After a week in Germany, we headed to Italy. I wrote about the beautiful property in the hills outside Parma in a previous blog.
You can find it here 8. On The Road to Italy!
Once again Giulia Gaibazzi and her husband Eugenio, kindly opened up their property for this gathering. And this clinic was quite different from the previous year – it was a Summer Science Camp. We were going to be listening to presentations from Dr. Jesús Rosales-Ruiz, Mary Hunter and Alexandra Kurland. We were also having daily Feldenkrais sessions with Natalie Van Cauwenberghe -and we were going to play with the horses!
AND we were camping! We arrived to find a selection of tents, complete with air mattress, sleeping bag, torch, pillow – and other essentials. There were approximately twenty people camping – and with only two bathrooms, I wondered how it would work. But as it turned out there were no problems – and we all managed quite well.
However it was a bit of an adjustment going from our beautiful house in Germany – to being in a small tent. I’ve done lots of camping – but none in the past few years, so it took the first night to remember one important thing – have some insulation under the air mattress! After that first night, I slept well!
Meals were provided – and George even travelled down the hill each day to buy pastries for all of us!
We settled into a pattern of breakfast, lectures, lunch, Feldenkrais sessions, more discussion – and then horse time. After dinner, discussion went on – sometimes until the early hours of the morning! I only sat in on those late night talks for one night – so I can’t really comment on them.
I found my brain was so full of information I just needed to sleep and savour the bits I remembered. I also took part in Pilates lessons with Rebekka Schulze after dinner – so my body and brain were getting a workout!
Before I talk about the presentations, I want to mention all the body work!
Natalie led us through Feldenkrais sessions each day – with Michaela translating each move from Italian to English. Everyone took part in these – I think some of us had a little nap on the mat sometimes – but then you could say that was just as good for the body!
I wondered how I would go doing Feldenkrais after lunch, then Pilates after dinner! What I found was that it blended beautifully! Feldenkrais gives you such an awareness of your body – so when I moved on to the Pilates, I could use this awareness to find the right movement – or to find a well hidden muscle!
I felt my body change during that week. I felt more upright and balanced. I had found muscles that had been asleep all my life! My hips were freer than they had been in a long time! My knees stopped aching because I was using muscles in the tops of my legs and taking pressure off the knee! I could walk up the hill from the horse arena and not feel pain!
This was an added bonus to the camp – and it was good to have this time for the body – because we needed our bodies to be in good order to take in the mind blowing presentations!
I will talk about these in the next post!
IF YOU ARE NEW TO THIS STORY, PLEASE START AT THE BEGINNING HERE – Part 1 – An Introduction
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