Awareness Through Movement® Workshop: Improve Your Life
Flutist and Authorized Trainee Awareness Through Movement® Teacher Meerenai Shim will lead this 1-2 hour workshop for musicians. Please wear comfortable/loose/flexible clothing and bring an exercise mat.
The first hour of the workshop will include an introduction to the Feldenkrais Method® and an Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) lesson. Using slow and gentle movement explorations we will get in tune with ourselves to rediscover our imagination and potential. Most people describe feeling more relaxed, grounded, centered, flexible, and alert after participating in an ATM class.
In the second hour of the workshop we will address any specific questions from participants. Possible topics may include repetitive stress injuries, sitting at a computer for long periods of time, ergonomics, and performance anxiety. If you have a particular issue or question, please email Meerenai ahead of time at flutemusic@gmail.com and bring your instrument or laptop if applicable.
Earlier in the day, Meerenai has limited availability to give a few 45-minute long one-on-one Feldenkrais Functional Integration® lessons. Please email Meerenai (flutemusic@gmail.com) to schedule a free lesson.
What is the Feldenkrais Method®?
The Feldenkrais Method was developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, a scientist, engineer, and judo master. The method is taught in two different types of lessons: Awareness Through Movement® group lessons and one-on-one Functional Integration® lessons. Awareness Through Movement® classes are group lessons where the teacher leads the class though movement exploration by giving verbal instructions. In Functional Integration® lessons, the teacher helps the student learn about their own movement potential by actually moving the fully-clothed student in a hands-on, (usually) private lesson.
All of the Feldenkrais lessons involve gentle and enjoyable movements to gain better awareness and discrimination.
One difference between Feldenkrias and other modalities of education such as Yoga or the Alexander Technique, is that other systems try to fix different components of the person by improving the properties of those components, while the Feldenkrais Method is interested in improving the entire person by improving their processes. Imagine the task of fixing or replacing individual bricks in an existing house, versus rebuilding the whole house with bricks being laid in a new formation. The Feldenkrais Method is more like the continual redesigning and rebuilding of the house with the goal of improving the process of redesigning and rebuilding, rather than trying to achieve the perfect house by redesigning and rebuilding.
As Moshe Feldenkrais says in his book, Awareness Through Movement, “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 to the easy, and the easy into the pleasant.”
Meerenai Shim is a flutist and Authorized Trainee Awareness Through Movement® Teacher. She is in her fourth and final year of training to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. Please contact Meerenai with any questions or concerns: flutemusic@gmail.com