FTA Staff

Our team of experienced Trainers, Assistant Trainers, and Administrators create an unprecedented professional training:

Jeff Haller, PhD, Educational Director, Trainer

My time with Moshe Feldenkrais was short. I was very fortunate to be one of the people to study with him directly, including spending time with him in Tel Aviv just prior to his death. In my 34-year career, I have been blessed to do this work, in which every day I learn something new and deepen my own sense of being.

In 1983, I founded Inside Moves and have had a successful and fulfilling private practice working with a wide variety of clients ranging from those with severe disabilities to PGA golfers and NHL hockey players.

I work with people to create the conditions so they learn to improve the quality of their life. Working together we examine what it means to live a life of physical integrity, emotional dignity, and health—the lifelong challenge of meeting the next moment with the resources to live with personal fulfillment and wisdom.

I help my students:

  • Transform their patterns of action that no longer serve them;

  • Learn more refined ways to function and move;

  • Learn how to recognize their innate capability for learning;

  • Recover from the grievous emotional wounds life has given them;

  • Diminish anxiety and insecurity;

  • Learn to use their mind in ways that are useful to them;

  • Care for their health and wellbeing;

  • Transcend their conditioned past.

Since 1993, my primary focus has been to train people to become Feldenkrais practitioners. I have participated in over 36 trainings and have been the Educational Director for trainings in Seattle, Chicago, Vancouver and Victoria, BC, New Zealand, and Bend, OR. In addition, I have run dozens of Advanced Trainings for practitioners as well as the graduate-level IOPS Academy. I have refined my teaching and honed a curriculum that enables practitioners to be successful.

Roger Russell, Trainer

I had the great luck to learn the Feldenkrais Method with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais in San Francisco, Amherst, and Israel between 1975 and 1982. Moshe was creative, brilliant, and a fascinating character. I am a physical therapist and movement scientist, and have been a Feldenkrais Trainer since 1997. Born and raised in Denver, I now live in Heidelberg, Germany, where I am co-director of the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg.

Since 1990 I have taught in 32 Feldenkrais trainings as Assistant Trainer and Trainer across Europe and in the US. In Germany, I have been the Co-Educational Director for 11 Feldenkrais trainings since 1994.

A question that has fascinated me since my first experience with Moshe in 1975 is: What makes a good Feldenkrais lesson tick? To find an answer I have studied such diverse fields as evolution, biology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, dynamic systems, biomechanics, neuroscience and infant development—all in relation to the Feldenkrais Method. This question has shaped my career. For example:

  • I led a Feldenkrais research project which was published by the German MS Society in 1993.

  • With, Ulla Schläfke, my partner in the Feldenkrais Zentrum Heidelberg, I have filmed and analyzed infant sensory-motor development.

  • I led two science symposia: “Movement and the Development of Sense of Self” (Seattle 2004) and Embodying Neuroscience” (San Mateo 2012) and made presentations at other conferences in North America and Europe.

  • I have published two books in German and many articles in the American and German Feldenkrais Journals, including two articles about infant movement development, and an article from a neuroscience perspective looking at why we insist on easy movements in Feldenkrais lessons.

  • I regularly teach “Feldenkrais and the Brain” workshops, including together with Jeff Haller.

  • I look forward to sharing various scientific perspectives during the Feldenkrais Training Academy as to what makes a good Feldenkrais lesson tick.

Lila Hurwitz, GCFP, Administrator

A professional dancer and movement educator, I completed my Feldenkrais training in Berkeley in 1997. I’ve taught Feldenkrais, dance improvisation, Authentic Movement, and related topics at the University of Washington, Cornish College of the Arts, Hampshire College, Oberlin College and many other venues. A lifelong organizer and administrator, I was Associate Director and Director of Communications at Artist Trust and Administrative Director/Co-Artistic Director of the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation, which I co-founded and produced for 18 years. I am co-owner of Doolittle+Bird, a creative firm that loves working on strategy, project management, communications, grant-writing and other projects with artists, scientists, Feldenkrais practitioners, and non-profit organizations.

More coming soon…