Educational Director, Trainer

Jeff Haller, PhD, GCFP

My time with Moshe Feldenkrais was short. I was very fortunate to be one of the people to study with him directly, including spending time with him in Tel Aviv just prior to his death. In my 34-year career, I have been blessed to do this work, in which every day I learn something new and deepen my own sense of being.

In 1983, I founded Inside Moves and have had a successful and fulfilling private practice working with a wide variety of clients ranging from those with severe disabilities to PGA golfers and NHL hockey players.

I work with people to create the conditions so they learn to improve the quality of their life. Working together we examine what it means to live a life of physical integrity, emotional dignity, and health—the lifelong challenge of meeting the next moment with the resources to live with personal fulfillment and wisdom.

I help my students:

• Transform their patterns of action that no longer serve them;
• Learn more refined ways to function and move;
• Learn how to recognize their innate capability for learning;
• Recover from the grievous emotional wounds life has given them;
• Diminish anxiety and insecurity;
• Learn to use their mind in ways that are useful to them;
• Care for their health and wellbeing;
• Transcend their conditioned past.

Since 1993, my primary focus has been to train people to become Feldenkrais practitioners. I have participated in over 35 trainings and have been the Educational Director for trainings in Seattle, Chicago, Vancouver and Victoria, BC, New Zealand, and Bend, OR. In addition, I have run dozens of Advanced Trainings for practitioners as well as the graduate-level IOPS Academy. I have refined my teaching and honed a curriculum that enables practitioners to be successful.

Guest Trainer

Roger Russell, GCFP

I had the great luck to learn the Feldenkrais Method with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais in San Francisco, Amherst, and Israel between 1975 and 1982. Moshe was creative, brilliant, and a fascinating character. I am a physical therapist and movement scientist, and have been a Feldenkrais Trainer since 1997. Born and raised in Denver, I now live in Heidelberg, Germany, where I am co-director of the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg.

Since 1990 I have taught in 32 Feldenkrais trainings as Assistant Trainer and Trainer across Europe and in the US. In Germany, I have been the Co-Educational Director for 11 Feldenkrais trainings since 1994.

A question that has fascinated me since my first experience with Moshe in 1975 is: What makes a good Feldenkrais lesson tick? To find an answer I have 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. This question has shaped my career. For example:

• I led a Feldenkrais research project which was published by the German MS Society in 1993.
• With, Ulla Schläfke, my partner in the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg, I have filmed and analyzed infant sensory-motor development.
• I led two science symposia: “Movement and the Development of Sense of Self” (Seattle 2004) and Embodying Neuroscience” (San Mateo 2012) and made presentations at other conferences in North America and Europe.
• I have published two books in German and many articles in the American and German Feldenkrais Journals, including two articles about infant movement development, and an article from a neuroscience perspective looking at why we insist on easy movements in Feldenkrais lessons.
• I regularly teach “Feldenkrais and the Brain” workshops, including recently together with Jeff Haller.

I look forward to sharing various scientific perspectives during the Feldenkrais Training Academy as to what makes a good Feldenkrais lesson tick.

Guest Trainer

Jerry Karzen, GCFP

I am a graduate of the 1977 San Francisco Training with Dr. Feldenkrais. I also studied with him at the Feldenkrais Institute in Tel-Aviv. We lived together from 1976 to 1984, and I was his personal traveling companion, secretary and close friend. I assisted in the editing of Dr. Feldenkrais’ last two books (The Potent Self and The Elusive Obvious), and directed and/or videotaped 95% of all existing recordings of Dr. Feldenkrais’ private Functional Integration^® lessons. I was chosen by Dr. Feldenkrais, before his death, to be a trainer in 1982. I have served as the Educational Director in over 35 programs world-wide, and am currently the Educational Director for programs in Brasil and Germany. At the request of Dr. Feldenkrais, I organized and administered his last training, and also at his request, was the first Executive Director of the Feldenkrais Foundation. I have also served as President of the North American Feldenkrais Guild^®. I live on the island of Maui, in Hawaii.

Guest Trainer

Donna Blank, GCFP

In the 1960s, I began in the arts, dancing and sculpting and teaching modern dance. In the 1970s, my interest in those art forms expanded into larger questions concerning the role of movement and touch as doorways into one’s sense of self, as well as into learning.

With a master’s degree in early childhood education, I taught three-, four-, and five-year-olds in the classroom, and also explored the use of movement as a foundation for curriculum and in development of self-image.

