Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Benefits of the "Wake-Up" Feldenkrais Method®




Improve awareness
Improve mobility
More flexible brain

Transforming back pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, wrist pain and so on
Transforming and undoing "getting older" creakiness
Transforming accident, injuries, recovery and over-all vitality

Undo stress
Improve focus
More flexible "body" / life

Learn how to go about "problems" as glorious opportunities
Increase and enhance yoga, Pilates, martial arts

Reverse inflexibility and narrowing down of so-called "aging"
Transforming cerebral palsy, autism, MS, other neurological challenges
Recovery from stroke
Increase sports abilities
Encouraging a sense that "Anything's possible"
Younger brain
Smarter brain
Learning how to learn

Feel better
Feel taller
Improve awareness
Feel younger
Feel lighter
Move, think and breathe better
Better posture
Better acture (ability to move gracefully
in any direction)
Move, think and breathe better


Expanded horizons and
abilities to embrace change
in life

Transform unhappiness and depression
Avoid Surgery

Heal Much, Much more rapidly
from Surgery

Improve/ transform anyone's back.

Move better than you ever have before

Increase creativity
Increase skills in teaching yoga, tennis, golf, any sport, music, singing and so on

Learn quicker and more enjoyably in golf lessons, tennis lessons, music lessons, equestrian lessons


Improve inner connection
Improve/ transform "tennis elbow."
Improve/ transform " tai chi" knee.
Improve/ transform musician's elbow, hands, back.
Improve/ transform gardener's back.

Deepen abilities to "relax," release and de-stress
Transform and cure insomnia
Increase abilities to be present
Deeper connection to yourself
Clarity of thinking

Better walk, limp transformation.
Better circulation, lymph transformation.

Walk better, run better, sit better, sleep better
Transform dance, running, balance
Increase studying and learning abilities in children and adults
Decrease depression, anxiety, confusion

Better sex

Increase life clarity
Transformation of dyslexia, reading abilities improved, math abilities, too
Undoing stress
Natural Vision Improvement

Transforming injury
Reverse carpal tunnel, repetitive strain
Learn to work at computers without wrecking ourselves
Improve scoliosis


Return to youthfulness
Increase Learning
Improve breathing
Improve health
Improve balance
Increase confidence and curiosity

Become more Present


Copyright, Chris Elms, 2006





Contact, Phone: 707-996-1437

Email Chris Elms, M.A.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Some Steps Toward Healthy and Wondeful Eating



There are many ways to eat healthy and many ways to eat a crappy diet. Look around you and see all the crappy ways and we can skip that discussion for now, let's keep our attention on some wonderful aspects of life.

Here are some ways to eat wonderfully on this wonderful planet of ours:
  • Eat lots of stuff full of water. Which is to say: fruits and vegetables.

  • Eat lots of organic stuff, that is in season and comes from nearby. Sure, every once in a while have bananas, but to eat most healthy, eat local strawberries only when the summer is beginning and eat apples in the end of summer and the fall and eat tomatoes all summer and lots of greens in the spring. There are lots of books about this, but the Three Season Diet is pretty good.

  • If your meal isn't all raw food, eat fruit by itself, or half an hour before the meal.

  • Make your biggest meal in the middle of the day, or somewhere up until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. I know, I know, schedules, other people, habits, blah, blah, and still: this is good for your health.

  • Don't eat much at night, again, the habits here are strong, I know personally, and boy do I feel better the next morning when I don't eat a bunch at night.

  • Eat lots of wild things, if you can figure out how to do that, and lots of stuff from your own garden and trees.

  • See if you can have at least one raw foods only meal a day.



This is enough for a start. Food is fun, life is fun, there are always amazing things to eat and it doesn't have to be fancy and it doesn't even need to be cooked.

Breathing and being in love with life while we eat is probably the most important thing of all. Sometimes eating in silence is wonderful. It's all an experiment. It's all potentially wonderful.

Enjoy.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Neurological Upgrading Sessions


single rose

In these lessons, you either sit or lie down,
fully clothed,
on a firm and comfortable
table, chair, or bench.


You are guided
to being present
with yourself
and your breathing
and your awareness.

From that being present,
in easy and gentle increments,
you are guided,
by touch
and word,
to new and better feeling
possibilities
of using yourself
and being in your body.


These lessons
to beginners
appear to be "body work."





"BODY WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
back ease
neck ease
shoulder ease
grace and joy in movement
moving as if 20 years younger
ability to "work out" without the usual masochistic nonsense
discovery of whole new movement, dance and voice possibilities
discovery of the miracle of having a "body"



"BRAIN WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
new ideas
trying new things in life
sudden creative urges
letting go of old, boring patterns
rekindling love of learning



"HEART WORK" SIDE EFFECTS:
the giggles
a sense of fun
a sense of mischief
a sense of humor
a sense of delight
loving other people
and yourself
more




These touch guided "lessons"

(a far gentler touch
than you may have ever
experienced)




cactus flower



contribute to

  • increasing everyday joy,

  • decreasing depression and anxiety,

  • and can
  • radically improve thinking
    and problem solving abilities


  • Sports can get better

  • Sports coaches can radically improve their capabilities

  • High performers
    can improve their already fine level of skill

  • Musicians can learn to tune their bodies
    and their instruments at the same time

  • Carpal tunnel and the aches of sitting around too much,
    or repetitive work can transform

  • Actors and executives can be more in touch
    with an inner clarity
    and vitality

  • Cerebral palsy
    and
    autism
    can undergo amazing transformation

  • ordinary aches and pains can be undone

  • and your

  • whole life

  • set out on a course of

  • improvement,

  • joy

  • and
  • learning


If that's not enough
for you
check out the list at
BENEFITS OF THE WAKE-UP FELDENKRAIS METHOD



Saturday, November 18, 2006

Raw Foods and Feldenkrais:


There are lots of reasons to eat raw foods:

  • They taste good.

  • They give your body a wonderful feeling.

  • They help you eliminate sickness and colds.

  • They help you transcend all sorts of "diseases."

  • They are fun.

  • They are fast. No faster food than apple from tree to mouth.

  • They are fresh. No fresher food than tomato from vine to mouth.

  • They are amazing.

  • They are fun.


And what might be a Feldenkrais reason?
Well, to my mind, a core idea in Feldenkrais, especially WakeUp Feldenkrais, is that we are in habits in our life, some of which are so deep and unknown to us that the Gurdjieff understanding that we are going through our lives in a state of "sleep" is not too strong a way to put it.

And one of the greatest sleeps going on is around the mouth.

SLEEP #1: TALKING.

