I am a member of the Feldenkrais Guild UK and have been teaching weekly Feldenkrais classes since October 2018.
I grew up in Amsterdam in a Franco-Dutch household. I studied the violin in Amsterdam and The Hague, specialised in baroque violin and became a part of the ‘Early Music movement’. From the 1970s onwards I played with many of the major Early Music ensembles on the European continent and in the UK. I moved to London in 1992. In 1996 I founded The Bach Players.
At certain points during my life as a musician I wondered whether there might be something else for me to do apart from music. When I was 20 I interrupted my studies to investigate whether I might like to become a social worker. Music drew me back.
In the early 1990s I did two years of a four year yoga teacher training course. Music remained stronger.
In 1993/94, now in London, I completed the foundation year of a person-centred counselling training. I counselled myself back to music.
For a number of years I had Alexander Technique lessons and got interested in doing a training. I visited three trainings and decided that this wasn’t for me. Music always had the upper hand.
It was the unsatisfactory answers that I got to my question ‘What is Feldenkrais?’ that prompted me to embark in 2016 on the London Feldenkrais training with Elizabeth Beringer and Scott Clark.
I had no agenda when I started this training other than being curious about what Feldenkrais is and wanting to be a student again. I got hooked from the very first session of the training, when Elizabeth said that the Feldenkrais Method is a method through which we learn how we learn.
In my life as a musician I had had an ongoing struggle with teachers, starting at a very young age. When I was about nine, I remember declaring to my parents – trying to persuade them to take me away from my violin teacher, whom I didn’t like – that ‘later when I was big’ I would be a very different teacher.
This journey into becoming a ‘very different teacher’ has been very much informed by my Feldenkrais training. Feldenkrais and music make for a very happy partnership.
Since 1999 I have taught at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Over the years I have worked with a great number of students from all over the world, from many different cultures. I am passionate about this work. Since the Covid-19 lockdown in March 2020 I have taught Feldenkrais online to students of the Royal Academy.
From September 2020 the Historical Performance department of the RAM will be the first department to schedule a regular Feldenkrais class for our students. The happy marriage is going from strength to strength!
Although music has been my basis, I am keen to work with people from all walks of life and backgrounds.