Below you will find the following themes:

IDME - Infant Developmental Movement Education
INA Kindergarten
Certification Program in Bratislava, Slovakia

IDME - Infant Developmental Movement Education

Children are different. Also in their readiness to move and to try out something new. Therefore, depending on their personality and character, they might not go through all the essential movement patterns.
The method “Infant Developmental Movement Education (IDME)" wants to provide the optimal conditions for all children to learn these movement patterns playfully. Because the first years of life are decisive for the further development, especially for the brain: this is the time when the basic patterns of movement, the informational organization and the perception of self and the world are formed.

The playful facilitation of this early child development can largely expand the physical, emotional and intellectual abilities of each child. It helps with the integration of primitive reflexes into efficient movement patterns. The children become more skilful in processing the huge amount (flood) of sensory information.

My work with the children:

This method can be supportive at any moment – we can start right after birth!

We can give the infants a feeling of safety and enhance their sense of orientation early on by laying them down on the sides first before rolling them onto the back.

We can support finding body symmetry by sensitizing the hands and feet. This will also have positive effects on sleep and digestion.

We can facilitate the later creeping and crawling by stimulating individual body parts and sense organs. This will lead to an optimal networking of the two brain halves.

We can give a clear sense of equilibrium by motivating the child to walk, run, balance, climb, jump, roll and fall. This will transmit a feeling of securely stan-ding in this world and at the same time will train the ability to fearlessly let go.

Balls, mats, benches or a climbing wall will challenge the children according to their age and thus give them more motivation. The use of further elements like sponges, scarves or feathers trains their perception and focus. Physical contact with others mirrors and modulates their own muscular and overall tone. Music and rhythm help to tune into and evoke different moods.

This method can be applied to individuals and groups, with and without the parents participating. It is especially efficient and enduring when the parents are involved: They know their child best and can provide precious information. In order to enable them to carry the process beyond the IDME sessions, I will transmit the background of my work in verbal explanations and movement examples.

Education

As an IDME practitioner I also educate parents, caretakers and other professionals interested in childcare on the importance of movement development in the first years of life. In workshops, lectures or individual counselling I give information on questions such as:

·        Which progression in movement and speech development will appear in the respective age period?

·        Which reflexes, righting reactions and equilibrium responses will appear and be integrated at what age?

·        Which individual transitions does this very child find between the “milestones” of rolling, sitting, standing and walking?

·        How can we learn to discover and appreciate this uniqueness in transitioning?

·        How can we facilitate a full range of movement and expression and thus expand the child’s choices?

·        How to avoid or ameliorate (later) difficulties like hyperactivity, psychomotoric or learning disabilities?

Our main focus

will never be on possible difficulties,

but on our willingness

to acknowledge the unique nature of each child,

to awaken her/his special interest

and use it as a motivation for growth and development.

INA Kindergarten, Photodocumentation 2006

Below you will see a photo-documentation of my work at the Berlin INA-Kindergarten (Markgrafenstr.), where I weekly teach two groups of children between 10 months and 3 years. The documentation shows moments and situations from different classes with the “big ones” from this age group:

 Fun with sensing, perception and movement

On the ball

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Once you can let your weight sink trustingly into the ball, and once you know where your hands are, your feet, your head and bum: then you can take off and fly.

A sense of balance and a sense of group. Walburga keeps turning the mat: Who can stand upright? Shanieka is running along and all the passengers tumble. And then the kids want to make Walburga turn – but she is muuuuuuch too heavy! That’s why everybody has to help!

Good to know how strong you are actually – that is fun and a good preparation for roping down the climbing-wall. And good, too, to have friends that come to help you!

The giant wheel

Sometimes the wheel stands still, sometimes it rolls and bounces. Who is on top? Who is below? Could we reach out and hold each others hands while moving?

The long bench

On the bench you can try out and invent things: Seymen bear-walks backwards, Ensar flies from the unfamiliarly rocking bench, Rebecca courageously jumps and falls backwards. But you also learn to be cautious and precise: Celine knows to land exactly and safely on the little carpet mark. Neslisah has just landed in a stable stand backwards, and we all learn: Where is the best take-off when jumping backwards?

Resting

So important to take our individual time for resting! Everyone the way they need it and according to their own rhythm. Whether fully rolled in or leisurely stretched out, whether all by themselves or with many others around… 

Blanket monsters

Well, strange: It is all quiet? Where are they all?

Hoo! There they are again: Big and loud!

Certificate Program Body-Mind Centering^® and IDME

Under my direction one of the Body-Mind Centering^® (BMC^®) Programs developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen will be offered in Bratislava, Slovakia – just an hour trainride from Vienna, Austria!

Senses & Perception
Basic Neurological Patterns
Ontogenetic Development
Reflexes, Righting Reactions and Equilibrium Responses

IDME courses

Course IDME 1: Informed observation of infants in their stages of developmentCourse IDME 2: Approaches to gently facilitating the development of movement & perception                

For a description of the different courses, you may also see www.bodymindcentering.com

Offers in 2010
08.-11.09.2010   

27.06.-08.07.2010   

Course tuition does not include accommodation and homework fees. Payment is always due two weeks before the course starts. For a payment plan or a (partial) scholarship, please, contact us individually.

* If you register and pay two months before the course starts, there is a discount: 50 € for die basic courses and 100 € for the IDME courses.

** The second tuition applies to participants who are residents of Eastern Europe and their different economic reality: They get a reduction of 20% for die basic courses and 25% for the IDME courses.

All the developmental courses provide experiential growth also for dancers, body workers, medical professionals and other people, who are not necessarily interested in working with children. These courses can be taken individually and combined with courses of other accredited BMC^® programs. Together with the Skeletal and Organ Courses, which Babyfit plans to offer in 2009, they fulfil the requirements of the 1^st year of the BMC^® Somatic Movement Education program.

The completion of all the six above listed courses and their requirements leads to the title of Infant Developmental Movement Education (IDME). The certificate is issued by The School for Body-Mind Centering®, based in Massachusetts, USA.

The main language in class will be English; we plan to have the course material available in English, German, Slovak, Hungarian, Italian and French, and to have oral language updates after class with a BMC^® person that speaks your language; please, contact us if language should be a concern!

Location         The Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Bratislava, Slovakia

Teachers      

Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen,     founder of the BMC®- and IDME approaches,

Gloria Desideri, Katy Dymoke, Amelia Ender, Walburga Glatz, Lenore Grubinger, Jeanette Engler, Mark Taylor, Friederike Troescher and other Certified Teachers of BMC®.
Our teachers come from Europe and the USA and will contribute their different specializations in dance, choreography, psychology, spiritual work as well as their long-term experience with children.

Registration and Information

Babyfit, non-profit organization, focuses on movement activities of parents and children from 0 to 36 months of age. Its founders are Mgr.Art Anna Sedlačková ArtD. and Mgr.Art. Angelika Kováčová.

Please, feel free to contact me or babyfit for further information!

Please see also Offers.