Newsletter • 5 minute read

Newsletter # 131 :
Introducing 5 lessons from an upcoming book about voice, and the wisdom of insecurity.

A second note from Robert Sussuma, a small study in seeing, a book to keep near your mat, and a line from James J. Gibson.

This issue stays close to voice, perception, and the kind of attention that lets a question open a little further. We begin with Robert Sussuma’s next note on developmental vocal learning, then move through seeing, reading, and one line worth carrying into practice.

-- 01

A note from Robert Sussuma #2

Robert describes the first 5 lessons from "DEVELOPING VOCAL AWARENESS" - A book you can discover in the August workshop

by Robert Sussuma

When I was thinking about putting together this 10-lesson Vocal Learning Journey for the book, I considered the natural progression of developmental vocal learning as I understand it. Here’s a bit about the first 5 lessons and why I chose them:

Lesson 1: The Primal Impulse (Suckling/Sirening)

If you've studied the Amherst Training videos, you know that Dr. Feldenkrais opens with a simple, but brilliant sucking lesson. It's not so detailed though, and focuses mostly on the lips, some meta-themes and preparation for the training. Over the years, I've looked deeply into the function of suckling and found that it's an amazing early reflex and essential skill for singers and voice users to revisit and master; it holds so many secrets and clues to vocal function within its patterns. Pairing suckling with sirening, a classic vocal exercise, highlights the differences and connections between somatic learning and vocal training without creating an unnecessary duality between the two.

Lesson 2: The Early Echo (/ma-ba/)

Like with suckling, the lips and tongue are some of our earliest direct contact points with the world and those around us - they are where inner meets outer in such a beautiful and nourishing way. Later, they become part of our vocal playground as we expand our repertoire of sounds, explore new movement patterns, and reach out with our voices to contact others, just as they have been doing with us all along, through the meaningful vibrations we send into the air.

Interestingly, similar to general movement development, there is a basic progression of early sound milestones (miletones?) for all infants to discover before we each specialize toward the ones we will eventually speak (non-canonical vs. canonical phonemes). In other words, if the crawling pattern precedes walking, then babbling precedes speaking in a similar way.

The "ma" and "ba" are some of the earliest of these babbling sounds. Exploring them in old and new ways brings not only novel phonemic possibilities, and a fresh understanding of the vocal mechanism, but also invokes these early patterns within us. This gives us an opportunity to update the system by resetting the facial, oral and vocal tonus and expanding vocal awareness throughout developmental time.

Lesson 3: The Tongue in Suspension (Tongue/Hyoid)

The "tongue" isn't what you think it is. It's way more. It's a complex, multifaceted, multi-directionally moving organ that defies the laws of physiology; it connects to the jaw, the spine, the inside of the skull and the hyoid bone (the "tongue bone" as they say in Dutch). The hyoid bone, in turn, is "slung" from and connected by various muscles and ligaments to the outside of the skull, spine, and even the shoulder blades. Free-floating itself, it also functions as a bony anchor point around which so many soft and cartilaginous structures move and compress - deforming and reforming the space within the vocal tract - most importantly, the larynx.

So… what is the tongue?! It's ALL OF IT (and more) and learning to organize all of those movement and functional possibilities requires lots of awareness and systematic exploration.

This lesson engages all of those parts in a way that is deeply primitive and clarifying. It harkens back to early evolutionary, undifferentiated movements to bring about greater differentiation now. The result is often more ease and connection throughout the entire vocal tract for free and powerful voicing of all kinds.

Lesson 4: The Threshold of the Palate (/th/)

What is the nose? Where does it begin and end? And why do most singers not only avoid it, but completely demonize it when it comes to "proper" and "beautiful" vocal use?

I don't get it.

From a functional perspective, as we think in the Feldenkrais way, the nose is not only one of the teleceptors, it also plays a major role in our vocal, respiratory, and digestive systems. It must not be bypassed, ignored or left out of the picture. And even if one tries to do so, one can't! It's always there having its way. Learning to "include the nose" in the whole self image, as well as in the singing self image, is a crucial, unifying and liberating move. As I like to say, "the nose knows," but very few of us know what it has known all along.

Hint: it goes way beyond smelling and breathing and might even have something to do with topics singers obsess over: "support," "squillo," and "laryngeal posture," to name a few.

