About Peggy
Peggy has been a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner(cm) since 2001. She trained professionally as a dancer, was a Pilates instructor for 15 years, and has extensive experience with other movement and healing techniques, in addition to the Feldenkrais Method®. Her approach is highly personalized and intuitive, with a special emphasis on giving people the means to make lasting improvements to the way they move and feel in their body.
In Her Own Words
My work stems from a lifelong passion for movement that began with dance training at an early age. I continued to pursue dance at a professional level through high school and college, graduating from the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan, then receiving my BFA in dance from Purchase College in New York. In college I taught dance for non-majors and became a Pilates instructor.
After graduating college, I lived in New York intending to pursue a career in dance. I was at the same time teaching Pilates at a physical therapy clinic that catered to performing artists. As I helped the clients there with various injuries, I began to see how a person’s unique way of moving reflected and affected their quality of life. Also around this time I had some struggles of my own with body tension, old injuries, and stress.
I found myself embarking on a journey of self-awareness that began, through the guidance of a teacher, with the fundamental observation that I could help myself simply by focusing my attention. I explored a variety of approaches: yoga, the Alexander Technique, massage, and contact dance improvisation.
In the summer of 1994, now in Seattle, I had my first significant experience with the Feldenkrais Method®. It struck me as the most comprehensive of everything I had tried, its very foundation being that by expanding awareness of how we do, we can undo restrictive habits and thereby live with more freedom. I began four years of intense training and became a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner in 2001.
The Feldenkrais Method is mostly what informs my present work. In addition, ongoing explorations through forms such as improvisational dance, meditation, and energy studies, as well as my former 15 years as a Pilates instructor, give me a unique outlook for creating a personalized approach to people’s physical problems. I very much enjoy digging into my tool box for what’s needed in the moment, intuitively adapting things to a person’s individual and unique needs.
Just as the art form of dance is an expression using movement, I see my work as an expression of who I am. My work is like how I dance. It is a dance wherein I am able to share my learned and instinctive knowledge of how we, as humans, can expand in amazing ways. Usually those who find and work with me, whether they know it or not, are looking for something that will help them connect to themselves more deeply. Their motivation may be physical pain, a desire for easier posture or more flexibility, issues with balance, or an aspiration to be more skilled at a specific sport, art form, or other activity. Whatever your current physical condition, whatever your reason to improve how you move through life, I am honored to join your dance and assist as your guide along the way.
Contact Peggy to schedule a free phone consult and/or your initial appointment.