SLEEP #2: EATING.
We put food in, we shovel it in. We taste maybe the first bite of each forkful. We think, talk, read, worry, hurry, stress while we are eating.
We eat what we are used to eating, what everyone else eats, what we were trained like baby seals to eat, when we were babies.

So, Feldenkrais and WakeUp Feldenkrais could say this, or does, via my versions: Stop eating cooked food for a couple of weeks.

Examine your habit.

See what happens.

That's all: do it for the love of learning and change and discovery.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Learning by Healing and Healing by Learning: Deep Tutoring for Real People



Sometimes we confront a "problem" that seems "impossible." Moshe Feldenkrais had a famous saying, that his work was about

"Making the impossible possible,
the possible easy, and
the easy elegant."

He also said that his work was about flexible minds, not flexible bodies.


So if a child or high school student is struggling in math,
or an adult is struggling to learn a musical instrument,
or a "senior citizen" is attempting to learn a new language,
or to skip again,
the process at the core of the Feldenkrais way,
and the Anat Baniel Method and
WakeUp Feldenkrais and

Earth Breath Smile (another name I'm going to be calling my work by), the core process is
changing our very being,
by tuning in to how to learn.

The healing is about becoming more present.

And more able to look at things in many ways.

And more free to explore the state of not yet knowing.

And more excited to learn even what our unknowing is all about.


The healing is in turning the problem to a source of joy and self discovery and a chance to be present.


I tutor small and large children and adults in any field from remedial math to calculus, from inability to speak to fancy literature, from learning the letters and first words to creative writing of poems and essays and songs.


I am interested in moving you in ways that wake up your or your child's deep abilities to learn and change and grow and be excited by all of life.

The math problem or the reading challenge or the calculus or the speech difficulty, the "stuckness" in writing poems or essays, the stumbling blocks in performance of dance, or even social dysfunction or shyness or self-doubt, all this is part of what I work with in helping people who come for "tutoring."

This work, like all I do,
has many layers and textures. Human beings are wonderfully complex
and to fail to take advantage of this is to hinder learning
and squelch vitality and love of life.

The one to one touch guided lessons are part of this.

EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique is part of this.

My background in Byron Katie and the freedom that provides from self-dislike and limitation is part of this.

Movement lessons from the Feldenkrais body of work, and from Yoga and from Tai Chi are part of this.

Connection to nature and gardens is part of this.

Telling and enjoying jokes is part of this.

Exploring and loving the Now is part of this.

Loving oneself is part of this.

Journal keeping and dream work is part of this.


It's big work, as all my work, not about fixing but about using the stuck places and the pain as springboards for transformation of a whole life.

This is wonderful work and I welcome you and your child, both to the adventure of learning by healing and healing by learning.

I require an initial commitment to at least three
lessons over a two week period.
Better in a one week period,
but sometimes schedules don't permit.

Lessons last half an hour to forty minutes.

Lessons cost $90-140 per lesson.


SPECIAL,
for those who wish to really
deepen their experience
and feel changes at a deeper level:
$75 per LESSON,
if you sign up for six
or more in a one month period.




Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Healing by Learning:



What's your definition of healing? To get better? To get rid of the pain, or the sickness? To get back on track toward wholeness? To increase well-being?

It's an interesting thing to think about, especially when we've got something bothering us, and , being normal human beings, we just want the bother to go away.

Here is one of the wonders of the Feldenkrais Method®. That we don't go after "fixing" and we get better results than anyone who goes after fixing.

How can that be?

A friend who came to me to "fix" his shoulder, asked this. He was amazed at the results, how in three days his S (more on that later) and his life were amazingly improved. He asked more or less this question, the question about how could we get such fine results, when we didn't seem to be trying to get results.

We seemed to be working with his brain and his spine and his ribs and his neck and his pelvis and his fingers and his elbows, and every once in awhile, we'd move this "stuff" up at the left side edge of his torso. This "stuff" was what I called all the ribs and shoulder blade and left upper arm and left collar bone, to keep away from the S word, since he "knew" his Shoulder was a huge mess. Moving the S was impossible, but he discovered this "stuff" could be moved quite easily, especially if he initiated the moving from his back and his sternum.

Hmm. We did a little of this and a little of that and the S would get more and more free and not only did we refrain from mentioning its name, we refrained from any movement that was what he traditionally thought of as moving of the S, though he got a nice laugh when I pointed out that there really is no such thing as the "shoulder."

Anyway: we were after improving the whole self, and the understanding of all sorts of moving and almost as a byproduct of that, his S got more and more dramatically "better."

And he asked why. And what came to mind was: think about a relationship that's in trouble. And you decide to fix it by telling each of the warring couple to say, "Please," when they wanted something. Surely that would help, but there's a lot going on in a relationship.

And there's a lot going on in a human mind/body, and to improve any aspect is to improve the whole.

And to improve the whole is to improve any aspect.


Which is to say, the S not only doesn't exist that way the thumb does, but is itself a functional conglomerate. Therefore, to heal the S means to heal all sorts of areas in the body and the mind. (And even to "heal" the thumb in the Feldenkrais way, would be to connect this "part" of ourselves back to as much of us as possible, from toes to nose to brain to breath to ribs. Herein lies the "solution" to all the "carpal tunnel" stuff.)

So, this is it: REAL HEALING IS ABOUT LEARNING, not about adjusting back to some previously unsatisfying and ignored status quo. This man had forgotten how to use his ribs and his neck and his pelvis and his spine and his eyes and his awareness in ways that could make his left S experience a pleasant and efficient one. We set out to learn how to use himself in new and interesting and easy and delightful and useful ways. The more we discovered, the more options he had, and his possibilities for change and improvement increased almost exponentially each new possibility we added.

So in three days, he was "fixed" as much as a friend of his had been fixed with three months of physical therapy.

And with this difference: he is on the way to having two S's that function better than they ever have in his life since he was a young and frisky lad. The other sort of "fix," the get 'em back to normal fix, and he'd have a left S that could function at a sort of get by mediocre level that was what he had in his "good" right S.

So by slowing down and taking lots of apparent detours, we get faster "fixing," because we aren't fixing, we are learning, learning to function and learning to learn.

Cool, eh?

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

TAI CHI AND FELDENKRAIS



Tai Chi is Good for you


How come?

  • Because you move slow.

  • And you pay attention.

  • And you are standing up and moving from foot to foot.

  • Moving foot to foot is a good movement, e.g. walking.

  • You are having to concentrate on arms and legs at the same time.

  • You are potentially aware of breathing at the same time.

  • Breathing, sensing, moving and attention: all at the same time.

  • You are connecting to Earth and gravity and intention and moving.

