Take one out of their everyday experience.  Feldenkrais had the ridiculously simple and brilliant intuition to put people on the floor.  Our everyday experience is on our feet and tush and not on our knees, hands, stomach or back.  The simple reorientation of lying on the floor, a different engagement with gravity, and you can teach someone something new.

I work with many high performing artists.  No matter the talent, skill level or achievements, great artists always seek to improve their potential.  They may also hit a road bump with pain or injury along the way that sidelines them for an hour, day or year.  They often spend hours with daily practice and even taking a day off or two affects their physicality, emotions and psyche.  So how can one continue to grow and learn?  Could the best way for improving be away from what we know?  What does one that knows so much, need to learn?  These are questions I have to answer for myself and my students on a daily basis.

Let’s look at coordination.  It takes a lot of coordination to do a grand jete (split leap) or to hit the right notes on the marimba.  It is behind the very essence of making the most gorgeous sound, or winning the gold or bronze for an athlete; for a ballerina, when the back leg in arabesque doesn’t straighten, it’s not for lack of wanting to straighten it, because they know that shouldn’t be but still the coordination didn’t happen.  But it’s the same principle for walking, it takes a lot of coordination and skill.  A walk is an identifiable fingerprint to how you use yourself, how you coordinate your actions- stepping long/short, wide/narrow, bouncing/gliding, bending/straight, arm swing.  Sit in a coffee shop window sometime and you will notice that no two people walk alike.  Walking carries us to a place but at the same time prevents us from falling.  If I don’t time my step, I could fall or step off a curb and twist my ankle.  And it’s timing, or flexible timing that avoids this.  Walking came before dancing, so we could call this going back to basics, like going back to playing a chord or working on your tendu.  If you can create less stress and impact in walking, you help to avoid extra wear on your body; if you can carry your head so it can turn freely, you can let the rest of the spine and skeleton underneath to be softer; if you allow the hips to follow and counterbalance the upper body, walking can be so light and enjoyable, it allows that to carry over into everything else you encounter in the day.  For a dancer that means jumping higher and landing softer, turning faster and finding greater ease in all movements when the action is all going in the same direction, instead of working against yourself. For a musician that means being able to support your instrument at your fingertips from your feet, and use the whole body allowing the fingers and wrists rests when they don’t need to work.

So back to the floor.  One of the best ways to work on walking, is to start on the floor.  Work on the basics in a new and unlikely place and you will find doors open to even greater achievement.

comedic video by practicioner Lavinia Plonka on walking

or begin with some free lessons online

Lots of free audio downloads at: http://www.laviniaplonka.com – lessons at your desk as well as free audio downloads from her books

An audio lesson on differentiation of the foot by Moshe Feldenkrais, offered by the IFF (International Feldenkrais Federation)

And don’t forget the free lessons at http://www.feldenkrais.com!

New:

Website

Blog

Schedule

Payment Options

Policies

Our new website is up and running, complete with an updated online schedule.  www.clevelandmovement.com

Our new blog can be found here and followed by subscribing to our rss feed: feed://clevelandmovement.com/feed/

Our new schedule of workshops, classes and available private times can be found here and you can subscribe to our calendar by adding this to your own calendar feed:

xml- https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/7831iuqmm11udu2t1rgqncl8qg%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic

Our new payment options now include accepting credit cards.  After too many bounced checks, checks are no longer being accepted.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Cleveland pricing: $90 Functional Integration private sessions, $17 Awareness Through Movement group classes.  ($5/$2 cash discount applied respectively)

Currently running a package special, please inquire for details.  Oberlin pricing: see below.

Our new policies make it a better class for you.  For Tuesday evenings at 8pm, class must be reserved by Sunday at 12pm (2 days before) in order for class to be held. If there are no students signed up by that time, class will be cancelled for that week.

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Awareness Through Movement group sessions

Beginning February 9th continuing 2 six week series, 5-6pm

Series A- February 9, 16, 23, March 8,15, 22

Series B- April 5, 19, 26, May 3, 10, 17

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Feldenkrais Class to be presented at the Trombone Seminar in Cleveland at Cleveland State University with Shachar Israel, June 2012

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Now when you sign up for weekly classes, you can have the lessons emailed to you as well!

As a trial run, I will be sound recording and then sharing the lessons with you.  This will allow you to continue use the lesson at your own pace, in your own home or whenever it is most convenient for you.

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Free lessons and other events to come.  Stay tuned.

http://www.feldenkrais.com/method/press_release/2012_feldenkrais_week/#ATM

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TCO musicians- I am organizing a class with Dale in Miami the last weekend in January.  If you are interested in attending, please let me know.  Availability, date and time all to be coordinated soon.

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Now that there is a blog and facebook page, newsletters will be sent out quarterly.  We don’t want to send you something you don’t want.  If you would like to be removed from this list, please respond remove in the subject line.

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As always, please contact me with any questions or comments.  I will get back to you promptly.

Kindest regards,

Samantha