A journey into the Feldenkrais Neuromotor Method
“If you know what you are doing, you just do whatever you want”.
“Listening to our body in motion, playing with it,
is the most effective way to shape our mind”.
The first sentence, far from being a commercial slogan, is a statement used by Moshé Feldenkrais (1904 – 1984) to explain the nature of the psycho- corporeal practice that bears his name. The second thought, in quotation marks, is from the writer, a Feldenkrais practitioner for about 15 years. A thought, the one I expressed, which Moshé declared in multiple and more effective ways than my own.
The teaching that summarizes every discovery made by Professor Feldenkrais can be summarized as follows:
“Every aspect of our life, including self-esteem, relational capacity and creativity, is closely connected to our posture and the way we relate to our body in motion.”
My Encounter with the Feldenkrais Method
2008 is coming to an end and I am 32 years old. I’m looking for the best way to keep all the threads of my life together. I have a degree in Law to make the most of, the gift of writing to cultivate, a condition to fully accept. The latter is blindness, which affects me between 12 and 13 years of age. Four years earlier, I began an uncertain journey among the many holistic practices that are out there. At that time, I did not have a very clear idea of what I was really looking for. Nor do I know exactly what personal growth is. I have only one track. I like doing sports, because body movement helps me to calm my mind. So, starting from this one certain fact and asking the sports instructors I know, I begin to understand that I need some sort of disciplines that, passing through the body, might heal my mind. So, with the month of October coming to an end, following the advice of an acquaintance, without any particular hope of having a stroke of lightning on the road to Damascus so to speak, one afternoon I showed up at a studio where Feldenkrais neuromotor education is taught. That day, for the first time, I met a stranger I thought I knew well. Myself. And I discover it in a natural way, simply by paying attention, like never before, to the way I walk, putting one foot in front of the other, to the way I sit on a chair and then the way I get up.
At this point it is quite natural to wonder: “What exactly is the Feldenkrais Method about?”
Movement, Attention and Self-awareness
“The Basis of the Method for the Awareness of Psychomotor Processes” by Moshé Feldenkrais.
The professor. opens the book by giving us an account of the fact that words are largely insufficient to approach a practice that deals with emotions. This is why he suggests practicing, rather than reasoning about, his method. It is with this awareness that I am going to briefly illustrate what the method we are talking about is.
There are two approaches with which we can experiment with this:
- T.M: an acronym that means AwarenessThrough Movement. They are motor sequences that the practitioner proposes to us, guiding us with his/her voice. We learn to observe simple actions such as getting up and sitting down, walking or climbing a step. Pure observation, without any judgment on how we perform a given action. By doing so, we very often discover that we can do a certain movement more easily. In Feldenkrais, you quickly learn to abolish the concepts of right and wrong. You replace them with words like easy, convenient and functional.
- I.: Functional Integrations. We lie on a bed and rely on the kind and respectful hands of the practitioner. By trusting ourselves, we discover the movement in parts of the body that we didn’t even suspect we had.Once on our feet, we can see, from the first session, that we feel elongated, lighter and with the ability to move our neck, legs and arms with an ease that we hadn’t even dreamed of until an hour before.
In both modalities, we wear comfortable, sporty clothing. However, one or two lessons are enough to understand that we are not doing gymnastics or even physiotherapy. What we experience is a neuromotor education or re- education. Those who are familiar with Yoga and martial arts will immediately recognize some movements that refer to these disciplines. But what comes next will be something else: the feeling of being a child again, but with the awareness of an adult. We will rediscover movements buried who knows where, like crawling. Once on our feet, amazed, we will see how much the absence of those childhood games has impoverished our movements. A little dismayed, we’ll understand that we have lost most of the range of motor actions that we mastered as children.
In about ten lessons, even less, we learn that the motor sequences we are reacquiring, small and gentle, are reaching our brain. Personally, just after five sessions, I began to pay attention to how my body was positioned in space. Swimming had already given me this ability despite the absence of sight; however, Feldenkrais enabled me to notice in real time a painful posture, an uncontrolled tension, for example in the arms. Recognizing it, I can achieve a rebalancing, even with small postural adjustments and some conscious breathing, with which to let go of parasitic tensions. This was the first gift the practice gave me.
In approximately thirty lessons, you learn a good set of exercises, with which you can come in contact with every part of your body. In Feldenkrais there are no pre-established patterns, movements that you have to do before and after. Learn to listen to yourself instead. You note, after a sort of self-scanning, which part of your body is tense, the face and the jaw for example, and you intervene. Let’s incorrectly call it eye and face gymnastics. It is used to perform micro-movements that are first joint and then separate, obtaining a tangible benefit in a few minutes, as well as an expressive harmony that can be detected even in front of the mirror.
In a short time after starting the practice, your brain awakens. At first, it is confused, then amused and finally it reprograms itself. The first impact with this method may create some imbalances, but nothing to worry about. Simply, you begin to understand that behind your bodily stiffness there are character sides, wrong beliefs, which make you suffer. Without you even noticing it. Yet your brain notices it. It understands this because the body, in movement, is speaking to it. Both body and brain begin to recognize that specific moment of relaxation and insistently request it. They detect a given muscular tension, that harmful posture and, automatically, urge you to change it. And you understand, in amazement, that your brain and your body have reconnected, perhaps for the first time in your life.
In Feldenkrais there are no pre-established patterns, movements that you have to do before and after. Learn to listen to yourself instead. You note, after a sort of self-scanning, which part of your body is tense, the face and the jaw for example, and you intervene.
Feldenkrais and Reconnection
I have been practicing the method for about six months. I started, for no apparent reason, taking off the dark glasses I constantly wear. I do it in the administrative office where I work at the time and sometimes even on the street. In the meantime, I realize that my way of writing articles for the magazines and newspapers I collaborate with is changing profoundly. It is as if more evocative words emerged from the fingers and even more from the mind than in the past. The colors that I manage to give to my pieces, as they say in journalistic language, make me feel like a crystal carver.
At the time, I had not read anything the professor Moshé has written yet. and I would for a long time. I only have the theoretical notions that my teacher gives me. The experience is still almost totally practical. I sense that my brain is shaping itself. Taking off my glasses when I feel the need is a gesture with which I give relief to my face which, at times, can hardly bear that extraneous weight. There is more, however. It is an act with which I fully accept my condition. Writing benefits of all this. Because my Feldenkrais classes are a clean room where I can meditate. A practice that for me, even today, is difficult in a situation of immobility. With the ATMs and FIs of the method, on the contrary, I often catch myself not thinking about anything. And emptying it of useless thoughts allows my brain to focus on what is really important for
my well-being.
What I experience is an authentic reconnection with my deeper self. This is accompanied by other secondary effects. Looking at them with today’s awareness, they don’t seem so secondary to me. I acquire some manual skills as an ambidextrous person, for example. I can perform actions such as washing dishes using both the right and left hand. It improves my effectiveness in some sports practices, such as martial arts. Years will pass before I approach authors from different areas, discovering that there is a close connection between our motor skills and the implementation of psychic faculties. This is how I understand, in practice, the concept of neuromotor referring to the Feldenkrais Method. And I grasp the meaning of it in its entirety.
The movement sequences developed by Moshé, surprising for their simplicity, disconcerting when, through books, one discovers the complexity of the research behind them, involve muscles and nerves in a targeted way.
The movement sequences developed by Moshé, surprising for their simplicity, disconcerting when, through books, one discovers the complexity of the research behind them, involve muscles and nerves in a targeted way.
Moshé Feldenkrais
We would need a separate article to narrate the novel life of this exceptional man. For reasons of space, we will limit ourselves to mentioning that he was an electronic engineer, a physicist and a martial arts champion, as well as one of the first European black belts in Judo. He graduated in France, after resuming his studies as an adult. He spent part of his adolescence in Palestine, building bridges and houses. He was born in Ukraine and moved to the Holy Land when he was 14 years old. Personally, I cannot help but find in the parable of Moshè’s life a concept that he expresses in “Body and Mature Behavior“, which is the fundamental text of our Prof, in which he discusses the principles of his method.
You must take care of your body and its full maturation if you want to achieve full development of your intellectual faculties.
Moshé Feldenkrais applied rigorous scientific principles to his method. In the book “Nora, an Adventure in the Jungle of the Brain”, he reported his experience of supporting a woman suffering from serious motor impairments. The Prof, who was not a doctor, manages to make notable improvements in the woman who entrusts herself to his care. This is an important step to be highlighted. The practice we are dealing with is neuromotor education or re-education, not a medical treatment. Yet, a quick browse on the internet is enough to be convinced. Several doctors combine traditional medicine with a Feldenkrais treatment. Among others, jaw disorders, tinnitus, chronic migraines, a wide range of postural disorders, stress and anxiety can be alleviated with targeted Feldenkrais cycles. “The Wisdom of the Body in Movement” and “The Potent Self: a Guide to Spontaneity” are two other important texts, that are essential for understanding the studies underlying this discipline.
