Miracles, Miracles and More Miracles!

The human body is just so amazing and fasincating!

The way through movement one can be one way and after a 45 minute lesson that way of being has changed. Out of pain, a shift of awareness, feeling a part of you that you could not feel before.

All this is what happened to one of my children while in Edmonton! She for the first time in her two years of life, has more control over her head.

For most of her life her head would just fall backwards! Now, thanks to her great skill for learning she can bring her head forward. I found it totally amazing how she just took this stimulation and turned it into information that has impowered her to feel not only her head, but more of her the upper part of her spine and connect it down to her pelvis.

When she first started to roll over, she would fling over by using her head. Now, she rolls through her spine and lets her legs, arms and head come along for the ride.

This little girl always amazes me! She is not the only one, but she takes all in and uses it. My dream or vision was to see her crawl, but she first has to feel her spine, her head and her pelvis. That is what she is doing now.

While on her belly she is now for the first time in her life, reaching for objects. Things that are taken for granted with most children. What miracles will present themselves next time seeing her, I don't know, but I do know that she takes the information and uses it the way her brain needs to funtction to get to the next level!

Have a wonderful Easter Weekend!
Karen Toth

P.S. Karen is off to California to study with Anat Baniel in her 4th Childrens Mastery April 10 -18.

In this segment we will focus on:

1. Coming up to standing, and standing.

2. Transitions: How to evoke successful transitions from position to position.
Understanding how to work with transitions such as, moving from lying to sitting, and sitting to squatting, and squatting to standing, and how transitions are utilized by the brain to master the next “developmental stage” or “developmental milestone.”

3. Walking – knowing when and how.

4. Understanding and working with the relationships between earlier functions and later, higher functions.

5. How to utilize increasingly more challenging TMLs to enhance the child's learning process and move the child to his/her next level - next transformation.

6. How to apply the Anat Baniel Method in helping the child with academic/conceptual challenges, such as learning to read, write, math etc.

7. Applying Anat Baniel Method principles and techniques for working with emotions and behavioral challenges.

8. When and how to use adaptive devices. Applying Anat Baniel Method theory and thinking in deciding whether to adopt or reject such equipment.

9. Live demonstrations: Anat will be working on a variety of different children in class.

10. DVDs of FS lessons with children will be shown during breaks.

11. Daily TMLs, lectures, demonstrations, practice, and discussions are all part of the training and the basis for the practitioners' learning and understanding all of the above. In addition, the practitioner will experience further growth and transformation within themselves as a result.

Off to Edmonton!

I am very excited to be leaving for Edmonton on Tuesday. While there I will enjoy a day of skiing on Wednesday! Great thing is I have a friend that is a ski patrol at Marmot Basin. So I'm very excited about that.
My first year skiing and skiing in the Canadian Rockies! Wow, life is great!

Thursday - Sunday I will be working with some of my favourite children! I have not seen them since Novemeber. Really excited to see them all and the new ones as well. Together discovering new ways for them to move and be in life!

Thank goodness for Carla Richards and her enthusiasm around having these services available to others in her area.

For those interested, would love to have you join my facebook fanpage http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Stretch-Your-Life-Pilates-Feldenkrais/89651498641?ref=ts

Also join my web newsletter http://stretchyourlife.com/. Have lots of interesting videos in the making, with any luck will get them up and running within the next few days!

Healthy Visionary!!

Do you ever find yourself sitting and pondering your day?

How an action that you took during the day the may affect how your outcome of you day would have been?

How you sit in your chair?

How your responded to your child, spouse or someone else you may know?

Just take a moment..... breath in through your mouth and out through your nose....... do this about 10 times...

Feel how the stess of the day starts to leave everytime you exhale....
Feel your jaw.... soften
Feel your neck ... soften
Feel your shoulders ..... soften and move away from your ears...

Now!! Go back to the thought you had a moment ago and see if something in your thinging has changed.

Can you allow yourself to be kinder to yourself... with this kindness, perhaps you can allow yourself to be kinger to the others in your life as well.

Enjoy more pleasure, more laughter....

I find myself really enjoying music while driving and thinking about the road and all the cars around me in a way, that we are all going somewhere, but where?
Can we slow down, and let our spirit enjoy this journey with us? If we speed around and try and do everything, be everything to everyone... we are doning too much and not living an authentic, spiritual life, well balanced life.

Pick three things you would like to do over the next month.. Three things is enough.

I love to write, I love to learn, but when I try to do too many things, I just get overwhelmed and do nothing!

Write down your three things you would like to do this month.

This month I would like to:

Business:

Get my receipts and sales ready for my accountant...
Write three articles toward my new online business...
Record two or three classes for online products...

Personal:
Go skiing two times...
Exercise three times per week...
Read articles on nutrition....

Family and Friends:
Share three meals with family...
walk with friends...
build a more bonding relationship with my boys...

Spiritual:
Visualize my life....
Count my blessings....
Get help from spiritual advisors...

Financial:
Get advice to reduce debt....
Create more income generating products and services...
Spend less on eating out....

That is a lot of things to do in one month...

If you have a list of things you would like to do or accomplish, send them to me and let us be accountability partners!!

