Comments from clients

Betty Akiba and Joe Strain are skilled, intelligent and caring practitioners. I have done Feldenkrais work with them myself and have referred friends, relatives and clients to them. They are a unique resource because they work well with a wide range of people and problems, including those with chronic issues that have not responded to standard therapies.

-Diane Ranes, Ph.D., LCSW, Chapel Hill, NC

In the last year, I have referred several patients to the Chapel Hill Feldenkrais Group. They have returned with improved posture, relaxation, flexibility and with enthusiasm about their experiences. I am very impressed with the results I have seen from Feldenkrais work for myself, as well.

-Ellen Markus, MA, DMA, Voice Therapist and Singing Voice Specialist, UNC Hospitals Voice Wellness Clinic, Chapel Hill, NC

I had muscular pain and tension in my throat, neck, head and shoulders. My head motion was restricted and I had difficulty focusing my eyes. My voice therapist recommended that I do Feldenkrais. Initial sessions with Betty helped me relax and become aware of easier movement patterns. They also relieved my lower head pain. Each week I would leave my session with a feeling of new awareness and relaxation. Later I would enjoy how these feelings became integrated into my everyday activities.

I later worked with Joe to increase my body awareness. He helped me put together a wonderful group of Feldenkrais lessons that allow me to learn and explore movement possibilities. I now walk better, move my head and shoulders more freely and can focus my eyes normally. The Feldenkrais model of only doing as much as I can do comfortably, at my own pace, has made it very natural to learn and change. I am often surprised to find that movements that were difficult during a session occur naturally and freely later during my week’s activity. I enjoy the sensation of moving back and forth between smooth whole movement patterns and slowly orchestrated individual moves-it gives me the sense of unlocking and putting puzzle pieces together.

For me, Feldenkrais work has not only facilitated pain recovery, it has taught me new ways to experience my body space and myself in relationship to it. Working with Betty and Joe has been a wonderful way to learn about movement choices, to add new ways of moving and to become more flexible within my body.

-T.R. Cary, NC

I have done a considerable amount of yoga, plus active gardening and other outdoor activities and am in my mid-sixties. Yet I find that the Feldenkrais approach makes a very important contribution to the maintenance and enhancement of my overall health and quality of life. This approach offers suggestions which result in an increased awareness of the ways in which even small changes in movement patterns can facilitate ease of movement.

Feldenkrais sessions have made me more aware of my posture and of my breathing. Consequently, both my posture and breathing have improved noticeably. I am convinced that I sleep more soundly when I spend a few minutes each day going over the movement sequences I have learned in my Feldenkrais lessons. Best of all, I believe that I move more gracefully and have improved flexibility, relieving the stiffness and discomfort in my back and knees. Betty and Joe are highly skilled at helping individuals learn simple yet powerful techniques which facilitate ease of movement, better coordination and pain relief. Indeed, if I were ten years younger, I would seriously consider taking the four-year sequence required to become a certified Feldenkrais practitioner.

M. K., Chapel Hill, NC

Working with Joe has helped me to enjoy being in my body through becoming aware of possibilities for movement that had become unavailable through a life-long habit of working and living in confined spaces. My overall health and fitness levels stand to improve as I keep working with him, and it is important to me to maintain youthful flexibility and movement as I approach middle age. Perhaps the most immediate benefit that I’ve experienced is a sense of peace and well-being each time I leave his office.

I am always fascinated with Joe’s breadth of knowledge, and I appreciate the time he takes to ensure that I am comfortable during the sessions. His good humor, patience, and respectful attention to me have made each visit a relaxing and enjoyable experience. I am looking forward to our continuing work.

-Amy Dye, Chapel Hill, NC

Working with Betty has been a life altering experience for me. I have dystonia, a condition that involuntarily contracts my muscles in painful and awkward ways. As a former athlete, I have struggled to accept my condition yet not give up looking for ways to improve my abilities. Feldenkrais and breathing coordination, under Betty’s gentle and skilled hands, have nurtured deep, lasting changes in my body. As a psychotherapist, I have especially been appreciative of her abilities to be empathic and soothing for me at a time of distress in my life. Her training and intuitive ways have allowed me to return to some activities I thought lost to me. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with her.

-S, Chapel Hill, NC

The true teacher is one who can open a higher level of understanding for another individual. I have worked with Joe Strain for nearly a year. I use what I have learned daily as an integrated part of who I am and what I do. I continue to be amazed at the result and of my progress with a very difficult challenge. I am impressed with his sustained conscientious approach to the student and the problem. He has a keen objectivity that extends to an intuitive sense and he listens with both abilities. His analytical skill operates with an ever-open mind. Joe coaches with affirmation and humor. He directs with simplicity and clarity. Joe respects and includes what an individual brings to the process. This in turn inspires self-confidence, which empowers understanding and achievement.

