FELDENKRAIS^® IN UKIAH

The next scheduled clinic is Saturday, December 6, 2008. The clinic will be held at the Center for Positive Living at 741 S. Oak St. Ukiah.

Appointments at the Free Clinic:
We are offering one free individual lesson to each child with special needs from infancy to 18 years old. Because we have found that children respond extremely well to having peers nearby who are going through the same process, we conduct lessons simultaneously in the same room. Each child receives the full attention of a certified Anat Baniel Method for Children Practitioner.

What is the Free Clinic?
The Free Clinic, organized and staffed by trained and certified practitioners of the Anat Baniel Method for Children, offers parents the chance to see firsthand how this work can help children with disabilities. These clinics were started in Oakland, CA and have spread throughout California and the U.S.

What is the Anat Baniel Method for Children?
The Anat Baniel Method for Children expands on the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, using gentle innovative techniques to access the brain's ability to learn movement, thought, and feelings. It asks children to move only in ways which are within their true capabilities, creating a feeling of safety, encouraging a willingness to expand into new abilities. Practitioners certified in this method provide learning experiences that help children develop beyond their limitations. Infants' and children's progress often surpasses medical expectations.

Who are Anat Baniel Method for Children Practitioners?
We are all fully trained Feldenkrais and/or Anat Baniel practitioners who have completed a 3 to 4 year course of study to earn our original certification, in addition to another one-year training with Anat Baniel in the specialty of working with infants and children with disabilities.

Reserve a space for your child to receive a free Anat Baniel Method for Children lesson. Find out what a difference this new work can make in a special needs child's life. Professionals & observers are also welcome.

The following radio shows are old but very informative. They were all done by radio show host Johanna Cummings on her show called Wild Oak Living on KZYX/Z public broadcasting in Mendocino County.

The first one was broadcast live on Friday, November 18, 2004. In this show Johanna interviews Anat Baniel and Andrea Bowers. Anat Baniel speaks about the Anat Baniel Method for Children(sm) Based on the Work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais and Andrea Bowers speaks about her work with the Free Children's Clinic. For current information about the Free Children's Clinic click on the following:

On February 19, 2006 Johanna did an interview about the Ukiah Free Children's Clinic. For this show she interviewed Karen Poplawski and Sylvia Leiner Shordike. Sylvia was living in Willits, CA at this time and she and Karen held several Free Children's Clinics in Ukiah. Later Sylvia moved to Sea Ranch and the Ukiah Clinic was discontinued. Now that Ukiah resident Margaret Turano has graduated from her Anat Baniel Method for Children training these clinics will most likely start up once again. Please also note that through a grant and private donations to the Children's Angel Fund we are able to provide scholarships for children with special needs to receive individual lessons. Donations are gratefully accepted.

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Scholarships are now available for children with special needs in Inland Mendocino County to receive Feldenkrais/Anat Baniel Method for Children lessons. To apply for a scholarship you can download the application form, fill it out and mail to Full Circle Children's Angel Fund. Or you can request a form by calling Karen Poplawski at 462-6570.

In Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons, the FELDENKRAIS teacher verbally guides you through a sequence of movements. Some lessons are done sitting in a chair, while most are done lying and/or sitting on the floor and occasionally in standing. These easy, interesting movements are done gently and slowly with a minimum of effort and a maximum of attention.

You soon discover how you do the movements and notice the quality of changes in your body. You learn to become aware and to abandon habitual patterns that may have been causing stress and pain. Through the subtle ATM lessons you have the opportunity to experience an expanded sense of self and a greater ease of movement.

If you are interested in sponsoring a class in Awareness Through Movement lessons in Inland Mendocino County and have a facility (preferably carpeted) available, contact Karen Poplawski, Feldenkrais Practitioner at 707-462-6570.

In a typical Functional Integration (FI) session you lie fully clothed on a low table (similar to a massage table but lower and wider) while the practitioner touches and moves you in gentle, non-invasive ways. The intent of this touch is to explore your neuromuscular organization and to have a tactile, nonverbal conversation with your central nervous system about how you organize yourself for movement.

We often think about our limitations as structural deficiencies--muscles too tight or too weak, nerve damage, joint misalignment, the wear and tear of growing older. Structural deficiencies require mechanical correction, if they can be corrected at all. So we turn to exercise to strenghten "weak" muscles, deep tissue massage to relax "tight" muscles, drugs, forceful manipulations, or even surgery. These are forceful interventions, and we come to think of force as a necessary component of healing and change.

Functional Integration is based on an altogether different perspective-- focusing on behavior and neuromuscular organization rather than structure. Limitations arise from the ways we use ourselves. Functional Integration sessions are a source of new experience-- a change for your nervous system to move beyond the narrow range of patterns to which you habitually confine yourself. This facilitates learning and change.

