Category Archives: Feldenkrais Method

Beautiful Learning Moments with a Blue Heron

Blue Heron

Blue Heron

Yesterday a blue heron was along the water’s edge as I was leading a walking group by.

As  we where walking a participant had been talking and so our focus was not on the surroundings.  A thought ran through my mind, “look for the blue heron,” and so I looked up.  There, almost alongside of us, was the blue heron fishing.

How many times do we have these thought messages go through our mind and we don’t pay attention to them?

I am happy I listened this time as we enjoyed seeing this blue heron hunt for fish with no fear of us being watchers!  A highlight of our day that could so easily have been missed! One that brought us out of the story that was being shared into what was immediately in our surroundings!

Our walking lesson prior to going out in nature to walk was about noticing our immediate surrounding and how it influences us.  Many of us are unconscious of how our immediate surrounds stimulate pre-verbal responses.  It is a function of our brain-body connection we aren’t even aware that it is a part of our operating system!  This moment was a metaphor of that teaching!

Beautiful learning moments with a blue heron.

Westsong Walkway in West Bay ~ Monday, July 29th, 9 a.m. – 10 a.m.

  • SUMMER WALKING TOURS

We will focus on slowing down to connect and increase our experience.  So important in this fast paced world, even our thoughts and movements aren’t able to slow down!  Join us and explore  your fitness in a “new” way that is not focused on effort.  It is focused on turning the effort “off.”  Same fitness benefits!  Added benefit – see the beauty in our own Greater Victoria Communities……..

Register with renee@insideawareness.com for each tour of interest.  Cost – $10.00 (no debit or credit cards – cash only)

Saxe Point Park ~ Monday, July 22nd, 9 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

  •  SUMMER WALKING TOURS

We will focus on slowing down to connect and increase our experience.  So important in this fast paced world, even our thoughts and movements aren’t able to slow down!  Join us and exlore  your fitness in a “new” way that is not focused on effort.  It is focused on turning the effort “off.”  Same fitness benefits!  Added benefit – see the beauty in our own Greater Victoria Communities……..

Register with renee@insideawareness.com for each tour of interest.  Cost – $10.00 (no debit or credit cards – cash only)

Meet up @ 8:45 a.m. – Parking Lot of Saxe Point Park at the end of Fraser Street

During World War 2 a searchlight was installed at Saxe Point as part of the DND’s shoreline defense.  Today the park provides spectacular views of the Olympic Mountains and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Fine perennial and shrub borders and a large open lawn area overlook the water. Forested trails and beach accesses are set among mature Douglas fir and Grand fir.

For more summer walking with Inside Awareness 

Gorge Park ~ Monday, July 15th, 9 a.m. – 10;00 a.m.

July Walking “Experiences and Explorations” with Inside Awareness

  •  SUMMER WALKING TOURS

We will focus on slowing down to connect and increase our experience.  So important in this fast paced world, even our thoughts and movements aren’t able to slow down!  Join us and exlore  your fitness in a “new” way that is not focused on effort.  It is focused on turning the effort “off.”  Same fitness benefits!  Added benefit – see the beauty in our own Greater Victoria Communities……..

Register with renee@insideawareness.com for each tour of interest.  Cost – $10.00 (no debit or credit cards – cash only)
  • ESQUIMALT

Meet up @ 8:45 a.m.  in the Main Parking Lot off Tillicum Road

Esquimalt Gorge Park is located on the Gorge Waterway in historic Esquimalt, British Columbia.  When the park was developed more than 100 years ago, a key attraction was the establishment of North America’s first Japanese Garden. The Garden was originally designed by Isaburo Kishida in 1907. The Takata family operated a very successful Tea House in the gardens for many years until 1941 when Canadian citizens of Japanese ancestry were sent to internment camps.

Who would enjoy and benefit from a movement workshop with a focus on balance and fear?

Finishing up the second event in a 6 week workshop series with a focus upon movement awareness for decreasing fear and increasing balance,  the participants themselves ask me, “Why haven’t we learned this before?” “Why hasn’t this been apart of our learning background?”  I can only mention that it must not be in our awareness yet!

After only two classes participants are beginning to know themselves in a way that has never crossed their minds before.  They have a greater awareness of their feet, legs, knees, pelvis, spine, ribs, arms, hands and head.  They notice that they are very connected to their shoulders, neck, head and arms and not so much to anything else!  They also have a growing recognition to how they may feel pressure in one foot and none in the other.  Therefore the struggle for balance.

These classes are unlike a focus fitness class designed specifically to build  muscle and or yoga for stretching.  Building muscle and stretching are a benefit of the classes.  The focus is upon understanding  the movement and focused awareness of the movement itself.  That is when change happens!

Anyone who has limited movement and breathing patterns would benefit from these classes.  Anyone who is in pain or has fear of their own movement would benefit.  Anyone afraid of falling and tensing up would benefit.  Find out more!  There are four classes left in this series that you can register for, pro-rated.  Call 250-370-7300 to sign up or mark your calendars for the fall.  A new class begins September 16th, 2013, more info at – link 

Inner Connecting

Researching information on Quiet Gardens for an upcoming post on  Walk-Victoria.com I have come a video on the perspective of Walking as a form of prayer.

I wish to share this video and express how Moshe Feldenkrais developed Awareness through Movement® lessons.  Moshe came from the perspective of a person being attentive to their inner sensual qualities, in the experience of an isolated movement, while expanding and increasing  their awareness to include how isolated movements can expand to other parts of the body functions.  It is my experience that in this perspective of attentiveness a person may automatically go into the same inner connections as expressed through this video.

For me then, setting up a Mindful Walking Practice in my neighborhood’s gardens or on a local Labyrinth would be a multiple skill that would support the growth of required attentiveness  in my Awareness through Movement® and Awareness in Thinking practices.  It was with this focus in mind that Walk-Victoria.com was created!  If in Victoria it is my wish that you use the free resources of Walk-Victoria.com to find interesting space in our community.  If in other communities of the world, I hope you will explore and find beauty in your walks!

Posted by Renee Lindstrom, November 4, 2012, Follow Renee on Facebook  & on Twitter

The Influence of Posture

A great video on expressions of power and dominance