This is a message of thanks.

The past decade of my life has been quite tough, due to chronic illness and all it entails.

There are lights in the tunnel, and one of them is your book, Feldenkrais Illustrated.

I had been trying Feldenkrais for a while but I was running into blockades: the way other people practice; things that did not feel right to me.

I was feeling overwhelmed and stuck and lost.

One sunny day last spring, I was visiting my brother and I saw your book lying on the table.

I picked it up, started leafing through, and found it hard to put down.

I was mesmerised.

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In the months that followed, I read your book over, and over, and over again.

It made so much sense to me.

And Feldenkrais practice started making so much more sense to me.

I started to carve out my own path, my own way of doing the exercises, radically respecting the (for now tight) confines of my energy.

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But your book has made waves my life far beyond the boundaries of physical practice.

I use it to teach, I use it alongside my Focusing meditation.

It sits in my bedside bookcase, and when I feel stuck, or blue, or in pain, I draw it out and take in a page, a chapter.

It soothes me.

Among other things, I am a linguist.

I also like to draw and paint.

I can see and sense the immense amount of work that went into this book.

Distilling statements from Feldenkrais’ somewhat mystic and cryptic writings, chewing them over, finding and drawing pictures to explain them.

Organising the separate statements into an argumentation structure.

So from someone whose life you have changed profoundly: thank you.

Thank you for your hard work, and for sharing it with the rest of us.

Sincerely,

M.B.

Merel Boers is a historian and linguist. She teaches people how to connect with others in writing, and through public speaking.