The Feldenkrais Institute’s Guide to:

Getting Your Best Results

With The Feldenkrais Method®

The
Feldenkrais®
I nstit u t e
134 West 26th Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10001
212–727–1014
www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com
 The Feldenkrais Institute’s Guide to
Getting the Best Results with The Feldenkrais Method

A User’s Guide to Doing Feldenkrais Lessons at Home

Feldenkrais exercises are called Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons. The Felden-
krais Institute encourages you support your progress by doing Awareness Through Move-
ment lessons at home. Feldenkrais audio programs utilize the widely acclaimed movement
education system of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais and draw on scientific breakthroughs in biome-
chanics, neurophysiology and stress-reduction. The lessons developed by Dr. Feldenkrais
are revolutionary because instead of using repetitive, mechanical movements to re-train
your muscles, they use movement to communicate directly with your brain, the control
center of your body. It is your brain and nervous system — not your muscles — which deter-
mine the health of your posture, and the ease and comfort of your movement.
Awareness Through Movement lessons are designed to access the motor centers of your
brain and provide the information your body needs for optimum improved body usage,
health and vitality. You will find that without effort or strain, you will soon enjoy relief from
pain, tension, stress and discomfort, and quickly enhance your flexibility, ease of movement,
relaxation, and posture far beyond what is possible with conventional exercise.
The process by which all physical learning takes place, from walking and talking to playing
an instrument or driving a car, is called sensory motor learning. This is the process which
Awareness Through Movement utilizes. Sensory motor learning is the natural way your body
learns and improves, and takes place through a complex feedback process between your
brain, muscles and senses. Your brain directs your body’s movement and in return receives
information, which it immediately uses to enhance and improve your neuromuscular
activity. With the Feldenkrais Method, your brain has the opportunity to discover the most
efficient and comfortable way to organize your body’s movement.

This is a brief introduction to the basic principles and concepts of Awareness Through Move-
ment. By using these simple but important keys, you will reap the greatest benefit.


 The Feldenkrais Institute’s Guide to
Getting the Best Results with The Feldenkrais Method

Setting Yourself Up for Success

Create a Successfull Environment

Clothing: Loose non-restrictive clothing is the best. Remove your shoes, belt, empty your
pockets, remove your glasses, watch and jewelry, anything that might distract you from sens-
ing and feeling yourself during the lesson.
A Quiet Space: It’s essential when doing Awareness Through Movement lessons that you
create conditions that make it easier to pay attention to yourself. Choose a room with a car-
peted floor and enough room for you to lay down and move about. Turn off any electronic
devices that might ring, beep or compete for your attention. This is your time to attend to
yourself and your movement.
Extras: Lying on the floor may not feel too comfortable the first time you do it. This will
improve with experience. To increase your comfort during the lesson, you may want to have
a few pillows, head pads or some rolled up towels handy to provide support under certain
parts of your body. When lying on your back, support the space between the backs of your
knees and the floor, also under your head, neck and maybe your shoulders. When the les-
sons call for being on your side, make sure to have enough support under your head so your
neck and shoulders are comfortable, but not so much to prevent your head from rolling eas-
ily during specific parts of the lesson. You may also want to insert a folded towel between
your knees and ankles whle lying on your side. Be sure to experiment and know what makes
you comfortable before you begin, and be open to changing things as needed throughout the
lesson.

Time of Day
First thing in the morning: When you’re in the process of changing habits and improving
your function and awareness, doing lessons in the morning is a great way to start the day off
on the right foot. The pleasurable sensations and patterns of acting that you acquire in the
lesson can immediately be transferred into your everyday activities, where they can set the
tone for your whole day.
Before Bedtime: Nighttime is another advantageous time to do lessons. Much of the latest
research shows that during sleep your brain continues to integrate the day’s learning.

All the Parts Matter

Focus on the beginning: The beginning of the movement is where your brain has the most
opportunity for change and improvement. The start of the movement is a gold mine of
kinesthetic sensations that, if attended to, can bring the fastest and deepest results. Avoid
spending all your time trying to increase your effort, focusing on getting further, and pay-
ing attention to the limit of your movement—you’ll only end up repeating and cementing the
very habits you’re trying to change. Start small, go slowly and let the structure of the lesson
gradually expand the size of your movements and deepen your awareness of them.
The importance of the rests: Just like in music, where the silences between the notes are just
as important as the sounds, the rests between the movements are as important as the move-
ments themselves. One of the skills you are building during the lessons is the ability to re-


 The Feldenkrais Institute’s Guide to
Getting the Best Results with The Feldenkrais Method

duce unnecessary effort. The rests provide your body and your brain with valuable time to sense
the quality of your movements, to feel the amount of effort you’ve been using and any changes in
your contact with the floor. Use the rests between each movement to help you avoid mechanical
repetition and fatigue.
Avoid Pain & Discomfort: You should never experience discomfort or pain while doing a lesson.
Pain is an indication of physical irritation. There are several things you can do immediately when
pain or discomfort arise during the lesson: 1) Stop. Change to the most comfortable position and
rest. Or stand up and walk around until the discomfort subsides. 2) Reduce the size and speed
of the movement. Often doing too large a movement too quickly can trigger pain. 3) Increase the
length of the rests between the movements. More resting, less moving.

