Embracing Life Changes:
Marvellous Menstruation to Magnificent Menopause
Menstruation is a time of cleansing, reflection, affirmation of womanliness. It does not have to encompass pain and suffering. Aviva teaches exercises that release muscular and mental tension, ease menstrual flow. She also discusses celebrating emotions, foods, and many ways of self-nurturing that assist make menstruating a marvellous, womanly, pleasurable experience.
Body Image: acceptance of age, size, and physical condition at the present time. How to move with greater ease and comfort, increase your flexibility, improve your overall fitness safely, whatever stage you're at.
Emotional condition: Express yourself safely; turn perceived negatives to powerful positives.
Mind: keeping on the ball.
MOTHER
Both Aviva's children were born using Active Birthing and Vocal Dance techniques.
Her son, Leslie Marsh, is Creative Director for PNMG, Sydney. http://www.pnmg.com.au
Her daughter, Rosie Sheb'a, won National Future Leaders Environment Award 2005 and is currently studying for a Bachelor of Science degree at the Australian National University. |
Birth Training
Labour can be seen as a marathon, for which you need a well-prepared, trained body and mind.
Birth Training involves confronting your fears – particularly fears associated with physical pain. Releasing muscular tension means letting go of whatever has caused the muscles to be tight. This, in itself, requires courage.
In slow, soft stretching we come to realise it's actually our minds more than our muscles that are stiff. As we relax into the various positions, breathing and visualising away our tension, it "melts", leaving us feeling relaxed and relieved of fears, tension and problems – some of which we may have been carrying around for many years.
Lovely as the results are, it's not always easy, as we need to give in to the sensations, and breathe them away till they've gone. After working in this way for a few sessions, we realise just how beneficial it has been. This is superb training for Labour.
Each student goes at her own pace.
Aviva Sheb'a is a qualified dance teacher with over thirty years' professionalexperience. In Holland, she studied Active Birth Training with Edith and Jonathon Shaw – colleagues of the founders of Active Birth Education, Janet and Arthur Balaskas. Aviva brought Active Birth preparation to
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Aviva giving birth to her first child.
Photo ©1983 Tim Handfield |
Australia in the early eighties, teaching midwives, childbirth educators, women and couples at the Childbirth Education Association and Vaucluse Hospital in Melbourne. She has also taught massage and developed her own system of teaching movement and voice – Vocal Dance. She is a mother of two teenage children, to whom she gave birth squatting. She concentrated on raising The Darlings for several years, and is now teaching Active Birth and Vocal Dance once more.
Aviva says:
“If the only factors were pregnancy and giving birth, I'd have had a baby every year. Just as well there's more to Motherhood than that!”
Training throughout pregnancy is ideal, however many women have found that even one session shortly before the birth has been invaluable.
For women and couples who want to be in control of their own birthing experiences, whether at home or in hospital. Aviva is realistic: births do not always go as planned or desired. She assists women and couples come to terms with difficult births.
Download word doc on Active Birthing.
Yes, There IS Life After Birth!
Following birth, women too often get lost in the cycle of nappy changing, feeding, and generally tending to Baby. Lack of sleep, disrupted meals, and carrying on through exhaustion make it very difficult to function. Not to mention sifting through well meant advice!
In this workshop, women learn ways to release tension, increase circulation, to nurture themselves. They also learn ways to maintain their integrity as mothers and not bow to pressure from others on how to raise their children, where necessary.
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