In the same decade, I studied Laban Movement Analysis. My thesis was a book, Dance for the People, utilizing LMA principles to teach creative movement to all people as an exploratory, non-performing process. Concurrently, I founded, with other early somatic explorers, The Institute for Movement Exploration in Connecticut, teaching at the intersections of movement, learning, healing and expression. We founded the first Master’s in Movement graduate program at Wesleyan University, where I designed the core curriculum, taught, and supervised master’s theses and projects.

At that time, I attended a weekend Feldenkrais workshop and took a deep dive into a level of learning that was unknown to me—and at the same time seemed profoundly known. I felt I was at home in myself…and that my earlier learning had a new context.

In 1980, I began to study with Moshe Feldenkrais at his Amherst training. That profound learning launched an ongoing exploration that continues today. My personal ongoing learning also became my profession; I became an Assistant Trainer in 1991 and a Trainer in 1999. I have taught in 29 trainings as a Trainer or Assistant Trainer, in the US, Europe and Australia. Concurrently I have maintained a private practice for 35 years, and mentor newer Feldenkrais practitioners.

I continue to be interested in exploring the intersections and variety of dimensions within the somatic disciplines regarding one’s sense of self. I am curious about their meeting places as well as their differences.

As part of my interest, I studied and practiced Authentic Movement for 20 years. In 2010 I began to study Wholebody Focusing, rooted in the work of Kevin McEvenue and Eugene Gendlin. I am now a Wholebody Focusing Trainer, and am interested in the deep inter- and intra-personal listening of Wholebody Focusing as it relates to practicing the Feldenkrais Method. For me the two processes are synergistic and mutually enhancing as we learn to deepen the practice of the FM, listening to ourselves and to each other at ever increasing approximations.

I give advanced trainings and public workshops on this topic, as well as explore this field of connection in my Feldenkrais practice. In recent years, I have participated in several ongoing peer groups, deepening the conversation about the possibilities ever present in the Feldenkrais Method, as well as the boundaries and connections with other disciplines.

Guest Trainer

Allison Rapp, GCFP

In June 1975 I began my journey with the Feldenkrais Method, training with Moshe Feldenkrais in the first North American program. I was 25 and intent on making a living by helping people through touch—so it was clear from the moment I registered for the training that I was committed to working as a practitioner. I even remember daydreaming about my future clients as I lay on the floor exploring a whole new inner world during our ATM lessons.

At some point, during those years I signed on to help make “Feldenkrais” a household word and for the next several decades I felt like I failed miserably, even my practice was flourishing.

I became an Assistant Trainer and began traveling the world to work in trainings. I was the first North American woman to become a trainer; that was in 1991 and the more I travelled to teach, the clearer it became that we were telling people they could practice, but the conditions they needed to flourish didn’t exist.

By 2009, I was living in a small town in California with a disproportionate number of inhabitants who made their living through touch and my own practice was in a deep hole. It was time to bite the bullet—I became a beginner again, to learn how to get clients.

Business courses opened my eyes in a completely new way: for the first time, I realized that success is about specific knowledge, acquiring and using specific skills, and committing myself to do specifically what it takes to get the practice I want. By the time I had figured it out for myself, I knew how to help other practitioners… and that’s when I took another turn into a new adventure. I now devote full time to teaching practitioners how to get a practice that earns them a living. In the process they become transformational leaders by embracing business as yet another vehicle through which they can embody the Feldenkrais Method.

After years of hearing practitioners say that what I’m teaching should be part of every training, I’m pretty happy when I wake up and realize that it IS going to be part of THIS one.

I hope to see you on the floor!

Assistant Trainer

Ellen Soloway, GCFP

Long, long ago, a series of “unfortunate events” in my life sent me scurrying, investigating new avenues. I began actively looking for something that would brighten a tart and lemony twist to my life. During that search I attended an exploratory workshop taught by a person from Esalen Institute. And, that workshop just happened to include a sample Awareness Through Movement® lesson. After the Awareness Through Movement lesson I sat up and knew I was different. I could feel the return of my missing internal sense of humor. I felt a smile on my face and my life seemed simpler, easier. As in the plot of a fairy tale, I started walking down my own highly personalized yellow brick road. I had stumbled upon the Feldenkrais Method® quite by accident, and I was thrilled.

I wrote to Dr. Feldenkrais, asking to study with him. I enrolled in the Amherst training, which was the last program personally taught by Dr. Feldenkrais. Those first tentative steps on the yellow brick road of change had morphed into an out-and-out sprint of investigation.

