5-week series of Awareness Through Movement Classes
Wednesday 26th April to 24th May from 7-8pm at Eric Street Physiotherapy and Movement Centre
The next series of classes will enable you to sense easier transmission of force through your skeleton from the ground up, ease tension through your spine, shoulders and neck and thus find more effortless posture.
My Personal Experience
I am in my final year of the Feldenkrais training (4 yrs) now- yay!- and over the past 3+ years of regular ATM practise it is interesting to notice the wonderful ways this method works. After some classes I feel calm and relaxed. At other times, I feel energised. I always feel different. I drive home after class or the training and carry on with daily tasks and gradually forget about what I did in the class. But subtle changes occur and I realise that my walk is slightly different. I no longer have so much tension in my back because I don’t have to put effort in to holding my shoulders up and back, my tummy in and butt under for “good posture”. Whoever said that was good posture?? My skeleton is doing its job to support me, and my muscles are free to direct the movement. I feel better, I move better and this has all snuck in under the radar. I don’t have to think about it.
What is Awareness Through Movement?
In an Awareness Through Movement class (ATM) the teacher guides you through a series of movement sequences, allowing you the time to sense how you move so that you are able to discover easier and more efficient ways to move. ATM lessons improve your awareness and quality of movement through your own body’s feedback.
Why should I come?
In today’s fast paced and outcome driven world many of us think that to maintain our fitness and agility requires grunt and high reps, no pain no gain. In ATM lessons, you learn how to move more efficiently, with improved coordination and less effort.
Strength and endurance is required relative to every task, be it walking to the letter box, a morning of tennis, dead lifting 100kg, or running a marathon. It is possible to improve your experience of all these activities. Continued practise of less helpful movements perpetuates the pattern. In an ATM lesson, you may learn what movements are interrupting you from easier ways of moving and thus find more efficiency and ease to perform a task.
At times in an ATM lesson the movements are gentle, slow and small, as well as unfamiliar and intriguing. As you attend to these movements with awareness you are able to clarify movements and body parts that you may have forgotten are available to you. You may have heard of brain maps. This attention to sensory and motor feedback can enhance your brain maps. Moving slowly and gently also allows you to avoid pain, if that is your issue, and you can sense differences in quality of movement. It is in these moments that the nervous system can reorganise to improve your function. Some of the lessons introduce you to unusual movements that open up new movement possibilities that can be very useful.
If you are interested but unable to attend the Wednesday evening class, please let us know as we may be able to accommodate you in another time up new class times.
All the best,
Jenny D'Cruz
