Feldenkrais

Refining the Self-Image

The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education is a movement based exploration that helps people to use more of themselves in every day life.The method is presented in two forms, private lessons called Functional Integration® (FI) and public lessons, called Awareness Through Movement® (ATM). 

In both the group and individual format, lessons are structured to foster a spontaneous, curious, and playful relationship with learning and movement. 

The movement content of Feldenkrais lessons is drawn from an understanding of developmental movement patterns and is also influenced by a variety of disciplines such as yoga and the martial arts. While the actions explored in any given lesson can be quite varied, the objective is always to facilitate a clearer sense of how a person does what they do, independent of what they may be doing — and to learn through movement about how one uses oneself in all areas of life.

Key movement principles include:

  • Clarifying the relationship between the parts of oneself and the whole
  • Identifying and reducing parasitic-motivation
  • Learning to reduce unnecessary effort and increase ease

In ATM lessons, the practitioner uses verbal prompts to lead students through structured movement explorations. The movement content of these lessons is varied, and wide-ranging, and the lessons are structured to deepen awareness of the sophisticated interrelatedness between how we think, sense, feel, and move. The typical outcome of an ATM lesson is to return to daily life having disrupted habitual patterns of self-organization and movement, allowing for the discovery greater ease and efficiency in one’s self-use.

In FI lessons, the practitioner uses both non-invasive touch and verbal cues to communicate about these same principles of learning and kinesthetic awareness in a direct and tactile manner tailored to an individual student. Generally FI lessons occur on a specially designed table, and can included explorations that begin lying down, sitting, standing, or moving through space.

I have been studying Feldenkrais since 2007, and graduated from the Movement Educators Santa Fe 5 Feldenkrais Professional Training Program, under the educational direction of Diana Razumny, in November 2015.

I am not currently teaching ATM lessons to the public. However, if you are interested, please refer here for the teaching schedule of my colleague Nick Strauss-Klein of Twin Cities Feldenkrais.

If you are interested in learning more about Feldenkrais, or would like to schedule an individual FI lesson, please contact me using the form below!