feldenkrais: self touch to understand
A 6 lesson Feldenkrais® Awareness Through Movement Series with Sarah Baumert
June 29th - August 6th, 2025
Wednesdays 6:30pm CST/ Sundays 4pm CST
Live classes will be taught on zoom*
This series begins with the understanding that touch is important for human development and wellbeing. The intention of this series is to use the quality of touch, and your hands, to enhance your perception of some of the details that take place when you move. Each lesson will be fairly uncomplicated, but we will get into some of the details about how you actually sense the shape of the bones, the muscle tone and the quality of movement; and how these all relate to each other. In many ways this is a beginner oriented series, but for those of you with a lot of experience with awareness and movement, you’ll find useful material that well be helpful to your practice too.
In the practice of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement (ATM), you often reconnect the hands to the coordination of your whole body. In this new series, you’ll engage with six ATM lessons that use strategic tactile feedback from your hands for a deeper perception of your whole skeleton.
These self-touch strategies will enhance the intimacy, specificity and tactile richness of your ATM practice. You will fine tune your ability to listen through the skin, let go of unwanted tension, and help open the door for a deep sense of calm. This will be practical information for you, your organism, and any movement practice you have.
“Having to abstain from touch can lead to affection deprivation, or ‘skin hunger’, which has significant consequences for mood and general health. Being touched stimulates pressure sensors, sending information to the brain that automatically relaxes the nervous system, slows down the heartbeat and lowers blood pressure.”
Come explore your anatomy with me!
June 29th - August 6th, 2025
Wednesdays 6:30pm CST/ Sundays 4pm CST
Live classes will be taught on zoom*
* No class 7/30
$140 for the 6 lesson course
For scholarship options, please inquire directly with Sarah at sarah@body-matter.com
Pay-as-able and payment plan options available at check out.
What You'll Learn as a Participant of this Series:
Improved Sensation and Knowledge through Touch Exploration: Develop practical information for you and your ATM practice or for any other movement practice such as walking, golfing, biking, dancing, etc…
Creative Learning: These will not be overly complicated lessons, but we will get into the details of how you sense yourself in movement through experiential anatomy.
Easy-to-Follow Lessons: Each lesson is designed to be accessible to all levels of experience, from beginner to advanced.
Flexible Learning: Learn at your own pace and on your own schedule.
Supportive Community: Connect with like-minded individuals and share your experiences.
What Exactly Is Included In This Series?
Movement: This series will include six lessons. Two variations of each lesson are taught, once on Wednesday and once on Sunday.
Educational Talks:
• Pre lesson Anatomy Lessons
• The philosophical framework for ATM
Ways to keep practicing:
• Option to download recordings and stream recordings indefinitely
Supportive Community and Connection: Connect with like-minded individuals and share your experiences.
• Q & A sessions after the class to ask your questions, connect with the other students, and discuss the method and tools we are learning about.
• Online forum to connect and ask questions if you are doing the recordings
• Optional 10 minute consultation with Sarah
• Email supportOnce you have purchased the course, you will have immediate access to the class recordings.
How to use the Marvelous software for livestream and recorded classes.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:
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Starting in the 1930’s, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais began to develop a somatic form of neuromuscular re-education. Feldenkrais developed two practical approaches for exploring early developmental movements, as well as more advanced complex actions.
1) Functional Integration - manually directed, hands on, private lessons. Learn more about the 1:1 Feldenkrais approach here.
2) Awareness Through Movement - verbally guided mindful movement classes done in a group setting.
Both approaches are described as “lessons”, as they involve beneficial learning processes for the brain and body. In guided Awareness Through Movement classes you study your potential to act, and how you refine your self organization to make any movement. Feldenkrais is not stretching or straining, it is learning. The method uses gentle mindful movement and directed attention to help people learn new and more effective ways to move and be in the world.