Doing Lessons More than Once

Pacing Yourself: Most of our experience with “exercises” has taught us to do our best and to
execute instructions as soon as they are uttered. When you do Feldenkrais for the first time, it can
be difficult to slow things down. As you get more familiar with the process, an excellent strategy
when repeating a lesson is to do everything twice as slow and notice what sort of details emerge
during the lessons that you may have missed the first time through.
Foreground & Background: As you become more familiar with the structure of the lesson, focus
your attention more on things like breathing and the use of your eyes. These things are usually
in the background of your attention the first time through the lessons, as you are paying more
explicit attention to the instructions. Bring your breathing into the foreground of your attention,
focus on making it smoother and more continuous, or on relaxing the movements of your eyes.
These can be wonderful ways of integrating the more subtle aspects of your self into the lesson
and improving your overall experience.
One Side Only: Sometimes it may be difficult to feel the kinesthetic differences and functional
improvements the lesson is intended to evoke. If this is the case, perform all the movements and
variations in the lesson on one side of your body only. Once you stand up, the contrast between
your two sides is likely to be easier to feel. Spend some time with this feeling in standing and
walking to allow your awareness of the change and improvement to sink in.
Visualization: Research has shown that when you visualize (or imagine) doing a movement, your
brain sends essentially the same messages to your muscles that it sends when you are actually
moving. The only difference is that messages are not intense enough to make your muscles fully
contract. To visualize the movements of a lesson, close your eyes and do the movements in your
imagination. Visualization is a powerful tool, and can be as effective and beneficial as physically
doing the movements.
If you have any questions about the lessons, or about The Feldenkrais Method, please feel free to
contact us: (800) 482-3357 or (212) 727-1014. We look forward to speaking with you.

