vendredi 30 août 2013

HABIT "TURNS US INTO MACHINES"


"Lack of choice makes strain habitual"

"As long as superfluous effort is invested in any action, man must throw up defenses, must brace himself to great effort that is neither comfortable, pleasurable, nor desirable. The lack of choice of whether to make an effort or not turns an action into a habit, and in the end nothing appears more natural than that to which he is accustomed, even if it is opposed to all reason or necessity." 

"Habit makes it easier to persist in an action, and for this reason it is extremely valuable in general. Nevertheless, we easily over-indulge in habits, until self criticism is silenced and our ability to discern is diminished, which gradually turns us into machines that act without thinking."

Text: Moshe Feldenkrais, in Health Exercise for Personal Growth.
Illustration: Fritz Kahn, Man As An Industrial Palace, 1926
More about Fritz Kahn HERE.

MISE À JOUR FASCIA THÉRAPIE - FASCIAL THERAPY UPDATE ?

S'appuyant sur une étude scientifique, cet article dit: Appuyer une pression latérale sur la peau longtemps et lentement de manière étendue ne permettrait pas d'étirer le fascia à proprement parler, dont la forme resterait en fait inchangée. Le relâchement senti à la fois par le masseur et le massé viendrait plutôt d'une réponse neurologique suite à la stimulation des corpuscules de Ruffini, des récepteurs dans la peau précisément sensibles/réactifs à ce genre de toucher. 

Based on research this article says: When we apply a slow extended stretch to the skin we do not actually stretch the fascia, its shape is not altered. Rather it is a neurobiological response triggered by Ruffini corpuscles in the skin, responsive to precisely that kind of touch, that brings about the release felt by both the practitioner and person getting the massage, thank you very much. 

IF WE CANNOT STRETCH FASCIA, WHAT ARE WE DOING ?  


mercredi 28 août 2013

ABOUT HACKERS AND DEPRESSION


Some interesting material related to hackers' psychological well being/health in the article CRACKING SUICIDE: HACKERS TRY TO ENGINEER A CURE FOR DEPRESSION, By Adrianne Jeffries. Full text here. 

EXTRACTS : 


WHAT'S IN A HACKER ?

(...)

Bernadette Schell, vice-provost at Laurentian University, studied hackers for more than a decade. (...)
She wanted to know whether hackers matched their portrayal in the media, which at the time considered them maladjusted cyber-psychopaths. "I kept looking for everything that would support these myths," she said. 
"What I found was that the hacker community was a very well-adjusted group of individuals.At the time, the perception was that hackers were computer addicted, high-strung type A personalities. But the hackers in Schell’s study turned out to be emotionally balanced, "self-healing" type B personalities. They were a bit more introverted than the average population, but still socially connected. Most were employed and made more than the median income level. Incidence of depression was not higher than in the general population. (In fact, some studies have shown that engineers, a group that has a lot of overlap with hackers, have one of the lowest depression rates compared to other occupations.) The hackers were so resilient that even being sent to jail or charged for hacking crimes did not affect their reported stress levels long term.

JUST FIX IT 
(...)

The roboticist, hacker, and Discovery Channel personality Zoz, also known as Andrew Brooks, served as a student mentor while getting his PhD in electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. He ended up counseling a lot of depressed undergrads who tried to reverse-engineer a solution rather than seek help. Many hackers even refer to their strategies for dealing with depression as "hacks." 

(...)

Of course, depression can be difficult to synthesize into a math problem. The cause is usually a combination of cascading factors that are often difficult to trace. The solution can be even harder to pin down.
"It can be incredibly frustrating to be sitting there, looking at your own brain, and going, ‘right, I entirely understand that something is not quite right with the way that my neurotransmitters are communicating with the receptors in my brain,’" Patterson said. "‘I recognize that I can tinker with this balance and otherwise engage in manipulations of my own mental state to try to resolve this situation. I understand all of this, and why is it not working?’"

