Table Of ContentEshkol=Wachman Movement Notation
">::~t~:.'fWENTY-LFEIVSSEO NS BY DR MOSHE FELDENKRAIS
Noa Eshkol
TWENTY-FIVE LESSONS BY DR MOSHE FELDENKRAI S
I
Eshkol-Wachman Movement Notation
TWENTY-FIVE LESSONS BY DR MOSHE FELDENKRAIS
Noa Eshkol
Second and Entirely Revised Edition
Published by
THE MOVEMENT NOTATION SOCIETY, Israel
for the
RESEARCH CENTRE FOR MOVEMENT NOTATION
FACULTY OF FINE ARTS TEL A VIV UNIVERSITY
Published with the aid of
The National Council for Culture and Art
Ministry of Education
© 1976 by The Movement Notation Society
75 Arlozorov Street, Halon 58327, Israel
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be copied or reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without the written authorization of the copyright owners,
except in the case of brief quotations for review purposes.
The score was prepai ed for reproduction by:
Ruth Sella Shmuel Seidel Tirza Sapir
Racheli Nul Noa Kiryati Osnat Bone
Book design: John G. Harries
Typesetting by Technosdar, Tel Aviv
Printed in Israel by I. Melimewkier, Tel Aviv
V
CONTENTS
Page
Preface to the Second Edition vii
Preface to the First Edition ........................................................................ . viii
Introduction by Dr Moshe Feldenkrais ................................................................ . ix
PRINCIPLES OF MOVEMENT NOTATION I
I. Body and Manuscript Page ....................................................................................................................................... . 2
Parts of the body - Spaces assigned to them
2. The System of Reference ........................................................................................................................................... . 3
Horizontal plane - Positions - Scale - Vertical plane
3. The Individual Systems of Reference ....................................................................................................................... . 6
The System of Reference - A single idea and its multiplicity
4. Zero Position ........................................................................................................................................................... . 7
Ultimate physical position of reference - The symbol [OJ
5. Base of the Body, Law of Light and Heavy Limbs, Positions ................................................................................... . 7
Use of positions in analysis - The interrelation of limbs - Defining a position - Base of the body
6. Axis of Movement, Angle of Movement, Type of Movement ................................................................................... . 9
The circle the simplest path - Axis of movement - Defining its position - Types of movement - Orientation -
Sense - Amount - Plane movement - Horizontal, Vertical, Intermediate, Undefined planes - Conical movement
Rotary movement
7. Former Method of Writing Plane Movement 13
Alternative usage of the symbols
8. A Note on Sense of Movement ................................................................................................................................ 14
A difficulty identified and defined
9. Notation According to the Axis of Movement ............................................................................................................ 15
Types of movement equivalent to angles between axis of limb and axis of movement - Utilizing this fact in writing
10. Movement and the Law of Light and Heavy Limbs .................................................................................................... 16
Moving limbs, active and carried - Simultaneous movement - Tfze hierarchy: heavy-to-light
11. Front - Rotated State - Circular Path .................................................................................................................... 18
Front: a triple relation - Rotation of the whole body - Rotated state: the 'front' concept applied to individual
limbs - Transport in circular paths
12. Bodywise Analysis and Writing .. .. .. .. .. ... . .... .. .. . .... ......... ...... .. .. .. .. .... .. ... . .. .. .. . . .......... ...... .. ..... ........ ......... .. .. .. ...... ... . .... 19
Notation in relation to the limb's heavy neighbour - Four examples - Bodywise rotated states - Zero position is
'bodywise'
13. Topographical Positions ......................................................................................................... ,.................................. 21
Points on the surface of the body - Limbs mapped into spheres - Topographical positions of the foot - Sides of
the foot
14. Contact, Opposition ................................................................................................................................................ 23
Contact with the ground - Release - Contact between parts of the body - with other objects - of extreme tips -
without weight - Holding - Eye 'contact' - Loose contact - Paired members - Opposition
15. Weight........................................................................................................................................................................ 25
Shift of weight - Equal distribution - Jump - Half-jump - Fall - Rolling on the floor - Somersaults
vi
16. Time 26
Time units - Bar. lines - Varying the value of the, time unit - An alternative method - Starting position
Reverse - Repetition - Symmetry - Partial Repeat
17. Simultaneous Movement - Light and Heavy Limbs - Fixation ................................................................................ 29
Interdependence of moving limbs - Carrying and carried limbs - A limb's movement modified by movements of
