exploring Feldenkrais ~ exploring Self

series 4

exploring Feldenkrais ~ exploring Self

In this series we will be going back to some basics: bringing our attention again and again to our thoughts and patterns of feeling, as well as our patterns of movement.

The ways we think, feel, move and act are part of who we have grown into being, from influences of family, genetics, love, confusion, activity and rest. Becoming aware of how we move, what we do, think and feel, gives us an opportunity to change.

"I love how the ways we work with ourselves in class begin to reverberate throughout our lives. For many it means moving more slowly, doing less and sensing more! For most, this is something new.

For others, it means moving more— moving with more variety, moving with more grace and moving with more spontaneity. It means tapping back into one’s inner compulsion to move when there’s been too much stillness and rest when there’s been too much movement. It means getting back to knowing one’s self and trusting the cues we receive from our internal landscapes.

How we move can bring us pain or pleasure. How we move can help us to satiate our more primitive needs like eating and procreating. But how we move can also bring us more into the moment and deeper into our experiences of our selves and our world." Buffy Owens. 

Dancer and movement teacher, Carrie Gerow says " I would say the most fun I am having with it (the Feldenkrais Method) is reconnecting to the wisdom my body already possesses. That it has always possessed. . .  and that I learned not to trust over years and years and years."

Classes are on Thursdays at
1.30 pm: Women's Health Tasmania
3.30 pm: Bellerive Quay Health Hub
5.45 pm: Hobart Breathing Space

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Feldenkrais for Everyday Life: Moving Naturally

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement classes resume this week for another 6 week term. 

We all can learn to move with minimum effort and maximum efficiency, not through muscle strength, but by increasing the awareness of how our system connects to create our movements.

The video shows how gentle Feldenkrais lessons re-mind and re-make the neurological connections that form the basis of our everyday movements. With these lessons, fundamental movements like reaching (to close your curtains), bending (to tie your laces), rolling over, and getting up from your chair will be simpler and less effort.

Classes are each Thursday from July 14th, at

• Bellerive Quay Health Hub at 3.30pm
• Hobart Breathing Space at 6pm, and
• Women's Health Tasmania (the new name for the Hobart Women's Health Centre) at 1.30pm.

Spaces are limited, so please email me or call me on 0447 120 688 to book. Beginners welcome.

Individual sessions are also available from my private practice in West Hobart. Here is an idea of what happens in an individual session (thanks to Margie Kaye for her time preparing the video for the Australian Feldenkrais Guild).

Pregnant Pauses: Feldenkrais for an easier, more comfortable pregnancy

Would you like to

* Alleviate pregnancy pain

* Increase your energy

* Move more easily

* Sleep better

* Breathe deeper

* Learn new, more effective ways to do pelvic floor exercises

* Feel more rested, lighter, more grounded?

The Pregnant Pauses Awareness through Movement program can help.

What is Pregnant Pauses?

Pregnant Pauses® is an exercise program specifically designed to change the way women experience pregnancy. An innovative and unusual approach to movement, Pregnant Pauses® teaches you to use and move your body in a more intelligent, effective and efficient way. Utilizing the latest research in movement, Pregnant Pauses® alleviates pain and discomfort while increasing energy to ultimately provide an overall healthier, more comfortable pregnancy.

Pregnant Pauses® increases your energy and improves your quality of life, while helping you adjust to the changes occurring through each stage of your pregnancy. By doing small, gentle movements, you will be amazed at how easily you’ll be able to do everything from rolling over in bed, carrying your growing baby more comfortably, getting up or down, learning how to do pelvic floor exercises in an easier, more efficient way, getting in and out of a chair, and moving more freely.  It is as simple as doing slow, easy movements, at your own pace, and something you can practice each day in the comfort of your own home.

Pregnant Pauses® utilizes your nervous system’s innate intelligence to bring about a new and more effective relationship between your muscular and skeletal systems. Based on years of research through wide-ranging applications, Pregnant Pauses® is a direct application of the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education.

When: classes start Friday June 3rd at 10.30-11.45 and run for 6 weeks.  

Where: on the second floor, Bellerive Quay Health Hub, corner of Percy St and Cambridge Road, Bellerive.                 

To book into class: call the Hub on 6122 0150 or email Wendy at unfurlyourself@gmail.com or give her a call on 0447 120 688.

 

stand Tall walk Tall: still a few spaces in each class

There are still a few spaces in each of these sessions and it's fine to begin at any time. Drop-ins are welcome! 

Rediscover your natural joy and pleasure in walking. . .

 Restore ease and grace to your movement. . .

Following on from the recent Walking for Wellbeing workshop, we will be reviewing, consolidating and expand-ing the theme of walking well: easily and with comfort. These movements will help you establish more ease and comfort for a lifetime of walking.  In these classes we will explore movement patterns that enhance walking, improve balance, and develop the fluid motion of your shoulders and hips.

This is a 12 week series. Classes are on Thursdays and begin on Thursday April 7th.

