The Feldenkrais Method is an educational program developed by Moshe Feldenkrais, an Israeli physicist and Judo practitioner. It helps one get a greater functional awareness of the self. According to the founder of the method, Moshe Feldenkrais, the aim of the Feldenkrais Method is to ‘make the impossible possible, the possible easy and the easy elegant’. The Feldenkrais method gives greater awareness of the self because it uses body movement as the primary vehicle for learning. This focus on body movements has led to the Feldenkrais Method being seen as a ‘beneficial natural health and healing complementary and alternative medicine.’ Since the primary thrust is on movements, the Feldenkrais Method attracts the attention of those who want to improve their movement repertoire like artists, dancers and musicians.

The people who most benefit from the Feldenkrais Methods are those who want to reduce the pain, limitations or feebleness in movement. People also use the method as a way to self development, by bringing in changes that reduce movement-related pain. People suffering from pain in the back, knees and shoulders greatly benefit from this movement technique. Patients suffering from movement-limiting diseases like Palsy, stroke or partial paralysis also benefit a lot by following the Feldenkrais Method.

Practitioners of the Feldenkrais Method often refrain from calling this method ‘therapy’. They also do not make any kind of diagnosis. The basic tenet is that people generally experience a feeling of well-being and wholesomeness when their movements and their method of movement changes for the better. So, the aim is just to improve movement and posture.

Most proponents of the method believe that the Feldenkrais Method is a kind of self-education through manipulative therapy. The thrust of the technique is to achieve mind-body development. Although the Feldenkrais Method has a lot in common with Rolfing (Feldenkrais was himself a close friend of Ida Rolf), Feldenkrais Method is more informational and cybernetic.

Feldenkrais emphasized the importance of natural movement intelligence. The method is a kind of somatic movement practice. The importance of the method is that it considers the body as an ‘experience’ rather than an object. The Feldenkrais Method enables us to achieve the same movement with little stress and tension.

In this natural health and healing method, the relationship between the client and his practitioner is quite important. Rather than therapy, Feldenkrais likened his work to ‘dancing with someone’. Thus the practitioner must be willing to feel the changes in the client and undergo these changes himself. Therefore genuine interaction is absolutely essential between the practitioner and his client.

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