Listening with Your Whole Body™ Improve your hearing through embodied listening

Listening with Your Whole BodyTM is: • a new approach to the improvement of hearing and the refinement of perception in general. It was developed by David Kaetz, a Canadian musician, writer, and Feldenkrais teacher. • a user-friendly and non-technical method, whereby people can modulate their own perception by self-observation and gentle exercises. It is an integrative approach, based on a global, systemic attitude to the whole perceiving person.

This course is designed for those seeking to nurture and improve their listening skills, and protect their hearing. It will be of particular interest to those for whom listening is at the heart of their daily activities: musicians, therapists, healthcare professionals, teachers, lawyers, doctors, parents, colleagues, partners, lovers, and many others.

If you're wondering whether this seminar might be useful to you in your particular situation, please don't hesitate to contact the workshop organizers with your questions.

• Sound is quite literally movement. Hearing happens when we are moved in some part
of us, whether it is our eardrums or the soles of our feet, or, most likely, both. Tuning
in to the movement that is sound is described in this work as embodied listening.
Listening in an embodied way, we experience our own voice, the voices of others, the
songs of birds, rustling leaves, flowing water and music (live and recorded) ... as
movement in the body.

• Whether your hearing is excellent or compromised, mobilizing the resonant capacity
of the whole body supports and complements the work of the ears in surprising and
enjoyable ways, adding dimensionality, presence, colour and texture to your auditory
experience. Moreover, better hearing is not the only positive outcome of embodied
listening. Tuning into sound as movement in the body tends to induce a change in
brain function. This neural and perceptual shift opens a path to profound changes in
our personal, social and artistic lives and, perhaps most importantly, to the recovery of
our kinship and harmony with the rest of creation.

See the course description.

David Kaetz's work on listening involves two stages or aspects, each contained within the other.
First, we learn to listen differently in order to hear better. Secondly, we use this new way of listening to transform the way we encounter the world, and therefore the way the world encounters us.

Listening with Your Whole Body™ is the first aspect. It's about enhancing hearing through somatic listening and vibratory awareness. All sound is movement. Through various exercises, we experience our own voice, the voice of others, the voices of nature and Bach's music as movement in the body. Whether your hearing is excellent or compromised, mobilizing the resonance capacity of the whole body supports and complements the work of the ears in surprising and pleasurable ways, adding dimensionality, presence, color and texture to your auditory experience.

The second aspect, Listening as a path of transformation, is about a shift in consciousness. Somatic listening and vibratory awareness do more than enhance our hearing. Being able to modulate the quality and location of our attention gives us remarkable tools and a multitude of options for profoundly improving our personal, social and artistic lives and, perhaps most importantly, restoring our kinship and harmony with creation.

No prerequisite is needed for this course.