  • You are moving slow.

  • You are moving in a circular manner. This relates to the Universe.

  • You are keeping awarenss on Below and Above. This also relates to the Universe.

  • If you are lucky, you are doing Tai Chi outside once or twice a day. This relates to the Earth.

  • If you keep a clear mind while doing Tai Chi, you will be happy. This relates to Life.

  • You are, if you are in the grove, enjoying yourself.

  • This is good, to move slow and to enjoy yourself.

  • This can be a fine meditation, a way to take our attention off the usual.

  • This can be a fine meditation, coming back to the present.

  • This can be good for our health because we get things moving.

  • This can be great for our health because we calm and happify our being.

  • And so on.

Feldenkrais could assist this process


In traditional Tai Chi, there is always the "right" way to be in each posture, and that's fine, except that in Feldenkrais we learn about learning. And we learn by making comparisons. And so, instead of just putting one foot here and the other back so many inches and to the side so many inches, we could experiment with how it actually "feels," in the good old here and now sensation, to put our two feet in all sorts of different lengths and widths apart.

In traditional Tai Chi, there is always a "right" way to place your hands and arms in each posture. Instead of just cramming ourselves into the "right" way, we can experiment, a little higher, a little lower, to the left, to the right, what about the elbows this way and that, what about the wrists.

In traditional Tai Chi, a good teacher will spend some serious time alerting the student to the transitions between the postures. With Feldenkrais, this awareness could be amplified, by taking these transitions and even within them creating variation and distinctions and possibilities.

In other words, all the wonderful things about Tai Chi could be made more wonderful with the addition of Feldenkrais. What if the weight, supposed to be 70% front foot and 30% back foot in some poses, was 80/20 or 50/50 or 90/10 ? What if the weight was on the inside of the foot, the outside, the heel, the toes? What about on the toes of one foot and the heel of the other?

And are we following our breathing now, even as we read about this?

Tai Chi, in going slow, already opens us to the possibilities of connecting with ourselves in a deep and profound and healing way. To add the variations and playful learning aspects of the Feldenkrais Work to this, is to simple give our minds and our bodies and our mind/bodies, to say nothing of our spirits, one more chance to expand and exult in this adventure, this adventure of being alive.

Monday, November 13, 2006

SUPER WHEATGRASS


Grow your own, add tons of minerals to your life.

Marlie and I have this kind of nice system you might want to imitate in one form or another.

She decided to do the wheat grass thing and pulled out this old hand grinder she'd bought at a yard sale. We started to use it and it's great: quiet, and you can run the stuff through a couple of times and you can do apples and carrots and if you want and understand how super charged with nutrition they are, various edible weeds like mallow and pigweed and dock and lamb's quarters and purslane. ( Except purslane is so yummy, that if you have it, you'll want to throw it right in your salad or your mouth).

Then we discovered in our reading up on raw foods that juicers that press like the hand ones and some very expensive mechanical ones, get the highest percentage of good stuff out of the whatever you add, and they product a juice that oxidizes far slower than either that of masticating juicer ( like Champion), which in turn, is better than the centrifugal juicers.

So, it's quiet.



Lavender at the garden, Photo: Richard Dale



We get more goodies.

The juice oxidizes (much, much) slower.


Okay, here's the cool part. Reading in Body Electronics (see link in sidebar of WakeUp Feldenkrais site), I re-discovered how important chelated minerals are, which is to say, minerals that aren't just the chemicals, but are bound in plant form.

A light bulb went off: PLANT THE WHEAT BERRIES ( we sprout our own), IN SOIL THAT'S GOOD LOTS OF MINERALS.

SO WE ADD GROUND UP OYSTER SHELLS AND ORGANIC KELP TO EACH TRAY OF SOIL

So, voila, we are getting gobs of chelated minerals without paying a big batch that you would to get them in a bottle.

Anyway, try this if you want. Hand juicers can be ordered via Wheat Grass Kits. Scroll down to look at four manual juicers.

Or
See here for a Healthy Juicer Rap on How Great Wheat Grass is For Ya!

THE IMPORTANCE OF SKY

Birdhouse in the Garden Photo: R. Dale

We look up and what do we see? Rain or clouds or sky or stars or deep dark night.

This is good for the soul.

This is good for the eyes.

This is good for the person, the people, to get out into the fresh air and look at the sky and see: this is what I'm breathing. This is good.

And to feel our feet on the Earth, and know, this is what I'm standing on, this is what I'm walking on. This is good.

Between Earth and sky, betwixt Earth 'n Heaven, this is our place and a good one 'tis, indeed.

Sunday, November 12, 2006

ENHANCING EXCELLENCE, LEARNING ACCELERATION, AND WAKING UP


Hollyhock FlowerPhoto: R. Dale




This work
is "work"
in the sense a baby "work"
to learn to sit up, to roll over,
to crawl,
to walk.

It is a miracle
of
learning,
awareness,
discovery
and expansion
of
who we are,
and what we know of ourselves,
and what we can
pleasurably
and
easily
do
in this glorious life.

This method
is of huge benefit
to those already
good at
some skill:

music,
art,
dancing,
running,
walking,
tai chi,
yoga,
all the sports, such as
tennis, golf, skiing,
swimming,
horseback riding,
soccer,
baseball, basketball, football,
wrestling,
martial arts.


To be in the moment,
each moment that we are,
is the enlightened state,
and
it's the state that Phil Jackson
encouraged
in his champion Chicago Bulls
and
Michael Jordan..

Learning
and centeredness
worked for them.

It will work
for you.


Saturday, November 11, 2006

FITNESS, HEALTH, AND WEIGHT REDUCTION


Beauty in a garden Photo: R. Dale

When you are fit and healthy you feel good, you enjoy being alive and in your body and moving around. You like how it feels to be you and you like how it feels to move.

You rarely if ever get sick, you can walk a couple of miles and enjoy the heck out of it, you love to get outdoors, you can skip and dance and act in new and spontaneous ways. You are alive and happy to be alive.

Fitness and health require not much, but they are more or less absolute requirements:

  • To eat in a healthy and joyful way
    (Whch means lots of food,
    but nutrient and water rich food,
    and at the right times.)

  • To get healthy and happy exercise.

  • To spend time in nature.

  • To be at peace with oneself and those we live with.

  • Which includes a sense of humor, and

  • An ability, and desire, to experiment, and explore and discover
    outside of old habits and patterns

  • To practice and cultivate AWARENESS
    (See posting Weight Loss and Wake Up Feldenkrais)


  • All of this leads us:

  • To be happily engaged in life.







