Coming to Your senses: Feldenkrais for eyes, ears, jaw & face
An 8 week Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement Series with Sarah Baumert
September 15th - November 13th, 2024
Wednesdays 6:30pm CST/ Sundays 4pm CST
Live classes will be taught on zoom*
Have you ever thought about how you learned to hear sound? Have you ever wondered how you learned to see color and depth with your eyes? Did you know that your tongue can support the mobility and coordination of your spine?
These are the fascinating connections we will be exploring together in the next 8 week Feldenkrais series.
What to expect: This series will include eight lessons exploring the space of the eyes, mouth, jaw, ears, vocal and breathing apparatus and beyond. Often working in these areas will surprisingly release tension elsewhere in the body including the lower back, hips, shoulders and the abdomen. Most of the lessons in this series will be done lying on the back or the side.
These lessons can be beneficial to:
• Reduce facial tension
• Relieve TMJ symptoms
• Release stress held in the body
• Reduce tension from wearing a mask
• Improve breathing function
• Reduce eye strain and headache
• Reduce tinnitus symptoms
• Fewer tension headaches
• Improve balance
These lessons will interact with your brain and nervous system in a very unique but powerful way.
An ear lesson, for example, will be a sensorial experience of how you learned to hear sound, produce sounds, and organize yourself for communication. In our visually dominated world we are often more aware of what is in front. Yet we are surrounded by life. What happens if we consider that the whole body is listening and sense the resonant & receptive qualities of the back & sides of our body. How will it affect our orientation & the sense of who we are?
Eye lessons are some of the most popular lessons in my library. Lessons that include the eyes are known to calm the nervous system and reduce muscular tension in your eyes, cranium, and facial muscles. The demands of modern life have dramatically altered how we use our eyes and excessive screen time has led to a surge in eye discomfort, strain, and an increase in myopic vision. This modern day hazard of long hours looking down at a phone or computer screen is something none of us are immune to. Through novel movements, interspersed with rest, eye lessons help release aches and pains beyond just the eyes and face, but often help relax the neck and spine. Experience a free eye lesson here.
September 15th - November 13th, 2024
Wednesdays 6:30pm CST & Sundays 4pm CST
Live classes will be taught on zoom*
* No class 10/6, 10/9
$180 for the 8 lesson course
For scholarship options, please inquire directly with Sarah at sarah@body-matter.com
What You'll Discover In This Online Course:
Movement:
• This series will include eight lessons. Two variations of each lesson are included, for 16 total classes.
Connection:
• Q & A sessions
• Online forum to connect and ask questions if you are doing the recordings
• Optional 10 minute consultation with Sarah
• Email support
Educational Talks:
• Pre lesson Anatomy Lessons
• The philosophical framework for ATM
Ways to keep practicing:
• Stream recordings indefinitely
• Option to download recordings
Once you have purchased the course, you will have immediate access to the class recordings.
How to use the Marvelous software for livestream and recorded classes.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
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Starting in the 1930’s, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais began to develop a somatic form of neuromuscular re-education. Feldenkrais developed two practical approaches for exploring early developmental movements, as well as more advanced complex actions.
1) Functional Integration - manually directed, hands on, private lessons. Learn more about 1:1 the Feldenkrais approach here.
2) Awareness Through Movement - verbally guided mindful movement classes done in a group setting.
Both approaches are described as “lessons”, as they involve beneficial learning processes for the brain and body. In guided Awareness Through Movement classes you study your potential to act, and how you refine your self organization to make any movement. Feldenkrais is not stretching or straining, it is learning. The method uses gentle mindful movement and directed attention to help people learn new and more effective ways to move and be in the world.
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Students have successfully improved their eyesight with the improvement of their whole body movement via Feldenkrais lessons. David Webber was a highly respected Feldenkrais Practitioner who made groundbreaking advances in our understanding of eye health. After suffering an inflammatory illness at 43, David was declared legally blind. When surgical interventions failed to help, David began using Feldenkrais exercises in hopes of restoring his visual system. It worked; David succeeded in significantly improving his eye health and vision. He went on to develop a series of unique Feldenkrais lessons to help others improve their vision and eye health. David's story of healing was featured in the internationally bestselling book, The Brain's Way of Healing by Norman Doidge, MD.
