• Pre-Conference: July 27 - 29
• Monday July 30
• Tuesday July 31
• Wednesday August 1
• Thursday August 2
• Friday August 3

Pre-Conference: July 27 - 29

Year One San Francisco: More Than a Beginning

Dennis Leri
Open to:  T, P
Registration Code: P1

It’s all there in the transcripts and audio files of San Francisco Year One: little gems on every page, humor, stories, great lessons, a lot of profound Functional Integration® instruction, scientific explanations and answers to many questions, e.g., "Why do we almost always start Awareness Through Movement® lessons on the right side?" But there are also little oddities, provocative asides and a general sway to the training that bear closer study.  I’ll bring my 30 years of practitioner and Trainer experience to aid in revisiting this amazing material.  There will be Functional Integration explorations and Awareness Through Movement lessons.

Awareness Through Movement®–Waking Up the Self Organizing Function

Olena Nitefor
Open to:  T3-4, P
Registration Code: P2

In AY#478 Moshe says "Do not try to push more, but at the points where it is difficult, do it more easily, a gentler movement, more slowly. Then, slowly it will organize itself." He does not say, "Do it more easily…  Then, slowly you will realize how to organize it." In the contrast between these two statements lies the difference between self organization and self correction. This workshop is devoted to Awareness Through Movement®  lessons as an ongoing search of and for intelligence in the self organizing process.  We will examine how attention, and action are utilized differently from an attitude of self correction or an attitude of self organization.  The differences are subtle yet clear, and have far reaching implications, impacting the perennial question, "how long can these changes last?" We will explore the many facets of ATM: experiential, functional, developmental, bio-mechanical, and illuminate learning strategies utilized for the development of the self organizing function. We will look at workshop design and reinvigorate your dedication to scrupulously resist self correction, and engage in the process of self organization for yourself and your students. Please visit my web site,  http://www.feldenkrais-method.ca/ . to get the full description of this workshop.

Freeing the Head and Neck

Arlyn Zones
Open to: P, day two open to public
Registration Code: P3

The freedom of the head and neck is vitally important for our sense of orientation and equilibrium in the world. When the head and neck are free and the eyes are on the horizon all aspects of our functioning in gravity become easier.

In this pre-conference workshop, you will:

• Learn through Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® lessons how reconnecting the movement of the head, neck and eyes to chest, pelvis and spine can lead to dramatic improvement and change. Themes include: Differentiating the head from the neck; Relating the cardinal movements of the head and neck to C7, the chest and spine; and Influencing the head from the pelvis and sacrum.
• Learn how to create and teach a successful public workshop. (The second day of this pre-conference workshop will include a workshop for the public, on "Freeing the Head and Neck".)

 

Monday July 30

Full day workshops

Learning to Read Your Own Tracks: Feldenkrais® for Walking

Annie Thoe
Open to:  A
Registration Code: M1

An experienced tracker can look at a few details of a scene or track, have a composite picture of what happened and predict an animal’s intention. Using tracking inquiry for Feldenkrais work, what could we learn about how we walk? What tracks can we find in our movement patterns that reveal our limitations and intentions? What details in our posture reflect how we interact in our environment? This workshop provides the nuts and bolts of sensory observation using tracking and Awareness Through Movement® lessons. Explore outside the familiar tracks of the body. Learn to walk softly and in harmony with nature.

CANCELED—Awareness Through Partnering: More than a Metaphor

Cathy Paine
Open to: T, P
Registration Code: M2 - CANCELED

This workshop has been Canceled.  Please see workshop M7 below.

Interactive Functional Integration® and Awareness Through Movement® Lessons: Bringing People to Their Senses

Jerry Karzen
Open to: T4, P
Registration Code: M3

Towards the end of his life a great percentage of Moshe’s ATM and FI lessons became more interactive. He demonstrated movements to his students, assisted, and had them perform tasks that made them aware of what they were doing; and frequently created situations that obligated them to do specific movements. In the first half of this day long seminar we will view and discuss a few of Moshe’s FI lessons with examples that illustrate the above situations. The second half of the day will be devoted to exploring learning experiences in individuals with respect to aspects of postural and scoliosis considerations.

Seeing The World Through Engineer Eyes: The Assumptions Dr. Feldenkrais Did Not Teach

Keith Johnson
Open to: P
Registration Code: M4

What we sense is formed, shaped, and guided by our expectations and mental models. Dr. Feldenkrais had extensive experience with the mental models of
physics, mechanics and engineering, yet he did not teach those models. This workshop will acquaint you with fundamental guiding images from engineering
mechanics, and give you experience seeing and sensing Functional Integration lessons through engineer eyes. Graphical presentation of these concepts requires no math skills. Easy-to-build physical models demonstrate the principles, which you will then explore in an elegant FI composition.

Sensation: Differentiating Sense from Non-sense

Dennis Leri
Open to: P3+
Registration Code: M5

What is a sensation? How is it different from, yet related to, a percept or a perceptual judgment? How is a sensation produced and sensed? Is it a cause or
an effect of action? By clarifying the notion of a sensation we can disentangle a lot of fuzzy thinking about how we experience, how we express that experience, and how it relates to our lives and our practices. Workshop includes Awareness Through Movement lessons.

Catching the Nervous System off Guard: Sneaking in with Proximal Movement

Allison Rapp
Open to: T, P
Registration Code: M7

Most of us have at least a casual acquaintance with the concept of "proximal versus distal" movement.  In this workshop, we’ll develop that concept into a useful way of thinking about movement in relation to injury or chronic difficulty. When I’m injured, my nervous system focuses on guarding the front door — using pain to stop me from doing further harm to myself. Pain limits my range, constrains my breathing, makes me feel my age, and ultimately creates changes in how I use myself that don’t readily revert to "normal" when they’re no longer needed. But because I don’t generally move from "the other side of the joint" my nervous system doesn’t bother to guard against movement from that direction. Consequently, it leaves the back door wide open to a sneak attack of range-enhancing, pain-reducing, recovery-hastening proximal movement! "Great," you say, "but how many joints can we move in this way?" We’ll explore from head to toe to find out the answer, using ATM, partnering, small groups and group sharing. By the end of the day, you may have to remind yourself that distal movement is also an option!

Allison Rapp (1977) is a graduate of the San Francisco Training with Moshe. A trainer since 1991, she’s taught practitioners-to-be in the US, Canada, Europe and the Pacific Rim, and is known for her precision, her ability to explain what she’s doing in detail, and her love of laughter. In addition to her practice and teaching schedule, she owns a yarn shop in Grass Valley, CA, where she offers Awareness Through Knitting lessons.

Two day workshop

Predictors of Success in Functional Integration® Lessons, Day One

Donna Ray
Open to: P
Registration Code: MT6

Functional vision, sensitive reciprocal movement and relational spontaneity are FI essentials along with well-defined skeletal contact. The emerging order of the nervous system during FI is apparent when you sharpen your sensory tools. This two-day course will focus on the learning and change that takes place during FI. Know what you are doing so you can predict a successful lesson. The use of FI demonstration and practice along with ATM lessons will leave you feeling confident and clear minded. You will be able to apply the Feldenkrais Method with greater depth and understanding.

Tuesday July 31

Full day workshops

The "Sense" of Humor: From Banana Peels to Double Takes

Lavinia Plonka
Open to: A
Registration Code: T1

The successful physical comedian relies on a superbly organized skeleton to make us laugh. Repetition, timing, spontaneity and the element of surprise are key ingredients in both comedy and Awareness Through Movement®. This workshop combines both for a unique approach to this ancient craft. Practitioners will learn strategies for working with performers, as well as how to integrate humor into their teaching. Performers will learn key lessons that provide the suppleness and dexterity needed for successful physical comedy. And everyone else will enjoy a somatic peek into a rarely demonstrated skill. Not to mention a lot of laughs.

Learning to Feel What We Touch

Martin Weiner
Open to: T, P
Registration Code: T2

Moshe often pointed out to us that we do not see what we see. It is also very true that we do not feel what we touch. Not having these senses fully available to us diminishes our effectiveness and leaves us in the dark about to how proceed confidently in a Functional Integration session. It also interferes with our direct experience of a client so that they feel "gotten." In this workshop, we will explore how to see and feel what is right in front of our eyes and at our fingertips and join with another in a way that immediately effects a positive change.

