Trainers

 

Jerry Karzen M.A.: is the Educational Director for the Rio Program 2009-2012. In addition he will also be the primary trainer teaching roughly 50 % of the training. He is known primarily for his interpretive abilities and explanations of Dr. Feldenkrais’ Functional Integration lessons on videotape.  A number of these will be shown during the course of the program.  He is also known for his simple “bottom line” pragmatic approach, while simultaneously incorporating an open-ended “exploratory and non directive” teaching style.

"Jerry Karzen understands the deep connections that Moshe Feldenkrais achieved through touch and brings that level of awareness and sensitivity into his work."
- Jane Parsons-Fein, CSWBCD President Emeritus-Director of Training The New York Milton H. Erickson Society for Psychotherapy and Hypnosis, Inc.

 

Jeff Haller, Ph.D., is a graduate of the 1983 Amherst Training. His background in collegiate basketball and the martial arts has given him a deep understanding of function and he is able to demonstrate with unusual proficiency the dynamic use of self that Dr. Feldenkrais was always utilizing himself in his lessons.

He served as President of the FELDENKRAIS GUILD from 1987 to 1989. Since becoming a trainer in 1993, Jeff has been the Educational Director for many Feldenkrais trainings programs and has taught in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and Argentina.

 

Livia Calice is a Feldenkrais practitioner and a trainer in the Feldenkrais Method with a private practice in Vienna. As a member of the EuroTAB she has been involved with international Feldenkrais organizations and is the founder director of the Feldenkrais Studiengesellschaft Wien. Certified as a Feldenkrais practitioner in 1987 (Toronto), as an Assistant Trainer in 1991, and as a Trainer in 2004, she is presently a regular faculty member in training programs in Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Rome and Chiemsee.

Livia has worked as a teacher since 1965, in languages, music and movement, and with students from pre-school to university and post-graduate levels in both Europe and the United States. She taught Feldenkrais at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar of the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna from 1987 to 2002.
Her early training is in romance languages and art history at both Vienna University, Austria, and Boston University, USA. She holds an M.A. in French from Boston University. She has a background in classical Indian dance.

 

Robbie Ofir a former P.T. supervisor at New York University Medical Center's Rusk Rehabilitaion Institute is a graduate of the 1984-7 Toronto FPTP. He has had extensive post grad training in Cranio Sacral Therapy, Rolfing and associated manual disciplines. Robbie received his Bsc. and M.A degrees in P.T. at NYU and his PhD degree in Movement Science at the Union Institute in Cincinnati, Ohio.

He has served as a continuity assistant in two full training programs and as an assistant in several more programs, primarily in Japan.
He was accredited as a trainer in August 2008 and has since taught as a trainer in Japan.

 

Katrin Smithback began her studies with Moshe Feldenkrais in 1980 and has had a continuous private practice in Santa Fe, NM since then. Katrin was on the faculty at the College of Santa Fe for 17 years, teaching applied movement in the theater, dance, music and physical education departments. This ts has led her to develop and teach workshops and classes for a wide variety of groups, including athletes, actors, the disabled, therapists, the elderly, and the general public. She also teaches advanced trainings for practitioners and mentors local practitioners. Katrin teaches in professional training programs in the US, Canada, Asia and Europe.

 

Assistants

Heide Jung came to the Feldenkrais Method from a background in educational sciences. She received her degree in educational sciences from Johannes - Gutenberg University in Mainz. In 1992 she finished her Feldenkrais Training in Hamburg, Germany. Since 1994 she has a full time private practice in Mainz. She has for the past 15 years worked as a Feldenkrais practitioner as a part of the faculty in the departments of music, sports and pedagogics of Johannes-Gutenberg University.

Additionally she teaches the Feldenkrais Method at the State Theatre of Mainz and in various companies. She has more than 10 years experience in classical ballet and Aikido; and since 2004 she has worked as an Assistant Trainer in various Feldenkrais Training Programs.

She speaks Portuguese and in the Rio 2009 Feldenkrais Training she will also serve as an Assistant Trainer.