The Teaching Modalities of the Anat Baniel Method –
For Lifetime Fitness Through Effective Cutting Edge Exercise Programs

The Anat Baniel Method uses a number of ways to communicate with the client and provide his or her brain with new and relevant information. With the new patterns that are formed the student experiences increased flexibility and strength of body and mind that lead to lifetime fitness. The exercise programs, inspired by the work of Moshe Feldenkrais, also help the student relieve back pain and other pains and aches, and move past limitations into new and exciting possibilities.

Functional Synthesis (FS):

The training program teaches students how to work with clients in individualized hands-on lessons. The individual sessions are customized to the client’s particular needs. Gentle and light movement is used to help the client discover new, easier, and more efficient ways to move that help eliminate pain, transcend limitations and reach higher levels of performance. The client learns how to distinguish between a movement that is well performed and one that is poorly performed. As a result the client learns easy, effective action in all walks of life, thereby understanding how to transcend limitations and prevent future injury. Sessions are conducted with the client fully clothed, sitting, standing or reclining on a specially designed table.

Ms. Baniel is world renowned for her technique and success in aiding people with a variety of needs including her phenomenal work with children. Her program is designed to pass these techniques on to her students who benefit from her and her teaching staff’s years of private practice and experience. In the training you will begin learning hands-on work from the first session. You will discover your own talent and develop your own skills for helping others through Functional Synthesis. Trainees receive FS lessons during the training and are encouraged to begin practicing what they learn, in safe ways, immediately after each session.

At the completion of the 90-day training,
graduates are certified to practice Functional Synthesis.

 Transformational Movement LessonsSM(TML):

This portion of the training consists of a wealth of group movement lessons that are verbally directed by Anat Baniel or another teacher. The group will complete between one and three Transformational Movement Lessons every day of the training. The lessons take students through an elegant process of discovering new possibilities in every area of life, including movement, feeling, sensing, thinking, and emotion. Some lessons are simple, others complex. Each is designed to improve functioning as well as heighten self-perception and mental acuity. The lessons support the focus of each segment, and are developed by Anat Baniel to move students to their next level of freedom, skill, and self discovery. By recapturing the freedom of childhood learning, you will learn to bring about miraculous changes in yourself and others.

Benefits of Transformational Movement Lessons

• Reduce or eliminate pain
• Prevent injury
• Enhance performance for athletes, musicians, actors, dancers    
• Reduce symptoms associate with aging
• Improve and speed rehabilitation     
• Transform the lives of children with special needs
• Enhance vitality and well-being
• Improve self-awareness and thinking

Transformational Movement Lessons are taught daily throughout the training. Trainees are invited to learn at their own pace in a non-competitive environment, with the understanding that different lessons will speak to different individual needs.

Trainees are encouraged to begin teaching the Transformational Movement Lessons either to clients or to friends and relatives as they learn them,
 from early on in the training.

Cognitive participation

Throughout the training the trainee gains a growing understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the work. The method is not only based in science, but is in the forefront of brain, learning, and movement theory and application. This intellectual and theoretical knowledge and capacity, in the long run, gives the practitioner freedom to be creative and adopt the method to a wide variety of needs and circumstances of his/her future clients.  The trainee also learns how to use verbal-cognitive communication to enhance the outcomes with clients.

Leadership and emotional enhancement

The training program is created to be a safe place where the trainee can explore their own feelings and become aware of their emotions. During the training a coach guides the students as to how to bring the work they are learning to the world in a powerful way. (These courses might be taught via video recordings)  Throughout the training the trainees become aware of the role emotions, authenticity, and communication skills play in the transformational power of the ABM.

"Since I graduated from the Amherst Training in 1983, I've taken workshops from many different trainers. As far as I am concerned, Anat sets the standard for workshops and trainings."
~ Jerry Wylie, Feldenkrais Practitioner, Hanna Somatic Practitioner