“I found my beliefs shifting through my session that I did with Diana [Razumny]. My belief was, I’m going to have to go to surgery. After the session I started entertaining the notion, the possibly that, through awareness, something could shift in the way I move my arm and maybe allow, even though it was a functional shift, maybe it was even going to allow some structural healing, which in fact it did.”
Joan Borysenko, internationally renowned scientist and author
Author of Minding the Body, Mending the Mind and numerous other books
“What a joy to study and practice with Diana. She’s perceptive, articulate and sensitive to the learning situation. I felt seen, understood — and challenged. She’s terrific.”
Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones
Graduates and students of our Feldenkrais Training Programs
“Diana has a natural ability to guide you through experiences to gain body awareness in such a way it forever changes how you feel about your body and how you move. She is truly present for her students, and her teachings make you want to share your discoveries with everyone.”
Julia Grover, OTR/LCHT, Tucson, AZ
Student in the Santa Fe 4 Feldenkrais Training Program
“I entered Diana’s class with very little Feldenkrais knowledge and no professional body movement experience. Her teaching skills are so down to earth I can follow and learn while having fun. It’s like 2 weeks at a spa treatment while improving my mind and body.”
Robin Fuller, Cornville, AZ
Student in the Santa Fe 4 Feldenkrais Training Program
“I’ve heard from many colleagues about their experiences in other trainings, and I feel all the more grateful to have been a part of one organized by the Razumnys. The emphasis on group process, the quality of teaching, the sheer amount and quality of support materials we received throughout the training are unprecedented. I feel deeply fortunate to have had the experience of the training, and to be continuously enjoying its fruits in my day to day life even now.”
Erin Geesaman Rabke, Salt Lake City, UT
Graduate of Santa Fe 3 training program
“I cannot imagine what my life would be like now without the profound experiences of the Feldenkrais Training! Thank you Diana, Efrem and Moshe!”
Connie Forneris, artist/weaver, Gainesville, FL
Graduate of the Santa Fe 2 Feldenkrais training
Artists/musicians sharing their experience of Feldenkrais Training
“As trained musicians, we are familiar with those teachers we refer to as ‘master’ teachers, individuals who understand the subtleties of learning that seem to mystify everyone else. Understanding this elusive level of our learning process is what can be gained from a Professional Feldenkrais® Training. The depth and eloquence of the Feldenkrais Method® is profound in how it helps musicians learn to be artists.”
Steve R. Duke, MM, Feldenkrais Practitioner
Presidential Research Professor, Northern Illinois University
“Having taught dance, creative movement, and Laban Movement Analysis for years, my career took a right turn when I discovered the Feldenkrais Method® and studied with Moshe Feldenkrais.
I discovered what I had always been looking for personally: my vitality, my own INNER DANCE, and a deep core of support for my own intentions in dance and movement improvisation. I became more clear and direct in my action and more flexible in my own creativity and responsivness.
After my the Feldenkrais Method training, my work with dancers deepened as I brought the principles of the Feldenkrais Method to their needs and interests. Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) became the core of my thinking in constructing movement and dance experiences for others. ATM and FI (Functional Integration®) became tools for introducing dancers to their own inner dance and abilities that expanded their self-image, improved their dancing and their health.
In a study I conducted on the Feldenkrais Method and professional dancers, they reported an expanded sense of themselves and their abilities, ranging from enhanced creativity to improved balance, flexibility, range, safety, and an enriched ability to teach. Many reported more joy, and were passionate about this learning and enthusiastic about their future.”
Donna Blank, Feldenkrais Practitioner and Trainer
M.S. (in early childhood and elementary education), CMA (Laban Movement Analysis),
Bethesda, Maryland
“My Feldenkrais training has changed how I think about, feel, observe and sense movement, and has enhanced my perception of both how and why I move, dancing from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. I have a greater understanding of what motivates me to dance and practise Tai Chi, I suffer from fewer injuries than before the training, if I do injure myself I heal much more quickly, and most of the time I can recognise the warning signs before I actually get injured.”
Jayne Lee, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Tai Chi teacher, dancer and choreographer
Flagstaff, Arizona
“Initially Feldenkrais brought me from pain to the ability to continue what I had always done — dance and being a dancer. The process has been, and continues to be, the most expansive, exciting and rewarding learning I have ever experienced. I have become a healthier person physically and emotionally; limitations in my goals and dreams continue to fall away, and I have learned how to take care of, and believe in myself. Professionally, the Feldenkrais Method® has become a truly gratifying means of supporting myself financially, and has allowed me to give back to my first profession the important knowledge of how to train dancers in a more functional, expansive, human way.”
Prisca Winslow Bradley, Feldenkrais Practitioner and Assistant Trainer, dancer, choreographer and dance teacher
Taos, New Mexico
“The Feldenkrais Method® has revolutionized my teaching by giving me new ways to see my dancers and communicate with them. The quality of their movement changes so quickly and is so beautiful, it never ceases to amaze me and them. It has revived my passion.”
