Merrily we roll along

For the past couple of years, I’ve hitched my wagon, metaphorically speaking, to a couple of Functional Integration lessons. One, I learned more than forty years ago from my mentor, Edna Rossenas; the other, thirty or so years ago from Paul Newton, who I believe learned it from Mark Reese. Each uses a roller, though the one I learned from Edna, which I call The Neck Roller, uses the medium (4”/10 cm) roller, and the other, which I named Sitting at a Column, uses the standard larger (6”/15 cm) roller. (I came up with titles because no one told me their “official” names, if they ever had any.) As far as I know, both of these FI compositions are based on lessons developed by Moshe Feldenkrais.

When I say I hitched my wagon to these FIs, I mean that for the past couple of years I intentionally incorporated them in my work with individual students — where appropriate and beneficial, of course — and applied the schema and scenario of these lessons by composing new, but related Awareness Through Movement classes.

Besides deepening my own appreciation for these lessons, I intentionally engaged with these hands-on lessons to prepare to teach Feldenkrais colleagues how to give them to their students. I hadn’t done that for at least fifteen years. I figured I would need several months to reflect on what I had learned in the intervening years.

Thank goodness I had the forethought to give myself the leeway. It took several iterations over the course of a year to assimilate the accumulated array of insights, refined understandings, and deeper, wider perspectives. Then I needed to contemplate, clarify, and reconstruct the entire curriculum.

For instance, while I appreciated the importance of the teacher’s biomechanics and self-use beforehand, now it seemed impossible to consider the techniques and tactics of these lessons without addressing the way the teacher moves and interacts with the student from the get-go.

Indeed, I saw clearly how the global coordination pattern — or function — of each lesson relates directly to the teacher’s comportment. Unless this was incorporated into how teachers conduct themselves, they would move in ways that were incongruent with the lesson’s aim and message. While the abstract idea had been clear to me before, now I couldn’t help but see that the lesson could not be effective unless the teacher embodied these crucial functional ideas.

In other words, a lesson's effectiveness is inseparable from the teacher's own embodiment. If our movements are incongruent with the lesson's aim, the message is lost.

I’ll be presenting the last two postgraduate courses about these lessons in the coming months. The penultimate seminar happens in Paris from 14 to 18 April 2026, where there are twenty-some participants enrolled. The final program occurs in Santa Cruz during the first five days of May.

Instead of the standard design, in the Santa Cruz program we are using the small-group apprenticeship model that I adopted in 2024. In this intensive approach, we enroll a maximum of eight participants in the program. The tiny class size makes it possible to accompany and observe each person more closely and continuously than would ever be possible in a larger group setting. Tracking each student’s learning process allows me to offer personalized support and guidance, and to do so at the most relevant moments.

The May course is actually my second go-round teaching this roller program in Santa Cruz this year. The participants in the first group requested a three-day follow-up to review, refresh, deepen, and extend what they learned in the initial five days. Participants in the May program can also participate in the second part as well.

As of today, there is only one space remaining in the Paris course. Because a couple of participants had to drop out of the May program in Santa Cruz, there are now four spaces remaining. We revived and extended the early registration tuition until next Monday, 30 March.

We use the family room and the living/dining room area of a vacation rental as the classrooms for the course. Due to recent, unexpected enrollment changes, one of the bedrooms is now available to rent for the duration of the course. Please let us know when you sign up for the course if you’re interested in renting the remaining room.