Sold Out
with Moshe Feldenkrais
The Esalen Workshop offers a broad range of 46 Awareness Through Movement lessons ranging from introductory to standing on the head. They include versions of classic lessons not seen elsewhere and a range of powerful lessons unique to this setting. It is one of the most valuable teaching resources available to a professional Feldenkrais practitioner. After completing the course, the participants were certified to teach ATM.
As part of this teaching process, halfway through the course Moshe opened up the workshop for others to join, providing a unique opportunity to see how he integrated eight introductory ATMs for those without prior experience into the ongoing group of his students.
The Esalen 1972 Workshop was Moshe's first significant teaching visit to the U.S. The participants included many of the leading people in the humanistic psychology movement. The atmosphere was lively and Moshe was highly engaged. The course took place over a five-week period. The 46 outstanding ATMs were each highly structured and suited for a 45-minute to 60-minute class. These audio recordings of the Esalen seminar are an invaluable resource to accompany the manuscript notes. (The audio includes three lessons not included in the notes.)
From the introduction to the manuscript by David Zemach-Bersin:
"I would suggest that The Esalen Workshop is one of single most important documents we have of Feldenkrais's teaching of Awareness Through Movement. It is a veritable tour de force. The ATM lessons are taught in a clear and deliberate sequence of gathering complexity, giving us an unusual insight into Feldenkrais's pedagogical priorities and developmental thinking. In other words, we are able to see Feldenkrais explicating his thinking by the means of Awareness Through Movement, and we are able to infer exactly what was functionally and pedagogically most important to him. As an added bonus, Feldenkrais wants the participants to understand the theory behind what he is doing, and so he offers a level of explanation about the lessons not to be found anywhere else, except for in the San Francisco training program, which would begin in 1975."
Moshe Feldenkrais, D. Sc. (1904 - 1984) began developing what has become known as the Feldenkrais Method after he sustained a crippling knee injury while working in England during World War II. His own recovery process and subsequent wide-ranging research resulted in the creation of a unique educational system that incorporated his background in physics, Judo, and a lifelong interest in human development. By the end of Dr. Feldenkrais’s life, the Feldenkrais Method had gained an International reputation and he had trained a significant number of teachers. The Method that bears his name continues to evolve and spread across the globe.