Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher®
Lavinia Plonka
Learn somatic movements, mind-body exercises, and meditations that call you into profound awareness of the archetypes within you to dramatically elevate your self-perception, intuitive vision, potential, and wellbeing.
The Warrior, the Teacher, the Healer, the Visionary…
Which of these archetypes do you most resonate with?
The truth is, everyone has all of them within us…
Lavinia Plonka, body language expert and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher, has created a system of physical and emotional healing using gentle Feldenkrais movements that inspire awareness of the archetypal energies inside you...
… helping you unlock and adopt their transformative qualities.
Learning to access and integrate the archetypal energies can provide profound new insights into the Self, including greater awareness and a pathway to liberating, self-loving, and empowering new ways of being.
Lavinia combines your natural, but often truncated tendency to embody the strengths of these archetypal characters… with your intuitive ability to tune in to your body — enabling you to release habitual patterns that don’t serve you.
She opens the door to a unique, holistic approach to physical and emotional healing…
… accessing archetypes that can awaken and strengthen you — particularly in these unsettling times.
The Feldenkrais Method is an approach that enables you to expand your sense of moment-by-moment choice and freedom — and significantly alters the way you see yourself, your potential, and your opportunities — simply by heightening your awareness of the way you physically move through life.
Experience Lavinias experiential online course, where you’ll be guided through safe, subtle, sophisticated movements, exercises, explorations, and meditations — to transform the way you organize yourself and improve your range of motion, reduce pain, and increase your capacity to live the life of your choosing.
You’ll discover how your shadows, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and movements are inextricably interrelated — and influence each other in powerful ways.
The course begins with an overview of the archetypes you’ll be exploring throughout your 7-step journey...
- The Warrior’s energy evokes courage and power — helping you ground and show up as a leader.
- The Teacher’s energy inspires compassion and wisdom — showing you how to listen deeply and respond from your heart.
- The Healer’s energy offers you the ability to… well, heal — focusing your attention on the power in your hands to nourish yourself and others.
- The Visionary’s energy gives you insight and forethought — allowing you to see beyond literal vision to the clarity you need to understand your needs and those of others.
How You Move Is How You Move Through Life
Throughout this program, you'll learn how to access the somatic wisdom of these archetypes… to uncover their shadow aspects that may be blinding you to your own potential and possibility.
You’ll learn how moving in new ways to alleviate pain, improve range of motion, build resilience and liberate parts of your personality so... you can become more fully alive and the person you’re meant to be — while also boosting your overall emotional and physical wellbeing.
You’ll discover how Lavinia’s unique modality can bring healing insights about how your body moves, where it gets “stuck,” and how and where these beneficial archetypal energies may be blocked.
Lavinia's course will guide you to move with minimum effort and maximum efficiency — not through muscular effort, but through increased conscious awareness of how movement actually works.
You’ll become more aware of the link between your inner and outer worlds... and how your physical movements mirror your feelings about your self-worth and your place in the world.
In these seven transformative sessions with Lavinia, you’ll:
- Experience a powerful approach to emotional and physical healing that melds the gentle, mindful movements of the Feldenkrais Method with awareness of the archetypal energies within you
- Dive into 4 key archetypes — the Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary — where their energies constellate in your body, and how they can help you release painful patterns and embody new, empowering ways of being
- Discover how subtle movements and awareness of the body’s somatic cues can awaken the archetypal powers to release physical and emotional blocks to self-love, wellbeing, and living life fully
- Develop the capacity to show up, take a stand, and lead through example
- Connect with your inner wisdom to repair your past and prepare your future
- Connect your fears to your possibilities
- Enhance your capacity for flexibility and your ability to be responsive rather than reactive
- The power of your hands for self-healing
- Ways to increase focus and clarity
- Create an archetype map of your chosen qualities
In Unlock Your Archetypal Strengths With the Feldenkrais Method, you’ll begin to see the story your physical body tells… beyond the verbal stories you have about yourself.
