IOPS Staff

  • Jeff Haller, PhD, Feldenkrais Trainer

    A co-founder of Feldenkrais First, Jeff is a world-renowned Feldenkrais Trainer. He regards the Feldenkrais Method as a pathway to the inner composure necessary for living a creative life in a challenging world. Jeff studied directly with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, the founder of the Feldenkrais Method. Since 1993, his primary focus has been to train Feldenkrais Method teachers; he has been the Educational Director of 10 trainings. He has taught around the world, while sustaining an extensive private practice in Bellevue, WA. Jeff was a university-level basketball player at Oregon State University when he first encountered the Feldenkrais Method. He graduated from the Feldenkrais Professional Training Program in Amherst, MA, in 1983. From 1984–1991 his studio offered classes in Feldenkrais, Aikido, Yoga, Tai Chi and meditation. Jeff’s background includes an MA in Intercultural Education, a PhD in Transpersonal Psychology, and over 20 years of study in Aikido.

  • Andrew Gibbons, MM, Feldenkrais Assistant Trainer

    A co-founder of Feldenkrais First, Andrew has been a sought after Feldenkrais Method practitioner for over two decades. He has taught Feldenkrais for the Hospital for Special Surgery’s Integrative Care Center, the Doctoral PT program of SUNY Stoneybrook Medical School, for musicians in the Manhattan School of Music's wellness program and in other public programs sponsored by the NY Department for the Aging. He has worked as an ergonomic consultant for The New York Times, and has delivered a Tech Talk at Google’s New York headquarters on Avoiding the Black Hole of Computer Posture. He also contributed a chapter about working with musicians for the book, The Feldenkrais Method: Learning Through Movement (Handspring Publishing, 2021). Since 2008 he has taught Feldenkrais to the elite classical musicians at the Marlboro Music Festival in Vermont. He is a graduate of Columbia University and the Manhattan School of Music.

Testimonials

"I think you are doing the most exciting work in the Feldenkrais profession right now. You are adding things that will make it more useful to the public. Your teaching is so concrete and immediate... What you teach is new and evolutionary. I can actually observe how the nervous system organizes itself in a new way to find a solution to a problem/constraint. This gets me excited about the Feldenkrais Method again!!!" —Staffan Elgelid, GCFP, Ph.D, PT

“Jeff’s interpretation of the Feldenkrais Method is biologically accurate, functionally rooted and pedagogically masterful. Over the years Jeff has made the path of maturation for practitioners more and more explicit. He has refined his teaching of self-organization to a high art, and his understanding of how to use ground forces holds the view, the practice and the fruition of a highly skilled master Feldenkrais practitioner. The biggest change in my work since training with Jeff is that I am no longer confused about what the client needs. I no longer have vague hope or baseless confidence in what I can do for them as a Feldenkrais teacher. Instead I’m clear and confident in my own ability to see function, to work with their abilities, and get them back on the right track in their life. This graduate program provides professional practitioners with an incredibly stable base of skill, knowledge and discipline from which to maintain a thriving private practice and career.” —Andrew Gibbons, MM, GCFP

"I want to share how potent my experience from both your workshop and ATM series was for me. They are living in me each and every day and showing themselves in every FI and ATM I am teaching so far." —Peggie Honig, GCFP, LMT, Hypnotherapist, MPNLP

"Jeff Haller is truly a master teacher of teachers. I have learned from my work with him over the years to deepen my understanding and practice of the Feldenkrais Method through embodied presence and precision in my own self-use and organization. Jeff's exceptional clarity and deep understanding of this learning process has led to me being able to find my own self-sustaining support and the path of potent maturity. I look to Jeff as a model for teaching, true inspired creativity, and most importantly, a way of embodying "wu wei"—the effortless, spontaneous not-doing in life." —Dwight Pargee, GCFP, Assistant Trainer, former President FGNA

"[I]nspiring, humbling, masterful teaching because it seems potentially learnable. The repetition of themes and strategies and moves in different contexts, the macro to the micro, support, support, support—it's great stuff. I expected to be finished with the series by now—almost a year and a half —but it's so rich that I do best a bit at a time: think about, absorb, apply; I could write an essay after every half hour of video. I really look forward to the following, especially Walking and Resistance. Thanks again for the help. It is a legacy... an amazing contribution to the Work." —Brian Lynn, GCFP

"Based on years of exposure to various Feldenkrais teachers, I consider Jeff Haller one of the great masters. Students I've referred to him rave about the benefits from his work. And his advanced training programs for practitioners are exceptional. He speaks simply, directly and clearly, while also mustering great subtlety, depth and refinement, in the way he responds to people and the challenges they bring to him. That he also has a very easy, delightful way with people is a great plus." —Artie Egendorf, Ph.D

"Studying with Jeff was the most transformative experience I've had as a Feldenkrais Practitioner. Over the years of practicing the Method prior to studying with Jeff, I became flexible, but at the same time noticed how I was becoming weaker and wasn't able to recover from a serious injury I had in my neck that had pained me for several years. Through Jeff's unique teaching I've gained a new and much deeper understanding of function, and learned how to use my self for strength and power. Within a few months of practicing Jeff's self-organization material the pain I had in my neck disappeared. My work with my clients has improved tremendously as I can provide them now with better support while maintaining my comfort, and my understanding of their organization is clearer. Jeff's self-organization material is essential for practitioner's understanding of the Feldenkrais work and I highly recommend it." —Anat Meiri, GCFP

"Jeff's material is for me a kind of demystification of the magic of Feldenkrais' legacy. This pedagogical material is for me like having a unique and very helpful look "behind the scenes" of the Feldenkrais-magic. I don't know any clearer demystification of the work. This material is as if a 'Feldenkrais-magician' lets you see into his cards..." —Phillip Unseld, GCFP, Assistant Trainer

"Jeff Haller's workshops are endlessly interesting and useful. He articulates, brilliantly and with exceptional clarity, his profound understanding of the Feldenkrais Method. The principles that he teaches are immediately translatable and beneficial for my clients, and increase exponentially both my own learning and theirs. No practitioner should miss what Jeff has to offer. —Carey Meredith, GCFP

"I bought the recordings of the Feldenkrais Annual Conference, and did the ATM series you presented. I was moved. Gratitude. It touches me on many levels, the interesting 'content' (about not sinking into the ground and the detail you bring to that), the fascinating experience in myself that was elicited, and gratitude for the lifetime of study, thought and teaching that you have done to come to being able to present something so elegant, personable, and significant contribution to the images and understanding that belong to the method." —Keith Johnson, GCFP