A Feldenkrais Blog

Dear Students:
My first full time summer job is etched deeply in my mind because it left me feeling old & worn out at the young age of 18.  I had a repetitive desk job during the day and afterwards I went to gymnastics practice.   When I got to practice I was shocked how stiff and exhausted I felt after “just sitting” all day.   To no avail I tried my hardest to get my energy up to go through routines. I had the worst practices that I had ever had in my entire life. I didn’t have the power, strength or flexibility that I had had only days prior to beginning the job.  This feeling lasted all summer long and didn’t go away until I started college and went back to more active way of spending each day.  

Looking back at that time, I now understand why I felt so worn out.  I was sitting in a way that required my muscles to isometrically hold my skeleton in an off balanced and still position.  By the time I got to practice my body felt like a rigid board because my muscles were still tense.  Because I wasn’t moving dynamically during the day like I was accustomed to doing I noticed a considerable difference in my energy level & my flexibility.  I felt devastated. 

The hardest thing for the muscles to do is hold the skeleton in place and that is what I was asking of them.  The easiest thing for the muscles to do is to move the skeleton. 

Today I know how to sit in a skeletally supported posture and am excited to teach how in the workshop, Dynamic Sitting in a Chair on Saturday, March 21, 2026.   Finding support in this way will allow you to move easily while sitting so you can be ready to do whatever you want went you get out of your chair!
~Donna

Dear Students:
A concept that many Feldenkrais® students struggle with, is knowing the difference between thinking, feeling & sensing. The other day a student asked me this very question & I was very happy that it came up for her. That is because I knew she was on the precipice of new a understanding within herself. 

I started my explanation comparing feelings to sensations. The heart of my talk went something like what you shall read next.

Talking about your emotions is not feeling an emotion.  Just as, telling yourself how to stand is not sensing how you actually stand.

When you complain to your friend about your spouse’s dishes in the sink, it is a way to stop yourself from experiencing your hurt, etc.  Similarly, instructing yourself to stand like an authority figure told you, fools you into thinking you know what you are really doing.

This is what I suggest. When an emotion comes up, feel it without projecting it towards another or judging yourself.  Witness where in your body it lives. Notice how hot, cold or intense it is.  Try to identify it as anger, fear, shame, remorse, grief, etc.  Attend to how long it takes for it’s energy to alter.

In the same way, when standing, mindfully sense if you are comfortable or not.  What part of you has discomfort?  Is your breathing uninterrupted?  What is it’s rhythm like?  What part of your feet are you giving your weight to?  Are your arms hanging in front of you, to your sides or behind you?  Is there any unnecessary muscular effort going on in your abdominals, buttocks, hands, feet, or jaw? By honestly searching for awareness you can experience changes happening instantly.  Try it & see what results you get.

Every second in life requires you to move, think, sense, & feel differently.  Trying to be a certain way every moment is not realistic or healthy.  Most people with a problem or in pain don’t know how to correct their situation & end up trying to think their way to a solution. Trust me when I say, this is a sure way to create new problems. 

The thinking mind is actually the least intelligent part of yourself.  Unfortunately society breeds us to be over thinking beings instead of encouraging us to rely on our brilliant & discerning emotions, senses & movements.

It is common for most beginners to the Feldenkrais Method® to get stuck in their heads.  By consistently exploring through Awareness Through Movement® classes, workshops & Functional Integration® sessions, I have observed students become pleasantly surprised by self-transformations when they put their thinking brains on the back burner. Peace to all!
~Donna

Dear Students:
Moshe Feldenkrais taught that to be able to do the same movement in three or more different ways creates choice in life.  This concept really spoke loudly to me this past month as I was nursing an ankle sprain and was non-weight bearing for eight days.  During that time, I was so grateful to be able to climb the stairs, crawl & maneuver from the floor in many different ways. This saved my non-injured leg from becoming over-used while I let my other one heal.