Through Lavinia’s Feldenkrais-inspired subtle movements, you can transform your stories, come into heightened self-awareness, expand your repertoire of movement, and improve the way your full system functions — bringing your life into physical, emotional, and spiritual alignment.
Discover simple, yet powerful, mind-body practices… to move you into whole-being wellness.
What You’ll Discover in These 7 Modules
In this 7-part transformational intensive, Lavinia guides you through the fundamental body-mind-spirit skills and competencies you’ll need to elevate your self-concept, vision, physical and emotional wellbeing, and potential.
The Beauty of On-Demand
This course features teachings, training sessions, and experiential practices from Lavinia. Each session builds harmoniously upon the previous ones, so you’ll develop a complete holistic understanding of the practices, tools, and principles you’ll need and dramatically elevate your self-concept, vision, and potential — through movement, exercises, and meditations that call you into profound awareness. Your purchase includes 24/7 ongoing access to your course content, allowing you time to review the materials at your own pace and integration.
Module 1: Your Somatic Story — A Personal Adventure Into the Lessons of the Archetypes
If your history is your biology, your biology is also your mythology. Joseph Campbell suggested that our society is currently “between stories.” But each of us carries personal stories — not just the stories we tell, but the myths and archetypes that make up what Moshe Feldenkrais called “our perceived self-image.”
In this opening session, you'll be lead through an overview of the archetypes and what’s to come as you move through the course.
You’ll be guided to unlock the stories you carry in your spine and your posture… so you can release habitual tensions and attitudes, and start opening yourself to embody the lessons of each of the four archetypes you’ll be exploring throughout this course.
In this module you’ll:
- Experience a movement lesson connected to cosmic and archetypal experience
- Release back tension connected to habitual patterns
- Learn how your spine tells others your story
- Explore your personal mythology through a guided meditation
- Connect your body map with your self-image and your life’s journey
Module 2: The Warrior — Unleash Your Courage & Feel Your Power
The Warrior’s power comes from the core and emanates throughout the Self.
In this second module, you’ll explore what it means to be the Warrior — whose energy helps you get quickly center yourself and grounds you to the earth.
The Warrior relates to the power of the pelvis and its connection to dynamic stability... enabling you to be resilient and responsive in any situation. The Warrior knows that courage to be yourself comes from within.
In this session: you’ll:
- Liberate your power center through a simple yet profound movement lesson
- Connect your core with your temporomandibular joint (TMJ)
- Take on the breath, posture, and facial expression of courage
- Explore the dimensions of the Warrior in your life experience
- Develop your Warrior capacity to show up, take a stand, and lead through example
- Access the embodied Warrior’s tool chest through movement: Orientation, Timing, Attention
- Experience relief from pelvic floor and back pain, as well as TMJ issues
Module 3: The Teacher — Lead With Embodied Wisdom & Compassion
The expression, “I teach what I need to learn,” has never been as important as it is today.
In this module, Lavinia shares her wisdom about the Teacher archetype, whose greatest gift is the enhancement of your ability to listen and respond from your earned wisdom.
The Teacher archetype relates to your thoracic area. Your lungs and heart need a relaxed and responsive thoracic spine and flexible ribs, to breathe in another’s question and guide from an open heart.
In this module, you’ll learn how to:
- Experience a movement lesson that frees the ribs, improving breath and self-compassion
- Connect with your inner wisdom to repair your past and prepare your future through a powerful personal writing exercise
- Enjoy a unique mirroring game
- Identify and embrace your role as Teacher
- Access the embodied Teacher’s tool chest through movement: Compassion, Listening, Mirroring, Responsiveness
- Develop your capacity for flexibility and your ability to be responsive rather than reactive
Module 4: The Healer — Give & Receive Needed Healing
Who doesn’t need healing right now?
