A learning journey

For my (and my families) distinct passion for sports and nature, I learned how to ski and snowboard at young age and started to teach both disciplines as soon as I was old enough. There was some money to make in giving extra lessons in mathematics and German for pupils with difficulties but I discovered my real passion in teaching children the basics of martial arts. Soon thereafter I started to train adults in Wing Tsun Kung Fu with great pleasure. As a navigation-officer on different merchant ships, the tuition of cadets and instruction of new colleagues gave me a chance to find out how others can learn something an easy way.

Friends and relatives were my first “students” in awareness through movements and I integrated elements into my self-defence training (Wing Tsun) more and more. Since 2010 I teach groups in awareness through movements on a regular basis.

My emphasis in teaching is on the substantial accuracy of the lections, the adaptation of the didactic offer to the requirements of the students and most of all to convey joy in learning. My teaching-slogan is: encourage, fascinate,inspire and then support and challenge.

Knowledge – to find out how something works

It is a great joy for me to examine own little questions by consulting different sources of information and self-trial. A leading question for me was my experience, that the main movements in my favourite sports felt more similar to each other than visible at first glance. How can that be if self-defence, surfing and snowboarding are not at all the same? This question induced my fascination and I found answers in functional anatomy (how the skeleton is built and how it works), in the way the muscles work (physiology) and the control of human motion (neurology and bio mechanics). A lot of findings are waiting to be discovered and put to practical use. What can be found is oftentimes not at all corresponding with common sense. This helps me to keep my teaching up to date.

Sensing is a competence

For me the ability to sense precisely counts for a classical skill. In my Feldenkrais-work, perception takes up a central role.  Interestingly the tactile sense is used in self-defence, to act superiorly in close combat-situations. The practical experience I have in this kind of training, made it easier to start with the Feldenkrais-work and I show the students some unconventional cross references and sensing-examples in my teaching.

To fascinate by being fascinated

To share enthusiasm with the students is my biggest weakness; the others and me forget the time all too easy.

But the biggest weakness is at the some time the biggest strength because I’m excited myself and the Feldenkrais-work has my support for 100%.With this backing its easy for me to evoke enthusiasm for the lectures, especially when the working-day was long and consumptive.

To keep on learning improves my teaching

All lections are explored by myself in detail before I teach them to others. To improve the quality of teaching Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration® regular further education is a matter of course for me and the measures are exceeding the requirements of the guild and include the autodidactic development of a broad lection-repertoire. This ensures an attractive offer to more advanced and demanding students. To be able to teach abroad, I enhance my skills in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French.