Emma Alter Feldenkrais

Today is the last day of early bird registration for my new series, Morning Practice.

With my new series, you can start your day with 15 minutes of Feldenkrais practice. Starting from 1st July, I will welcome participants live online as we explore together what happens when we bring brief, consistent Feldenkrais practice into the rhythm of everyday life.

Register by the end of today to take advantage of my early bird price: £45 Early Bird until 14 June, and £54 thereafter. The course is included for current Altermoves members.

Join me for 15 live sessions over 5 week, taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8am–8.15am UK time. Sessions are live on Zoom, and recordings are included to revisit, or if you can’t attend live.

To register, please go to https://buy.stripe.com/aFa14mesu5PR7od2xt1wY01

Beyond the Core | Blog

Stability is useful, there's no doubt. But we need mobility as well, unless you're a rock! Stability is only part of the story.

We need Core Mobility, and also Core connection. You needs to integrate it with rest of you. When you hold yourself contracted continuously, you separate your two halves, top and bottom. But the top of you needs the full support of below the waist, and vice versa. Functionally, most movements are full body. Without all of you in mind, movement is harder.

Theoretical knowledge doesn't shift into active knowledge unless we can feel it, or visualise it. Feldenkrais helps you learn to feel yourself. Once you can feel it, you can change what you're doing.

Join me for classes online and in person in central London to explore it for yourself - send me a message to book your first session, or with your questions.

What if the day began a little more gently?

Join me for my new series of morning Feldenkrais practice, starting from 1st July.

Participants will join me from the comfort of their own homes, live online, as we explore together what happens when we bring brief, consistent Feldenkrais practice into the rhythm of everyday life.

Register by 14th June to take advantage of my early bird price: £45 Early Bird until 14 June, and £54 thereafter. If you are a current Altermoves member, the cost is included.

Join me for 15 live sessions over 5 week, taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8am–8.15am UK time. Sessions are live on Zoom, and recordings are included to revisit, or if you can't attend live.

To register, please go to: https://buy.stripe.com/aFa14mesu5PR7od2xt1wY01

How would it feel to begin the day differently?

With my new series, you can start your day with 15 minutes of Feldenkrais practice. Starting from 1st July, I will welcome participants live online as we explore together what happens when we bring brief, consistent Feldenkrais practice into the rhythm of everyday life.

Register by 14th June to take advantage of my early bird price: £45 Early Bird until 14 June, and £54 thereafter. The course is included for current Altermoves members.

Join me for 15 live sessions over 5 week, taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8am–8.15am UK time. Sessions are live on Zoom, and recordings are included to revisit, or if you can't attend live.

To register, please go to: https://buy.stripe.com/aFa14mesu5PR7od2xt1wY01

What becomes possible with small, regular moments of attention?

Introducing my new series, Morning Feldenkrais Practice

This first 5-week series will be a pilot: a chance to explore together what happens when we bring brief, consistent Feldenkrais practice into the rhythm of everyday life.

Starting on 1 July, we’ll meet live online on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8.00 - 8.15am for a short guided Feldenkrais practice. The emphasis will be on ease, awareness and curiosity rather than “doing” or achieving: arriving more fully in yourself in the morning and carrying that sense of exploration into the rest of your day.

* 15 live sessions over 5 week, taking place on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8am–8.15am UK time
* Sessions live on Zoom
* Recordings included to revisit, or if you can't attend live
* The series is included for current Altermoves Membership members
* For non members, the series cost is £45 Early Bird until 14 June, and £54 thereafter

If this resonates, please join us - click here to register:
https://buy.stripe.com/aFa14mesu5PR7od2xt1wY01

What might change with 15 minutes of morning practice?

Since completing the Feldenkrais in Practice study in January, I’ve been sitting with the idea of creating a short, regular morning practice for all of you: a way to connect with yourself before the pace of the day begins.

Morning Feldenkrais Practice:

This first 5-week series will be a pilot: a chance to explore together what happens when we bring brief, consistent Feldenkrais practice into the rhythm of everyday life.

Starting on 1 July, we’ll meet live online on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 8.00 - 8.15am for a short guided Feldenkrais practice. The emphasis will be on ease, awareness and curiosity rather than “doing” or achieving: arriving more fully in yourself in the morning and carrying that sense of exploration into the rest of your day.

The series will include:

-15 live sessions over 5 weeks
-Classes on Mondays / Wednesdays / Fridays, 8am–8.15am UK time, live on Zoom
-Recordings included to revisit, or if you can't attend live

Cost:

-Included for current Altermoves Membership members
-£45 Early Bird until 14 June
-£54 thereafter

You can book your place here:

https://buy.stripe.com/aFa14mesu5PR7od2xt1wY01

Early bird booking is open until 14 June and the series begins on 1 July.

As it's the first time I’m offering this format, I’m keeping the initial group fairly contained and imagine places will fill quite quickly.

If this resonates, please join us.

If you can feel it, you can change it | Blog

As you know I'm a violist, and recently a colleague referred a teenage violinist to me.

Some of my favourite work (I like it all) is combining music making with Feldenkrais. So I've been enjoying working with her.

What's in the self image?

In her lesson I observed her playing a little. I noticed that she didn't include the top of the shoulder in her movement. And when I asked her about it, she said she didn't sense it being part of the movement. In theory, she knew the muscles of the chest attach to the shoulder, but she couldn't feel it.

She couldn't feel the connection, so she didn't include it. She couldn't. As a result the arm movement was isolated from support at the front. Which if one wants to make a full sound, would be useful.

Sensation as Information

At that point, I asked her to put her violin down, and find her sternum with her fingers. I asked her find the top of it. And then to slide her left hand to the right side of her sternum, where it meets the ribs.

