Brief History of ETC & ETAB

History of the ETC & ETAB

1986 : The North American Training and Accreditation Board (NATAB) was founded by the Feldenkrais Guild of North America (FGNA) as the international body for the accreditation (training standards - not italics) of Professional Feldenkrais Trainings and the certification of Trainers and Assistant Trainers worldwide.

1987: The FGNA held the first international meeting in Amsterdam. At this meeting were, Moshe’s sister, Malka Feldenkrais Silice, Trainers and Assistant Trainers working in Europe, representatives from the FGNA, French, German and Australian practitioner organizations, Amherst graduates from Italy, Switzerland and the UK, and several members of the Mia Segal “Holland Group.”

1988 : One position was established on NATAB for a European representative. The FGNA held their annual meeting in London. Groups were set up to continue meeting to further develop their areas of interest. From one of these groups the Feldenkrais European Meetings group (FEM) was established.

1989 : FEM held their first meeting. It was envisioned as an international group to include organizations from Europe, Israel and Australia to discuss issues, share concerns and give support. They developed communications with NATAB and together in 1990 formed a European Training Accreditation Bureau, (EuroTAB).

1991 : EuroTAB started functioning with the support of NATAB and steps were mutually defined to facilitate learning and build confidence. From the beginning, it was accepted that the basic Guildelines would be the same worldwide.

1994 : The guilds/associations together with Feldenkrais Europa (FEM's new name) looked for a closer connection to EuroTAB. In October 1994 Feldenkrais Europa created a constitution for the EuroTAB Council (ETC), in order that “the EuroTAB Council is created to relieve the EuroTAB from having to be a legislative as well as an executive body.”

1995 : May 1995 saw the first ETC meeting in Heidelberg, Germany. Representatives from 10 guilds attended: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland.
At this meeting EuroTAB requested that it have an official “parent body” as it needed oversight legally, functionally to administer the process of policy.

Since 1995 EuroTAB has been a permanent commission of the EuroTAB Council (ETC). At this point there were 11 EuroTAB members.

1996 : ETC streamlined membership of EuroTAB, due to the high cost of meetings. It was modified to a total of three trainers and assistant trainers, two elected practitioners and one liaison from ETC. It was also agreed that ETC/ETAB would appoint a secretary who was a full voting member. NATAB and AusTAB were each invited to appoint one of their members as a full voting liaison member to EuroTAB.

Leila Malcolm & Dorothy Henning, May 10, 2011