Sincerely,

Andrew Gibbons
Creative Director, Faculty


 Learn to Learn
A manual to help you get the best results from the
Awareness Through Movement® lessons
by Moshé Feldenkrais, D.Sc.
DO EVERYTHING VERY SLOWLY
I do not intend to “teach” you, but to enable you to learn
at your own rate of understanding and doing. Time
is the most important means of learning. To enable
everybody—without exception—to learn, there should
be plenty of time for everybody to assimilate the idea of
the movement as well as the leisure to get used to the
novelty of the situation. There should be sufficient time
to perceive, and organize oneself. No one can learn when
hurried and hustled. Each movement is, therefore, allotted
sufficient time for repeating it a number of times. Thus,
you will repeat the movement as many times as it suits
you during the span of time allotted.
When one becomes familiar with an act, speed increases
spontaneously, and so does power. This is not so obvious
as it is correct.
Efficient movement or performance of any sort is achieved
by weeding out, and eliminating, parasitic superfluous
exertion. The superfluous is as bad as the insufficient,
only it costs more.
No one can learn to ride a bicycle or swim without
allowing the time necessary to assimilate the essential,
and to reject the unintended and unnecessary, efforts
that the beginner performs in his ambition not to feel or
appear inadequate to himself.
Fast action at the beginning of learning is synonymous
with strain and confusion which, together, make learning
an unpleasant exertion.
LOOK FOR THE PLEASANT SENSATION
Pleasure relaxes the breathing to become simple and
easy. Excessive striving-to-improve impedes learning. It
is less important to learn new feats of skill than it is to
master the way to learn new skills. You will get to know
new skills as a reward for your attention. You will feel you
deserve your acquired skill, and that will add satisfaction
to the pleasurable sensation.
www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com (212) 727-1014 -- “Learn to Learn” , by Moshé Feldenkrais, D.Sc.
DO NOT “TRY” TO DO WELL
Trying hard means that somehow a person knows that
unless he makes a greater effort and applies himself
harder he will not achieve his goals. Internal conviction
of essential inadequacy is at the root of the urge to try
as hard as one can, even when learning. Only when we
have learned to write fluently and pleasurably can we
write as fast as we wish, or more beautifully. But “trying”
to write faster makes the writing illegible and ugly. Learn
to do well, but do not try. The countenance of trying hard
betrays the inner conviction of being unable or of not
being good enough.
DO NOT TRY TO DO “NICELY”
A performance is nice to watch when the person applies
himself harmoniously. This means that no part of him is
being directed to anything else but the job at the hand.
Intent to do nicely when learning introduces disharmony.
Some of the attention is misdirected, which introduces
self-consciousness instead of awareness. Each and all the
parts of ourself should cooperate to the final achievement
only to the extent that it is useful. An act becomes nice
when we do nothing but the act. Everything we do over
and above that, or short of it, destroys harmony.
These courses are made to help you to turn the impossible
into the feasible, the difficult into the easy: beautiful to
see and lovely to do.
INSIST ON EASY, LIGHT MOVEMENT
We usually learn the hard way. We are taught that trying
hard is a virtue in life, and we are misled into believing
that trying hard is also a virtue when learning. We see,
therefore, a beginner, learning to ride a bicycle or to swim
or to learn any skill, making many futile efforts and tiring
quickly.
Learning takes place through our nervous system, which
is so structured as to detect and select, from among our
trials and errors, the more effective trial. We thus gradually
eliminate the aimless movements until we find a sufficient
body of correct and purposeful components of our final
effort. These must be right in timing and direction at the
same instant. In short, we gradually learn to know what
is the better move. Thus it dawns on us that moving the
handlebar so as to twist the front wheel in the direction
in which we tend to fall stabilizes us on the bicycle. Or
that if we move our arms and legs slowly forward in the
swimming direction and rapidly in the other direction we
actually swim easier and faster. We sense differences and
select the good from the useless: that is, we differentiate.
Without distinguishing and differentiating, we
perpetuate—and possibly fuse—the good and the bad
moves in a haphazard order as they happen to occur and
make little or no progress in spite of diligent insistence.
IT IS EASIER TO TELL DIFFERENCES
WHEN THE EFFORT IS LIGHT
All our senses are so built that we can distinguish minute
differences when our senses are only slightly stimulated.
If I were to carry a heavy load (say a refrigerator) on my
back, I could not tell if a box of matches were added to the
load, nor would I become aware of it being removed. What
is, in fact, the weight that must be added or removed to
make one aware that some change of effort has occurred?
For muscular efforts or our kinesthetic sense, that weight
is about one-fortieth (1/40) of the basic effort for very
good nervous systems. On carrying 400 pounds, we can
tell at once when 10 pounds are added or removed from
the load. On carrying 40 pounds, we can tell a change
of one pound. And everybody can tell with closed eyes
when a fly alights on a thin match-like piece of wood or
straw, or when it takes to the air again.
In short, the smaller the exertion, the finer the increment
or decrement that we can distinguish and, also, the finer
our differentiation (that is, the mobilization of our muscles
in consequence of our sensations). The lighter the effort
we make, the faster is our learning of any skill; and the
level of perfection we can attain goes hand in hand with
