Discovering the Feldenkrais Method
by Andrew Gibbons, MM, GCFP • New York City

I’ve been doing Feldenkrais lessons for over a year now. I’m about to turn 45, and this is the best I’ve felt in 25 years," said Robert Hagerty, a medical research coordinator who has lived with osteoporosis and arthritis for most of his life. After being introduced to the Feldenkrais Method by a friend, he noticed profound improvements in his movement and well-being. "People in my life started telling me I looked much better. Physically, I feel stronger, more energetic, taller and I have less pain. My posture has improved. I notice the effect of the lessons in everyday things like walking, bending over to pick up something off the floor, or just sitting watching a movie and not having my back hurt at the end."

The Feldenkrais Method has long been recognized in Europe and Australia for the successful treatment of chronic back, neck and shoulder pain, and neuromuscular conditions like Multiple Sclerosis, Cerebral Palsy and recovery from stroke. It’s also known for improving performance in musicians, dancers and athletes. Here in the US, Feldenkrais is just gaining attention. As its popularity grows, people are often astonished at what they find– a pain-free method of learning to function with ease and efficiency, and a wealth of strategies to eliminate unnecessary pain, discomfort and stress. The method is also accessible to people of all ages and physical conditions.

The Feldenkrais Method is a system of movement-based learning developed by Dr. Moshé Feldenkrais (1904-1984), an Israeli physicist who worked at the famous Curie Institute in Paris. After a series of crippling knee injuries left him unable to walk, Feldenkrais was faced with surgery and a poor prognosis. He opted not to have surgery and instead chose to treat himself. After much searching, Feldenkrais taught himself to walk again without pain. Over the next 40 years, he refined his method. He eventually worked with some of the most celebrated scientists, artists and political leaders of his generation, including the Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, distinguished neuroscientist Karl Pribram, film and stage director Peter Brook, concert violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the famed anthropologist Margaret Mead, who said, "This is the most sophisticated and effective method I have seen for the prevention and reversal of deterioration of function."

In more traditional medical approaches to pain, stiffness and loss of function, the intervention treats some diagnosed problem in a structure of the body (say in a joint or muscle). Feldenkrais focuses on improving the patterns of physical and psychological choices that mobilize these structures. Students learn how to reduce unnecessary effort and rid their actions of unnecessary strain. As it turns out, in re-learning how to move, our brain can be re-wired to function at a more efficient level, both physically and psychologically.

David Zemach-Bersin was one of Feldenkrais’ first American students, studying with him for over 12 years. He says that the Feldenkrais Method exploits something current research is only now confirming– that the brain is a learning system of enormous plasticity. For the past 15 years, Zemach-Bersin has directed professional Feldenkrais training programs, passing on the method as he learned it from Dr. Feldenkrais. Most of our physical problems and aches and pains are a result of the habits of moving that each of us has developed over the years. Under the right conditions these habits can be changed very quickly, and when the habits of moving and using ourselves change, our complaints and pain begin to disappear.

Zemach-Bersin says that the method offers one of the most simple, effective and sophisticated ways of treating people’s physical complaints, because it’s the person’s own learning that makes them better. "We each have a brain that is capable of learning very quickly when something is of interest to us, and moving more easily and with less pain is something of enormous, compelling interest to our brain. It is something the human nervous system is uniquely designed to do– to sense and feel differences, to adapt and change our responses to best suit the demands of the situation."

Feldenkrais is taught in two complimentary formats. The first is through one-on-one lessons (called Functional Integration,®) in which a trained practitioner, using a gentle, skilled touch, moves the student. The second format is group classes (called Awareness Through Movement®) in which the teacher gives verbal instructions as the students perform movements.) Awareness Through Movement® exercises can be done in groups, one-on-one, or alone with audio tapes. The two aspects of the work share a significant principle– they are structured to provide the information necessary for learning how to move more easily. To create these conditions the method uses strategies of moving slowly, reducing effort and observing the relationships between the parts and the whole in our patterns of muscular action and movement.

As more people in the U.S. discover Feldenkrais, this gentle art of self improvement seems made-to-order for a wide audience: from aging baby boomers to the exploding population of senior citizens to the generations of people spending more and more hours seated in front of a computer.

Andrew Gibbons is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioner. He teaches The Feldenkrais Method in Manhattan. To contact the Feldenkrais Institute of New York, call 1-800-482-3357, or visit www.feldenkraistrainingprograms.com