Feldenkrais® Lab

Listing English Titles for the “Lesson Moshe Feldenkrais taught in French, in May 1973 to the actors of the Bouffes du Nord theatre (Paris) at the behest of their director Peter Brook.”
Lesson #1: Pendulum movements of the head
Lesson # 2: On all fours, side movements
Lesson # 3: Movements on four points
Lesson # 4: Holding the chin
Lesson # 5: The foot and the toes
Lesson # 6: Holding the foot with the hand
Lesson # 7: On the side, differentiation, twisting and zenith
Lesson # 8: Clock in three positions

The list of lesson titles above and introductory notes below are from a pdf with appreciation to Ben Parsons and Stéphanie Ménasé: [MF Peter Brook ALL English] https://thinkinginmovement.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/MF-Peter-Brook-ALL-English.pdf

Introductory notes and acknowledgements:

“Dear Colleagues,

the enclosed lessons were taught by Moshe Feldenkrais in French, in May 1973 to the actors of the Bouffes du Nord theatre (Paris) at the behest of their director Peter Brook.

This material was edited and given to the French practitioners on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the French Feldenkrais Association, in March 2017. We are now pleased to offer these eight hitherto unpublished Awareness Through Movement® lessons in an English and German translation. The present edition is accompanied by the original recordings of Moshe Feldenkrais’ teaching in French.

The title of the lessons has been given by the editors. The lesson order does not strictly match the chronological order in which Moshe Feldenkrais taught them.

This source material, in French, and the translations are being made available to all Feldenkrais practitioners, be they members of Feldenkrais Associations and Guilds or not and will be available worldwide.

The lessons were recorded by Myriam Pfeffer on a small hand-held machine. The tapes have been made available from the archives by Sabine Pfeffer and François Combeau.

Due to the conditions of the original recordings some sections were scrambled and occasionally inaudible. François Combeau, with the help of a sound engineer, has restored six of the tapes to make listening easier. These six lessons were transcribed in French by Mickäelle Acke and proofread and formatted by Vincent Vitte; the final two lessons’ audio is unmastered. In the French transcript Vincent Vitte attempted to render Moshe Feldenkrais’ words faithfully. Stéphanie Ménasé has reviewed the totality of the eight lessons.

The English translator, Ben Parsons, has based his translation on the original French audio and the French transcription.

The German translation was done by Monika Praxmarer; Anne Barthelmeß has edited the German edition professionally.

Patrick Gruner has coordinated the English and German translations, created the cover-design and has formatted and edited the booklets in their final appearance.

We hope that these materials will bring you much benefit and pleasure with their new and original content.

We wish you an enjoyable experience,

François Combeau and Sabine Pfeffer January 2019”

Participants

Myriam Pfeffer0 was directly trained by Moshe Feldenkrais in the first group he created in Israel. She was his close collaborator and assisted him until the end of his active life. She introduced the Feldenkrais Method to the French speaking European countries. Myriam Pfeffer taught the Method in many training programs in Europe, Israel and the United States and from 1985 onwards organized and was the educational director of 15 training programs in France.

François Combeau has taught movement and voice for more than forty years. He participated in the first Feldenkrais training program in Paris thirty years ago. Since then he has been passionately teaching the Feldenkrais Method® to the public and to professional groups. As a Feldenkrais assistant trainer then trainer (since 2008), he has shared his wealth of experience through the organization of many advanced trainings in France and abroad. His accent has been on promoting, further developing, and clarifying the sensory-motor aspects of the work. In 1987 he and a number of colleagues created the French Feldenkrais Association, becoming its founding president. He was also involved in the creation of the International Feldenkrais® Federation (IFF). As president of the newly formed IFF he made it his priority to make Feldenkrais material available to the global community, and to encourage cooperation between the various practitioners’ associations around the world.

Sabine Pfeffer trained in the Feldenkrais Method directly with Moshe Feldenkrais in Israel and the United States. She has led 15 professional training programs in Paris, sharing the teaching with her mother, Myriam Pfeffer. She is a leading trainer of Feldenkrais teachers, and has taught in France and internationally for more than thirty years.

Mickaëlle Acke was a yoga teacher when she met Myriam Pfeffer at a seminar in Nantes in 1982. After attending numerous workshops in Paris and Normandy and following several invitations to visit the ‘Paris I’ training course, she enrolled in the ‘Paris II’ course, graduating in 1991. She has been very active in the French Feldenkrais Association and was its representative on the Eurotab Council for four years (1998-2002). She qualified as an Assistant Trainer in 2005. Nowadays she attends advanced trainings given by François Combeau and teaches Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) and Functional Integration® (FI) in three cities whilst running numerous workshops herself.

Vincent Vitte is a philosophy student and actor. His first experience of the Feldenkrais Method® was with individual lessons from Sabine Pfeffer. Interested in Moshe Feldenkrais’ humanistic approach to the individual, he continues to explore the theory and practice of the Method and relates it to his current studies. He has assisted Sabine Pfeffer’s own research by transcribing audio files recorded by her mother, Myriam Pfeffer. He has corrected and formatted material that Sabine Pfeffer has written for the Feldenkrais community.

Stéphanie Ménasé is a Feldenkrais practitioner and Doctor of Philosophy. Professionally her background is in editing and publishing in the human sciences. As the daughter of a Feldenkrais practitioner, from 1991 she would often attend practitioner trainings, invited by Myriam Pfeffer herself. She continued practicing the Method before doing her Feldenkrais Training at the Parisian Feldenkrais Centre “Accord Mobile” which she graduated in 2012.

.Ben Parsons . Born in England, he now lives in Potsdam near Berlin, where he works as a Feldenkrais teacher with an accent on special needs children.

Monika Praxmarer has been a Feldenkrais Practitioner since 2004 when she opened her private practice in Berlin. She has supported two Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs in Berlin as an experienced practitioner and has worked as Assistant Trainer of the method in Germany and Spain since 2014. Monika graduated from the first “JKA-Training” in 2013 and working with special needs children is an emphasis of her work. She is head of the Feldenkraiszentrum Schöneberg in Berlin.

Anne Barthelmeß has been a Feldenkrais Practitioner since 2012, graduated from a “JKA- Training” in 2014 and has supported one Feldenkrais Professional Training Program in Berlin as an experienced practitioner. Besides her work in a therapeutic context and with children she also offers Feldenkrais for people in life-threatening situations and palliative care.

Patrick Gruner has been head of a Feldenkrais Training Institute in Germany since 1993. He is a trainer of the Method and is teaching Feldenkrais in professional training programs all over Europe. Patrick is a member of several boards of the German Feldenkrais Association (FVD) regarding the professional development of the method and was decisively involved in the formation of the German TAB.