HACKING TOWARDS SOLUTIONS 
(...)
The popular impression that hackers have a high suicide rate could be because many of the hackers who killed themselves were at the top of their fields, and the highly gifted are statistically more likely to suffer from depression. The community’s facility for dissecting, analyzing, and communicating on the internet — a medium that naturally amplifies its message — has also contributed to the perception that there is a hacker suicide crisis

In reality, the situation is getting better. While there are still some negative associations with mental health issues among hackers, that’s true of most cultures. Like the broader public, awareness of mental health issues is growing, and resources like BlueHackers.org, which has information about depression geared to hackers, and IMAlive, an instant message version of a suicide hotline, have helped countless hackers through their issues. Hackers are also eager to help each other; the line for Baldet’s talk started forming 20 minutes before it was set to start, and she was mobbed by questioners afterward.

Six months after Sassaman died, Patterson appeared on a panel called "Geeks and Depression" at the 2011 Chaos Communication Congress (CCC), an international hacker conference.




mardi 27 août 2013

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECT : AWARENESS OF SELF IMAGE


"Soon you will become aware of a strange sensation, unfamiliar to most people: a clearer picture of your self-image. Here the new image concerns mainly the muscles and skeletal structure. It is much more complete and accurate than that to which you were accustomed and you wonder why you did not learn of this condition sooner"

Moshe Feldenkrais, Health Exercise for Personal Growth 
Amanda Jasnowsky, Greetings from Utopia series

Lire aussi sur ce blog LE DEUXIÈME EFFET KISS COOL 


lundi 26 août 2013

"ATHLÉTISME AFFECTIF"


  • -  Il en est de l'acteur comme d'un véritable athlète physique.
  • –  L'acteur est un athlète du coeur.
  • –  Souffle
  • –  Plus le jeu est sobre et rentré, plus le souffle est large et dense, substantiel.
  • –  Alors qu'à un jeu emporté, volumineux, et qui s'extériorise correspond un souffle aux lames courtes et écrasées.
    –  C'est du monde affectif que l'acteur doit prendre conscience.
    –  Le souffle accompagne le sentiment.
    –  Le secret est d'exacerber ces appuis comme une musculature qu'on écorche.
    –  Toute émotion a des bases organiques. C'est en cultivant son émotion dans son corps que l'acteur en recharge la densité voltaïque.
    Les acteurs en France ne savent plus que parler. 

    ANTONIN ARTAUD, Le théâtre et son double 

"DESCRIPTION D'UN ÉTAT PHYSIQUE" (sensations au scalpel)

    une sensation de brûlure acide dans les membres,
    des muscles tordus et comme à vif, le sentiment
d’être en verre et brisable, une peur, une rétraction
devant le mouvement, et le bruit. Un désarroi incon-
scient de la marche, des gestes,des mouvements. Une
volonté perpétuellement tendue pour les gestes les
plus simples,
     le renoncement au geste simple,
     une fatigue renversante et centrale, une espèce de
fatigue aspirante. Les mouvements à recomposer, une
espèce de fatigue de mort, de la fatigue d’esprit pour
une application de la tension musculaire la plus simple,
le geste de prendre, de s’accrocher inconsciemment à
quelque chose,
     à soutenir par une volonté appliquée.
     Une fatigue de commencement du monde, la sensa-
tion de son corps à porter, un sentiment de fragilité in-
croyable, et qui devient une brisante douleur,
     un état d’engourdissement douloureux, une espèce
d’engourdissement localisé à la peau, qui n’interdit
aucun mouvement mais change le sentiment interne
d’un membre, et donne à la simple station verticale
le prix d’un effort victorieux.
      Localisé probablement à la peau, mais senti comme
la suppression radicale d’un membre, et ne présentant
plus au cerveau que des images de membres filiformes
et cotonneux, des images de membres lointains et
pas à leur place. Une espèce de rupture intérieure
de la correspondance de tous les nerfs.
      Un vertige mouvant, une espèce d’éblouissement
oblique qui accompagne tout effort, une coagulation
de chaleur qui enserre toute l’étendue du crâne ou
s’y découpe par morceaux, des plaques de chaleur
qui se déplacent.
      Une exarcebation douloureuse du crâne, une cou-
pante pression des nerfs, la nuque acharnée à souffrir,
des temps qui vitrifient ou se marbrent, une tête
piétinée de chevaux.
      Il faudrait parler maintenant de la décorporisation
de la réalité, de cette espèce de rupture appliquée,
on dirait, à se multiplier elle-même entre les choses
et le sentiment qu’elles produisent sur notre esprit,
la place qu’elles doivent prendre.
     Ce classement instantané des choses dans les cellules
de l’esprit, non pas tellement dans leur ordre logique,
mais dand leur ordre sentimental, affectif
     (qui ne se fait plus) :
     les choses n’ont plus d’odeur, plus de sexe. Mais
leur ordre logique aussi quelquefois est rompu à cause
justement de leur manque de relent affectif. Les mots
pourrissent à l’appel inconscient du cerveau, tous les
mots pour n’importe quelle opération mentale, et sur-
tout celles qui touchent aux ressorts les plus habituels,
les plus actifs de l’esprit. 


