Expand Your Ability

On this episode I want to talk about this framework: the 3 goals of the Feldenkrais Method. These are interrelated goals. Each one makes the others possible. I hope by breaking this down into these three categories, we can illuminate some new and less obvious spaces between ideas. Spoiler Alert, its more than about moving better.

The three goals of the Feldenkrais Method I will explore are Outer Work, Inner Work and Life Work

Expect to hear in this episode:

• Our muscular activity interferes with our expression.
• Practicing non-reactivity, compassion and curiosity.
• Recognizing our compulsive patterns around learning (do we whip ourselves like a mule)
• Dad's wisdom: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting the same result.
• Inhibiting your past to make new choices.

By the way! A five star review would be so helpful. If you have a moment, please consider submitting one in your podcast app.

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. 👋

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

I'm directing a documentary film about Feldenkrais. Check out the Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

This episode presents my interview with Kelly Cordes of Central Minnesota's WJON radio station. I talk to with her about what is the Feldenkrais Method, it's benefits and what does taking a class look like.

I was connected with Kelly because I have been teaching at the Whitney Senior Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota. Seniors are in a particularly open to the Feldenkrais Method because it is so accessible for people -- it doesn't require beginners to be strong, agile, or flexible. The Feldenkrais process helps everyone improve regardless of their starting point.

As we age, the poor habits of moving and thinking catch up with us and lead to wear and tear and aches and pains. Life doesn't have to be a downward slope. We can learn at any age to have more effective and efficient movement which means we can become more graceful, creative and strong.

You will be surprised by what you can do!

In this episode you will hear:

• The Feldenkrais's emphasis on questions over force (we don't try to fix ourselves).
• The phrase you can't teach an old dog new tricks is incorrect!
• Listen to your body while it's quiet, before it yells at you with aches and pains.
• How we wall off our potential growth through our negative beliefs.
• What is an Awareness through Method® group class like?
• Jeffrey's recommendation to give this work a fair trial (try 6-10 lessons to see if it works for you).
• Jeffrey's personal story and questions that led him to the Feldenkrais Method.

About the interviewer Kelly Cordes

WJON Website

Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am an Embodiment Coach. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. 👋

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

I'm directing a documentary film about Feldenkrais. Check out the Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

The Feldenkrais Method is a way to improve your own sense of self-value in your. The way in which you value yourself by your own standards, and less and less by the standards of others.

How good is that? Would that be worthwhile for you?

On this episode we explore the 4th of nine reasons for Moshe Feldenkrais advises for movement as a tool for self-improvement and growth.

The ability to move is important to self-value.

On this episode you will hear:

- the passage Feldenkrais write on this

- how our perceived imperfections affect out behavior

- my story of how my voice

- the downsides of constant conscious efforts

- how our desire to protect ourself limits our natural expression

- how the Feldenkrais® Method helps a person increase their self-value by their own standards

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. 👋

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Watch the Feldenkrais Documentary Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

When Jenny Frank-Doggett incorporates Feldenkrais® into her therapy sessions, she finds it helps her clients to feel better. She means 'feel better' in two meanings. They feel better in their body and mind and they can feel more. They can become more attuned with their experience.

Language is tough. I agree that it's important that we connect Mind and Body. Our culture in the West has had such an emphasis on the intellect and a general disregard for the body (thankfully that's changing), so it makes sense to encourage people to reconnect Mind and Body. But, as my guest points out, Mind and Body were never truly separated - they are one.

We can use somatic (body-based) tools to help a person with their mental health because the mind is body and the body is mind.

What you will hear in this episode:

• Jenny's background into Jungian therapy and hypnotherapy.
• "We can have physical symptoms and not realize it's related to a traumatic event".
• Our brain and nervous system are designed to keep us alive.
• Examples of sympathetic and parasympathetic activation.
• "Through touch we can co-regulate", Co-regulation is where two people's nervous systems become alike.
• Jenny's preference to work with client's feet to help them 'ground'.
• 'Kindling in the brain', a metaphor for how negative thought patterns strengthen through repetition .
• What life looks like if you're not stuck in parasympathetic or sympathetic activation.

About the GuestJenny Frank-Doggett is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor, Certified Advanced Clinical Hypnotherapist, and a Guild Certified Practitioner in the Feldenkrais Method®. She is based in Redmond, Washington.

She has been a student and teacher of psychology, yoga, and other esoteric and transpersonal practices for over 25 years. Jenny's current work, consists of individual and relationship therapy as well as facilitating classes, groups, and intensive transformational retreats.

