Segment 7, Day 7: an experiment in progress

I'm not sure where to start with this entry. I should have written sooner this segment before my head was so full of information. It's been a busy seven days. I'm not actually overwhelmed yet, just trying to process what's happened so I can figure out what to write here.

In most Feldenkrais trainings, students have two opportunities to give FIs to non-Feldy people in class and get feedback from their trainers. They traditionally happen in the last part of a training, and they end up being very stressful and high pressure for the students. Then, after those two practicums, students are kicked out the door, out of the nest, off the cliff... Pick your metaphor, they're all bad situations leaving the students unprepared for starting a practice.

Angel and Richard decided that because our class did really well in the past two segments getting the hang of how to give an FI, we were ready for more than most trainings. In fact, they decided we were already ready to give public lessons and receive feedback, even though we still have two segments left. That means we have become guinea pigs for a new version of Segment 7 that has never been tried before. Instead of two practicums at the end of our training, we get four each just this month! To take the pressure off a bit, we'll be observed directly by a classmate who is there to help if we get stuck, and observed from afar by our trainers. Leading up to the practicums, we've been breaking down the structure of an FI and testing out pieces of it in a variety of imaginary and real client situations to get a handle on each piece. That way, when we get a stranger sitting in front of us with an odd request, we won't get stuck in the cycle of OH GOD NOW WHAT quite so easily.

Here's an example of the imaginary situations we've been playing with. My classmate, Gwen, as the client, goes over to a bag of slips of paper and picks one out. It says she's an airline pilot. She goes to the next bag, picks out another slip of paper, and this one tells her she has incontinence. She comes back to my table, sits down, and acts out the part. I, as practitioner, panic. Incontinence? I don't know anything about incontinence. I certainly don't know how to help it. This is really awkward. AAAAH!! I turn to another classmate, Kuniko, my facilitator, and ask her desperately for help. We chat a little. Gwen, who happens to know a little about what can cause incontinence, chimes in with what she knows (even though as client she's really not supposed to). Eventually I work out that this airline pilot sits all day on long flights. Incontinence comes from a lack of pelvic muscle control. If I give her a lesson on pelvic support while sitting, there's a chance it will increase muscle control and that might help the incontinence, and even if it doesn't, she'll be more comfortable at work.

If you were to talk to my classmate Kevin, he'd tell you that I start to glow when I talk about this segment. I got excited about it the minute I got the email introducing the idea of extra practicums before class started. Besides the fun of playing with an entirely new format, this is a very clear signal that Angel and Richard trust us. They trust that we can give them good feedback about the experiment. They trust that we have a good enough sense of how to use ourselves while giving a lesson without getting overwhelmed by the details of structure. They trust us in our ability to work with people we've never met before. I consider all of that an honor.

Our first round of practicums starts on Thursday morning. Off we go!