The FGNA Council of Regional Representatives did a lot for Feldenkrais practitioners in the last couple of years in getting a PR Kit produced for practitioners. (You can purchase it at the FEFNA bookstore or download it for free at the members site (off-line at the moment).)
Photos by dance photographer Rosalie O’Connor are among the gems of the kit.
I was recently using some of them to make cards publicizing our Wednesday evening class at the Yoga Loft.
Robert, the owner of the Loft, offered some advice that really made me think about what a good image for Feldenkrais would be.
You want to be able to take the whole poster in in a second or two. Assume that whoever sees it will be walking past it and may not stop unless something about the posters makes them. I keep coming back to this but in that moment they need to see the solution to some problem they have. That makes them stop and take a look. From there poster inspires them with the idea that Feldenkrais has the solution. But you never offer an idea of what that solution is. This part stays entirely within their mind. If you offer a solution they will start to question it. Its basic human nature and a lot of psychology…
Reaching for something new: by photographer Rosalie O’Connor.How interesting it would be to explore what it is we’d want to give as a first impression of Feldenkrais, something that resonates for a person, even at a level below awareness, as speaking to their needs!
An interesting challenge in making Feldenkrais images is the cultural vocabulary available to us. There’s a basic cultural vocabulary around yoga at this point (as there might not have been thirty years ago). One can resonate with a sense of spiritual peace, or the sense of a quest that tests the limits, or connection with a community of conscious living, or the sense of taking time to come into touch with oneself, or relaxation, or challenge…. What vocabulary do we want for Feldenkrais?
A new angle: by photographer Rosalie O’Connor.
I particularly like the sense in this image of looking at things from a different perspective; maybe this gives people the sense of that characteristic Feldenkrais feeling of delighted but relaxed discovery of a possibility that never even occurred to one before.
I’m thinking now about exploring this topic in various modes, as a kind of “marketing research” in the best sense. A contribution to our on-going process of self-definition and development of our understanding of what our work is about. We talk and write about that a lot, but how about connecting those words with images? What experience, sense, thought, feeling, mood, possibility that you connect with through Feldenkrais would you like to communicate?
You can leave comments below, or on the images in the gallery here. The comment form lets you submit your own images of Feldenkrais or the “sense of” Feldenkrais!
Lynnette, this is great. I am a practitioner of one year, and therefore been working with posters, advertising. Reading your comments echoes exactly what I was told by an artist who owns a yoga studio/art gallery.
My question is: I am clear that in order to convey ‘Feldenkrais’ via an image, it needs to be of an ATM or FI. these days one can just Google on Google images and take pics off the web. On feldyforum theres been this whole discussion about copyright – and I wonder how this exactly works with photos. Someone told me its ok as long as you credit the photographer.
Of course, taking ones own photos would be ideal, but some of us are not in a position to do that yet… expense, suitable location, people, etc.
Thanks for this, look forward to hearing from you.
Nikhila
Nikhila -
Lynnette provided a good response for you. My website has some great pictures that cost quite a lot of money and still I own only partial rights. Even I have to get permission from the photographer to sell them or let someone else use them. Generally the photographer expects additional payment.
It is one of the confusing issues with the web. Copyright is not so easy to keep clear.
As I redo my website, I am paring down the using of pictures and going to let just one or two per page do the talking. We will see how it goes!
Cynthia
Hi Nikhila,
It is a challenge to find good images for our brochures and posters! Unfortunately, the copyright situation doesn’t just let you use someone else’s image as long as you give credit. I’m no expert in this field, but it’s probably best to write and ask permission when you find an image on the web, unless it’s clear that the image is in the public domain. (For example, you can find all of Gray’s Anatomy on the web, because it’s in the public domain: so the images are free for you to use too. My images from Marey and Muybridge that I use on my site are old enough to be in the public domain. There are also many historical images at National Libraries of Medicine, History of Medicine Division.)
I did this for one workshop using an image from one of the historical sources.
It’s really hard for us in our individual practices to have the skill and/or the cash to get good images produced. This is why it’s so great that the Guild did the PR Kit, and got us some images with rights to use them. Most of us have an individual practice too small to warrant paying for photos. Many people would be generous to let you use their images if they understand that you’re not going to get rich off it anyway!
Lynette -
I have been playing with the issue of photography for several years now. I have a beautiful display piece in my studio window trying to show quickly relaxation, flexibility, and uniqueness.
I work with a photographer and we update photos every couple of years. Each year I try to become clear about what I want to say about Feldenkrais. It is difficult and yet I do think we need to images that communicate a clear message.
Lately, I have been moving away from what I thought of as beautiful images, that capture the sensuality of Feldenkrais but may only make sense to someone who has already done the work, to something simpler.
Still working on that issues. Always the challenge is clarifying the difference between how someone who has never been in a class or session will take it in.
Thanks for raising the topic. It is one I am passionate about.
Cynthia
This is a very important point to raise–to think about the difference between how an image appears to someone who has felt the process, and how it appears to someone who has never done it. I hear some people say that these images look like some kind of yoga to their eyes–I can see the Feldenkrais in them, but they don’t strike someone inexperienced as containing a different idea.
The ones I have posted here are all at the end of the movement, the moment when we are closest to yoga, but the moment we specifically de-emphasize.
I’ve focussed in now on communicating one thing (distinction from yoga) but your point goes for everything we might be looking to communicate or suggest. Mood, challenge, ease…
Is this your website Cynthia?
Professional photographers do make their living off of control of the images they produce. It’s important to be respectful of that, and respectful of our colleagues who do pay photographers from their own marketing budgets.
Yes, Lynette it’s my website. Although I have not paid any attention to it for about 5 years. Wow that is hard to believe.
