Mind in Motion - The Future of Feldenkrais

A revolutionary approach to optimizing human ability when faced with pain, neurological disability, or the challenges of every day life.

Back Into Action

Your strong & supple spine

During a postgraduate program in Berkeley, Gaby Yaron, one of the graduates of Feldenkrais’ first teacher training, asked us to sit backward on a chair with both feet on the floor and forearms resting comfortably on the back. From this position, she asked each participant to slowly, gently bring their chin forward like a chicken pecking.

Rather than lowering, lifting, or tilting the head in any way, the idea was to move your face forward while staying seated. This action isn’t a true translation because if your head moves strictly along a horizontal line, your pelvis would soon lift from the chair. Advancing your skull in this manner in this position necessitates that your configuration changes, which means something has to happen in your spine.

Stormy weather

It’s been a wild and wooly time at the western edge of North America since the start of the new year. One storm after another has dumped incredible amounts of rain, leading to overflowing creeks and rivers, raging high tides, and destructive mudslides. The downpours are wreaking havoc on the city and county of Santa Cruz.

Breathing optimally

Instead of perfecting a specific form and rhythm of respiration, the Feldenkrais approach is about moving past the habitual postures, recurrent holding patterns, and deep-seated dispositions that interfere with breathing well. You do this by exploring the many ways of breathing built into your body’s design, becoming aware of your compulsions and options, and expanding your respiratory repertoire.

A holiday treat

For the past few days, the morning AY a Day peer study group has been listening to the recordings of Moshe Feldenkrais’ 1981 workshop in Washington, DC. A colleague from Central California, Laura Willard, has been playing the cassettes from the four-day seminar, which was one of the last public courses that Moshe taught, if not the very last.

The crux of martial arts

We just added the Awareness Through Movement® sequence Moving from Your Center to the Mind in Motion Online Shop. Until now, these lessons were only available to the folks who’d participated in The Bodywise Project a couple of years ago.

Inspired by Moshe Feldenkrais’ curriculum for the second year of the San Francisco teacher training, this program presents these rarely taught and profoundly transformative lessons in an accessible, user-friendly format. To read more about this series’ background, please look at my earlier post about it, Finding center.

Somatic support staff

ISMETA is looking for a part-time Assistant Director. If you or someone you know may be interested in joining the ISMETA Team, please check out the details below and send them your resume by December 5th, 2022.

A trailblazing teacher and trainer

High school physics teacher and violinist Yochanan Rywerant started studying with Moshe Feldenkrais in 1952. From 1967 to 1971, he was a member of the original teacher training program in Tel Aviv. Moshe invited Yochanan to teach in his studio at 21 Nachami Street, where he worked for 13 and a half years. He also made Yochanan a member of the faculty of the Amherst training (1980 to 1983), where I met and studied with him.

No straight lines make up my life

When Frederick Schjang invited me to be part of this next LGBTQA Feldenkrais® Festival, I instantly thought of our anatomy and how none of us are straight . . . or perfectly symmetrical.

That’s why I decided to teach a Feldenkrais lesson about one of the nervous system’s critical — yet unappreciated — functions: compensating for our structural asymmetries. Whether you have scoliosis, issues with equilibrium or orientation, or are just dealing with our shared inherited right-left imbalance, I figured this would be a relevant, useful topic to address.

I’ll teach HEADS AND SHOULDERS IN ARC, (also known to Feldenkrais enthusiasts as Alexander Yanai 436), next Thursday, November 17th, at 7:30 AM Eastern time.

A global approach

Checking out my Facebook feed this morning — something I must confess doing incredibly irregularly — I read a post from French Feldenkrais colleague Mickaëlle Acke. In it, she quotes Feldenkrais trainer and speech therapist François Combeau. Over 30 years ago, François established the l’espace de temp présent, a stunning center for somatic learning in the heart of Paris. (I speak from experience because I have had the honor and pleasure of teaching there.)

A matter of style

A few days ago, Carmen Llerenas, a Mexican Feldenkrais colleague who lives and practices in Paris, asked me about my teaching style the other day. I demurred, only saying that how I present Awareness Through Movement lessons has certainly changed over the past 40-plus years.