To change habits,
wake up to the present
and to be present while eating,
and to lose weight:

We'll include examination of habits.
The ways to eat even more and lose weight.
Patterns of exercise and making that more fun.
A commitment to being outside each day at least twice.
Drinking water.
Getting free of emotional baggage with the wonderful work of Byron Katie.
Comminicating in joy.
Maybe more, if we have time.











Change your self
Upgrade your health
Upgrade your vitality
Lose Weight:
10 week Radical Health Improvement and Weight Reduction Program.




And what are some components of eating in a "healthy way." Well, one is to trust your intuition,
so don't get too hooked on anyone's rules, including mine.

And then, here are some hints,
and some essays that begin to reveal these hints:

1) Involve wheat grass in your well being. Super Wheatgrass for Your Health

2) Think about raw foods as a chance to radically live non habitually for awhile: Raw Foods and Feldenkrais

3) Begin to re-evaluate the whole eating thing: Raw Foods and Feldenkrais

4) Start to think of food as God: Food is Good

5) Find a way out of the sugar thing: Beyond Sugar: Raw Fat plus Raw Sweet = Great Taste, Great Health

6) Understand getting refined flours and sugars out of your eating world: Food and Health

7) Experiment with nutrient rich, raw food meals, as in a smoothie breakfast: Start the day off right with a Super Smoothie

8) Learn food combining, and consider lunch as the main, big meal: Food Combining, Healthy Lunch, Main Meal

9) Make supper in the old meaning a time of a light "soup:" Supper to end the day, as in... making it light.





The health and weight loss program consists of 10 one on one meetings over 10 weeks. The meetings are about an hour. We deal with emotional issues, gradual shifts in eating habits, the creation of and enjoyment of a program of engagement in using yourself, which could be yoga, walking ( the BEST program for human beings), tai chi, gardening, bicycle riding.

Feldenkrais movements and one on one touch guided ( fully clothed, gentle, miraculous= Functional Integration®)lessons will be part of this,
as will the work of Byron Katie to undo all the myths we use to hold ourselves back.
Meditation and art and hypnosis all could be part of this.

Here are the possible parts to this joyful and wonderful opportunity:

  • Weight loss if you so desire.

  • Radical improvement in your diet, if you so desire.

  • A clearer path of moving.

  • A deeper and more pleasant connection to yourself.


  • Improved breathing and happiness.

  • Happier and more clear thinking, if you so desire.

  • Trying new eating habits and patterns.


  • Undoing mental and physical stress.

  • Undoing emotional stress.

  • Having fun with / embracing change.


  • Getting clear on what you are "waiting' / "weighting" for.

  • A deeper understanding of yoga and tai chi as possible everyday health friends.

  • A deeper and clearer commitment to being outside and in touch with nature.


  • The Work of Byron Katie: clear up the past, clean up relationships, get clear. (See thework.com)

  • The Work of Byron Katie: stop being mean to yourself sessions,


  • Body Talk™ or EFT sessions.

  • Feldenkrais lessons.

  • WakeUp Feldenkrais lessons.


  • Setting up "exercise" that's fun. ( Walking, rolling around, sex.)

  • Ericksonian hypnosis, if you so desire.

  • Raw Foods, if you want to leave almost all, if not all, sicknesses behind.



The program is about becoming more alive and
vital
and healthy
and clear
and spontanrous in living
and weight reduction is more or less a side benefit.


Lessons cost $60-$150 per lesson
you pick the amount

for staggering changes
start off with three times one
week
and then three times the next week

Lessons last thirty minutes.





Friday, November 10, 2006

MINDFULNESS AND STRESS REDUCTION


grape arbor in background
(Photo Richard Dale)

A little bit of stress is what happens in learning: the world is new and different than we are used to and we have to reframe or readjust or heighten our sense of awareness and connection to rise to the occasion.

However, too much stress is bad for our health and our inner peace and our whole sense that life is good and beneficent and wonderful.

Too much stress gets in the way of how we want to be : optimistic and in love with ourselves and with life.

And how to undo this "too much stress?"

Two ways.

One: by coming into the present.
By being mindful of right now,
this present breath,
our present connection to gravity,
this present light coming in our eyes,
this present sound coming in our ears.
In this present of the present
we leave behind the worrying about the future and
the resentments and regrets about the past.

We come "home"
to
who we really are:
peaceful and awareness
and grateful to
be
alive.



We come back home
to a calm and peaceful and powerful place.

Two: by learning.
Any learning increases our connection to the wonder of life
and makes us pleased and joyful to be alive.

And the core to Feldenkrais work is learning
and discovery.

And the core to WakeUp Feldenkrais work
is awareness
and learning
and the delight of
being in the now moment
of discovery.


By combining Feldenkrais work and mindfulness work
we can undo stress sweetly and effectively.

And feel wonderful, once again,
our birthright.

This can take part of one on one sessions, or as part of the Tuesday night group (for the winter), 5:30 PM.
The group will meet for an hour each week, and will cost $44 per month. A three month commitment is required.









I also offer lessons in a one to one format called Functional Integration®.



In these lessons, you lie, fully clothed, on a comfortable and firm low table while I move you with extreme gentleness and precision.

This not only feels great, but provides opportunities for your mind/ brain/ body system (i.e. you) to learn new
and
easier
and
sweeter ways of functioning.


These new ways not only
begin to undo and transform stress
and our old habits of tensing and contracting and limiting ourselves,
but
you begin to function in better ways
in other areas of your mind/ body
and your life.

This work is transformational,
enjoyable
and almost miraculous.
You deserve this, I believe.



The initial commitment will be for at least 4 lessons.

The rate is $80-160 per lesson. $50-130 per lesson if on consecutive days.
Thursday morning is a low income, low fee clinic, lessons are $30-50.


Call for appointment 707-996-1437

Or email me at Email me



Thanks, and I hope this is a beginning of a wonderful transformation in your life.

Chris

Thursday, November 09, 2006

NECK, SHOULDER AND BACK PAIN
Or
Going from poor to fair,
from fair to good,
from good to great,
and great to greater.



Pain is a pain.
Beauty gardens hollyhockPhoto: Richard Dale

Pain is a signal, we aren't functioning the way we are meant to function.

WHETHER THE PAIN IS NECK PAIN, BACK PAIN, SHOULDER PAIN, OR SOMEWHERE ELSE,
the story is the same:
the brain and the body have forgotten
how to work in an easy and elegant manner,
the manner in which we evolved
as human beings,
and have lost.
We have been educated and conditioned away
from our natural ease and elegance and grace
by our sedentary and stressful and
un-nature oriented lives.


