Feldenfrais® Movement Institute

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 Workshop & Seminar Descriptions

   

PUBLIC WORKSHOPS

MASTER CLASSES

Frank Wildman (1977) GCFT, Ph.D. holds degrees in Physical Education, Biology and Psychology. He directed the first accredited Feldenkrais training in 1986, and had organized and directed over a dozen Feldenkrais Training Programs. A past Guild president, he heads the Feldenkrais Movement Institute and has authored many audio and video programs and books on the Feldenkrais Method®.

The Brain as the Core of Strength and Stability
In recent years the notions of core strength and core stability have become increasingly fashionable in a number of movement systems ranging from Yoga to Pilates to Qi Gong.

The Feldenkrais Method, on the other hand, is generally thought of in the public mind as providing only easier movement and greater flexibility. However, in order to use our deep intrinsic muscles, and organize the power of the pelvis we must use the organs of the mind. The most far-reaching motor organ in our body is our Nervous System.  It reaches into our deep interior organizing our pelvis, our intrinsic muscles - our core.

In this workshop we will use Awareness Through Movementâ lessons that develop core stability and learn interesting ways to use the gentleness of Functional Integrationâ to provide the core organization required for stability and strength. In this way, the vigor of the martial arts origins of our work can be brought forth to the public.

Clinical Applications of the Feldenkrais Method
Balance, Stabilization and Gait

In this workshop you will deepen your understanding of bio-mechanics, balance and stability while exploring pleasurable movement lessons that directly apply to problems presented by clients with difficulties in these areas. Balance will be approached as an activity in all basic positions and cardinal directions. A dynamic sense of stabilization emphasizing proximal to distal control of balance as well as the importance of diagonal movements and counter-rotation involved in gait will be demonstrated, experienced and practiced.

Fundamentals of Movement

In the understanding of the Feldenkrais Method, movement can offer a way to alter inappropriate but deeply conditioned ways we use our body. At the same time it can teach us new and more effective ways to correct neuromuscular limitations that contribute to distress, pain and dysfunction.

Participants will explore movement lessons and practice hands-on techniques emphasizing movement patterns and all motor activities of the body. The skills presented are applicable to the treatment of chronic pain, orthopedic and neurological disorders in geriatric, adult and pediatric patients, athletes, musicians, and other performing artists.

Human Potential

The notion of human potential provides a key understanding to the radical educational and social nature of the Feldenkrais Method. In the Potent Self Moshe states, "The power of a body is determined by the power of the abdomen and more generally by the pelvic region." We will explore this idea through practical elaborations for hands-on work taken directly from the Potent Self. Although the book was published posthumously, the many ideas described have been explicated in some rarely presented Alexander Yanai lessons. Utilizing these rich source materials, we will work deeply with the potential power available through a well-organized abdomen, pelvis and head.

Intelligent Posture
Ground Zero in Working with Overuse and Pain

Every action we take begins from our posture. Your posture is the most pervasive and important ingredient in all of your movements, affecting the quality and ease of everything you do. If your posture is not efficient, you will use unnecessary effort with every movement and eventually experience reduced mobility and, in many cases, chronic pain.

In this workshop you will experience and evaluate your unique posture and learn practical movements to promote effective postural improvements.

The Intelligent Spine

Learn how to relieve stress in the face, jaw, neck and shoulders and create greater ease, strength and grace in everything you do. Explore how the use of the head affects your spine from neck to pelvis and how very subtle movements can affect your ability to use your spine more efficiently. Dr. Wildman will demonstrate hands-on approaches of lessons you will experience in sitting, standing and lying. 

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From Prevention to Performance

Contemporary exercise culture often follows the following pattern: Work hard to get in shape, get an injury, work in pain or don’t work, recover and then start over.

It doesn’t need to be that way. This workshop will introduce you to a method of neuromuscular re-education that will help you work smarter rather than harder. Developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, distinguished physicist, engineer and Judo expert it has helped thousands of people reduce injuries while improving performance. You will not only rediscover the joy and comfort of easy, well-coordinated movement, but also learn to use your body’s intelligence to walk, swim, dance and even think better.

Reconstructing Dance Technique
From the Floor to the Barre (Open to dancers of all levels and their rehabilitators.)

Dr. Frank Wildman has had a lifelong interest in reconstructing dance technique. He believes that dance technique should contour to the individual rather than the individual trying to conform to an ideal. In his view, human body becomes the model —not the technique. This course will provide dancers with tools to designed to enable anyone to prevent injury and to achieve their goals in dance. This workshop is for any dancer or student of dance wanting to learn technique in a safe, non-competitive manner. You will learn to sense yourself more from the inside. You will unlearn old injurious and stressful habits and re-learn the movement ideals of dance from Ballet to Modern in a way that will be both challenging and liberating.

Dr. Wildman will use the unique and sophisticated movement repertoire of the Feldenkrais® Method to affect the spatial awareness, self-image, and postural control required to move more vividly and easily. In reconstructing dance technique, Dr. Wildman assists his students to develop a deeper understanding of their bodies rather than simply imitating. This course has been taught regularly to dancers at the Trisha Brown Dance Studio in New York City, The Dancers Workshop of San Francisco, and in Sydney, Australia. Reconstructing Dance Technique has served as an introduction to the Feldenkrais Method to dancers throughout the world.

