IFF Update 2006 #27 Mid year Academy update

International Feldenkrais Federation

Mid year Academy update

IFF UPDATE 2006 #27

TO: IFF Member Representatives, Presidents and Chairs

What has been happening in the IFF Academy?

The IFF Academy is the place where there is a strong focus on supporting practitioners worldwide with resources for us to continue to learn, develop, share, network, and consider how and what we do as Feldenkrais Practitioners. For history of the Academy go to: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/707 Since the 2006 IFF Assembly in May there has been much activity within the Academy and we would like to share some of the highlights.

Academy Committee

The committee of Rob Black (CDN), Daniel Clénin(CH), Barbara Pieper(D) and Janie Randerson (NZL) was confirmed by the Board following the Assembly. In July they were able to meet face to face in France prior to he IFF Board meeting and review the activities of the Academy and plan for the coming year. In reviwing the context and concepts that the Academy is embedded within we became aware that there are tools not only for furthering the practice of ATM and FI but also applications for this Feldenkrais specific approach in other parts of our lives.(see article by Barbara Pieper at: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/680)

We began plans to present and explore these ideas in a concrete way in 2007 via a Cross Cultural Academy Day 2007. The Committee is planning a cross cultural 'facilitation' Academy Day in 2007: workshops delivered on 3 continents more or less parallel within a short time frame for close approximation of feedback (North America, New Zealand/Australia and Europe). The function is facilitating Facilitators and Facilitation. Ideas have been collected for;

- participants learn how to facilitate an existing Academy Workshop;

- facilitate their own project;

- facilitate organisational tasks for Member Organisations;

- the type of facilitation skills people would need outside their professional Feldenkrais life but in other areas of their lives and using the IFF Academy specificity for learning this capability.

These parallel cross cultural Academy Days could well support the planned Competency Project workshops as well as the greater communities' practices.

Academy Website

Rob Black and Daniel Clènin have offered their experience and expertise towards further development of the Academy side of the website. Jennifer Herzog continues to work in various areas of the Website generally and specifically in assisting users with their enquiries. As the Website develops and software is upgraded it will allow more interaction between practitioners which will further support evaluating and networking IFF Academy Projects. Check out the Academy activities at: http://feldenkraismethod.org/en/node/254

Academy Coordinator

We were able to confirm our contract with Marie-Christine Schmoetzer (F, D) for the current year, until December 31st 2006. Marie-Christine, a trilingual French citizen living near Munich,does a fabulous job, particularly coordinating the lively interface with practitioners who wish to become involved with learning and developing in a Feldenkrais way through Local Academy Feet or Teams. She is the first point of contact for the Academy at academy@feldenkrais-method.org.

During the IFF Assembly 2006 in Soesterberg (NL) she had the opportunity to have direct contact with the IFF Representatives and presented the Local Academy Feet/Teams Workshops. Some of the participants have showed great interest and have asked for more information, for example the Representatives of Israel and Canada, would like to use the PRISMA Blue format or "Feldenkrais and Psychology" for a workshop in their countries; the Norwegian and one of the Dutch Representatives are interested in the Skeletonian Harmonist Workshop "Moving Bones".

Marie-Christine is doing the follow up and stays in regular contact with the intersted persons to provide them with information as necessary.

The Austrian Feldenkrais Association FVO currently is preparing to organise two IFF Academy Workshops in 2007:'Moving Bones' in Salzburg and PRISMA blue in Vienna. The manuals of these Workshops will be translated into English in 2007 for use in other parts of the world within the IFF Academy's context of 'open source'. For information about other Academy workshops and their evaluations contact the Coordinator or go to http://feldenkrais-method.org/node/733. For viewing evaluations you will need to subscribe to the IFF website at webservices@feldenkrais-method.org.

In order to make the IFF Academy model of the LAF/LAT more known in the world, Marie-Christine and Janie have written an article, which has been sent to Andrea Wiener and will be published in the FGNA Journal. This article will be translated in German, French, Italian and Spanish for the Feldenkrais Publications in other countries. For the further development of the LAF/LAT in the world, Marie-Christine is planning a presentation with all workshops, their description and photos which can be shown in the frame of the PR Set (see CD Project) at local assemblies, meetings of the different guilds or information days of the IFF.

This presentation will be finished for the next German Assembly of the Feldenkrais Verband Deutschland April 2007 in D'orf. Barbara Pieper and Janie Randerson continue to co-supervise Marie-Christine's contract with telephone and face to face meetings to guarantee flow of information and staff guidance. Marie-Christine is providing Committee and Board with monthly activity reports.