Pain is an opportunity:
to learn,
to improve,
to come to a level of moving and functioning and being
that is better than any
since we were youngsters and rolling and jumping and skipping around all the time.


The human wish, is to
"get rid"
of the pain as fast as possible.
This makes "sense,"
and in the Feldenkrais Method,
we have almost miraculous results.

But we are after something bigger,
something more profound:
an understanding of how we
can move and feel and think
and act creatively
in better
and easier
and fresher ways.


As Moshe said, this about,
"Making the impossible possible,
the possible easy
and the easy elegant."




See if you wish, an essay on a three day, three session Miracle lesson, in working with the shoulders as an examination and illumination of this. Healing by Learning.


And for a much longer examination of this, you could enjoy Anat Baniel on Pain, which has links to videos and research and related articles.






I offer individual lessons,
called Functional Integration.



This is not massage. Not physical therapy. Not chiropractic oriented.
Not body work.
This isn't about "fixing."

This is brain food, and body learning, and heart food, and soul food.
This is about transformation

This not only feels great, but provides opportunities for your mind/ brain/ body system (i.e. you) to learn new
and
easier
and
sweeter ways of functioning.


These new ways not only
begin to undo and transform stress
and our old habits of tensing and contracting and limiting ourselves,
but
you begin to function in better ways
in other areas of your mind/ body
and your life.


This work is transformational,
enjoyable
and almost miraculous.
You deserve this, I believe.


My training consists of the "normal" 160 days
to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner
and
an additional 154 days of training
including 67 with Anat Baniel
and
years of training in Gestalt, meditation,
nature centered healing, hypnosis, and more.






Lessons last forty minutes.

Lessons cost $90-140 per lesson.


SPECIAL,
for those who wish to really
deepen their experience
and feel changes at a deeper level:
$75 per LESSON,
if you sign up for six
or more in a one month period.

If you combine 20 lessons
with 20 minutes of HomePlay ( not HomeWork)
a day,
You can expect to Move
Think
and Feel
TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER.



You can keep learning up to almost as many lessons as you are
years old,
depending how far you want to come on the path of
poor to fair,
fair to good,
good to great,
great to greater.

In large and small
areas
of your
Whole Life.



Give yourself the gift of improvement,
from fair to good
or
good to great.



Call for an appointment 707-996-1437

Or Email me



Thanks, and I hope this is a beginning of a wonderful transformation in your life.

Chris

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

GIFTED AND ATHLETIC CHILDREN


Sometimes children need help by being challenged in ways that school or homeschool or their coaches, no matter how excellent, might not come up with.

ENHANCING EXCELLENCE IN SPORTS, MUSIC, PERFORMANCE, DANCE, YOGA, MARTIAL ARTS, CREATIVITY

Garden Beauty
Photo: R. Dale
This work is superb for this, since the Feldenkrais work is based on a sublime principle...THAT THE CORE OF BEING HUMAN IS OUR ABILITY TO LEARN... and since this work likes to shake up the ongoing habit/ balance/ equilibrium to create a temporary discomfort and feeling of "I don't know," that leads to real breakthrough and understanding.

THIS WORK DOESN'T CARE IF YOU HAVE CEREBRAL PALSY OR ARE THE BEST IN THE WORLD AT SOMETHING. WE ALL HAVE HUGE AREAS OF POTENTIAL LEARNING AND IMPROVEMENT.

And in the Feldenkrais work and the WakeUp Feldenkrais work, that improvement is about honing our awareness and increasing our delight in discovering what is just beyond what we already know. ( This isn't about "pushing the edge," though, except with the courage to experiment and play with and enjoy the new. The struggle and effort to "improve," often makes hell for anyone and everyone).

If we aren't thrown into "I don't know," we never learn, and in the Feldenkrais work, especially WakeUp Feldenkrais with it's emphasis on being present, this state of converting the unknown to a sense of adventure and learning is paramount.

For amusement and learning, if you haven't read it, my explanations (true to the Feldenkrais Method, in about 12 different ways) of the method is quite good, and has a list of about 12 more essays on this subject. Peruse, if you wish What is..The Feldenkrais Method®?

Because core to this work is following the strategies of learning we used when we were a young genius and learned language from nothing, and crawling with no one to imitate, this work can stimulate anyone in the world to increase their abilities in either something they are already good in, or expand out and begin to establish proficiency in some totally new field.

THE CORE OF THE WORK IS LEARNING HOW TO LEARN. So for gifted children, this work can indeed be a gift.

To be certified in Feldenkrais requires 160 days of training. I have taken 111 days beyond this, including 27 in Anat Baniel's advanced Mastery Training for working with Children with Special Needs.Please read further, if you wish: Children with special needs by Anat Baniel.



If you want to bring me to a group, or your family, or your team, I can arrange amazing lessons that increase thinking, moving, understanding, co-ordination, the whole Glories of Feldenkrais thing. The lessons are $100 per hour for however many people you bring together. And you'll need to commit to at least 6 lessons.








I also offer lessons in a one to one format called Functional Integration®.



In these lessons, you lie, fully clothed, on a comfortable and firm low table while I move you with extreme gentleness and precision.

This not only feels great, but provides opportunities for your mind/ brain/ body system (i.e. you) to learn new
and
easier
and
sweeter ways of functioning.


These new ways not only
begin to undo and transform stress
and our old habits of tensing and contracting and limiting ourselves,
but
you begin to function in better ways
in other areas of your mind/ body
and your life.


This work is transformational,
enjoyable
and almost miraculous.
You deserve this, I believe.


My training consists of the "normal" 160 days
to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner
and
an additional 127 days of training
including 49 with Anat Baniel
and
years of training in Gestalt, meditation,
nature centered healing, hypnosis, and more.




I require an initial commitment
of 4 lessons to 6 lessons over a two week period.


If you want guarantees,
come to 6 lessons
3 days in a row one week,
3 days in a row the next,
and if you haven't experienced
transformative changes
in this time,
I'll cheerfully refund all your money.

Lessons last half an hour to forty minutes.

Stand alone lesson (less than once a week,
only after the initial four or six): $120.

Once a week (again, only after initial four or six): $100 per lesson.
Two days in a row: $90 per lesson.
Three days in a row: $80 per lesson.
Four or five days in a row: $70 per lesson.



Give yourself the gift of improvement,
from fair to good
or
good to great.



Call for an appointment 707-996-1437

Or Email me



Thanks, and I hope this is a beginning of a wonderful transformation in your life.

Chris

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

WHAT IS THE FELDENKRAIS METHOD?



One word: Learning.
Hands on Elbows
An Awareness Through Movement® lesson. Photo by Rosalie O'Conner.

