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 Yorkshire-based Feldenkrais practitioner and dancer Caroline Scott who gives a free mini Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson to free your neck and shoulders. We're also including a piece on how Feldenkrais hits mainstream radio, a piece on sleep health and how the method can help and a feature on someone who has used the Feldenkrais Method to change the way he moves through life in the space of three years. We hope you enjoy the content and find it useful.

Warm wishes, 
Anne Taylor and Alex Frazier (editors)

Our featured practitioner this issue is Caroline Scott 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 free neck and shoulder tension and calm your nervous system.  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 Caroline’s instructions. Please do send feedback to the newsletter team on how Caroline’s mini Feldenkrais lesson has helped you. 

Feldenkrais fans and teachers were delighted when the method hit the mainstream last month – with a mention on the long-running radio soap, The Archers.  

In an episode on Sunday 22 January Kate, the Archer daughter who runs Spiritual Home therapy retreat in Ambridge, was off on a last minute trip to South Africa and relying on Celeste to take over while she was away. But that she confided in a friend that ‘the tricky part… is that Celeste has started giving Feldenkrais classes at a couple of other places now.’   

London-based Feldenkrais teacher Sophie Arditti said: ‘I was delighted to hear that Feldenkrais was mentioned on The Archers, even when I subsequently discovered that the character, Kate, is considered a little bit 'out there' by Ambridgers... But anything that gets the name 'Feldenkrais' into the hive mind is good. Next time people hear it, it will have more traction.’

Whether Feldenkrais will be on offer to Archer family and friends remains to be seen. Sadly, Kate’s mum, the long-running Jill, was announced dead later in the same episode. 

It’s not the only media mention that Feldenkrais has received in the last few weeks. Gavin & Stacey actor and Strictly Come Dancing star, Larry Lamb told the One Show on BBC1 on 1 December that Feldenkrais played a part in his rehabilitation following a back injury – from which he is now fully recovered.

'The Feldenkrais Method changed my life' 

Seventy-one-year-old Alex Sava has been a keen athlete all his life and from the age of 15 had developed a habit of doing 200 sit-ups and 150 press ups every day. He turned to the Feldenkrais Method three and a half years ago when muscular pain was waking him up at night and says it has changed his life.  

'I've always been athletically motivated, doing running or playing squash every day, pushing myself harder and harder.  My muscles were over-toned and fatigued all the time. I was brought up on the idea of 'no pain, no gain' and Feldenkrais is the opposite. It's counter-intuitive with its focus on ease and less effort,' Alex says. He no longer gets lower back pain and feels happier in the way he moves. 

'The sit-ups tightened my tummy muscles and I began to slouch. Feldenkrais has opened up my thoracic area, improved my posture and the way I sit and move,' says Alex. 'I no longer get lower back pain and am happier in my movement and this allows me to enjoy life better. Adding this awareness to my fitness regime means I am more relaxed, I am more mindful and in tune with my body.'

Alex, a retired surveyor, has been taking part in Awareness Through Movement classes and Feldenkrais-informed yoga classes three or four times a week with Brighton-based yoga teacher and Feldenkrais practitioner Lisa McRory. He also has regular Functional Integration (one-to-one) sessions.  'Alex responded really quickly to Functional Integration and now moves sensitively in class, there is a quality to his movement that is lovely to watch and I think he is bringing that attitude into other aspects of his life,' says Lisa.