By the time I graduated from the Amherst training, I realized that my background as a custom clothing designer and cabinet maker had prepared me with a set of skills peculiarly suitable for a Feldenkrais practice. I could see form and shape in three dimensions like many good designers. In addition to that visual skill, years of sanding and building furniture left me with a high degree of manual dexterity. My education at Cornell University trained my academic rigor. All I needed to learn was how to apply these skills to a different profession, the Feldenkrais Method.

I’ve worked as an Assistant Trainer in Feldenkrais training programs around the world. I am the editor of the English manuscripts of the Alexander Yanai lessons. (This historic audio collection of Awareness Through Movement lessons was originally recorded in Hebrew by Dr. Feldenkrais in Israel.) I still maintain a private Feldenkrais practice in New Orleans. I frequently mentor other Feldenkrais practitioners so they can improve their skills. One thing has remained constant throughout these changes in professional skills and responsibilities. The Feldenkrais Method continues to enhance my sense of humor. A good Awareness Through Movement lesson brings a smile to my face and my heart. This Method still brightens my life and helps me rediscover my imagination, resilience and curiosity whenever they seem lost or missing. When they are present I can find novel solutions whenever life demands one.

Assistant Trainer

Alice Friedman, GCFP

I’ve pursued a lifelong interest in the relationship between motion, emotion and human development. I began as a dancer, performing and teaching in New York City. I also explored dance as a means of self-expression and creative endeavor for children with challenging life situations and this inspired me to take a graduate degree in psychology. As I worked with children with Autism, psychiatric disorders, and those in special education classes, I continually invented ways to include movement into the programs. It was clear to me that there were reciprocal relationships between emotional health, physical well being and the ability to be resilient, learn, and move gracefully in life. My frustration with the narrow vision present in academia at the time and my excitement about what was emerging from the human potential movement led me further on my path of discovery.

Moving to Canada became part of that discovery. I continued to evolve, learning new skills and refining existing ones in a new country. It was a 10-year growing and maturation period during which I discovered the work of Moshe Feldenkrais through his Awareness Through Movement book and eventually attended a workshop. Finally, a way to bring all the threads of my explorations together.

My engagement in this amazing work started with my training in 1984. As a Feldenkrais practitioner my work is enhanced by the skills and insights gained from my dance, my professional work in psychology, and my study of human development. My continuing education has included studies in Ericksonian hypnosis, mindfulness and anatomy. I trained with and taught for Peter Levine PhD in Somatic Experiencing^® and studied Cranial Sacral Therapy. As an Assistant Trainer I’ve worked in training programs across the US and in Canada. In addition, I’ve organized two Feldenkrais training programs in Victoria, BC. Currently I maintain a private practice, offer workshops and mentor Feldenkrais practitioners and across disciplines. I continue to weave the current advancements in neuroscience, movement education and somatic psychology with the principles and applications of the Feldenkrais Method.

Assistant Trainer, Director of Learning

Candy Conino, GCFP

I started out as a physical therapist—in fact, it was my final exam in kinesiology at UNC-Chapel Hill that changed my life. There was only one question on that exam: “The teacher is standing at the blackboard, writing with her right hand. List all the muscles she is using, along with their origins, insertions, and innervations.”

It seemed simple at first. I started with the muscles of the hand, worked my way along the arm, shoulder, and obviously had to add those of the back, but then I had to write about the legs, too (because she was standing), and by the end of the exam I had listed EVERY skeletal muscle. I walked out of that exam knowing that I would never again be able to consider a “problem” with one body part without equal consideration to every part of the system. Looking back I wonder if maybe that was the teacher’s point!

Because of this newfound passion for human complexity, I originally specialized in working with people with serious spinal disorders. For 15 years I worked in a clinic and taught prevention classes to high-risk workers in factories, city sanitation departments, tech, transportation, and media companies. I developed all manner of rehabilitation and work conditioning programs, and researched preferred spinal movement patterns. All this convinced me that the state of the art in rehabilitation was lacking something vital and mysterious.

When I learned about the Feldenkrais Method, I knew straightaway that this was what even my best work had been missing. At that time I was taking another PT degree—I dropped out of that program to do the Feldenkrais training.

The conditions in the PT clinic didn’t suit my evolving work style, and so I’ve had my own full-time private practice since 1994. Professionally, I consider myself a Feldenkrais practitioner with a rich medical education and a PT license. I spend my days with people with complex pain disorders who have already tried everything other kind of intervention. This is challenging and exhilarating. Every day I get to use my knowledge and abilities to dig deeper, reach further and get better at my work. There is nothing better than this and I love sharing and teaching with those who want to learn.