Two words: Expanding horizons

Three words: Awareness through Movement

Four words: Learning how to Learn

Five words: Move, think, feel, breathe better

Six words: Expanding horizons thru Learning and Awareness

    For a List of Many
    Fantastic Benefits,
    see:
    The Glories of Feldenkrais





    If a picture is worth a thousand words,
    scroll down the page and watch a three minute
    video on the two facets of the Feldenkrais Method,
    especially as the world's most intelligent and effective
    way to transform pain.





    And now for a sequential building
    of viewpoints on the question:
    What is the Feldenkrais Method?



    One sentence:
  • This is a system of mind/body whole self learning based on how we learned when we were a genius, which is to say, how we learned to roll over and sit up and crawl and walk and talk when we were babies.


  • Two sentences:
  • This is a way of learning how to learn, based on the primacy of movement in life in general and human life in particular.

  • Our brains are set up to learn, and moving is the most primary way our brains were set into motion (literally and figuratively) to learn, and learning by moving with awareness is the quickest and sweetest way to radically improve almost anything in our lives.


  • Three sentences:
  • We are alive and amazing and have a brain that loves to learn.

  • By going slow and minimizing effort and looking to reduce unnecessary effort and concentrating on the process rather than achievement, we can radically improve the quality of our movement and our being.

  • This work, being about learning, consists of lessons and these lessons can be with verbal instruction, as Awareness Through Movement® lessons, or touch guided lessons, called Functional Integration®


  • Four sentences:
  • A man named Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984) had a smart and curious nature and loved sports and thinking and wrecked his knees and set about learning how to heal himself.

  • He succeeded.

  • The ways he discovered involved returning to a discovery and playfulness as well as understanding that we function as mind/body unities and that connection and relationship and inner functioning/organization were what brought about change.

  • He discovered, and created ways for others to discover, inner learnings and possibilities of transformation, for both "body" and our whole lives, that had previously been considered "impossible."


  • Five sentences:
  • Human beings, more than any other creature on this planet, are dependant on learning to become who they are in life.

  • Some of what we learn is stupendous, to walk, talk, play dodge ball, find a mate and some of what we learn is "bad habits," ways of moving and interacting and thinking and feeling that contradict our having a rich and full life.

  • A man named Moshe Feldenkrais, 1904-1984, discovered, in the course of healing his own wrecked knees, that by focusing on the learning that takes place in the brain and the brain/body, he could achieve spectacular results in people as varied as children with cerebral palsy and star professional basketball players or world class musicians.

  • Freedom from being stuck in habits and patterns that aren't working, can be achieved by learning OPTIONS in ways we move, think and go about living.

  • This system can seem "slow," because it focuses on the little places that are missing in our inner connection and awareness, and yet, because it fills in these missing areas, is much "faster" at achieving real and organic and long term improvement and transformation.






  • And here's what some others have to say. It's a big system, kind of like ( in many, many ways) answering the question:
    WHAT IS LIFE?

  • Learning How to Learn copyright 1997, by Dennis Leri, my Feldenkrais Trainer. Maybe read this one first.

  • What the Feldenkrais Method Is and What Does it Do? via the Feldenkrais Guild

  • Felden What?, by Larry Goldfarb, PhD

  • Overview by MaryBeth Smith

  • Walking on Volcanoes a poetic exploration of the Feldenkrais Method by Lynette Reid

  • The Legacy of Moshe Feldenkrais by Anat Baniel
  • and
  • How Long Does is Take? by Gabrielle Pullen




  • Here's some prior, longer versions I've written over the last couple of years:

  • Who was Moshe Feldenkrais?


  • A New Way of Learning: What Is, Possibilities and Feldenkrais


  • Feldenkrais and our Big Self


  • Intro Number Four: Learning as the Core


  • Intro Number Two: The Elusive Obvious, Movement is Central to Life


  • Feldenkrais Work as Science, Judo, Learning


  • Feldenkrais and Judo and a little history


  • What is the Feldie Method, Differentiation and (always) more

  • If you do a blog search of SlowSonoma.com on Feldenkrais, you
    are bound to find many more essays.



  • And the only way to really savor and enjoy and benefit
    from all these wondrous possibilities
    is to come on in
    and try it for yourself.








I offer lessons in a one to one format called Functional Integration®.



In these lessons, you lie, fully clothed, on a comfortable and firm low table while I move you with extreme gentleness and precision.

This not only feels great, but provides opportunities for your mind/ brain/ body system (i.e. you) to learn new
and
easier
and
sweeter ways of functioning.


These new ways not only
begin to undo and transform stress
and our old habits of tensing and contracting and limiting ourselves,
but
you begin to function in better ways
in other areas of your mind/ body
and your life.


This work is transformational,
enjoyable
and almost miraculous.
You deserve this, I believe.


My training consists of the "normal" 160 days
to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner
and
an additional 115 days of training
including 38 with Anat Baniel
and
years of training in Gestalt, meditation,
nature centered healing, hypnosis, and more.




The initial commitment will be for at least 4 lessons.

The rate is $80-150 per lesson. $50-100 per lesson if on consecutive days.
Thursday morning is a low fee clinic, lessons are $30-50.


Give yourself the gift of improvement,
from fair to good
or
good to great.



Call for an appointment 707-996-1437

Or Email me



Thanks, and I hope this is a beginning of a wonderful transformation in your life.

Chris

WHO WAS MOSHE FELDENKRAIS?


A longer, and yet still short, biography, written by Mark Reese, can be found at the Feldenkrais Guild website, Mark Reese on Feldenkrais. I never met Feldenkrais, and I have only stories from books and people who studied with and knew him, and my own concoction and possibly fabrication from those stories.

Doesn't matter
.
He invented a system I love to learn and to use, with my own learning and development and waking to the present and with anyone else who wishes to move easier, or heal quicker, or learn faster, or even be happier.

Happier?

Yes indeed, this can result in your being happier. If you start rolling around again, the way you did when you were a kid, you'll be happier. If you start to walk with a spring in your step instead of a painful shuffle, you'll be happier. If you can discover ways of not getting into pain that used to be a constant companion, then you'll be happier. If you discover new ways of thinking and feeling than your old familiar unsuccessful ways, you'll be happier. If you start to venture out and do some of the dreams and actions you've been waiting around to do for years, you'll be happier.

None of which says much about who Moshe was, and that's fine. To hear him talk on tapes, or to read his lectures that were spoken is to appreciate the value of wandering toward the goal, discovering along the way.

This is who he was: a discoverer. A curious person who got in a jam, and when the official way out was not acceptable ( the famous 50/50 chance of walking again if his knees were operated on way back in the days when knee operations weren't a secondary fad to the hip replacement fad), decided to find his own way out of the jam.

He studied anatomy. He studied learning systems. His wife was a pediatrician. My story is that he studied and thought about childhood development a lot. He studied himself, and learned that not only did he need to reorganize himself physically to help his knees, but he needed to reorganize the way he'd been playing soccer, which was to go about winning with such ferocity, that harming himself was considered a normal price to pay. He learned that learning requires slowing down, and that it requires going about things in new and unknown ways.

This is almost the definition of learning: to be pushed into the unknown and make it at least slightly known. The core chunk to learning is noticing differences, but when those differences show us a world we didn't know before, or options we hadn't realized previously, then real, deep human learning takes place.

Moshe Feldenkrais is famous for his huge curiosity and so the study of Ericksonian hypnosis and Gurdjieff philosophy/psychology and good old fashioned Eastern acupuncture were part of his exploration, as well as all things medical and scientific about learning or movement ( there wasn't much when he was coming up with his theories and practices).


So, he lived from 1904 to 1984. He walked from Poland to Palestine with some friends when he was young. He made his living as a laborer and went to night school. He developed an interest in Judo. He went to Paris, studied with Curie. The facts you can get from Mark's article. He understood from observation and studying Gurdjieff that a, if not the, central human dilemma is a kind of sleep, or unawareness to our lives as we are living them, which led to an inability to change and hence an inability to actualize our dreams and deep wishes. His so-called bodywork, was really soul work, in this way: to free our minds from the idea that we have to always do and be what we've always done and who we've been is the underlying aim of his work.

He transformed and re-invented himself and he invites the same from us.

Monday, November 06, 2006

LONGER LISTS:
Well, well: blogger gives you a fair amount of room, but once I start to think of movies and books, it could go on.
So why not?
Here goes:

Movies:
GOOD MOVIES
Kinky Boots
Worlds Fastest Indian
Capote
Good Night and Good Luck
Constant Gardener
Lost in Translation
African Queen
The Great Escape
Ladies in Lavender (tame but nice)
Napoleon Dynamite
Monsieur Ibrahim
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Adaptation
Lost in Translation
Winged Migration

Bend it like Beckham
Rabbit Proof Fence
Big Fat Greek Wedding
Real Women Have Curves
Italian for Beginners
Monsoon Wedding (almost great)
Tortilla Soup
Anniversary Party
Himalaya
High Fidelity
Say Anything
Pump up the Volume
( Most of this list came from working back on the Sebastiani Theater calendars. Ditto, the great list).

Memory:
The first 3 Star Wars, were great at first,
now are good.
Rocky I, also, great slurping down to good
Most of the romance movies are good at best,
all the Meg Ryan things, French Kiss and so on
though 4 Weddings and Funeral and Green Card might stand up to time

Nice:
My Bodyguard
Beauty and the Beast (cartoon version,
black and white Cocteu version is probably
well within the Great section,
though it has faded in memory)

Rebel movies:
Repo Man
Pump up the Volume
The Great Escape
Various martial arts fluff/breathless wonder
Pee Wee's Big Adventure
It's a Mad, Mad World
Young Frankenstein


GREAT MOVIES:

Africa great movies:
Hotel Rwanda
The Gods Must be Crazy
Blood Diamond
The Constant Gardener

Akeelah and the Bee
Little Miss Sunshine
The King of Masks
Princess Bride
Cinderella Man
An Inconvenient Truth
Casablanca
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Amadeus
Love Actually

(whole family)
Wizard of Oz
Fly Away Home
Secret Garden
Singing in the Rain

black and white ones
To Have and to Have Not ( for Bogie and Lauren Bacall)
Beauty and Beast
Last Picture Show
Streetcar Named Desire
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Manhatten
Mr. Hulot's Holiday
Charlie Chaplin movies
Buster Keaton
there must be more, remind me.....

Mad Hot Ballroom
Born into Brothels
Water
Girl in the Cafe (Do not read back of DVD cover, just watch and be surprised)
Hotel Rwanda
Fahrenheit 911
Being John Malkovitch
American Beauty
The Station Agent
Whale Rider
Fly Away Home
The Truman Story
Frida
Mostly Martha
Rivers and Tides
Monster's Ball
Amelie
Bread and Tulips
Songcatcher
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
And Now, Ladies and Gentlemen

The Tall Man with One Red Shoe
Compiers
Mon Uncle D'Amerique

GOOD BOOKS
The Speed of Life

Heavy and "great" (i.e. good for you, but actually good, too)
Madame Bovary
Sound and Fury
Heart of Darkness (read for laughs, as well as great literature)
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man

My Year of Meats
All over Creation
History of Love
In and Out of the Garbage Pail, Fritz Perls
Eva Luna
In Search of the Miraculous
Motherless Brooklyn
White Oleander
various mysteries I can't remember, say Robert Parker,
certainly Raymond Chandler, maybe one of the women detectives



GREAT BOOKS
Latest author binge:
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
Room of One's Own
Memoirs
The Waves

Moby Dick

WWII amazing authors:
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five
Plus his others: Cat's Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and so on
Joseph Heller: Catch 22
plus : Good as Gold

The Russians:
War and Peace
Brother Karamazov
Anna Karena

All the Nasrudin books by Idries Shah
Plus: Tales of the Dervishes

The Ladies Detective Series, sweet and intelligent
One Hundred Years of Solitude
This Book will Save your Life
Ishmael

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (only book, movie great combo),
Marcovaldo (Italio Calvino)
Boyhood with Gurdjieff

A Pattern Language
Permaculture: A Designer's Manual
An Earth User's Guide to Permaculture

Moshe Feldenkrais by and about:
The Elusive Obvious
Awareness Through Movement
Awareness Heals

Aunt Julia and the Screenwriter
The Corrections
Shipping News
Cold Mountain
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
Motherless in Brooklyn

Most anything by Italo Covino

Animal Dreams, Barbara Kingsolver
Prodigal Summer, ditto
Dreams of My Russian Summers
Ten Little Indians, Sherman Alexie
Reservation Blues, ditto
Toughest Indian in the World, ditto

Saturday, November 04, 2006

TUESDAY NIGHT CLASS
MINDFULNESS, HEALTH, HAPPINESS


Awareness as the real us.

Meditation.

Conscious speaking.

Silence.

Humor.

Relationship Clarity.

Self-appreciation.

Life clarity.

Byron Katie work.

Feldenkrais as Healing, Meditation and Awareness.
( Shorter, and still profound, WakeUp Feldenkrais lessons.)


Being now.

