The Feldenkrais Method
The Feldenkrais method is a somatic educational system which offers
to improve the quality, range and comfort with which you move.
Since we are moving every moment of our lives, improving how
we move can improve all that we do. The model which the method
applies to learning new movements can be applied to learning any
new skill. In other words, you will also learn to how to learn
better too.
The method is taught in two forms: in group Awareness Through Movement (ATM) classes and one-to-one Functional Integration (FI) lessons. In both cases you will be invited to engage in a pleasurable and playful process through which, simply by paying attention to physical sensations of movement, you will developa fuller and fuller knowledge of yourself in action.
How does it work?
You gain in flexibility and strength not through stretching or exerting yourself in any way, but by working slowly and gently in a way that educates your whole self to move in better and better coordinated, more efficient and graceful way. The more you know about how you are moving, the more efficient your movement becomes – you find you let go of unnecessary habits and holding patterns that have accumulated over your entire life. Improvements become spontaneously useful in everyday life.
What are the effects?
Sounds too easy? While the classes are not necessarily
physically demanding, the challenge here is to pay attention to
yourself as you move. Immediately after a class or lesson, besides
moving easier and more pleasurably, students often report feeling
more alive, relaxed and at peace with themselves; taller and lighter
and able to breathe more freely: more centred
and balanced: and that any difficulties that they were experiencing
in moving have subsided.
Once the immediate effects of a particular session have faded over the following hours or days, you will notice that your everyday movements become easier and more pleasurable, sometimes in unexpected and dramatic ways. I've heard people who reported nothing particularly dramatic in a session report, for example, being able to reach the top shelf while shopping for the first time ever or being able to look around to reverse a car without discomfort for the first time since they can remember.
What kinds of classes are there?
There are several thousand different classes that can be taught in Awareness
Through Movement (ATM) and those classes also form the basis for
one-to-one Functional Integration (FI) lessons. Each class explores
a particular functional relationship in movement. Classes will
often be offered together in a series around a particular theme,
though with its recognition that the whole self is present in
any movement, the effects of any particular class can effect the
whole self.
Over time the classes fit together like a vast endless holographic jigsaw puzzle that, as you explore it, can make a huge difference to the way you experience yourself in life.
Who taught me?
Shelagh O'Neill - Jos Heubens, Scott Clark
The Feldenkrais Method with Malcolm Manning
I teach monthly one-day Awareness
Through Movement (ATM) workshops in Espoo (Vanhakartano)
and from October 2007 onwards will offer some weeklyclasses in
the centre of Helsinki (Töölö)
- I offer occasional one-day workshops in Bern (Switzerland)
and Vienna (Austria)
more ...
I also offer one-to-one Functional Integration (FI) lessons
in Espoo and Helsinki
more ...
On The Web
International Feldenkrais Federation (IFF)
Finnish Feldenkrais Association (SFY)
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