Following the Easy

Darrell Bluhm
Open to:  A: morning / T3-4, P: afternoon
Registration Code: T3

"The best leader follows."—Lao Tzu. According to the Standards of Practice, a Feldenkrais practitioner "meshes his/her movement with the easiest directions in which the student moves." Enhancing this skill will be the focus of the workshop. In the morning we will focus on Awareness Through Movement lessons as a means to discriminate preferences in our movement, discovering what is easy. In the afternoon we will apply that capacity to recognizing our students’ biases, and find ways to move with them in Functional Integration practice. Following what is "easy" can then lead us into deeper realms of mutual discovery.

Accelerate Your Evolution as an Awareness Through Movement® Teacher

Diana Razumny
Open to:  T3-4, P
Registration Code: T4

This workshop is designed to take you step by step through refining your ATM teaching skills. It is based on the latest version of Diana Razumny’s ATM Workbook, a companion to Dr. Feldenkrais’ Awareness Through Movement book. The steps used to study the ATMs in this book are applicable to growing your skills for teaching any lesson. Whatever your skill level, you’ll find this workshop stimulating. It’s particularly supportive for students and new practitioners. You will walk away with a template for improving your ATM teaching, as well as applying ATMs to FI practice.

Optimal Moves for Musicians

Mary Spire
Open to:  P
Registration Code: T5

An innovative and effective program for musicians and Feldenkrais teachers. In this one day workshop, Mary Spire will introduce her unique program for working with musicians that draws on her varied and extensive experience as a performer and a Feldenkrais teacher. She has been working with professional musicians and educators for many years and will share her insights on how to understand, communicate and successfully work with musicians. Using ATM, FI and demonstration with instruments, the workshop will cover the genesis of music-related injuries, prevention of injuries, and moving beyond prevention and injury to improved thinking, movement and performance.

Applied Tracking and Functional Integration® for Making New Trails

Annie Thoe
Open to:  P
Registration Code: T7

This workshop will use the inquiry of tracking to construct the most functional lesson for a client within their environment, specifically to improve walking. Understanding a client’s history, like a master tracker, will help in guiding him/her to greater self-reliance. Improve observation of details using tracking inquiry to learn how a client relates to his/her environment (finding "baseline" ). Identify their familiar physical landmarks, improve awareness of sensory "alarms," and identify habitual survival strategies. We will practice touching and moving without engaging "alarms," finding and understanding established "trails," and ultimately exploring new pathways of movement for higher function in walking.

Two day workshop

Predictors of Success in Functional Integration® Lessons, Day Two

Donna Ray
Open to:  P
Registration Code: MT6

Functional vision, sensitive reciprocal movement and relational spontaneity are FI essentials along with well-defined skeletal contact. The emerging order of the nervous system during FI is apparent when you sharpen your sensory tools. This two-day course will focus on the learning and change that takes place during FI. Know what you are doing so you can predict a successful lesson. The use of FI demonstration and practice along with ATM lessons will leave you feeling confident and clear minded. You will be able to apply the Feldenkrais Method with greater depth and understanding.

Wednesday August 1

Half day workshops

Finding Freedom and Uncovering Creativity Through the Feldenkrais Method®

Jeff Haller
Open to: A
Registration Code: W1

In this imaginative and fun workshop, we will examine how habits we formed early in life can actually interfere with our ability to be creative and enjoy our lives. Awareness Through Movement lessons offer a profound opportunity to discover how bound we are to habits of thinking, sensing, feeling and moving. Simultaneously the lessons provide an arena to "learn how to learn," and disengage from habits that no longer serve. As we learn to remove the obstacles that we have to free movement, we discover a template readily usable to spread freedom and creativity into other parts of our lives.

Making Connections: Hasidic Roots and Resonance in the Work of Moshe Pinchas Feldenkrais.

David Kaetz
Open to: A
Registration Code: W2

As Moshe took the essence of Judo off the mat and into daily life, so he took some of the essential motifs of his own tradition and put them on the mat, to be explored through muscle, nerve and bone. In this seminar we go in greater depth into the thought structures and philosophical premises which Moshe brought into his teachings from his intellectual and spiritual background in the heartland of Hasidism. It is recommended that participants attend the presentation on Sunday night.

