2007 Academy Committee Report to the Annual General Assembly

Since our last report in early December 2006 (see http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/1523 ), the IFF Academy Committee - Rob Black (CDN), Daniel Clénin(CH), Barbara Pieper(D) and Janie Randerson (NZL) have continued to meet regularly and liaise with the multiple functional areas of the Academy and with the IFF Board. We have continued some progress on our plans reported in December and in some areas have been able to adapt and change according to the needs of our International Federation.

Significant activities over the past few months have been:

 1. IFF Competency Profile Working Draft

Following the 2006 Assembly an enormous amount of work came to fruition with the Training Workshop for Facilitators of the Working Draft of the IFF Competency Profile held in The Netherlands in late January 2007. 19 Practitioners from 10 Member Organisations joined with 5 members of the retiring Competency Team and the continuing Competency Team in a 4 day workshop to prepare them to take the Profile back into their own Organisations and to their peer colleagues. 6 years since the initial concepts and ideas were mandated by the IFF Assembly in 2001, we would like to acknowledge with deep gratitude the voluntary gifts of time, knowledge and expertise that all involved have contributed to this point and support for those continuing. Feedback since the workshop has been very positive and already several workshops have taken this out further to practitioners in our Member Organisations with more planned. It is truly a gift to have our very own Competency Profile to continue learning and developing with; increasing our understanding of how we do what we do. Practitioners from

A smooth transition wove the 2 teams together and we thank the Competency Transition team - Andrea Wiener, Luz Stanton, Keith Johnson, Rineke Brinkhof, and Marilynn Anderson as representative of the Board Their work is now completed and future monitoring of the Project and consultation will be provided by the continuing Competency Project Advisory Committee - Andrea Wiener, Luz Stanton and Richard Frye.

The continuing Competency Project team is:
Wolfgang Säckl saeckl@t-online.de
Dwight Pargee spigee@aol.com
Candy Conino shawn-candy@mindspring.com
Anat Aviv-Yeffett aashonty@013.net

2. IFF Academy Coordinator

We were sorry to learn in December that our Academy Coordinator, Marie-Christine Schmoetzer would be unable to continue in this role in 2007. Many of you will have met and engaged with her since July 2005 and we very much appreciate all that she offered to the role and wish her well on her new journeys. Fortunately we were able to fill the position relatively quickly and in mid February another practitioner, Ritz Wood, took up the position. Ritz is a New Zealander, currently domiciled in Seattle. She comes with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and is very willing to respond to your ideas and enquiries. You can contact her at: academy@feldenkrais-method.org

3. IFF Research Journal

Staffan Elgelid has been gathering articles for Journal #3 and it is very much his wish as Editor to have this edition available online by the 2007 Assembly. He is being assisted with this task by a strong editorial team (in alphabetical order):  Zoran Kovich, Franz Mechsner, Ryan Nagy, Lynette Reid,  Claudia Schlebusch, Robert Schleip and Anna Yeatman.

4. IFF Research List

Carolin Theuring is keen to learn of any materials suitable for this list. You can check what is already there at http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/860 or contact her directly at c.theuring@email.de

5. Educational Materials review

There are ongoing discussions about the published materials we use to further our learning at: http://feldenkrais-method.org/node/62. These include the Alexander Yanai lessons, Amherst materials etc. Join in with your insights and discoveries!

6. Academy Website

The IFF Academy's commitment to bringing materials and resources to practitioners is very clear in the IFF Academy website. In this area you can browse many topics. You may become enthused with the possibilities of extending your ideas and/or working with practitioners world-wide. This, of course, represents the hope and vision. In actuality we have have encountered constraints and problems relating to the website software. Thus people are having problems accessing information and we are working actively to improve this situation.

7. Local Academy Feet/Local Academy Teams

The IFF Academy has been founded as a tool for initiating and furthering Quality and Competency in applying the Feldenkrais Method. It offers the opportunity for practitioners to develop local projects together with their "next door peers", run workshops together or present workshops designed by colleagues within the frame of the Academy. These activities are organised around Local Academy Feet or Local Academy Teams, allowing to share activities and outcomes with other teams worldwide. How to form Local Academy Feet/Local Academy Teams and offering Academy workshops please view http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/479

To view a list of existing LAF/LAT go to http://feldenkrais-method.org/index.php?q=en/laft and for a list of Academy Workshops to http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/844  
note: Currently this website area is still under construction. You find a brief idea and description of the project, some workshop announcements, examples of evaluations, but not yet a complete overview of all activities happened so far.

Here some examples of ongoing projects evaluating their procedures and outcomes and sharing it with the Academy members:

LAF Air
A correctly inflated air balloon can turn a traditional ATM lesson into a novel experience, stimulating playfulness, creativity and motivation for self direction. Several inflated balls can be joined up to for an air table, which can serve as a wonderful alternative to the usual Feldenkrais table.
View more: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/449

Skeletonian Harmonists - Moving Bones
This project published an article about its work in the newsletter of the Feldenkrais Association of Germany (Feldenkrais FORUM) in German in November 2006 and will provide the text in English and French till the Assembly. Next "Moving Bones" Workshops will be held in Salzburg, organised by the Austrian Feldenkrais Association (FVÖ) in June 2007 and in spring 2008 in Dresden (FVD Annual Conference). The project has been invited to present its amazing approach to living anatomy at Professional Feldenkrais Training Programmes.
View more: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/245

LAF PRISMA
Two workshops from the series PRISMA blue (Six perspectives fostering the quality enhancement of your Feldenkrais lessons) were presented in July 2006 in Germany (Ulm) and in March 2007 in Austria (Vienna), organised by the Feldenkrais Association of Austria (FVÖ). Practitioners experienced and explored the meanwhile "classical" PRISMA blue design of generating their capabilities as practitioners while practising ATM and FI; the latest versions 8 and 9 now offer practitioners a process of co-reflecting and cluster the results by creating and experiencing a three dimensional cluster field.
View more: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/464

Another project of the LAF PRISMA, called "Scientific concepts in Feldenkrais lessons – embodied experiences" (PRISMA yellow) presented its fourth approximation in January 2007 in Hamburg/Germany. In July 2007 a seminar will take place in Munich with a group of interdisciplinary composed scientists intrigued to investigate how they could discern their elaborated understanding of different scientific paradigm through sensorimotor experiences. The project aims at bridging the gap between sciences and practise like Feldenkrais can offer about human behaviour by initiating experiences in both directions.
View more: http://feldenkrais-method.org/de/node/806

Respectfully submitted,

IFF Academy Committee 

April 15, 2007