The focus of my practice is on replacing pain and discomfort with ease and pleasure in movement, because that’s what Feldenkrais has done for me. I’m happy to work with anyone who would like to see if Feldenkrais could benefit them.
Feldenkrais is a broad church and it tends to be performers e.g. musicians, singers, dancers and actors or sports people who are most familiar with the method. However given my background in health and wellbeing, I am more interested in enabling people to find freedom from pain, thus I call my group classes ‘Freedom through movement’ rather than awareness through movement. I’m also fascinated with the power of Feldenkrais to release ‘trapped trauma’ having both experienced and witnessed this. Having worked for twenty five years as a counsellor, I love that I’ve found a practice that is just as effective and a lot faster. Where relevant, I like to invite people to use some of the other tools in my kit. Nothing I’ve ever trained in has proved to be a panacea, but all of the different approaches can be helpful in the relevant circumstances.
For example, with one of the people I'm working with who, due to pain, has problems sleeping, I've introduced CBT and other material in addition to teaching Feldenkrais lessons.
At the time of writing, I am working with some people online individually addressing specific issues that they bring and, in person, offer functional integration lessons at home. I currently teach group lessons in Glastonbury one evening a week and am keen to extend this.
I’ve worked in the field of mental health and wellbeing in different capacities throughout my adult life and Feldenkrais is the latest tool I’m adding to my kit. When I first encountered Feldenkrais seven years ago, I had been crippled with Fibromyalgia for many years. It took months of regularly attending classes, all the workshops I could and having individual lessons with Julie Taylor-Browne in Cornwall for me to find myself symptom-free but when I did, it felt miraculous.
I will occasionally have a flare-up if I find myself either exceptionally cold or tired, but fortunately it only last a couple of days. But that is when I find myself aware of the unhelpful thoughts that so often accompany chronic pain.
What I want is to find and work with people who can benefit from learning to move more easily and gracefully, reducing effort and pain as I have done.