-Carol Laing, Hillsborough, NC

I have consistently come away from Betty Akiba’s ATM and FI lessons with expanded body awareness, a sense of grounded well being, and a joyful appreciation of the body’s dynamic capacity to organize itself in novel ways that result in healing. These lessons have also provided important insights for my work as a movement professional.

-Lucy Hohn, Certified Nia Teacher, Chapel Hill, NC

As a singer, I am always interested in ways in which I can use the whole body in a deep and relaxed, yet focused, way. Feldenkrais with Betty Akiba combined the best of my earlier work in yoga, dance, Alexander technique and meditation by providing access to that oddly “passively alert” state that is so important in singing, especially in performance. Betty is an exceptional teacher; she is at once wide open and yet so full of common sense.

-Dorrie Casey, mezzo-soprano, Chapel Hill, NC

Dear Joe and Betty, The timing for our last Feldenkrais session was excellent. For two weeks, I had been fighting a bug that made my muscles and joints ache. As you know, I also have neuropathy in both feet, a souvenir from a year in chemotherapy. It causes tingling and sensitivity in my toes, and sometimes heat and pain in the balls of my feet. My ankles also felt sprained, and I recently pulled a muscle in my left knee and upper left arm while lifting my wife into her wheelchair. She is in her ninth year of Alzheimer’s and can no longer talk, eat, bathe, dress, or walk without help. Fortunately, we are still able to live independently with the support of our retirement community staff. As I near my eighty-third birthday, I am aware that every day is a gift. I hope I am still around to pull a few muscles ten years from now!

Joe, when I lay down on your table, I was surprised that such firm padding could feel so comfortable. I could feel your gentle touch on my foot, your finger tracing the outline of my foot, and occasional pressure on the ball of my foot and toes. As I relaxed, I could feel the tension draining out of my body. About forty years ago, when I used to close my eyes in meditation, I could see expanding rings of color, but I have been unable to see them for many years. During your Feldenkrais session, however, I saw black clouds forming against a mustard-colored background. I was intrigued when the blackness assumed the shape of footprints that rhythmically rose and receded. Soon, rings of black replaced the footprints. They started from a dot in the center, expanded outward, and disappeared beyond my field of vision. A few minutes later, the rings reversed the process, forming at the outer rim of my vision, then shrinking into a central point and disappearing. I was in the border zone between sleep and wakefulness, almost floating on the table, but aware of my surroundings. I wonder if a few more sessions would bring back the varicolored rings of bygone days.

After about forty-five minutes, you told me to sit and then stand up. I felt light and was able to stand with little effort. When you asked me to describe my experience, I said that I had felt your finger tracing the outline of my foot. I was surprised to learn that you had not touched my foot with your fingers, but had applied light pressure using a thin, hardcover book. When I walked across the room, I still felt a slight tingling in my toes, but the pain had left entirely. I had no pain in my feet, ankles, knee, arm, shoulders, and neck. Even the generalized muscle and joint aches were gone. I felt like our session had drained away the accumulated tension of nearly eighty-three years of living, including the last nine I’ve spent as the primary caregiver for my wife. I remained pain-free for seven days before the stiffness and aches gradually returned.

Needless to say, I am very much looking forward to our next session.

Love, Dad

Joseph H.Strain, Ed.D. Associate Dean Emeritus, Suffolk University, Boston, MA

P. S. While I was having my session, Betty was working with Marie, my wife of 54 years, in a separate room. Because Marie can no longer talk, I don’t know what her experience was except to say that her walking seemed slightly steadier. What was interesting, however, was the observation her massage therapist, who did not know about her Feldenkrais session, made the following day. Having given Marie weekly massages for more than two years, he was surprised that Marie’s flexibility had improved considerably since the previous week-in fact, it was at the level she had been at six months before! When I told him about Marie’s session, he attributed her improvement to the Feldenkrais work Betty had done the day before. As a massage therapist with sixteen years of experience, Bruce also teaches Yoga and is currently a doctoral candidate in Psychology. His final comment to me was that after he completes his doctorate, he intends to study Feldenkrais
Home | About Feldenkrais® | About us | About our services | Comments from clients | Tellington TTouch
© 2003 Chapel Hill Feldenkrais® Group -- (919) 542-3237