The experience of change

Yossefa and Eitan Israeli

Rehovot, March ‏2004         

His voice is heard in Stockholm, Melbourne, Vilnius, Delhi.

Place: an apartment of spacious two rooms in a campus of the University of Stockholm, Sweden. Time: End of July, August, September and early October, 2003.

In the morning hours, every morning, seven days a week, Nestor’s voice is heard, speaking Hebrew, from the tape. Two middle aged people are lying on the floor, on which they spread soft mattresses, which at all other times are placed on the beds.

The big window is half open, and through it one can observe a sparse little forest, and people and children whose clothes imply various countries of origin: Iran, Russia, Iraq, the C.I.S.

Nestor speaks in a loud, clear voice and a typical diction. He guides the lying couple in warming exercises, then suggests similar and different body movements, clears the  blockings and benefit the muscles.  There are eight lessons on the tape, taking one week and one day to perform.

The round of lessons ends and restarts, and low and behold: each lessons is considered as entirely new. There was no such lesson last week or last month – it is novel and unique. It is not always easy to listen to Nestor’s instructions: at times, the noise of children playing comes from outside. At times, the sound of Stockholm, spring rain blends in with the speaker’s voice. The couple on the floor know how to guess some of the instructions, and when one of them is uncertain, he asks his companion, while both lie down on the mattresses. Some 45 minutes go by, the bodies are a little weary, stretched and relaxed.

Nestor ends with some concluding exercises, and thanks the participants. The couple rise, straighten their clothes and say in a clear voice: “Thank you Nestor!”. Indeed, Nestor is a regular companion to this, not so young couple, in their journey in Sweden. 

Place: An apartment of one bedroom, living room and kitchen, in the height of the 6^th floor of an apartment building, overlooking a busy, trendy street full of lights and sounds, in the city of Melbourne, Australia. Time: October, November, December 2003 and half of January 2004. In the morning hours, almost every morning, Nestor’s voice is heard, in Hebrew, from a tape. The same middle aged couple is lying on the wall to wall carpet, without supportive mattresses. A new Radio is hosting the tape, the wide windows are slightly open so that the wind enters in a whistle. This room is smaller, denser than the room in Sweden, hardly allowing space for the two lying bodies. Nestor carries on with his guiding efforts and does not mind the crowdedness. He stretches arms and legs, lifts heads and eyebrows, waves right and left, up and down, and surprisingly, calls for complex, twisted movements. The couple complies with the instructions, almost without a word, and does not poses questions as to why and how so.  

The compliance is almost total, and the lesson progresses confidently and flowingly, from one stage to the next. After some 45 minutes, the couple had already waved, lifted, bent and moved to all directions – Nestor ends with a “Thank you”. In far away Melbourne as well, the hedonistic, beautiful city, the couple thanks Nestor out loud, turn the radio off, place the tape on a shelf, and prepare themselves to a day of working, sightseeing, visiting and meeting people.

Place: A hotel in the Baltic city of Vilnius, Lithuania. Early morning, before breakfast. The above mentioned couple, no longer young, had come on a trip that follows   family origins in Lithuania – where the man’s father was born, and where part of the family perished in the holocaust. It is cold in September in Lithuania. There is a thin layer of frost on the closed window. In the room, a weak heating is on, and the couple are on the floor. No mattresses, no carpet, on the floor.

Their bodies begin to move along with Nestor’s voice, supervising their movements and guiding them from one exercise to another. The Hebrew is impeccable, the guidance clear and accurate. The pace allows for some time of rest, and the movements well directed and supervised.

In less than an hour, the guide will show up: a local, Hebrew speaking Jewish man who will take the couple to the death sites of hundreds of thousands of Jews. He will describe the ghetto and the battles; will lead them from house to house and point at the stone boards commemorating the deceased; will drive them to nearby and faraway forests, to stand in front of piles of dirt covering the shot and the incinerated. But for now, till they rise from the floor, they are with Nestor, who thanks them and whom they thank for faithfully accompanying them, from country to country, from place to place.

Place: An old hotel at the city of Delhi, India. A huge city of millions of residents and inhabitants. Time: a morning in the end of January. This morning here, the next morning elsewhere, in their journey in India. The couple is weary from long days and visits to castles, markets, palaces, shrines.

In the evening they return, their heads blow up with smells, colors and sounds, absorbed in constantly moving swarms of people, and in sensual experiences that need yet to be digested. Who is the couple’s best friend in such times? Nestor! He keeps guiding, in his continuous, clear voice, with his confident knowledge as to what to do, how to do and how much. The bodies are moving and the minds racing. The instructions keep asking for “small movements” and “do not hurry” – but the visit to India is made of big, fast, uncontrollable movements.

When Nestor says his thanks at the end of the lesson, the couple gather themselves: they thank Nestor, happy to have him with them in this huge country and endless city, and in this unknown world. Nestor is with them everywhere. Thanks, Nestor!

Mid-March, 2004. The back is tense, the shoulder hurts, the left leg is aching to fall out of place. We did not practice Feldenkrais for a few days.

We came back home and immediately renewed contact with Nestor Levin’s Feldenkrais center. The room is heated, the students lie on supportive mattresses, the movements are familiar but diverse, the body stretched, rust all gone, and at the end of the lesson, the feeling is of joy and relief. We are assisted by Nestor Levin, who will return the vitality and youth to our bodies.