We all have power that emanates from each of us through our hands. Often referred to as the mirror of the brain, your hands connect the right and left sides of your brain.
Your hands contain more than 14 different kinds of nerve fibers — and so many other qualities — to help you “sense” a myriad of functions, such as holding, caressing, rejecting, affirming, and, of course, healing.
In this module, you’ll discover:
- The power of your hands for self-healing
- Identify the unique healing gifts resulting from your wounds
- A powerful meditative practice connected to your hands
- How your hands and arms are a conduit for healing
- The link between mudras, Western sacred gestures, and healing
- Access to the embodied Healer’s tool chest through movement: Energy, Presence, Love
- How to work with carpal tunnel and painful wrists
Module 5: The Visionary — The Art of Seeing With Insight & Forethought
The Visionary is able to see the whole picture and still focus on the details, to see what’s needed in a given situation. The Visionary has the capacity to foresee and have insight.
The Visionary’s role is to go beyond ordinary vision to see possibility as well as peril. Your eyes are the conduit connecting to your brain, your spinal column, and, quite literally, your world view.
In this session, Lavinia shares:
- The skill of “Slow Looking” and how it increases intelligence
- A powerful “inner movement” lesson for improving your eyesight
- “In sights” about your personal mythology
- A meditation that connects inner vision with sensation and perception
- Access the embodied Visionary’s tool chest through inner movement: Insight, Perspective, Intuition
- Ways to increase focus and clarity
Module 6: The Shadows — Find Freedom From Fear & Replace It With Love
In this session, Lavinia uncovers the shadow aspect of the archetypes — hiding in the shadow of your own potential and shielding you from your own possibilities.
Krishnamurti and many others have said there are really only two emotions: love and fear. If the four archetypes explored in this course operate from love, their shadows manifest from our fears.
Moshe Feldenkrais often said, “If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.” The shadows of the archetypes reside in the hidden tensions that interfere with our ability to “do what we want.”
During this module, you’ll learn how to:
- Identify shadow aspects of each archetype
- Connect your fears to your possibilities
- Learn a seated (chair) movement lesson that relieves tension from hidden habits
- Use compassionate inquiry to understand your shadow
- Make your shadow your ally
- Look at the feeling of gratitude and the sense of being good enough
Module 7: The Power of Choice — Integrating & Enacting the Person You’re Meant to Be
Every waking moment is an opportunity for choice. From moment to moment, you have the option to be grounded and powerful, compassionate and receptive. You can turn to your “In sights” and choose to heal yourself and, through your own process, help heal the world.
In this final module, you’ll
- Enjoy a movement lesson that connects all the parts: pelvis, ribs, hands and eyes into an empowering spiral
- Experience a meditation that calls each archetype into your posture
- Discover and explore the many ways these archetypes manifest in the world
- Create an archetype map of your chosen qualities
- Receive tools and ideas for going deeper into this fascinating exploration
- Work through primal to more refined emotions
The Archetypal Strengths Bonus Collection
In addition to Lavinia’s transformative 7-part virtual course, you’ll receive these powerful training sessions with leading visionaries and teachers. These bonus sessions complement the course and promise to take your understanding and practice to an even deeper level.
Move Better, Feel Better!
Audio Teaching of 2 Awareness Through Movement ® Lessons From Lavinia Plonka
Enjoy this teaching in which Lavinia guides you through two Awareness Through Movement lessons designed to improve your freedom of choice, both in movement and in your life. One of the lessons is a wonderful way to begin to experience the relationship of the head to the spine and the rest of the Self. The second lesson, which is done while sitting in a chair, explores flexion and extension and how developing freedom in the spine can support your ideal posture.
