My name is Catherine Mitchell, and I have been asked to give a step-by-step, kind-of cookie cutter protocol of how to use this website. Know, everything written here is just pointers to the real teacher inside you and your children. To use this website, begin to explore what the core nature of movement is by redefining movement as how your children develop, operate, think, and behave. Start by reading the Q & A section of your role with your children in the Audience page. Glance at the questions asked by people in your field and pick one that interests you the most for your children. I say “glance,” because there in the woods of learning through movement a child can only learn through their personal experiences while applying the insights gained from the WTM lessons to their personal lives.
What is the WTM site?
WTM site is an 18 years project in the making thanks to hundreds of people who helped develop the WTM program. The intention is to help families and schools build a new bridge within children’s hearts and minds to the challenges they face in development. The site is also to help researchers and therapists use motion in a different way. Based on the Feldenkrais® method, this new understanding of motion helps a child learn from the mind, body, and the spirit of the heart as one.
Through the adults sharing the lessons, children learn to feel the subtle nature within their bodies, sensations, and “motion” connected to cognitive processing. WTM teaches a type of dual attention, what the body knows and what the brain doesn’t. There are tips, lessons, and scientific backing of fun ways to introduce the wisdom of the body to the uniqueness of each child.
Is there a cost?
No. Everyone is trying to sell you something. We are not. All information, tips, lessons, guidance in Q & A is given for anyone to use for free. We are trying to do our part in helping the next generation. We are a “.com” only to keep the costs and logistics down versus having an “.edu.”
The book, A New SENSORY Self Awareness, is for sale but it is not necessary to begin. There is lots of free information on the site. If you do, however, buy the book, thank you. It is you that helps us keep this site a float. All proceeds go back to maintaining this site.
What does the WTM seek to accomplish?
Mission Statement
What are the main methods?
Methodology
Who does the WTM program help?
Audiences
How does movement help with intellectual performance?
Q & A in Audiences
What is the organization’s history?
About Us
How do we begin – feel
There is something in the human body that can teach what nothing else can: experience. Experience brings the heart and soul to realize there is more to the self, and body wisdom shows the way. Experience gives sensation and makes life’s lessons tangible. This “experience” comes from a kind of atmospheric quality to sensation and is largely elusive to most people, even the greatest athletes.
WTM movement is not about gaining strength, agility, or coordination in muscles and bones; it is about life. It is literally where we come from and what shapes our lives and souls.
To understand how to feel this kind of movement in children, they must become aware of their greatest friend inside. This “friend” is what will be called the “Sensory Body.” The Sensory Body is what lies between one’s inner process to one’s outer experience. Understand movement from this kind of body’s wisdom, changes children’s mountains into molehills.
To Begin:
- Read: your Audience page Are you a…Grandparents, Parent, School, Ed. Teacher, Scientistsor Movement Teacher?
- Next do the Lessons suggested for your Audience
- Then help children apply what is learned from the lessons into daily life. It is there the learning really begins. The lessons will help you understand how.
Separate Page?
How to Use this WTM Website by Audience
For Grandparents and Parents
1. Find the Woods in Movement– What is this kind of “movement” to your children and their worlds? Read the Q & A for Grandparents and Parents
To Get a Sense of:
How does WTM look at the movement in your child?
How does movement affect, influence, and contribute to your children’s perception?
How do their movements, their minds, their characters, and their attitudes work together?
2. Understanding the Woods – What is their movement creating in their worlds?
What are your children’s life struggles, challenges, and relationships?
What can you see in their movements that is also in their minds?
Specifically, what is the movement doing (and saying) affecting their character, their posture, their quality of focus, balance, or relationship with others?
How much awareness do they have with their physical selves?
And is that awareness (or lack of) similar to the awareness with others?
3. Starting Lessons for Parents and Grandparents to give their children
Get the school your children attend to incorporate these lessons:
The Pancake Body lesson. Use the lesson before and after recess, and before and after the Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance lesson.
No Place Like Home Breath– Find “Home” and come from there
Get Sensational Attention (GSA) program: a way to directly help school culture.
4. Most importantly, help children apply what is learned from the lessons into daily life. It is there that the learning really begins. The lessons will help you understand how.
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Separate Page?
How to Use this WTM Website by Audience
For Ed Teachers
1. The first question to ask is what stands between your students’ ears and hearing you? Help children learn about the inner processes that affect their external circumstances. Read the Q & A for Ed Teachers and Schools
2. Starting Lessons
Pancake Body lesson– What is the body doing? Is the feeling in the body related to what is going on in the mind? Does the structure and action have an attitude? Character? Or perception?
Personal Bubbles Freeze Dance lesson – Sense the space around and inside the body. This lesson includes the No Place Like Home Breath.
Get Sensational Attention GSA: finding Home and coming from there in daily life.
3. Most importantly, help children apply what is learned from the lessons into daily life. It is there that the learning really begins. The lessons will help you understand how.
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Separate page?
How to Use this WTM Website by Audience
For Scientists
1. Understand movement in the development of perception
Read Q & A for Scientist pages.
2. Tips on using movement in your work – cognitive and behavioral sciences
Read the Scientists and the Movement Teachers pages.
3. Expanding the understanding of movement to perception
Read: Scientist page & Biomechanics of Psychology pages
4. Begin to teach body ownership
The Pancake Body lesson: use before and after a movement, exercise, or therapy session. If children are 8 years old or younger, do thePancake Body and a Pocket lesson. Compare the body changes to attitude, character, and perceptual changes. Feel which body parts changed the most and remember those parts in times of stress.
Note: If you are trying to change cognitive disorders, see Part II of the WTM program. It is highly recommended to Contact a professional in the Feldenkrais® work or us for guidance.
5. Most importantly, help children apply what is learned from the lessons into daily life. It is there that the learning really begins. The lessons will help you understand how.
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How to Use this WTM Website by Audience
For Movement Teachers
- See how to enhance and sustain movement benefits from your class
Strongly Recommended: Movement Teachers
- Begin with these Lessons for your Movement Class or Therapy
Pancake Body: use before and after classes. The body is used to compare changes in character, attitude, and perception.
No Place Like Home lesson– “Home” teaches dual attention, the Sensory Body, and change in perception related to physical sensations.
- Most importantly, help children apply what is learned from the lessons into daily life. It is that there the learning really begins. The lessons will help you understand how.
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