Adrienne Penebre
Personal Story | BIO
When I first came to The Anat Baniel Method (ABM) it was with the intention of becoming more skillful. My decade long career as a music artist and yoga teacher required a constant refining of skill, and the ability to guide others to do the same. ABM held the promise of a “proven method” of doing so. Within the first few days of training, I experienced profound changes in the way I was thinking, feeling and moving. It was as if I had emerged from a long slumber. I felt smarter, more creative, less fearful. I was moving better in that first week than I had in 12 years of devoted practicing and teaching of Yoga. Most notably, I felt an amazing sense of vitality and aliveness. In time, I completely healed from debilitating back and foot pain. Today, as many of my peers are feeling the beginning of "the great decline," I feel stronger, more comfortable and more capable than at any other time in my life.
The pathway out of my limitations was much easier than the mysterious journey I took to create them, which, like the past, is complicated and unrecoverable. The solution is much simpler than the problem itself. Through the learning of small and novel actions, in present time, I changed my brain. Learning new ways of “doing” re-formed my old ways of “being.” Just like that.
Today, as a specialist in The Anat Baniel Method, I take great pleasure in the joys and challenges of facilitating others in creating their own capacity. Seeing into the potential of another person and helping them emerge is truly a humble gift of my work, and healing for me too. Working with children is an especially remarkable experience. Disease and trauma leaves deep scars on small beings, but their resilience, determination, and intelligence is most often so much stronger. The ABM is a way to reach into a child and unlock their potential.
I recall my own experience as a child. I had a deep feeling of being trapped by the limited thoughts and ideas of the adults around me. My mother’s love and respect helped me develop a strong sense of self, but my culture was sending me very distorted messages. It was the 70’s, and I was a biracial child being raised by my white mother in a rural and racist Midwest and South. The assumptions and labels placed on me were foreign, stifling and just plain wrong. I often felt looked at, but never seen. And definitely not understood. I remember this feeling every time I work with a child, seeking to connect with who they really are. And I often wonder when working with adults: who is the child that lives here? Healing has a way of peeling back the masks of time, revealing the forgotten child in each of us.
Thankfully, I had a few remarkable advocates in my life. I think of Mr. Ball, who helped me re-write the story that I was “bad at math,” by awakening my excitement and capacity for solving algebraic equations. Or Will Hanson, who groomed my rock- n- roll drummer dreams with trap set duets in a music store practice room. High quality guidance and trust in my own ability to learn has continued to shape my life in profound ways.
My compassion for working with people comes most deeply from a place of hope. I know the capacity we each have to restore ourselves by walking our unique paths in our own ways, to rewrite our own stories of who we think we are, and to move towards wholeness. We are, after all, built to do just that. When I am giving a lesson, I am co-creating with a student's way of doing and being, until together we synthesize thought, feeling and movement into new actions. Sharing in this process with people is much like drumming duets with Mr. Hanson ; collaborating with each person's distinctive rhythms, speed, harmony and soulfulness until a new composition emerges; and with it, new possibilities.
The pathway out of my limitations was much easier than the mysterious journey I took to create them, which, like the past, is complicated and unrecoverable. The solution is much simpler than the problem itself. Through the learning of small and novel actions, in present time, I changed my brain. Learning new ways of “doing” re-formed my old ways of “being.” Just like that.
Today, as a specialist in The Anat Baniel Method, I take great pleasure in the joys and challenges of facilitating others in creating their own capacity. Seeing into the potential of another person and helping them emerge is truly a humble gift of my work, and healing for me too. Working with children is an especially remarkable experience. Disease and trauma leaves deep scars on small beings, but their resilience, determination, and intelligence is most often so much stronger. The ABM is a way to reach into a child and unlock their potential.
I recall my own experience as a child. I had a deep feeling of being trapped by the limited thoughts and ideas of the adults around me. My mother’s love and respect helped me develop a strong sense of self, but my culture was sending me very distorted messages. It was the 70’s, and I was a biracial child being raised by my white mother in a rural and racist Midwest and South. The assumptions and labels placed on me were foreign, stifling and just plain wrong. I often felt looked at, but never seen. And definitely not understood. I remember this feeling every time I work with a child, seeking to connect with who they really are. And I often wonder when working with adults: who is the child that lives here? Healing has a way of peeling back the masks of time, revealing the forgotten child in each of us.