Competency Project

At the 2006 Assembly a final IFF Academy Competency Profile draft was discussed and approved by IFF Representatives. Financial tools in 2007 and 2008 had been provided by IFF Assembly ballot to have the draft become a profile, welcomed, understood and used by the Feldenkrais Community. The work in this project continues with the working draft having been distributed to Member Organisations with guidelines for its use, translations of the documents in different languages are underway and further planning for implementation of workshops to assist deeper learning of the Method using this tool. For this a facilitator workshop will take place at KdK in Soesterberg, Netherlands from January 18th to 21st with the participation of interested colleagues from most Member Guilds.

The Competency Project Transition Team has met regularly and still seeks members to join the continuing Competency Project team. Current Team members are Staffan Elgelid staffan@learnandperform.com and Dwight Pargee (to be confirmed) spigee@aol.com. Perhaps you know of someone in your community who would be willing to assist with the ongoing tasks reported at the Assembly. If so, please contact Marilynn Anderson, Board liaison to the Competency Project Transition Team at curfewcastle@yahoo.com

The former project team with Rineke Brinkhof, Markus Riesen and Cliff Smyth is still intensively working on the development of implementation workshops and handing over the responsibility to the new team. The competency advisory committee is also in function with Andrea Wiener, Luz Stanton and Richard Frye.

Research Journal

The editing team for Volume #3 has formed with Staffan Elgelid, Zoran Kovich, Ryan Nagy, Claudia Schlebusch, Robert Schleip and Lynette Reid. This latest volume will be available in 2007. Go to http://iffresearchjournal.org to access Volumes #1 and #2.

Research List

The research list team is composed of Carolin Theuring and Rob Black . Look up what has currently been gathered at: http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/860. And share it with colleagues! Practitioners can contribute to the list by contacting Carolin Theuring.(c.theuring@email.de). Carolin notes, "I am still in the process of adding material and actually it would be great to get more input and fresh material from users".

Academy Budget

Rob is also bringing his financial expertise to the Academy budgets and spreadsheets. The Academy Committee was able to significantly reduce its budget for 2006 by meeting in July when 3 of its members were in France prior to the IFF Board meeting. We were also able to start drafting the 2007 and 2008 budgets to meet the time frames set by the Assembly to get this to the Board and the Finance Committee. These proposals and projections are currently under consideration.

IFF Resources for Representatives and their members: CD Project

Although not entirely the Academy content, a subgroup of the Academy managed the review of the IFF CD distributed at Assembly 2006 and have sent this to your Member Organisation for distribution. This CD provides IFF Member Organisations and Practitioners with handy tools for Public Relations, contains interviews with peer Practitioners engaged in working with the Feldenkrais Method and in serving the IFF.

And finally the CD introduces a three Dimension Model of the Professional Field symbolising Feldenkrais Method's application in the world. The 3 D model can be used for a very concrete perspective on an individual Practitioners' biography and on social frames of references.(CD Project Team; Marie-Christine Schmoetzer, Barbara Pieper and Janie Randerson, technical Assistance Rob Black and CD Rom Design and Production: Andrew Amstrong).

An accompanying update requested your ideas and reports on how this could be used and we look forward to your feedback (IFF UPDATE # 2006 25 see http://feldenkrais-method.org/en/node/1469). Please contact the Academy Coordinator with feedback, questions or requests at academy@feldenkrais-method.org

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!

* IFF Academy Committee

Rob Black; rblack@somaticjourneys.com

Daniel Clènin; danielclenin@access.ch

Barbara Pieper; Barbpieper@gmx.de

Janie Randerson; janie.r@xtra.co.nz

Appendix: Academy Committee: Link persons to activities

* Link Person to the IFF Board

Janie; janie.r@xtra.co.nz

* Academy Coordinator Supervisors

Barbara and Janie; janie.r@xtra.co.nz

* Budget coordination

Rob; rblack@somaticjourneys.com

* Website including staff

Rob and Daniel; rblack@somaticjourneys.com

* Educational Materials Review

Rob;rblack@somaticjourneys.com

* Research Hand/Research Global Theme

Barbara (back up Rob); Barbpieper@gmx.de

* Research Journal Rob; rblack@somaticjourneys.com

* Research List

Rob; rblack@somaticjourneys.com

* Competency Project & Advisory and Team

Daniel; danielclenin@access.ch

Other Contact persons for information about Academy activities

* Research Journal: Staffan; staffan@learnandperform.com         

* Competency Team Project: Markus; mriesen@access.ch

* Compentency Advisory Committee

Andrea; assistantdirector@feldenkraisguild.com

* Educational Material Review

Richard; rehrman@berklee.edu

* General Academy Enquiries

Marie-Christine; academy@feldenkrais-method.org