Have a great day!
Karen Toth

Neck and shoulders, how can you make them longer!

Have you even wondered why your shoulders are kissing your ears?

1 of the Move Into Life, "The Nine Essentials of Life Long Vitality" by Anat Baniel is Variation!!

http://stretchyourlifenewsletter.blogspot.com/

Just be aware when your shoulders and ears are having this love affair and like to be close to each other.

Let us do some variations....

Start by sitting forward in your chair with your feet flat on the floor, legs comfortably spread.
Notice how you are sitting. Do you feel the pressure of your right foot on the floor the same as the left foot? Just notice. Are you sitting tall, straight or just notice how you are sitting.

In your minds eye what do you think of your spine? Is it like a stick that is there to support you? Is your spine like a pearl necklace that moves with grace and strength? Can you see the length of your spine, from your tailbone, up through to your head? Did you realize that your spine has a width? How wide can you see your spine in your minds eye? Does your spine have a depth? From front to back, how deep is your spine. Using this visualization will give you something more to think of then just your neck and shoulders. You have more of yourself in your minds eye!



Let gravity take the weight of your shoulders as they gently and slowly glide away from your ears.

Now start to bend your spine to bring your right ear to kiss your right shoulder, only go where the movement is easy and elegant, with no strain or pain, and gently leave your left shoulder move away from your left ear. Are you just bending at the small muscles and bones or your neck or can you make your spine from your tail to your head part of this movement? Then slowly bring your head back to your centre on top of your spine.

Rest and notice any changes in your sitting!

Then bend your spine to bring your left ear to kiss your left shoulder, again only go where you move easily with no strain or pain and gently let your right shoulder move away from your right ear. Is more of your spine in your thinking this time?

Rest and notice how you are sitting now.

It is by noticing small changes and miracles in your body that you can change areas in your life and your business that you get stuck!



Stretch Your Life to change the way you think, feel and move!

Working with Children with Cerebral Palsy and other Special Needs!

For Parents that want to give their children more possibilites to live a dynamic life!

I would now like to share this story about a very special child that I have been working on over the past four months in Edmonton, AB, Canada. This little girl was diagnosed with:



Nystagmus...wobbly eyes due to brain development.



Lissencephaly(smooth brain)...Miller-Dieker Syndrome(rare genetic disorder).



West Syndrome & Infantile Spasms-seizure disorders.



Global Development Delay.



Swallowing issues-high risk for aspiration/pneumonia.





I don’t always understand or even know what these diagnosis mean as I am not a doctor, but I do know that when I first met this child, she would lay on the table like a piece of paper and not even really move or be aware anything around her. With this work, we engage the whole body or the whole person. What is she capable of doing? Where does she move easily and without effort? It is alway "I wonder". As we started doing the lessons with her, I noticed that she did put her right index finger in her mouth. That was a way for me to introduce to her in language, "are you counting your teeth"? Amazing how quickly she learned to associate the language with the "action", one of the first parts of bringing awareness of who she is in her body. Her legs were wide apart and not touching and her arms and hands were not very interested in touching herself, other then her index finger in her mouth.



She had a very "wobbley head" with they very, very slow movements, done with great attention, differentiation and with many variations I started to move her pelvis. Very, very gently to see how the cavity of her pelvis to her head was connected. Did moving her pelvis cause any movement in her head? If not, how far up her spine did the movement transfer? In which directions? What would make a difference in her life?



Her eyes were very focused on looking up toward her forhead. Seems like looking down and around were something she was able to do at this time. She was introduced to some neurological movemetns such as interlacing her fingers, touching her feet with her hands, touching her right foot to her left foot and as many different variations as I could think of.



Because of this way of moving her, over the 28 lesson she received, she quickly became more aware, started to move and discover her hands, her feet, and her legs. She has everything hard-wired in her brain, she just needs some movements she may have missed while in the uterus. With this she is now rolling over, able to turn her head on the side while on her stomach. Her eyes and look up, down, sideways and all directions. Her legs are staight under her!



She is doing some neurological things such as interlacing her fingers, able to touch her right side, touches her toes with her hands. Laughs and smiles frequently.



The steps to get her to this point have been done with great care and love. Not only did she have the opportunity to change but there was a shift done by the whole family. She is such a lucky girl to have the parents she has! They really embraced and supported the process by doing everything at home that would encourage and give enthusiasm to her and keep her learning inbetween sessions. Her older brother is also in on the action now!! This family noticed and honoured all the small changes, all the small miracles!





This is the part of noticing small miracles by holding your goals loosely. I had worked with one young boy only 8 sessions. I noticed many, many small changes in the child. I saw him 2 or 3 x per day for 4 days. On the third day he changed so much, when I mentioned to "soften" his legs, he did. Most of the time his legs were very spastic. He has such a wonderful learning brain! I was amazed with these changes.





The sad part for me was on the 4th day lesson 7 and 8 the young man was stiff and lost everything gained in the previous days. I could not figure out what had happened, until the end of the last lesson. Mom asked if I would really make any changes in her son. She didn’t notice anything. This is not a fault with her, but it put so much pressure on her son to perform in a way that he was not able to do at this time. It was a great way to learn a lesson in educating the parents to "see" and become enthusiastic on the small changes and hold their goals loosely.