The United States, where prof. Feldenkrais opens its first schools to teach the method, today include Feldenkrais among the acknowledged health treatments.
You must take care of your body and its full maturation if you want to achieve full development of your intellectual faculties.
The Tool Box
Personally, this is how I define the Feldenkrais Method. It is a brush to infinitely draw and redefine our inner and outer image. It is a tool with which we “learn to learn”. In other words, by practicing Feldenkrais we improve in every area of life, because we do it in a more functional way. There is no right or wrong in the practice we are talking about. There is only a more comfortable, easier and more functional way to do it, as we have already said. And we are the parameter.
The method fits each person like a perfect, tailor-made dress. In me, for example, it has strengthened my passion and creativity in writing. Of course, it couldn’t make me a sprinter or a new Bruce Lee in martial arts. Nonetheless, it allowed me to improve my performance in sports.
Moshé explains this in “The Basis of the Method for the Awareness of Psychomotor Processes“. He tells us that he has never been very good at drawing. Yet, out of pure curiosity, at a given moment he chooses to take painting lessons. He applies himself to it, combining the awareness exercises that he is perfecting. He reveals to us, ironically, that he has not become a Brunelleschi or a Giotto. But his teacher compliments him, highlighting that his results are excellent, given that at the beginning he had no inclination for art.
Feldenkrais is a brush to infinitely draw and redefine our inner and outer image. It is a tool with which we “learn to learn”. In other words, by practicing Feldenkrais we improve in every area of life, because we do it in a more functional way. There is no right or wrong in the practice we are talking about. There is only a more comfortable, easier and more functional way to do it. And we are the parameter.
A First Step towards Spirituality
Over the years I have met many people who practice Feldenkrais. Each with their own qualities, beliefs, religious beliefs. Our method appears to be something separate from Eastern and Western practices which transmit teachings, principles and values that are good for every palate. Feldenkrais does not. It only teaches how to relate to the body. It forces us to understand who we are, deep down. Looking ourselves in the face, ruthlessly and without mediation. Like running, walking, eating, talking to others, making love and even arguing. An aseptic method, we might suspect. Nothing could be more wrong.
in order to have a source from which to draw materials on Moshé. Articles, complete bibliography, list of teachers registered in the register of Feldenkrais practitioners. And also how to become a teacher, for those interested. In Italy the title is a university diploma, while in many foreign countries Feldenkrais is a university degree.
Feldenkrais only teaches how to relate to the body. It forces us to understand who we are, deep down. Looking ourselves in the face, ruthlessly and without mediation. Like running, walking, eating, talking to others, making love and even arguing.
By reading the Prof’s books and articles about him, one discovers his transversal preparation. The way in which he fully participates in the debates between supporters of Sigmund Freud’s these and other scientific currents that attempt to innovate treatments in the psychic field.
We see Moshé take the side, with authority, of the ostracized Dr. Reich, who died in prison in the USA, although he does not go into the merits of every thesis of the complicated scientist. Feldenkrais states that Wilhelm Reich’s merit is having stated that the idea of curing the mind without going through the body is mere fantasy.
With the method that bears his name, the Prof has given a valid alternative to renouncing the modern world. This is an interesting and certainly excellent possibility for some, but not very practical for most of us, immersed in a world that has spoiled us, but which we can shape, without necessarily shying away from it.
We will discover how much Moshè was spiritually connected to his grandfather, a great man of faith. According to some, our Prof also believed in reincarnation. Walking along the paths of Western science, as well as Eastern philosophies, we will discover how well Feldenkrais knew many traditions, which he studied and reworked for us. He made them simple, explaining to us how, for example, the fact of always wearing shoes has incalculable effects on our posture, our character and our attitude towards others.
With the method that bears his name, the Prof has given a valid alternative to renouncing the modern world. This is an interesting and certainly excellent possibility for some, but not very practical for most of us, immersed in a world that has spoiled us, but which we can shape, without necessarily shying away from it.
This method, for me, is a white room to fall back on and return to in difficult times. Sometimes we can forget about him, he is human. But once you learn it, it will be difficult to put it aside.
Cyclically, we will remember the great teaching of Prof. Feldenkrais:
“Our body is intelligent. Let’s learn to listen to him.
And he will give us the answers we need.”
And this, it seems to me, is the indispensable prerequisite for approaching any philosophy, religion or anything else that we want to learn.
Our mind is the blank sheet of paper. The body is our brush, Feldenkrais is the technique for learning to draw. Only by learning how to trace the lines of life can we dedicate ourselves to choosing the colors we like best.
