Cheryl – Page 25 – Cheryl Ilov International

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do….Or Not

Written by Cheryl on August 31, 2015. Posted in Cheryl's View.

Before I discovered Feldenkrais, I often found myself in situations that weren’t working out for me, or doing things I didn’t want to do, just out of habit. Even if I wanted to change, I couldn’t figure out how. The most glaring example was with my best and dearest friend. We met in ballet class 25 years earlier and established an unlikely friendship. She was quiet, reserved, shy, and highly intelligent. I was loquacious, demonstrative, outgoing, and just smart enough to get by. For some reason we got along famously. However, over the years what had begun as a wonderful friendship based on mutual support, respect, and caring somehow turned into one that was demanding, controlling, and manipulative. Our social interactions left me feeling drained, depleted, and even angry....

Opportunities to Learn are Everywhere!

Written by Cheryl on August 17, 2015. Posted in Cheryl's View.

One of the greatest rewards of being a Feldenkrais practitioner are the wonderful students you meet along the way. Occasionally, a student becomes a friend and ends up being the teacher. You never know when, or how, it will happen. A few years ago I worked with a psychotherapist who specialized in Equine Therapy. He loved Feldenkrais (of course), and asked me to teach a workshop to a group of therapists at his ranch. It presented a fabulous opportunity for me as well as for the entire Feldenkrais community. You see, as a practitioner, I feel it is my duty to get out reach out to a variety of different populations and “spread the word of ‘Krais,” so to speak. The workshop was a huge success, and when it was over I began packing up my materials so I could leave. Suddenly...

Feldenkrais® Training: Who’s that lady?

Written by Cheryl on August 3, 2015. Posted in Cheryl's View.

My Feldenkrais training was held in a beautiful old dance hall, complete with hardwood floors, huge windows, gorgeous chandeliers, and small mirrors strategically placed around the room. It was a beautiful room, and the perfect venue for our training. We often had visitors who would come to spend a day or even an entire week with us. Sometimes we only had one or two strangers in the room; other times we had a full house. Each morning the visitors were invited to stand up and introduce themselves before we proceeded with our first lesson of the day. In the middle of my third year of training, I arrived at the dance hall to an unusually crowded room. I wondered who all those people were and what they were doing there. I felt annoyed and irritated to see so many interlopers in my training....

Finding Feldenkrais® and a Leg to Stand On

Written by Cheryl on May 12, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized.

A funny thing happened on my way to becoming a Feldenkrais® practitioner; I stopped stretching. When I went to ballet class, instead of going through my habitual stretches, I would slowly roll around on the floor before class. My fellow dancers would give me strange looks and nudge each other. One actually laughed out loud. However, no one thought to ask me what I was doing, which was fine with me. I was simply enjoying the experience of finding myself in a visceral and organic way. When I stood up, I always felt refreshed, alert, and ready to start class. I even felt more flexible, which is weird, considering that I didn’t partake of all the goofy stretches I had done for over thirty-five years. However, if you think about it, it was even more strange that I would keep on doing them...

Feldenkrais®: Bats, Butterflies, and the Middle-Aged Pole Dancer

Written by Cheryl on April 27, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized.

After 6 months of pole dancing, I am now officially a Level 3 Pole dancer. Not bad for a woman who decided to start pole dancing to celebrate her 58th birthday. At the rate I’m going, I may actually hit the professional level by the time I turn 60. There probably isn’t much of a demand for 60-year-old pole dancers, but it’s more about the journey than the end result. Once I graduated from Level 2, I got the OK to start taking Level 3 classes. I was ready to step up to the plate (or the pole) and start the next chapter in my pole dancing pursuit, but I was also really nervous. Especially since Level 3 is all about inversions. You know, where you hang upside down on the pole. I guess that explains my nerves. I walked into my first Level 3 class with a belly full of butterflies,...

The Power of Words, and Permanent Damage

Written by Cheryl on March 23, 2015. Posted in Cheryl's View.

