All of the subjects I teach are available online.
I am using Zoom, which means that a recording of your lesson is included in the fee, and is yours to keep.
*All group class fees are ‘suggested-rate-or-any-donation-welcome’
All booking is via direct contact with me, by email or call – all my contact details are here.
Please note that a brief description of all my regular classes appears here first, and thus this list may not be in a sensible order, date-wise!
You will find more detailed descriptions of all my regular online classes on this page.
Awareness Through Movement Online Classes on Zoom*
Tuesdays @ Noon
12 pm – 1.00 pm GMT
£10 per class, or any donation welcome
This class is a general class and suitable for all levels of ability – we sometimes have time for a group chat afterwards for anyone who does not need to dash away. I find that these chats are very valuable for deepening all our understanding of what Feldenkrais is all about.
Thursdays @ 6pm
6 pm – 7 pm GMT
This is a very gentle class and particularly suitable for anyone with chronic issues with injury, pain, or fatigue.
£10 per class, or any donation welcome
*Regular attendees will receive all recordings and notes even if they miss a class
These are ongoing classes, so the intention is for you to commit to attending on a regular basis: once a week is good, twice a week is better. Feldenkrais is about learning to learn; these are skills that you will develop over time with practice, and the benefits you will experience are also cumulative.
One reason I am so enjoying teaching on Zoom is the facility to share a recording of the class so you can build up an archive of lessons to explore whenever you wish.
FaceBook: Feldenkrais & Embodied Voice, HumanSong––Self-Expression & Performance
Your Potent Inner Voice
Sensory Self-Awareness for Self-Healing
Wednesday Evenings
7 – 8.30 pm GMT / 2 – 3.30 pm EST
Online + Recording
£15 – or any donation welcome
These extended evening classes focus on my Feldenkrais-based self-healing strategies, and the recordings are intended to make it very easy for you to develop these skills for yourself. I am exploring the evening format with the intention of supporting better sleep as well as pain relief and self-calming. I do realise that those of you joining us for elsewhere at different times of day may not be looking for such a soporific experience!
*Please note that you can choose to join us for the first hour only, particularly if that would make joining the class regularly more manageable for you.
Dr Stephen Porges PolyVagal Theory provides an explanation for the efficacy of breath and voice practises at a neurological and evolutionary level. Our nervous system is focussed on our safety, and our sense of safety is fundamental to our sense of wellness. The vagus nerve manages both our older reptilian stress management circuits and our newer mammalian circuits, and we can use the management of our to soothe ourselves, increase our sense of safety, and shift our nervous system into our rest-and-recuperation mode – the neurological state that switches on our self-healing mechanisms, and helps to promote our physical and mental resilience.
Every time we inhale we briefly stimulate our sympathetic state-of-readiness (known as our fight-or-flight mode), and then, as we exhale again we shift back into our rest-and-recuperate mode – so all we need to do to soothe our nervous system is to exhale for a little longer than we inhale – it is that simple. This is I am sure the reason why there is so much evidence that singing is proven to be good for the health. When you examine the evidence you quickly discover that it is all based on research into communal singing, but once you understand Porges theories then you can easily see how to use these practices in a way that is effective even when you are singing while home alone.
…next – the Daily Immersive for December…
Potent Breathing
Techniques for improving your Health & Wellbeing Through Enhanced Neuro-Somatic Self-Regulation
5th – 9th December
Online (fee includes Recordings, & Notes)
Monday–Thursday 2–3.30pm GMT/10–11.30am EST
–& earlier on Friday 1–2.30pm GMT/9–10.30am EST
£90 (suggested fee, or any donation welcome)
Breathing in a ‘well-organised’ way is the most fundamental of my Feldenkrais fundamentals; during Awareness Through Movement lessons, whatever we are doing we always paying attention to the ease and flow of our breathing as we are doing it.
Using carefully designed breathing sequences for health and well-being is so fundamental that their history goes all the way back to our most ancient cultures, and many of the processes our ancestors discovered are still in use today – Qi Gong and Pranayama are particularly well-known, but even a brief stint on google reveals links to other, less well-documented traditions from all over the world, and of course as a singer I am well aware of just how fundamental singing and chanting were to our earliest tribal communities – some researchers even believe that singing pre-dated speech in our evolution.
Breathing remains one of the most effective, most affordable, and most portable of our natural self-healing tools. Our modern-day shamans use different, more secular terminology than their original counterparts; the term “hacking” is a particularly popular metaphor, and if you google “breath hack” you will get 13 million results.
