The nervous system are not only responsible for our action but also stores sensation, behavioral and emotional patterns. Nature and nurture have formed a matrix that defines our self-image, both to ourselves and to the world around us. Using directed attention, movement and touch, the Method clarifies the relationships of these patterns and their inter-relationships, thereby completing awareness of your primary Self Image.

With its emphasis on awareness, the Method guides you through a process of learning how to learn about yourself, thereby becoming your own teacher and guide in choosing your actions in whatever you do. The uniqueness of the method is its focus on teaching rather than fixing, process rather than outcome, learning rather than therapy, awareness rather than mechanics, movement and function rather than posture and structure. Ultimately this enables you to recognize your habitual patterns across the four theaters – moving, sensing, feeling and thinking -- and to discover and choose new and varied possibilities for yourself.

Dr. Feldenkrais said: ”I am not after flexible bodies, I am after flexible brains.”

While the method is valuable to people with back, neck, shoulder, and wrist pain, the method has been applied towards athletes, performers, musicians who want to access their full potential for self-expression and performance. Based on the inner-working of neuro-plasticity, the method lends itself to dealing with a wide range of neuromuscular conditions – e.g. cerebral palsy, stroke, and multiple sclerosis. Seniors who desire to retain/ regain comfort and ease in their movement also rely on this approach.

The Method is for any who wants to reconnect with their natural ability to move, think, sense and feel. Whether you want to be more comfortable sitting at the computer, gaining fluidity and ease in your dancing or favorite pastime, or everyday activities, these hands-on sessions (called lessons) can improve your overall well being and performance.
 

What happens in a Feldenkrais session?
You develop an acuity to listening to yourself by increasingly becoming aware of your sensations, movement choices, thought patterns and emotional tone.

There are two modalities to the Method.

1. Public Group classes called Awareness through Movement, and
2. Private one-on-one lessons called Functional Integration 

The public classes of Awareness Through Movement, people engage in precisely structured movement explorations that involve thinking, sensing, moving, and imagining. Many are based on developmental movements and ordinary functional activities. Some are based on more abstract explorations of joint, muscle, and postural relationships. The lessons consist of comfortable, easy movements that gradually evolve into movements of greater range and complexity. There are hundreds of Awareness Through Movement lessons contained in the Feldenkrais Method that vary, for all levels of movement ability, from simple in structure and physical demand to more difficult lessons.

Awareness Through Movement lessons attempt to make one aware of his/her habitual neuromuscular patterns and rigidities and to expand options for new ways of moving while increasing sensitivity and improving efficiency.

A private Functional Integration lesson is tailored around the specific interest of a student. They can be in standing, sitting, lying down or any position (e.g. yoga poses, dance sequence, martial arts katas, etc.). Movements can be very simple to progressively quite complex.

Via both modalities, you will have the opportunity to:

 … learn to recognize familiar patterns about yourself,

 … learn new varied possibilities,

 … refine your skill of discriminating / differentiating,

 … increase your sensitivity to differentiate finer differences, and

 … expand your repertoire of choices in response to situational constraints

The purpose is ultimately to create choices in action. Dr. Feldenkrais said, “When you know what you’re doing then you can do what you want!”

They are approximately 60 minutes in length. The resonance and memory of the sensations can reverberate for hours, days or weeks, particularly with recurring experiences.

Escaping the Nazi advance he went to Britain and worked on anti-submarine research for the Admiralty. It was there in the 1940s that he began to develop his Method and wrote his first book on the subject. A knee injury, and uncertain prospects for surgery, began Feldenkrais on what was to become a life long exploration of the relationship between movement and consciousness.

In developing his work Moshe Feldenkrais studied, among other things, anatomy, physiology, child development, movement science, evolution, psychology, a number of Eastern awareness practices and other somatic approaches.