I love working with people, and I love helping them recover from injuries and chronic pain. I recently worked with a young woman who was experiencing persistent neck pain from an auto accident. Along with her neck pain, she also had frequent headaches, numbness in her hands and arms, decreased cervical range of motion, difficulty keeping up with her job, and her home life was suffering. However, after just a few weeks of gentle therapeutic movement, her neck pain dramatically decreased, her headaches were gone, the numbness in her hands and arms were a distant memory, her cervical range of motion improved, her energy increased, and she was able to return to work full-time. Even better, she got a spark in her eye, a spring in her step, and her remarkable wit and sense of humor returned. We...

Feldenkrais®, Volleyball, and Reciprocal Motion

Written by Cheryl on March 2, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized.

My absolute favorite Feldenkrais® lesson is called “Movement in Opposition.” Or, “When Something Goes Forward, Something Goes Back.” It might sound intuitive, but it’s not, especially when it applies to a challenging or complicated movement pattern. This one single lesson helped me get rid of my chronic headaches, healed my low back pain, and made my ballet technique easy and almost effortless. But, my most satisfying application of this lesson was when I shared it with my adorable niece. She called me last month for a phone consultation regarding an onset of back pain she was having during volleyball practice. When she reported it to one of her coaches, she told my niece that it was common for girls to have back pain with volleyball, and it might go away if...

Why Feldenkrais® is better than stretching….

Written by Cheryl on February 2, 2015. Posted in Fit Tips.

When we experience tight muscles or stiff joints, we stretch them to improve our flexibility and increase our joint range of motion. Unfortunately, most of the time, stretching does not correct the problem. As a matter of fact, stretching may actually make it worse. There is a simple physiological explanation for that. Muscles do not become tight on their own. Tight muscles and stiff joints are a result of faulty alignment of our skeletal structure. Poor posture, prolonged sitting, static standing, working at a computer, or sedentary lifestyle interferes with the natural forces of gravity going through our skeleton. As a result, our normal muscle balance and tone is interrupted, resulting in some muscles becoming short and tight. If you do not correct your faulty structure, you...

Why is Feldenkrais® so effective?

Written by Cheryl on January 19, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized.

There are many reasons why The Feldenkrais Method® is so effective. However, the most significant reason is because Feldenkrais is a learning experience, not a treatment modality. The focus is on exploring and learning new patterns of movement through your own personal experience of movement lessons. Feldenkrais allows you to discover for yourself how to move more easily (and even effortlessly) without pain, stress and strain. The emphasis is on learning, but not in a cognitive or scholastic way. The learning that occurs during a Feldenkrais lesson is organic and visceral, and occurs at your own pace and time, while your nervous system integrates the information it receives from each lesson. In traditional therapies, the emphasis is placed on the practitioner to “correct, fix, or heal”...

Feldenkrais® Your New Year

Written by Cheryl on January 2, 2015. Posted in Uncategorized.

Here we are, at the beginning of another New Year. Everything is new, fresh, and we get to start with a clean slate. Anything is possible in a New Year, including keeping our New Year’s Resolutions. However, the resolutions which sounded quite reasonable during the festivities and over-indulgences of the holidays are now staring us in the face. The let down after the holidays, the cold weather, demands of work, family, and the reality of time constraints might defeat us before we even get started. Before you feel overwhelmed or out of control, let some of the principles of Feldenkrais help you get started on your New Year’s Resolutions, and help you meet your goals with ease and grace. 1). Organize yourself. Put your goals down in writing to allow your nervous system to begin...

All of her experiences, training and practice contribute to a truly customized workout/core-strengthening program for each of her clients.
-Claudia D.
She not only helped alleviate the pain, she helped me regain flexibility and got me back on my center.
-Misti M-K
She gently guide you so that ultimately you understand your body better and are able to move with greater ease and less pain.
-Gwendolyn P.
Some of the numbness around my knees has subsided and I’ve regained some feeling as well as had deep joint pain reduction. Flexibility and overall strength has increased.
-Melinda C.
Her gentle, loving approach is just what my body needs to fully recover from a recent car accident. I leave each session with a slight tingling sensation and movement seems much more fluid.
-Shannon G
Cheryl’s background in physical therapy, dance, Pilates, Feldenkrais, and martial arts make her very capable of not only understanding movement but helping others achieve their goals!
-Sheila S.

Author: Cheryl