“That was a great session. I feel not just relaxed but more limber. During the lesson I felt very connected and thankful…I also found ways to use my belly in moving. What a work of art we all are.”
---J. Cruttenden
At some point after I began a regular Awareness Through Movement® practice, I noticed that I saw color more vibrantly, and I heard music more clearly. I felt the percussion in a song more deeply. And I began to notice, for example, many shades of green in the grassy fields surrounding town.
I had not been so sensorily present with life since a time many years before. Living in pain can distract us from the full life we are designed to experience.
I first pursued the Feldenkrais Method® only because I wanted relief from chronic pain. Like many people, I entered this work thinking that I wanted help toward a specific outcome. I wanted to be better “aligned” so that my bad knee would not cause so much pain.
What I discovered was a dynamic process of getting to know myself better, of learning to pay attention to myself in a manner that felt optimistic, natural, and affirming. I did not find efficient, easy movement through any forceful action. Rather, I found it through being kind to myself, as sensed in moving slowly, paying attention, and allowing my nervous system to take care of the needed change. Eventually, I was able to speed up and move, play, and live as actively as I wished.
Reduced pain was an early outcome for me. It is the knowledge and skill that I started to bring to any challenge or discomfort, physical and otherwise, that has made the lasting difference in my life.
In my classes and private sessions, you gradually deepen your capacity to sense and feel yourself in space and gravity. Can you feel how your feet touch the floor? Can you sense how that impacts your shape in standing? In moving?
We learn, in our own time, that we have easier, more fluid and kind-to-ourselves options for moving and acting in our life. We learn that we have choices.
Instead of alignment, we seek coordination. Instead of correction, we gain self-awareness and self-knowledge.
We sense connection with the ground, within self, with others, and with all aspects of our surroundings. Through our ability to connect, we shape our life.
You are both a work of art and an artist. Come and see what you can shape and create!