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Rating: 
Summary: A Book For Our Times
Review: Lavinia Plonka's book What Are You Afraid of? is certainly a book for our times. It seems that fear is everywhere, in our political, social, and private lives. I found this book enormously insightful. The author is direct and honest in her approach to acknowledging fear and gaining mastery over it. What I particularly found helpful was the focus on ACTION - do this and help is on the way. Ms. Plonka's extensive background in the Feldenkrais Method and her years as a performer lend credence to the exercises she offers here. The illustrations were a delightful bonus.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful introduction to a profound topic
Review: Once one has explored a bodywork-oriented fitness discipline -- Pilates, Yoga, Feldenkrais, Tai Chi, etc. -- in detail, you will begin to notice something interesting: there are certain exercises/postures/positions that are difficult where the difficulty has nothing to do with the mechanics of doing the exercise. You've got the strength, the flexibility, and the balance, but you still can't do it. Maybe the difficulties have to do with something that we are -- or were -- afraid of, and the fear is still embodied in our posture or our movement.In our culture, we usually pay little to no attention to such issues. In other words, we have a fear of revealing our fears -- especially to ourselves. This book is about the courage to see those fears and, through awareness, to begin to have some mastery over them. For me, understanding how I hold my fear in body is profound. It is the "juice" which keeps me practicing Pilates. While I most certainly appreciate the increased strength and flexibility I've achieved, this connection is what touches my heart. Courage is exactly what it takes to keep exploring this connection. I suspect a desire to avoid the mind-body connection is also why many people stop pursuing such disciplines. Many instructors are afraid (!) to discuss such things in their classes; they may or may not have a powerful relationship with these concepts themselves. Ultimately, I think ignoring this topic is counterproductive; students will eventually stumble onto it themselves. I also suspect that this is why more women persue these disciplines -- they tend to intutitvely grasp both the existence and the value in exploring this particular mind/body connection. To this end, this book is a great introduction to these concepts. I highly recommend it to anyone who regularly practices any of these disciplines. I also recommend it to anyone interested in gaining mastery of their fears -- this avenue is quite likely to produce profound results. Lavinia writes with great clarity and illustrates her points with many stories from her Feldenkrais practice. Highly recommended.
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