Thursday, November 20, 2008

Mirzakarim Norbekov


A very interesting character. Norbekov is a Russian who specializes in alternative medicine and “mind-stuff”. He believes that a patient cures himself. He wrote a book in Russian that can be translated like One Fool’s Experience or the Way to Vision. It’s a curious read, lots of motivationl talk. He is a big believer in visualization, affirmations and other so-called new age techniques. He is also adamant that an empty form like a physical exercise is useless without a mental focus. Which is all true and good. But here’s the rub:

He likes eye exercises of roll up and down type, left and right. While there might be something to them, usually the response is negative: they are useless as far as vision improvement goes.

Norbekov also came up with his own version of palming and sunning but he never credits Bates. Not even once. I would be cautious in accepting his word. Everyone even superficially acquainted with Bates method knows that he is the one who came up with palming and sunning and invented the terms. No doubt techniques existed before but Bates introduced them to the general public. I don’t think it’s wise for Norbekov to take credit for that.

One more thing. His approach “mental attitude is the primary factor” implies that you can bully your eyes into good vision. I am sorry to say that it’s not so. If it were that easy we would all have excellent eyesight. He is a charismatic person and he probably helped lots of people who conversed with him personally. His method of improving eyesight is very similar to Bates’. While Bates’ focus was on complete relaxation, Norbekov’s is on positive mental attitude.

His book is worth reading though, there are some good ideas there. He does go over the top sometimes with this positive attitude but he also tells amusing stories.

3 comments:

Thomas Wold said...

Hi, Alice.

Am enjoying your very informative articles on Bates--keep up the good work!

Unknown said...

An interesting article... But, I have read the book, and it offers a lot more, than just a copy-cat of Bates method. The method has been around, and used in Central and Eastern Asia for around 2000 years. The question is - perhaps Bates did not come up with the method, but took an existing one?
Anyhow, it worked for me. No matter who created it. =)) You should try as well. If it doesn't work, no harm done, right? 8))

Alice deMont said...

Glad to hear it worked for you. Could you be more specific? How bad was your vision and how much have you recovered?

Sure, the "method" has been around. Bates came up with some specific techniques though that are not mentioned anywhere else. But as for the mind-body connection principle in general, yes, many systems are based on it including yoga and qigong. One might say that Bates discovered yoga principles by himself as it does not look like he was interested in yoga.

Norbekov wrote a very good book but perhaps he should have stuck to general principles rather than put this add-on about vision improvement. The impression is it's kind of thrown in as an afterthought to justify the title.