heavier limbs - Fixation of a position - of movement - Simultaneous movements written with a single symbol
18. Conventions, Abbreviations and Special Cases ................................ ............................................................................ 31
Kinetic link rotation - Symmetry - Passive - Contraction/extension - Amounts of movement - Legs: walking -
Flexion in Kinetic Links - Simulated conical movement - Key signatures
TWENTY-FIVE LESSONS BY DR MOSHE FELDENKRAIS ................................................. 35
General Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 7
Group I (Lesson I -4) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Group II (Lessons 5 - 7) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Group III (Lessons 8 - I 0) .......................................................................... 77
Group IV (Lessons 11 - 13) ......................................................................... 88
Group V (Lessons 14 - 16) ......................................................................... 107
Group VI (Lessons 17 - 19 ) ............ , ............................................................ 11 9
Group VII (Lessons 20 - 21 ). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 2
Group VIII (Lessons 22 - 25) ........................................................................ 145
vii
PREFA CE TO THE SECOND EDITION
These lessons are well worth study in every discipline in which the main subject is movement of the human body. They
are elementary and basic in the best and most positive sense of the words. It is therefore a great pleasure to have the
opportunity of preparing a new edition of "Twenty-five Lessons by Dr Moshe Feldenkrais". The differences between this
revised version and its predecessors serve to demonstrate my contention that the day when we merely reprint one of our
publications without change, will mark the end of creative work on EW Movement Notation.
The concrete physical content of the book consists of the same 25 lessons given in the original work; but in fact this is an
entirely new book, for the following reasons:
1. The explanation ot the pnnciples of EW Movement Notation which precedes the lessons has been completely rewritten
since the appearance of the previous version, so as to incorporate many usages and refinements of the method accumulated
over the years.
2. This is the first time that the notation of movement material has been worked upon by such a large number of people. The
procedure of work on this edition may be summarised as follows: The material was distributed among the 1972 graduates of
my Movement Course at Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers' Training College, who have since become a homogeneous team
working as part of the Movement Notation Society. Each read one or more lessons, and physically presented the material to
the other members of the team, together with his ideas, proposals and reading problems. In the light of these experiments, and
taking account of the logic of the suggestions made, all of the lessons were rewritten and a comparison made between the
original directions given verbally by Dr Feldenkrais and recorded on tape; the notation of the first edition (first drafts as well
as final versions); and the new notation. This manner of work made possible the improvement of the scores, and the
achievement thereby of a more precise expression of the physical content of the lessons.
3. The order of the lessons has been changed, and the scores are this time divided into eight groups. Each group is prefaced
and followed by an explanation of specific usages of the notation method, and in this way the value of the book is enhanced as
a text for those studying Movement Notation, and also inasmuch as the nature of the lessons is further clarified.
N.E.
September 1976
viii
PREF ACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
The twenty-five lessons notated for this book were given by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais at the School of Movement which I
direct within the framework of the Seminar Hakibbutzim Teachers' Training College in Tel Aviv. This is the only institution in
Israel which provides the possibility of an experimental school with the proclaimed goal of training people to awareness of
movement and of the body, in a three-year course untramelled with the paraphenalia of marking systems, examinations and
diplomas. This means that the student is not obliged to decide upon his ultimate aim before he really knows what movement
is. This essentially humanistic approach takes into account that people, however drawn to the field of movement, do not
necessarily know exactly what they hope to gain from or contribute to that field; this is directly opposed to the stand of the
'academic' institution which demands that the student should decide upon his ultimate profession at the very outset. The
economic and social profits of this approach, to student and to teacher, are not calculable; the moral obligations involved are
however, certainly very great. The fact that this non-calculating and indeed non-commercial approach was made possible by
the training college for teachers of the kibbutzim is clearly not a matter of mere chance.
I first met Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais at a time when I was disappointed with conventional dance training and its esthetic
dictates, which seemed so arbitrary and so unphysical. I had started to work on a discipline of movement derived from laws of
the body and of space; both by his ideas of re-education of the body, and by his personal example he gave me the necessary
confidence and help to continue these first steps in a new direction.
