Justine Reilly Feldenkrais Studio

07/03/2026

How do Western medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine say very similar things about us, just in different ways? My recent learnings in Moxibustion have given me some ideas 🏮

Lately, I have been training in moxibustion, an ancient therapy that has been supporting my health for 15 years. Moxibustion, or moxa therapy, is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). By heat…

26/09/2024

My practice is at its best when I'm in learning mode.

Not an expert.
Not overwhelmed by what I *don't* know.
Just learning.

Last weekend, I was lucky to be part of a regular practitioner study group. We spent a whole day learning a sequence of hands on movements called "Clarifying the Connection of Pelvis and Thorax (side position)", from the book "Teaching by Handling", by Yochanan Rywerant.

I've been playing with ideas from this all week. Here are some:

💡 Softening the abdominal muscles makes it clearer to sense the small floating ribs at the back;

💡 The thighbone is an amazing lever that can move the whole body;

💡 The 7th cervical vertebra - where neck meets ribs - can tell you a lot about your spine's movement;

💡 The only way to really understand these ideas is by putting into practice!

22/12/2023

Grateful for every one of my clients this year, including the crafty gift-givers.

Grateful for every opportunity that's come my way, e.g.:

❤️ teaching weekly Awareness Through Movement lessons to a class of passionate long-term students (aged into their 90s) 🌀

❤️ being "physio", masseuse and strapper to my favourite team in the world ⚽️

❤️ and *continuing* to work long-term with people who gain so much from a somatic approach to learning, who are sensitive, intelligent, hilarious, kind, who feel, who know pain, insomnia, overwhelm, ableism and/or fatigue ... and who keep putting in the time to this approach, which is powerful to them in its unusual subtlety, sensitivity and gentleness. Less is more, when it comes to sensorimotor learning ✨️

I gain so much, and learn so much, in every single session, because of how you understand yourselves - with your amazing bodies / brains. Thank you all so much! 🥺🥰

Looking forward to dreaming up 2024, and to keep integrating my learnings about people - and the world we're in - into this constantly evolving practice.

Taking a rest, reopening on 4 Jan, and will be taking bookings for 8 Jan onward. See my website via bio for contact details.

25/07/2023

Rest and digest :: As someone with lived experience of a mental health diagnosis, including depression and burnout, I rejoice in conversations that dissolve stigma.

A recent such conversation with a friend reminded me of the imperative to yield to burnout, by simply resting, despite everything in capitalist culture (including in this friend's case, their therapist 😩) that tells us to "just keep going" and "push through".

Today I applied that principle of yielding to burnout, fatigue, weariness. I helped a client to allow himself to simply experience relaxation and rest without the cross-purpose of "just push through, you lazy bu**er", or whatever the internal dialogue may be.

The intention was to give him the opportunity to recognise, for himself - through an experiential lesson - that fighting signs of fatigue simply drives you further into fatigue. And usually the first step to managing fatigue, despite all of our habits, is rest.

He understood the lesson, and decided to head home for a nap 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

25/05/2022

Coming soon!

20/04/2022

I've been getting into diagonals and how they work, especially the diagonals between one shoulder and its opposite hip.

Have you considered the relationship between say your right shoulder and left hip (by hip, I'm meaning the ball and socket at head of the femur).

The femur is a massive bone, the longest and heaviest in the human body. So the stabilising structures around it sometimes do a lot of work, including the piriformis (look it up if you need, it's superpowered), hip rotators, psoas, illiotibial band (ITB), achilles tendon, and plantar facsia, to name a few.

This one hip joint is attached to the lower back (including via the piriformus), through to the spine, ribs and shoulders.

There is a diagonal relationship with its opposite shoulder, which allows us to twist, and to move forward more easily with head centred.

This is called moving in a contralateral pattern.

It is distinct from the homolateral pattern, which we often learn in walking before we graduate to contralateral. Homolateral is the same-sided shoulder and hip moving forward together in a walking pattern. It's more lurching side-to-side and is also useful!

Often we learn the contralateral pattern in crawling.

The soma is an amazing thing!

09/03/2022

Update on the Feldenkrais practice in 2022!
https://tinyurl.com/3j7c4r2p

25/02/2022

"My leg feels more like it has an outline now. Is that a strange thing to say?"

No, that's exactly something I'd expect to hear from a new client after a couple of Feldenkrais sessions.

That's because we're working with your self-image. In this case, "your self-image" means the image you have imprinted in your sensory-motor cortex.

So at the end of a lesson, we can notice changes. Your leg may feel heavier, more defined, grounded.

That part of you may be able to connect with other parts of you in some particular movement. Your leg might feel more connected through to your lower ribs in that movement.

This may be the first time you've experienced such a way of moving, such a pattern.

By learning these new patterns, you can connect new neural pathways, and alleviate pain.

22/01/2022

~~COVID-19 UPDATE~~

I miss seeing clients walk through the door.

Meanwhile, I've been taking time out to assess the current environment, and come up with a temporary COVID-19 policy.

Government has not issued a formal guideline for this, so I've worked out my own. Here it is so far:

🧩 Postponing all face-to-face appointments until further notice (it will be around when we see this surge descending from its peak, hopefully in Feb)

🧩 Returning to online sessions - one-on-one consultations, and group classes - starting in mid-Feb.

I regret to postpone seeing people, and will be in touch with an update as soon as possible. Feel free to be in touch if you are interested in booking an online session.

This may not be how I'll handle the pandemic ongoing. But it's what I'm doing now: pausing to assess.

National massage and Feldenkrais associations have no clear state or national covid-19 guidelines to refer members to currently.

For now, it's up to each individual business's risk assessment. So for now, the practice is taking a rest and planning for a "soft" opening in February.

I am privileged to be booster vaccinated, and the safety of vulnerable people in my work and personal circles is paramount, as is the sustainability of healthcare and hospital staff.

I appreciate everyone who has heartily understood my positon. Thank you for your patience during this time 🎆

08/11/2021

When we create the ideal conditions for learning, the possibilities for change and improvement are endless.

Thanks Louise and Anthony for taking the time to recommend this work.

23/09/2021

I've begun mentorship on decolonising the Yoga Sutras with BIPOC woman in STEM Anusha Wijeyakumar Wellness ...

The online global group, which I was able to attend this morning at 8.30am, helped decolonise the day a bit. It's rewarding to think about decolonisation.

I recommend the course to yoga practitioner friends.

I am grateful to be warmly welcomed as a Feldenkrais practitioner interested to learn more about the real Yoga Sutras, from Anusha Wijeyakumar, a woman of Tamil origin, who understands the texts.

Anusha recommends Sutra translations that are translated by Indian scholars, not texts translated by white men who didn't understand the texts.



Anusha Wijeyakumar] with Yoga is so much more than asana the physical postural practice. Don’t get me wrong I LOVE asana, but asana came into my life much later. It was the philosophy and my rich ancestral wisdom, customs and culture that I was born and raised into that make up the richness of my practice.

Yoga without the philosophy is not Yoga. Reducing Yoga to mere asana does us all a disservice as it keeps the practice ableist, heteronormative, elitist, white washed and inaccessible which becomes another tool of oppression. This is antithetical to the philosophy of Yoga that I was taught and I carry this lens of social justice and teaching from a feminist, caste and class reformist perspective in all of my offerings.

✨MENTORSHIP✨The one thing that has been most requested of me over the past year and a half is the opportunity for mentorship. I wanted to create something that would be intimate, engaging and actionable focused on decolonizing Yoga philosophy.

👉🏾👉🏾 I am SO excited to announce that I have an upcoming Decolonizing the Yoga Sutras 6 month immersion with group mentorship that begins next Wednesday. Details and tickets via link in my bio.

Tag a friend and let me know if you will join me. You can come for 1 session or sign up for the whole series. Can’t wait to be with you all in virtual community 🙏🏾🕉

25/08/2021

Trauma is talked about a lot in these changeable times, but how can we look after ourselves and each other, among the trauma that lives in and around us?

I have a soft spot for the discussion that's being released today as part of the FREE Australian Feldenkrais Online Summit 2021.

Melbourne-based practitioner Holly Huon joins me for this talk, bringing a lifetime of understanding and experience to today's topic ...

Trauma: Perspectives, Possibilities and the Value of the Feldenkrais Method

Holly creates a safe space and leads us through this story of finding pathways towards presence, among the shocks, and how this can become an ongoing, life-long practice.

Simply sign up for daily talks which are yours to keep.

https://www.feldenkrais.org.au/online-summit-2021