How You Move…Moves Your Baby: From Security into the World

Workshop Recordings for Streaming over 12 weeks

A Feldenkrais Method® and Developmental Milestones Workshop with Bernadette Robinson, Julie Peck and Sara Elderfield

Our lives as human beings are relational. We are not born with all the physical, emotional and social skills that we need to navigate the world as adults fully activated. In fact, we require a long apprenticeship within our environment (other humans and our actual earth environment) to help us to activate and organize these skills within us. In the early stages of life particularly, our ability to ‘complete’ the developmental stages ‘well’/’efficiently’ is partly dependent on what, in attachment theory, is called contingent, collaborative communication with our caregivers. ‘When contingent communication is present in our interactions, our sense of self with that person feels right. It feels good. We feel understood…’. (Daniel J. Siegel and Mary Hartzell). Babies, children and adults who feel good and feel safe have the inner feeling of a secure base/foundation which is one of the elements required for successful learning, exploring and relationships.

From a purely physical or functional point of view, developmental stages of movement build on each other. Mastery of each step requires not only that we can roll for example but that we can roll ‘efficiently’. In Feldenkrais, it is well-known that the adage, ‘You can only give what you have’ is true; meaning that we can only transmit clearly, the movement patterns that we have activated in ourselves. Additionally, timing matters, words and tone matter, and how we touch matters. For parents and grandparents who want to help facilitate the development of the children in their lives, it then makes sense that how you move yourself and how you move or handle your child can be more or less skillful depending on your own physical ‘organization’.

Who is this course for?

1. For everyone who is interested in how ‘re-doing’ the developmental stages of movement can enhance your ability to move with ease and change habitual life patterns. (You do not need to have children in your life to do this course).

2. For parents/grandparents who are currently ‘in the thick of it’ and want to develop positioning and handling skills to feel more confident in their caregiving role. You can only transmit the patterns that are clear in your own system.

3. For professionals who work with children.

What we propose during these classes is that you:

• Experience using 6 Awareness Through Movements lessons each of the developmental movement ‘markers’ that a child needs to do to develop social, emotional and physical functions and relationships.

• Gain a theoretical understanding of what each of the stages are and how they are significant for developing social, emotional and physical functions and relationships.

• Develop positioning and handling skills that can make both the baby feel physical secure and you as a caregiver more confident in your caregiving role. We will use a doll to practice handling. For those who are not doing the course in order to handle children, this time with your hands will further embed the patterns we are practicing in your nervous system.

Julie Peck, B.App.Sc. (Physiotherapy), Certified Feldenkrais Trainer

Julie is a highly respected Feldenkrais practitioner and international trainer. She has presented at trainings in Australasia, Europe and USA, as well as at conferences and workshops. Julie was the Educational Director for the recent Perth Feldenkrais Practitioner Training Programme. Julie’s gift of creating a bridge between theory, from the biological sciences and education, and its practical application in an individual’s life have made her a sought-after teacher and practitioner.

Bernadette Robinson, Physiotherapist (Paed)

Bernadette graduated at the Physiotherapy School at the Georg August University Göttingen, Germany, in 1980. Prior to moving to Australia, she worked for 15 years as a Physiotherapist in the Children's Hospital & Child Development Centre in Oldenburg, Germany. Here she treated children of all ages with a variety of medical conditions. During this time, she specialised in the treatment of children with developmental, neurological and respiratory conditions. After she passed the AECOP Exam in 1999, she worked for a couple of years at Rocky Bay, treating young adults with neuro muscular conditions, before she became the Senior Physiotherapist at the Fremantle Child Development Service. Bernadette still holds this position and works one day per week in her private practice.

Sara Elderfield, Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner

Sara is a Feldenkrais Method practitioner, yoga teacher and long-time meditator. She has been teaching yoga and Feldenkrais as a form of movement meditation practice for 25 years. Since 2000, she has been leading Feldenkrais, yoga, meditation and hiking retreats to Bali, Nepal, Tibet, Vietnam, France and Japan. When I met my meditation teach at age 19, it was suggested to me that understanding more about movement and specifically developmental movements would benefit my meditation practice and my life generally. Thus began a thread of investigation which I have found endlessly fascinating and transforming personally and in the teaching of my own classes and clients.

What is the Feldenkrais Method?

Feldenkrais keeps you moving through all the stages of life. Throughout the world, the Feldenkrais Method® is growing in recognition as a way of enhancing human performance in life generally but particularly in the fields of the performing arts, sports and sciences (especially rehabilitation and pain management). It can also assist those with learning disabilities.

The Feldenkrais Method®, developed through 40 years of study by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, is a revolutionary approach to understanding human functioning. It utilizes movement and attention to enhance our natural abilities to learn, to change and to continue to develop throughout our lifetime. Certified Feldenkrais Practitioners® use movement, attention and sensory re-education to promote ease and comfort, improve coordination and flexibility, expand self-awareness and evoke greater vitality. It is impressive in its versatility and draws on the physical sciences, martial arts, and all the human sciences. It encompasses the developmentally based patterns of human movement and behaviour.

Availability of recordings: From the time of payment, you will have access for 12 weeks (120 days). Recordings are streamed not downloaded as they are copyright. No extensions will be given. You can watch them as often as you like.

What you will need:

• You will need to wear clothing that you can move and breathe in (no tight waistbands, jeans or belts etc). Your glasses if you need them, pen and notebook.

• A mat and 3 towels or equivalent

• A doll or a teddy bear with limbs that can be folded/moved if possible.

Cost: $300 for 12 weeks access (includes GST).

Orders and enquiries: To order or for any enquiries, please email Sara: sara@yogamoves.net.au or phone 0415 363 313. No texts please.

Payments: direct debit only: Please include your name on your payment as a reference. Please note account number below - it is NOT the Yoga Moves account.

Bank: Commonwealth Bank Account name: Centre for Movement Studies

BSB: 066 130 Account number: 1036 6227

©International Feldenkrais® Federation Archive, Robert Golden