the finesse we obtain. We stop improving when we sense
no difference in the effort made or in the movement.
LEARNING AND LIFE ARE
NOT THE SAME THING
In the course of our lives, we may be called upon to make
enormous efforts—sometimes beyond what we believe we
can produce. There are situations in which we must pay no
heed to what the enormous effort entails. We often have
to sacrifice our health, the wholeness of our limbs and
body, to save our life. Obviously, then, we must be able
www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com (212) 727-1014 -- “Learn to Learn” , by Moshé Feldenkrais, D.Sc.
to act swiftly and powerfully. The question is, wouldn’t
we be better equipped for such emergencies by making
our efforts efficient in general, thus enabling us to exert
ourselves less and achieve our purpose economically.
Learning must be slow an varied in effort until the
parasitic efforts are weeded out; then we have little
difficulty in acting fast, and powerfully.
WHY BOTHER TO BE SO EFFICIENT?
We need not be intelligent, for God saves the fool. We
need not be skillful, for even the clumsiest of us succeeds
in the end. We need not be efficient, because a kilogram
of sugar yields, roughly speaking, 20.000 calories, and
one gram calorie produces 426 kilograms of work. From
that count, we can waste energy galore. Why go to
such troubles as learning and improving? The trouble
lies in that energy cannot be destroyed; it can only be
transformed into movement, or into another form of
energy.
What, then, happens to the energy that is not transformed
into movement? It is, obviously, not lost, but remains
somewhere in the body. Indeed, it is transformed into
heat through the wear and tear of the muscles (torn
muscles, muscle catarrh) and of the ligaments and the
interarticular surfaces of our joints and vertebrae. So long
as we are very young, the healing and recovery powers of
our bodies are sufficient to repair the damage caused by
inefficient efforts, but they do so at the expense of our
heart and the cleansing mechanisms of our organism.
But these powers slow, even as early as at our middle
age, when we have only just become an adult, and they
become sluggish very soon thereafter
If we have not learned efficient action, we are in for aches
and pains and for a growing inability to do what we would
like to do.
Efficient movement is also pleasant to do and nice to see,
and it instills that wonderful feeling of doing well and is,
ultimately, aesthetically satisfying.
DO NOT CONCENTRATE
Do not concentrate if concentration means to you
directing your attention to one particular important point
to the utmost of your ability. This is a particular kind of
concentration, useful as an exercise, but rarely in normal
occupation and skills.
Suppose you play basketball and concentrate on the
basket to the utmost—you will never, or nearly never, have
the leisure to do so unless you are alone in front of the
basket. When there are two teams playing, the opening
for a throw is a short, fleeting instant in which you have you to reach your inborn potentiality in the best way
to attend not only to the basket, but to the players around and avoid giving you just another opportunity for using
you, and to the balance and posture that enable you to yourself in the accustomed way which led you, initially, to
perform a useful throw. seek a better one.
The best players are those who attend to the continually By reducing the urge to achieve, and attending also to
changing position of their own players as well as of the the means for achieving, we learn easier. In achieving­,
opposing team. Most of the time, their concentration is we lose the incentive for learning and, therefore, accept a
directed to a very large area or space; the basket is just lower level than the potential we are endowed with. When
kept dimly in the background of their awareness, from we delay the final achievement by attending efficiently to
where it can, at the most fleeting opportunity, become the our means, we set ourselves a higher level of achievement
center of attention. if we are not aware that that is what we are doing. On
The best and most useful attention is similar to what we knowing what to achieve before we have learned to learn,
do when reading. When we see the whole page, we cannot we can reach only the limit of our ignorance, which is
perceive any of the content, although we can say whether often general. Such limits are intrinsically lower than
the page is in English or some language we cannot read. those we can foresee after knowing better.
To read, we must focus on a minute portion of the page,
not even a full line—perhaps merely a single word, if it is
a familiar one and rather short. If we are a skillful reader,
we keep on picking out word after word, or groupings of
words, to be attended to by our macular vision, which is
only a minute portion of the retina, with sufficient good
resolution to see small print clearly.
The good way of using our attention is, for the most part, The Feldenkrais Institute
Teaching the Art & Science of Human Movement and Physical Intelligence
similar to reading. One should perceive the background
(the whole page) dimly and learn to focus sharply on the The Chelsea Arts Building
point-attended (concentration) rapidly before the next so 134 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor
that reading fluently means reading 200 to 1000 words a New York, NY 10001
minute, as some people can. Tel (212) 727-1014
Therefore, do not concentrate but, rather, attend well to www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com
the entire situation, your body, and your surroundings
by scanning the whole sufficiently to become aware of
any change or difference, concentrating just enough to
perceive it.
In general, it is not what we do that is important, but how we
do it. Thus, we can refuse kindly and accept ungraciously.
We must also remember that this generalization is not a
law and, like other generalizations, it is not always true.