The Timeless Body – Improving with Age

The older we get the smarter we must become. As we age, it becomes increasingly important to use our bodies more efficiently, because we can no longer afford to slam our bones, strain our muscles and do things with will willpower and brute strength. We must learn to improve our quality and ease of motion, our coordination, our sense of balance, control and ease.

This workshop, originally developed for the University of California’s gerontology program, will show you how to reduce stress while increasing muscular efficiency in a pleasurable and comfortable manner using Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons.

A Weekend on the Pelvis
or “Two Days on the Pelvis” if during the week

Experience pleasurable movement lessons selected for back and hip problems associated with pelvic instability or loss of mobility, as taught to therapists and physicians at the American Back Society, yoga teachers and dancers. Students will explore different ways of handling the pelvis and learn interesting and effective lessons that use the pelvis as the central reference. Perineal function will be included. Dr. Wildman will address hands-on approaches to these lessons.

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A Day on the Pelvis

Taught for many years to physicians at the American Back Society, physical therapists working in gerontology, and Yoga practicioners, this workshop focuses on the practical benefits of understanding the evolutionary structure and functions of the pelvis. This is particularly useful in assisting people, who suffer from the back and hip problems frequently associated with pelvic instability, hypermobility, as well as loss of perineal control.

The distortion of weight transference with pelvic instability contributes to both lower back, sacroiliac and hip pain. Students will learn to identify when there is too much relative movement, which can be aggravated by certain ATM or FI lessons. Bone, muscle, perineum, and other pelvic soft tissues and their innervation will be addressed with short ATM's and FI practice interspersed throughout the day.

Working with Repetitive Stress Injuries

In the Feldenkrais Method improving posture is the considered the most reliable and effective approach to address local misuse and repetitive stress injuries. In this workshop you will learn how to approach stress and pain from repetitive motions through a whole body approach to movement. You will discover connections between hands and feet, the spine and arms, that will prove immensely helpful to those suffering from Repetitive Stress Injuries. This workshop is suitable for those who suffer from RSI as well as for health professionals who encounter it in their practices.

Emotional Learning
From Biomechanics to Emotions

Our experience is shaped by complex combinations of beliefs, perceptions, hormones, social values, and desires. Every thought, action, and feeling finds its expression in movement. Even our posture can be understood as a thought phrase, a preparation for new possible movements and new possible feelings. In order to understand how to create change, we must become aware of how our whole self is embodied in our movements. To work with a person's emotions becomes a technical question, which falls within the realm of Moshe's notion of function, no different than addressing a back problem or
arthritis.

In this workshop, we will technically explore the inseparability of body mechanics from our embodied emotions and investigate function, learning, and emotions by integrating information from psychology and anthropology to better inform us.

Movement Strategies

What is efficient movement? What constitutes "normal" movement? Is this movement an example for mobility or for a lack of stability? Is this person's movement style ingenious and unique or merely inefficient?

This workshop was developed watching hundreds of students in training programs struggle with these and similar questions. It has been designed to provide the skills to know what to look and feel for in a movement and examine how a person's available physical resources, e.g. the condition of the skeletal and neuromuscular system and the changes in the environment can be used to develop a variety of effective strategies for action.

You will learn to:

  • see how specific movements are indicators of a movement strategy that will reappear in many functional activities
  • understand how the strategies underlying any one movement are expressed in many seemingly unrelated movements
  • think beyond the "right", "best", "most efficient" way of performing an action and have a new way of perceiving awarness and movement
  • overcome confusing categories such as: "tighter - looser", "involved-uninvolved", "organized-disorganized" and evaluate what people are really learning from movement.

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MASTER CLASSES

PRESENTATIONS
"What's the Feldenkrais Method?"

Whether it's an initial interview with a client, your first visit to your prospective in-laws or a presentation for medical professionals, artists, athletes, or the general public, your style of answering this question can determine whether you gain rapport or not. This in turn can make the difference between gaining your livelihood with the Feldenkrais Method or not.

One of the major problems in the Feldenkrais community is presenting the Method to professional and other audiences. We need skills in design and presentation to effectively communicate to communities outside our own.

The ability to present yourself and the Method in an effective and interesting manner, are as important as your skills practicing the Method. This may very well be the most crucial workshop you can take to sustain your career and further the recognition of the Method.

We will use theater exercises and video feedback to make your personal style of communication more effective in addressing audiences that are important to you.

How to Prepare Yourself

Our postural preparation is a crucial factor in organizing our perceptions and actions. How we prepare ourselves for a presentation, an Awareness Through Movement or Functional Integration lesson, can influence the outcome more than our technical proficiency on that particular day.

How do you reach inside yourself to create a profound and unique experience for your students and clients? How do you use yourself to create a specific feeling in a teaching situation? How can you share your passion with an audience in a way that engages them more fully? How can you utilize your doubts and insecurities as assets to create a unique teaching style?