I am going to condense the field into something more practical and manageable; five sessions over five days, covering…
*Breathing in a naturally-well-coordinated manner – exploring anatomy and function
*Breathing as a self-calming practice
*Breathing as a self-healing practice (these two naturally overlap; we will be exploring breathing as an energising and vitalising process, as well as a soothing and quieting process)
*Breathing as a chanting practice – a core aspect of working in harmony with your vagal nervous system.
*Breathing as a practice for improving posture and accessing graceful motion
Many of these practices benefit us in multiple ways, as you would expect in the effective maintenance of any complex system – it is the same when we choose to drink the right amount of water to hydrate ourselves optimally – more than one aspect of our health gets a boost.
Ancient techniques seem familiar because they are naturally similar to our well-researched modern updated versions. In essence, we can inhale in a particular manner, and we can exhale in a particular manner, and we can pause our breath at a particular moment – it is a testament to human ingenuity that there are so many alternative versions of these simple strategies for us to explore!
You will need to book with me directly to get the Zoom link, and a recorded version of the lesson is included in the fee. Bookings are by email, or via my contact information page.
This will be a very practical course and you will receive notes and supporting materials to help you maintain the improvements you experience from this immersive Awareness Through Movement experience.
Feldenkrais Fundamentals
Establishing & Maintaining Your Inner Calm – for Xmas
Sunday December 18th – Online + Recording
2 pm – 5pm GMT [9 am – 12 pm EST]
£40 (suggested fee, or any donation welcome)
*More info here soon…
Potent Voice: Monthly On Sundays
Vocal Improvisation
& Play
Sunday January 15th
Online + Recordings & Notes
2 pm – 5 pm GMT [9 am – 12 pm EST]
£40 (suggested fee, or any donation welcome)
During my first proper gig for a local jazz festival, nerves overcame me and I forgot the melody of the first line of Duke Ellington’s lovely In A Sentimental Mood. Usually I would begin by singing the whole song as written, and play around with the melody only after the band had played a few choruses. Now I had no choice, I improvised the very first line, hoping to remember the right notes by the second verse, but my memory stayed blank, and I felt hot in the face and steadily more embarrassed as I bluffed my way to the end of the song, forced to masquerade as a much bolder improviser than I considered myself to till that moment. The audience applauded, but audiences are always kind. It was the supportive comments of a highly respected saxophonist that eased my embarrassment, and showed me that ‘winging it’ could be ok in a professional setting.
Spontaneous improvisation in the moment is precisely what you are learning to master effectively in a committed Awareness Through Movement practice. More details about this class will follow soon, in the meantime I have written more about Feldenkrais and improvisation here.
This workshop will be beneficial for:
Singers, presenters, anyone interested in the performing voice, and anyone with issues around self-expression
Anyone dealing with chronic stress issues, or breathing problems/conditions
Anyone interested in meditation and chanting
Anyone dealing with chronic tension in the tongue, jaw, neck, and throat
Please do contact me with any questions you may have, and note that BOOKING IS BY EMAIL, so you can contact me from this link if you want to reserve your place for any of my online events.
You are also always welcome to sign up for the recordings and notes of any course should you be unable to join us live.
More dates for your diary in December and onwards…
Potent Voice – Sunday – December 11th – Theme TBA– 2-5pm BST
Fundamentals – Sunday – December 18th – Theme TBA – 2-5pm BST
Daily Immersive: January 2nd–6th – Enhance & Fine-Tune Your Senses – Times: Monday–Thursday 2–3.30pm & Friday 1–2.30pm GMT
…All online sessions include recordings and notes. For more details click here for workshops, and here for regular classes…
Individual Vocal Training Sessions
Rather than lower my standard rate for one-to-one sessions online, which is £70 for a 75 minute session, I am offering one-to-one online sessions as “suggested fee or donation”, for the time being. The extra time is necessary for discussion and feedback. I can accept payments via BACS, and, if that is inconvenient for any reason, PayPal.
Functional Self-Integration Lessons
I am still exploring ways to share my self-healing Quintessensual Consciousness practice. While this is still in the development stage I am offering a special rate of £40* for individual online sessions. This is a version of Feldenkrais focussed on pain and stress relief.
There are more details on my Home page, and several articles about it in the Writing area of my website. Do not hesitate to contact me if you would like to discuss with me whether this form of meditative training might be of help to you.
*Suggested-fee-or-donation rate applies.
Many years ago I recorded a short lesson about breathing – here is a link to this lesson in the archive on the Feldenkrais UK Guild website – enjoy!