WE DO NOT SAY AT THE START WHAT

THE FINAL STAGE WILL BE
We are so drilled or wired-in by prevailing educational
methods that when we know what is required of us, we go
all-out to achieve it, for fear of loss of face, regardless of
what it costs us to do so. We have it instilled in our system
that we must not be the worst of the lot. We will bite our
lips, hold our breath, and screw up our straining self in an
ugly way in order to achieve something if we have no clear
idea of how to mobilize ourselves for that task. The result
is excessive effort, harmful strain, and ugly performance.
The Awareness Through Movement® lessons will help

www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com (212) 727-1014 -- “Learn to Learn” , by Moshé Feldenkrais, D.Sc.

Smithsonian Magazine The

Vol. 11 No. 10 January 1981

Feldenkrais®
I nstit u t e
By Albert Rosenfeld
134 West 26th Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10001
www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com
212-727-1014

Teaching the body how to program

the brain is Moshe’s ‘miracle’

An Israeli scientist teaches subtle
exercises that appear to help
invalids, athletes and everyone
else to function at a higher level
The little boy enters, his mother at his side. Seemingly
unfazed by the audience turning to watch him, he heads
directly toward Moshe Feldenkrais, who is in Toronto to
hold a series of workshops. The boy has cerebral palsy.
His gait is stiff and ungainly, and he leans for support on
a wheeled walker. As he approaches, Feldenkrais points
out how the boy’s knees rub together; they have spasti-
cally locked into position for years. “The doctors want
to cut his adductor muscles, “ says Feldenkrais, in an ac-
cent that is part Russian, part British, part Hebrew. (The
adductors are the long muscles on the inner sides of the
thighs that draw the knees together.)
The boy stops expectantly in front of Feldenkrais, who
is sitting on a stool at the foot of a cot. He tells the boy
to take off his shoes. “Notice.” He says, “that Ephram’s
heels do not touch the floor.”
Ephram lies on the cot and Feldenkrais, with his strong
hands, begins to touch and manipulate-at first ever so
gently, with tiny movements and pressures. The boy be-
gins to relax, though he looks very attentive. “His breath-
ing is getting much easier, you notice,” says Feldenkrais.
“His eyes are moving to the right as he listens carefully-
not to my words, but to the internal language, the mes-
sages between the muscles and the brain.”
His hands are moving slowly down the boy’s distorted
body as he talks. He works silently for a while on the feet
and legs, in a listening attitude, occasionally nodding or
grunting with satisfaction. He is probing sensitively for
responses and connections he recognizes from years of
experience with hundreds of pupils. (Feldenkrais has
only “pupils,” never patients. He does not give treat-
ment, only “lessons.” He claims to be simply a teacher.)
Soon, working carefully, flexing the boy’s legs, Felden-
krais has managed to cross one knee over the other,
without forcing or hurting. The boy looks really pleased.
“This is the first time he has been able to cross his knees,”
say Feldenkrais.
He now uncrosses the boy’s knees, which remain slightly
separated, no longer locked in place. Feldenkrais makes a
fist, places it in the new space between the knees. “Now,
Ephram,” he says. “Please, can you press your knees
against my fist.” Then: “Come on, you can do better than
that! Close your knees on my fist as hard as you can.”
He keeps it up, and Ephram, no longer relaxed, is now
straining mightily with the weak muscles on the inside
of his thighs, an unaccustomed workout. Soon, “listen-
ing” carefully with his fist, Feldenkrais is satisfied that
the time is right.
“All right, Ephram,” he says, “you don’t have to close your
knees any more. You can open them now.” With clear re-
lief, Ephram relaxes, and opens his knees-all the way.
Standing at left rear, Moshe Feldenkrais instructs a clas
at Hampshire College in Massachusetts.
Photographs by Richard Howard
page 
“See how much easier it is to have your knees open, you
don’t have to do anything at all.” The boy moves his legs
in and out, in apparent disbelief, then bursts into a peal
of delighted laughter.
When he leaves, he still needs the walker for support.
But his knees no longer rub together.
At 76, Moshe Feldenkrais bears a resemblance to his
longtime friend and supporter, the late David Ben-Guri-
on-the same strong face, the same nearly bald head with
its halo of upward-curling white hair, the same short
powerful build. What he does, though always difficult
to explain in quick and simple terms, is apply principles
and exercises that help the body program the brain so
that the whole mind-body system benefits. Moreover,
his techniques are eminently teachable, and he does
teach them—to a long-term core of devoted students
in Tel Aviv, where he now lives; at workshops all over
the world; and in the United States, principally in San
Francisco, where he spent several consecutive summers
training a cadre of pupils, who have fanned out across
the country to be teachers themselves. Most are associ-
ated with the Feldenkrais Guild in San Francisco.
This year he started a new series of nine-week profes-
sional training programs scheduled to go on for the next
two, possible three, summers at Hampshire College in
Amherst, Massachusetts, with more than 200 eager new Feldenkrais works with Helena Carleton, who has mild
students from an astonishing diversity of backgrounds cerebral palsy, to make her aware of contraction in calf
as well as many of the old graduates who feel they have muscle. Since her lessons, her mother says, Helena now
much more to learn. On visitor at Amherst was Julius “sees her body as something she can heal.”
Erving—“Dr. J.” of basketball fame- who was impressed
enough to plan some private Feldenkrais lessons of his
own. Another was Jack Heggie, who has put together
a booklet called Improve Your Skiing, based on Felden-
krais training techniques.
Other pupils and admirers have included violinists Ye-
hudi Menuhin, director Peter Brook, neuropsychologist
Karl Pribram, the late anthropologist Margaret Mead and
David Ben-Gurion. (When journalist Charles Fox ques-
tioned him about famous people, Feldenkrais scoffed at
a “social registry,” saying “nothing is more important to
me that the work I am doing. It is the work that deserves
what space you have.”)
Feldenkrais is not an M.D. Before he became, almost by
inadvertence, a mind-body guru—embraced by the holis-
tic-health, humanistic-psychology and New Age move-
ments—he was an engineer with degrees in both mechan-
ical and electrical engineering as well as a physicist. He
got his science doctorate at the Sorbonne, studied with
Frederic Joliot-Curie, and worked on the French atom-
ic-research program as well as the British antisubmarine
program. While cultivating his mind, Feldenkrais had
always been interested in the body’s mechanics. Among
his other activities, he excelled as a judo master and soc-
cer player. In fact, it was the flaring-up of an old soc-

