I can’t even remember what we actually did in that first class. All I remember is the feeling in my body when I stood up. I felt lighter, taller, less tense, and kinda sorta happy to be in my body. I remember that I had a big goofy grin on my face as I walked—no floated—back to my car.
For the next six years, I took group Feldenkrais classes called Awareness Through Movement lessons and one-on-one lessons called Functional Integration In Awareness Through Movement. A practitioner verbally guided us through a series of slow, gentle movements, leaving many choices of how to physicalize the actions up to each student and encouraging us to decide the quality, rate, and range of movement according to our needs. A private Feldenkrais lesson, called Functional Integration, involves hands-on work, usually with the student lying on a table or sitting in a chair as the practitioner takes the student through various, function-related movements.
Slowly, I came to know my body, and even enjoy my movement.
I’m now in my last month of a four year, 800 hour Feldenkrais practitioner training program. And when I tell people that I’m doing this, they’re curious to know about the Feldenkrais method, what happens in a class, and who it’s designed for. I wish there was a short easy answer to their queries.
Much has been written about the man who developed the Feldenkrais method, Moshe Feldenkrais. He’s written many books about it too. He has an interesting background and approach to life. Feldenkrais (1904–1984) had a second degree black belt in judo; he also played soccer, was an engineer, conducted research in nuclear chemistry, and worked for the British military on improving sonar functions in submarines. In his Feldenkrais work, he helped professional athletes and musicians, stroke patients, and children with injuries move with greater ease and comfort.
Feldenkrais developed his method out of his own recurring knee injury. In the 1940s, he refused to have knee surgery because it would have kept him from doing the things he wanted to do. Through self-study and education, he developed his own method, designed to increase our awareness of how we move and offer options to increase our range of movement.
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