To begin the inquiry into the nose and its wonders, this lesson explores the liminal space where nose meets mouth meets throat; where hard (palate) meets soft (velum) meets hard (spine) again, and how we can learn to sense, clarify and get very dexterous in this part of our pharyngeal anatomy.

Let's see what happens when we explore new coordinations in the velopharyngeal port and surrounding areas in an open and unbiased way. It's so cool back there!

Lesson 5: The Skeleton's Soundboard (humming)

Sitting atop it all, our own personal caput mundi, is the skull, a kind of grand bony cathedral with labyrinthine passages, secret rooms, and intricate beam-like connections from "floor to floor." Singers often talk about resonance and singing through the mask, but few have truly delved deeply, and experientially, into the beauty, function and power of the entire skull's actual structure.

And, from a Feldenkrais perspective, we know that the bones can optimally organize movement, so why can't vibrating the bones with awareness, through directed intention, do the same for vocal movements? Well... it turns out that it can!

In this lesson, we'll take a tour of the skull, bone by bone, level by level, and learn to sense it, sound it and use it to organize and complement what we're doing in the vocal tract for maximal efficiency, integration and proportionality.

Let's sing the bones alive then let them do the work of singing for us!

-- -- -- -- -- --

As you can see, these lessons are a kind of developmental progression, while also being an introduction to singing - and what's important to singers and vocalists - from the Feldenkrais perspective. Each lesson stands alone, but is also in connection and communication with all of the others. It’s a set of linear/non-linear experiences that lay the groundwork for an ever-expanding living image of the singing self within the larger self image.

In the Brussels workshop, The Practitioner's Vocal Toolkit, I'll personally lead you through these lessons while also adding more depth of understanding and detail around the lessons and their logic so that you too can learn to swim and play in these sacred waters and work with others around voice, singing and speaking, in new, but very Feldenkrais-friendly ways. In my next installment, I'll dive into the final 5 lessons of this series. Stay tuned to see where this lesson journey could take you and/or your students when the book (and workshop!) finally comes out in August 2026.

-- 02

Did you know?

Seeing is just Touch at a Distance

Your eyes don’t just record images — they move to feel. Each tiny flicker of motion, called a saccade, refreshes your perception. If your eyes were perfectly still, the world would fade to gray within seconds. You actually see with your brain: around 80% of what you perceive is predicted and filled in from memory and expectation. Vision is an act of imagination, a collaboration between sensing and remembering. The visual system is also deeply tied to posture: when your gaze shifts, your spine subtly follows. Every change in orientation begins with a shift in seeing.

-- 03

Book of the week

The Wisdom of Insecurity: Learning to Rest in the Present Moment

Alan Watts

Alan Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity feels like a conversation with our practice in the Feldenkrais Method. Written in 1951, it speaks to what many of us feel in the 21st century: a life overflowing with information, speed, and subtle anxiety. Watts’ message is both radical and simple — our unease comes from the very effort to escape it. In trying to secure the future, we lose contact with the only moment that truly exists: now.

Watts calls this the “backwards law.” When we try to hold on, we lose. When we let go, we find ourselves supported. It’s the same paradox we experience on the floor in an Awareness Through Movement lesson: when we try to do the movement, it stiffens; when we allow it, the body organizes itself. What we call “letting go” is not passivity — it’s the intelligence of the system resuming its natural harmony.

The book opens with “The Age of Anxiety,” describing a world where we chase pleasure, security, and progress as antidotes to the fear of impermanence. Yet Watts shows that insecurity is not an error — it is life itself. The stream of experience cannot be frozen; to be alive is to be in motion, in change. Like breath, like movement, awareness itself depends on letting things come and go.

In this light, the Feldenkrais practice becomes a lived exploration of Watts’ insight. Each lesson invites us to inhabit the marvelous moment — to sense the body not as an object to fix, but as a living process. When the mind quiets, movement and attention find their natural rhythm. In those brief moments of effortless presence, we realize that nothing needs to be secured. The body is breathing; the earth is holding us; life is unfolding.

Watts writes that “faith is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be.” In the same way, every movement lesson is an act of faith — not belief, but curiosity — an invitation to meet experience freshly, without preconception. The wisdom of insecurity is the wisdom of sensing, of being, of trusting that awareness itself is enough.

-- 04

Quote of the week

With warmth,
Feldenkrais Education