“The truly important learning is to be able to do the thing you already know in another way. The more ways you have to do the things you know, the freer is your choice. And the freer your choice, the more you’re a human being.”  ~ Moshe Feldenkrais 

I am very indebted to every Awareness Through Movement® lesson I have learned & taught over the years as they helped me get back on my feet in gentle & skeletally effective ways. I am relying on my awareness to stand & walk evenly through the weight bearing bones in each foot to keep unnecessary strain off my mending ligaments & tendons. Also I appreciate & trust my spontaneous instinct to intelligently show me when I’m ready to progress to more difficult ankle motions as I continue recovering.

"My purpose is to allow people to move closer to actually being creatures of free choice, to genuinely reflect individual creativity and emotion, freeing the body of habitual tensions and wired-patterns of behaviour so that it may respond without inhibition to do what the person wants." ~ Moshe Feldenkrais

Just as importantly I view my injury from the emotional & mental perspectives to aid my healing to go deeper than the physical level. I realize that ankles represent moving forward & am taking a deep emotional dive into feeling & looking at what areas in my life I’m stuck or complacent at in advancing ahead.  And last but not least, I have gained more respect for living in the present moment, especially when doing cartwheels outdoors on uneven ground. I thank my soul & the laws of nature for giving me a lesson that has my full attention!

Happy New Year!  I hope to share the wonderful Feldenkrais Method® with you in a class, workshop and/or private session during 2026!  Peace to all on Earth!
~Donna

Dear Students:
Last month the creator of PaSafeTech.org told me about a product that has changed my life for the better & I believe it will allow me to work & teach Feldenkrais in many other places. It is called Shakti Air and is the most effective tool that I have found for mitigating the harmful effects caused by wireless electromagnetic frequencies (EMF) emitted from wifi, cell phones & the plethora of other “smart” devices.  

Because the Shakti, EMF stabilizer has created a calming atmosphere inside our home I have been able to sleep restfully & restoratively for the first time since 2012. The reason I decided to try “yet another EMF protection product” was because I read about how founder, Benjamin discovered that his innovation helped people like me.  Read his story here: signalsanctuary.health/ 

There are so many great things about Shakti Air other than it’s healing properties and some of them are, it doesn’t need plugged into an electricity outlet, it is about the size of a book, and it’s low cost may amaze you.  I do caution you that it is very powerful & I could feel it working when it was right beside me so I placed it on a high shelf  above head level & the dilemma was solved.  When I travel with it in a car, I wrap it in tin foil so I don’t experience any detoxification symptoms. I can’t wait until Ben creates a smaller version of Shakti Air that I can carry with me at all times. 

I have had Shakti Air for 6 weeks and because I think my body is detoxing from heavy metals and is healing itself, I am sleeping a lot. I feel blessed to say that my energy level has increased substantially, I can now be in the kitchen without experiencing vestibular problems from our neighbor’s smart meter, and I am able to visit extended family members in their homes when I take it with me! I turned off my other EMF harmonizers and have never even thought to turn them back on again.  This surprises me because the harmonizers that I have, have helped me so much that I never dreamed of not needing to use them.  For me this is all miraculous & I am so grateful to Benjamin & pleasantly surprised to say that I am hopeful for my future in this wireless age!

Some Symptoms People Experience from EMFs:
~low energy ~fatigue ~brain fog ~faulty memory recall ~headaches ~migraines ~altered vision ~vestibular problems ~agitation ~high anxiety ~tinnitus ~sleeping disorders ~breathing difficulties ~heart arrhythmias ~numbness ~tingling sensations ~hives ~depression

Happy Holidays. Peace to all on Earth!
~Donna

To New Students:
A wonderful way to start the holiday season is to take a rejuvenating Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement (ATM) class the day before Thanksgiving for only $10!

Join Feldenkrais Practitioner, Donna Bervinchak to learn how to gently roll around on the floor like a baby & afterwards walk away moving & feeling more like you did as a teenager.

