The lessons are designed to improve ability, to expand the boundaries of the possible,
to turn the impossible into the possible,
the difficult into the easy and the easy into the pleasant.
Moshe Feldenkrais
Our habitual ways of moving, feeling, and acting become deeply embedded in our nervous system, often restricting us to a small portion of our potential, and creating unnecessary physical and psychological limitations.
The Feldenkrais Method can free us from unnecessary habitual patterns and enable new, more effective ways of moving and feeling to emerge. Because the Feldenkrais Method is a general approach to human learning and functioning, it can be applied to improve or alleviate many difficulties.
The name of the method is taken from the distinguished scientist, physicist, engineer, and martial artist, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984). Integrating insights from physics, motor development, bio-mechanics, psychology, biology, and martial arts, he developed a powerful, effective, and practical application to enable anyone to fully focus in work and recreation. In the decade before and after he died, regional and international guilds were established to promote the Feldenkrais Method and to stimulate cooperation and communication. Today there are over 5,000 Feldenkrais practitioners world-wide.
In recent years, MRI scans of brain activity have borne out theories Dr. Feldenkrais developed decades ago that explain how throughout the human life-span, the brain and nervous system organize movement, and through movement, learning of various kinds. Dr. Feldenkrais’ insights, distilled in the Feldenkrais Method, have contributed to the development of the new field of somatic education and continue to influence workers in the performing arts, education, psychology, child development, physical and occupational therapy, athletic training, and gerontology.
People seek lessons in the Feldenkrais Method because they want to feel better, find better ways of doing things that they have trouble with, learn how to stop pain they experience when they move, or feel better about how they move or perform a task. Some students suffer from very restricted movement, chronic tension and pain, injury, or developmental and neurological problems. Others simply want to achieve more ease and skill. Lessons help all students feel more relaxed and perhaps a little taller or lighter on their feet, while they discover and use more of their potential for thought, expression and action.
Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process
and you improve the quality of life itself.
Moshe Feldenkrais
What is the Feldenkrais Method? is a ten minute DVD developed by the Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America (FEFNA)