This workshop will show you how to become a more effective guide by preparing for surprises and challenges from the inside. You will learn how to engage your students by creating situations that are outside of their usual habits and experiences.

Finding the Core of a Lesson

Good musicians do not simply memorize and play the sequences in a musical score, they must understand the meaning of the piece they are playing in order to emphasize, interpret and improvise. The same is true for a Feldenkrais Practitioner.

In this course, you will learn to discover the core of a lesson. Once you understand the central function of a lesson, you can adjust it to fit a wide range of groups in Awareness through Movement or a variety of clients in Functional Integration. Your confidence and creativity increase, as you no longer need to depend on notes or worry about getting lost in the sequence.

Awareness Through Movement® translates more easily into Functional Integration® if we understand the core ideas of a lesson. We will use a range of familiar and new Awareness Through Movement lessons to identify what is central in a series of lessons as well as what is central to each lesson in a series. We will be working both hands-on and in ATM to physicalize the ground of our understanding. Application of these lessons to the world outside of training programs will be discussed.

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Follow that Bone

In this workshop we will explore how lessons can be better designed by understanding in detail the relationship between anatomy and history of the human body. We will pick a bone or two and follow the evolution of perceptions and actions that gave birth to form. We will clarify how structures and functions of the body interact with the environment.

Using these insights you will learn how to develop more potent Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® lessons that connect bone through muscle and brain to the environment.

This course will provide you with the tools to see and sense movement in a more precise and expansive manner and create more meaningful lessons for your clients.

Working With the Immaterial Body
How do we Recognize Learning? How do we Touch Awareness?

How do learning and awareness emerge from tissues and organs? Both learning and awareness are non-material aspects of a human being. To say that learning takes place in the brain is to explain away the mysteries of learning and awareness.

  • How do these immaterial aspects of the body express themselves in motion and
  • How do we touch and move these non-physical aspects of the physical body?
  • What kind of learning takes place in the method that is unique?

We will approach these questions as technical questions related to the notion of function.

The Evolution of Learning
Sequences, Transitions, and Consequences in Lessons

"Without light there would be no eyes."
Moshe Feldenkrais

    • "What can I do when a lesson doesn't seem to be working?
    • Should I change to another lesson and if that doesn't help maybe even try concepts and movements from still another lesson?"

Every practitioner is familiar with these questions and with the confusion they generate in ourselves and in our clients. What options are available to us in the design of a lesson, to make transitions smooth and easy?

There are fundamental principles shared between the development of awareness in the Feldenkrais Method and the biological evolution of life on earth. We will approach the mysteries and the mechanisms of organic development and human learning in terms of similar underlying processes.

We will work with the similarities in the design and generation of Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® lessons to the similarities in the emergence and development of new life forms. Understanding how consciousness, awareness, and learning evolved in the natural world can better inform us in designing more effective and generative lessons.

This will be an evolutionary learning experience.

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The Motor Concept
Using Motor Learning and Motor Control Theories in the Design of Lesson Plans and Themes

How do we learn front and back, up and down, left and right? How do we learn to time and coordinate our movements? The understanding of these temporal and spatial learning processes can prove very helpful in choosing lesson plans or predicting and influencing the outcome of a lesson.

These spatial and temporal learnings are well mapped in research and occasionally chanced upon by practitioners who find themselves surprised by the success of a particular lesson. The Motor Concept was developed by Dr. Frank Wildman in order to provide a useful model to better control and predict the outcome of lessons and select lesson plans suited to the individual needs of clients.

Students will experience the Motor Concept through Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration®lessons.

Ligaments and Tendencies
©1996, Frank Wildman, Ph.D.

"Sensing the skeleton" and "experiencing skeletal consciousness" are notions Moshe often discussed, but what exactly are the mechanisms whereby we sense the location of our bones in SpaceTime?

The relationship of our skeleton to muscular activities pours into the nervous system as much through receptors in the ligaments and tendons as within the joints or muscles themselves. Ligaments and tendons are not just passive connectors of our bones and muscles, they provide massive amounts of information due to their rich innervation, yet training programs rarely address how to use them.

By working precisely with ligaments and tendons in Functional Integration® lessons we will heighten skeletal sensations, improve joint stability, and affect motor control.

Orientation/Anxiety/Pleasure
©1996 by Frank Wildman, Ph.D

All animals must be able to orient themselves to sudden changes in the environment in order to identify potential threats. When the orienting response is effective, no anxiety arises; the fluid and uninterrupted interaction with the environment is experienced as pleasurable. When there is an interference with the orienting response anxiety is generated.

In human society the nature of our orienting responses becomes extremely complex, involving our personal history, cultural tendencies, imagination, humor, and art. Identifying what is exciting to us, what is pleasurable and what evokes anxiety often becomes confusing, since the terms"anxiety" and "pleasure" mask a wealth of underlying bodily feelings.

In this workshop, we will deepen our work by learning to identify and utilize differing orienting responses that form the basis of postural control and social identity.

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© Frank Wildman Ph.D., 2006, 2007 • The Feldenkrais Movement Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation