Anna Haltrecht headshot

A movement educator with over 45 years experience, I teach innovative movement programs through Online Video Conferencing, inspiring and motivating people to live their life fully by finding their true authentic expression.
I also perform original physical theatre with MONAD art collective.

For over 35 years, I have been studying and practicing the art of mindful movement, which is moving without placing undue stress on the body. After many years of sustaining numerous injuries as a young dancer, I decided there must be a way to dance and live without so much pain. In 1983, I decided to take my Feldenkrais Method® practitioner training after exploring numerous movement modalities. Discovering how to move with elegance, lightness and ease takes study. In 2000, I began my training with Ruthy Alon, Senior Feldenkrais Trainer and creator of the Movement Intelligence Program and now I am a Movement Intelligence Senior Trainer teaching Bones for Life®, Chairs, Walk for Life, Mindful Eating and Solutions for Optimal Mobility. 

I offer the Movement Intelligence programs in classes and teacher training programs via live online video conferencing. I have an online Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement audio series. I also offer individual live sessions online. In the summer I teach my annual movement workshop on Salt Spring Island, where I live.

“Anna is a true mover with a very good understanding of coordination. She teaches in a gracefully inspiring way.
I highly appreciate her teaching bearing such results. She fills my heart with joy.”

- Ruthy Alon, Senior Feldenkrais® Trainer, creator of Movement Intelligence, Israel

Canada Reads 2021
I love Canada Reads*. Every year I anxiously await to hear the long list of 15 books. I even try to guess what might be shortlisted and begin to read some of the books. I go online to my local library, checking to see if the books are available.

But this year…I totally forgot…Canada Reads wasn’t even on my radar. Until I heard on CBC radio one of the short listed books’ writers being interviewed.

Oh wow, I thought, Canada Reads short list was announced 2 weeks ago!!
I quickly checked if any of the books were available in my library, Yes they are all there but there are long waiting lists this year!!

And to my dismay, I didn’t care. Yikes! What is happening to me? Apathy is setting in.

After nearly one year of lockdowns, no live theatre or art openings amidst pandemic fear, I have grown used to not doing or caring about art events?

Being cocooned in my own bubble (even though I am on Zoom a lot) has really had an affect on me.
and I didn’t really realize it, because I have gotten so used to the new normal.

Perhaps too much Netflix???

OK I better go read a book now...

 

PS I did manage to read 4 out of the 5 books before the start of Canada Reads. Though my fave book, Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee, did not win...

 

 *Canada Reads, CBC's annual battle of the books, is officially back for another round of high-stakes debate. Every year, five prominent Canadians champion a book they think the entire country should read. This year's theme is One Book to Transport Us. All five of this year’s panellists, Roger Mooking, Devery Jacobs, Rosey Edeh, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Scott Helman and the books they’re championing: Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi, Jonny Appleseed by Joshua Whitehead, The Midnight Bargain by C.L. Polk, Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, and Two Trees Make a Forest by Jessica J. Lee.

 

 The Creative Process
 The Feldenkrais Method® and Movement Intelligence often affects an individual’s life in surprising ways. As people experience the lessons over time, many find positive changes that go far beyond an initial goal of finding relief from aches and pains. Many students notice a spontaneous improvement in the ability to express themselves with an increased sense of freedom and creativity. The sensory-motor experience, in both group and individual lessons, can help to put one in touch with sensations and experiences that are the source of many creative processes. The nonjudgmental attitude and open ended approach of the Feldenkrais Method and Movement Intelligence, likewise allows one to overcome blocks and enter the process of creating without judgment.

One is often able to experience a changed state of consciousness, a state of flow‚ that allows for new connections to be made. You can think of it as integrating feeling, spirit and emotion with your primary vehicle for self-expression: our muscles and bones! Every act of creation has a physical component: from writing to dance.

Many artists, dancers, actors and musicians, painters and writers realize that the body itself can be thought of as an instrument. For instrumental musicians, of course, there is a further object to integrate into the process of expressiveness. In all artistic endeavors, the instrument we are learning to use is ourselves. When we maintain unconscious habits of tension and inefficient movement patterns, the end result is very often pain, interference with the flow of attention and breath, and excessive effort as a substitute for intelligence and creativity.

In the Feldenkrais Method and Movement Intelligence we can improve the fundamental relationships of our physical movement and how to use the spine, pelvis, hip joints, shoulders to support the use of the hands, arms and breath. And vice versa. The ways that we stand, sit and breathe influence everything else that we do. Whether playing an instrument or acting or dancing on stage, how the artist is organizing their back, belly and chest is what they are bringing to the act of self-expression. The quality of that organization will affect the quality of the artist’s performance. The Feldenkrais Method and Movement Intelligence can offer a means of "functional integration": the integration of the whole self into intention and action.
In general, the Feldenkrais Method and Movement Intelligence teaches people how to use themselves more skillfully, efficiently, and simply, in order to find satisfaction in whatever form of self-expression they choose.

It allows us to be more in touch with our experience and the possibilities for creativity.