Thursdays, April 3-May 22
12:00 PM-1:15 PM EDT
5:00 PM-6:15 PM BST
6:00 PM-7:15 PM CEST
7:00 PM-8:15 PM IDT
Feldenkrais Access is excited to present Choosing Resilience: Feldenkrais Lessons for Neurological Health & Stress Relief, an eight-week class series with Feldenkrais Teacher, David Zemach-Bersin. This series will provide you with powerful tools to help you maintain a balance between life’s challenges and your body’s need for recovery, healing, and restoration. You will learn how to navigate challenging times with greater resilience, and bounce back more easily.
Our involuntary nervous system has two aspects which work together in a balanced way. In response to a stressful or threatening situation, our ‘sympathetic’ nervous system takes the lead, puts us on alert, and prepares us for ‘fight or flight.’ Then, after the stressful situation is over, our ‘para-sympathetic’ nervous system steps in and takes over, allowing us to relax, ‘rest and recover.’
But what happens when we experience stress for an extended period of time? And, what happens if our nervous system becomes habituated to a sympathetic response, and we find ourself feeling tense and depleted, long after the stressful time has passed? A sustained sympathetic stress response is exhausting, and can also cause problems for our heart, breathing, muscles, posture, sleep, digestion, circulation, vision, and emotional well-being. And more generally, a prolonged sympathetic stress response causes inflammation and inhibits our ability to learn and heal.
David Zemach-Bersin brings warmth, empathy, wisdom, and decades of experience to the development of this program. He looks forward to helping you to reverse the dynamics of nervous system dysregulation, and learn how to bring yourself into a calm ‘rest and restore’ response, anytime you like. You’ll feel more comfortable in your body and your mind, come what may. This series will be suitable for everyone; those new to the Feldenkrais approach, and those who have been using it for years.
Each lesson in this series will be accompanied by a ‘booster’ – a short movement sequence that you can use to support and integrate your progress. The boosters will help you to start your day, check in during breaks, and get a restful sleep at night.
Choosing Resilience will help you to:
- Develop practical tools for self-regulation and restoration
- Restore your capacity for neurological resilience
- Learn how to move from a ‘sympathetic’ to a ‘parasympathetic’ state whenever you want
- Change old habits of muscular tension
- Learn ways to reduce anxiety
- Recognize early signs of sympathetic stress response
- Learn self-care techniques to help you manage acute stress responses
- Sleep better and awake feeling more refreshed
- Reduce stiffness and increase flexibility
- Improve your breathing
- Improve your posture
"David's teachings have changed my life. His lessons have helped me deal with stress and tragedy in a way I could not have done before."
-Previous Course Participant
Registration includes:
- Eight Feldenkrais lessons
- Three live Q&A sessions
- A set of 'booster' exercises to use throughout the day
- Assistance during the live lessons, if needed
- Information to help you adapt the lessons to alternative positions
- Lifetime access to recordings and option to download
Payment Options
- Feldenkrais Guild members save an extra 5% with the coupon code CHOOSEFIVE
- Feldenkrais trainees save an extra 20% with the coupon code CHOOSETWENTY
Scholarships available. Find out more by reading about our Scholarship Program.
Unfavorable exchange rate? If you live in a country with an unfavorable exchange rate and want to join us, we're happy to help.
About David
David Zemach-Bersin is a world-renowned Feldenkrais Teacher and Trainer whose warm, encouraging style reflects nearly five decades of helping people to heal and improve. As a graduate of the first U.S. Feldenkrais Teacher Training Program in 1977, David had the privilege of studying directly with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais and has since dedicated his career to helping others find solutions to their physical challenges and access more of their potential. David has contributed to developing the field through training and mentoring new generations of Feldenkrais teachers and is also committed to expanding the public's access to the benefits of this important approach. He is the co-author of RELAXERCISE (HarperCollins), a popular introduction to the Feldenkrais Method. Currently, David serves as the Director of Feldenkrais Access, where, since 2020, he has been developing innovative online programs for both the public and Feldenkrais Practitioners. He lives with his family in Connecticut's Farmington Valley.
