Unlock Your Archetypal Strengths With the Feldenkrais Method – Lavinia Plonk

If your history is your biology, your biology is also your mythology. Joseph Campbell suggested that our society is currently “between stories.” But each of us carries personal stories — not just the stories we tell, but the myths and archetypes that make up what Moshe Feldenkrais called “our perceived self-image.”

In this opening session, Lavinia will lead you through an overview of the archetypes and what’s to come as you move through the course.

She’ll guide you to unlock the stories you carry in your spine and your posture… so you can release habitual tensions and attitudes, and start opening yourself to embody the lessons of each of the four archetypes you’ll be exploring throughout this course.

In this module you’ll:

• Experience a movement lesson connected to cosmic and archetypal experience
• Release back tension connected to habitual patterns
• Learn how your spine tells others your story
• Explore your personal mythology through a guided meditation
• Connect your body map with your self-image and your life’s journey

The Warrior’s power comes from the core and emanates throughout the Self.

In this second class, you’ll explore what it means to be the Warrior — whose energy helps you get quickly center yourself and grounds you to the earth.

The Warrior relates to the power of the pelvis and its connection to dynamic stability… enabling you to be resilient and responsive in any situation. The Warrior knows that courage to be yourself comes from within.

In this session: you’ll:

• Liberate your power center through a simple yet profound movement lesson
• Connect your core with your temporomandibular joint (TMJ)
• Take on the breath, posture, and facial expression of courage
• Explore the dimensions of the Warrior in your life experience
• Develop your Warrior capacity to show up, take a stand, and lead through example
• Access the embodied Warrior’s tool chest through movement: Orientation, Timing, Attention
• Experience relief from pelvic floor and back pain, as well as TMJ issues

The expression, “I teach what I need to learn,” has never been as important as it is today.

In this class, Lavinia will share her wisdom about the Teacher archetype, whose greatest gift is the enhancement of your ability to listen and respond from your earned wisdom.

The Teacher archetype relates to your thoracic area. Your lungs and heart need a relaxed and responsive thoracic spine and flexible ribs, to breathe in another’s question and guide from an open heart.

In this module, you’ll learn how to:

• Experience a movement lesson that frees the ribs, improving breath and self-compassion
• Connect with your inner wisdom to repair your past and prepare your future through a powerful personal writing exercise
• Enjoy a unique mirroring game
• Identify and embrace your role as Teacher
• Access the embodied Teacher’s tool chest through movement: Compassion, Listening, Mirroring,Responsiveness
• Develop your capacity for flexibility and your ability to be responsive rather than reactive

Who doesn’t need healing right now?

We all have power that emanates from each of us through our hands. Often referred to as the mirror of the brain, your hands connect the right and left sides of your brain.

Your hands contain more than 14 different kinds of nerve fibers — and so many other qualities — to help you “sense” a myriad of functions, such as holding, caressing, rejecting, affirming, and, of course, healing.

In this class, you’ll discover:

• The power of your hands for self-healing
• Identify the unique healing gifts resulting from your wounds
• A powerful meditative practice connected to your hands
• How your hands and arms are a conduit for healing
• The link between mudras, Western sacred gestures, and healing
• Access to the embodied Healer’s tool chest through movement: Energy, Presence, Love
• How to work with carpal tunnel and painful wrists

The Visionary is able to see the whole picture and still focus on the details, to see what’s needed in a given situation. The Visionary has the capacity to foresee and have insight.

The Visionary’s role is to go beyond ordinary vision to see possibility as well as peril. Your eyes are the conduit connecting to your brain, your spinal column, and, quite literally, your world view.

In this session, Lavinia will share:

• The skill of “Slow Looking” and how it increases intelligence
• A powerful “inner movement” lesson for improving your eyesight
• “In sights” about your personal mythology
• A meditation that connects inner vision with sensation and perception
• Access the embodied Visionary’s tool chest through inner movement: Insight, Perspective, Intuition
• Ways to increase focus and clarity

In this session, Lavinia will uncover the shadow aspect of the archetypes — hiding in the shadow of your own potential and shielding you from your own possibilities.

Krishnamurti and many others have said there are really only two emotions: love and fear. If the four archetypes explored in this course operate from love, their shadows manifest from our fears.

Moshe Feldenkrais often said, “If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.” The shadows of the archetypes reside in the hidden tensions that interfere with our ability to “do what we want.”

During this class, you’ll learn how to:

• Identify shadow aspects of each archetype
• Connect your fears to your possibilities
• Learn a seated (chair) movement lesson that relieves tension from hidden habits
• Use compassionate inquiry to understand your shadow
• Make your shadow your ally
• Look at the feeling of gratitude and the sense of being good enough

Every waking moment is an opportunity for choice. From moment to moment, you have the option to be grounded and powerful, compassionate and receptive. You can turn to your “In sights” and choose to heal yourself and, through your own process, help heal the world.

In this final module, you’ll

• Enjoy a movement lesson that connects all the parts: pelvis, ribs, hands and eyes into an empowering spiral
• Experience a meditation that calls each archetype into your posture
• Discover and explore the many ways these archetypes manifest in the world
• Create an archetype map of your chosen qualities
• Receive tools and ideas for going deeper into this fascinating exploration
• Work through primal to more refined emotions