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The Feldenkrais Method and how it can help you

Would you like to feel more confident, move better, have less aches and pains, learn more easily, be less clumsy, be better at sport, or get out of a rut? If so, then the Feldenkrais Method is here to help you.

What is Feldenkrais?

Despite the name it is not a new-age fad nor is it a religion - there is no "t" on the end of it! When you pronounce it, it rhymes with rice - Feld/en/krice. It's been around since the 1940's and is based on the way the brain and nervous system works, physics and the mechanics of movement.

So what is it?

It's a way to develop your body so you get the most out of it with least effort. Not in some sort of athletic, cosmetic or body building sense but in terms of your flexibility, effectiveness, and ability to move in the easiest way possible. Whether you're an 80 year old with neck ache, a young child with cerebral palsy, or a champion football player, it will help you move in the best way possible for you. The method doesn't make you stand or walk in one set, "right" posture. Rather it helps you use your body - whatever its condition - so you get the best out of it. So by using the Feldenkrais Method you may become less stiff, be able to run faster, breathe more easily, find you can sit in a car with less discomfort, be able to lift things with less strain, improve your golf swing ...

However there's more!

It's not just about your body. It can seem like that because body movement is the vehicle the Method uses for you to learn by. But there is much, much, more to it than that. Why? Because your body doesn't operate on its own - it's all part of a much larger "you". Your body, emotions and mind are all connected and influence each other. So if your body works more efficiently your mind may well do the same. Similarly your feelings, moods and emotions may change as your body changes. Your whole reaction to the world may change.

You may end up feeling much clearer about who you are (very useful in midlife!). You may become more confident, feel less anxious, feel more stable and become less vulnerable to emotional swings. Life may no longer seem to take so much effort.

Also the Feldenkrais Method is built around helping you develop more self-awareness of what you are doing and how you are doing it. Self-awareness is a crucial component of Emotional Intelligence and the self-awareness you'll learn can be of benefit in many parts of your life.

And there's still more!

Some people even find that they make spiritual shifts. They make comments such as, "I feel more connected to the earth than before," or "I have a clearer sense of who I am spiritually."

So how is this possible?

There are many components to the Feldenkrais Method that all inter-relate to produce these results. To help simplify the process here are just 3 of the important aspects. Once you've tried it for yourself I'm sure you'll be able to work out many others.

The Method focuses on your skeleton.

The Feldenkrais Method considers your skeleton, i.e. your bones, to be very important, how they move, and how their movements can become more economical and productive. Most of us are unaware of our skeletons unless we break or fracture a bone. However, it's the skeleton that holds us up when we stand or sit, that propels us when we walk, and that bears the brunt of our movements. It is the whole basis of our movement. Imagine what you would look like trying to sit in a chair if you had no bones inside you!

Most of us have skeletons that could move more easily. Our skeletons may become inhibited or blocked from moving. Our skeletons may move unevenly because of habits we've learned as children, emotional experiences we've had or because we keep performing daily activities in only one way, over and over. The Feldenkrais Method aims to help all of your skeleton work more efficiently so your muscles don't have to overwork to hold you up, so that one part of your skeleton doesn't do more than its fair share of the work, and so that it supports you in the best way possible.

This may not make much sense. So here's an example.

If you have a lot of pain in one area of your body, let's say the neck for example, it may be because the neck part of your skeleton works over-time while another part, such as the spine between your shoulder blades, is stuck and just goes along for the ride. Through Feldenkrais work you may discover that if your whole skeleton moves more evenly with your legs supporting you better, your pelvis transmitting the movement more easily and the bit of your spine between your shoulder blades moving more, then your neck can let go of all the hard work it's doing because the whole of your skeleton and not just one part of it is producing the movement. The wear and tear produced by the movement can then be shared around more with less damage.

If it still makes no sense to you - try this (if you've got any neck problems please don't do this.) Sit in a chair facing forward. (See the first photograph.) Keeping your chest, lower legs and hips/pelvis completely still, look round behind you and see how far you can go. Notice the spot on the wall you can see to comfortably. Do it three times to get the spot. Don't strain though - just go as far as is comfortable. (See the second photograph.)