page 

Below Left: Feldenkrais supports Helena’s back with
one hand while he gently moves her head with the other.
Below: moving her head, he has put Helena’s arms on
his for support, “to make her feel safe.”
cer-inflicted knee injury that first led him to supply his
engineering mind to the mechanics of body and brain-a
task that soon became his absorbing preoccupation.
“In Israel now,” says Avram Baniel, a professor of indus-
trial chemistry at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem,
“I consider him a national treasure.” Baniel, who has
been a long-time Feldenkrais-watcher, says, “ If I have
ever met a genius in the flesh, it is Moshe Feldenkrais.”
This genius rating is enthusiastically seconded by Robert
Masters, co-director with his wife, Jean Houston, of the
Foundation for Mind Research in Pomona, New York.
Masters has been for years both a student and teacher
of many of the world’s body-mind systems, ancient and
modern Oriental and Occidental, from F.M. Alexander to
Zen. “Feldenkrais is the man who has gone further than
anyone else, past or present,” says Masters. “Employ-
ing his methods, even I can do some amazing things for
people. And the potential applications of it have scarcely
begun to be realized-they are clearly useful throughout
life, from early childhood to advanced old age.”
Learning to walk with grace.
The first time I met Moshe in his cramped New York
hotel room, he was giving a lesson to Sarah Rosinsky,
a young woman with cerebral palsy whom he head
“taught” previously in San Francisco. When she heard
he was back in the country, but not coming west this
time, she had flown in to have a few sessions. Moshe,
she related months later, had not only taught her to talk
and breathe more freely but also to walk with grace and
balance, something which helped her go through a preg-
nancy in comfort and without falling. “Before I saw him,
I had perpetual scabs on my knees,” she said.
Journalist Fox, whose own movements were affected by
multiple sclerosis, wrote that after only one session with
Feldenkrais “there was a very peculiar rush of sensation
from feet to brain. Intuitively, I sensed that this was a
transmission of vital information.”
In cases like these and hundreds more-including the
one he writes about in his slender, fascinating book, The
Case of Nora-Moshe’s ministrations are often perceived
as therapy, as healing. But Moshe protests: “I don’t know
much about diseases-only what’s necessary to under-
stand them in my terms. If someone says to me, ‘I have a
disease, I have cerebral palsy, I have multiple sclerosis, I
have osteogenesis imperfecta’-I know what these mean
only in terms of body activity. I don’t need to know any-
thing about ‘cures’ either. I do know that a disease giv-
en a name, especially if it is also labeled ‘incurable,’ can
have self-fulfilling effects, I also know that if a person
is having troubles with his movements, I can probably
improve the movements, and thereby improve his health
and well-being.
“And you know what?” he adds, lifting his eyebrows in
page 
mock surprise. “When a person is healthy, it turns out
that he is not ill!”
Improvements-these “routine miracle,” as one of Felden-
krais’ followers has called them-are usually brought
about on a one-to-one basis through what Feldenkrais
terms “Functional Integration” (variations on the tech-
niques he used with the boy Ephram in Toronto, usu-
ally with the teacher actually manipulating the pupil’s
movements). The other aspect of Moshe’s work he calls
“Awareness Through Movement,” usually carried out
through group workshops. These are more like con-
ventional exercises in format, with the teacher guiding
the class with words rather than by personal manipula-
tion. Awareness Through Movement-which is also the
title of Moshe’s most popular and accessible book-is of
special interest to professionals who want to fine-hone
their skills-dancers and musicians, for instance; but it
is intended for everyone, for people who want to im-
prove their awareness, their physical and mental perfor-
mance.
We are all brain-damaged
Moshe doesn’t like to emphasize the separateness of
Functional Integration and Awareness Through Move-
ment, other than as convenient labels for doing essen-
tially the same thing in different ways. “I especially
don’t like it,” says Moshe, “if the distinction is made that
one is for ‘sick; or ‘brain-damaged’ people, and the other
is for ‘normal, healthy’ people. Which of us, after all, is
not brain-damaged, I the sense that we allow many ar-
eas of our brains to atrophy through misuse or nonuse?
We settle for so little! As long as we can get by, we let it
go at that. We can have terrible posture and movement
patterns and habits which are distorting and damaging
to our bodies and brains-and still be classified as ‘nor-
Student tries unaccustomed movements, using rarely
utilized muscles to stimulate the brain.
page 
mal.’ Most of us use perhaps five percent of body-brain
potential. Who are we, then, to call other people brain-
damaged simply because their particular deficiency pro-
duces visible effects that we label ‘disease’?”
I remember the first Feldenkrais exercise I tried. Jean
Houston told me to lie on my back (many feldenkrais
lessons are done this way to relieve the body of the
antigravity efforts it routinely exerts I the standing
position) and go through quite a repertory of very tiny
movements, all on the right side of my body, from head
to toe. As one example, with my hand barely off the
floor, then back, then up again, then back. Tiny mo-
tions are not necessarily easy motions, especially when
repeated 20 or 30 times, because we are not used to
making tiny muscular movements voluntarily.
At the end of that first lesson, having pretty thoroughly
worked on my right side, and not at all on my left side,
jean told me to stand up. “Does the right side feel any
different now?” she asked.
“I guess it does, somehow,” I said, trying to find words
to clothe vague sensations.
“It ought to,” said Jean. “ You look like a Picasso!”
I went to the mirror. Jean had exaggerated, of course,
but there was a noticeable difference. My right eye
seemed somewhat larger. The muscles on the right side
of my face seemed more relaxed. My right shoulder
looked lower than my left.
Vivid use of the imagination is an important part of the
Feldenkrais Method. I remember doing what seemed at
the time a silly exercise. I was sprawled on the ground,
face down, with arms and legs spread-eagled. I was
told to imagine that I had a continuous groove running
all the way from the tip of my left hand, down my arm,
then running form my left shoulder diagonally across
my back down to my right buttock, then down my right
leg to the heel. (Later, the imaginary groove ran from
my right hand to my left heel.) Then I was asked to
imagine a tiny steel ball that I was to propel along the
entire length of the groove, through the use of whatever
muscles I wished-only I was not to get up or to move
my arms or legs from the spread-eagle position. I can
tell you that, in concentrating on this activity, I under-
went a lot of unfamiliar sensations and exercised a lost
of tiny muscles I didn’t even know I had. And that is
part of the Feldenkrais idea:
The motor cortex has many connections and nerve cells
that are directly related to specific muscles that pro-
duce specific movements. If the muscle patterns never
change-and enormous numbers of them never do, espe-
cially after childhood (this is true even of professional
athletes)-then those areas of the brain remain in fixed
patterns. The more completely you utilize your entire
muscular apparatus, says Feldenkrais, and the more
aware you are of those movements, the more will the
brain be activated-and the-activated regions will stim-
ulate adjacent areas. The more parts of the brain that says Jerry Karzen of San Francisco, an epidemiologist
function well, the better the whole brain will function. turned Feldenkrais teacher, “Moshe already represents
Feldenkrais has devised thousands of exercises. One a revolution in human health. He may not call what we
does not, of course, have to do all of them all of the time- do therapy, but if it makes people better, what we call it
only a few at a time as reminders. Some exercises have doesn’t matter.”
to be done only once-and the brain-body has learned its
lesson. “So smart is the brain, when we permit it,” says
Moshe, “that even after doing something a million times
the wrong way, doing it right even one time feels so good Albert Rosenfeld, who has won many major science-writing
that the brain-body system recognizes it immediately as awares, last wrote for Smithsonian on sociobiology in the
right.” Setpmeber 1980 issue.
So, in some instances, he wants us to become aware of
a deficiency or a habit only so that, having substituted
a better way, we can forget it. We tend, he says, to be
mainly aware of the front and upper parts of our body,
very little of the back and lower parts. He would like us
to be aware of the entire surface of the body, as well as
the joints and skeletal structure. He wants us to be aware
that there are muscles constantly holding up our eyelids,
holding up our jawbones, against the pull of gravity; that
the flexors and extensors of our legs are in constant use
(more likely, misuse), keeping us stable in the Earth’s
gravitational field. By being aware, he holds, we will un-
derstand how much unnecessary tension we have, how
much pleasure and grace we miss, how inefficiently and
stressfully we live our lives.
In sum, we can, with the conscious brain, instruct the
body to move in ways that will in turn instruct the brain
to permit the body (and hence itself ) to function at a level
much closer to its full human potential. Through aware-
ness, he believes, we can learn to move with astonish-
ing lightness and freedom-at almost any age-and thereby
improve our living circumstances not only physically, (he
says we may even find ourselves an inch or two taller!)
but also emotionally, intellectually and spiritually.
Moshe would like to devote his remaining years and en-
ergies to consolidating his theories, to teaching more
teachers, to completing the additional books he fells
are necessary to round out his work. “Even without
any further contributions to our knowledge, however,”

