The Feldenkrais Method
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Awareness Through Movement®
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Functional Integration®
What is the Feldenkrais Method?
The Feldenkrais Method®, named for its founder, Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, uses slow, gentle movement to improve human function. This method deepens one’s sense of how the body moves and offers strategies to make movement simpler and more fluid
How is this method taught?
There are two ways to teach the Feldenkrais Method: Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration®. Both applications are structured to evoke the nervous system’s innate ability to learn, adapt, and change. This “neuroplasticity” of the brain has been documented in a wide range of scientific research and is proving that we’re never too old to learn and change.
Can anyone do these Feldenkrais lessons?
Perhaps the greatest difference between the Feldenkrais Method and other body-oriented methods is the ease with which all movements are carried out – ease is a fundamental principle of learning.
What is an Awareness Through Movement® lesson?
Awareness Through Movement® lessons use verbal instructions to guide groups of students through deceptively simple and gentle movement sequences that help them learn to move their bodies more intelligently. These lessons are typically done while lying on an exercise mat, but may also be done in seated or standing positions. During the lesson, participants are encouraged to notice the various parts of their bodies involved in a particular movement that may otherwise escape their attention. The results are often surprising, but students find their attention engaged in a way that is unique and rewarding. Please visit the Feldenkrias Online Library that Joanne created from her recordings of Awareness Through Movement lessons. There are 47 lessons to choose from, each with a different focus.
What is a Functional Integration® lesson?
Functional Integration® is a one-on-one approach to working with students. It is generally non-verbal and uses gentle movement to bring about learning, change, and improvement. Each lesson is designed to meet the individual needs of the student. These lessons are done with the person fully clothed and, typically, while lying on a specially designed padded table. Contact Joanne to discuss an individual Functional Integration® Lesson.
For a first-person account of Feldenkrais Lessons, read this in-depth article by Susan Rein from the Washington Post, or download the pdf here.
Read Jane Brody’s article from her Well column in the NYTimes “Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain,” (October 31, 2017) or download the pdf here.
After participating in Joanne’s Awareness Through Movement classes, my movements feel more fluid. I become very relaxed and more flexible. It’s a wonderfully unique feeling of being physically ‘free’ and very connected to my body.
Ann H. Rux, PhD
In the most gentle, soothing and inclusive way…to feel the result of lengthened limbs and opened joints is nothing short of miraculous, and something I have not experienced anywhere else. My wife says I look like a different person when I come home from class, and I feel like one too.
Will Byrd
Joanne helped me get rid of my neck pain. Before, I could hardly move my head! She uses rich verbal imagery to lead her students to an expanded physical and mental awareness of how their bodies can move most efficiently.
Maris Krasnegor