Leila Malcolm (English)

 Photo Frank Höfer ©

Many go back into their old professions

 Leila Malcolm, Feldenkrais Guild UK

I practised as a doctor in Anaesthetics and took the first UK Feldenkrais training in London, which finished in 1990. I came to Feldenkrais like most people, having a personal problem, – with me it was arthritis and back problems. I had tried various things and actually came to Feldenkrais through NLP. Having done the training I thought this is so good for me that I’m going to teach. So I worked within the framework of the National Health Service teaching classes in the Oncology Department, which wasn’t easy but it somehow worked. I also built up a small private Feldenkrais practice. When I retired it meant that most of my health service infrastructure went. Also, at the time of retirement I had moved to a different area in the UK and then had the experience of starting from scratch, which is quite different from introducing it into ones other professional work. Several years later we moved again and this time to an area where Feldenkrais was really unknown, Aberdeen in Scotland. This was even harder, so hard and frustrating that a few weeks ago I said I’m going to give up all this effort to build a practice. Now I’m giving my attention to helping with whatever I can in strengthening our guild and representing it at international meetings which is something that actually keeps me in contact with the method. Our guild was founded just at the end of the first training in London in 1990. I was within that group, but to begin with I was not so heavily involved. Later I have been chair of the UK Guild over many years and Guild representative to the IFF and EuroTAB Council. Right now I am the Treasurer of the UK Guild, and Chair of the EuroTAB Council.

The UK guild has 56 full members and about 18 student members. Right now (2005) the fourth training is going on in the country. I think in the UK we have the combined issue of being a quite small organisation and also of the Feldenkrais method not being well known widely throughout the UK. Our main task is to get an increased membership of people who are actually able to work with the Feldenkrais method and getting the method better known and appreciated. This must go hand in hand. Many people after the training find they can work very little and some have actually said to me: “I cannot justify belonging to the guild because I earn nothing or virtually nothing from my Feldenkrais teaching.” So after a short period of trying they go back to their old professions. For those who have a profession into which they can incorporate the method it is much easier. They find ways to introduce the method in their environments and have a network of contacts to develop their Feldenkrais practice. They are more likely to be members of the guild. There are a few people who actually earn sufficient money as full time Feldenkrais practitioners to make a reasonable living. In the UK the challenge for our guild is on the one hand one of public relations but on the other there is also a cultural issue. It has always seemed to me looking at the clients taking lessons they are often not “pure” English people. They are people who have either heard about Feldenkrais and have done some Feldenkrais  abroad or they are people who are not English. What holds English people back from being interested in a method like Feldenkrais seems to be the physical side. And may be it has also something to do with taking responsibility for yourself. Somehow our health service took that away a bit. After the Second World War, the National Health service came in and so it’s been there for over 50 years and the majority of people have got used to the health service being something which provides. It’s not even an insurance, it’s free at source. People had little idea how much their treatments cost. There is an increasing awareness of costs as it is now a political issue. But there is still an underlying sense that this sort of thing should just be there and for free. Feldenkrais is not usually covered by private medical insurance schemes. It’s also the name, Feldenkrais, a foreign German-Jewish sounding name to the British. I take the inquiries on the telephone for the method. Most people have no idea of how to pronounce it. The situation right now is that there are certain cultural groups who are interested in Feldenkrais. There is no doubt that more interest is generated in the arts like dance, theatre and music. These people have heard about Feldenkrais, not necessarily in England, but from their colleagues abroad. This is one group where it begins to take off, especially in the South and around London. The other places are Cambridge and Oxford, – university towns and also quite international places. What does the guild do to support its members? Well, we have started encouraging people to come together. And there is now a group in the South of England which meets fairly regularly. It’s only five to six people, but that is quite something in the UK. And then there is a group in Cambridge and also in the Midlands, and in North Wales and the North a group is beginning to form. Having the Method more widely known and promoting the Method is a priority too. My guild now realises more and more the importance of being part of a bigger organisation, especially with materials like the Alexander-Yanai Lessons coming from the IFF. We try to connect to other issues as well, which are discussed internationally. We have had licensing discussions and there is a real trend towards something of that sort. But I also see that it might be difficult, because some people are relatively isolated in the UK and quite a lot of people are not practising a great deal. What sort of licensing criteria would we need to have? They would have to be quite broad and flexible to start with and we would rely on the integrity of practitioners. We still have the service mark in the UK and no one has challenged it. But on the other hand we are not able to challenge anyone apart from writing a letter saying, “Did you realise that there is a training for this?” I think the method has so much to offer that I just work to get it on a really solid foundation. In the UK it isn’t that solid as yet. To have someone present on the international level is really very important for the UK guild although not all the members of the UK would agree. If Feldenkrais is to survive and grow in the UK rather than waste away or just become something which is practised in isolated situations, we need support and contact with the international community.

For me the EuroTAB Council meetings are also particularly interesting. Here I see the differences, both in language and culture, between the European countries, the legal and governmental problems the various guilds are facing and the work and creativity they bring to these.

Copyright Leila Malcom and Uta Ruge
First published in Feldenkraisforum, volume 53, 2006