Somatic body work and education using the Feldenkrais Method ® is integrated into Jenny's counseling practice as physical wellbeing and attention practices directly impact mental and emotional health.

Jenny facilitates transformational therapeutic groups with Tom - her life partner of 26 years and they have two adult daughters and many dogs.

Email her: [email protected] Jenny's website: https://www.tigermountaincounseling.com

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. 👋

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the Feldenkrais Documentary Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

I've used the term story many times on this podcast. Stories are what we've learned about ourselves, beliefs about how we should act. Stories are the way our past continues to shape our actions.

Some common stories that live out in people's experiences are I'm not good enough, I'm not lovable, its better for me to not feel, I need to push hard to get results. (Do these resonate with you?)

On this episode I share a student's experience of discovering a story he had that he wasn't aware of before. He had internalized the story that he shouldn't touch his face. We take a closer look and break down the elements of the story so we can learn how other stories work.

In this episode you will hear:

• Stories emerge out of sense of finding security (to fit in, to be accepted)
• How a feeling of aversion is an indication of story
• Stories can be tangled together
• How this student's story lead to a clever work around
• Awareness is the first step to changing a story
• What to do we aim at if we're not aiming at the right answer??
• How the Awareness Through Movement process helps us discover our hidden stories (and habits)
• Examples of other stories

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. (If you would leave a review, I'd appreciate it too 👋😄)

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the Feldenkrais Documentary Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

As a curious child, Sarah Baumert, experimented with the yoga postures she found in a book. She found joy in how the postures stimulated intense energy or offered calm. She was far more comfortable with expressing with her body than her words and became a professional dancer.

When she became a yoga teacher she learned to put her profound experience into words so she could guide students to find that for themselves.

She later realized how her dance training had an oppressive quality that was instilled in her. This deeply affected her movement and how she related to herself.

It wasn't until her Feldenkrais training, Sarah learned how to move to the music of her internal senses as a way to work through chronic dance injuries and to find freedom in her body.

In this episode you'll hear

• The power of postures to change our experiences
• Sarah's childhood experimentation with movement
• "There is a deep intelligence that can come from knowing the body from a movement practice"
• Differences and similarities between Yoga and Feldenkrais
• Finding a sense of expansiveness while using effort
• How Sarah incorporated Feldenkrais lessons into her teaching practices
• Feldenkrais is not lazy yoga (😆)
• Feeling free in your body
• Feldenkrais as a way to unlearn external authority

About the Guest

Sarah Baumert is a freelance dance artist and somatic educator based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She is an authorized Awareness Through Movement® Teacher, certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner, and Yoga teacher.

She has held teaching positions at the Harvard Center for Wellness, MIT, the University of Minnesota and the Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists.

She runs her own podcast, Sarah B. Yoga + Feldenkrais®. Website

Instagram

Subscribe to Newsletter

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast. 👋

New Course Coming! (Would you do me a favor?)

Do you feel stuck lately? Is there something that you want to do, but you just can't do it yet?I am doing research conversations with people like you in order to build an online course using the Feldenkrais Method. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? I'd love to hear your story! Send me an email: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the Feldenkrais Documentary Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

For over a decade I have done video editing. So often by the end of a work session I would walk away feeling cranky or prickly. While creating the videos I was also creating unnecessary discomfort (which sent my on a journey into the Feldenkrais Method). That was the basis for burnout and resentment. Not good.

I believe everybody is fundamentally creative. We create the relationships we have with the choices we make (whether or not we know what choices we are making). The Feldenkrais Method is a method of becoming aware of the choices we make so we open up new choices.

I offer a brief Awareness Through Movement exploration to give you a direct experience of how your choices create new (and better) experiences for yourself.

In this episode you will hear:

• How all people are inherently creative
• Another look at the Self-Image
• How our invisible choices interfere with creativity
• Examples of how Feldenkrais lessons are co-created between teacher and student
• How creativity is taking new unexpected paths
• A guided movement exploration that shows how the choices you make affect your stability and balance

Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast.

New Course Coming! I Need Your Help.

Do you feel stuck lately? Are old ways of thinking, feeling, or moving holding you back? What do you need more support with?

I am doing research interviews with people like you in order to build an online course. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? Send me an email: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the DocumentaryTeaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

"We all have more experience of movement, and more capacity for it, than of feeling and thought," says Moshe Feldenkrais in his 3rd argument for Why Movement as a basis for self-improvement.

