feldenkrais - self-consciousness and movement

Feldenkrais Method
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The Feldenkrais Method is an educational system centered on movement, aiming to expand and refine the use of the self through awareness.

Because it uses movement as the primary vehicle for gaining awareness, it is directly applicable to disorders that arise from restricted or habitually poor movement. But as a process for gaining awareness, the system claims to expand a person's choices and responses to many aspects of life: emotions, relationships, and intellectual tasks; and it applies at any level, from severe disorder to highly professional performance. The Feldenkrais Method holds that there is no separation between mind and body, and thus learning to move better can improve one's overall well-being on many levels.

The Feldenkrais Method was originated by Dr Moshé Feldenkrais (1904-1984), a Ukrainian-born Jewish physicist and judo practitioner who moved to Israel and eventually became an Israeli. He presented a view that good health means functioning well---working well, having satisfying relationships with emotional maturity, able to access a full range of responses to any situation ("Awareness Through Movement") - this is opposed to the medical health as in not 'sick or disabled' or health in any abstract sense.

He asserted that his method of body/mind exploration leads to improved functioning (health) through individuals becoming more aware and finding improved use;

this focus on exploration and awareness is typified by his statement "What I am after is more flexible minds, not just more flexible bodies".


Feldenkrais taught that changes in the physical experience could be described as changes in the self image, which can be conceived as the mapping of the motor cortex to the body. (Such a body image was depicted by Dr. Wilder Penfield in the form of a homunculus). Activity in the motor cortex plays a key role in proprioception (the sense of body position). Feldenkrais taught that changes in our ability to move are inseparable from changes in our conscious perception of ourselves as embodied. Feldenkrais aimed to clarify and work therapeutically with this relationship, with instructions that involved both specific movement instructions and invitations to introspection.

Although the technique does not specifically aim to eliminate pain or "cure" physical complaints, such issues are treated as valuable information that may inform the lesson. Issues such as chronic muscle pain may naturally resolve themselves as the student learns a more relaxed approach to his or her physical experience, and a more integrated, freer, easier way to move.