Special for New ATM Students:
Time: 11 am -12 noon 
When: Wednesday, November 26, 2025 
Where: Susquehanna Dance Center,  
120 College Ave., Mountville, PA 
Cost: $10.00 (cash or check) 
Instructor: Donna Bervinchak 
RSVP by Nov. 24 at: donna_bervinchak@yahoo.com

“I love movement & I am always discovering something new about myself during Donna’s ATM class! Each class introduces a level of ease in how to move & classes continue to improve my quality of living.”
~Greg Sipe, Ballroom Dance Instructor

For more information & details click on ATM classes and/or Functional Integration sessions.
Happy Thanksgiving! Peace to all on Earth!
~Donna

Dear Students:
Throughout the years I have passionately explored & taught the Feldenkrais Method & with each day, I come to understand more deeply what Moshe Feldenkrais realized about the developmental movement process for human beings.  Contemplating further about why our Creator innately wired newborns’ nervous systems to go through these movements in the first year of life, (if not prevented by other circumstances) leads to never ending questions & discoveries.  I organically know that it wasn’t only to organize our nervous, skeletal & muscular systems for moving, standing & walking but rather for much, much more.

Moshe Feldenkrais said, “My purpose is to allow people to move closer to actually being creatures of free choice, to genuinely reflect individual creativity and emotion, freeing the body of habitual tensions and wired-patterns of behavior so that it may respond without inhibition to do what the person wants.”

For me personally, self-love was a foreign concept when I was fresh out of college & had first discovered Feldenkrais.  At that point in my life, I thought it was loving to care for others to the detriment of my own health & believed I was doing a good thing.  I gradually learned to love myself by first becoming aware of the ways I treated myself worse than anyone else. Next, I learned during Functional Integration & Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons to become non-judgmental, gentle & loving to myself.

Then I began assisting others to take responsibility for their own actions & decisions, & discovered a genuine compassion, empathy & concern for them.  As a young Feldenkrais Practitioner, I did not anticipate that I would develop the emotional & spiritual growth that I am grateful for today, by adopting this way of living.

“To learn to feel comfort is a skill & development. Most people don’t have it-they have it naturally as babies but when we are grown up we have learned a way that we do what is necessary whether we want it or not.  And therefore we have lost the skill of feeling what we really and when we really feel comfortable.” ~Moshe Feldenkrais, 1981 at San Francisco public workshop

Self-change can begin when you become aware of your habitual ways of thinking, sensing, feeling & moving during challenging situations in ATM classes. Internal knowledge gives you the power to do what you desire.  I have witnessed my dedicated students transform into better versions of themselves when they apply what they learn from sessions & classes to their lives. 

“I believe actually what Jesus said, “Love thy Neighbor as Thyself” has more than one message.  The real message is, if you don’t Love yourself you can’t love your neighbor. Because if you hate yourself what sort of love do you deem out to your neighbor? Just, politeness maybe or fear. ~Moshe Feldenkrais, 1981 at San Francisco public workshop

I invite you to join me in the journey of learning how to love yourself so you can love your neighbors & be a part of changing the violence all around us, one person at a time. Peace.
~Donna

Dear Students:
Many of you know that I am negatively effected by wireless radiation from my writings and/or from being asked to turn off your cell phone when you are at an Awareness Through Movement class or Functional Integration session.

Over the years I have met many wonderful people who have helped me become physically & energetically stronger so I can weather wireless radiation without it draining my energy.  Aran Mullen of Aetheric Arts is one of these people who’s passion in life is to teach others how to protect themselves from electromagnetic frequencies (EMF).

When Aran was 15 years of age, he realized that EMF pollution was negatively affecting his health & mind. He began studying & researching the science behind electromagnetic energy. Over the course of 11 years, he has personally tested a wide variety of EMF protection products. Although many had some benefits, there were many that did not seem to help. This inspired him to learn how to create his own EMF harmonizing technologies to mitigate harmful radiation in the atmosphere.

Through his business he teaches people how to detect where radiation is coming into their homes & provides geopathic dowsing and EMF protection solutions that draw on a wide range of traditions & teachers. He is always engaged in furthering his knowledge through dedicated study on the topic. With the aim of developing simple and effective solutions, that can be shared with the world.