At a two-day workshop, the teacher autographs

copies of his books for some of his students. page 
 Dr. Andrew Weil’s
Self Healing
CREATING NATURAL HEALTH FOR YOUR BODY AND MIND
FOCUS ON THERAPY
The Feldenkrais Method: Moving with Ease
H
ave you ever watched a baby learn how to crawl, sit,
stand or walk? The Feldenkrais Method is based on
the premise that we have all forgotten how to move
with such natural ease and awareness. By paying close atten-
tion to the signals our bodies give us and gently exploring new
ways of moving, claim practitioners, we can rediscover the free,
effortless sense of movement we had in the first few years of
life—and undo many of the aches and pains that plague us as
adults who have become literally too set in our ways.
I have long been intrigued by this subtle form of retraining
the nervous system, which I currently recommend to patients
whose movement has been restricted by injury, cerebral palsy,
stroke, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain. (I find it 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.
Retraining the Nervous System
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-84), a Russian-born physicist,
martial arts expert, and mechanical engineer, developed the
modality that bears his name to cure his own debilitating
injury. As a young man, Feldenkrais moved to Paris to acquire
a doctorate in science from the Sorbonne and also worked with
Jigaro Kano, the developer of modern judo, to become one of
the first Europeans to earn a black belt. When a bus accident
around 1940 aggravated an old knee injury and doctors told
him he would never walk again without surgery—which offered
only a 50 percent chance of success—Feldenkrais decided there
must be a better way. Drawing from his background in mar-
tial arts, physics, and engineering, as well as his observations
of children’s movements, he used his body as a laboratory,
experimenting with minimal motions and carefully noting the
results. After months on this practice, he regained full use of
his knee and soon began teaching his discoveries to friends.
Feldenkrais believed that most of us go through life using ha-
bitual patterns of movement that may be limiting or inefficient.
We may have developed these patterns to compensate for past
injuries or learned them on the job (through performing repeti-
tive motions or sitting for long periods). Yet few of us really
pay attention to how our bodies move until something hurts.
The key to healing, Feldenkrais felt, is learning to be aware of
these unconscious patterns of movement, and experimenting
with new possibilities until you find ways to move with the
least effort and strain. Through repetition, your body “learns”
these new, more-efficient movements and can program the
brain and nervous system to incorporate them into your every-
day functioning.
Today, there are more than 1,000 Feldenkrais Method prac-
titioners working in the United States and Canada, leading
group classes and offering private sessions to everyone from
cab drivers and computerbound office workers to sufferers
of arthritis and multiple sclerosis. It is a popular modality
among musicians and athletes (including violinist Yehudi
Menuhin,cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and basketball star Julius Erving),
who use it to improve coordination and enhance performance,
as well as actors who simply want to use their bodies more
gracefully.
Last year an interesting German study even found the Felden-
krais Method to be a useful treatment for eating disorders:
Compared to a control group, the patients who attended a
series of Feldenkrais classes showed increased acceptance of
their bodies, decreased feelings of helplessness, and more self-
confident behavior.
A Moving Experience
Feldenkrais work is taught in two different modes: Aware-
ness Through Movement group classes use verbal instruc-
tions to guide students in deceptively simple floor exercises,
using common movements like bending, turning, leaning,
and breathing to help each person discover the ways he or
she moves most easily. In private “Functional Integration”
sessions, the practitioner offers gentle hands-on guidance in
performing movements that are tailored to the individual’s
particular condition.
An initial private session typically lasts 60 minutes and begins
with a health history and a “body scan,” with the practitioner
guiding you in a series of self-observations designed to detect
areas of tension or dysfunction. Then the practitioner asks you
to lie or sit on a low padded table, fully clothed, and lightly
guides you in a fluid series of movements while noting, and
avoiding, areas of strain. In working with someone who has
arthritic pain in the hands, for example, the practitioner might
help the client exploresubtle movements involving the hands
but which don’t stress the affected joints. The client might
then be instructed to practice these movements at home until
the body “learns” them through repetition.
Because Feldenkrais work is a learning process, most prac-
titioners recommend a minimum of four private ses- sions,
scheduled once or twice a week, in order to affect a sustainable
result. Some people with chronic pain or other serious condi-
tions opt for ongoing sessions. Another, less-expensive option
is to attend the group classes, which arenow being offered in
settings from music schools to nursinghomes to holistic health
centers.
Certified Feldenkrais practitioners must complete 800 to 1,000
hours of training over a three to four-year period, involving
both theoretical study and hands-on practice. To locate a quali-
fied instructor near you,contact the Feldenkrais Guild (800)
775-2118 or (541) 926-0981; www.feldenkrais.com. While there is
no real substitute for working with a practitioner, I recommend
the clearly written book Awareness Heals:The Feldenkrais
Method for Dynamic Health, by Steven Shafarman (Addison-
Wesley,1997). It includes six basic lessons to help you become
more aware of how you sit, walk, and otherwise move.
Reproduced with permission from Dr. Andrew Weil’s Self Healing
(May 1998. Subscriptions from: 800-523-3296)
THE
FELDENKRAIS®
I N S T I T U T E
134 West 26th Street, Second Floor
New York, NY 10001
212-727-1014
www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com
New Hope for we age, but because we learn bad habits.
These include postures which have
emerged to protect injuries, but which
Aching, Creaky now add chronic bodily insult to injury.
Feldenkrais taught limping peo­ple to
Yuppie Bodies walk by first teaching them to crawl like
babies. The method can be used for a
variety of conditions — back, neck, head
by Dr. Norman Doidge
and jaw pain, prob­lems due to artificial
for the National Post, October 6, 1999
hips and knees, fused spines, and ar-

