Awareness Through Movement workshop with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais 1973 Berkeley, California
Following Moshe´s success in Esalen the year before he was invited again for a 4-week workshop in Berkeley in June 1973. It attracted much attention and directly led to the 1975 San Francisco training. The workshop consists of 42 ATMs and 6 lectures.
https://www.feldenkraisaccess.com/blog/david-interview
“In April of 1973, I was a senior at the University of California Berkeley, and I saw a flier on a telephone pole saying Moshe Feldenkrais was coming to town. I’d already heard of him because my psychotherapist had seen him work on somebody, was impressed, and had told me about it. I decided to register for his Berkeley workshop. Ira: How serendipitous! What was the workshop like? David: It was extraordinary! There were two workshops; one during the day that met for five weeks, and an evening class twice a week, open to the public. I went to one of the evening classes, which was very crowded. Probably 150 people were there. I was immediately hooked and began sneaking into the daytime class, limited to only about 30 participants studying in depth with Dr. Feldenkrais. He was in Berkeley for five weeks, and I managed to study with him most days during those five weeks. I was stunned by the positive changes that Feldenkrais achieved working with people with severe challenges. A middle-aged man with cerebral palsy began to walk with ease, and an older woman who had suffered a stroke recovered her abilities. And I was stunned by the changes I felt in myself. I was extremely excited by the idea that we each have an intelligent brain predisposed to learning and helping us. And the fact that it’s possible to access that capacity by creating an opportunity in which sensory-motor learning can take place. Dr. Feldenkrais had figured out how to access the brain’s neuroplasticity to bring about positive change.” (ParsonsB)
https:// somaticmovementcenter.com/history-of-somatics/
“While studying neurology in Florida, Thomas Hanna wrote the book Bodies in Revolt: A Primer in Somatic Thinking, a survey of somatic philosophy which he published in 1970. After reading this book, an acquaintance told him about the work of Moshe Feldenkrais. Intrigued, Hanna read Feldenkrais’s book Body and Mature Behavior, and attended his month-long workshop in Berkeley, California in 1973. What Hanna witnessed at this workshop changed the course of his life. During the workshop, Feldenkrais demonstrated his hands-on techniques with a man who had suffered from cerebral palsy since the age of three. Within just half an hour, Feldenkrais helped this man begin to unlearn years of habitual muscular patterns which in the eyes of a medical practitioner would have been considered permanent. At the time, Hanna was the Director of the Humanistic Psychology Institute (now the Saybrook Institute) in San Francisco, and he was able to bring Feldenkrais to the school as a Distinguished Visiting Professor for three years. From 1975 to 1978, Feldenkrais led his professional training program in the United States for the first time.
Feldenkrais’s methods gave Hanna the means by which to work with people who suffered from functional disorders and chronic pain conditions. Hanna coined the term somatic education to describe methods of education which worked with both the mind and body to improve health and functioning. Hanna used his understanding of how the nervous system controls the muscles to develop advanced movement techniques and an entire system of movement education that was highly effective in retraining the nervous system. (ParsonsB)
Lessons
- Breathing 6/18 AM
- Flexors 6/18 PM
- Extension 6/19 AM
- Flexing and Stretching Toes 6/19 PM
- Flexing and Stretching Toes, continued. 6/19 PM
- Pelvic Clock 6/20 AM
- Foot Above Head 6/20 PM
- Spine Twisting 6/21 AM
- Jelly Pudding and Functional Integration Comments 6/21 PM
- On All Fours 6/22 AM
- Experiencing the Middle 6/22 PM
- Praying 6/25 AM
- Lengthening the Right Side 6/26 AM
- Toe Touching 6/27 AM
- Rolling the Head 6/28 AM
- Arms Over Knees 6/28 PM
- Group Lesson, 6/29 AM
- Eyes 6/29 PM
- Caressing Floor with Left Hand 7/2 AM
- Rotating Both Arms and Walking on Side 7/3 AM
- Walking on Side 2/3 PM
- Head and Tongue on Dial 7/5 AM
- Head Under Gate and Sommersaults 7/5 PM
- Arms Twisting 7/6 AM
- Shoulder and Hip Circles 7/10 AM
- Internal Space 7/10 PM
- Toe Touching Standing 7/11 AM
- Rolling Imaginary Ball 7/12 AM
- Toe Touching 7/12 PM
- Tilting to Side 7/14 AM
- Twisting While Sitting 7/13 PM
- Body Scan and Leg to Head 7/16 AM
- Leg to Head 7/16 PM
- All Fours to Lying and Back 7/17 AM
- Lecture 6/25 PM
- Lecture 6/26 PM
- Lecture 6/27 PM
- Lecture 7/2 PM
- Lecture and Rolling 7/9 PM
- Questions and Answers 7/11PM
- Twisting While Sitting 6/26 PM
- Flexors 6/28 PM
- Extensors and Breathing 7/1 PM
- Lecture and Breathing 7/1 PM
- Extensors 7/3 PM
- Shoulder and Hip Circles 7/5 PM
- Voice 7/10 PM
- Lateral Flexion 7/17 PM
- Pelvic Clock 7/19 PM
Resources
David Zemach-Bersin gave his set of the audio recordings to Feldenkrais Resources.
Feldenkrais Resources, Berkeley, CA (no year, early 80s) (out of print). Recorded on forty-nine 90-minute cassettes. Enclosed in albums, with table of contents and user’s guide.