The Feldenkrais Method |
| |
The practitioner Ilana Nevill - qualifications
and interests
 Ilana
was born in Germany three months before the start of
World War II. Unsettling experiences as a refugee and
later as a ‘failure’ at school
(She had to repeat the first form after a long spell in
hospital following a road accident at age 6) led to a lifelong
quest for ways and means of becoming more aware of the
effects our thoughts and actions have on both ourselves
and others.
Ilana completed her studies in linguistics, psychology,
sociology, and education at Hamburg and Cologne Universities
with the equivalent of a B.Ed. Subsequently she worked
as a language teacher, radio journalist, translator,
and educational research assistant. After moving to England
with her husband and son in 1974 she acquired diplomas
in Yoga instruction and therapeutic massage.
Ilana benefited greatly
from the teaching of a number of ‘first’ and ‘second generation’ Feldenkrais
experts (most notably Mia Segal, Moshe Feldenkrais’s
long-term first assistant) and qualified as a Feldenkrais
practitioner in 1990 when she also became editor of the
Feldenkrais Journal U.K. Five years later she gained
qualification as an assistant trainer.
Ilana found a way of
neutralizing an over-directive orientation towards
achievement (like most Westerners unwittingly taken
on board during her early years) by doing voluntary
work in the local hospice and a hospital unit for patients
with brain injury. This is where she schooled her capacity
to be patient and really listen to the other person – especially
with her hands. Ilana continues to make a contribution
to Headway, an organisation providing stimulating day-care
for people recovering from brain-injury.
In her practice in Bath
she works with musicians and other performing artists,
people with multiple sclerosis, stroke and accident
victims, and gives regular classes in her home. Many
pupils/clients come to her with such everyday disturbances
as stress, anxiety, back pain, and breathing difficulties
as well as afflictions like Repetitive Strain Injury,
Whip Lash Syndrome, and “Frozen
Shoulder”.
Ilana likes to work with children because of the real
challenge involved in arousing their interest and gaining
their trust. Some kids come for help in learning to cope
with cerebral palsy, teenagers with gym- or sports-injuries,
and adolescent boys mainly because of troubling back
pain, usually due to having shot up in height without
really adjusting to this in their posture and movements
(especially when playing rugby).
After avoiding employment
in traditional education all her life, Ilana is now
happy to prove to herself - and to those who come originally
as ‘pupils/clients’ but
invariably turn into her best teachers - that mutual
trust and support in learning do away with the conventional
authority role and benefit teacher/learner and learner/teacher
equally.
She subscribes one-hundred percent to Moshe Feldenkrais’s
dictum:
"Self-help is, in the final instance, the only
way open to everyone". |
|
|
|
