Ethan Cowan

Transcribing Esalen 4 - Tilting Crossed Legs

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 09:52:36 -0600

I’ve just acquired a typewriter, and it’s part of a new (to me) way of doing ATM transcriptions. I hope to write about this transcription process in the future, because it’s changing how I am approaching my ATM study.

One big aha, so far (I started transcribing Esalen 4 - Tilting Crossed Legs) is seeing how much of Feldenkrais' original language was edited out of the Stransky notes, namely some of the bigger picture ideas…

For example:

With some they draw (the legs) much nearer to the floor than with others. Is this structural? Is it human or is it personal? We want to know all that. And I want you, by the end of the lesson, you will see that it’s different from what’s now. And the real difference will remain only inasmuch as the body is differently built. But not with those fancy, parasitic contractions that there are in the body left over from the standing, from previous experience which has not been digested properly.

All this cool stuff Moshe says about the difference between structural constraints and personal habits, and the leftovers of previous experience that haven’t been properly digested… these details don’t appear in the Stransky notes.

I’m not sure who made the decisions to leave these things out. Was it Judith Stransky or Feldenkrais Resources, who published her “notes” in 1987? Based on this interview with Judith Stransky, I can imagine she might have felt like he was bloviating. Another possibility is that the ideas were just over her head? I’m saying that not as a knock on her, but because I have had the personal experience of not being able to really “hear” some stuff Moshe says when I don’t understanding it, and it all goes by so fast… Or maybe their removal stems from the fact that the opening lecture isn’t included in the notes, so when Feldenkrais refers back to ideas like these that he did introduce before, the editors didn’t think there was enough context to include the ideas?

Anyway, I’m trying to make sense of the editorial focus that leaves out ideas like these.

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:52:16 -0600

Finished reading: A System for Writing by Bob Doto

This is a very helpful primer on how to make notes that lead to writing.

Attensity!

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 06:43:56 -0600

Finished reading: Attensity! by The Friends of Attention

The five biggest companies in the world, including Apple, are in the business of human fracking. They are fracking our collective attention and polluting our inner environments! They’re driven by greed. Their goal is making money. And my “time on device” is the only thing about me that is real to them, because that’s the part of my being that can be recorded, quantified and eventually sold.

This book helped me see how It benefits them if my habits of attention calcify around their devices. When I saw that and felt it clearly, all of a sudden I had a very actionable desire to stop paying so much attention to the screens.

It’s not so often that reading a book has a concrete effect on my life, but this one had me switching off my digital tools and turning my attention back to other ways of being, and it feels so good. Thank you for the inspiration, Friends of Attention!

Mon, 06 Apr 2026 20:14:08 -0600

Number Five, from the Twelve Theses on Attention:

An attentional path is the trace left by a free mind. To submit to the attentional path of another, to retrace it, is a form of attention. Retracing the attentional path of a free mind is one of the keenest pleasures we can take in each other and in the world.

Concrete examples of retracing attentional paths: transcribing solos of jazz musicians and transcribing Feldō Awareness Through Movement Lessons.

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:20:41 -0600

I just gave a lesson at the Stroke Support Group at Lutheran Hospital in Denver, my first time presenting Feldenkrais to adult stroke survivors, who seemed to enjoy the lesson, and the broadest idea I shared was: We, as a community, can set aside time to do less and try softer, and it’s worth it.

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 11:38:41 -0600

Went on a hike this morning then vibe coded a map making script that puts together gpx and heart rate data.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 18:07:07 -0600

I just finished reading: Shu Ha Ri by Richard Griffiths @writingslowly

I liked how short it was. I think it would fit in well with other books from Tracy Durnell’s In praise of the hundred page idea.

Shu Ha Ri is about learning through lineage, then keeping lineage alive. I liked the weave of examples from different ways (dōs) that run through the book. Most touching was the story of Jigoro Kano, founder of Judō, whose final request in life was to be buried wearing his white belt. I had already heard a fair bit about Kano because Moshe Feldenkrais studied with Kano, so Kano feels like an ancestor in the Feldenkrais lineage I’m practicing in. But I had never heard this detail about Kano’s intention to maintain beginner’s mind even after going through death.

