The Feldenkrais Method®: A Way of Learning
The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education is a process of learning developed by Moshe Feldenkrais. This method uses gentle movement and directed attention to help people learn new and more effective ways to move and be in the world. With proven benefits to professional athletes, actors, musicians, and dancers, as well as those with chronic pain or in injury recovery, Feldenkrais can reduce pain and stress, develop strength, regulate your nervous system, make your anatomy more conscious, and awaken new, more functional patterns for moving and living with ease. From the 1940’s -1970's, Dr. Feldenkrais explored the interconnections between the body, the mind, environment, self awareness and self development.
Moshe Feldenkrais said, “We move according to our perceived self-image.” By expanding your perception and increasing awareness, you will become more aware of your habits and your tensions, and develop new, more functional ways of moving. By increasing sensitivity, the Feldenkrais Method assists you to live your life more fully, efficiently, and comfortably.
Principles of the method …
Deep rooted learning, pain relief, play and imagination, creative potential, new possibilities, spontaneity…
Learn to move with curiosity and ease
Increase proprioception: the ability to feel one’s integrated self
Reduce pain, stress, and tension
Learn healthy functional movement patterns
Deepen self awareness and mindfulness
Develop curiosity and playfulness in movement
“I am going to be your last teacher. Not because I’ll be the greatest teacher you may ever encounter, but because from me you will learn how to learn. When you learn how to learn, you will realize that there are no teachers, that there are only people learning and people learning how to facilitate learning.”
Group Class Format: Awareness Through Movement® (ATM lessons):
Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) lessons are a form of somatic education that combines gentle movement with directed attention to enhance movement function and develop an ability to listen to the body. Increase your efficiency while moving, improve your flexibility and coordination, and rediscover your natural capacity for graceful, ease-filled movement through these verbally guided classes. The Feldenkrais® Method is established from principles of physics, biomechanics, and an understanding of learning and human development.
“The practice is often hard to put into words, but it is involves cultivating my awareness, questioning my relationship to productivity and ambition, and relearning how to move outside my patterns. Sarah challenges me to notice and not achieve, to rest and not perfect, to be curious instead of judgmental. I leave class feeling somehow more in my body and more of the world.” - Jeffrey Wells
By expanding self-awareness through movement sequences, students uncover new and more functional options for how to move. Become more aware of your habitual neuromuscular patterns, and progress into new ways of relating to the world and experience new forms of movement. For most, a difference can be felt after one just ATM lesson. Repeated regular practice deepens your sensitivity and potential to integrate the profound shifts from the lessons into your everyday movement and life.
“Through Awareness Through Movement, we can learn to move with astonishing lightness and freedom - at almost any age - and thereby improve our living circumstances, not only physically … but emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.”
Individual Session Format: Functional Integration® (FI):
Feldenkrais® private sessions are known as Functional Integration® (FI®) lessons. In Functional Integration, the teacher guides an individual student in movement lessons using gentle, non-invasive touch as the primary means of communication.
The Feldenkrais teacher’s touch reflects to the student how they currently organize their body and actions. They suggest, through gentle touch and movement, expanded possibilities for new movement patterns which are more comfortable, efficient, and useful. Functional Integration lessons are flexible in their approach, determined by the student’s needs. The student may lie comfortably on a table designed specifically for the work, or do some of the lesson sitting or standing. The student learns how to reorganize their actions in new and more effective ways through the experience of comfort, enjoyment, and ease of movement. Your practice is personalized to fit your needs in an open, safe space. The intention is never to “fix” or “correct" the student, but instead to create a context for learning. I will move you slowly, in an easy range, feeling how movement passes through you and helping take over extra work you are doing.
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais giving a Functional Integration lesson
You will feel how you are connected, through movement, with a greater sense of ease in how your skeleton supports you. You may become aware of where or how you are holding tension and then find yourself letting go. You will have a fresh, newly discovered experience of yourself.
This recent comment from a student with shoulder pain the day after their first FI session:
"If I am dreaming, please don’t wake me. I haven’t gotten this far into the day without pain, for a month, probably. Nothing short of a miracle."
Here is an example of part of a lesson: