Benefits of the Feldenkrais Method
Feldenkrais practitioners credit the method with improving self-image, flexibility, coordination, range of motion and overall physical and mental functioning. By increasing awareness of the body’s mechanics, students can discard previous “bad habits” and find more comfortable ways to move, sit and stand. Further, students often find themselves feeling relaxed and peaceful after a session.

The Feldenkrais Method®, developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, D.Sc., uses a systems approach to looking at movement. Using specific movement lessons performed with attention and intention, people of all ages  -- from young children to senior citizens, discover how to unlearn patterns that interfere with their ability to move efficiently and easily, and to learn new ways of acting that encourage fluid, effortless action.

A focus of attention and self-awareness while performing simple easy movements, supports the capacity to learn, change and move beyond one’s limitations in body and mind.  Certified Feldenkrais® Practitioners generally offer two kinds of sessions: an individual one on one session with guiding touch and support (essential for young children and those neurologically challenged) as well as group classes that focus on awareness of movement patterns and then through self-discovery, begin to sense and develop more functional ones . Both are designed to help you learn by sensing differences in any given action.

The Feldenkrais Method® has proven valuable for people who have been neurologically challenged from birth (cerebral palsy), disease (strokes) or accidents ( traumatic brain injury) , as well as for those wanting to refine and optimize human performance in sports and the arts – musicians, dancers and actors. It is known to be supportive rehabilitation to many with ongoing aches, pains or limitations in their backs, necks, feet, knees or hips in that they learn how to expand their capacities to perform daily activities in the home, office or leisure pursuits.

In preparing my workshop “Moving from Your Core”, using concepts from The Feldenkrais® Method, it was interesting for me to read a colleague's description of his movements skating.

New video –  Watch testimonials of runners, singers, mothers of young children and workers who sit all day. Practitioners see movement patterns housed in your brain and work to engage your nervous system to improve your lower back, shoulder or hip, ability to stand with better balance. - from Health Watch NYC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qlgaeF_1Ao

 “My work as a physical therapist and Feldenkrais® Practitioner gives me daily opportunities to … see the way a particular person’s human form works together. ... I use my understanding of anatomy, kinesiology and neuroscience to help them find a way to move more efficiently and effectively.

It is strange to me how my approach to healing is different or confusing to many people. They see themselves as a problematic knee, elbow, shoulder or foot, unrelated to the rest of them. Often, they think that one particular muscle, holding strongly, should fix their problem.  But in motion, muscles don’t hold strong. They transmit forces through the bones…”  Karen Donelson The Feldenkrais Method® in NYC  The Human Form in Action is a Work of Art

http://pilatesiconoclast.typepad.com/universalprinciples/2010/05/physical-therapist-karen-donelson-feldenkrais-method-informed-fascination-healing-through-movement.html

In 1985 I remember working with the two year old daughter of a physical therapist who had had a stroke at birth.  I noticed that she crawled using one arm and not the other.  Immediately my thought was to stop the arm that was moving (constraining it) and support her moving through her torso  – equalizing the function of both arms.  That means that the arm working was doing only what the limited arm could do.

 In my mind I was stimulating this girl’s brain to remember that she had two arms by reducing the use of the one and increasing the use of the other—starting with what she could do with the arm with limitations. By gently restraining both arms, we crawled on our upper arms and elbows, maximizing the function of the torso and legs.  This was fun and novel for her.  After a few minutes she started to explore using the arm that initially didn’t want to participate. 

My belief was that the more attention she gave to moving in a functional way with both arms – the more two arms would be represented in her mind-body map and the more the second arm could and would start to function.  The trick was to not let the more capable arm show off.  

Recently studies show the functional importance of constraint movement therapy. What is different is that I did not force the non-functioning arm to do an action.  I put the restraint into a full functional action with a feeling of novelty and play. 

***Visit: Constraint therapy with children:

http://www.chasa.org/ci.htm      OR

http://www2.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab004149.html

with adults:

http://www.strokeassociation.org/STROKEORG/LifeAfterStroke/RegainingIndependence/PhysicalChallenges/Constraint-Induced-Movement-Therapy_UCM_309798_Article.jsp

One of my clients found me in Sarasota because he was lucky enough to have had a physical therapist  who was also a Feldenkrais® Practitioner.  Since major neck surgery he had had trouble with his balance.  I was able to support his rehabilitation through heightening his body/movement awareness.  We did many basic movements which at times emphasized use of his pelvis, his feet, his ribs and his shoulders or arms.  All combined to clarify where he was in space which gave him better balance, posture and gait.

 Science agrees that body/movement awareness is a necessary part of the rehabilitation process.      

The Role of Proprioception in the Management and Rehabilitation of Athletic Injuries           http://ajsm.highwire.org/content/25/1/130.abstract

Click here to download PDF about:     What is Feldenkrais? by Mare Petras
Published in Gulf Coast Healthy Living, a magazine of the Herald Tribune media group, Sep 2007

In this Feldenkrais video students of the method describe how it has enriched and changed their lives.

www.feldenkraisinstitute.com This was filmed at David Zemach-Bersin's Feldenkrais Training Program in Montclair, NJ in 2001. The Feldenkrais Institute of NY (in Manhattan) is the largest center in North America devoted to the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais.

An inspirational story about the body's ability to teach the brain. A baby born 20 years ago without a third of her cerebellum was given a grim prognosis by medical doctors: she could never walk or talk. Now the young woman enjoys a nearly normal life and is a college student.She and her family attribute her amazing recovery to Feldenkrais, a unique therapy developed in Israel and based in part on the belief that the body can actually teach the brain. The technique is now used by more than 4,000 practitioners around the world.