February 16, 2006 Issue                                               

©2005 The Chestnut Hill Local

Chestnut Hiller aids long-time sufferers with trauma and pain
by CAROLE VERONA

Bob Chapra uses the Feldenkrais method to relieve the pain of his wife, Mimi, a former professional dancer who suffered a broken neck in a horrific accident. (Photo by Len Lear)

Former city planner Edmund N. Bacon believed that in order for people to design cities well they had to be highly aware of and more sensitive to the environment. To teach this lesson to his students at the University of Pennsylvania, Bacon called on Bob Chapra, 55, a Feldenkrais Method practitioner and long-time Chestnut Hill resident.

“Bacon would begin his class by bringing the students to Independence Mall. He instructed them to wear old clothing and shoes that were dispensable. When they arrived, he’d blindfold them and have them walk through the fountain. He did this to put them completely in their bodies, so that they could hear the water and feel it hitting them. Bacon and I also developed a sequence that helped the students become aware of the rhythms of their breathing and their heartbeat.

“We’d have them oscillate forwards and backwards while they were still blindfolded. Then they’d take off the blindfolds, so they could still feel the movement of their bodies while they could see. Next Bacon put them in pairs and let them walk through and experience the greenery while their senses and their bodies were fully awake,” Bob recalled.

According to the Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America’s Web site, the Feldenkrais Method is an educational system that develops a functional awareness of the self in the environment. The method utilizes the fact that the body is the primary vehicle for learning.

In Feldenkrais “Awareness Through Movement” lessons, Bob verbally guides students through a series of movements while they are sitting or lying on the floor, standing or sitting in a chair. “At first, I’m generally checking in with people. I ask how various parts of their bodies feel when they’re in contact with the floor. People track that and keep coming back to it to see how things change during the course of the lesson. Or sometimes people will start out by standing to get a sense of how the weight falls on their feet,” he said.

Bob explained, “Some lessons involve small movements — so small that if you walked into a room you wouldn’t realize that people are moving at all. Then there are larger, almost judo-like movements. Others are musculoskeletal in nature, where people are lifting a shoulder, lowering it, and noticing the biomechanics of the movement.” The idea is that when people become aware of their movements, they can choose to do things differently.

With offices in Chestnut Hill, center city Philadelphia and New York, Bob works with a variety of people who have experienced physical trauma or who have been in pain for long periods of time. His clients include those recovering from strokes, or who have Parkinson’s disease or Multiple Sclerosis. His youngest client was an 11-month old infant with Cerebral Palsy. He also works with children and teens and recently helped a child with Attention Deficit Disorder become more focused.

Bob has also been on the staff of the vocal studies department at The Curtis Institute of Music since 1994. “The opera students at Curtis are the crème de la crème. They are to opera what finely trained athletes are to sports,” he said. The students come in with different issues. Some have musculoskeletal problems or backaches. Others may be concerned that the way they stand is not providing them with the fullest access to their breathing.

Bob explained that many opera singers overextend their bodies when performing. “They’ve been instructed to stand like that, to pull this in, to elongate their throats. At this point in their careers, they’re striving to get to higher levels of performance, which means letting go and allowing movements to happen. It’s a difficult thing because there is a certain amount of fear that goes into performance.

“Feldenkrais work is there to help them go inside and trust themselves. I make them aware of the movement of their feet, of their hips, of breathing all the way down to the floor of their pelvis. I help them work with their alignment so they can relax the various parts of their bodies,” he said.

Bob became interested in the Feldenkrais Method during the early 1970s. At the time, he was working in the New York City school system as a math teacher in a special program for high school dropouts. As someone who experienced chronic pain due to scoliosis, he often went to chiropractors, rolfers and massage therapists to seek relief.

This led him to an interest in psychotherapy. He began studying to become a Gestalt therapist and went to the Esalen Institute one summer. Moshe Feldenkrais was giving a workshop there, and although Bob couldn’t attend, he became interested in what he heard. He later attended a workshop with Feldenkrais in Montreal.

“Feldenkrais was talking about how you put movements together. He guided us through a classic Feldenkrais movement sequence where we were exploring how different parts of our body turn. I started feeling all these little elements of my chronic pain problem feel like behaviors, like things that I was doing. I realized that I had to learn from him.”

Bob took every workshop that Feldenkrais gave in New York and also studied with Feldenkrais for 12 weeks each summer for three summers. He took the advanced training with Feldenkrais in 1981, three years before Feldenkrais had a stroke and died.

Bob began teaching Feldenkrais classes in New York and was invited to teach in the drama department at State University of New York at Purchase. He worked with actors Stanley Tucci and Ving Raimes, and for many years with the George Morrison Acting Studio. He collaborated with voice teacher Chuck Jones and also with Clyde Vincent, voice coach with the Royal Shakespeare Company in New York. When Bob moved to Philadelphia, he collaborated with Richard Fancy — the actor who played Mr. Lippman on Seinfeld — who was teaching a voice course at the Wilma Theater and at Villanova University.

Today, Bob is recognized as one of the country’s most highly respected practitioners. Locally, he has presented in-house courses at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Doylestown Hospital, Albert Einstein Medical Center and Moss Rehabilitation Hospital. He resides on Highland Avenue with his wife of 30 years, Mimi, 60, an accomplished painter and former professional dancer.

Bob will begin a series of five Feldenkrais Method “Awareness Through Movement” classes on February 21 at Chestnut Hill Village Community Room, 7995 Crittenden St. Additional series are scheduled in March, May and June. For more information, contact Bob Chapra at rchapra@aol.com or 215-732-9173.