Kind Movement helps you learn to increase your body awareness and your personal movement habits. We hurt when we move driven by our unconscious habits. Changing our habits starts with our awareness.
Get a free Kind Movement lesson.
Upcoming Kind Movement Series:
Learn to Fall Well (Online with limited in person)
Better Balance (Online with limited in person)
New! Weight of the World – Unburdening your shoulders (Online with limited in person)
For more information on all of my upcoming series: http://www.kindpower.ca/somatic-coaching/fall-well/
Free Stuff!
Calm Under Pressure: Getting Grounded in Uncertain Times – Online
Join me for a daily calming, grounding session. In this session, I will guide you to access your internal sense of support, to connect with the calming processing in your body to support your resilience.
When the familiar structures of our work, school and community fall away, we can fill uncertainty with anxiety, hypervigilance and fear. Join me for this session to flip your calm switch so you can meet your day with a sense of personal resourcefulness.
To access a free recording of a Calm Under Pressure session visit https://kindpower.podia.com/calm-under-pressure
Breathe Yourself to Sleep – Online
Are you having trouble sleeping?
Do you:
- have difficult unwinding at the end of the day?
- find yourself facing a screen later that you would like?
- wake up tired?
Our lives conspire to keep our nervous system amped up. Join me to unwind the physical and neurological tensions of the day.
Breath is our greatest resource and often the most under-developed one to change our state to a more desirable one. This lesson will use exploration of your breath as a vehicle to calm and compose your self in preparation to sleep.
Access my free recorded session, Wired and Tired, to support you in unwinding yourself for a better sleep
https://peaceandpower.podia.com/breathe-yourself-to-sleep-wired-and-tired
I want to know more! In Kind Movement we explore:
- How do I move myself?
- Am I aware of my habits of movement?
- Am I ignoring signals from my body in how I use my computer mouse? From my eyes in reading on-screen? My neck and shoulders in how I support my head?
- Do I feel tired or numb at the end of the work day?
- Do I cope with headaches or tight and tired hands?
- Do I approach my work as a wounded work-a-holic?
Kind Movement is a learning process inspired by the approach created by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. Using non-habitual movements, this learning process guides learners to move. Within an ongoing practice, people learn what they have the potential to do, regardless of the body and the self they bring to their practice.
In a Kind Movement lesson, I will give you verbal guidance and suggestions to empower you to know yourself differently than you have before, to guide your curiosity, to discover what you can do.
Lessons are often done lying, sitting or standing. (I can accommodate mobility challenges). You will be asked to explore options in movements and notice differences in yourself. While you are moving parts of you, I will also guide you to move your attention, to activate your natural capacity to learn. Lessons are 60 minutes. I anchor each lesson in a daily activity so you can learn how you can move more freely, more easily, and in ways that can reduce pain. In processing your experience, we will talk about ways to integrate your learning into your daily life. Through your kind attention, you can develop your capacity to use yourself better – better quality movement, more purposeful living and more possibilities for you.
Here is a short (5 minute) video by Andrew Dawson produced by the Feldenkrais Guild (UK) showing what you can experience in a class. The lessons shown here take place with learners on mats. https://vimeo.com/39833095
About Cheryl
I am drawn to be a Feldenkrais practitioner because I love learning. I completed my teaching practicum in August 2019; I am an authorized Feldenkrais Guild trainee. I worked for many years in the education system, drawn to learning methods that empower and transform the learner. I find extraordinary purpose in working with people who believe they can’t, learn how they can.
As a Feldenkrais practitioner trainee, I have
- given Kind Movement lessons to a woman that allowed her to regain her ability to train in a sport she loves and avoid repetitive injuries.
- taught a woman to find greater mobility and less pain after a shoulder injury.
- taught a woman to find greater stability and mobility as she recovers from a hip replacement; she recently avoided a fall and is finding ways to move with less pain.
- supported a woman to find a greater sense of balance and confidence she can support herself well when she slips or trips.
- supported a client recently diagnosed with MS to improve her sense of balance.
I have a deep personal interest in learning to age well, to feel well enough to continue doing what I love and to keep learning and growing.
As someone who has lived with sciatica in my right hip, created by working longer than was healthy for me, I experienced for years stiffness, pain and limited mobility after long car rides or marathon report writing sessions. In my own Feldenkrais practice, I no longer live with the limits of a stiff, painful hip. I have learned how to move in more flexible, freer ways. In my last drive back from Feldenkrais training – 15 hours from Seattle to Edmonton – I had so much less stiffness and pain that I kind of forgot about how road trips have been for me for years. I am not cured but I am finding ways to use myself better, so I move better and suffer less.
What my clients have said about working with me.
I am working through a medical diagnosis for a chronic condition. I feel uplifted and hopeful after talking with Cheryl. She has this way of offering possible paths of relief, while accepting my physical reality. Using a wine metaphor, I’d describe Cheryl as “hopeful with an aftertaste of pragmatism”. She respects my need to be in charge of my life and my abilities to handle my situation. Together we explore what might be possible. This is really helpful to me – it is easy to feel powerless, to believe my condition may only get worse. I may have what I have, but I feel like it doesn’t get to have me. (Sharon)
Last winter, I fell on the same shoulder twice. I had done physiotherapy for 2 months when I started working with Cheryl. At the time I found it difficult to walk my dog, to carry groceries and to go to my Pilates class. After the first online lesson, I found I had more range of motion and less pain in my shoulder. I learned how tension and pain in my neck were a source of constrained movement. I found that working with my movement habits (that create that tension) with Cheryl, and continuing physiotherapy, I recovered enough to go back to my Pilates class and stay active. (Allison)
I had stopped going to aikido because of pain in my both wrist joints near my thumbs. The surgeon said my thumbs were partly out of socket which I assumed were a result of the pulling in practice; arthritis had formed causing pain. Because of my love for aikido, I investigated other ways of healing other than the possible surgery. A highly skilled physical therapist had worked extensively with my shoulders and arms which greatly helped. The work with Cheryl (as part of her trainee practice) then helped me learn to move in a more conscious way with my arms and other parts of my body. Both facilitated my return to aikido, and I have found the Feldenkreis work with Cheryl to have continued impact on my practice. It has allowed more awareness of movement, and I experience more flow and groundedness in practice. I am grateful for the work. (Pamela)
Need support to decide? Contact Cheryl at cheryl@kindpower.ca or 780.903.5519. She can help you decide if Kind Movement is good for you.
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