In the North American culture I call home, there is a strong emphasis on personal growth through acquiring information like facts and ideas with not much of a focus on learning through movement (I understand the irony that I am creating a podcast to share information 😆). Feldenkrais believes movement offers richer experience for us than thoughts and feelings. We can learn directly through movement and find out for ourselves.

In this episode you'll hear about:

- Movement's primacy in the nervous system.

- Jeffrey's personal experience of disregarding his body.

- Sensitivity vs. Over-Excitability (a continuation of the idea's from last's week's episode).

- Avoiding difficult feelings.

- "Thought-terminating Cliches".

- Uncovering our deep beliefs and stories.

- Feldenkrais' goal to lead people to being critical- and free-thinkers.

For this episode, I draw from Feldenkrais' book Awareness Through Movement.

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast.

New Course Coming! I Need Your Help.

Do you feel stuck lately? Are old ways of thinking, feeling, or moving holding you back? What do you need more support with?

I am doing research interviews with people like you in order to build an online course. Would you be open to a 15-20min interview? Send me an email: [email protected]

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the Feldenkrais Documentary Teaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

Have you ever been called "too sensitive"? I have and I don't like it. It's not helpful and I think it misses the point.

In this episode, I reframe sensitivity. Sensitivity is a good and necessary quality. Sensitivity is about how you receive information from the world to inform your actions. Wouldn't you prefer a partner who is sensitive to your needs? A baker who is sensitive to the ingredients? A driver who is sensitive to the road?

The issue is when we react too intensely to what we're paying attention too. This is over-excitability. Over-excitability is like the small dog that barks wildly, waking up the whole house because he heard something (just the wind) outside.

I offer a technique to quiet down your internal excitable puppy. (hint: it will be boring 😆)

In this episode, you will hear:

• Sensitivity reframed as good and useful
• Over-Excitability is what wears us out
• A guided technique for interacting with difficult experiences
• Our habits are maintained in our muscular tone
• Developing a taste for 'unnecessary urgency'
• The importance of low-effort present with your experience ('just enter the pool')
• The power of acting bored

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New Course Coming! I Need Your Help.

Do you feel stuck lately?

Are old ways of thinking, feeling, or moving holding you back?

What do you need more support with?

I'm building an online course to help people deepen their connection with their bodies, overcome entrenched habits and open up new pathways of moving, thinking and feeling.

To build this course, I'm doing research interviews with people like you to see what you need.

Would you be open to a 15-20min interview?

Send me an email: [email protected]

Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast.

Download my free guide: 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the DocumentaryTeaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Let me know: [email protected]

My guest this week is Jeff Haller, a 40 year veteran Feldenkrais practitioner and trainer of other practitioners.

Jeff Haller chose the Feldenkrais Method over many other professions, including aikido, psychotherapy, and basketball coaching because he believed this method was singular in helping people transcend their history. He's a generous and compassionate teacher.

In this episode you will hear:

• Jeff Haller's professional explorations into basketball coach, aikido, psychotherapy, yoga teacher, taichi, massage therapy, physical therapy.
• The Feldenkrais® Method as 'keystone' learning principles to bring to any other field.
• Feldenkrais' early students were concentration camp survivors.
• "Our neurosis is hidden in our muscular habit".
• How are personalities become associated with our history of self-protection.
• finding the same sense of composure through 45min of Feldenkrais that people seek for years in meditation.
• The amazing lightness of a 'pure' state of being when our compulsive past is set aside.
• Choosing wholeness over our unconscious past.

It's filled to the brim. You might want to listen to this one a few times... :D

Jeff Haller is a Feldenkrais Practitioner. Jeff Haller studied directly with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais Method®. He graduated from his professional training program in 1983. His primary focus is training others to become Feldenkrais practitioners. He's been actively engaged in this work for 40 years. Jeff Haller lives in the Seattle, Washington area.

Jeff Haller: [email protected]

Jeff Haller's Website: https://www.insidemoves.org/

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Hi, I'm Jeffrey.

I am a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and Filmmaker. I am the director of the upcoming documentary on the Feldenkrais Method.

Stay connected and subscribe to the podcast.

Download my free guide (plus join my newsletter): 9 Surprising Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method

Watch the DocumentaryTeaser Trailer: teaser.feldenkraismovie.com

Follow Me on Instagram: @expandyourability

Had an Aha? Questions? Let me know: [email protected]