Moving your life along
Mary Ann Thomson
Learning to do something new can move your entire life in new directions. Learning to move freely can impart a new sense of freedom in your life. Mary Ann’s story is interesting because her own yearning to be free in her way of being first expressed itself in dancing and in teaching Belly Dance. Then, that same yearning led her to seek training in The Feldenkrais Method, which is actually defined as an education in freedom. In Mary Ann, the desire to be free finds fulfillment and completion in two divergent expressions — a yin and yang of a harmonious wholeness of fluency in movement, or as Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais expressed it, in living to “...make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant.”
Feldenkrais
Mary Ann Thomson learned Feldenkrais from Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais himself— during the last professional training he conducted in the United States. Upon finding out that Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais was coming to the U.S., Mary Ann Thomson packed up her three kids and their life in Corrales and drove across the country to Massachusetts to train with the source.
Besides the Awareness Through Movement “lessons,” Feldenkrais practitioners provide clients with Functional Integration: hands-on table-work treatments. Mary Ann first experienced Feldenkrais herself when she participated in a Santa Fe workshop. After three “lessons,” her most striking memory was of feeling completely present and aware in her body. “I was happy in my body, and I felt totally satisfied. I don’t know why. I just felt that way.” Years later, a flareup of chronic shoulder pain led Mary Ann to an orthopedic doctor who prescribed cortisone shots. Mary Ann did not like this option, so she found a Feldenkrais practitioner who performed Functional Integration on her, and the pain went away. “I felt very nurtured by this treatment. It was a whole new experience, and I liked it.”
Awareness Through Movement is a series of gentle exercises that guide participants through literal “lessons” in how to move. As Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais said, “Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.” The lessons set students free from prior conditioning. Mary Ann says students often find themselves moving better, feeling better, and thinking more clearly without making any conscious changes. The Feldenkrais methods are said to reorganize neuromuscular pathways and create new ways of moving, sensing, feeling, and thinking. Mary Ann says, “Patterns we have that hamper our abilities can be addressed. Some people need to address pain or a restricted movement or area in their body. But for most, Feldenkrais is about becoming more effective in what they do... it’s about the quality of movement. It’s about doing things more easily and feeling wonderful about yourself.”
Practice of the “lessons in movement” provided by the Feldenkrais class brings ease and effortlessness to activity and to one’s sense of self.
Belly Dance
A Belly Dance class is all about movement. Mary Ann, the instructor says, “Through Belly Dance, you find out your body can do so many more things than you thought it could... it raises your self-esteem. Your confidence goes way up. It gives women a different sense of themselves as women.”
Mary Ann teaches Belly Dance classes in addition to her Feldenkrais classes for Continuing Education. Mary Ann has been teaching for 30 years, and she loves it. “I get to learn new things. I love to practice with my students. The whole thing is fun for me.” She learned belly dance from a Taos woman who also led Mary Ann to her first teaching opportunity, recommending her to an Albuquerque YMCA seeking a belly dance instructor. Mary Ann was happy to find an outlet for her new passion for self-expression through movement, and to magnify it by sharing with others. Teaching Belly Dance brought a new focus to Mary Ann's life, and it's been rewarding for all these years. Mary Ann’s students say, “You’ve never felt so good about your body (until Belly Dance).”
Mary Ann's current classes may include:
| Feldenkrais: Awareness Through Movement |
| Belly Dance |
Note: Titles above link to our online registration site, which does not post courses after they are held. Course lists are updated at the beginning of the semester. Depending on when you click a title on the list above, some items may have already passed. You may always refer to the course index or to the printed course catalog for course information.
Teach a class with us
Have you spent a lifetime of learning on a favorite subject? Is there something you can do that nobody else can do? You can teach a class with UNM Continuing Education!
Turn in a course proposal. (PDF file to download, instructions on the file.)
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Contact
For information call 277-6320 or email ddel@unm.edu