Apart from the fact that these are the lessons of Dr. Feldenkrais, my interest in recording them in Eshkol-Wachmann
Movement Notation was in testing the ability of the notation to cope with the physical subtleties which characterise the work.
Each lesson was recorded exactly as given, without any alteration of order etc., and includes every variation however
slight. It is thus a faithful documentary record of the original lessons.
Each lesson lasted between 50 and 60 minutes, so that the whole represents some 20 hours of physical work.
N.E.
19 71
ix
INTRODUCTION
It is a great satisfaction to me to have some of my lessons published in Eshkol-Wachmann Movement Notation, and this on
two counts: (I) The Notation shows movement in the same way as a musical score shows something of the structure of music
that is very hard to perceive without the score. (2) Noa Eshkol was formerly a pupil of mine; but in fact she has used what she
learned from me in such an original, novel and personal way that I pride myself on what she acquired from me.
Movement is organically linked with life so that we grow practically unaware of the long and thorough apprenticeship we
have gone through to be able to move as clumsily and as efficiently as so many of us do. As regards the visual form of our
movement the position is even less satisfactory. Efficient movement is pleasant to the eye, but more movements are possible
than we need use to satisfy our needs. The movements that are not essential to the maintenance of life per se are, however,
essential to our harmonious functioning. We need them not only for expressing ourselves but for the equilibrium of our
psychic-somatic functioning.
Efficient, vitally necessary movements are moulded to a high degree of perfection through the purpose which evokes them,
but the form and quality of non-purposeful movements need some abstract principles to give them a quality of form equal to
the purposeful movements. The notation of movement as seen by Eshkol and Wachmann gives an intrinsic principle for
movements. They use the structure of our skeleton in which the principle joints work so that a polar representation and not an
axial cartesian one represents their configuration almost as clearly as we see them, but more precisely.
The polar representation shifts the origin of movements to the body itself instead of to some arbitrary point in a space (such
as a stage) chosen as an origin of a three-axial system of reference. In the latter, movements of a body can usefully be written
down when the body is replaced by a point such as its centre of gravity or any other chosen point. In polar notation one can see
the movements with a little practice, as one sees the angles formed by the principle joints of the body, independently of its
situation on the stage or in space in general.
An important consequence is that one is brought to educate even the smaller joints which are normally not appreciated, with
the same care as the others. In the notation they are to be marked and written, and thereby acquire equal rights. The training of
the body is improved in details of feet, ankles, eyes, fingers, to the full richness of their possibilities as part of the body, and not
as an occasional necessity to satisfy the musical rhythm or similar considerations.
Training a body to perfect all the possible forms and configurations of its members changes not only the strength and
flexibility of the skeleton and muscles, but makes a profound change in the self-image and the quality of direction of the self.
It is in this context that Noa Eshkol has benefited from my teaching, and my way of teaching.
* * *
Movement is the best clue to the activity of the nervous system. Spasticity tremors, all varieties of paralysis, ataxia, impeded
speech and poor muscular control in general, indicate injury or derangement of function of the brain stem or other parts of the
nervous system.
There is no means of making somebody do any movement whatsoever unless by one means or another we induce his nervous
system to send the impulses that will contract the necessary muscles in the right patterns or assemblies and the right sequences
in time. Movement or its absence show the state of the nervous system, its hereditary endowment and its degree of
development.
When born, we can do very little voluntary movement besides crying and contracting all the flexors in an undifferentiated
global effort. We learn by experience to roll, to crawl, to sit up, to walk, to speak, to run, to jump, to balance, rotate and do
whatever we are capable of performing as adults.
Our consciousness becomes gradually adjusted to our surrounding environment in all its varieties. The first contacts with the
outside world are through the skin and mouth. Later we learn to use our members separately and regulate them through seeing
them. The major problem is differentiation of movements. Thus the ring finger will remain clumsy unless we play an instrument
or make a special point of learning to move it at will. We end up by bringing the all-or-none response of the primitive muscular
contraction to a more or less perfectly differentiated voluntary activity. We come to this so to speak naturally, i.e. without
awareness of the process involved, nor of the state or degree of perfection achieved in our apprenticeship - provided, of course,