I also appreciated the explanation of Keiko, a word for training that includes reference to 10 generations of practitioners before. It had me thinking about how lineage holders actually want an endlessness for their practice, for the “living knowledge” or the meme of the practice to go on and on.

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 07:48:14 -0600

Attention is Precious

Turns out I started blogging in 2007

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:04:15 -0600

In 2007 I graduated from college and started blogging on blogger.com. I had one called Ethan Brand Development and another one called Acade-Me.

I only published that first summer. In the fall, I started more blogs but never published, just made drafts. Basically journal entries. I won’t bring the drafts forward onto my website now, but I’m definitely keeping them in my files for reference. Some juicy, personal stuff in there. Can’t believe it’s all still just sitting in blogger.com.

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:35:02 -0600

I’m thinking about retro-actively assembling my personal website as an archive of lots of previous stuff I did, including stuff I already posted online, which is what Lisa Charlotte Muth did bringing everything back to her website, but ALSO maybe some stuff I haven’t posted before.

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 16:54:00 -0600

Esalen 3

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:33:31 -0600

Esalen 2 - Scanning and 5 Lines

I want to write a book

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 13:44:10 -0600

I don’t know why. I’m not sure what it would be about. Plus I know it’s a BIG project and I don’t really have much training. But this desire to write a book just keeps coming up in my life.

And since I’m not getting any younger, I figure I might as well be honest with myself and try to get into it while I have time.

Most of the writing I’ve done until now has been in my journals. And like most people, I’ve also done a little bit of online posting, here and there, but nothing much of note.

But then every once in a while, this bigger desire comes along, to do a bigger project, and it’s always a feeling that just has this general shape, like, “I want to write a book.” And typically, when this happens, I rush into a headspace full of mental furniture and start arranging and rearranging, like guests will be arriving soon.

Sometimes, I’m vaguely aware this inner book fantasy must have something to do with my outer life. What’s going on with me that this is the shape of desire that keeps suggesting itself? A book shaped desire. But then, pretty quickly that hint of perspective turns out to be fleeting and flown.

And again, I’m not sure what I want my writing to do for me, or what I can do for my writing. I think I need to train if I’m going to make it to the top of this book mountain that I seem to be wanting to climb.

I know there are many ways to write: essays, novels, scripts, notes, journalism, blogging, all the sub-genres therein.

I’m not sure what my book would even be about. I’m not sure why my thing would even need to be a book. I don’t know why.

With everything going on in 2026, I feel strange. And haven’t there been enough books already? But I didn’t get my chance yet.

So, here I am, apparently, setting my sights on the top of book mountain. And I guess if I ever make it up there, to the top, I’m probably gonna end up like the bear in the song… to see what he could see.

Wed, 18 Feb 2026 10:39:00 -0600

One of my top contenders for 2026 slogan of the year (it’s early yet, but this does a lot of conceptual work for me).

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 17:00:00 -0600

Esalen 47 - Public Class Sitting Twist

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:02:00 -0600

Esalen 32 - Measuring

Mon, 19 Jan 2026 14:04:00 -0600

Esalen 30 - Bridge

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 17:06:00 -0600

Esalen 29 - Toes

Wed, 14 Jan 2026 20:07:00 -0600

Esalen 26 - Foot Above the Head

Unwrap the Present - Perfect Hinges

Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:07:00 -0600

I’m trying something again, composing my own movement lessons. I’ve done it before, though this time feels different, like I have more faith in the process and more experience under my belt. I’m keeping the process fast and loose, minimal editing, opposite of fussy, like how I imagine the original Alexander Yanai lessons got done.

Make a recording. Try it out with a small audience. Keep moving.

This is a short lesson, no frills, maybe more like a sketch or demo than a finished thing. It’s a one sided, but if that bugs you, just repeat on the other side.

