Frieda Goralewski

Frieda Goralewski (born March 15, 1893 in Hildesheim ; † January 6, 1989 in Berlin-Grunewald ), known as "Gora", worked as a breathing and body teacher and therapist in Berlin from the 1920s until her death.

overview

With her work she was part of the life reform movement that emerged at the beginning of the 20th century . Like Lily Ehrenfried , Elfriede Hengstenberg , Sophie Ludwig and Charlotte Selver , she was a student of Elsa Gindler . This had pioneered somatic learning as an orientation for personality development. In the 1980s Frieda Goralewski was the Gindler student with the greatest impact in Germany: 300 to 500 participants of all ages attended her group lessons six days a week, which she simply called "gymnastics" . She also trained teachers to teach today. Your work is funded by the Goralewski Society

Life

Frieda Goralewski was born as the oldest of eight children. The father was an accountant and businessman. In 1908 the family moved to Danzig and from there to Berlin shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. She describes her childhood and youth as very close to nature and happy. She experienced the move to Berlin as a double trauma, the anonymity of the big city and the outbreak of war threatened her. In addition, as the oldest child , “Gora” had to become a teacher in order to contribute to the family support as soon as possible. Her "tiny" stature and her insecurity after an apprenticeship that was broken off due to the war made her situation in a boys' school in the working-class district of Wedding a great challenge.

During this time, probably in 1914, she met Elsa Gindler (1885–1961). Their daily “gymnastics lessons” immediately became a source of life. After a few years, “Gora” received an informal “diploma” to teach. From now on she devoted her life to this work: “To find the body” and to support other people, in such a way to “find their way into the body that it comes to life from within”.

Frieda Goralewski worked in Berlin since the 1920s. The Nazis destroyed their previously built existence. The Jewish students had disappeared and the others no longer trusted her because she was rightly suspected of resistance. After the war it started again. Until one day before her death, she accompanied people of all ages in her courses and individual treatments: from pregnancy and crawling to old age. In the 1980s, she was the Gindler student with the greatest number of activities in Germany, with many courses six days a week. From 1981, there were training classes for a few years, which were instructed by her and her employees.

Act

Elsa Gindler assumed a "natural gymnastics" to succeed Hedwig Kallmeyer and the development of respiratory therapy at that time. Very soon she recognized the connection between the body and general human behavior through the tangible penetration of her work. As a result, she is now considered a pioneer of modern body work and body psychotherapy. This and the collaboration with Heinrich Jacoby after 1924 made her more and more a general adult educator with the “body as an information organ”. In particular after 1945, in addition to exploring their own nature in the body, their working groups also regularly discussed and researched the consequences of these experiences in terms of overall behavior: “post-development”.

Frieda Goralewski was a very early student of Elsa Gindler. Gindler's female apprentices also started their first courses. Kindness, warmth and closeness to nature in her personality led to seemingly simple lessons, which she called "meditations of the body" at the end of her life. Delicate of stature, and decades of her life very handicapped, she appeared with almost inexhaustible energy. Essential in her group lessons was her powerful voice with which she constantly accompanied the participants in their search for more liveliness in their movements, be it in large everyday movements, be it in the most delicate movements lying down "on the red carpet". In becoming aware of breathing and movement, it is possible to experience and recognize how one can physically disturb oneself, how one can instead act more efficiently with less tension and allow recovery processes. In addition to actors, dancers and musicians who developed support in their professional practice, most of the adult participants were interested in improved physicality and quality of life or came with health concerns.

swell

• Katrin Denizart, Gabriele M. Franzen, Leonore Quest, Marianne Schwandt, Ina Schwebes, Elisabeth Trautmann (eds.): On the red carpet. Memories of Frieda Goralewski . Goralewski Society, Berlin 2003.
• Gabriele M. Franzen: Becoming ready to react internally and externally. Post-development as a holistic concern between the fields of movement research, pedagogy and therapy as well as meditation. The work of Elsa Gindler (1885–1961) . In: Feldenkrais Association Germany (Ed.): Volume for the 2nd European Feldenkrais Congress . 2005.
• Irene Sieben: For Frieda Goralewski. tanz aktuell 2, 1989, pp. 3-4

Web links

• HP of the Goralevsky Society

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Peter Oberlechner, Carl Amery, future workshop Kraftfeld [Vienna, Austria] (ed.): Science and sensuality . H. Böhlau, Vienna 1986, ISBN 3-205-07402-5 , p. 81 (129 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
2. ↑ Thomas Müller: Psychotherapy and body work in Berlin: History and practices of establishment (=  treatises on the history of medicine and natural sciences . Issue 86). Matthiesen Verlag, Husum 2004, ISBN 3-7868-4086-5 , p. 178, 199 (328 p., Limited preview in Google Book search).
3. ↑ Katrin Denizart, Gabriele M. Franzen, Leonore Quest, Marianne Schwandt, Ina Schwebes, Elisabeth Trautmann (eds.): On the red carpet. Memories of Frieda Goralewski . Goralewski Society, Berlin 2003. , p. 69 ff.
4. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Page 17 
5. ↑ Gabriele M. Franzen: Be ready to react internally and externally. Post-development as a holistic concern between the fields of movement research, pedagogy and therapy as well as meditation. The work of Elsa Gindler (1885–1961) . In: Feldenkrais Association Germany (Ed.): Volume for the 2nd European Feldenkrais Congress . 2005.
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from July 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Page 18