Enacting the Archetypes Within Us
Video Dialogue With Lavinia Plonka and Zoran Kovich
We all embody archetypes, but how do we enact them in our daily lives? In this interview between Lavinia and Zoran Kovich they explore Zoran’s years of combining inner arts with the Feldenkrais Method. In Zoren’s private practice in Sydney, he combines the Feldenkrais Method with somatic education systems, martial arts, performing arts, and cognitive and social sciences. He and Lavinia discuss the powerful somatic stories we carry, and offer insights from the life of Moshe Feldenkrais... who exemplified the archetypes of Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary throughout his life.
The Creative Body: Move to the Life You Want
Video Dialogue With Lavinia Plonka and Alison Palmer
This Interview comes from the 2020 Future of Energy Medicine and Body Wisdom Summit hosted by Alison Palmer, the founder of Full Circle Women. In this dialogue, Alison and Lavinia introduce the Feldenkrais Method and its healing applications. It’s a fascinating discussion that circles around Moshe Feldenkrais’ bold and, at the time, mind-blowing statement: “There is no connection between the mind and the body. The body is the mind and the mind is the body.” Lavinia also guides a Feldenkrais exercise to demonstrate how the mind and body are inextricably one.
What Graduates of Lavinia’s Courses Are Saying…
— Diane Amos: “I am incredibly impressed with Lavinia’s knowledge and her ability to articulate it”
— Patricia Friedrichs: “Lavinia has really helped me gain a better understanding of my body”
— Hilary Chiz: “Lavinia Plonka is the best practitioner and teacher of Feldenkrais”
“… allowed me to know my body in a way that was new and exciting.”
I would take any course Lavinia is a part of, without question. She is a master at how she imparts information and is deeply respectful of the individuals she teaches. This course positively impacted me by bringing attention and awareness to deep inner sensing and allowed me to know my body in a way that was new and exciting. This knowing led to learning and choosing to make different responses with awareness. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Additionally, the platform on The Shift Network was of such high quality it made it very easy to participate in and I’d like to commend them on their management of the program. Well done!
— Crystal Robbins, Los Angeles, California
“… I feel more awakened to who I am, what I am feeling, where I am going.”
This course was positively transformational for me… I feel more awakened to who I am, what I am feeling, where I am going. Lavinia embodies the Feldenkrais Method. The beauty of her lessons is that every time I do the same lesson again, I discover something more about myself. In my day-to-day life, I notice more clarity and spontaneity that I clearly (pun intended) attribute to this course!
— Manju, Cleveland, Ohio
“I feel as if I have come home to myself, there is renewed sense of confidence.”
I feel as if I have come home to myself, there is renewed sense of confidence. I move through my life with less effort and more grace. It is what I have always wanted.
— Nicolette Gibson, San Diego, California
“… I’m leaving five years of chronic pain in the dust.”
Over the weeks of the course, through the sessions and my daily practice, my body began to soften and find new patterns, and my awareness of its patterns increased. I stopped using the Posture Medic I’d needed to use while seated. I stopped sleeping on a massage ball. I could tolerate sitting for longer periods. The chains of tightness and burning began to subside and shift. A few months later, I’m doing Feldenkrais once or twice a week. In combination with posture work and shoulder strengthening work, I’m leaving five years of chronic pain in the dust. Thank you, Lavinia, and thank you, Shift Network, for finding such a brilliant teacher to work with this population!
— Wanda Pierce
“… I don’t just like myself more, I’ve begun to love myself…”
Lavinia introduces the fun and depth of the Feldenkrais Method, which are equally important. I feel I don’t just like myself more, I’ve begun to love myself, which is one of the most precious achievements one can make in this world.
— Theresa Leung, Hong Kong
“… I’m able to effect change in a positive way, for both my physical being and my mental and spiritual one.”
Learning about Feldenkrais has taught me about my body and how it’s adapted to my life without my choosing! The more I learn, the more I’m able to effect change in a positive way, for both my physical being and my mental and spiritual one. Lavinia is a wonderful teacher and she makes these teachings easy to understand. Thank you very much and I look forward to more sessions!
— Tressa Guth, San Jose, California
“… I have felt things I’d never felt before.”
After being active my whole life and being a teacher of somatic-style yoga for 11 years, I have felt things I’d never felt before. I feel like I’m re-engaging with my body and I am grateful for this. I will continue to study the Feldenkrais Method and will eagerly await Lavinia’s next course.
— Anonymous
“… ability to rise above my perceptions regarding my sensations.”
Before this course, I felt overwhelmed, misunderstood, and in extreme fatigue with chronic pain. By Module 3, I felt a renewed sense of hope! By Module 7, I have the ability to rise above my perceptions regarding my sensations. I finally found a teacher and tools that have brought quality to my movement AND quality to my life! I am so looking forward to another course with you, Lavinia — you are awesome! Thank you over and over!
— Linds, Seffner, Florida
“… extremely effective…”
This course connected in a deep, yet simple way with my self-awareness of my movement and my emotional state in the present time. I found this to be extremely effective and it encouraged me to explore more.
— Yvonne, Perth, Australia
“… more empowered and more aware about my body and certain physical and emotional patterns…”
I feel more empowered and more aware about my body and certain physical and emotional patterns. I have an additional tool to work on them with.
— Antonia, Milan, Italy
“I’ll be able to create a much better, more loving relationship with my body from now on.”
[Lavinia’s course] really heightened my awareness of myself and how I work and how it affects my body. I’ll be able to create a much better, more loving relationship with my body from now on.
— Anonymous
Here’s What You’ll Receive
Seven Pre-Recorded 90-Minute Sessions
Experience a unique opportunity to learn from body language expert and Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher Lavinia Plonka — from the comfort of your own home. Each session includes a streaming video and guides you through a Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lesson to discover specific skills and abilities that call you into profound awareness.
Seven PDF Transcripts of Class Sessions
In addition to the high-quality videos and MP3 audios, you’ll also receive session transcriptions. You can then review, print, and highlight the most important insights and practices you were given.
Exercises and Questions for Each Lesson
Between sessions, you’ll have the option of completing related exercises, practicing new tools, and answering questions to accelerate your learning and integrate each lesson.
The Archetypal Strengths Bonus Collection
- Move Better, Feel Better!
Audio Teaching of 2 Awareness Through Movement Lessons From Lavinia Plonka - Enacting the Archetypes Within Us
Video Dialogue With Lavinia Plonka and Zoran Kovich - The Creative Body: Move to the Life You Want
Video Dialogue With Lavinia Plonka and Alison Palmer
An Unprecedented Opportunity to Join the Unlock Your Archetypal Strengths With the Feldenkrais Method Online Training
We feel honored that Lavinia Plonka has chosen to partner with The Shift Network to offer this exclusive online training. This is a unique opportunity to learn from a body language expert and Guild-Certified Feldenkrais Teacher whose powerful insights and pioneering work are helping us heal and awaken ourselves and our world
If you’re serious about elevating your self-concept, vision, potential, and wellbeing, then you owe it to yourself, your loved ones, and our world to take this one-of-a-kind training.
If you’re ready to take the next step in evolving yourself, click the register button below to reserve your space now.
Your Satisfaction Is 100% Guaranteed!
Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed! If you don’t absolutely LOVE Unlock Your Archetypal Strengths With the Feldenkrais Method — or don’t feel that it meets your needs — please submit your refund request form 2 weeks from your date of purchase and we’ll happily issue qualifying customers a refund.
More Praise for Lavinia Plonka…
“... feeling taller, stronger, pain-free, and awakened...”
In practicing Feldenkrais, it looks and feels like you are doing next to nothing, yet the effects are profound. Taking Lavinia’s classes always leave me feeling taller, stronger, pain-free, and awakened to the potential of a better me. The power in the art of the subtle can’t be emphasized enough, and Lavinia delivers it with fun, precision, and grace.
