FAQ

The three questions people most frequently ask Jae, with her answers:

Is this like coaching? Is it like Pilates?
I’m recovering from an injury. Will this help me get back to running?
What experience do you have?

Is this like coaching? Is it like Pilates?
My work is quite different from coaching, Pilates, and most other methods, but it complements them well. A computer metaphor illustrates the difference. If you want your computer to do something better, you can change the hardware -- buying more memory, installing a new hard drive, or maybe getting a new mouse. Or you can change the software – the information and processes your computer uses to do things. Though it’s a bit of an oversimplification, basically a coach, a yoga or Pilates teacher, a physical therapist, and even a surgeon provide hardware solutions to your problem, acting directly on your body. Hardware solutions can be absolutely essential to solving some problems, but they don’t solve all problems.

I work with you to develop software solutions, clarifying and improving what your brain knows about how to coordinate your whole body to do things. This kind of information is not primarily conscious, and so the work I do with you will help you run better without having to think about it all the time. It’s just like when a computer starts running exactly the program you need to get the job done -- the program itself runs invisibly inside the machine and you are able to do exactly what you want.

You do get something from working with me that you don’t get from buying Windows XP, though. You’ll develop a greater awareness and control over how you’re moving. Instead of having just one way of running that you can’t seem to change even when you’d like to, you’ll be able to access a range of options and a freedom to choose among them. People who have a series of Feldenkrais® lessons bring more versatility, responsiveness, and self-awareness to their coaching, Pilates sessions, or yoga classes and get more out of them.


I’m recovering from an injury. Will this help me get back to running?
If your acute injury is healed enough to resume physical activity, or if running is aggravating an overuse injury such as tendonitis, I can help you.

Most injuries develop from movement habits that work at cross-purposes to the main thing you were trying to do. Furthermore, whenever you’re in pain you naturally change the way you move to avoid doing the things that hurt. After you’ve recovered from the specific injury, you’ll likely keep those patterns of avoidance without realizing it, making your running slower and more effortful and increasing the likelihood of future injury.

I help people change their movement habits and instinctively coordinate themselves in the healthiest and most effective way for running. You’ll leave behind the movement patterns involved in your injury as well as the compensations to pain that will become unsuitable movement habits down the road. Since this approach is more subtle, precise, and personal than the generic instructions on good running form, it changes the deep, unconscious movement habits related to pain very effectively. This helps you rediscover how to run powerfully and pain-free.

However, I’m not a doctor or physical therapist. If you have recently and acutely hurt yourself you should go to your doctor. When you’re thinking about returning to physical activity, that’s when I can help.


What experience do you have?
I’ve been studying movement all my adult life. I began by starting my dance training late, at age 18, but caught up to my peers by exploring every movement and exercise system I could find. After graduating from college, I worked as a professional dancer for eleven years. My career was interrupted for a year in my mid-twenties by debilitating achilles tendonitis, and I was told it was unlikely I’d be able to return to dancing. But with the help of a Feldenkrais practitioner I not only recovered, but became a much better dancer than I’d been before my injury.

While continuing to dance, I began in 1997 to work as a personal trainer, specializing in helping people with complex movement and health problems find a way to benefit from exercise. I quickly realized I wanted to help my clients the way the Feldenkrais practitioner had helped me, so I went through four years of training to become a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner^cm.

During this time, the choreographer I was working with began creating pieces for large, outdoor spaces. I discovered I needed better aerobic capacity and began running. It felt terrible. I could see that some people ran elegantly and smoothly, and I didn’t understand why, as a fit and athletic person, I couldn’t run that way too. I used my Feldenkrais training to analyze running form – mine and others’ – and discovered that my ballet-related movement habits were getting in the way of my running. I learned how to do different things with my neck, hips, and feet, and began to run easily and feel great.

My interest in running form, and in helping people function better in athletics and in life, led me to retire from dancing and to specialize in working with runners. My broad background in the movement arts, sciences, and education allows me to understand the nature of each person’s difficulties with running and create a personal, effective learning process so that everyone who works with me can enjoy running as much as I do.