Please let me know if you do the lesson, how it is, what you notice, what doesn’t make sense, etc. Any and all feedback will be entertained.

Yours in gravity and support, Ethan

Transcript

Mon, 06 Oct 2025 17:11:00 -0600

Mia and Gaby SF Evenings 1978 - 1 - Coordinating Flexors and Extensors

Feldenkrais Variations Help Us Make Better Mistakes

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 11:16:00 -0600

When we’re learning as kids, before we go to any kind of school, we learn to use ourselves by making mistakes. Trial and error.

For example, let’s say a baby is trying to put something into her mouth, and you watch her go through six or seven mistakes, putting the thing on her ear, her eye, on her forehead, her nose, on her chin, her other eye, and then finally she gets it into her mouth.

The next time she has the desire to put something in her mouth, maybe she goes through five mistakes before she finds satisfaction. Next time maybe three mistakes, until eventually she has a clear, repeatable idea about how to put something into her mouth.

In this context, errors and mistakes aren’t actually bad at all. In fact, the errors are what allowed her to get more clear about how to do what she wants. By learning through trials and errors and self-corrections, she wired into her brain a personal habit, a personal answer to the question, How do I put something in my mouth?

So some mistakes lead to a personal solution.

The organic learning process—trials and errors wiring a functional map of the body into the brain—is something that every human does, no matter what. Every human nervous system gets wired in through this kind of learning. Trying things and making distinctions about whether a certain outcome was closer to the intention or farther away.

This is as true for kids with brain injuries as it is for anyone else. What’s different for kids with brain injuries is that they might not have access to sensing and feeling different parts of themselves. They might also process and integrate information in different ways.

In The Basic Situation, I talked about how a kid’s self-image takes shape based on what parts of herself she is able to use. The basic idea: if her access to sensations and perceptions of herself is limited by a brain injury or anything else, then her learning process will work around the blank spots to develop a self image that is personally meaningful (the best she can manage) but also incomplete. For a kid with a really incomplete self-image, some habits formed through her available set of trials and errors may turn into developmental cul du sacs.

If we’re going to call any habit a “mistake,” we need to distinguish that from the productive trials and errors I was talking about before. Maybe a habit can be mistaken in the sense that it don’t lead anywhere or it results in physical wear-and-tear, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s meaningful to the person who put it together. Any habit is a personal solution, and it can be nice to live in a quiet cul du sac.

One of the core ideas of the Feldenkrais Method is: we’re looking back at the organic, spontaneous learning process we see in the early lives of each human, and we’re trying to rekindle and spark the same organic, spontaneous learning process in someone who’s farther down the path, who already has habits.

To interrupt and reshuffle habits, we actually need to generate more of those early kinds of mistakes that helped when we were first exploring and mapping our self. We need to re-discover the process of exploring “How do I do this?”

For a kid with limited access to her own sensations and perceptions—and for anyone who has movement habits that need shuffling, btw—the trick is to generate more of those early, illuminating mistakes in novel contexts. In Feldenkrais lingo, we call this creating variations. We guide kids (and other folks) into various movement situations that imply new goals and new challenges. We work to bring in unexplored parts and make available new coordinations for the primal learning process to consider.

The way this looks is different for each child, but the basic idea is to approach already familiar positions from different directions and then introduce novel, developmentally appropriate movement situations the child hasn’t discovered on her own yet. With all variations, we introduce them in slow and subtle ways, tailored to each child, so they can start to sense and feel what each new variation implies.

The Basic Situation

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 17:06:00 -0600

Let’s say a baby is born and one of her eyes needs a surgery. So they do the surgery and it goes well and the eye is going to be totally usable, but it’s gonna take a little bit of time for it to heal. If that eye is kept covered during the healing process, the baby will learn how to live without it.

She’ll look for the path of least resistance and work her life around the functional absence of the eye, meaning her growing sense of self will not include the eye that’s covered. The eye that is working will get wired-in, along with everything else she can sense and feel, into her map of what’s possible.