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Yes! It’s not uncommon for students to feel taller and to stand more upright (with less effort) after a Feldenkrais session. Most all humans “hold” the body with a specific tone in the muscles. Over time this muscular tone habituates and becomes our “posture”, for better or worse. Using guided awareness and small movements in Feldenkrais lessons, the body can shed its unnecessary muscular tone, so that the skeleton can then find its more optimal place to be.
“Although we each have a fantastic skeleton and musculature designed to give us flexible support and hold us upright against the pull of gravity, we frequently develop postural habits that challenge our skeletal structure's effectiveness and cause muscular tension inflammation, and a gradual deterioration of our joints.” - Feldenkrais Trainer David Zemach- Bersin
With awareness, specificity, and practice, Feldenkrais lessons can give you the ability to free the muscles of the neck, shoulders, spine, and pelvis. As one moves towards more freedom of the muscles, one also moves towards a more easy, elegant, and upright posture supported by the strength of the skeleton.
Our aim in Feldenkrais is not a perfect posture, but a place of less tension and conflict in the body where our posture is fluid, not rigid. Everyone’s posture, or how they “use” themselves, isn’t always optimal. With the help of the Feldenkrais method, your postural habits can improve to make everyday movements more enjoyable and easy.
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Both practices emphasize listening to your body, respecting its limits, and unlocking its potential. However, their approaches differ, offering unique pathways to self-discovery. A seasoned yogi might find Feldenkrais deepens their internal awareness, while a Feldenkrais practitioner might discover greater strength and power through yoga.
While most yoga practices tend to focus on alignment and the shape of a pose, the Feldenkrais method differs, in that the emphasis is on the coordination and quality of movement, not in holding a pose for a set amount of time or reaching the limits of a stretch. Feldenkrais emphasized ease and efficiency in movement and to never reach a point of strain or even stretch. The movements are always done within a range of comfort, creating an environment where the nervous system feels safe enough to learn and change. There are no shapes or poses in the Feldenkrais method, but instead we work with developmental movement patterns and mindful movement explorations.
Join this course and . . .
Receive access to 16 livestream sessions over zoom. All sessions are recorded for asynchronous learning options.
Learn from a gentle guide and experienced Feldenkrais practitioner.
Find ease in your eyes, face, jaw, cranium, neck, vocal and breathing apparatus.
Connect with a supportive community of like-minded individuals.
Register today and take the first step towards a more empowered and pain-free you!
About Sarah: Sarah Baumert is known for her thorough and diverse instruction and her dedication to holding space for individual personal discovery. She facilitates whole body alignment in her students as a way for them to access balance, strength, mobility and physical clarity. Through sensory rich movement experiments, she guides students in cultivating mindfulness and deepening their learning process. She works with a variety of populations including athletes, seniors, artists, dancers, musicians, and those experiencing injury or surgery recovery. Sarah is a certified Yoga Therapist, an Authorized Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® Teacher and Feldenkrais Functional Integration® Practitioner. Her objective is to acquire the most effective skills for helping her students live with less pain and more pleasure in their bodies.
What people are saying about Sarah's teaching:
“I have never, ever felt my hands and lower arms as I did at the end of class tonight. They were glowing in a fuzzy, pleasant way. I can’t describe it otherwise. - Linda
I am so grateful that you continue to provide these life giving, body strengthening and soul nurturing classes. They are like an inner meditation for every cell in my body! - Rosie
After I switched to the ‘regular’ yoga class, I realized I missed how I felt during and after Feldenkrais. I experience an ease of being, a soft wholesomeness, in Feldenkrais. I meditate most mornings, and I sometimes find that same stillness after Feldenkrais. Also, ease of movement: I am always struck at how gracefully I can move a limb compared to how the limb starts out. -Elizabeth
What I love so much about your classes: when the unexpected happens, like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place. Keep surprising me! - Jane
I find your classes to be exceptionally supportive and illuminating, and I’ve so benefitted from the learning and the unlearning I’ve experienced. Drop by drop, this practice and what I’ve received from your teaching have radically changed how I am in my body and in my life. These online Feldenkrais courses have become some of my favorite practices ever, and I’m excited every time you propose a new series. - Betsy
After these lessons, I often feel like I am “floating”. I continue to realize, in real time and activities like walking, the connection between all parts of my body….the supple power that moves up and down my spine, from my head to my pelvis. - Helen”