b. The Power of Self-Organization (2023)

Self-organization is the foundation of our work as Feldenkrais practitioners. Better self-organization results in better Functional Integration® lessons. Yet it is not something we “know“—rather, it is a practice, something that we train in again and again.

Moving with an equal distribution of muscular tone is a basic principle of the Feldenkrais Method®. When you are teaching, do your hands and fingers feel strain? Do you experience neck or back discomfort? Can you lift your client's head or limbs without changing the tone in your arms? Through this Advanced Training, you will understand some of the basic principles and biomechanics that govern how efficient we are, and learn to understand your students' experiences.

We emphasize how to use ground force reactions with balance to achieve the greatest capacity to support ourselves, as a basis for working with our clients.

By making self-organization a daily personal practice, you'll be able to consistently:

• Improve the quality of your touch;
• Give higher-quality Functional Integration lessons;
• Improve your comfort while working;
• Support yourself by knowing how to utilize ground force reactions to optimize skeletal organization and work with a proportional, equal distribution of tone;
• Improve your ability to listen to what your client communicates when you touch them.

Taught by Feldenkrais Trainer Jeff Haller, with guest teachers Andrew Gibbons (Assistant Trainer) and Roger Russell (Trainer).

Includes the five-day workshop plus eight Functional Integration lessons and discussion.

Jeff Haller, PhD, Feldenkrais Trainer, regards the Feldenkrais Method as a pathway to the inner composure necessary for living a creative life in a challenging world. He studied directly with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais Method. In 1983, Jeff graduated from his own professional training program in Amherst, MA. From 1984–1991 his studio offered classes in Feldenkrais, Aikido, Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation. Since 1993, Jeff’s primary focus has been to train Feldenkrais Method teachers and sustain an extensive private practice in Bellevue, WA.

Andrew Gibbons is an Assistant Trainer who began mentoring with Jeff Haller in 2009. He has been faculty member of the IOPS Academy and the Feldenkrais Training Academy since their inception. Andrew trained as classical pianist, and worked as an ergonomic consultant for The New York Times in the 1990s. Since then has taught for the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, the Doctoral PT program of SUNY Stoneybrook Medical School, and for musicians in the Manhattan School of Music's wellness program. He has also been an invited Tech Talk speaker at Google’s NYC headquarters, talking about his program Avoiding the Black Hole of Computer Posture. He contributed a chapter on working with musicians for the recent book, The Feldenkrais Method: Learning Through Movement (Handspring Publishing, 2021).

Roger Russell was lucky to study with Moshe Feldenkrais in San Francisco, Amherst, and Israel between 1975 and 1982. Roger is a physical therapist and movement scientist, and a Feldenkrais Trainer since 1997. He grew up in Denver and lives in Heidelberg, Germany, where he directs the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg. Since 1990 he has taught in Feldenkrais trainings in Europe and the US. Since his first experience with Moshe he has been fascinated by the question: What makes a good Feldenkrais lesson tick? Looking for answers he has studied such diverse fields as evolution, biology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, dynamic systems, biomechanics, neuroscience and infant development—all in relation to the Feldenkrais Method.

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