The Feldenkrais Method^®

The most basic element of the Feldenkrais Method is faith — faith in our human ability to learn, and to improve our situation through learning. We use movement as the medium for learning, movements that are designed to clear up symptoms and to enhance overall functioning. The benefits of Feldenkrais include improvement of our comfort and skill in movement, but they also extend into areas of our emotional and psychological life. Moshé Feldenkrais viewed the human potential as unlimited and barely tapped. The way to tap it is simple, through learning. We are built for learning. We learn (usually) to look where we want, to reach for what we want, to crawl, sit, stand and then to walk and run. We learn this in response to our own innate human curiosity and pleasure in accomplishment. We learn well enough to satisfy our need at the time. Later in life our situation may change: what we want may change, or the accidents of life may have altered our selves or our environment. How can we learn to cope with the new situation? As adults, we are usually very far from our original childlike pleasure in movement and learning.

The Feldenkrais Method is a way of re-awakening that original pleasure in learning. This kind of learning has a special quality.

When we first learn some new skill, its freshness means that it isn't automatic. It won't be our first, instinctive action; our memory may need to be jogged in order to choose it. We may also have to think about the process as we do it, and that thinking may slow us down. But when we have truly learned a new skill, we no longer need to think of each step; it fits together as a whole inner sensation. The advantage of such a skill acquired by awareness is that when it doesn’t work in the real activities of daily life this new habit easily provokes awareness and so helps us to make a fresh and efficient change to meet the new requirements of our environment.

The Feldenkrais Method®

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The Feldenkrais Method^®