What is the Feldenkrais Method?

Awareness Through Movement and Gentle Touch

The Feldenkrais method combines movement training, gentle touch, and verbal dialogue to help people create freer, more efficient movement. Developed by the Russian-born Israeli physicist Moshe Feldenkrais, it is based on modern ideas and basic research about perception, motor learning, neural plasticity, and sensory integration.

History

Feldenkrais began studying human functioning in the 1940s. Integrating the physics of body movement with how people move, behave, and interact, he developed a system to improve movement and functioning. There are two forms of Feldenkrais therapy: 1) awareness through movement and 2) functional integration. Both seek to help people relearn the proper way their body should move.

Gentle exploratory movement sequences focused on a specific function, such as bending, reaching, or walking. The teacher provides verbal directions to increase awareness of the many possibilities of action. Thinking, sensory perception, and imagery are also used to enable the student to discover how they move. Students abandon habitual patterns and develop awareness, flexibility, and coordination.

Functional integration

In this approach the teacher tells students how they are organizing their movements and suggests other choices for movement patterns. This is done lying or standing, walking, or sitting in a chair. One-to-one sessions guide students through a series of precise movements that suggest new patterns to the neuromuscular system.

Possible uses

pain management
physical therapy
sports performance enhancement

Some studies suggest that movement re-education is an important component in physical therapy and recovery for persons with lower-back pain and neurological disorders such as Parkinson disease and stroke. Other studies suggest it is useful in pain management and as a gentle exercise method. Unpublished research suggests that after semiweekly classes for six weeks, rheumatoid arthritis patients had decreased pain, improved walking performance, and improved ability to stand up from a sitting position. Case studies of patients suffering from acute and chronic back pain show that the Feldenkrais method helped even when a variety of other conventional and alternative methods had failed to produce results.

back to Juliette Kando