Ruthy Alon - Women's History Month 5

From my own life...

I learned about Feldenkrais from a friend who was an Occupational Therapist, and she offered small workshops where maybe 8-10 of us would listen to a taped session of Ruthy Alon. We may have also listed to Moshe Feldenkrais, her teacher. This was in the early 1980s when incidentally I was back in college.

I've taken part in many somatic therapies in my lifetime. At this particular moment, I'm returning to Feldenkrais, and taking a class in Bones for Life, taught in the methods of Ruthy Alon. These days it's on zoom, right in my home. But the class has 64 or so members, as well as three trained teachers. It's intense, meeting for 4:30 hours, with breaks and a half hour for lunch.

I quote from her web site:

Ruthy Alon’s journey in promoting and restoring well-being in human lives began in 1950’s when she, a woman in her 20s and mother of two, started attending Dr. Feldenkrais’ group classes for the public in Tel Aviv. At that time Dr. Feldenkrais was well-known in Israel, which included serving as the personal trainer for then Prime Minister David Ben–Gurion.

In addition to being a student in Dr. Feldenkrais’ group somatic learning classes, she also taught them, which contributed being selected as one of thirteen individuals to further study with Dr. Feldenkrais from 1968-1971, in Tel Aviv, Israel. In 1972, as a practitioner, she accompanied him to the Esalen Institute in California, where she also met with Stanley Keleman, another pioneer and leader in the field of somatic therapy.

When Moshé Feldenkrais passed away in 1984, she conducted the first four-year professional Feldenkrais training in San Diego, as well as directed Feldenkrais trainings in other locations.

In the 1990s, she completed a Ph.D. in the field of Mind-Body Medicine and Holistic Psychology and wrote the book Mindful Spontaneity. Since then she has been a Senior Trainer in the Feldenkrais Method and has developed a body of work with its roots in and expanding from the Feldenkrais Method, her first program being Bones for Life. Throughout her life she has frequently traveled from her home is Israel to other countries to facilitate trainings and make presentations. Age 90 on January 25, 2020, Ruthy continued to lead a remarkable life – is interviewed about Movement Intelligence and the Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Learning and continues to develop specific topics within Movement Intelligence. Ruthy passed away December 30, 2020.