Marianne Lacina (English)

 Photo Frank Höfer ©

"Hey, what's this?"

Marianna Lacina, Swiss Feldenkrais Association (SFV)

 
My personal background is that I both studied and danced. Those were two very different milieus: the university where I studied language, literature, and anthropological  sychology and the stage and teaching movement theatre and dance. For long I was torn between those two worlds. That story goes back a long way with me. As a small child I grew very quickly and always wanted to do acrobatics, light athletics, or dance. But I had a lot of back pain and people said: No, you can't do that. Your joints don't allow it ... But I was used to finding a way for myself. At any rate Ièd done a lot of bodywork by the time I was twenty. In 1984 I went to a workshop given by an old American woman in ZÑŸrich. Among other things there was a lot of Feldenkrais, but to begin with I didnt know the different methods. At any rate I was particularly fascinated by what the ATMs did and thought: Hey, what's this? Then I looked around a bit and did some Feldenkrais in Switzerland until in 1990 the time had come for me to start a training in Brig. Today I work as a Feldeenkrais practitioner in ZÑŸrich and teach flamenco and Feldenkrais in a dance training. In the meantime I'm also an assistant trainer, mainly active in Switzerland.

Right at the start, even during my training, I joined the Swiss Feldenkrais Association and heard about international developments, above all establishment of the IFF. Perhaps internationalism is rather a typical Swiss attitude. Of course I was already oriented towards what was happening outside in dance and theatre. There you can't stay in Switzerland. You really have to get out if you want to see and hear many good things. Diversity and quality are necessary for any specialised and profound discussion. It was just the same for me in Feldenkrais.

I've only just joined the Swiss executive board. We IFF delegates had little support there. At times the executive's attention was very much directed towards developments inside Switzerland, and that was necessary too. At present one of the great challenges for us in Switzerland is the question of vocational recognition as Feldenkrais teachers. Health insurances still contribute pretty well towards clients' costs, so the majority of Swiss Feldenkrais practitioners basically feel they couldn't work if that weren't the case.

However a few years ago the health insurances started keeping lists of the recognised and the unrecognised, and laying down conditions. We didn't like that ... And at some stage a firm was established, offering to keep the health insurances informed about which practitioners and methods are good and the health insurances took that up. This company is a private venture; it calls itself the Register of Medical Experience and by now exerts a great deal of influence. It establishes criteria, says how many hours someone must work, what training is required, etc and now the state is starting to regulate employment in health, sport, and the arts. That has been approved in parliament and there are new laws in the health service. This has sparked off a huge power-struggleover who gets which piece of the cake.

For us Feldenkrais practitioners the current situation is that there may be a possibility of vocational recognition if one accords with the requirements of what is called 'advanced assessment'. This evaluation would apply to everything today characterised as complementary medicine. Decisions haven't yet been finalised but there will probably be two categories: 'alternative medicine' including healers, homeopaths, etc  and 'complementary medicine' with around two hundred methods ... It isn't even certain yet that those will be the categories, but if that is the case we'll be included in 'complementary medicine'. But then we would have to reach agreement with representatives of all the other methods about an assessment which might involve three or four different specialisations ... On the one hand that generates anxiety and on the other perhaps also offers an opportunity since it's now said that some schools or methods would unite under the heading of 'Learning'. It was very interesting for us here in Berlin to discover that the Italian Guild has gained official acceptance for the concept of 'organic learning'.

Of course we are also very apprehensive of rigid schooling and bureaucratisation ... But perhaps those are all only external, formal things to which we can get used and then determine the content for ourselves.  What is at issue is self-definition or definition from outside. In order to forestall attempts at regulation we must have defined ourselves and at the same time fit in with the external authority, must integrate ourselves, so that the money and recognition available there is also channeled towards us. We have now decided we can't hold back, arguing that such demands aren't a part of Feldenkrais. If we did delay we might have diffficulty in continuing to work at all.

International co-operation is enormously important. For instance we hear at the Assembly here how the situation is in other countries. After all it isn't only in Switzerland that we have to think hard about public interest in us, or our interest in what's happening in the public realm. Feldenkrais doesn't only involve individuals. Instead we need to ask: Can Feldenkrais have a place in society, and if so, what kind of a place? How are we externally defined, and how do we define ourselves?

Copyright Marianne Lacina and Uta Ruge
First published in Feldenkraisforum, volume 51, 2005