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“Feldenkrais is an integrative movement model
that carries people into daily life and holds changes.
Another way to say ‘integrative’ is ‘mind/body.’
It’s a whole perspective, not a two-dimensional
one. There’s not always a language to describe
this, but when you work this way, people get better
faster.” —Elizabeth Valentine, integrative
medicine colleague
Our earliest sensory-motor intelligence is often devalued
in favor of the sophisticated intellectual or cognitive
abilities that develop later. But many of my students
come complaining they need to get out of the head. Moshe
Feldenkrais bridged both paradigms. His extensive scientific
backup indicated not only how we can learn in different
parts of the brain but also that these alternative ways
of learning we’ve been talking about can be powerful
and accessible lifelong. Feldenkrais Method is “relational”
on many levels:
The internal map
The sensations experienced doing small, deliberate movements
bring back into awareness lost areas of the internal
landscape, where habits have numbed out feeling or old
emotions have gotten locked up. It takes time to create
this continuity, so that the brain fires differently
and allows the neuromuscular system to change. Patience
is easier because the learning process is designed to
be pleasurable. One of my students calls it “enormously
funny” just to feel elastic, flopping her knees
back and forth on the floor.
>> The environment
Each body scan also identifies you in space. Noticing
changes in connection to the surface that is holding
your weight — a chair, a bed, the ground —
indicates how you are relating to gravity, giving new
meaning to the term “being grounded.” In
Functional Integration, letting the touch of the Feldenkrais
practitioner guide your movements changes your relationship
to the human environment. You find these kinds of consciousness
quietly filtering into daily life, helping you keep
your balance if you miss a step or even just notice
where you place your keys.
>> Integrative medicine
The Feldenkrais approach coordinates well with health
professions similarly committed to helping reclaim a
sense of wholeness and wellbeing. Many of my students
are referred by chiropractors concerned about repeat
injuries. At the Mind/Body department of Longy School
of Music in Cambridge, we incorporate Feldenkrais Method,
Alexander Technique, and Body Mapping, as well as training
in mental skills for handling performance anxiety. Including
Bones For Life, with academic credit, in Lesley University’s
Institute for Body, Mind and Spirituality is helping
health professionals dialogue about how to integrate
Mind/Body theory and methods into their professional
practices.
>> Artistic expression
My musician students report fewer barriers between themselves
and their instruments. When performing is physically
easier, musical ideas flow more freely and beauty of
tone is an automatic byproduct. Feldenkrais has become
such a popular choice for musicians that I’ve
heard of orchestras writing classes into their labor
contracts.
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