News from the UK Feldenkrais Community 

• Editors' Update
• Guest Interview
• Guild News
• Feldenkrais News
• Success Story
• Tell Us What You Think

This issue features news of an exciting September array of free live Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons which are being taught in celebration of International Feldenkrais Week.  Our guest interview is with Feldenkrais practitioner Ryan Jansen, who gives a practical test of how we can incorporate movement and awareness into our everyday lives. We're also including a piece on easier walking and an interview with a mother who describes how Feldenkrais has helped her brain-injured baby develop. 
We hope you enjoy the content and find it useful. 

Warm wishes, 
Anne Taylor and Alex Frazier (editors)

Our featured practitioner this issue is Ryan Jansen, an assistant trainer from London, who spoke to Anne about what brought him to Feldenkrais and what he loves best about the method.  There is a free mini movement lesson in the video, and for this you'll need an upright chair at a height which allows you to place your feet firmly on the floor. Please note that Anne is participating not demonstrating in this video so best not to follow her but to concentrate on Ryan's instructions. 

The Feldenkrais Guild UK has chosen to celebrate Moshe Feldenkrais's birthday and International Feldenkrais Week with a series of free recordings and a day of live online lessons on Sunday 11 September to which readers and their friends and family are cordially invited. 

Our everyday habits of sitting, standing, walking and working often accumulate to cause us niggling aches and pains, but these habits can almost always be improved on and refreshed. These lessons are designed to give you a new take on how you move and kickstart your neural pathways into more efficient and elegant action. 

There are three sessions - at 10-11.30am, 2-3.30pm and 6-7.30pm - so please either dip in for one or two, or come to them all. You can find out more on the Feldenkrais Guild UK website (scroll down on the homepage) or book your place directly on Eventbrite here.

Over the course of International Feldenkrais Week the Guild will release a series of new pre-recorded ATMs to its website on a daily basis. These will be announced on Facebook and Instagram between 5 and 11 September and added to our website and existing library of free lessons. 

If you're thinking of doing more walking or running as the weather gets cooler then remember that the Feldenkrais method can help you to improve your ease and efficiency by encouraging use of your whole self.  

Feldenkrais goes beyond the ideas of strength and flexibility in exercise and sport and focuses us on the quality of movement. Rather than relying on effort, force and will power, which are hard to sustain, we being to look for easier, more integrated and fluid movement. 

All ATM (Awareness Through Movement) and FI (Functional Integration) lessons are designed to help us improve our flexibility and integration. In addition, there are a number of resources available that focus specifically on improved walking and running. 

If you are interested in finding out more, the Feldenkrais Guild UK Facebook feed recently featured a reflection on Jack Heggie's book Running with the Whole Body which provides guidance on how to retrain your mind and muscles to improve your strength, coordination, distance and speed. 

You might also want to look at the website and/or sign up to the newsletter of Jae Gruenke, who offers free resources, and Victoria Worsley who has written about how the method can improve running ability and technique. 

Or if you prefer walking you might find this personal account useful: in it Feldenkrais practitioner David Warden describes the benefits of walking for health and how the method has helped him to learn to walk with less effort. 
 

'Feldenkrais changed my baby's life'

After baby Cyrus was born brain injured through lack of oxygen during his birth at a London hospital at the beginning of the first Lockdown in Spring 2020 he spent five weeks in intensive care. As he left hospital doctors could give his parents little indication of his prognosis. 

One consultant, however, stressed the vital importance of early intervention and intensive physical therapy and stimulation to aid his development. 

Now, two years later, his mother Avi believes it is the Feldenkrais Method that has been instrumental in helping him to learn to crawl and take his first steps. 

In addition to the physical and occupational therapy that the NHS was able to provide, Cyrus's mother turned to some other methods and practitioners. One of them used the Anat Baniel Method (ABM) - a derivative of Feldenkrais, which began when Cyrus was 7 months old with 5 days of intensive one-hour sessions. 

"ABM" is very different to conventional physio," says Avi, "It was very slow and gentle and, gradually, we saw significant changes in Cyrus."

This was followed with ongoing sessions with a Feldenkrais practitioner called Alex, who has been working with Cyrus since the age of 13 months. Avi believes this has made more difference than anything else. In a programme of regular sessions, Alex has guided Cyrus through a learning sequence of development movements, identifying areas of focus to aid him in his progress through the normal stages of development. 

"Cyrus is much more tolerant on kneeling and is slowly bearing on his hands. His core is a lot stronger too, allowing him to crawl, moving one hand before the other. Further down the line, with Alex's help, I hope he can walk and talk."

"There are no expectations on Cyrus, and we refuse to compare him with other children," says Avi. "We just accept he will be different...Feldenkrais can change children's lives. It has certainly had a wonderful effect on my child, and we are very grateful."