About Ruthy Alon

Ruthy Alon is a Senior Trainer in the Feldenkrais Method®. For eight years, from 1959-1967, Ruthy attended Moshe Feldenkrais' weekly classes in Tel Aviv, where she learned the guided movement processes he later called "Awareness Through Movement"®. Those were the years that Moshe Feldenkrais was well known in Israel as the personal tutor of Prime Minister Ben- Gurion.

When Feldenkrais later decided to train practitioners in his method of hands-on teaching called Functional Integration®, Ruthy was among the thirteen fortunate ones who sat on straw stools around the low treatment table of the master in that first training.

Since those early days in Israel, the Feldenkrais Method® has become the central axis of Ruthy's development and professional contributions. She was the first practitioner to follow Moshe to the U.S. in 1972, coming to the Esalen Institute in California and then teaching his new approach to the improvement of human functioning in many other centers.

In the 1970s, many people were searching for ways of taking responsibility for their own personal ecology, and they found a congruent direction for this search in the legacy of Moshe Feldenkrais. Ruthy taught the first four-year professional training in San Diego, as well as in Tel Aviv, Sydney, and currently in Florence, Italy.

"It is not just a method of body movement," says Ruthy, "but rather an awakening of resourcefulness and creativity." Ruthy created the Free Your Back workshop of movement processes for the general public, which made a difference for many people. Audiotapes of these lessons, as well as a videotape of her own movement entitled Movement Nature Meant have been widely distributed by Feldenkrais Resources.

In addition, Ruthy has published the insights of her work in the book Mindful Spontaneity (1970), currently published by North Atlantic Books. This book has been translated into five languages and was awarded the book-of-the-year prize in the natural health category by the Jungian Society in Italy.

Her ongoing quest to promote and restore well being in people's lives has led her to create her life work in the Bones For Life program for stimulating bone strength using natural movement and weight-bearing posture. In the Bones program, she applies the somatic learning principles of greenhouse conditions from the Feldenkrais Method® to the dynamic moving in the reality of vertical standing, as required for stimulating bone strength. The Bones for Life program is expanding in many countries. The program was recently introduced to the staff at the NASA center in Texas.

One of the special qualities that Ruthy brings to her teaching is her capacity to decipher complex patterns of movement and to create solutions for improving them. She offers clear verbal explanations that empower her students to comprehend and master the work on their own, with a sense of personal success.

Ruthy balances the influence of right brain intuitive harmony acquired from her mother, who was of Moroccan origin, with the left brain conceptual thinking from her Russian-born father. She was born in Colombia, South America, and grew up in Israel. She spent a few years at school in a kibbutz, which imprinted in her an idealistic approach toward progress and society. She is a graduate of a teachers' college in Jerusalem.

Ruthy has a son, a daughter, and five grandchildren. Her home, where she lives with Dan, is in Jerusalem. In her mature years, she is a living model of the effectiveness of what she is teaching as demonstrated by her youthful, flowing movements, which she says are getting better every year!