What is the Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement®?

The **Anat Baniel Method® NeuroMovement®**, also referred to as ABMNM®, is an approach to learning that utilises **movement** and the **9 Essentials** to create conditions for the brain to improve its functioning and refine new skills. It does this by continually providing the brain with new experiences, allowing it to perceive differences and therefore empowering the brain to adapt, re-organise itself and form new neural connections. This all happens despite the diagnosis or prognosis.
This educational approach, originating from the work of **Moshe Feldenkrais**, has the potential to dramatically improve an individuals physical, cognitive, emotional and social welfare and can present itself in improved movement, thinking, self regulation and connection with others. By focusing on someone's abilities and not their limitations, positive brain change creates new connections in their brain.
The method’s approach is founded in neuroscience and the biodynamics of the human body and is supported by current brain plasticity research.
It is important to note that the work is not only for people with special needs and disabilities. It has in fact proven to be very effective for anyone looking to improve their performance in their chosen field, including high performing athletes, dancers or musicians.

Who can benefit from ABM NeuroMovement®?

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“Rather than try to fix the problem by focusing on limitations, our focus is where the solutions actually lie—with the brain.”

— Anat Baniel

We see great results in the following instances:

Attention deficit disorder / Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Practitioners focus on the power of their clients brain to learn and grow. As a client begins to experience progress, they start experiencing the natural joy of learning, and as failure turns to success, enthusiasm replaces the chronic frustration that a person with ADHD or other learning challenges often experiences.
The job of the brain is to put order in the disorder and make sense out of the nonsense. The brain of the child on the autism spectrum has difficulty in doing so.
With NeuroMovement® and the 9 Essentials, we wake up the brain of the child with ASD and support the brain’s ability to make sense of what they feel and perceive. The world as a result starts to make more sense.
Cerebral palsy is an injury to the brain that interferes with the spontaneous process of movement development in a child. People mistake the child’s limitations to mean that the brain itself is limited in its capacity to learn and end up believing that those current limitations define what is possible for the child in the future.
For many modalities, the focus is on the muscles, so their approach to helping ends up being rather mechanical in nature (including stretching the muscles when they are spastic and short, and stimulating muscles when they are not working well) and therefore yielding limited results for the person with cerebral palsy.
By using gentle movements and the 9 Essentials, practitioners can tap into the enormous potential of your child’s brain, setting the right conditions to create positive brain change and open up new possibilities.
Back, shoulder, hip, knee, neck or repetitive stress injury.
Very often, pain is caused by deeply ingrained poor habits of movement. These habits are formed in the brain circuity and manifest through movement that is either harmonious and pleasurable, or painful and limited.
Your brain is responsible for organising all movement, and so to eliminate pain, you need to change the patterns of movement in your brain.
Often other modalities focus on quick fixes or just on the area that has been impacted. With ABM NeuroMovement, the focus is much more on the overall organisation of the body and starting with what moves well allowing brain plasticity to flourish.
Down syndrome, Fragile X, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Cri du Chat, Angelman syndrome, CDKL5, and other rare genetic disorders.
Brain damage, Stroke, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis and more.
From injury, surgery or trauma.
When someone suffers a trauma or an injury, they are never the same again as they have a different body than before. Their brain needs to learn how to organise a whole “new” body and all of its movements and actions.
The old patterns either only partially work or no longer work, however understanding that the brain can change, powerfully and rapidly, to create ingenious new solutions, offers great hope. Starting with where you are at - and what you can do - will flood the brain with new information, triggering brain plasticity and a re-wiring of the brain.

If you are interested to find out more and wake up your brain to become better at learning, provide it with the conditions to grow, develop and thrive, then please get in touch with us.

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“Experience coupled with attention leads to physical changes in the structure and functioning of the nervous system.”

— Anat Baniel

The 9 Essentials

“Each of the 9 Essentials describes one of the brain’s requirements for waking up and doing its job well. Each Essential helps the brain create new connections to overcome pain and limitations, thus reaching new levels of physical, emotional, and cognitive performance.”

— Anat Baniel

Movement with Attention

Movement helps the brain grow and form. When we bring attention to what we feel when we move, the brain starts building billions of new neurological connections that facilitate changes, learning and transformation.

Slow

Fast we can only do what we already know. To overcome limitations and master new skills we need to slow down to get the brain’s attention which in turn stimulates the formation of rich new neural patterns.

Variation

Variation provides the brain with a richness of information to create new possibilities in movement, thought, feelings and action. It helps to increase awareness and lifts you out of rigid old patterns, awakening new ideas and possibilities in your life.

Subtlety

Reducing the force and effort with which we move and think, increases our sensitivity and ability to perceive differences. These perceptions give the brain new information it needs to organise action successfully.

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm lights up your brain. By approaching a task with enthusiasm the brain stands up and takes notice. It tells your brain what’s important to you and helps the learning process. It is a skill that you can develop and become good at.

Flexible Goals

Holding goals loosely allows the brain to prioritise information and to optimise the system for the greatest likelihood of success. Freeing yourself from the compulsion of meeting a goal keeps you open-minded, reduces anxiety and increases creativity.

The Learning Switch

The brain is either in learning mode or it is not. Repetition, drilling, habitual patterns and emotions as we get older, all tend to turn the learning switch off. Activating the learning switch allows the brain to do its job properly, to discover and create new possibilities.

Imagination and Dreams

Through imagination the brain figures out new possibilities without actually having to perform, whilst at the same time creating new neural pathways. The use of imagination and dreams enables you to transcend limitations and create the blueprint for future success.

Awareness

To be aware means to be fully alive and present. It is when your brain is working at its highest level, noticing nuances, revealing options and greatly accelerating and benefitting the learning process.