and to address the whole issue again on a different level?

To be honest, I would say, no. I don’t think that that was really the impetus at all. The impetus for reviewing our training policies came more I think from looking at the bigger picture of the accreditation guidelines and how we certify educational staff. This working group really came out of the pressures of the nature of our community changing. More experienced practitioners, smaller trainings where assistants didn’t get a chance to work as much; smaller trainings for the trainers. It is simply a way to improve standards and to make it a more equitable system.

Has this been an initiative by the TABs?

Well no not exactly, it is an initiative by the Governing bodies of the TABs. In Europe you have the Euro TAB Council, in North America it is the FGNA Board of Directors and in Australia it is the Australian National Council. These are the bodies that have oversight of the TABs and ultimate responsibility for approving training policy. As things have changed the North-American board began looking more closely at the training policies and trying to think into the future. I think initially it wasn’t so much a feeling as if we’re in crisis now, but just that it was not a system that could work on into the future. It needed to be addressed. But the TABs were part of the initiative in that they asked more clarification between policy and procedure and what that meant in terms of implementing training policies.

Why is the internationality of our standards important anyway? Let me try to play devil’s advocate. The German Guild initiated, as you know, the “Zukunftswerkstatt” which has involved all stakeholders in trainings (in Germany) into a dialog about the future of the Feldenkrais-training. What would be the reason for us of being involved at the same time in an international group thinking about the trainings? All these processes of talks and meetings and discussing papers is not only a lot of unpaid work for a lot of good people but also very expensive for our Guilds…
 
One of the things that I value and have always valued, was the knowledge that anybody who graduated from an TAB accredited training would be accepted to work anywhere in the world. But even more important is the aspect of the strength of the work being enhanced by an international culture and a commonality in our training. The work is enhanced by diversity, but there is a way that the international policy allows a certain cross pollination to occur. It’s not that there won’t develop certain distinct flavours in the practise of the method or thinking about that method even, but that it won’t be dominated by any sort of view point that arises, whether it’s, say just the difference between it been seen as in a medical model or as an educational model. That there be a constant give and take and thinking about things from other peoples perspectives, working in different conditions… I really think that our work, that the Feldenkrais method exists in the culture that we create in the entire community of practitioners. You can’t regulate that diversity directly but you can set up structures that promote it.

Is there also the point that the public world wide then would be secure in their knowledge about what the Feldenkrais method is because the major organisations, inside and outside of the Feldenkrais world  would know, what is recognised and identified as the Feldenkrais method?

Yes, I think it is hugely important to have some sort of identity when we refer to our work, both for ourselves and for the public. I don’t think any discipline really can be supported without a culture around it. And I don’t think we are numerous enough around in the world for anyone’s statement to be that culture, or to stay in it’s own culture. The true hall mark of a profession is mutual identificaton, that you recognise me as a Feldenkrais practitioner and I you. You’re for instance not a scientist unless other scientists view you as a scientist. When you go back to the time of Galileo, of Newton…, there were letters been exchanged all over Europe. But there was no even name for what they were doing at the times. ‘Natural Philosophy’ was the term that they used. But gradually people wanted to get into that group, and it wasn’t until that group – English scientists were adopted into the French academy, Dutch scientists were adopted into the Royal society –, (until) they recognised that they share interests and values. And it’s very much a constant process. It has it’s downside as well as its benefits. But there is a sense of self regulation, of self identification. And I think that if we go too far towards moulding ourselves to external demands, we loose the method. Feldenkrais was working with individuals, but at the core of it he was working about self identification, self-directing…

Okay, lets come back to the International Working Group on Training Policies. How did it come about and what is it for?

Well, first there was the  an initiative by some North American Trainers and Assistants Proposals (Natrasst) to change how people became trainers and assistants.

That was already after the Germans started the “Zukunftswerkstatt”?

Yes, that was part of the impetus of it. It was in 2003 at the FGNA conference. It was clearly the proposals themselves that required a lot more discussions within the community, more development. And last year at the IFF-assembly in Soesterburg, we began having meetings, some of the first meetings of the governing bodies of the TABs. There were representatives from all the governing bodies at that meeting. It was not an official meeting but we decided that there needed to be more communication between the governing bodies. Most training policy initiatives had come from the TABs to the governing bodies and the governing bodies were in a position of approving or disapproving. The basic idea was to put the governing bodies into the process earlier.

Into the driving seat, may be?

I wouldn’t even say so much “into the driving seat”. Because there is a huge amount of expertise in the TABs that’s been built up over the years. We just felt if we were in the process earlier, it would be easier to get clearer improvement in changes in policy. It could have been done much easier when there had been a little more input and a little more oversight at the beginning of the process when the proposals of “a change of policy to change policies’ came through for voting. In those meetings between the governing bodies the need for an overall review of the international training policy became fairly apparent  It’s clearly one of the essential factors in the future of the work, how the practitioners are trained and the kind of culture that comes out of our policies. So the governing bodies discussed the need for an international working group and it was decided that it would be kept a reasonably small group initially, to review the current situation and make recommendations. All three of the governing bodies agreed to it, the Eurotab council, the NATAB (FGNA) and the AusTAB (AUStralien guild).
 
And who is a member of the IWG?

All three of the bodies made recommendations for people those who compose it now are myself, Ivan Yoly from North America, Sabina Graf-Pointner from Germany, Naomi Doron from Israel, who was a particular recommendation of the Eurotab council, and Chris Lambert from Australia. And we’re still very much in the organisational stages and developing our process, our strategy for looking at that and decision making procedures.

I’d like to come to my last question and that is in a way coming back to the beginning. When I look at all the work you have been involved in, the FGNA, IFF and now the IWG I see that there is a great dedication to the method and the thinking about the method. Let me ask you what you do personally get out of working in all these ‘community jobs’, you as Feldenkrais practitioner, but also you personally, George.

I decided to become a practitioner because I found and still find the Feldenkrais method endlessly fascinating. It is lovely place to explore human nature from the perspectives of science, art and philosophy. Besides that, I believe that our work is incredibly useful in our times. Personally, one of the things that I find absolutely amazing and I think it’s a reflection of our work, is the quality of people that it attracts. I have a lot of friends from working on the board and in the Guild and in all those international bodies that are just fascinating, interesting people to be around and to work with, even if we don’t always agree with each other. And there is also the sense of working on something really creative that’s a big motivation of basically everyone – all of the practitioners, all of the thinkers, to bring something into the world that wasn’t there before, something that is meaningful and useful. And I think that’s probably the key for me. And it’s also an opportunity to expand myself. Working in the Guild was my first major attempt, I would say, at working really with a team in a really structured way. I do think it has helped me grow as a practitioner.

In what way? Has it changed or informed the way how you practise the method?

Yes. I don’t know about other people but for me there’s always been this sense if I’m not communicating with colleagues that I just stale in the work. Part of that can be resolved in visiting trainings or going to advanced trainings, where you have this contact rubbing up against people. But I also think that for me there is a lot of conceptual thinking around the work that you want to be with other people who have been involved in it. And all of the people who I know, who I’ve met in the process of doing Guild work and international work, think an awful lot about the work, – and not just the practise of it but the implications of it. It helped me to think more about the implications of what I do and what is possible for us as – to use the word – as a profession.

CUT (Both laugh – because George and Uta were also busy preparing a workshop at the IFF-Academy about the question of Feldenkrais practitioner as profession.)