Karen Poplawski and Peggy Agnew, Feldenkrais Practitioners are available for private sessions. Please contact Karen at 707-462-6570 or Peggy at 707-743-1295 for an appointment. Our office is located in the Full Circle Wellness Resource Center, 530 S. Main Street, Ste. G, Ukiah, CA. 95482.

An ATM class

Click here to see a video Click here to download full page flyer. Click here to download two to a page flyer. Click here to download a trifold brochure.

An ATM class

Click here to download full page flyer. Click here to download a trifold insert.

Karen and Dhruv at the Free Children's Clinic in Oakland

Hi, I'm Karen Poplawski. I graduated from the Berkeley Feldenkrais Practitioner Training in May, 2002 and the Anat Baniel Method for Children Training based on the work of Dr. Feldenkrais in 2003. Since finishing my second year of training I have been offering Awareness Through Movement classes through the City of Ukiah's Community Services Department. I also substitute teach at the Mendocino Community College. I have also taught at the Redwood Health Club. I see children and adults for individual Feldenkrais lessons at the Full Circle Wellness Resource Center, 530 S. Main St., Ukiah. I have also supervised and donated my time at the Free Children's Clinic in Ukiah, Cotati and Oakland. Although the Feldenkrais Method has been taught in the United States since the late 1970's I only became aware of it after reading a wonderful book called 'Discovering the Body's Wisdom' in 1998. When I read this book my attention was caught by the description of Moshe Feldenkrais and his way of working with movement lessons to improve all aspects of human functioning. I started doing the Awareness Through Movement lessons myself (I did them from audio tape since there were no classes offered in Ukiah at that time) and found myself benefiting tremendously from them. A problem that I was having with pain in my shoulder when reaching for things behind me went away. I started to experience a sense of empowerment and a better understanding of how to move in a way that started to make my life much easier and more pleasureable. I jumped at the opportunity to do a workshop and then signed up for the training and now here I am sharing this wonderful wealth of movement lessons with others. If you have or know anyone who has a child with problems with movement or a neurological disorder such as cerebral palsy, please have them contact me for more information. This method can make a world of difference for a child with difficulty sitting, crawling and/or walking and I would love to be a help in making that difference happen.

Peggy Agnew is a graduate of the Delman/Questel Feldenkrais Pracitioner Training program. She has been teaching Awareness Through Movement through the City of Ukiah since 2001 and at Mendocino Community College since Fall 2007. She is also a Registered Yoga Teacher and teaches at Yoga Mendocino and elsewhere in the county. She offers individual yoga sessions as well as a combination of Yoga and Feldenkrais in addition to the Functional Integration sessions. She is a Certified Bones for Life instructor, a Feldenkrais based method for improving the strength of bones. This system was developed by Ruthie Alon, a long-time student of Moshe Feldenkrais.

So when I took her for an Anat Baniel "lesson", I wasn't sure she'd even let a therapist touch her! And I wasn't sure how the treatment could help. Karen Poplawski was her therapist and I was glad that Karen started the lesson slowly and carefully and casually. Soon my daughter was happily sitting on the treatment table or in Karen's lap, busily playing with toys while Karen did the therapy. The therapy itself seemed very subtle. I almost couldn't tell that Karen was doing anything, but at times I could see that she was touching Jenny's back, or tipping her this way or that slightly. I remember thinking that what Karen was doing was so subtle and comfortable that a child would have no reason to dislike it or "fight" it.

Soon the lesson was over and we headed to a playground for some playtime before the long drive home. This was where I realized something big must have happened in that quiet little lesson. My daughter had always been hesitant and cautious on playground equipment, giving up on things easily, and rather scared of the other kids. But after her lesson, Jenny climbed all over an enormous "play structure" -- she wanted to go everywhere, try everything, go down the slides *without* mom, etc. She decided she was going to climb up the inside of a sort of plastic climbing tunnel and away she went, way up out of my reach, climbing out of the tunnel right into the middle of some noisy big kids who were running around!

It was delightful to see her bold, determined, and enjoying herself like this! (I admit I also thought, "This is gonna take some getting used to!") What the therapy seemed to do for her was help her feel much more sure of herself, much more confident in using her body. Also much more willing to try new things and keep at them til she succeeded.

The Northern California Region of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America has launched a research project to study the effectiveness of Awareness Through Movement lessons for breast cancer survivors. Any breast cancer survivors who would like to volunteer to participate should call Karen at 462-6570 or email her at kpop@pacific.net. Volunteers will take part in a five week series of Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons. These lessons will be once a week for one hour each. Volunteers will also participate in a pre and post assessment where they will be asked to fill out some questionnaires and will be measured for range of motion in their shoulders.

The City of Ukiah Community Services Departement is sponsoring these lessons which will take place on Thursdays from 10-11 am and run from April 17 through May 15. The classes will be held in the Grace Hudson Museum meeting room, 431 S. Main St., Ukiah.