Jill Wigmore-W elsh

There are folk who love to explore and people who like things to stay the same. My smile now is much the same as it was as an excited child discovering shells and seaweed on the beach at age 6. Simple natural curiosity and new discoveries make my world a rich place to be. There is always so much more to find out. 

My reading started at age 4 when a deep determination pushed me to learn to read. Then when I could I spent a childhood devouring books. I’d read my way through most of the classics by the time I was 12 and remember a ferocious phase of reading every bit of Solzhenitsyn when I was 10.

Not surprisingly, I've always loved writing stories, making up poetry, singing and talking. I'm an ideator, a spatial thinker a creator of systems, a lover of many diverse topics from philosophy, to psychology, art, health, and politics. I’m also dyslexic and somewhere around age 10 my first senior school teacher told me to not write again until I could spell and do grammar, that put things back a bit.

I enjoy creating space, drawing space, drawing movement and I paint sculpt, sew, knit, weave, watch dance, hear music, drum on my djembe.

Another deep joy has always been movement. Riding horses, tumbling gymnastics, dancing to the beat of music, being in the fresh air feeling the changing weather on my skin, physical activity enables me to live with and in my body. 

When other people are stuck and their energy is low because they can’t find a solution, my energy is sparked as a solution invariably pops into my thinking.

Over years I have created brand names for several successful business friends run and set up systems and processes.

Whenever I do something I seek to find quality in the experience. If I’m training someone to move out of suffering, it’s a learning for me as well. Over the years training and studying has always been in depth and that’s a hang-over from my dyslexic thing. I can write complex stories and join up seemingly diverse concepts, but ask me to write with simple straight line elegance and I fail.

I’d finished all my school years by age 17 because I’d been put up two years at school, I left with high qualifications, training as an Architect was a real calling but wasn’t either obstinate or confident to convince my family. But my father dissuaded me by saying I would never manage in an office all day (he was right)

My much older brother was a Dentist, the physios seemed a nice bunch so I applied to train as one. But when I started the training I had no idea what the profession was let alone that I would be expected to wear a uniform. It was a horrifying experience for a person who had always designed and made her own clothes to wear regulation brown shoes, beige tights, a white coat, and a uniform.

But soon I discovered physio was about the body and movement and people and change. I discovered I could talk to people, listen to them help them relax and understand and motivate them, it was fun. I could just watch someone moving and 'see' their skeleton & muscles inside.

On qualifying as a Physio, The Royal London offered me a job. I was pretty much thrown in at the deep end working on the orthopaedic wards and outpatients, training nurses in body biomechanics and supervising students. After around 14 months I left London for Oxfordshire, then Berkshire. 

At first I wanted a break from working as a Physiotherapist, drawn to complete an Art degree, but that was not to be. My partner was a useless businessman, we needed to earn money to pay the bills, so back into 'physio' I went.

By the time, I had been qualified for 3 years I was an NHS Physio Department Manager running a clinical caseload designing pioneering rehabilitation for folk after ACL, shoulder repairs, reconstructions, neuro, amputees, spinal. It was the different & unusual which kept me interested, the fact that I was creating something which hadn't been done before. I completed the NHS Graduate Management Program, maybe they considered me suitable to travel on to stay in the NHS. But not so.

Outside management I was employed at a Physio with British Judo Association looking after adult squads, team’s elite athlete, travelling the world in my holidays. Athletes came to me for rehab at my hospital department and I worked at their judo clubs. Then I was invited to work with GB Rowing as well, then I left my NHS employed job in 1985 to have a family.

Between 1977 and 1989 most of the postgraduate training I completed was very reductionist biomedical thinking. I trained extensively in manipulation & mobilization of joints. Methods included Maitland & Cyriax, both aimed to correct and re align joints. Exercise protocols for gym rehabilitation, progressive strength training, corrective management of scoliosis. It was traditional medical thinking, inject this, correct that, treat the patient although I did complete counselling training as well. By 1989 I was trained in acupuncture, at the time pioneering in the medical world, I no longer practice this because I consider it a placebo

Since 1985, I've worked in a broad variety of settings, working with a diverse range of conditions. These include Neurological, Amputees, Persistent Pain, Fibromyalgia & ME, Sport & Performance, Occupational Health, Musculoskeletal, Elective and Post Trauma Orthopaedic Surgery, Spinal Injury, Juvenile MSK and more. I've worked in settings as varied as NHS GP clinics, Dance Schools, river banks, Do-Jo's, Harley Street consulting rooms, people's own homes, my own clinic rooms, parks, gardens, company premises

Over time my thinking changed as I realized the powerful effect the mind and emotion and worry had on the athlete’s achievement at World Championships, Commonwealth Games, during squad selection weekends. How they could stress themselves with their competitive desires to win and not lose. My personality doesn't place a high value on interpersonal competition. It's never been my desire to win and beat other clinicians to the 'top job', most of my work has arrived because I've been sought out. 

