New strategies for a new year
Are you ready for 2019? Every beginning of the year is an opportunity for new projects and new ideas, and the chance to be a better You in every aspect of your life. During January and the first week of February, Mexican teacher Ernesto Cortés will offer in Istanbul a series of Intelligent Movement® sessions with strategies to improve different functions, actions and habits of movement and posture, so that your ideas and intentions are better connected, and the possibilities of your body are amplified.
Photo: Sude Bircan
Thursdays at 7:00 pm and saturdays at 4:00 pm, beginning on January 5
The Pilates Lab by Isabella Tafur, Fenerbahçe, Istanbul
Discover
Connect
Integrate
Enjoy
make a better use of all the possibilities of your body
Move with pleasure
After many years with back pain and after going through countless therapies, I have found in Intelligent Movement a much more efective and loving way to recognize and restore my body. After every session I feel a deep sense of relaxation and comfort with my body, as if every part of it returned to its natural place. Ernesto’s guidance is clear and rhythmic, so his instructions are easy to follow and they help you identify the effects of every movement. This is undoubtedly a deep exercise of attention and dialogue with the body and its possibilities.
What are these classes like?
In these classes we don't stretch or hold specific poses; what we do is a gentle exploration of how you use yourself and how you can improve your actions by being more conscious of them. The movements are painless, within the range of your comfort, and this is a non-invasive technique.
There is no model to follow and no hands-on work involved. You advance at your own rhythm and the teacher guides you gently and respectfully towards a more integrated use of your body.
Program
Saturday, January 5: Finding and transcending the limits of your wellbeing. This class could be described as a «feel good» session, but it’s actually much more than that. We will do an exploration into how much comfort you are used to have, whether there’s a limit to how good you can feel, and how you can increase the levels of easiness and lightness in everything you do with your body. You will end up with a general sense of relaxation for your body, and we will also plant the seed of curiosity on how developing awareness about the use of your self can improve different aspects of your life.
Thursday, January 10: Thursday, January 10: Relief for lower back pain. We spend so much time of our lives sitting, that lower back pain is one of the most common and urgent problems for many people. In this session you will do movements to release the muscles of your lower back and you will learn strategies for sitting better and reducing the stress to your lumbar spine.
Saturday, January 12: Sleeping better: Bruxism. Do you wake up with pain in your jaw and your neck? Do you clench your teeth when you sleep? Of course, there are orthopedic solutions for this, but you can also develop more conscious strategies to change this habit and so that you wake up with a released jaw and you can enjoy more your hours of sleep.
Thursday, January 17: Relaxed eyes, sharper vision. Have you noticed the number of screens to which you are exposed along the day? Computer, cell phone, television, screens in the public transportation, electronic billboards in the street… Fixing your eyes on screens is very exhausting for the muscles that move them, and we rarely give these muscles enough attention. This class is a space to relax your eyes and to discover the relationship that they have with the neck and the upper back. You’ll be surprised when you discover how much benefit you can get from having relaxed eyes.
Saturday, January 19: Strong Rib Cage / Flexible Rib Nest. Our ribs form a strong protective case for some of the most vital organs, so we usually think of them as a firm, unmoving structure. However, they are flexible, and when you learn to harmonize the movement of the ribs with your intentions, your breathing becomes more profound, your torso and back muscles more relaxed, and you can move around with more ease.
Thursday, January 24: Winter shoulders. In the cold weather, we tend to shrink our shoulders and neck, and crouch our back, sometimes without even noticing it. This creates a lot of tension for the muscles of the upper back and the neck. In this class, we will relax this area and learn some strategies to reduce the stress and become more aware of when we go back to this habit so that we can start to change it.
Saturday, January 26: Solving cellphone problems. In modern life, we spend a lot of time reading from our cellphone and writing on it. This causes problems in the fingers, wrists, arms and neck that, if go unchecked, can evolve into chronic pain and postural problems. In this class we will do movements to relax all these parts and we will review some simple ideas that can give way to healthier habits in the relationship that you have with your phone.
Thursday, January 31: Conscious warm-up. Do you practice a sport, or have a regular physical practice? Warming up your body before the physical activity is as important as the activity itself. In this session you will learn a process to warm up your joints and prepare your muscles for exercise so that you can enjoy more your favorite activity and reduce the risk of injuries, while becoming more adept at your practice by making a better use of the possibilities of your body.
Saturday, February 2: Yoga flexibility / Comfortable meditation. Whether you have a regular practice of meditation or you would like to develop more flexibility in your legs/lower back for your yoga or sports practice, this is the ideal lesson. Flexibility does not have to come from brute force and painful stretching; instead, in this class we will learn how it can stem from small, conscious and pleasurable movements.
Thursday, February 7: The power of the pelvis. In this final session, we will focus our attention of the physical engine of our body, and how it can articulate better with the legs and the spine, so that your head (your ideas) and your feet (your connection to reality) are well connected and you have a more integral use of yourself for all the things that you like to do.
Cost of participation
Group classes
The group classes are limited to a maximum of 6 people to ensure the quality of attention that every student receives.
- 1 session: 60 TL
- 3 sessions: 150 TL
- 5 sessions: 230 TL (includes the audio recordings of the classes you attend)
- 7 sessions: 320 (includes access to private website with videos and audios of all the sessions)
- 10 sessions: 420 (includes access to private website with videos and audios of all the sessions)
Private sessions
All the packages include custom-made lessons for your personal needs, the creation of an individual, private web page with the audio recordings of the session, a video class, personalized advice and other exclusive materials, as well as one-month follow-up via email and whatsapp.
- 3 sessions: 300 TL
- 5 sessions: 480 TL
- 7 sessions: 640 TL
- 10 sessions: 800 TL
About the teacher
Ernesto Cortés (México, 1979)
Ernesto Cortés is a musician and a certified Intelligent Movement® practitioner. In his classes, he aims to bring together elements of body-mind awareness, artistic self-discovery and spiritual integration. He is a certified leader of the Dances of Universal Peace movement and has led circles of dances and given workshops of Intelligent Movement® in the USA, Colombia, Ecuador, France and Turkey. Ernesto has also worked as a translator of Feldenkrais, Mindfulness and other body-mind techniques as well as spiritual practices for more than 12 years in different countries of the American continent. He was born in Mexico and until recently, he lived in Colombia. He is the first teacher of Intelligent Movement® in Turkey.
Contact and reservations
Please send us a message through whatsapp or leave us a dm on our social media if you want to reserve your spot or would like to have more information.
Isabela Tafur. 542 408 6181 (whatsapp). Facebook. Instagram.
Ernesto Cortés. +57 314 553 5398 (whatsapp). Facebook. Instagram.
This series is designed for only 6 people in the group classes, so we suggest that you book your place today. A second group can be opened by demand.