MAY 21 UPDATE: By request from the students we’re continuing our Walking with Your Whole Self theme through June!
Walking is a boon for all ages. It provides exercise, builds bone, aids digestion, and even has psychological benefits. But often as we age – accumulating sedentary habits, injuries, and the effects of the world’s hard, flat floors – we lose touch with the pleasures of walking. As this happens we become more and more interested in where we’re going, and less in our skillfulness and ease in getting there! For some people walking even feels like a painful chore.
Whether you’re a regular walker or you’re returning to walking after an injury, Feldenkrais study is beautifully suited for improving this essential function, and it’s one of my favorite topics to teach. My walking workshops were even featured nationally a few years ago in Experience Life! magazine.
In our live weekly Awareness Through Movement lessons throughout May and June we’ll bring our full intelligence and sensitivity to walking. We’ll nourish its neurological “roots” by improving the integration of our axis (head, spine, and pelvis) with our arms and legs. We’ll also sense and get free of restrictive habits in our torsos that limit our abilities, so we can walk through life with more confidence and pleasure.
By restoring an easy, graceful gait nearer to our potential, perhaps we’ll find a taste of what Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh says about walking: “we don’t have to walk in outer space or on water to experience a miracle…walking on the green Earth is a miracle.”
These moving and sensing lessons will be explored in many configurations, but as usual in Feldenkrais study we’ll mostly be lying on the floor, since being out of gravity allows us to more easily notice and change movement habits.
Free “homework” suggestions will be shared by email after class along with the Zoom recording, whether you attend live or not.
I hope you’ll join us on Tuesdays to enjoy Walking with Your Whole Self!
Pay-What-You-Can Weekly Zoom Classes
– Nick Strauss-Klein
I’m a practitioner but not working because we’re building a house this year..has been challenging with Covid
Great what you’re doing
I’d like to try some of your classes to see how you are teaching
Great – we’d love to welcome you in our weekly classes. We’ve got folks of all levels of experience: practitioners, long-timer ATM students, and newcomers. Discussion after class has been great, too.