News from the UK Feldenkrais Community 

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

This issue features the latest news from the Feldenkrais Guild UK.  Our guest interview is with Feldenkrais practitioner Julie Taylor-Browne, who explains how she helped her client return to walking on the coastal path and gives a free mini Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson. We're also including a piece on balance and an interview with someone who has used the Feldenkrais Method to help him recover from a stroke. 

We hope you enjoy the content and find it useful. 

Warm wishes, 
Anne Taylor and Alex Frazier (editors)

Our featured practitioner this issue is Julie Taylor-Browne, a practitioner in Cornwall, who spoke to Alex about what brought her to Feldenkrais and what she loves best about the method.  There is a free mini movement lesson in the video which can help with foot, back or hip pain. For this lesson you'll need an upright chair at a height which allows you to place your feet firmly on the floor. Please note that Alex is participating not demonstrating in this video so best not to follow her but to concentrate on Julie’s instructions. 

Balance can be a matter of life of death for people as they age, a new study has found. The good news is that Feldenkrais, and in particular Awareness Through Movement lessons, are an effective way of helping us to stay on our two feet and prevent us falling. 

In September the British Journal of Sports Medicine published the results of a ten year study of over 1,700 middle-aged showing that an inability to balance was associated with an almost two fold increase in risk of death.

Through gentle movement the Feldenkrais method has been shown to help us achieve balance through improved organisation of our skeletal, muscular and neurological system so that our movement is more fluid and coordinated.  

Balance isn’t only a problem for people as they age.  Other conditions such as vertigo, Ménières disease or vestibular migraine can also affect balance and sometimes injuries, pain or surgery can lead to defensive habits in the way we move. 

Julie Wrigley, a Feldenkrais teacher based in York, has written about her own experience of balance challenges and how she has addressed them on the Feldenkrais Guild UK website.  Her article includes some useful tips on how to use Awareness Through Movement lessons to help.  And a reminder that in addition to this there is a library of free lessons on the Guild website for you to try and download.  

'Feldenkrais helped me recover from a stroke'

Professional violinist John Trusler had a successful career as a quartet player and with employers including the BBC Symphony Orchestra.  He also flew helicopters before experiencing a debilitating stroke in December last year. 

With the help of a Feldenkrais practitioner and one-to-one functional integration sessions over the last ten months John has made excellent progress, regaining feeling in his affected hand and foot. He is now able to enjoy short walks with his wife Anthea. 

John spent 15 weeks in hospital and rehabilitation following his stroke and experienced a number of health complications including Covid.  The head of the North London Stroke Group recommended Feldenkrais to Anthea who booked sessions with her local Feldenkrais Practitioner.  With John’s positive spirit and his wife’s determined encouragement, John has practised Feldenkrais movements regularly, undeterred by a physiotherapist who said he would not recover the use of his right fingers. 

His wife Anthea was impressed by the possibilities of Feldenkrais and believed John could recover the use of his hand with neuroplasticity. ‘John  was unable to get his hand to move for the physio, who said it was not likely to recover so I was cross!  I have always said he can recover his hand and foot movements.’

‘John has enjoyed Feldenkrais,’ says Anthea, ‘especially the massage and gentle movement, and the suggestions of things we can do to help get feeling back in affected areas. We aren’t yet at a point where we have reached our end goal on anything, but everything is on course and positivity is key!’