Recently when Aran was in town he dowsed around the property I live at to detect any potential disturbances. Once he located 3 major Geopathic Stress lines, he installed “corrections”, which diffuses the energies. I include a video of his called, “Dowsing a New Home to Correct Geopathic Stress”, for you to view his demonstration on exactly how he went about this & how he brought a greater balance and flow of natural energy into the space.

I met Aran at a holiday party when he witnessed how a 5G frequency effected me.  I was sitting at a dinner table when a friend sat down & turned on her cell phone. I immediately felt a powerful force push me backwards & began to tip over in my chair. I quickly caught myself & moved away.  Shortly after this, Aran walked over to me & handed me an orgonite product which instantly grounded me.  When I sat down again I placed it on my lap & was surprised to be able to finish eating & socializing.

Since then, Aran taught me how to use orgonite, tensor rings & recently dowsing to bring a natural energy into my surroundings.  Because of this, I sleep better which has enhanced my healing process & a “smart” device has never again been able to push me over in the way it did at the party I met him at!

I can’t express how fortunate & grateful I feel for knowing people like Aran, as they have given me the capability to continue to function & thrive in this “wirelessly charged” world.  If you are sensing a drain in your energy from wireless technology I encourage you to reach out to Aran & learn more. Peace!
~Donna

Dear Students:
Chava Shelhav the Creator of the Child’Space Method & one of the original 13 students trained by Moshe Feldenkrais passed into the spirit world on July 22.  I am saddened to say she is another great Feldenkrais Trainer & mother figure of mine that entered another spiritual realm this year.

I was very fortunate to have been trained by Dr. Chava Shelhav in her 2nd Chicago, Child’Space training more than a decade ago.  She took her vast knowledge from Feldenkrais & applied it to the method that she created for parents & babies. She was a powerful matriarch that could immediately silence & grab the attention of a room full of mothers & grandmothers due to an innate sense of wisdom that exuded from her.

Chava influenced my teaching to a large degree & to this day, I hear her voice inside my head when I am teaching. During my training, I was in awe of her knowledge of childhood development & by how quickly she picked up on the family dynamics that shaped each little one she worked with.  I would watch her very intently as she taught families to support the health of their child so I could absorb as much as possible from her expertise. 

Many adults did not realize until the moment Chava pointed out an intimate truth about their parenting, that to enhance their infant’s development the whole unit of care givers had to be made aware & taught about what that meant on many levels.  Each one of them would also have to learn how to enforce that which supported the betterment of their family’s environment.  I wrote a blog post called, A Baby’s Motor Development that you could read by clicking on it to understand the challenges of what that would entail.

After I graduated from Dr. Shelhav’s training I became a volunteer assistant teacher at the New York City Child’Space training the following year because I wanted to be around her teaching as long as I could!  I am so grateful to have had those experiences & for the gift Chava gave to us called the Child’Space Method.

I will miss that Dr. Shelhav will no longer be with us physically but I do know that she will be with us in spirit.  I am confident that she will explore her new reality with as much vigor & curiosity as she did when studying through the Feldenkrais Method. Peace to all on Earth!
~Donna

Dear Students:
I often tell my Feldenkrais students that “pain is your friend” and when you listen closely to it you can discover the personal messages it has for you. Today’s post is about how listening to signals from within yourself can help you live in the present moment.

This past month, my brother started to get ready for the winter, by splitting some logs he cut from a friend’s tree, relocating seasoned wood & stacking green wood in it’s place.  After I finished teaching, I helped him with this big project.  He showed me what needed to be done & that his goal was to get it done that day.

I started moving heavy logs closer to him to quicken his splitting pace & transferred wood to & fro.  As I looked at the work ahead of us it seemed daunting and I began to dread what needed to be accomplished. Quickly my mind went into a downward spiral of awful thoughts such as, “we’ll never get this done today”, “I would rather be doing something else” & “it’s only going to get hotter”, etc.  As my attitude worsened, my shoulder developed an ache & my leg became uncomfortable.  Fortunately as my body began talking, it brought me into the moment. I knew that things would only keep getting worse if I kept distracting myself from what I was doing.

