The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education
...was developed by engineer, physicist and Judo master, Moshe Feldenkrais. The Method is based on his unique understanding and intuition of the brain/body connection, reinforced by the science of his time. Current discoveries relating to the neuroplasticity of the brain now validate his vision about learning how to learn.
Feldenkrais understood somatic (body-based) learning as generated from our awareness of the experience of movement.
The basic principles of The Feldenkrais Method® are based on the following, now, scientifically validated, ideas:
- Movement originates in the brain not the skeletal or muscular system.
- Movement in any part of the body affects movement throughout the whole.
- We don’t know what we don’t know – we move according to our individual Body Map.
- The body map is the inner sense that determines how we move. A recent neuroscience study found areas in the cortex and subcortical areas that became active even when movement was just imagined.
Focus on ‘how’ you move – not ‘where’ or ‘how much’. As human beings from our infancy forward, learning has been our greatest gift. We do this by attending to both the foreground (the specific direction and sensation of a movement) and the background (the resonance of the movement elsewhere in the body).
- Imagining specific movements has been found to activate the nervous system in the organizing and coordinating of the whole.
- We can use to our advantage both the constraints and adaptations which we can control.
The Feldenkrais Method is taught through both verbally guided movement sequences, (Awareness Through Movement®) or hands on practitioner to client gentle contact (Functional Integration®). There are over 1000 Awareness Through Movement lessons available in different forms consisting of specific movement sequences which are performed slowly and with attention to the quality of the movement and its resonance. The outcomes of the lessons are highly individual. For many the effect of the lessons is reduced effort, pain, or general discomfort leading to increased sense of well-being and safety in movement. This way of learning through attention, listening, and internal seeing is not limited to any specific goal but can be applied to all aspects of our lives.
Somatic learning is: 'The result of the nervous system’s ability to autonomously determine the optimal movement pathways at the moment, sharpening proprioceptive and other perceptual skills.’
- Attentional Focus In Motor Learning, the Feldenkrais Method, and Mindful Movement', Mattes 2016 pg 263-4
Learning how to learn… “… improve ability, that is, expand the boundaries of the possible: to turn the impossible into the possible, the difficult into the easy, and the easy into the pleasant.”
- Awareness Through Movement,
Moshe Feldenkrais, 1977, pg 57