Feldenbike: Choosing Fitting and Riding Bicycles the Feldenkrais® Way

Michael Wolk
Open to: A
Registration Code: W3

Through Awareness Through Movement lessons and lecture, this course will help participants experience the most efficient and comfortable riding positions
and techniques. We will learn about the many permutations of bicycle styles, sizing, equipment and fitting that makes riding a bicycle pleasurable. No bicycle is required to attend this workshop.

Explaining Pain: Our Least Favorite Sense

Lori Sweet
Open to: T, P
Registration Code: W4

Lecture and book review of Explain Pain, written by Lorimer Moseley and David Butler. This outstanding book, written for the medical community and layman alike, describes the last ten years of neuroscience research on pain, including how our brain habituates pain cycles. The value of the Feldenkrais Method in interrupting those pain cycles will be presented via Awareness Through Movement lessons for individuals with severe chronic pain. Ideal for new practitioners
looking for entry points for dealing with chronic pain.

Sensation, Image and Play: An Interdisciplinary Arts Approach to Stimulating the Imagination

Sheri Cohen
Open to: T3-4, P
Registration Code: W5

Dr. Feldenkrais modeled Awareness Through Movement lessons on the exploration of infants and children, because an open-ended sense of play is essential to efficient motor learning and to the development of a healthy sense of self. How might we be more playful in our teaching and inspire more playfulness in our students’ explorations? In this workshop we’ll journey, in an elliptical fashion, through ATM, FI, timed free-writes, drawing sessions, and sounding explorations; returning over and over again to the sensation of movement. The process creates a ripe, playful environment for observing oneself in the process of image making.

FULL!! as of 7/14/07 — Communicating with Dementia Residents Using Awareness Through Movement® Lessons

Louise Vesper
Open to: T3-4, P
Registration Code: W6 — FULL!! as of 7/14/07

How do you work with people with dementia, in wheelchairs? How do you build rapport with adults who cannot communicate through words? Using ATM and discussion, explore the challenges, complexities, joys and rewards of teaching dementia residents in nursing homes. We will focus on how the Feldenkrais Method transcends perceived barriers to benefit, and contributes to learning, improved sensing and movement for these students. Discover creative, understandable, and attainable ways to teach ATM, using skills that communicate trust, caring and compassion. The concepts in this workshop also apply to other special populations.

Thursday August 2

Full day workshops

Improve Survival Abilities

Moti Nativ
Open to: A
Registration Code: H1

This workshop will bring you important knowledge about Moshe’s ideas, practical work in Judo and self-defense, and the strong connection of martial arts to the development of the Feldenkrais Method. By experiencing and analyzing self-defense techniques as they arise from the Awareness Through Movement lessons, you’ll understand the effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method  from the survival point of view.

FULL!! as of 7/14/07— From a Secure Base: Early Development and Finding Your Ground

Alice Friedman
Open to: T, P
Registration Code: H2 — FULL!! as of 7/14/07

Gaining a sense of one’s unique spirit, or perspective on the world begins early. We will use Awareness Through Movement lessons and current thinking in early development to explore all that is required in the early stages of human development to establish a secure sense of being. The parallel course of motor and emotional differentiation and refinement along with the environment and culture in which one lives combine to shape us physically and emotionally; therefore psychologically. Recognizing where optimal development went awry can be of help in using awareness to refine ourselves in life and in the practice of the Feldenkrais Method.

Writing Sexy: Selling the Feldenkrais Method® in Your Own Words

Lavinia Plonka
Open to:  T, P
Registration Code: H3

How do you grab a reader? How do you target your writing for different situations? How can you find your own voice? These are just some of the questions we will explore in this hands on approach to writing about the Feldenkrais Method. From newsletters, to press releases to books, this workshop will offer practical tools to help anyone begin to write about their work. We will use Awareness Through Movement lessons to clarify thought since "It’s not flexible bodies I’m
after, it’s flexible minds." Each person will come away with a written piece ready for action.

CANCELED - Can I Use Technology to Advance My Practice and Still Be Present: A Forum

Efrem Razumny
Open to: T3-4, P
Registration Code: H4 - CANCELED

This workshop has been canceled.

