Principles of The Feldenkrais Method®

Functional Movement: The FM uses a neurological/action model. It aims not at strength or flexibility per se but at better control of movement. The exercises use spiralic, whole-body movement. They encourage easy, free, light, graceful movement.

Moshe Feldenkrais was an engineer, and the Feldenkrais Method is just the kind of thing an engineer would come up with. It focuses on movement functions, which are goal-oriented movement sequences. It helps people examine how movement flows through the body, sequencing and linking the body parts. It teaches people to differentiate the parts and then use them as an integrated assemblage. To improve a function, it removes extraneous elements and supplies missing movement components.

Effective Movement: Survival was a key concern to Feldenkrais, and he evaluated movement in terms of its effectiveness in handling danger. He often talked about how an animal in a jungle would move, with all senses alert and moving in a balanced, efficient way. He had escaped from Russia as a young man and made his way across Europe to France, later escaping the Nazis and moving to England. Feldenkrais was a judoist and an instructor of hand-to-hand combat for the Jewish underground fighting to establish the state of Israel. Many of the movement patterns in ATM are derived from the movements of judo, and Feldenkrais emphasized that good body use would allow a person to move in any direction at any moment to respond to danger. The concept of functional movement is ultimately derived from Feldenkrais' concern with effective movement for control of the environment.

Habits: A key concept in the FM is habit. Habits are learned behaviors that have become automatic and dropped out of awareness. Habitual behavior occurs without conscious awareness/choice. Our body image and kinesthetic map are built of habits of sensing and moving the body.

The positive function of habits is to save energy by having movements fire off as pre-learned packages. The problem with habits is that their automaticity eliminates the opportunity to improve actions and results in the continued inclusion of tension and wasted movements in actions. Habits feel normal and we feel them to be correct even when they are very damaging. It is not possible to discriminate correct from incorrect movements without new input.

It is possible to overcome habits by bringing awareness into the habitual movements. This allows the body to feel what is being done and make decisions which will improve efficiency. A movement challenge which requires new movements and non-stereotypical action can focus awareness into habits and alter them. Performing movements which break apart normal movement clumps and require odd combinations of movement components can break down habits and bring awareness into the body.

Sensitivity: Insensitivity makes change and growth impossible. When people cannot feel what they are doing in their bodies and movements, they cannot discover easier, more comfortable ways of being and acting.

In the Feldenkrais Method, it is important to do the exercises with as little muscular tension as possible. The two sources of muscle loading are internal tension and external force. Reminding students to move more slowly and lightly, and reminding them to do smaller rather than larger movements helps eliminate the first source of muscle effort. And doing the movements lying or sitting reduces the need for overcoming gravity and allows easier movements.

By reducing effort, students can sense more delicately just what they are doing, and they can feel more delicately what will improve their movements.

Sensitivity leads to the ability to practice movements on the intentional level. Often, students are encouraged to just think through a movement. This is not thinking about the movement in an abstract, intellectual way but sensing the delicate muscular events involved in planning and intending to do the movement. The muscles automatically respond to the intention with very slight movements, which are the subtle beginnings of the large movement. The "mental" intention to execute a movement sequence creates "physical" changes, and learning comes about as students consciously engage their kinesthetic imagination and practice movements on this delicate level of sensing.

Deeper Consciousness: The Feldenkrais Method leads to a very different consciousness in movement. It leads to a non-verbal, non-cognitive way of being in movement. This is a playful child-mind in which to explore and learn. It is a much more fundamental way of learning than the intellectual, see/copy kind of learning that adults generally do. Curiosity and play access the innate wisdom of the body.

Slow, gentle, repetitive movements act as a focus of mindfulness and create a meditative state. The movements are not demonstrated; there is no right or wrong defined; and no practical goal for the movements is given or exists -- so students must focus on the moment-by-moment process of awareness rather than on a product or goal.

Bringing full concentration into a movement focuses the whole self into a single intentional pattern, which allows conflicting/extraneous intentional habits to subside. This leads to a state of natural movement, in which students let the body's wisdom of movement execute the movement, rather than having the movements proceed from the conscious mind or learned habits. When awareness is engaged, the body will automatically choose comfortable, effective, safe ways of moving. And this way of being in movement will carry over into daily life and the development of calmer more effective ways of daily functioning.