Feldenkrais^® Ann Arbor

    Joanna Myers, M.M., GCFP^cm

^{"Make the impossible possible, the possible easy, the easy elegant."--Moshé Feldenkrais, Ph.D.}

 ^{Moshé Feldenkrais, D. Sc. (1904-1984)}

was an Israeli physicist, engineer, and martial artist. Feldenkrais studied with Mme. Joliot-Curie at the Sorbonne and was one of the first westerners to earn a black belt in Judo. He also smuggled deuterium out of France for use in the Manhattan project, and engineered anti-submarine devices in England during WWII.

His career took a turn when a serious knee injury caused recurring problems and left him bedridden. Doctors recommended surgery, but offered only a fifty percent chance of improvement. Feldenkrais instead began a comprehensive self-study of his body in movement. He was informed by developmental patterns, engineering principles, systems theory, yoga, and many of the alternative methods of healing in his day. Not only did he then free himself from this trouble, but also helped others around him, communicating his new physical understanding through touch. This form of the method is called Functional Integration®.

He left his scientific career to work with people with neurological difficulties, accidents, and other disabilities, including Israeli PM David Ben-Gurion (standing on his head, at right). Though he seemed to produce miraculous results, Feldenkrais was adamant that his was a method of education, not healing.

In order to reach more people he crafted Awareness Through Movement® lessons, which use verbal instructions given to a group. The power of these lessons comes from using one’s attention to perceive differences in sensation. This is based in the physiological principle that the less effort one uses, the more one is able to feel. You can learn, for example, to feel how muscles are chronically tensed and therefore relax them.

Dr. Feldenkrais led his first teacher training in the United States in the 1970’s. He continued to teach and learn to the end of his life.

wikipedia entry