Liz Fruits, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Ballet teacher
Taos, New Mexico
“Movement class is an obvious doorway to more effective teaching of both children and adults. The life of a professional dancer or athlete is filled with the necessity for constant fine-tuning. The Feldenkrais Method® provides a refreshing opportunity to re-learn familiar actions, and fit the timing to the intent. As a professional teacher, I am proud to find new ways to enliven the learning process for my professionals, and celebrate their new respect for their own increased perceptions of their abilities and talents.”
Mme Peff Modelski, RDE, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Master teacher of Classical Ballet
New York City
“The day after attending my first Feldenkrais® workshop when I went to practice I was amazed at the ease with which I was able to sing. The sense of ease and freedom of vocal production that I had been working so hard to achieve over years of lessons were suddenly there. I realized that there was something deep and powerful in the Feldenkrais Method® that I did not understand but that had brought about real change in the way I sang.
Taking the Feldenkrais training program and becoming a Feldenkrais practitioner has helped me personally feel better and interact with greater freedom with the environment. In addition, understanding and learning the Feldenkrais Method has had a profound impact on the way I teach and approach working with my voice students as well as with my speech pathology clients. Learning to sing has become a mutual exploration, involving discovering how to breathe, exploring resonance options and discovering how fascicle the tongue can be to aid in articulation. The Feldenkrais Method has shown me that singing is as much about the feet and pelvis as about the voice.”
Marina Gilman, voice teacher, mezzo-soprano, speech language pathologist and Certified Feldenkrais® practitioner
Chicago, Illinois
“First, and this is in large part why I decided to do the Feldenkrais® training program in the first place, is that the tendinitis that had plagued me for years disappeared after several months of weekly ATM classes and one FI. (This was even before I did the training program!) Before doing the training, my body was the limiting factor in the length of practice time: now it is only my schedule. I can play as long as I like with no pain or tension.
One of the unexpected benefits from doing the Feldenkrais training program was an interest and ability to improvise. As a classically trained musician, I was quite shy about improvising — even by myself, in private — but through the Feldenkrais Training, I loosened up and began “playing” while I was playing!
The way that I practice has changed dramatically. Now, I look for many different ways of playing the same thing: different fingerings, different movements of the bow, inititating the movements of playing from my ribs, feet, etc, and the position of the instrument. The change in tone is often astonishing.
I also want to speak about how taking the Feldenkrais training has affected my personal and relationship life. Doing the training had a hugely beneficial impact on my self-esteem and opened the door to a very deep spiritual life that continues to deepen daily. I didn’t realize how out of touch with myself I was before the Training. The Training process gently opened my awareness and gradually softened my attitude. I am a much more confident and gentle person now than before doing the Training program. I use the principles of the Feldenkrais Method® all the time to deal with stress, difficult people, and everyday decisions. It has given me a great deal of peace that I was not able to find through other means.”
Miriam Levenson, Feldenkrais Practitioner and cellist
Madison, Wisconsin
“There are some things you do in life were something inside says YES! That’s what happened for me with Feldenkrais and I joined a training program. There were three of us violinists in that program. As a musician in a training you potentiate the pleasure of playing because the pain goes away. You become more efficient in everything you do and the instrument becomes a symbol for learning efficiency. Expending much less effort with the instrument means you enjoy it more. Learning the work was just heaven!
I had developed a sever scoliosis from playing violin, viola and conducting. At the end of theFeldenkrais training program, X-rays revealed my scoliosis was completely gone.
I experienced being a professional musician as being about compulsion. Being a Feldenkrais Practitioner involves a lot of discipline. Discipline and compulsion are of the same family but they are not twins they are more like cousins. As a musician, what you learn in a Feldenkrais training is invaluable.”
Pamela Cordell, Violist, violinist, conductor and Feldenkrais Practitioner
Vienna, Austria
“After my training I began learning to play the harp. I soon found how challenging it can be to hold a posture in relation to an instrument, move in very precise ways, all the while coordinating fingers, brain and small black dots on a sheet of music. My Feldenkrais experience gave me tools to find flexibility within the necessary position, fluency in the motions of my hands and ways to learn more easily and creatively. The music sounds better when I am connected and flowing from the soles of my feet to my fingertips.”
Bethany Cobb, Feldenkrais Practitioner
Denver, Colorado
“When I began the Feldenkrais Professional Training, I was interested in how it would make me a better performer and communicator. As the years of the training continued, I could feel how my stage presence, my stamina, even the quality of my pieces improved. By the fourth year, I was convinced that everyone in the world should be studying the Feldenkrais Method®. So I gave up show business and became a full time practitioner. Since then, I’ve developed two successful practices (In NJ and now in NC), written two well-received books, recorded CDs, and teach this wonderful work around the world. Has it changed my life? You bet!”
Lavinia Plonka, Mime, author and Feldenkrais Practitioner
Author of Walking Your Talk: changing you life through the magic of body language
Asheville, North Carolina