Gurdjieff "work," in non-dogmatic, small doses.

Sensing and "coming home" to our Real Selves.

5:30 PM
$44-88 per month.
Three month commitment.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

CHILDREN AND LEARNING DIFFICULTIES


Lemon Balm plantPhoto: R. Dale

Sometimes children need help in their learning.

The may have been born with a neurological issue, such as cerebral palsy or a stroke, or brachial plexus. There can be complications in utero or at birth. All sorts of traumas can occur.

For these neurological issues, as well as children with "ordinary" learning challenges (as in reading and math and social adjustment and co-ordination) the Feldenkrais Method, especially the method as refined in the Anat Baniel Method for Children, is the supreme way on this Earth of helping these children.

This is because in these methods, we recreate the natural pathways of learning
and wake up the brain to its possibilities of change and
learning and improvement in a way that no amount of physical therapy or surgery ever can do.




View videos of Anat's work with three children. This shows work over a period of time and you can see with your eyes the marvelous/miraculous changes the children undergo.
Try this:
  • Grace, Isabel and Carter Transform and Heal.


  • ( Not always available, since huge popularity uses up bandwidth.
    Try later. Or purchase via Three Children DVD.)



    As you can read in the four links recommended below, this work is about learning, and anyone, a child with cerebral palsy and the best violin player in the world, can both learn ways to improve and move with greater ease and grace and enjoyment.

    It is our human birthright: to be happy, to be present,
    to be learning and enjoying ourselves
    in greater and greater degrees.

    This work, for a child with learning difficulties,
    is the fresh drink they have been desperate for all their lives.
    They are not pushed, or prodded, or force to "do it right."
    They are not "fixed," or moved in ungentle ways.


    They are given small pieces of real and immediately felt learning
    (inner and organic "learning,"
    not the imposed kind that gives "learning" a bad sound to many children, and adults)
    and they begin to renew and change almost before our eyes.




    Sometimes children are "simply" having a hard time learning in school. Whether the "issue" is reading or math or social adjustment or functioning athletically, the work I offer can link mind/ brain/ body learning and accelerate not only learning but a delight in life. The goal and the pathway of this work is to spark interest in life and learning and self-appreciation and joy. All of this adds up to improvement plus MORE JOY AND MORE SELF-LOVE.

    See my section on tutoring, which is the glory and art of
    allowing
    and cultivating
    and expanding
    every child, or adult,
    to be more of what they really wish to be.
    Whole Person Coaching and Tutoring


    These sessions turn out to be hugely beneficial for the parents, too, should they care to delight in their own learning and enhancement.








    I also offer lessons in a one to one format called Functional Integration®.


    Anat Baniel demonstating

    Anat Baniel demonstrating the hands on transformative work.
    Photo: Josie Davenport, josiedav@mac.com


    In these lessons, you lie, fully clothed, on a comfortable and firm low table while you are moved with extreme gentleness and precision.



    Classmate doing the work

    Classmate doing the work.
    Photo: Josie Davenport, josiedav@mac.com



    This not only feels great, but provides opportunities for your mind/ brain/ body system (i.e. you) to learn new
    and
    easier
    and
    sweeter ways of functioning.


    These new ways not only
    begin to undo and transform stress
    and our old habits of tensing and contracting and limiting ourselves,
    but
    you begin to function in better ways
    in other areas of your mind/ body
    and your life.


    This work is transformational,
    enjoyable
    and almost miraculous.
    You deserve this, I believe.


    My training consists of the "normal" 160 days
    to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner
    and
    an additional 154 days of training
    including 67 with Anat Baniel
    and
    years of training in Gestalt, meditation,
    nature centered healing, hypnosis, and more.




    Lessons last half an hour to forty minutes.

    Lessons cost $90-140 per lesson.


    SPECIAL,
    for those who wish to really
    deepen their experience
    and feel changes at a deeper level:
    $75 per LESSON,
    if you sign up for six
    or more in a one month period.

    For you,
    as a learner,
    a human,
    and a potential
    transforming being:
    If you combine 20 lessons
    with 20 minutes of HomePlay ( not HomeWork)
    a day,
    You can expect to Move
    Think
    and Feel
    TWENTY YEARS YOUNGER.


    Give yourself
    or your child,
    or, best of all: both of you,
    the gift of improvement,
    from fair to good
    or
    good to great.



    Call for an appointment 707-996-1437

    Or Email me



    Thanks, and I hope this is a beginning of a wonderful transformation in your life.

    Chris

    Wednesday, November 01, 2006


    GROUP AND BUSINESS COMMUNICATION


    COUPLES' COMMUNICATION

    PARENT/ CHILD COMMUNICATION,

    PARENT/ TEENAGER COMMUNICATION






    Communication




    Sometimes parent teenager communication is just plain lousy.

    Sometimes parent child communication is "troubled," be the child seven or ten
    or twelve, or teenage, or twenty something, or thirty something,
    or any age.

    Sometimes we have left over aggendas inside us with our parents,
    so the parent/ child thing is from the other side.

    SOMETIMES GROUPS
    IN BUSINESS, OR NON-PROFIT,
    ARE FULL OF PETTY OR NOT SO PETTY SQUABBLING AND DISCONTENT.

    Oftentimes couples,
    have forgotten the love that
    brought them together,
    and have gone into silent or active warfare.

    This is all fine.
    This is all a bunch of habits
    that are preventing us from being free
    and clear
    and happy,
    much like,
    in WakeUp Feldenkrais,
    our habits of unawareness and
    less than easy/ efficient/ pleasant
    movement
    are resulting in stuckness and pain
    and inability to improve.

    Habits can change.
    People can become free.
    This is wonderful.
    This is life and its miraculous possibilities.









    PRIVATE SESSIONS



    In the private sessions and the workshops we learn:

    • To listen without interrupting.

    • To say what is going on in us.

    • To end the putdown and criticism thing.

    • To be at peace with oneself and those we live with.

    • To be happily engaged in life.

    • To be at peace in the moment.

    • To exchange "hard" things to say,
      without the usual meltdowns and blowups.

    • To use conflict as a chance to change oneself, not the other.

    • A sense of humor.

    • The Work of Byron Katie in order to clear up the past,
      clean up relationships,
      get clear inside and outside.
      (See thework.com)

    • A deeper and more pleasant connection to yourself.

    • Improved breathing and happiness.

    • Happier and more clear thinking.

    • An appreciation for each other.

    • A deeper and clearer commitment to being outside and in touch with nature.




    Individual work may be scheduled by phone at 707-996-1437
    Or email at Email me

    Sessions are $90-180 per hour, with a 2 session initial commitment.