I then remembered my Feldenkrais history & turned my current situation into a long Awareness Through Movement lesson.  I began studying the shape & size of each piece of wood that I handled & paid attention to how I picked them up.  I noticed how beautiful all the logs in their particular cut were & how wonderfully they smelled.

I focused on to how to stack wood better as I am not skilled at balancing it just right & I actually improved.  Eventually my mind became quiet as I became interested in my internal & external worlds.  In the end, we decided to finish the task over the week & I was happy as I could sense the limits of my endurance.  Because of this, I felt gratifyingly exhausted and my shoulder & leg were tired but not cranky. The many beneficial effects that I sensed due to this exploration fascinated me just like a typical Feldenkrais lesson always does.

It was my bodily discomfort that ultimately woke me up during this particular chore but my thoughts, emotions, behaviors or attitudes could have done the same thing. Due to this, I prevented myself from creating physical, emotional, mental or spiritual pain from building within myself & this allowed me to have a pleasant time. I hope this inspires you to take more opportunities in your life to awaken yourself up to some fascinating experiences.  Peace!
~Donna

Dear Students:
I am glad that I got to attend the Susquehanna Dance Center’s & COBALT dance company’s performance, Sylvia on opening night for it had a very special energy to it.

It began with choreographer Shari Vegso’s brief introduction that included a telling statement about her fellow comrades Willow Donnachie & Isabella Williams. She announced that she was the only one of the three choreographers that did not give birth to a baby during the rehearsal schedule. Looking at this fact with hindsight, I believe this created a unique & loving atmosphere around the trio & their students during their creative process.

As I watched the show, I became mesmerized by the excellence of the music, choreography & dancers. The three principle female dancers led by Magnolia Williams were so graceful that I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. They needed no words to tell the fairy tale of this modern ballet because they skillfully embodied their characters.

Magnolia played Artemis the “queen of the forest” who lived peacefully with her best friend, Sylvia (Livi O’Byrne) amongst the animals. Their friendship was tested when a frisky cupid, (Anna Weissend) came into their pristine world and pierced a shepherd’s heart (Emmanuel Williams). After another arrow entered Sylvia, they fall in love with each other.

For Artemis her life is suddenly turned upside down by these events. She feels betrayed by Sylvia for letting a boy get in between their perfect friendship.  To my pleasant surprise, the meat of this classical ballet only began at this point in the program!

The slue of emotions that opened up inside of Artemis due to the meddling cupid became Magnolia’s artistic canvas. As Artemis, she used her expressive body language to convey her feelings of betrayal, jealousy & anger towards Sylvia & the shepherd.  The playful sprite that she was, became a powerful & commanding matriarch of the forest that tried to stop her friend from leaving. Her body clearly spoke to the audience like words on paper.

I believe that Magnolia’s maturity coupled with her exquisite dancing successfully set the tone for the rest of the dancers to match.  Anna Weissend was a rascal of a cupid in every way, while Livi O’Byrne became the lovestruck, Sylvia who danced with a care-free lightness in her steps. Leading man, Emmanuel Williams completed the picture & reverently loved her in return as the shepherd. In the end, I was left feeling like Artemis surrendered to the idea of letting Sylvia go and she returned to the forest alone to resolve her emotions.

I greatly appreciated how this performance was able to showcase love in it’s purest form. I think it was evident the entire cast was touched tenderly by the lives of their teachers & new babies over the last few months. I thank them for their heartfelt performance. I look forward to seeing these young dancers grow & reach towards their inner potentials. I hope that they can carry this extraordinary experience with them where ever they go.

[Photos from top to bottom are: Magnolia Williams, Emmanuel Williams & Livi O’Byrne.] I will let you know when this company performs in the future. Peace to all on Earth!
~Donna