Larissa Babij joins InTouch editor Seth Dellinger for a conversation to probe deeper into her personal story: “My Feldenkrais training prepared me well for living through the uncertainty and turmoil following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Larissa Babij has been teaching Awareness Through Movement® classes since 2020. She has devoted countless hours since childhood to various forms of dance, ranging from Ukrainian folk to contemporary to the Lindy Hop. She began her professional training in the Feldenkrais Method® in New York City in 2017. Born in the US in a Ukrainian family, Larissa has lived in Kyiv since 2005. She works as a translator and writes about her life in Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion in her blog, A Kind of Refugee. Her dispatches from wartime Ukraine in 2022 will be published as a book by ibidem Press next spring.
See also her article: What is the self-image of a Feldenkrais practitioner in a dangerous world? comprised of excerpts of Larissa’s participation in a combat exercise that led to a striking realization about the evolution of her self-image and stories about teaching Awareness Through Movement to Ukrainian soldiers.