ANTONIN ARTAUD, L'ombilic des Limbes, 1925

samedi 24 août 2013

WORKING WITH PHYSICIANS



Brought by the Massage Therapy Foundation, written by a massage therapist, a quick practical guide on how to develop a partnership with physicians, working together for the well being of patients/clients, rather than against each other.  

vendredi 23 août 2013

DUTY OF CARE


Julian Assange in conversation with reporter Liz Hayes for 60 minutes, August 4th :  

JA: Bradley Manning* is a hero, we should just say it very very clearly. He's a hero.
LH: Do you have sleepless nights about Bradley Manning ?
JA: I'm not the type to toss and turn worrying about something. If I'm not sleeping it is because I'm plotting how to deal with the situation. 
LH: But the vehicle that you provided for him is...
JA: They wouldn't be treating Bradley Manning in the way that they are now if it was not for the fact of our publications, absolutely.
LH: As a human being does that cause you any level of distress ?
JA: It's just, we see him as someone who we have a shared destiny with, as someone who's alleged to be one of our sources, we have some kind of duty of care for him, absolutely. 



* Bradley Manning has since asked to be called Chelsea Manning, with respect to her desire to live as female. Read her statement here

jeudi 22 août 2013

OBSERVE - HACK - MASSAGE


Here I am back from my tour with time to reflect on the wonderful experiences I've lived this summer in company of La Quadrature du Net,  the french organization in the defense of civil rights and freedom on the Internet, and friends from around the world. 
Invited to join their village as a hacker-masseuse on the OHM2013 festival for hackers and makers in the Netherlands, I took part with all my heart for a week, along with a team, to bring massage and care to a place where it was not much represented...at all. 



Our "Hacking with Care" team was composed, for massage, of myself and physiotherapist student Baptiste, who had come to lend a hand (two actually!), of JB hacker-maker of MyOwnStretchWare (nice piece of "reverse engineering for public health"), with whom we put the proposal together and who was also behind the funky initiative Nail art for nerds, and of dancers Karine Rathle and Anne Goldenberg from Quebec, with whom we teamed up to propose workshops. 

The Nail art for nerds, carried out on a playful DIY basis proved great to bring awareness, sensation and meaning (messages, symbols, logos were painted on nails) to the tip of these ultimate 21st century tools which are our hands and fingers. Massage was MUCH wanted all day long and MUCH appreciated. Workshops had great, happy, responsive, audiences. 

Indeed, the two consecutive workshops Karine, Anne and I gave on the third day made for a sensational afternoon. First, Karine and Anne conducted Atten!ion Som(t)a(c)tic, an embodiment workshop in which participants were invited to explore through various postures the physical and more subtle sides of their relationship to their devices (computers, phones...), and to pain and pleasure when working with a machine. Then, to an already quite relaxed and very enthusiastic crowd, I gave a hands-on massage workshop, named after the festival : Observe-Hack-Massage ! My intention was rather simple: With the same passion everyone around felt for their discipline, I set to explain to bright crafty people how the same hacking spirit they apply to pretty much everything can also be applied to the art of massage and body care - a dimension where most had been more shy all week - with great enjoyment and results ! It was very exciting, and people were still exchanging massages on our village after the workshop was over. I heard some were already talking of setting up a massage corner in their hackerspace, and already thinking about how to build the massage table themselves...