Thankfully, I had a few remarkable advocates in my life. I think of Mr. Ball, who helped me re-write the story that I was “bad at math,” by awakening my excitement and capacity for solving algebraic equations. Or Will Hanson, who groomed my rock- n- roll drummer dreams with trap set duets in a music store practice room. High quality guidance and trust in my own ability to learn has continued to shape my life in profound ways.
My compassion for working with people comes most deeply from a place of hope. I know the capacity we each have to restore ourselves by walking our unique paths in our own ways, to rewrite our own stories of who we think we are, and to move towards wholeness. We are, after all, built to do just that. When I am giving a lesson, I am co-creating with a student's way of doing and being, until together we synthesize thought, feeling and movement into new actions. Sharing in this process with people is much like drumming duets with Mr. Hanson ; collaborating with each person's distinctive rhythms, speed, harmony and soulfulness until a new composition emerges; and with it, new possibilities.
Adrienne's Biography
Adrienne with Anat Baniel
Adrienne studied The Anat Baniel Method with Anat Baniel and Marcy Lindheimer. After completing the basic training, she continued earning her mastery trainings in Children with Special Needs, Anti-Aging & Vitality, and High Performers between 2009 and 2012. She continues advanced supervision studies in ABM for Children with Master Trainer Sylvia Shordike, works as support staff at ABM Professional Trainings, and often serves as Ms. Baniel's personal assistant at workshops at Omega Institute and event appearances on the East Coast.
Adrienne's desire to work with children with special needs is inspired and informed by her life changing experience studying with Anat Baniel. She is also greatly influenced by Dr. Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber, who pioneered principles of child rearing based on respect for babies' organic learning process and innate intelligence. Adrienne studied Magda Gerber's "Educaring" model through the RIE Foundations course with infant/family educator Ruth Anne Hammond (author of "Respecting Babies").
Adrienne taught yoga to adults in Washington DC's Capitol Hill community for over 15 years. She earned her teaching certifications through Samayama Yoga and Nosara Yoga, and is a registered teacher with the Yoga Alliance and The Kripalu Teachers Association. She recently created "Technique Yoga, " infusing yoga with the ABM principles of learning through movement to help students reach new levels of abilities and self-awareness.
In 2020 she launched Moovy, an online studio for NeuroMovement based classes and programs.
Before starting her private practice as an ABM practitioner, Adrienne had a career in television production as a writer, producer and music composer. In 1999 she and her husband started Burning Barn Sound & Music, and for over a decade Adrienne has composed music scores for TV and radio ads, public art installations, films, and television documentaries for National Geographic Television, the Discovery Channel, PBS, and other major cable networks.
Adrienne's desire to work with children with special needs is inspired and informed by her life changing experience studying with Anat Baniel. She is also greatly influenced by Dr. Emmi Pikler and Magda Gerber, who pioneered principles of child rearing based on respect for babies' organic learning process and innate intelligence. Adrienne studied Magda Gerber's "Educaring" model through the RIE Foundations course with infant/family educator Ruth Anne Hammond (author of "Respecting Babies").
Adrienne taught yoga to adults in Washington DC's Capitol Hill community for over 15 years. She earned her teaching certifications through Samayama Yoga and Nosara Yoga, and is a registered teacher with the Yoga Alliance and The Kripalu Teachers Association. She recently created "Technique Yoga, " infusing yoga with the ABM principles of learning through movement to help students reach new levels of abilities and self-awareness.
In 2020 she launched Moovy, an online studio for NeuroMovement based classes and programs.
Before starting her private practice as an ABM practitioner, Adrienne had a career in television production as a writer, producer and music composer. In 1999 she and her husband started Burning Barn Sound & Music, and for over a decade Adrienne has composed music scores for TV and radio ads, public art installations, films, and television documentaries for National Geographic Television, the Discovery Channel, PBS, and other major cable networks.