A
nyone who is subject to the thritic conditions. It is useful to anyone
grim tug of gravity might count who has to sit at a computer all day, or
themselves lucky that one day, for those who have to be particularly
about 50 years ago, Moshe Feldenkrais, physically active or aware, including
in his late thirties, while standing on athletes, sol­diers, surgeons and actors.
a wet subma­rine deck, slipped and Many musicians in New York have a
aggravat­ed an old knee injury. They Feldenkrais practitioner. Yehudi Menuin
should also be grateful to the doctors swore by Feldenkrais, and so does Yo-Yo
who told him he would never walk Ma. The director of the Royal Shake-
again without surgery (surgery that speare Theatre, Peter Brook, was a ma-
offered only a 50% cure rate), because jor fan as were anthropologist Margaret
Feldenkrais decided to fix him­self, and Mead and neurophysiologist Dr. Karl
invented a new treat­ment in the process. Pribram, who thought Feldenkrais in
practitioner finds ingenious ways to
Feldenkrais was a remarkable man and tune with the most advanced knowledge
release the bad habits.
a genius. Born in 1904 in Russia, he fled we have of the brain. Israel’s first prime
minister, David Ben Gurion, sought out For instance, new non-habit­ual ways of
pogroms to pre-state Israel when he was
Feldenkrais when he was 75 years old moving are intro­duced, to confuse the
14. At the time, the British Mandate pro-
and could barely stand in Parliament current pattern. People with bad posture
hibited Jews, but not Arabs, from carry-
because of his serious back prob­lem. Af- secondary to knee problems might be
ing arms, so Feldenkrais trained himself
ter treatment, “the old man” could leap asked to walk back­wards for a bit, both
in unarmed combat, then tutored others.
onto tanks and stand on his head. to scramble the bad habit, and because
With the money he made tutoring he
bad compensations haven’t yet attached
went to Paris where he trained as a me- Feldenkrais eventually used his ap- themselves to back­ward walking. Then,
chanical and electrical engineer. He then proach in extreme cases, helping people having experienced what it is like to
became a physicist, working and co- with strokes learn how to read, speak, walk without bad posture, they relearn
authoring papers with Frederic Joliot- and walk again, or for treating people walking forward, sponta­neously, in a
Curie (who with his wife received the with cerebral palsy or multiple sclero- re-organized, nim­ble way, so they don’t
Nobel Prize in 1938). F eldenkrais, in the sis. Many well-known treatments for hurt their tender knees. The aim is
meantime, became one of Europe’s first musculoskeletal pain treat the problem always to move without wasted energy
black belts in judo, and set up the Jiu- locally, by strength­ening the affected or willpower. Often, at the end of a class,
Jitso Club de France with the founder of area (physio­therapy), using surgery, muscles have soft­ened, eyes are more
mod­ern judo, Jigoro Kano. or twist­ing the spine with force (chiro­ open, breathing is deeper and pain has
Feldenkrais and J oliot -Curie were practics). Feldenkrais’ method focuses decreased. People may stand an inch
working on the French atomic-research on general functioning. Regardless of taller.
program when the Nazis invaded Paris. the cause — an aching back, artificial
Feldenkrais also conducted one-on-one
Joliot ­Curie knew F eldenkrais would be joint, arthritis, or tension Feldenkrais as-
sessions, called Functional Integration,
arrested as a Jew, so he arranged for him signs exercises to make his pupils aware
of move­ment. “Errors” of movement are where he used his hands to diagnose
to escape to London — with two suit-
not “corrected.” Rather, lack of flow is movement problems, and then gently
cases full of the French atomic secrets,
moved people’s limbs, necks, and heads,
thereby keeping them out of Nazi hands. noticed. Then, in the low stimulus envi-
ronment, barely detectable movements teaching a suppleness that could be
Through the inter­vention of the British
are pre­scribed. These minute changes gener­alized to all movements.
scientist J.D. Bernal, he worked for the
British anti-submarine program. Felden- induce the nervous system to lower the Feldenkrais died in 1984, but his work is
krais also led the train­ing of British general tone of muscu­lar contraction, spreading, especially in Europe. There
paratroopers in hand-to-hand combat. so the sufferer can become consciously are too few Guild Certified Feldenkrais
After the war, he completed his doctor- aware of the unconscious movement Practitioners in Canada, but they are
ate in physics at the Sorbonne. When pat­terns that exacerbate or cause the spread from Vancouver Island to New-
the State oflsrael was cre­ated he became problem. foundland, and there is a Feldenkrais
director of the electronics department Watching and listening to lithesome clinic in the Ottawa General Hospital.
for the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and Marion Harris, who trained with Qualified practitioners who are mem-
wrote the book on hand-to-hand com- Feldenkrais, con­ducting classes at The bers of the Feldenkrais Guild can be
bat for the Israeli army. He now spoke Feldenkrais Centre in Toronto, I was contacted by call­ing 1-800-775-2118.
Russian, Hebrew, French, German and amazed to see how many of the concepts Dr. Doidge is a research psychiatrist and psy-
English. But back to the bum knee. are similar to those used in psychother- choanalyst in Toronto. He is also the author
of the acclaimed book “The Brain That
Feldenkrais used his incredible scientific apy done properly — which is patiently. Changes Itself ”. Available in paperback.
mind, extraordinary observational skills, Feldenkrais knew, as did Sherrington,
and his expertise in judo to determine the great neurolo­gist, that most of the
what made his knee better or worse. His brain’s activity is inhibitory: it stops,
new treatment was based not just on retards or modifies the actions of our
the under­standing of individual joints, more flowing primitive ani­mal brain. The

muscles, and ligaments, but on the role
of awareness in move­ment and body
mechanics. Animals have an enviable
grace, and so do babies and young chil-
Most bad habits include jerky inhibitory Feldenkrais®
com­pensations or vestigial “defens­es” I nstit u t e
that once protected an injury, but now 134 West 26th Street, Second Floor
are locked in. Instead of attacking bad New York, NY 10001

dren, but that grace is often lost as we postural habits directly (which often 212-727-1014

age, thought Feldenkrais, not because only makes them get worse), the master www.FeldenkraisInstitute.com