ACCLAIMS By Publishers
“… thousands who believe Moshe Feldenkrais can stretch the mind – as well as the body.”
–PEOPLE MAGAZINE
“I have long been intrigued by this subtle form of retraining the nervous system, which I recommend to patients whose movement has been restricted by injury, cerebral palsy, stroke, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain. I find it to be much more useful than standard physical therapy. I also believe that the Feldenkrais Method can help older people achieve greater range of motion and flexibility, and help all of us feel more comfortable in our bodies.” — Andrew Weil, M.D., Author of ‘Spontaneous Healing’ and ‘Natural Health, Natural Medicine’
“After just a few moments of the Feldenkrais exercises, people often find themselves, as if by magic, easily doing things with their bodies that they never thought possible.” — New Age Magazine
“Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais has developed a system that is many years ahead of conventional medical understanding. Following the program with Feldenkrais, patients showed significant improvement in their levels of pain, decreased numbers of medications, and increased quality of life.” — Martin Rossman, M.D., Author. American Journal of Pain Management (January 1999)
The Feldenkrais Methods
The Feldenkrais Methods invoke a broader base of understanding to human development and consciousness. Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais combined the fields of neurology, education, development, and physics to create methods to enhance the biological nature of healing. His approach is termed “Functional Integration” and “Awareness Through Movement. “
There are two methods; one is a hands-on method called “Functional Integration® (FI®),” and the other is movement lessons called Awareness Through Movement (ATM®). Both methods are often used in conjunction. The word for Awareness in Hebrew is: “Moodah-oot.” The root of which is Dah-at or knowledge. So “Moodah-oot atsmit” means self-knowledge. “Moodah-oot be-emtsah-oot Tnoo-ah” means awareness through movement – but note that while awareness in English is subject to much vagueness, awareness/consciousness, and so on, the Hebrew is more precise. “The Lubavitch hassidic” core teachings use the acronym “Chabad” i.e., CHochma, Bina, dah-at — which means: Intelligence, wisdom, knowledge. Awareness uses proprioception to teach through motion the physical nature of consciousness. In this context, awareness of proprioception, or what will be called the Sensory Body (SB), comes from a type of sixth sense of self-motion and body sense.
The physical sets up a carriage mental behaviors in the muscular-skeletal systems. This “carriage” forms the “I” of perception. Therefore, action and perception are the foundation of cognition. Sensations link thinking, feeling, sensing, and movement. Within the internal environment (the body) and external environment (circumstances), impulses organize to find patterns. Sculpt away the pattern and the mind uses a filter-like screen of motion to paint the picture of perception.
“Nature versus Nurture,” not because motor development is primary but to categorize action as not merely motor development. Motion shows the brain how to measure qualities in perception, cognition, and learning.
Imagine a child at 11 months old beginning to walk. Then at 12 months of age, he gets a hernia operation from a birth defect. After the surgery, for a year, the child turns emotionally insecure if left without a parent. The structure of the pelvis was off-balance after the surgery. After three sessions of Functional Integration® (the Feldenkrais method) the child’s behavior returned to self-confidence, and the problem disappeared.