But later down the road, let’s say the second eye is healed and it gets uncovered. Now there is a problem because even though the surgery worked to make the eye potentially functional, it’s not actually functional because it’s not part of the bigger picture she’s already developed of herself.

So there’s an interesting tension between how she’s learned to use herself and this new element that is her eye but not part of her self image.

If she is going to use that second eye in any meaningful way, it’s going to require her to engage with a process of re-learning (and un-learning) how to use her whole self. She’s going to have to figure out how to take apart and reintegrate the system of habits and coordinations she made with just the one eye, which is actually really hard because that’s the “good enough” set of habits she’s come to depend on.

Even if it seems obvious from the outside that two eyes are better than one, to the kid it doesn’t feel that way. In fact, she may feel that learning to use the second eye is so inconvenient it’s almost unthinkable, and there’s a good chance she won’t do it if left to her own devices.

This is a schematic example—of course, real world children can be in situations that are significantly more complex. But this hypothetical captures something fundamental about the basic situation I’m working with as a Feldenkrais practitioner, which is the incomplete self-image. If I were working with a child like this, I would be trying to create conditions for her to learn to use her second eye. More generally, I would be suggesting ways for her to re-organize the elements in her brain-body system to become more herself.

Why can't I just relax?

Fri, 15 Aug 2025 12:52:00 -0600

Last weekend I went on a four hour alpine hike with three friends from high school, and I got worked. Trying to keep up with them, I found myself deeply tired, coming down the mountain with an aching knee. What was frustrating was, in spite of my Feldenkrais training, when I tried to relax and make inner adjustments to control my knee pain, I couldn’t do it. My knee kept hurting and whatever below-the-radar muscle was pulling on my knee kept pulling. Self-doubt started saying, “Why the fuck do I spend so many hours rolling around on the floor doing feldenkrais if I can’t use any of that awareness now?”

It was one of those moments when I wished I could “just relax,” but it was impossible.

The problem with muscular tension we can’t control is, it’s an automatic brain event we’re doing to ourselves. And it’s a perceptual problem, like we can’t perceive what’s happening. If we realized what we were doing to make the pain, we would stop, but we’re in trouble because we can’t feel what we’re doing. My knee hurts, but “I’m not doing that,” but if I’m not doing that, who is?

This is the same thing I see with the kids I work with. When there’s a brain injury, the involuntary muscular tension is called spasticity - high-tone they don’t know how to stop. Whenever they’re doing spasticity, that’s the best they’ve figured out so far, but the truth is they’re not accurately perceiving or feeling their own spastic activity.

As humans, our ability to auto-pilot is a blessing and a curse. What’s important to remember, though, is everything we do automatically now we learned at some point in the past. For example, even though all our deep postural systems operate mostly outside conscious awareness now, that’s only because we had a many years long apprenticeship as children. For years, movement and coordination were the main things we focused on every day, which is how we automated an entire repertoire of movement fundamentals that now just work. So that’s good automatic. Bad automatic is when, whatever we learned in the past, we can’t stop doing now. Our use-to-be-good automatic isn’t appropriate for a new situation. Like the movement patterns I use when sitting at my computer writing - I should know how to stop doing those when I’m hiking up a mountain.

When I’m working with kids, I’m always thinking: how can I influence automatic, unconscious processes? That’s the job. The goal isn’t to have conscious control over everything. In the mountains, I wish I could’ve just gone up and down, having a nice conversation with my friends, taking in the scenery without any knee pain ever coming up. But sometimes there’s old automatic stuff that’s not useful right now, and it grabs my attention because I can’t turn it off.

Understanding my own experience of fatigue and painful compensation softens my heart for these kids. It’s such a human situation to have the automatic parts of your life get in the way of doing what you want. The name of the game is learning. We need to know how to let the deeper, automatic parts of us reconfigure when they need to.

Thu, 07 Aug 2025 17:09:00 -0600

Circling on the Ear