I am just so thankful for the opportunity working with these very special children. The trust, enthusiasm and leaning that we as a community in Edmonton are creating one child at a time, one family at a time! Let's keep the momentum growing and see where we can take this work and knowledge out into the world.



Karen Toth

www.stretchyourlife.com

519-743-5375



Karen has been blessed to follow her heart in life and in her career. She took a 3 - 3/4 year training with Anat Baniel. Anat had studied directly under Moshe Feldenkrais in Israel, San Fransisco and followed and helped train others all over the world. Anat studied with Moshe for the last 15 years of his life.



Anat has written a book "Move into Life, The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality". It is a book Karen highly recommend everyone read! This is a way to put what we do into language most people can understand. Here are the 9 essentials:



Movement with attention - our brains are organized through movement

The learning switch - everything in life becomes an opportunity and miracles

Subtlety - turns stimulations into new information

Variation - create a greater variety of possibilities in the way you think, feel and move

Slow - slow gets the brains attention

Enthusiasm - energy that lifts and inspires you

Flexible Goals - gives your brain opportunities to discover new ways to fulfil you dreams

Imagination and Dreams - leaving current limitations and leading to your authentic life path

Awareness - living in the present and being fully alive



To purchase this book Move into Life: The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality










For more information on this method check www.anatbanielmethod.com/

Next training begins March 2011 check this site for more info http://www.anatbanieltraining.com/





Currently Karen is studying with Mia Segal and her daughter, Leora Gaster! Mia was Moshe's first assistant. Mia and her family were visited daily by Moshe and were there first hand as he devised his method. Mia even helping him create the method. Leora has be very blessed to live a life that was so full of possibilities and variations. Their approach is very different, it brings the simpleness of the method as well as letting the brain figure out how to do the organic learning. Mia and Leora have a wonderful way of sharing the Feldenkrais Method .



Karen has also had the honour of studying with Yvon Joly from Montreal Canada. He is so delightful to be taught by and she noticed how much she was able to remember and learn. He has a playful, yet powerful technique from his many years of following Moshe back to Israel after his cerifying training.

Working with Children to Wake up the Brain Through Movement!

The more I work with the children the more I learn.

To master setting limites on my table and in my practice has been a huge learning curve for me. The benefits that the children get is to listen to themselves in a more profound way and sets the tone to turn on a learning brain.

The parents can see and sense how the child is learning just by the look in their eyes. How quiet and focused they are on the movements change from using slow, small movements.

For example, if you were to sit tall on the edge of your chair, both feet flat on the floor and sense how you are sitting on your chair.

1. Turn your head to the right and notice how far you can turn and look to the right. Turn your head to the left and notice how far you can turn your head and look to the left. Come back to centre.

2. Next sitting on the edge of your chair feet standing flat on the floor. Start by rounding your back, thinking of the length in the back of your spine, come back up to sitting tall. Repeat 4 - 6 times. Check to see how you are sitting on the chair now.

3. Sitting on the edge of your chair with feet standing flat on the floor. Start by lifting your head and sitting up tall, sticking your belly out. Feel the length in the front of your spine now. Come back to centre. Repeat 4 - 6 times.

4. Sitting on the edge of your chair with feet flat on the floor. Start rounding your back letting your eyes and head look down toward your belly, then start sitting tall, feeling your spine lengthen at the front and head and eyes looking up toward the ceiling. Repeat 4 - 6 times.

When you are finished doing this. Sit tall and again look left and right and notice any changes you have noticed.

Karen Toth

ABM for Children!

The second trip to Edmonton was great! Seeing the same 4 out of 5 children again was priceless. The changes from the month previous and the learning of how to take the children to the next level.

Most children get some PT and/or OT weekly. So I must come in and think outside the box on how to get the child to turn on the "learning switch"!! I have noticed if I do something, like lye the child on her side and she is not used to being there, she looks at me with a look that says I'm learning! When I teach them to feel there arm under there body on their side and feel different ways of holding their heads, they are learning. The parents report the child going home and sensing and doing what I have taught them throughout the day! This in and of its self makes wonderful changes for the children.

For the children that have a really hard time holding up their heads, it starts to give a kinesthetic sense of themselves. When requested and they start to use their lower back, they can then start to support their head. When the head and pelvis become more attached they can start to progress to another level. This takes them from "wobbly" to moving on their own.

With splasticity comes softness with awareness. Teaching a brain is very rewarding! It takes time, but we all have learning brains. It is when the brain or person chooses not to learn that the learning switch cannot be turned on. I see this in my aging father and it saddens me.

I often wonder if there is a generation thing here. Today, most people wish to learn and evolve to see what they can do and what all they can accomplish. Or perhaps these are like minded people to me. I see the children as a whole new way of being, how they can move, sit, roll, stand and then evolve into a continum of movement grow beyond what was ever expected of them. If you look at some of Anat's videos along the side you will see and hear some things that will perhaps even turn on your learning switch and give you a whole new way to view the world for you and your family!!