At the end of the camp, it was obvious the "Hacking with care" team had done a wonderful job. Each activity invited people to engage with each other (and their devices !) in a variety of (new) ways, brought awareness about one's body, one's relationship to others, to machines and to work, and helped soften some barriers between genders, in a community still dominantly masculine (it felt more balanced on our camp..). 

                                  

Most of all, all these activities blended very well with the magic conviviality of the tea house, which was at the heart of La quadrature du Net's project for OHM2013. 
The tea house was ran collectively by LQDN's team and visitor volunteers, who were spontaneously taking turns at being Tea Masters -very horizontally though- and served a fine selection of tea to everyone from dusk 'til dawn. Various workshops and debates took place sitting at these handmade tables, sipping erva maté or pu-erh, discussing topics such as Net Neutrality, Copyright Reform, or how to "make datalove" to your neighbor, as heartily and rightly argued by spokesperson for LQDN Jérémie Zimmermann in the talk he gave. 




It was a beautiful gathering and bridging of talents and hearts.
We all got a LOT of positive feedback. 
Many people expressed many gestures of gratitude and support for the hacking with care project, whether they had individually received a massage or not. 
We know now there is clearly room for more hacker-masseur and hacker-masseuses like me (and other body and soul practitioners) in the hackers world, just as there are, I believe, many massage or other healthcare/body practitioners who could benefit (and so would everyone they care for) from injecting some of that hacking spirit into their own practice. 

A downside of this beautiful success ? I didn't have much time to attend talks or workshops given by others... Indeed, for the proposal to be as successful as it turned out to be, I kind of had to stick around the massage booth ! I have lots of catching up to do !

Luckily, La Quadrature du OHM's Village attracted many talented persons in its DIY dwellings (almost pumping them in and out like a strong loving heart would do). In the end I had the opportunity to exchange thoughts with the passers by and I learnt a lot, thanks to a genuinely generous attitude I find many had in common. I even got the chance to swap sessions and received one of the most beautiful massages in my life (which is always a lesson in itself). Hackers, you will learn, are certainly not all disembodied goofs like you'd expect them to be. Clichés are often worth crap, but they seemed to make even less sense there in this community. There are many colors to the hackers hats, not just white or black or grey, and sometimes rainbow ! Speaking of which, we were called "hippies" a couple of times, which I actually take as a compliment, if not a manifest, in times so perverted with murderous greed and totalitarian fear. Shouldn't ideals of love, goodness, sharing and caring, be key ingredients in any form of resistance to human-made evils ? Doesn't the world stand better chances to be a nicer place for all if/when these ideals are "built-in" our technologies ? LQDN seems to think so, and I think so too. 




So it was an important week... For us, and for two civil disobedience heroes in particular: Private Bradley Manning -from now on Chelsea Manning- who was convicted on July 30th of 17 charges including 5 counts of espionage and theft, and whistleblower Edward Snowden, who was granted temporary asylum by Russia and left the Moscow airport on the 1st of August of that week. 

French readers who wish to find out more about these events and what went on in OHM2013 can read a series of articles written "en direct" from OHM by journalist Jerôme Hourdeaux for Mediapart. 

Finally, I would like to say once again THANK YOU to everyone and to LQDN especially. 
I hope to be back with more projects and collaborations soon, we sure have lots of ideas to explore and put into practice !

I will be giving the Observe-Hack-Massage workshop again, starting with a session on Thursday December 12th, at the Biopulse School of Massage in Paris. Contact them directly, not me, for information and registration. 

Meanwhile, if you want to help La Quadrature Du Net to keep on keeping 'on, you can make a donation on their website (or reach them if you have other helpful propositions to make). If you want to help me to keep on keepin' on, well, be sure to book a massage or workshop next time I'm in town ! It will do everyone good ;)

PEACE AND DATALOVE




Portrait by Shkaen ;)