19 décembre 2024

Highlights

1. Announcements:
• 2 New Workshops for 2025
• An exciting project to be announced in January

2. Thought of the Week:
• A Feldenkrais example of “cognitive spillover”

3. Book of the Week
• Resignation of life, when words fail

4. Quote of the Week

Announcements

Feldenkrais for children with special needs

We are organizing an advanced training for practitioners and 3rd and 4th year students of Feldenkrais trainings, with Sophie Dingemans.

In this workshop, you will explore key principles for working with children and babies, focusing on aspects that differ from working with adults. Topics include fostering effective communication, and strategies to partner with and empower parents and caregivers. Additionally, the workshop will cover approaches to supporting children facing specific challenges, including spasticity from brain injuries, genetic and chromosomal differences, low muscle tone, autism, attention deficit disorder, and anxiety.

Also, if you know any children who might benefit from this work, please let us know. A key aspect of Sophie’s workshop involves supervising individual sessions with practitioners working with children.

Feldenkrais & Sports

We are also excited to announce an advanced training for practitioners and 3rd and 4th year students of Feldenkrais trainings, with Choune Ostorero.

As a Feldenkrais practitioner, the opportunity or interest may lead us to work in the field of sports. Based on her hands-on experience, Choune Ostorero offers a specialized approach to adapt the practice to athletes from various disciplines. The workshop will take place in the Forest Lighthouse, but also in parts in a sports facility, so you will get to practice with athletes.

Something big is brewing…

We’ve been working on a rather big project the last few months (even years) and we’ll announce the project in just 2 weeks from now, in January. Let’s just say that it includes a tour of Europe filming short documentaries about really interesting people and their practice. We can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Thought of the Week

We received a great response to last week’s article on « Cognitive Spillover » —the idea that learning something in one area can unexpectedly improve other parts of your life.

In your Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons a good example of this happens in lessons that focus on balance. When you pay attention to improving your balance, your brain and body start working together to learn and adapt through increased activity in critical brain areas like the cerebellum (coordination) and the motor cortex (voluntary movement). The brain becomes better at connecting what you sense—like your position or movement—with how your muscles respond. Over time, balancing becomes more natural, helping you avoid falls or slips as your body automatically makes small, steadying adjustments without you even having to think about it.

Research shows that balance practice doesn’t just help during the lesson. It also improves everyday activities like walking, running, sitting, and even standing ( Gruber et al., 2007; Taube et al., 2008 ). In other words, the real learning happens when you leave class and start noticing how balance shows up in your daily life.

The secret behind this is something called proprioception —your body’s natural ability to sense where it is in space. By becoming more aware of small weight shifts and muscle movements while balancing, you can improve your stability with very little effort. This “spillover” effect can help you stand taller, move more easily, and improve balance in sports and other activities ( Paillard, 2017; Behm & Colado, 2012 ).
If you’re curious, ask your Feldenkrais practitioner for lessons on balance and stability. You might be surprised at how much it helps in your everyday life!

Book of the week

Resignation of life, when words fail

One of the most touching books we’ve read recently was definitely « The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness », by Suzanne O’Sullivan. O’Sullivan is a neuroscientist, and her book explores the strange and unexplained illnesses that have baffled doctors, scientists, and societies. The book takes readers on a journey across the globe to investigate mysterious conditions where psychological and social factors influence physical symptoms—what you could call *psychosomatic* illnesses.

At the heart of the book is the story of the « resignation syndrome » in Sweden, where children from refugee families fall into prolonged comas, often as a reaction to severe stress or hopelessness about their future. These children lie in their beds, unable to move, eat, or respond to their environment, yet their medical tests show no physical cause for the condition.

O’Sullivan extends her investigation to other unusual outbreaks around the world:
- In Kazakhstan, a community inexplicably falls into deep, days-long sleep.
- In Colombia, hundreds of girls experience seizures with no clear medical explanation.
- In Nicaragua, a strange disorder called *grisi siknis* causes people to behave wildly, seemingly “possessed” by spirits.

The book highlights how culture, society, and shared beliefs can create chronic illnesses that seem contagious but stem from psychological and emotional stress. O’Sullivan emphasizes that these illnesses are real and physically impactful, even if their origins lie in the mind.

A key message is that “ psychosomatic “ illnesses are often a way for individuals or communities to express distress when words fail. O’Sullivan advocates for a more understanding and holistic approach to healthcare—one that respects the stories behind these mysterious conditions and addresses their root causes, such as trauma, stress, or cultural pressures.

The book is both a scientific investigation and a compassionate look at human resilience and vulnerability in the face of unexplained illness. It challenges us to rethink the connection between mind and body and the importance of social support in healing. There is still no French version of the book but a film by Alexandros Avranas « Quiet life » will soon be in the cinemas based on the 2018 events about the “resignation syndrome” in Sweden.

Quote of the Week

Marie Curie on improving yourself:
“You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.”