by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 13, 2018 | Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
The first time I wrote 2018, I felt different. All year long, I’d been writing 7, across and down, always descending, never ascending. Then 2018 came around. Literally. Down, around and up, an infinite loop of movement. No matter where I started, it was able...
by Lavinia Plonka | May 11, 2017 | Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
The other day in class, we were doing a lesson that involved tilting your legs one way, bending the chest the other way, rolling the head and whistling Dixie. OK, just kidding about the whistling. At one point a student exclaimed, “Wait! Wait! My brain is...
by Lavinia Plonka | Apr 21, 2017 | The Creative Body
A couple of years ago, I was privileged to write a short article for Parabola Magazine about the experience of an Awareness Through Movement class. I just learned that they have recorded my article for a podcast – which I am happy to share. My story begins...
by Lavinia Plonka | Mar 9, 2017 | The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
The other day, I was teaching a lesson that put the hand into what some people call “backbend” position, a term which is unfamiliar for many. So I suggested that people place the hand on the floor with the fingers pointing toward the shoulder. One woman...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 10, 2017 | Humor/CosmiComedy, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
Now that Ringling Bros. have announced their final season, I find myself reflecting on the word circus. What will happen to it, if there is no more circus? Will it re-boot itself to mean something new? After all, the original “circus” was simply the arena...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 7, 2017 | Movement and The Spirit, Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
They say if you bang a drum long enough, people start to listen. Imagine my delight when I came across this NY Times article by Thomas Friedman. Ever since I read Antonio Damasio’s seminal book, Descarte’s Error, I’ve been trying to tell people,...
by Lavinia Plonka | Aug 7, 2016 | Body Language, Movement and The Spirit, Movement as Medicine, The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method® |
Learn at first, concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light.From the Magician Card – Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey Into Christian Hermeticism, AnonymousI was having...
by Lavinia Plonka | Mar 19, 2016 | The Creative Body
Yesterday, I saw a groundhog actually dive into his burrow. The hole in the ground was on the side of the road where I have walked for years about three times a week. I think I know this road; every tree, the rusty, abandoned trailer with the vinyl siding flapping in...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 9, 2016 | The Creative Body
I remember the first time I noticed it. Walking down a street in New Jersey, I passed a nail salon. Three stores down, to my amazement, there was another one. Why? What was the difference between the two salons? Why two on the same block? And then, short term...
by Lavinia Plonka | Feb 4, 2016 | The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method®
I’ve been working on a play for four years. It sounds crazy when I say it. Even crazier when I tell people it’s a comedy. There are people out there writing comedies that air every week and it’s taken me four years? People say, “You write so much already, why a play?”...
by Lavinia Plonka | Jan 9, 2016 | The Creative Body, The Feldenkrais Method® |
“What I’m after is to restore each person to their human dignity.” Moshe FeldenkraisI’ve always been intrigued by humans’ fascination with transformation. From Clark Kent in the phone booth to the Transformers phenomenon, we harbor a secret desire to be, if not...
by Lavinia Plonka | Nov 29, 2015 | The Creative Body
“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Yogi Berra There are pundits nowadays who complain that we have too many choices in life. Barry Schwartz, in his 2004 book, The Paradox of Choice, says, “Autonomy and freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and...