I am in the process of updating the entire thing. Making it simple, cleaner. Hope to have it ready in the next couple of weeks.
Cynthia
Now I’m laughing at myself…I look at each of these images I’ve described as being at the “end” of the movement, and I know and feel the steps that take the movement into its next development(s).
At the same time the photos do seem to convey being at the last place before you turn around and come back, not being half-way somewhere else.
Lynn – you raise the issue of something distinct from Yoga. I have also thought about uniqueness.
Some years ago, I did a TV interview with a class in the background using the old “dead bird” as the lesson. I chose it because people were sitting up and I didn’t think it could be mistaken for anything else. After the interview, the reporter questioned my choice. She said it was going to look very strange and confusing. It was nothing anyone could understand. And the calls (about 20–which I understand is a lot) were interesting. What was that thing? Were they all in trance? What were you saying to them? None of these calls resulted in anyone coming to a class.
Trance for example, is generally not something desirable in the midwest. Regression–things that remind people of becoming child like or baby like, also don’t seem to go over well. I am not so sure that uniquely different from Yoga, for example, is the most important piece. It is a balancing act between something familar enough that the person feels comfortable, not at all scared by it, while creating mild curiosity. What would that be–hmmm.
I wonder how much of it is time and repeated exposure. Thinking of meditation poses. How meditation, yoga, zen was the brunt of many jokes 25 years ago. Now zen is the thing to be. Products of all type try to attach themselves to the “zen” way of being. To sit in a lotus position is the thing to be. But it was not always that way. Now older folks are doing yoga in churches of all sort, albiet a different version than the parent yoga from which it sprang.
I opened a studio on a busy street so I could have Feldenkrais in the window. The number of people who drive and walk past my large window signs each day is phenomenal. Our city does not like new names that it doesn’t know. That was 5 years ago. I wanted people to see the word Feldenkrais so much they would begin to stop thinking what a strange work it was and start feeling it was familar. I also have large pictures of people doing ATM in the window.
This year, I think I am starting to notice that more people think they know what Feldenkrais is. For the first time, I have a few people showing up because they have been seeing it and hearing about it for a while now. I don’t know if it is a trend yet, but maybe it is making a difference.
Some of the issue with pictures might be getting a couple of good moments in ATM (like the lotus position for meditation) and using them over and over (with different people in different publications in different cities) until they no longer seem strange.
Always more things for us to think about, eh?
Thanks Cynthia! It’s great to hear about your experience. I know when I practiced in Toronto, Marion Harris’s sign on Dupont was really something that benefited the whole community of practitioners.
When we choose pictures we’re entering into the very personal and cultural conversation of visual meaning, and you’re right that many lessons we might choose to photograph because they feel very “Feldenkrais” to us could be very off-putting for people!
Part of Yoga’s having a presence in the culture (to learn from them instead of just differentiating ourselves from them) is to have a few “poses” that we recognize as yoga. It’s good to think about what our iconic movements would be. The pelvic clock is something Feldenkrais is known for but there isn’t too much to photograph in it.
I do like the lessons photographed above for that–although I’ve heard some lay feedback that they look like yoga, so maybe I’m wrong, but to me the actions look distinct and also interesting but not inaccessible. The one rolling the hip and reaching overhead could be a key one, I think, as it just looks rich to do, accessible–and in series I’ve taught this is one where people really connect to the feeling of ease and expanding possibilities.
Rolling to sit or baby roll lessons are very iconic for us but they have that regression factor you mention.
We have this idea of making the impossible possible, but if we put out a picture of the impossible, then it won’t attract. The guy looking under his arm flirts with that.
I think it’s inevitable that if we have more cultural presence, there will be certain moments of action (poses) that will be associated with us in the public mind. “Feldenkrais? is that the … thing??”
Here it would be interesting to talk to more recent students or the general public to find out what would be striking and not off-putting for them. My sense of it is very bound up with my personal favourites or the latest interesting lesson for me.
Lynette, you said: I do like the lessons photographed above for that–although I’ve heard some lay feedback that they look like yoga, so maybe I’m wrong, but to me the actions look distinct and also interesting but not inaccessible.
Cynthia says…I agree. There is perhaps a little Yoga feel to them, but I don’t believe they look like Yoga poses, rather like part of a movement. And they are beautifully done–which counts for something for sure.
Lynette,
First I would like to thank Kathy and Karen for the photos they created on the behalf of the CORR. I would also like to thank CORR for creating the PR Kits. BRAVO Guys!!!!!
The greatest challenge in creating a photo for the Feldenkrais Method is how to demostrate movement and process. The photos are very lovely but they appear very posed. THe use of attractive young people is appealing but is it representative of our work. Especially when we say our work is useful for people despite age or level of ability.
Another question that arises for me is considering why Moshe in his book, Awareness Through Movement, did not use human models.
I am in the process of developing a new brochure. I will keep you advised of how I am addressing these challenges.
My Two cents,
March
I do want to agree in expressing my appreciation to CORR for doing this! It’s fabulous. In all sorts of ways I really like these photos, and about the PR kit in general, well, if we didn’t have the CORR we’d have to invent it, as they say.
There’s an Amherst scene of Moshe playing with wooden dolls and he gets the most impressive expressiveness out of them. I’ve got some funny non-human ATM photos here I’ll post soon….
I look forward to seeing how your brochure develops!
Lynette
I heard from a fellow teacher today that the Kit describes the method as a movement method which none of us like. Is that true? I haven’t read the kit yet and if so I do not feel partculary intrested in buying it…I trust your judgment so tell me your view.
Eva,
The written content in the PR Kit is really quite brief. For me it carries too strongly the message of the work being gentle and relaxing. It makes a point to connect movement, thought, and feeling. I haven’t listened to the lessons yet, so I can’t vouch for them.