Assistant Trainer

Dwight Pargee, GCFP

As a lifelong athlete, martial artist and coach with degrees in Exercise Physiology, Sport Science and Biomechanics, I find great pleasure in working with high-performance athletes and those in the arts. My daily practice in Bend, Oregon includes the continuum of working with clients managing complex chronic pain issues to refining high-level performance, from injury recovery to redefining limits and opening possibilities for the neurologically impaired. I also serve as an Assistant Trainer in Feldenkrais professional training programs as well as mentoring beginning practitioners. I have a special curiosity about dynamic balance and stability, applied biomechanics and neuromuscular learning, especially as they relate to my passions of fly fishing and cooking interesting meals.

Assistant Trainer

Andrew Gibbons, GCFP

When I was 16, classical music revealed itself as one of the more challenging and rewarding ways to spend my time. I attended a prestigious summer music camp with a group of prodigious pianists, several of whom were outright prodigies.

After a month of daily master classes, where we listened to each other’s performances and lessons, I went to a Feldenkrais workshop and witnessed the impossible. The teacher—a woman who trained with Dr. Feldenkrais and who was neither a pianist nor a musician—showed one of the students how to overcome the obstacles in her playing. They focused not on musical interpretation nor technique, but on the details of how she organized her body and integrated her attention at the instrument. Everything else I had seen for pianists that summer focused on the hands and the music. The Feldenkrais teacher was devoted to the person as a whole—the eyes, the chest and back, the pelvis and legs, her breathing. She treated the whole self as the instrument. I was intrigued by the ingenuity and intelligence of how they worked. But I was thunderstruck at the result. It was as if a decade of musical, postural, and technical obstacles were lifted out of the pianist and set to the side. Her playing poured out her like water, such that she stopped, mid-passage, clasping her hands to her mouth and giggling.

“Why did you stop?” the teacher asked.
“It can’t be this easy,” she said.

That remark really got my attention. The idea that a complex, challenging art could actually become comfortable, connected, and joyful—that is what I wanted.

Now as a full-time Feldenkrais teacher of 14 years, I have seen the impossible become possible. And that is only because Feldenkrais is real education, which means learning how to learn.

You learn to function better than you did before your injuries. You get clearer about how much work really lies ahead of you. Your assembly point shifts.  You think differently.  You move from an assumed prediction towards an ability to imagine, explore, and design tests for yourself.  These are some of the richest moments a person can have.

For me, Feldenkrais puts your hands on the wheel of health, and teaches you to drive. If you’re looking for a path to physical strength, flexible intelligence and self possession, this is it. I look forward to meeting you.

Administrator

Lila Hurwitz, GCFP

A professional dancer and movement educator, I completed my Feldenkrais training in Berkeley in 1997. I’ve taught Feldenkrais, dance improvisation, Authentic Movement, and related topics at the University of Washington Dance Program, Cornish College of the Arts, Hampshire College, Oberlin College Dance Department, Conduit Studio (Portland) and many other venues. A lifelong organizer and administrator, I was Associate Director and Director of Communications at Artist Trust and Administrative Director/Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, which I co-founded and produced for 18 years. I am co-owner of Doolittle+Bird, a creative firm that loves working on strategy, project management, communications, grant-writing and other projects with artists, scientists, Feldenkrais practitioners, and non-profit organizations.

Co-Director

Laura Yedwab, GCFP

I graduated from Jeff Haller’s Victoria 2 Feldenkrais training in 2012.  After graduation, I founded Kinetic Inquiry Feldenkrais and I have been practicing the Feldenkrais Method in the Seattle area since then.

During my training, I became frustrated by my inability to find and learn about Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons. I created Feldy Notebook so that the community had an easy way to collect, organize, and share our vast knowledge of ATMs.

Haller and I joined forces to create the IOPS Academy, an 18-month intensive graduate program for practitioners trained in the lineage of Moshe Feldenkrais. Four IOPS Academy programs have successfully completed: Basil (2019-2021), Buenos Aires (2017-2019), Seattle (2016-2018), and New York (2015-2017).

Before delving into the world of the Feldenkrais Method, I spent 20 years in the computer industry, first as a programmer, then as a manager, and finally managing the Natural Language Group at Microsoft. I have a Master’s degree in computer science from M.I.T.