I'm not sure at which point I started to reposition my role as not being that of getting people better, but of help them to move out of suffering, to a state where they got better. It fits with my personality to assist them to learn new things to move to a higher state of awareness and capability, giving them true choice.

In 1990 a big shift occurred, I came across the Feldenkrais Method, at first the work seemed weird. I began by listening to audio recordings, nothing like anything I had heard before. Gradually I began to attend classes for myself and the people with ME, Fibromyalgia & food intolerances, I was then working with. My first long weekend workshop was with Garet Newell who led the Feldenkrais training I completed. It was a workshop in London called Free Your Breath & Voice and the whole thing began to click into place. Then simply for my own personal development I attended classes at The Open Centre with a Feldenkrais practitioner who led weekends.

By 1993 I’d taken up meditation and was very interested in personal development & Buddhism. The same time I attended a four-day introductory in Feldenkrais and I studied the Feldenkrais Method and completed practitioner training between 1994 & 1999.

During the same years, I studied with Ruthy Alon's completing her Back Series as published in the book Mindful Spontaneity

Post graduate from the basic Feldenkrais Method training my advanced training I’ve been a student of Osa Jackson Wyatt PT: Feldenkrais with Elders, Larry Goldfarb Trainer in Feldenkrais: The Trilogy, Ruthy Alon Trainer in Feldenkrais: Bones for Life Teacher Certification

In 2000 I completed my Master of Science and researched individual’s perceptions of change. This involved open interviews & questionnaire analyses of Feldenkrais students compared with undergraduate university students.

In 2000, Butterworth Heinemann, published my writings in Complementary Therapies for Physical Therapists. In addition, I've published many full-length audio recordings which are available to purchase, links will be put up here.

Between 2000 till 2011, I studied the psychological and language approach of NLP and Hypnosis. I'm qualified as a Hypnotherapist and a certified Trainer in NLP and Reiki to Mastery level. I’ve been fortunate to be a student of many highly-respected people, Robert Dilts, Richard Bandler, Paul McKenna, Tim & Kris Halborn, Suzi Smith, Ian McDermott, Cricket Kemp and others

I've completed two very different approach Coach Certifications, the most recent at a level 7, plus I'm certified as both a Laughter Yoga Leader & Laughter Facilitator. 

Over the years, I've presented at several conferences and lectured many times on an invitation basis at Brunel, Westminster, Reading University.

Since 2000 my training company has been presenting & training healthcare professionals in clinical work & personal development. Over that period over 450 students have completed training courses and the number is growing. Several of the courses have been national qualifications framework standard graduates go on to use the work within their clinical work in many different countries.

Since 2012 I've been a full member of the Case Management Society UK, managing the whole process of people getting a life back after catastrophic injuries. It’s incredibly rewarding work.

Recently I’ve immersed myself in studying all the science around pain and movement & mind. I’ve now launched my Feldenkrais Principles training for healthcare professionals and will soon add in the Neuro Linguistic Personal Development courses. I probably study around 3 hours every day just for the enjoyment & learning.

Since the start of 2016 although keeping my HCPC registration I’m now exclusively offering courses of support, lessons & training to people who want to improve to change their quality of life. I've transitioned into the teacher now and people come to me to learn. Many people want to avoid unnecessary exposure to high risk treatment surgery or pharmaceuticals. The goal is to reduce suffering and pain, to assist people to make amazing transformations and change. It’s heart work and really appeals to those people who want to live a long health life with the benefit of an active mind & body  

Some years back I studied Art at Reading University, nowadays I sculpt, use mixed media & grow an amazing wildlife garden. My life includes two children now grown up into amazing people & four dogs who are always happy to see me.

I'm based in the UK, in Reading Berkshire around 28 minutes by train from London & Oxford 

Jill WW