About May,
I first learned about the Feldenkrais Method a few years after moving to Vancouver. After years training and working as a lawyer, I was craving a more flexible environment and a deeper personal connection with my work. While seeking a new path, I took some mediation and communication classes through the Justice Institute in Vancouver, where I was struck by the power of listening and awareness in creating change. That new understanding and some timely personal conversations led me to classes in the Feldenkrais Method.
I had been physically active throughout my life, running, playing soccer and ultimate frisbee, cycling, hiking, kayaking, and skiing. I camped and worked in the Canadian woods and revelled in the freedom and space of the outdoors. Yoga was particularly important at a difficult point in my life and introduced me to the path of mind-body integration. But it was the Feldenkrais Method that grabbed me and propelled me further and further into bringing movement, learning, awareness and healing change all together into one fascinating package. As I've grown older with the Feldenkrais Method, I'm actually feeling better, continuing being active (although for sure not at the same level as my younger days) and, more importantly, continually improving my ability for self-care, my capacity to see patterns in movement, in life, in society, and to live more fully and creatively in the moment.
I feel lucky to have found Jeff Haller, PhD, of Seattle, WA as my main guide into the Feldenkrais Method. I began my training with Jeff in 1998 and graduated in 2001. That foundational training required a huge paradigm shift, that I did not understand at the time, but I could feel the impact, the relief at knowing I had options. Over time, I've learned to articulate what I only felt in the early days and I now see the universal principles within the method, applied through the physical self, making abstract concepts such as support and capacity and responsiveness, concrete and accessible. Since my initial training, I have taken many post-graduate courses in the Feldenkrais Method, with Jeff and other top teachers in the field, and I continue to take every opportunity to deepen my knowledge and refine my class teaching and hands-on skills. As my practice has developed, I've organically discovered additional areas of study that complement the Feldenkrais Method. I've expanded my skills through the Child'Space Method (to work with babies and children of all abilities and needs) and also through Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy, for a different way of expanding health and doing self-care. Check out my pages relating to those methods. Most recently, I completed Jeff's post-graduate program, Ideal Organization and Postural Strength (IOPS), honing and sharpening my skills. You can learn more about Jeff's approach to teaching the Feldenkrais Method at feldenkraistrainingacademy.com.
A new opportunity has come up, for anyone interested in training to be a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method, starting June 7, 2020, in Kelowna BC. You can get more information via this link.: https://kelownafeldenkraistraining.ca/index.html
My goal, as a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method, is to create an environment where you can expand your possibilities, sense what it feels like to be supported internally through your skeletal system, to be able to move in any direction you need or want to without hesitation or preparation, and thereby to free your energies, and be fully responsive and creative in and to the world around you.
I love what someone attending my classes recently said: "There is less drama in my body and in my life and the only thing that I am doing differently that explains the change is attending these classes". She captured in a sentence what the Feldenkrais Method can offer to you.