Now do the same thing but as you move round also let your chest, pelvis and legs help you move - so your pelvis kind of tilts towards the way you're looking and you may push through one of your feet to help you. Do you go any further? (See the third photograph). Usually the movement is easier if there is more of you involved.

The whole body is considered.

The above example demonstrates that the whole body and not just a part of it is important to help you move easily. Therefore the whole body is a key focus of the Feldenkrais Method. The Feldenkrais Method focusses on all of you and doesn't just look at one part in isolation from the rest of you. It is based on the concept that you are a "whole" person and not just a random selection of bits and pieces - that one part of you is connected to another part, and that movement in one area is influenced by what happens elsewhere.

Awareness is a key.

The Feldenkrais Method helps you build up self-awareness. In fact one of the key strategies it uses is group classes called "Awareness Through Movement Lessons." During the lessons the Feldenkrais Practitioner is constantly encouraging you to become aware, e.g. of how you move, how you feel, the parts of your body that aren't moving, where your attention is, what your intention is and very importantly how you can make the movement easier for yourself. Self-awareness is the lynch pin. This is not a Method where you are encouraged to become dependent on the "guru" or the "teacher". Rather you are encouraged to discover how you learn, what helps you to learn, and how to be able to learn for yourself. As people use the Feldenkrais Method they often become more able to act from choice and not routine or habit ... hence the chance to get out of any rut you may find yourself in.

So what exactly happens?

If you book into an "Awareness Through Movement" class you will find that the Feldenkrais practitioner running the class will verbally guide you through a sequence of movements. This is not like an aerobic class where you have to burn up a lot of energy and exercise yourself. These are likely to be quite small, gentle movements where awareness is the goal not calorie burn off. You also get lots of rests. Often you are encouraged to monitor your breathing and always to monitor how comfortable you are - comfort is considered the way to learn - pain is not needed in this Method. You may find yourself lying on the floor or sitting in a chair and doing a sequence of movements which are unusual for you, as the Method is designed to give you the best chance of learning and to discourage you from just repeating the same old way of doing something.

If you go to a Feldenkrais practitioner, for an individual Feldenkrais session (the jargon for which is an "FI" or "Functional Integration" session - but you don't have to know that!) then you generally lie down on a comfortable bench, fully clothed, while she (or he) guides your movements with her hands. Practitioners are trained to have very sensitive touch and to feel how your skeleton is reacting and moving and to help you work out ways to move more easily.

The pictures should give you more of an idea as to what happens. Describing this isn't easy - as the Method isn't verbal, it is mainly carried out in silence and it's kinesthetic - which means it's based on movement, sensations and touch. Hard to describe by a computer keyboard!

So if it doesn't seem completely clear it's no surprise! Experiencing it is much easier.

Why is it called Feldenkrais?

The person who developed the Method was an Israeli physicist called Moshe Feldenkrais - hence the name of the Method. (Some of us would have found it easier if he'd been called John Smith but he wasn't!) He lived from 1904 to 1984 and started becoming interested in how the body worked when he sustained serious injuries to his knees playing football. He was threatened with the possibility of not being able to walk again and so went to work on himself. He studied the body, how it developed throughout childhood, its make-up, structure, movement, ... everything that he could study that would help him understand it. Over time he helped himself and he walked again. Others asked him for help, and he spent the next 40 years developing the Method, training others to be practitioners and helping people. He was still walking in his 80's.

He was a fascinating man who was also one of the first people to bring Judo to the West - so you can sense a martial arts flavour in some of his work.

How can you choose a practitioner?

Qualified Feldenkrais practitioners in Australia have studied up to 4 years part-time in a professional training programme. Rachel qualified in 1991 - having completed her studies in Melbourne and receiving her accreditation from La Trobe University. The difference between this and many other professional training programmes is that it is intensely experiential. This means practitioners have done hundreds of awareness-through-movement lessons themselves and received individual Functional Integration sessions from some of the world's top Feldenkrais trainers. It means they've spent up to 4 years working on their own bodies and selves and not just reading about it in books. Rachel says it was the hardest and most personally challenging training she has ever done. However, she also thinks it was the best thing she's ever done and she still continues to have regular individual Feldenkrais lessons. If you want to learn using the Feldenkrais Method - make sure you go to a qualified practitioner, not someone who's only read about it, just done a weekend course or two in it, or listened to some tapes. Ask to see their qualifications.