I then asked her to slide her right shoulder backwards, and feel the muscles moving under her fingers, pulling like elastic bands. We repeated this simple movement, as she moved her fingers down the side of her sternum lower and lower. So she could feel how big an area supports the front of her shoulder.

Try it yourself...

When she got to the base of her sternum, I asked her to leave her fingers on her abdomen. To feel how the sensation wasn't there anymore. There's no direct musclular connection. When she moved her fingers back onto the ribs she could feel the connection once again. She continued down the flare of the ribs to see how low the pectoral muscles reached.

Then she came back to her violin. Not only was it a different sound quality: richer and freer, but a movement that now included the area she'd been touching.

Theoretical knowledge doesn't shift into active knowledge unless we can feel it, or visualise it. Feldenkrais helps you learn in a way so that you can feel yourself with more clarity. Once you can feel it, you can change what you're doing to something better.

If you're ready to try Feldenkrais for yourself, send me a message and we can book a short free session to allow us to:

- talk about your situation,
- explore whether Feldenkrais might be a good choice for you
- decide your first step together

Thigh bone connections | Blog

How many parts of you can you feel when you move your knee? When does your leg move in isolation (from the hip joint) and when does the pelvis join in to support?

Often when we have pain or an injury we adopt an adaptive way of moving to stop the pain. And that's useful, whilst we're healing. But we need to peel back the layer afterwards, or we end up with the adaptive movement causing its own problems.

This week in one of my 1-to-1 sessions, I saw a lady who has problems with her hip. It's painful, and so that's what she notices, and talks about, and wants solved. Understandably. But often in a session, I'll start on the other side, or far away from the area itself. We tend to protect an area that's sometimes painful, even if it isn't right now. By starting elsewhere, I'm letting their nervous system know its safe. And then they can relax. Which in itself can be a good start for new possibilities. Once they know what I'm doing, how I move, how well I'm listening to them on the easier leg, it will usually feel safer to accept me moving the area that is more problematic.

I often measure this by their breathing. If they can breathe freely, their system is available to listen to my input. They can learn. If they've stopped breathing, I need to adjust, pause, and alter what I'm doing, so they can feel safe, and have room for input once again. If they're not breathing, they can't take anything new in.

This is something that can be explored in 1-to-1 lessons, group classes or any other lesson. If you would like to explore it for yourself, contact me to book your first session.

Intelligent Legs | Blog

This week, I was working with a client, who was thinking about how he stands. He realised he wasn’t using his legs as well as perhaps he might, as he was getting pain from them.

In our lesson I asked him to kneel, (standing over his knees) and then I worked on rotation from the heel. What was interesting was that he was holding his pelvis still. Until I pointed it out, he didn’t notice : this tension was beneath the surface of his awareness. He couldn’t feel it, but it was getting in the way of connected movement.

How does tension get in the way of your movement?
When you’re moving well, all the muscles groups work together to help out. But sometimes you don’t support the smaller muscles and bones of your body with the bigger ones. Whilst not wrong, over time, this over working of some muscles, and underworking of others can lead to stiffness, and reduced range of movement.

For example, if you’re moving your hand you can do it a more isolated or more global way. I can write this on my keyboard by only movind my fingers. Or, I can write using movements of my whole arm. In the first the hand moves without support from anywhere else in your body. In the second the rest of you helps out. When you move in a more integrated way the different muscles take on proportional loads: the big muslces do the big lifting, and the more delicate muscles the fine-tuning.

Inhibition or inclusion

If you’re not moving your pelvis at all when you move your foot, somewhere along the line, you’re adding tension. Tension that stops a proportional load and means that smaller muscles are doing more than they needs to. If you feel a sense of separation between your top and bottom halves, it’s likely you’re overtightening your abdominals and low back muscles. Using your core strength in a way that isn’t so useful day to day. To fully move and breathe you need to connect to the pelvis from above. and to move freely, you need to connect from the feet all the way up to the pelvis.

Join a class to learn techniques that will help you move more freely and pleasurably - details can be found on my website (link in my bio), or send me a message to learn more.

Connecting the Dots | Musicians' Blog

A common idea for us as musicians, organising different parts to move together. We're excellent at dividing attention between our instruments, sound and musical colleagues. Yet we're often less practised at applying that to ourselves.

The Symphony of your Leg

The complexity of the movements of the legs need all four areas to work together. Your ankle and knee are simple hinge joints, and your hip and foot allow more 360° movements at either end of the leg.

Feldenkrais spends a lot of time both with detailed work and broader strokes. Shifting attention from one to the other. Over time I've found that's a transferable skill: improving my ability both to focus on musical detail, and widen listening to include more.

Efficient movement enables more direct musical expression.

Many of the people who come to classes report a similar shift. in freedom of rhythm, more ability of hear clarity of lines, with less effort. It's not only physical, even if we use the kinaesthetic "door" to explore learning. Efficiency of your movement creates more directness between intention and musical expression. A lesson on the legs might not sound like it's immediately relevant to music making. And yet, most of the musicians in my classes find changes in their experience of making music after each class.

Each lesson breaks down complex movement patterns into component parts. You'll aim to improve the quality before rebuilding the patterns. It's not a new idea of course. It's what we're doing in much of our practice. But we rarely take the time to do this for our physical selves.

We need to be able to sense and feel differences to learn. And that’s exactly what we do in each Feldenkrais lesson. It’s a laboratory of learning about yourself. Each new chunk of self-discovery giving you more agency, more options, along with more effective ways of moving and being.

If you’re curious, join a class - find out more by visiting my website at www.themovingbrain.com, or send me a message with your questions.