I met with Dennis Leri at his home in San Rafael at the end of March, 2015. In this second half of our conversation we talked about: the various phases of Dennis' career the shapes of the Feldenkrais community as Dennis saw them Feldenkrais in terms of art the East-Meets-West dimension of the work Feldenkrais as a community of inquiry To record this interview, I met Dennis in San Rafael where he lived with his wife Maria in a small, cozy place, with a garden level studio where Dennis worked. We spoke upstairs in the front-room for a half an hour (part 1), then we went out to lunch. We contin ..read more

I met with Dennis Leri at his home in San Rafael at the end of March, 2015. We talked about  the role of recording in the Feldenkrais Method some of the concepts that Dennis used to think through what Feldenkrais work is about the various phases of Dennis' career the shapes of the Feldenkrais community as Dennis saw them Feldenkrais in terms of art the East-Meets-West dimension of the work Feldenkrais as a community of inquiry To record this interview, I met Dennis in San Rafael where he lived with his wife Maria in a small, cozy place. They had a garden level studio where Dennis worked ..read more

The first Feldencast interview! I talked with Feldenkrais practitioner and writer, Kim Hansen.  We discuss Feldenkrais and Kim’s recent writing project, and we cover a lot of interesting ground: how Kim got into Feldenkrais how she got into writing the process of learning to articulate somatic experiences in language  current topics like learning online and the various ways to use our attention I’m excited to present a conversation about Feldenkrais here in the feed because there has always been more to Feldenkrais work than just the movement lessons. There’s a conceptual framewor ..read more

Both this episode and the previous episode are based on AY16, the Four Points. The Four Points are a theme that Feldenkrais introduces here, early in the AY series, but they appear again later and get developed in quite a few ways. Four Points is a theme that Feldenkrais riffs on quite a bit. In my opinion, what's interesting about this particular riff is how he uses the movement theme as a way to dynamically get the student into a position that he's already introduced earlier on the reel. Actually, this second reel of lessons keeps coming back to this specific position, sitting with one leg ..read more

This lesson is based on AY16, Four Points. And this episode is the first installment, just the first half of AY16 plus a little bit that I thought was relevant. I'll do the second half of AY16 in another episode soon. I posted a video of myself doing a little bit of AY16 on my facebook stories, and another practitioner gave me some tips. Cool! Then he mentioned a lot of these early AY lessons are based on judo groundwork that Feldenkrais knew very well because of his extensive experience as a judo practitioner and teacher. I think my colleague was pointing out that a lot of these early AY les ..read more

What makes a lesson a lesson? One of the things I am trying to do with the Feldencast is to go through all 550 AY lessons of Moshe Feldenkrais. And that's because I'm interested in the historical study. But I am also interested in learning more about his compositional strategies because I want to learn to compose lessons myself! This episode is an attempt somewhat along the lines of the previous episode - both are some of my early attempts to understand lesson composition by trying to make my own. These are attempts to participate in the history of making movement lessons. Episode 19 will b ..read more

I've had a few people request shorter episodes, so here's a short one! Making shorter lessons gives me an opportunity to compose my own, which is a fun challenge for me. I've been calling my original lessons in this feed "breathers," which has a double meaning: 1) they all involve breathing and 2) they are little breaks from the AY lessons. Let me know what you think! Also, I don't know what to call it, so please write in a let me know if you have a suggestion for a title. --- When you're done, please reach out and say hello! You can email me at ethan@feldencast.com I offer the Feldencas ..read more

I had a rap lyric in my head where this guy says, in a very specific way, "Burning the candle at both ends..." I know that's a very common phrase, but while I was doing this lesson, I started hearing that rap cadence but thinking "Doing the flexion at both ends." Of course, this isn't about the overdrive implied by "burning the candle at both ends," but it IS about doing the flexion at both ends. This is based on AY12, which is called "Sitting with straight legs." That title is fine, it describes the some of the starting positions in the lesson well enough. But "doing the flexion at both ends ..read more

This is based on AY11, another one called "preparation for a shoulder stand," so it's similar to Episode 13, themes that have been introduced already, and they're themes that will continue to develop. This is the first episode of season 2. The line between seasons 1 and 2 is a somewhat artificial distinction, but I'm organizing the podcast based on the reels of the AY lessons so this is the first lesson on reel 2. And at least part of this lesson is a riff on a theme that will continue through season 2. It's a theme of sitting with one leg long and the other bent, then doing variations of fle ..read more

The last episode of the first season is just a little bit different. It's based on AY5 so it's part of the first reel just like all these other lessons so far, but you'll be doing some sound production with your voice! So set yourself up in a place where you can make some sound. I'll be working on season 2 very soon and I would like to make season 2 an improvement on season 1, so please give me feedback. Let me know what's going well and what could be better. --- When you're done, please reach out and say hello! You can email me at ethan@feldencast.com I offer the Feldencast in a spirit of ..read more