— Merina Ty-Kisera, LAc, DiplAc, Author of Acupressure with Essential Oils
“... free up our bodies, relax our minds, and open our hearts.”
Lavinia Plonka is one of the most engaging, brilliant, fun instructors I have ever experienced in any field. My students in the Florida Keys and I personally have benefited from Lavinia’s unique blend of somatic modalities that free up our bodies, relax our minds, and open our hearts. Lavinia’s profound understanding and easy-to-follow teaching of the Feldenkrais Method is refreshing, entertaining, and life-changing.
— Judy Greenman, Body Brain Freedom
“... unlocking the power of the Feldenkrais Method to free attention and create greater ease...”
Lavinia Plonka has an easy, understated teaching style that gracefully unwinds her vast formal and intuitive knowledge of the body and its metaphors, unlocking the power of the Feldenkrais Method to free attention and create greater ease — in our bodies and in our lives. If you have an opportunity to study with her, I recommend it.
— Mike Morrell, Co-founder of ReWilder and collaborating author with Richard Rohr of The Divine Dance
“Lavinia... helps you know your body in easy and accessible ways that lead to transformation.”
Lavinia is an engaging and expert movement teacher who helps you know your body in easy and accessible ways that lead to transformation. I’m consistently amazed at how small movements have huge effects.
— Leanne Cusumano Roque, President of Shine Like the Sun and author of the award-winning book, Live Light: Simple Steps
“I feel more graceful, flexible, responsive, and creative in my movement.”
Lately I’ve been appreciating the body awareness I’ve found in Feldenkrais. I feel more graceful, flexible, responsive, and creative in my movement. A few weeks ago on a VERY windy day I was just outside the grocery story when a gust blew a heavy portable sign right at me. I curved my body in a big arch and the sign zinged by, narrowly missing me. One observer said “Wow, that was martial arts!” I said “THAT was Feldenkrais!” Thanks Lavinia, my Feldenkrais guide!
— Yvette Odell, Musician
About Lavinia Plonka
Body language expert Lavinia Plonka has helped people improve their movement, behavior, relationships, and careers for over 35 years. Her unique expertise connects the dots between posture, movement, emotions, and the mind. Lavinia’s training and professional career have included theater, dance, yoga, and the martial arts. She has taught the Feldenkrais Method for over 25 years, and is also a trainer of other practitioners. Lavinia is also a level CL4 teacher of the Alba Method and an Emotional Body instructor.
Her professional artistic endeavors include an artist-in-residence for the Guggenheim Museum, and being a movement consultant for theater and television companies around the world — from the Irish National Folk Theater to Nickelodeon. From Esalen to the Council on Aging, from Beijing to Mexico, Lavinia’s popular workshops explore the intersection between movement, emotions, and the mind. She is the director of Asheville Movement Center in Asheville, North Carolina, offering a complete movement curriculum, including workshops and private lessons. Lavinia’s writing includes several books and audio programs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is your refund policy?
A: Your satisfaction with The Shift Network and this course is our highest priority! We offer a satisfaction guarantee for a full two weeks so that you can try out the course risk free. The deadline to receive a refund is two weeks from your date of purchase. To request a refund, please click here to submit your Refund Application Form. Your refund will be processed within five business days and we will send you an email confirmation when your refund has been completed. However, we’d love to have a chance to address and resolve your concerns first. If there’s something we can assist you with, please email us at support@theshiftnetwork.com, and we’ll be happy to help!
Q: How long will I have access to my Course Homepage and materials?
A: Your purchase includes 24/7 ongoing access to your course content — online via your Homepage — unless refunded or otherwise specified. We currently don't have an expiration date for our online materials. This will allow you time to review the materials at your own pace and integration.
Q: How can I reach Customer Support?
A: Please visit our Customer Support Center, where you should be able to find the answer to your question or the solution to your problem. And if you can’t, you can submit an online request form and we’ll get right back to you.
