11. Improving through global and differentiated movements

Living beings as well as organisations grow and develop into differentiation. More global aspects of development are left behind or forgotten unless particular circumstances demand reference back to them. Quite often our habitual thinking complies with separating these levels: global issues on first level, differentiation more downwards (local level). In contrast Feldenkrais’ approach emphasizes the capability to perform global and differentiated movements in accordance to intended action as an advantage for improvement in life. No movement, global or differentiated, proximal or distal, is better than the other. They interrelate in action/interaction. The IFF Academy is following this principle: the Academy provides a Model to further practitioners’ personal and professional potentials by integrating global and local levels according to tasks.

Examples

§       Several hundred practitioners participated in the Competency Profile project and the PRISMA blue project. Competency started more from a global perspective (theory) to practise, PRISMA the other way round. Now they can match their results in favour for quality and competency improvements for practitioners and organisations.

§       Cultural richness is one of the Feldenkrais Method’s heritages. The Academy took it over - best illustrated in IFF Academy Days 2003 and 2005. New means for new action and interaction is encouraged by stepping over borders, listening to other people’s languages, finding similarities while practising ATM and FI together.

§       The Online Journal is another example for a strong movement in one global direction (Research) by collating individual diversity from distant parts but referring to the same issue.

Personal experiences

• It is thrilling and touching to meet practitioners from all over the world, to experience their different cultural backgrounds as well as shared values and insights while working together in the Academy. Concentration on national conditions only would limit these resources and reduce options to develop competency and quality.
• For us it has been a unique opportunity to experience a synergy of talents and means. We have been able to abandon traditional classification in national or international work sharing yet trust we are proceeding functionally to integrate all sort of levels within a common task.