The Pelvic Floor Part 1 & 2

A series of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons and short lectures that use breathing, imagery, and easy to do movements of the whole body to awaken and coordinate the functional use of pelvic floor.

PART 1: Discovery, Integration & Power

Course includes:
• 7 video classes with talks
• 26 downloadable audio recordings
• Pelvic Health and Awareness Powerpoint

Lessons:
1. Well-Being Through Pelvic Floor Awareness
2. Abdominal organization, the container and the pelvic floor
3. Peeing! + Exploring Front & Back of Pelvic Floor through Skeletal Connection
4. Balancing the Buttocks
5. Breathing Evenly and Optimal Lifting of the knees
6. Learning, Patience, and Engaging the Pelvic Floor
7. Everyday Movements and the Pelvic Floor
8. Looking Outward, Sensing Inward: Eyes and Pelvic Floor
9. The Pelvic Floor - Sitting/ Mapping/ Breathing

PART 2: Power & Finesse

Course Includes:
• 4 video classes with talks
• 11 downloadable audio recordings

Lessons:
INTRO: Guiding Principles
1. Organizing the Hip Joints
2. On Hands and Knees: Coordinating Hips, Pelvis and Spine
3. Lying on the Side: Slow Movement of the Leg
4. Standing and Moving Backwards for Balance

Abdominals in Action

This series of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons will explore this core system of support: coordinating the action of the abdominals, the pelvic floor, the deep muscles of the spine. The abdominals are essential to support one’s posture, spine, and to have powerful action. It’s about appropriate use of the system of support.

Series includes:

• 7 video classes with talks

• Downloadable audio recordings

• Q & A with Deborah

• 2 Bonus ATM lessons to support Expanding Your Self Image

Feldenkrais Fundamentals

This six-week series is designed to give you a rich experience of the principles and movements that are foundational for Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons.

Series includes:
• 7 video classes with talks
• downloadable audio recordings
• Q & A with Deborah

Lessons:
INTRO: Flexors/Extensors - Fundamentals Variation
1. Exploration: Connecting Your Pelvis with Your Whole Self
2. Reversibility and Maturity: Rolling Softly Like a Baby
3. Sliding Hands Down Legs in Sitting to Improve Skeletal Support
4. Sensing, Moving, Thinking and Feeling While Lying on the Belly
5. Learning, Movement & Imagination: Improving Flexibility with Holding the Foot
6. Diagonal Pressing/Lifting and Breathing

A student’s experience: “This series of fundamentals may have been developed for beginners, but I have been attending Feldenkrais classes consistently for 14 years, and I got so much out of it”

Available in Movement & Creativity Library or as a self-paced course

Curiosity, Self Image and Pain

A series accessible for all levels of movement and awareness ability designed for anyone who has an interest in chronic pain, such as, someone who has pain, or loves someone with pain, or works with clients with pain.

Series includes:
• 7 video classes with talks
• 17 downloadable audio recordings
• Q & A with Deborah

Lessons:
1. Intro & Breathing to Calm the Nervous System
2. Enlarging Curiosity and Developing Self Knowledge
3. Edges of the Feet and Smooth Rolling of the Head
4. Curiosity and Self Knowledge Through Awareness of Breath
5. Open Mindedness in Action: The Candelabra
6. Exploring Self Image Through the Shoulder
7. Integration and Perspective: Moving and Lengthening the Spine
8. The Appreciation of Beauty: Rolling on Side with Rotation of the Leg
9. Bravery and Kinesiophobia/ Variations with Arms in Triangle

Available in Movement & Creativity Library or as a self-paced course

Touch for Well-Being

Self-paced online Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® Series with Deborah Bowes and Cliff Smyth

This series addresses the situation of ‘touch hunger’, also referred to as skin hunger, a condition which results from having little or no physical contact with other people. Developing more sensitive and skillful touch gives you increased ability to support yours and others health and well-being.

4 video classes with Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons + talks

15 downloadable audio recordings These are the 4 video classes edited for ease of access

4 Bonus Recordings: Awareness Through Self Touch + Intro to Touch for Well-Being + 2 lessons from Cliff Smyth’s "Easy Hands and Arms" series, designed to help prevent overuse injuries of the hands and arms. The effects on the whole nervous system are profound.

Chanukiah Series

Self-paced online Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® Series with Deborah Bowes

The series of 6 Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® lessons are all variations of the Chanukiah or Candelabra lesson. The lessons can be enjoyed by anyone and each one stands alone.

This series of lessons offers a unique opportunity to ignite your curiosity and to integrate your feelings, thoughts and movements. 

Series includes:
6 video lessons + audio downloads

“My thoracic spine became nimble, light, quick and elegant to move. It moved me to humility.” - Helena Heppner, Balance and Walking Coach

Mind Mapping Workshop

Integrating Complexity, Creative Planning and Sparking New Ideas

Mind Mapping can help make sense of complex ideas, or deal with something that has many inter-related parts. It can help you break through old blocks in your thinking and bring to light new insights.

6 video recordings, including 2 Feldenkrais ATM lessons

PART 1:
Introduction
Mind Mapping in 99 Sec
Preparing the Attitude of the Body/ Tilting Arms and Legs

PART 2:
Central Image w/ 8 Lines
Radiating Associations

PART 3:
Constructing a Meaningful Map

BONUS RECORDING:
Calming Your Face & Intro to Mind Mapping

Free Deborah Bowes Resources:

More videos on the Movement and Creativity Youtube Channel
Podcast: Curiosity, Compassion and Pain
Blog Post: Improve chronic pain though improving the functioning of your nervous system

About Deborah Bowes:

Deborah Bowes is a Feldenkrais® Teacher and Trainer. She initially trained as a physical therapist at Columbia University in New York and later earned a Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Shenandoah University in Virginia. She holds a B.S. in Biology and Physical Education from Rhode Island College.

As a Guild Certified Trainer of the Feldenkrais Method® since 2000, she has taught widely in the United States, Canada, Germany, Sweden, Australia and Colombia for 14 different training organizations and in over 32 training programs.  Her other related in-depth studies and practices include Tai Chi Chuan, Qigong, yoga, sensory awareness, meditation, and dance.

Deborah co-founded the San Francisco Feldenkrais® Center for Movement and Awareness in 1988, and for the past 30 years, has provided Feldenkrais lessons, classes, and workshops to adults and children. She has made many presentations and trainings to professional organizations, university programs, hospitals, and other professional groups. She is an adjunct faculty member at Saybrook University, teaching Movement Modalities and Wellness. Her doctoral research demonstrated the benefit of her original Feldenkrais Method program, Pelvic Health and Awareness for men and women, for improving pelvic floor health.