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Yes! It’s not uncommon for students to feel taller and to stand more upright (with less effort) after a Feldenkrais session. Most all humans “hold” the body with a specific tone in the muscles. Over time this muscular tone habituates and becomes our “posture”, for better or worse. Using guided awareness and small movements in Feldenkrais lessons, the body can shed its unnecessary muscular tone, so that the skeleton can then find its more optimal place to be.
“Although we each have a fantastic skeleton and musculature designed to give us flexible support and hold us upright against the pull of gravity, we frequently develop postural habits that challenge our skeletal structure's effectiveness and cause muscular tension inflammation, and a gradual deterioration of our joints.” - Feldenkrais Trainer David Zemach- Bersin
With awareness, specificity, and practice, Feldenkrais lessons can give you the ability to free the muscles of the neck, shoulders, spine, and pelvis. As one moves towards more freedom of the muscles, one also moves towards a more easy, elegant, and upright posture supported by the strength of the skeleton.
Our aim in Feldenkrais is not a perfect posture, but a place of less tension and conflict in the body where our posture is fluid, not rigid. Everyone’s posture, or how they “use” themselves, isn’t always optimal. With the help of the Feldenkrais method, your postural habits can improve to make everyday movements more enjoyable and easy.
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Both practices emphasize listening to your body, respecting its limits, and unlocking its potential. However, their approaches differ, offering unique pathways to self-discovery. A seasoned yogi might find Feldenkrais deepens their internal awareness, while a Feldenkrais practitioner might discover greater strength and power through yoga.
While most yoga practices tend to focus on alignment and the shape of a pose, the Feldenkrais method differs, in that the emphasis is on the coordination and quality of movement, not in holding a pose for a set amount of time or reaching the limits of a stretch. Feldenkrais emphasizes ease and efficiency in movement and to never reach a point of strain or even stretch. The movements are always done within a range of comfort, creating an environment where the nervous system feels safe enough to learn and change. There are no shapes or poses in the Feldenkrais method, but instead we work with developmental movement patterns and mindful movement explorations.
About Sarah: Sarah Baumert is known for her thorough and diverse instruction and her dedication to holding space for individual personal discovery. She facilitates whole body alignment in her students as a way for them to access balance, strength, mobility and physical clarity. Through sensory rich movement experiments, she guides students in cultivating mindfulness and deepening their learning process. She works with a variety of populations including athletes, seniors, artists, dancers, musicians, and those experiencing injury or surgery recovery. Sarah is a certified Yoga Therapist, an Authorized Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement® Teacher and Feldenkrais Functional Integration® Practitioner. Her objective is to acquire the most effective skills for helping her students live with less pain and more pleasure in their bodies.
What people are saying about Sarah's teaching:
“I have never, ever felt my hands and lower arms as I did at the end of class tonight. They were glowing in a fuzzy, pleasant way. I can’t describe it otherwise. - Linda
I am so grateful that you continue to provide these life giving, body strengthening and soul nurturing classes. They are like an inner meditation for every cell in my body! - Rosie
After I switched to the ‘regular’ yoga class, I realized I missed how I felt during and after Feldenkrais. I experience an ease of being, a soft wholesomeness, in Feldenkrais. I meditate most mornings, and I sometimes find that same stillness after Feldenkrais. Also, ease of movement: I am always struck at how gracefully I can move a limb compared to how the limb starts out. -Elizabeth
What I love so much about your classes: when the unexpected happens, like a jigsaw puzzle falling into place. Keep surprising me! - Jane
I find your classes to be exceptionally supportive and illuminating, and I’ve so benefitted from the learning and the unlearning I’ve experienced. Drop by drop, this practice and what I’ve received from your teaching have radically changed how I am in my body and in my life. These online Feldenkrais courses have become some of my favorite practices ever, and I’m excited every time you propose a new series. - Betsy
After these lessons, I often feel like I am “floating”. I continue to realize, in real time and activities like walking, the connection between all parts of my body….the supple power that moves up and down my spine, from my head to my pelvis. - Helen”