Two day workshops

Uncovering Deeper Aspects of the Self in Functional Integration®, Day One

Jeff Haller
Open to:  T3-4, P
Registration Code: HF5
From conception a person becomes conditioned and habituated to their environment. The extent to which a person develops invariant habits determines their ability to live life in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Feldenkrais Method lessons offer a profound process to uncover deeper aspects of the self and live a life of freedom and creativity. In this workshop we will pick up from the Wednesday public workshop themes and begin to explore how to use FI lessons with dialogue, to help a person radically shift their perspective on the life they have lived and move toward the life they can lead.

OH! The Places You’ll Go! The IFF Competency Profile, Day One

Candy Conino, Keith Johnson, Dwight Pargee
Open to: P
Registration Code: HF6

"If you know what you’re doing, you can do what you want," claimed our founder, Moshe Feldenkrais. But, how do you know if you know what you’re doing? For seven years, the IFF has been supporting the research and development of a competency profile for practitioners. It is a beautifully comprehensive map of the terrain of our professional possibilities. Learn how to use the map to assess and plan your professional development. We’ll work individually and in small groups. There will be stories to write and tell, pictures to color, card games, Awareness Through Movement lessons, discussion, feedback, music and clowns. Oh! The places you’ll go!

The Body Senses Movement: Integrating Science and Feldenkrais Method® Practice, Day One

Sandy Burkart and Osa Jackson Schulte
Open to:  P
Registration Code: HF7

Eye hand coordination during reaching and grasping requires the central nervous system to use a multi-modal sensory motor system to provide for the most efficient action. This program is designed to integrate the theoretical components of how the body senses movement when reaching and grasping with the development of Awareness through Movement and Functional Integration lessons. The scientific interrelationships between posture, balance, movement,
behavior and learning will be explored in ways that Feldenkrais practitioners can understand how ATM and FI lessons can be constructed within the framework
of science and experiential needs of the client.

Friday August 3

Full day workshops

Drawing From Life

Vicki Robinson
Open to:  A
Registration Code: F1

Bringing pencil to paper to draw involves seeing, perceiving and coordinating movement with precision. Have you ever noticed how challenging it is to
create a round circle? We’ll explore drawing with the help of Awareness Through Movement lessons, and participants will understand what it takes to make exact, concise lines found in a Da Vinci drawing as well as the bold, free-flowing line of a Japanese scroll painter. Whether you’re a novice or an experienced
artist, you’ll walk away with a very different sense of how to approach the drawing process.

Power and Grace: Living From Your Center

Kathy James
Open to: A
Registration Code: F2

What is the relationship between power and grace, and how can we embody these qualities in our work, relationships, and lives? How does the principle and
practice of centering relate to these two qualities, and what is the role of the pelvis, lower abdomen and hip joints in centering ourselves with power and
grace? We will explore these questions experientially through Awareness Through Movement lessons and practices from Aikido. We will learn how centering is
a way to interrupt our habitual patterns and develop new ways of acting with greater power, grace and connection to the people and things we care about
in life.

The Feldenkrais Method®: How it Affects the Craniosacral System

Susan Pinto
Open to:  P
Registration Code: F3

Broaden your kinesthetic awareness and discover the beauty of the craniosacral system. Experience how our Method influences the movement of the intracranial membrane system, the cerebrospinal fluid, visceral, and glandular systems. We will play with variations of some of our familiar lessons, sensing them in an entirely new way. New and innovative lessons will profoundly affect your experience of yourself.

Two day workshops

Uncovering Deeper Aspects of the Self in Functional Integration®, Day Two

Jeff Haller
Open to: T3-4, P
Registration Code: HF5

OH! The Places You’ll Go! The IFF Competency Profile, Day Two

Candy Conino, Keith Johnson, Dwight Pargee
Open to: P
Registration Code: HF6

The Body Senses Movement: Integrating Science and Feldenkrais Method® Practice, Day Two

Sandy Burkart and Osa Jackson Schulte
Open to:  P
Registration Code: HF7

Eligibility Codes:
A= All attendees including the public
T= Trainees
T3-4= 3rd and 4th year Trainees
T4= 4th year Trainees
P= Practitioners
P3+= Practitioners with 3 or more years experience