How can Feldenkrais help your communication?

Communication requires awareness. This is a key skill that the Feldenkrais Method can help you develop. All of our communication and emotional intelligence workshops have woven into them the fabric of the Feldenkrais Method. Developing self-awareness, for instance, is a clear theme around which all our workshops are built.

To be able to monitor the flow of your communication, to be aware of your intentions when you communicate, to be able to reverse the movement of an interaction heading toward conflict - these are all ways that the Feldenkrais Method can help you become more skilled as a communicator.

How can Feldenkrais help you build your confidence?

I have personally found my confidence has developed very significantly throughout my Feldenkrais work. How can this happen? Let me explain it to you in the following ways:

When you practise the Feldenkrais Method you are developing ways to use your body and whole self more efficiently. As part of this process you let go of inefficient movements, tense muscles and tense habits. As a consequence of this you can feel more relaxed. You may also let go of the situations that produced the tension in the first place.

For example, I used to have a set of very tight muscles in my stomach. The stomach muscles are very important in the way that people stand, sit and walk; and in how they feel about themselves. My stomach muscles permanently tightened in my childhood when I became very frightened through being stalked by a paedophile who was in our village. Without my knowing any of this at a conscious level, I tried to hold my stomach muscles tight as a kind of self-protection. This tension went on for so long it became a habit and became part of "who I was" in my adult life. As a consequence I was operating in my life with a reduced ability to use that set of muscles, or to feel strong, upright or resilient.

It was not until I did some Feldenkrais work around my pelvis/stomach that I discovered any of this. As I went through a series of Feldenkrais lessons, over about an 18 month period, gradually these muscles relaxed. As this happened, I reconnected with, and then moved through, the pain associated with my childhood. I learnt how to use my pelvis more efficiently and the childhood pain left me, as did the fear. The result was that I not only moved more efficiently but I felt a lot better. The things that were holding my confidence back left me, e.g. repressed memories, fear and a poorly moving pelvis. They were replaced with greater confidence. I had a stronger sense of freedom to be myself, a greater connection with my whole self and a greater sense of personal power.

The muscles in the pelvis, when they are used efficiently, can be the power-house for the whole body. The way you use your pelvis and your whole skeleton can affect the way that you feel about yourself, and how confident you feel. I know this to be true from personal experience.

The Feldenkrais Method helps you develop a more refined sense of yourself and a greater self-awareness. Low self-esteem and a lack of confidence are fuelled by negative thoughts, self-doubt, and mixed-up messages that we send to ourselves about ourselves. By developing a greater level of self-awareness you are able to spot this kind of destructive thinking and learn ways to reverse it.

A lot of the exercises done in The Feldenkrais Method help you to notice what you are thinking, to know how this impacts on your movement and behaviour, and to work out ways to make your thinking and behaviour more efficient. As you learn to recognise and give up your destructive thinking patterns - your confidence is no longer restricted by them. Your confidence can have free reign and increase.

The Feldenkrais Method can help you develop a much clearer sense of your skeleton. When someone has a clearer sense of their skeleton supporting them, they can feel stronger and be less likely to collapse into feelings of helplessness and worthlessness. If people feel helpless or worthless often their skeletons and bodies have also collapsed, or what we call "flexed".

You could test this for yourself. Stand up in a way that will make you feel as confident as possible. Notice how you are standing, is your head upright, is your body upright, are you breathing easily? Now stand as though you are feeling helpless. Did anything change? It usually does. People usually stand in a less upright way, their chests may move down and in, the middle of their bodies may collapse a little, they may find their breathing is a little more shallow ... there are many variations but there is no doubt that how you hold your body and how you feel are deeply inter-connected. Thus, working on your body can help you feel better and feel more confident.

Discover the benefits for yourself by working with a Feldenkrais practitioner.

The Feldenkrais Method can help you get the most out of your life - gain the benefits now!

There are Feldenkrais practitioners throughout Australia and the rest of the world - go to our Links section for more details. Or if in Australia call 1800 001 550 to find out your nearest practitioner.

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Updated 25-Jul-2008