Sensing Subtlety and Satisfaction: Self-PaCed Series
Unlock Your Jaw, Soften Your Eyes, and Learn Self-Awareness Through Touch
An 8 week self-paced series with Sarah Baumert
This series was originally taught live.
These lessons begin by addressing “touch hunger”, a concept that acknowledges the serious effects on our mental and physical health when we go without social touch for extended periods of times. We understand that touch is important for our health and wellbeing. Through novel movements, interspersed with rest, these lessons will help disentangle patterns of bodily tension, with many lessons focusing on relaxing the jaw. We will use touch-based mindful movement within each Awareness Through Movement lesson to help settle the system.
For most of us, this year has been one of very limited physical touch, and yet humans were not designed for a world that is devoid of physical touch. Studies have shown the positive effects of touch include: emotional and physical wellbeing, improvement in mood, reduced stress, cognitive improvement, and a boost in the immune system.
“I felt as my jaw relaxed, I could feel my pelvis relaxing. I have had a lot of lower back tension and it was so delicious to be moving slow enough so that I could feel it understanding that it doesn’t have to do all the work. ”
What to expect:
This series will include eight lessons, addressing tension in the jaw, mouth, eyes, neck, shoulders, and beyond. Often working in these areas will surprisingly release tension in the lower back, the hips, and the abdomen.
Most of the lessons in this series will be done lying on the back or the side.
These lessons can be beneficial to:
Reduce facial tension
Relieve TMJ symptoms
Release stress held in the body
Reduce tension from wearing a mask
Improve breathing function
Reduce eye strain and headache
This novel and gentle approach to movement is appropriate for everyone.
No previous experience with the Feldenkrais Method is needed to participate.
Practitioners and those with experience are welcome too!
Train your sensitivity in such a way that you find yourself feeling more alive and vibrant.
What you receive by registering for the series:
8 (60 minute) Awareness Through Movement® lessons
Community discussion after each lesson with time for asking
questions, harvesting, and sharingStream recordings indefinitely
Option to download recordings
Optional individual consult with Sarah
Scholarships are available for this series. Please inquire directly with Sarah for these opportunities. sarah@body-matter.com
““Mindful touch and movement grounds people and allows them to discover tensions that they may have held for so long that they are no longer even aware of them.””
In Awareness Through Movement®, we explore how we can move with the smallest amount of effort. The smallest amount of effort or exertion will facilitate the maximum amount of sensory differentiation and thus make information available for new learning. Slow movements will facilitate a parasympathetic response, the rest and digest response of the nervous system.
We all have a brain that is plastic and capable of improvement and change. This is a non-judgemental, non-corrective, and liberating way to experience your body in motion.
“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. Losing Touch by Agnese Reginaldo”
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. Her experience includes working with people suffering from chronic pain, injury, illness, and other forms of dis-ease. She works with a variety of populations including athletes, seniors, artists, dancers, children, and those recovering from injury, using pain management, and alignment. 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.
“Just that it is possible for my jaw to feel so relaxed as this is so new to me!”