Full, dynamic living is linked to our ability to experience and learn on our own. Ordinarily, we learn just enough to function. For example, we learn to use our hands well enough to eat, our legs well enough to walk. Functioning

with a greater range of ease and skill, however, remains to be developed.

The Feldenkrais Method teaches, through movement, how we can improve our capabilities to function in our daily lives, whether it’s lifting up a child, working at a computer, or training for the marathon. It enables us to rediscover movements that have been forgotten or excluded in our usual way of doing things. By allowing us to learn how our whole body cooperates in any movement, the method assists us in living our lives more fully, efficiently, and comfortably.

The method is especially useful for people who want to learn to overcome limitations brought on by stress, misuse, accident, or illness. It is equally beneficial for people who want to perform and feel better physically and mentally. 

The Feldenkrais Method helps you relearn to move through safe, gentle explorations. Not only can you reclaim lost or forgotten movement patterns, you can refine existing ones.

Every person can learn. It sounds obvious, but when we're stuck we stop learning and repeat the same strategy over and over. We limp along for years after an injury, stroke, surgery, chronic pain, poor self-use, bad posture, joint problems, fatigue, or neurological challenges. Or we push for better physical performance with inefficient movement, which leads to injury. 

Who was Dr. Feldenkrais?

An internationally-known engineer and physicist, Dr. Feldenkrais developed this innovative approach to movement re-education when he was incapacitated by a sports-related injury and given little chance of ever walking without pain. Dr. Feldenkrais applied his knowledge of anatomy, physiology, physics, and engineering, as well as his mastery of martial arts, to restore his own functioning and, later, the functioning of many others.

Watch this video of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais on his method and physics at a scientific colloquium at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, 1981 (three years before his death).

The Feldenkrais Method is the most extraordinary way of enhancing human abilities I have encountered. Skilled practitioners are able to effect remarkable improvement in a wide range of neuromuscular conditions from cerebral palsy, brain injury, and stroke to back, neck, and shoulder pain.Yet the Feldenkrais method is not a "therapy," but rather activates a way of learning that involves the brain and the entire self." 

--Dr. Walter Witryol, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

The Feldenkrais Method is taught in two modalities: Group classes in Awareness Through Movement® (ATM) and private lessons in Functional Integration® (FI).

In Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons, the practitioner verbally guides you through a sequence of movements: sitting or lying on the floor, standing or sitting in a chair. Through directing your awareness to different sensory perceptions, you learn to relax and abandon painful habitual patterns. Through the subtle ATM movements, you develop awareness, flexibility, and coordination, as well as a sense of release.

In private Functional Integration lessons, movements are communicated through precise, gentle touch custom-tailored to your unique configuration at that particular moment. Comfortably clothed, you lie or sit on a low padded table, or you may be standing, walking, sitting in a chair, or in other various positions that promote comfort, release, and ease of movement. You will be guided through slow, safe movements that provide new learning directly to the neuromuscular system.

The Feldenkrais Method® has helped:

• athletes prevent injury
• musicians save their hands
• health care providers save their backs
• stroke victims recover lost movement
• everyone improve health, well-being, and ease of movement

• injury
• pain
• surgery
  
• disease
• stress
• fatigue
• insomnia
• poor self-use
• emotional trauma
• surviving
• not knowing what the skeleton is capable of
• lack of awareness of possibilities for movement
• blocking kinesthetic information from entering the nervous system

It teaches—through movement—how we can improve our capabilities to function in our daily lives, whether it’s lifting up a child, working at a computer, or training for the marathon. It enables us to rediscover movements that have been forgotten or excluded in our usual way of doing things. By allowing us to learn how our whole body cooperates in any movement, the method assists us in living our lives more fully, efficiently, and comfortably.

The method is especially useful for people who want to learn to overcome limitations brought on by stress, misuse, accident, or illness. It is equally beneficial for people who want to perform and feel better physically and mentally.

Feldenkrais can help, but it takes time to unwind years-old patterns and learn new ones. It can also change your life. Why? Because how you move is not merely mechanical. If it were, all human beings would move in the same predictable way. Instead, movement is a personal expression of your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, values, and sense of self. In addition, your movement reflects how you respond to injury, disease, or accident.