Joanne Olecko, MSc, GCFT

My path to Feldenkrais was anything but direct—and I think that’s part of what makes it meaningful to me.

It started with a childhood fascination with the brain: how it works, how we learn, and what happens when things go wrong. That curiosity took on a more personal dimension in my teens, when I began to understand that having overly mobile joints could set off a cascade of problems — chronic myofascial pain, back and neck pain, hip and shoulder pain, sleep-disordered breathing, migraines, and more ankle sprains than I can count.

Feldenkrais is what ultimately brought these threads together.

What followed was a long apprenticeship as a patient. I worked with chiropractors, physical therapists, acupuncturists, and a long list of medical specialists. Each helped in their own way, but none got to the root of it. It was my GP — a wonderfully thoughtful internist — who finally referred me to a Feldenkrais practitioner. That referral introduced me to a way of thinking about movement and learning that would eventually reshape my life. I began to understand that the answer to my problems didn’t live in any single specialty. It was both more complex—and ultimately more empowering—than that.

Meanwhile, my desire to understand pain shaped my entire career. I studied biomedical engineering at USC (specializing in neuroengineering) and spent nearly two decades in clinical research alongside people living with severe neuropathic pain and movement disorders. My focus was neuromodulation — technologies like implantable spinal and brain stimulators designed to interrupt or reshape neural signals. It was fascinating, important work. But it also gave me a front-row seat to how incomplete our tools often are, and how much of what drives lasting change remains stubbornly out of reach for conventional medicine.

Yoga and mindfulness meditation became another thread of my journey. I completed my RYT-200 teacher training at Downtown Yoga under Kate Coughlin in 2020, drawn to the quiet precision of an Iyengar-influenced practice and what it asks of your attention. Teaching yoga deepened my appreciation of movement as a form of learning—not merely exercise.

Feldenkrais is what ultimately brought these threads together.

The practice helped me move through yoga without overstretching vulnerable joints, improved my balance and stability, and gave me practical ways to regulate my nervous system. I slept more restoratively, experienced fewer migraines, and gradually found myself moving and living with greater ease and confidence.

I was able to return to activities I loved—skiing, running, kayaking, hiking, traveling—without the constant fear of triggering old patterns of pain.

My neuroengineering background gave me the scientific vocabulary for something I had already begun to experience firsthand through Feldenkrais: the brain is not fixed, habits are not destiny, and meaningful learning remains possible throughout life.

In 2024, I completed my Guild Certification through the Kelowna Feldenkrais Teacher Training Program under Educational Director Julie Peck. The four-year training deepened my understanding of movement, learning, and the extraordinary adaptability of the nervous system.

Today, I teach in the Tri-Valley area and remain endlessly curious about what becomes possible when people learn to pay attention to how they move.

-Joanne