February 2025
What is Awareness Through Movement®?
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In this month's Senseability edition we have contributions from Andrew Gibbons and Mary Rudd.
Andrew gives an insightful podcast interview on the subject of 'What is Awareness Through Movement' that you don't want to miss, and we Mary has written a lovely 'beginner friendly' article which discusses what to you can expect as you start your journey with Awareness Through Movement classes.
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Through his wide ranging physical and intellectual influences and self investigations, Moshe Feldenkrais found a novel way of working with the human condition, he was able to change his own physical and mental habits very effectively. He translated that learning into working with other individuals through the medium of touch and developed his one to one work which is known as Functional Integration® (FI®).
Feldenkrais's group classes, called Awareness Through Movement (ATM®), came into existence after the individual work.
The development of group classes was a direct result of him wanting to bring the benefits of Functional Integration to a larger audience. He was faced with the challenge of how he could maintain the quality of attention and subtleness of movement, which was conveyed so well through touch, into a group lesson where each person was then responsible for their own learning experience. The result was Awareness Through Movement classes, which allowed him to take students through a process of sensory exploration and self awareness, using precise verbal movement instructions and guided attention.
The classes went through their own evolutionary process, starting with the early lessons taught on Alexander Yanai street in Tel Aviv in the 1950's & 60's, in which he was developing his ideas. All the way to the classes taught in the professional trainings of San Francisco and Amherst in the 1970's & 80's, towards the end of his life. During that time Feldenkrais tried to refine and define what 'Awareness Through Movement' was and even produced a book by that name with 10 key lessons, each lesson demonstrating one of the core ideas in the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education.
In Feldenkrais's own words:
"The lessons are designed to improve ability, that is, to expand the boundaries of the possible, to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy, and the easy into the pleasant. For only those activities that are easy and pleasant will become part of a person's habitual life and will serve them at all times."
"To learn we need time, attention, and discrimination; to discriminate we must sense. This means that in order to learn we must sharpen our powers of sensing, and if we try and do most things by sheer force of will we shall achieve precisely the opposite of what we need."
"In the course of the lessons the reader will find that the exercises suggested are in themselves simple, involving only easy movements. But they are intended to be carried out in such a way that those who do them will discover changes in themselves even after the first lesson."
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Lastly, before we get to the newsletter, we would like to acknowledge a huge loss to the Feldenkrais community.
It is with deep sadness that we share that Mia Segal recently passed away. Mia Segal was Feldenkrais's first student and a close family friend and colleague of his. She played a pivotal role in the development and dissemination of the Feldenkrais Method. She was a marvellous teacher in her own right, who was very generous with her knowledge. Her insight has deeply impacted many Feldenkrais students over the course of the last 50 years.
Thank you Mia for everything you did in life. Rest peacefully.
Mia Segal - 11/11/1930 - 02/15/2025
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Mia Segal and Moshe Feldenkrais. San Francisco 1975-77.
Image credit: IFF
We have included a short Awareness Through Movement lesson taught by Mia at her MBS academy in the resources section of the newsletter.
Feldenkrais Communication Team
Jane, Michelle, Seth and Joe
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What is 'Awareness Through Movement'®? |
An interview with Andrew Gibbons
In this month's Senseability podcast we interview Andrew Gibbons. Andrew is a very experienced Feldenkrais® practitioner and assistant trainer. He has a clear and direct approach to describing the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education. In the interview he explains how the method differs from regular exercise and other awareness based modalities like meditation. If you find some of the Feldenkrais terminology confusing or are not clear on what an Awareness Through Movement class is and how it actually works this is the perfect interview. Andrew also shares his new subscription based Feldenkrais App, Feldenkrais First, which gives the opportunity for people to easily connect to regular lessons and in-depth lesson series.
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Andrew Gibbons is the co-founder of Feldenkrais First, a mobile app and online platform for the practice of the Feldenkrais Method. A practitioner for over two decades, he maintains private practices in both Manhattan and Port Washington, Long Island (NY).
Andrew has taught Feldenkrais movement for the Hospital for Special Surgery's Integrative Care Center, the Doctoral PT program of SUNY Stoneybrook Medical School, for musicians in the Manhattan School of Music's wellness program and in other public programs sponsored by the NY Department for the Aging, and has worked as an ergonomic consultant for The New York Times. He delivered a Tech Talk at Google’s New York headquarters on Avoiding the Black Hole of Computer Posture, and contributed a chapter about working with musicians for the recent book, The Feldenkrais Method: Learning Through Movement (Handspring Publishing, 2021). Since 2008 he has taught Feldenkrais classes for elite classical musicians at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival.
He is a graduate of Columbia University, and the Manhattan School of Music.
Andrew's Websites:
www.feldenkraisfirst.com
www.bodyofknowledge.me
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"How does this work?" An introduction to Awareness Through Movement® |
An article by Mary Rudd
"This is the one time that I have in my day when I can be free of stress, expectations and demands of others," says one man, a regular student at my Awareness Through Movement (ATM®) classes.
"I haven't felt any back pain since I started the class and I feel better overall," says another student. "How does this work?" she wonders.
In order to answer the question ‘How do ATM classes work’ we should first look at some of the causes that lead us to seek out solutions to persistent pain, or look for better ways of organising ourselves so that we can live more fulfilling lives and not be hampered by our existing difficulties..
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Mary Rudd, GCFP, works with students from the larger central Kentucky area in her Danville studio, Wise Move Studio, LLC. Mary maintains a general "Mindful Movement for Mindful Living" Feldenkrais® practice, supporting a range of people who are active and wish to remain so, who are recovering from injury or illness, or who simply enjoy a learning experience that helps them explore their creativity, resilience, and other pursuits according to their interests.
Drawing from her earlier career as a teacher, administrator and literacy and leadership consultant, Mary emphasizes the learning process in her work, supporting students in trusting their own insights as applied to their daily life.
Her website is www.wisemovestudio.com
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