A Brief Summary

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Founder, Moshe Feldenkrais

Moshe Feldenkrais was born in 1904 in what is now Slavuta, Ukraine  ... Feldenkrais left for Palestine in 1918. He also developed skills in self-defense and shared those survival techniques with his peers. In 1930, Feldenkrais moved to Paris, France to study engineering. During that time, he met Kano, the originator of Judo, and became one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt. He continued his studies at the Sorbonne and worked in the laboratories of the Joliot-Curies. When the Nazis came to Paris in 1940, Feldenkrais escaped to Great Britain and worked on anti-submarine defense through the remainder of World War II. During this time, Feldenkrais was functionally impaired by his knees that were first injured during a football (soccer) match in Palestine, and further damaged by escaping France and moving about submarines.

 

Medical options for relief were limited and not very promising. Instead, Feldenkrais began a process of self-exploration that helped him restore his function and developed into his method. He delved into the literature of many disciplines, from mechanics to psychology. Feldenkrais compiled a series of lectures that were well-received by the scientists with him in Scotland. After Feldenkrais moved to London at the end of the war, he published those lectures as his first book about his method, Body and Mature Behavior (Feldenkrais, 1996).

 

The Feldenkrais Method™

Feldenkrais returned to Israel in 1951; he was soon fully occupied with teaching his method. As the popularity of his work grew, he developed hundreds of lessons that could be delivered verbally to groups of students. Late in life, he taught others to teach his method, beginning in Israel and ending in the United States. He died in 1984. It is remarkable, while also understandable given his background, that Feldenkrais “would choose learning as the most useful path for serving the wholeness of both individual and society”. Thus, the Feldenkrais Method is first and foremost a learning method, albeit one with reported therapeutic effects. It is an embodied process of self inquiry that typically occurs in two formats: individual lessons called Functional Integration, and group lessons known as Awareness Through Movement.

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The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education is an integrative approach to learning and improving

function among people of varying abilities across the lifespan. With an emphasis on increasing self-awareness through lessons that stimulate sensing, moving, feeling, and thinking, certified practitioners

or teachers of the method propose to take advantage of the human capacity to self-organize behavior.

People have used the Feldenkrais Method to enhance their function in many aspects of life, including performance at work, in sports, or in the performing arts. However, estimates are that many more have

used it to recover from injury, manage pain, reduce stress, or improve other health-related conditions,

either as complementary or alternative approaches to traditional Western medicine.

 The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education 

Patricia A. Buchanan, January 2012