We're pleased to welcome Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner Betsy Snyder to Move2Center Studio for a new series, Awareness Through Movement!

Move2Center is presenting Betsy's classes in response to multiple community requests for a Feldenkrais class, and we so happy that she's available to share her skill and talent with us. With its focus on presence and self awareness, the Feldenkrais Method is one of the disciplines that comprise the Nia Technique.

An Awareness Through Movement lesson is an opportunity to observe yourself and how you move through life, and to offer the possibility of more kindness, gentleness, power and efficiency to your dance.

Classes are held at 9am on Tuesdays beginning January 14, 2020.
Included with all 5 Class Passes and Unlimited Memberships.

This class will not involve a cardio workout the way the a Nia class does, so you can wear comfortable everyday clothing that’s OK for getting up and down off the floor. ATM lessons involve several periods of rest, which is required for the brain to assimilate new information. Many students find ATM classes informative and relaxing, and continue to ‘digest’ what they’ve learned as they move back into their everyday activities. All walks of life and all fitness levels welcome.

What to expect in an "Awareness Through Movement" class

In this class series, we will begin on the floor exploring some developmental movements to clarify our relationship to the ground.

We will explore our relationship to gravity, the way we breathe, how we think and talk internally to ourselves, and how the quality of our movement is affected by all these factors.

More about "Awareness Through Movement" as a practice

This is gentle yet challenging practice developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, a scholar, athlete, martial artist, and author who taught his method to thousands of students until his passing in 1984.

In a typical Awareness Through Movement lesson (or ATM for short), we begin with simple, gentle movements that stay within the range of ease and comfort. Instead of ‘stretching’ like we do in yoga or some other practices, we explore what muscular or mental holding we can let go of, to widen and expand our range of ease.

The ‘workout’ that happens in an ATM is primarily in the brain, since we’re using intentional movement to clarify our brain's image of the body, often referred to as the self image. The clearer our self image, the more we can move and live in alignment with our intentions, and the more we can do as we want to do.

I dance because I have to.  I am a dancer.  I was born a dancer.  I filter my experience through that lens, and I express myself though movement.

My family are all different from each other.  But each one of them has something.  They ARE something. And they filter their experience through that lens.  They express themselves differently because of what they are and what their “thing” is.

But we are still family.  We have a shared existence and a shared experience, with different filters, and different outcomes.  Each one of us has something that we do because we have to. 

I dance.  I am happy and I dance.  I am angry and I dance.  I am grieving and I dance. 
I am alive and I dance. 

I had a very difficult phone conversation with my Dad, the result of which has altered our family’s dynamic in such a way that the future of our family as a unit is uncertain.  I hung up the phone.  I cried.  And then I danced Dragon.  In my living room.  Crying.  Living.  Sensing. Dancing my life, my experience, my tears.  I filtered my emotions through dance.  I danced my life with Dragon and it all came to the surface.  My legacy, my family, my experience blended with Britta’s life and her experience that lead to her body of work, Dragon.  The result was perfect and transcendent and something new altogether.

What do you filter your life through?  What makes sense to you when other things don’t?  What have you discovered and what have you made when you came from your truth, your dance, your very own “thing?”