Hobart Women's Health Centre, North Hobart, 1.30-2.30pm

Bellerive Quay Health Hub, Bellerive, 3.30-4.30pm.

Hobart Breathing Space, Goulburn St Hobart. 6.00-7.00pm

Click on the links for more information about the classes in each location.

Bookings are essential as space is limited. Call 0447 120 688 or email unfurlyourself@gmail.com. 

Fantastic turnout for the Walking for Wellbeing workshop last weekend

Last weekend we hosted Lisa and Ruth's Walking for Wellbeing workshop in the Fern Tree Community Hall. And what a fantastic turnout! Forty five people came along: it just shows what an amazing level of interest is developing in our Hobart community, in the Feldenkrais Method.

Here's a testimonial from Anne, and some great pictures. . . 

“. . . . thanks for forwarding the info about the workshop last weekend. What a fabulous day (despite the crowd. . .)!

I have been walking so much more freely since then. In fact, while part of me has been aware that I don't put much weight on my toes as I walk, I find that if I do, the tension in my left hip is reduced. Now I just need to break the habit!

I hadn't realised how little I used my trunk either. I had a tumour removed in my thoracic area about 15 years ago and suspect that it has been set in stone ever since! I now feel far less tension in my shoulders. Now to work on the breaking those ingrained habits”.

Anne J.

These gentle, small movements are how Anne learnt to find the turning in her thoracic spine.

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Walking for Wellbeing: Workshop this weekend. . .

We are lucky to have a couple of very experienced compassionate practitioners visiting from Melbourne and offering a walking workshop in Hobart. Lisa Campbell (physiotherapist) and Ruth Frommer (occupational therapist) are both experienced Feldenkrais Practitioners and keen walkers. 

If you would like to walk your way to health and fitness, or to Cradle Mountain, on the streets of Barcelona, the foreshore path, around the golf course, or just to the local cafe: come along!

Walking is a great way to stay physically fit and experience wellbeing. The more efficiently and comfortably you can walk, the more you can enjoy and expand all of your walking activities.

In this workshop Ruth and Lisa will help you learn to:

• Discover how to walk mindfully
• Maximise your ability to walk well
• Explore the link between walking and how you feel
• Reduce the risk of injury and pain due to poor walking habits

When: Saturday 19th March 2016 10.00 am to 3.00 pm

Where: Fern Tree Community Centre 8 Stephenson Place Fern Tree Tasmania

Cost: $95 Payment by EFT

To book your place contact: Danielle Pacaud 0427 787 754

Email: danipacaud@yahoo.com.au

Please bring a yoga mat and a towel. BYO lunch. Morning tea provided.

Feldenkrais for Breast Cancer Survivors

In 2002, after a routine mammogram, I had a diagnosis of estrogen positive breast cancer, followed promptly by surgery and treatment with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

I first met Rosemary Kerrison at Encore and Dragons Abreast, in 2003. In September last year, I attended the current Encore group (with Rosemary, still there, offering her work from her huge heart!) to teach a taster Awareness Through Movement class and give some information about how the Feldenkrais Method can help in recovery from Breast Cancer.

A diagnosis of breast cancer and its treatment turns our world upside down, and many of us are faced with an unexpected journey of  change, self-discovery and healing.            

Recovery is truly a hero’s journey.

As part of my healing journey, I discovered the benefits of the gentle, powerful movement lessons of the Feldenkrais Method, and was so taken by their capacity to help me soften and release the protective patterns of holding I had developed over the years, that I decided to embark on the 4 year training program to become a Feldenkrais Practitioner.

In the last couple of years, I have developed a special series of lessons for women recovering from Breast Cancer. The lessons help cultivate enhanced vitality, deep relaxation, greater flexibility and feelings of wellbeing and comfort. I know from my own experience, that the movements help one recover a feeling of wholeness, encourage integration of the body and mind and bring about a confidence that change, and therefore healing, is possible.

I teach in a range of settings: at the Hobart Women’s Health Centre, Bellerive Quay Health Hub and Hobart Breathing Space. I work individually with all kinds of clients: children with CP, MS and Parkinsons’ sufferers, people with all kinds of difficulty with mobility and aches and pains.

The lessons I teach in the Feldenkrais Method are very gentle, and help engender the capacity to be compassionate and gentle in our movement and our thought processes.

If you are interested in one on one sessions, coming to a class, or organising a special series of classes you can email me on:

unfurlyourself@gmail.com or call me on 0447 120 688.                                  

Term 1, 2016 Feldenkrais Classes

Our next 8 week series of Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement® classes begins on Thursday February 4^th.

In the classes you will learn gentle, delicious techniques to reduce tension in your body and your mind. As you learn to move fluently and easily, you will feel more stability through your entire system. These gentle yet powerful movement patterns will help you find confidence, comfort, flexibility and freedom in all your daily activities.

Join us at the Hobart Breathing Space, Bellerive Quay Health Hub ( just for 7 weeks here, beginning on February 11th) or the Hobart Women's Health Centre

Payment and booking details can be found here