I first became interested in the work of Moshe Feldenkrais in 1986, after many years studying movement, particularly Tai Chi, and Martha Graham-based dance. I was fortunate to join the first British Feldenkrais Professional Training Programme in 1987, and to experience the individual training styles of many of Moshe’s original team of trainers, including Chava Shelhav, Myriam Pfeffer, Ruthy Alon, Jerry Karzen, and Yochanan Rywerant, plus one of his closest collaborators, Anat Baniel, all presided over by Russell Delman.

I began teaching Awareness Through Movement myself in 1989, graduated in 1990, and I have been teaching Feldenkrais Functional Integration, and Feldenkrais-based voice work, both privately, and in colleges, universities and adult education centres in the UK and abroad, ever since. I am still involved in UK training programmes as an experienced practitioner, giving individual lessons to trainee teachers for Garet Newell’s Sussex-based training programmes.

I have been singing professionally in the popular music field since 1983, and teaching voice and singing to a wide variety of students, including professional and trainee actors, since 1988. I enjoy most kinds of music but I get the greatest pleasure from singing jazz, and vocal improvisation.

Since qualifying, my ongoing project has been to develop a comprehensive awareness-based voice and singing teaching system, using the Feldenkrais approach. To this end I have researched and incorporated many science-based voice training strategies into my practice. Feldenkrais Potent Voice is the culmination of my years of teaching experience, my ongoing research, and the development and expansion of my own vocal performance abilities.

My current focus is to support individuals in their self-maturing process; to enable the achievement of a confident authenticity in self-expression, plus a “mindful spontaneity” in action. People who achieve this state are often referred to as having “charisma”, and a powerful “presence”. To that end I am crafting a series of strategies based around developing the “Inner Voice”. By developing effective processes for my students/clients to steadily undo the self-constricting habits of thought that are holding them back from experiencing true wellbeing, I feel that I am continuing Moshe’s stated intention of enabling us all to:

“take charge again of our personal evolution, [thus] moving in the direction already marked out for us by the whole process of evolution.” (Embodied Wisdom; 2010)

My ongoing intention is to encourage a self-healing, self-developing, self-maturing ability that will continue to benefit my collaborators for the rest of their lives, in exactly the way that my personal Feldenkrais practice has benefitted me.

A Testimonial…

Where else can you find help with organising your body that is both intuitive and deeply intelligent? As a connoisseur of the Feldenkrais Method® I have identified Maggy Burrowes as one of the foremost UK practitioners.

Dr. Michael Roth – M.D., Author, and Feldenkrais teacher.

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