What you pay attention to… grows.

What is Feldenkrais and how can it help me?

The Feldenkrais method is for anyone looking for a more efficient, comfortable and sustainable way of living their day to day lives. Feldenkrais is a method that cultivates a learning environment where our nervous system settles and reorganizes through gentle, slow and mindful movements. Feldenkrais lessons ask you to consider and value the process of coming to do what you do.  The lesson’s novelty and complexity of sensing will enhance and nurture the brain’s plasticity. Our full potential comes alive without confining, conforming and contorting ourselves to the self protecting habits of past injuries and personal history.

Paying attention to what one does well rather than to correct what is “bad” or “wrong” is a hallmark approach of the Feldenkrais method. Listening to the “how” of movement is the hallmark of our individuality. We are encouraged to define and distinguish this for ourselves in each lesson.   Within a safe and respectful environment, the nervous system is open and receptive to explore and identify more efficient patterns of movement despite our history, expectations of how we “should” move, prior injuries or age. 

A greater sense of self agency and dignity will naturally emerge, yielding more choices within ourselves and in relationship to the world we live in.  Learning to work in harmony with our nervous system and coming to understand what it means to actively listen to ourselves, a greater sense of freedom will unfold.

Feldenkrais is for anyone who is seeking:

  • Aging gracefully

  • Greater confidence and self regulation tools

  • Reduction in pain

  • Coordination and balance following an injury or surgery

  • Freedom from anxiety 

  • Unlock creativity

  • Increased mobility, agility and strength in personal hobbies and interests

Feldenkrais is taught in two forms:

Awareness Through Movement (ATM) are group lessons for teens/adults. These lessons explore the structure, function, and motion of our neuromuscular skeletal selves through gentle, slow and mindful movements. Slowly we come to learn how it is to move with ease and without force, judgment, imposition, or encouragement of willpower.

Functional Integration (FI) are one-on-one lessons for both children and adults. These sessions can be guided verbally only or hands-on, with the practitioner using gentle and noninvasive touch and with the student fully clothed. Many FI lessons are lying down (inviting the nervous system to release habitual tension) on a low and comfortable table. However, the Feldenkrais method is about creating the learning environment unique to YOU, so the individual lesson could also be in sitting, standing or walking.

Slowing Down to Feel. New York Times, January 22, 2021

A different way to relieve years of back pain. The Washington Post Sept. 27, 2018

Trying the Feldenkrais Method for Chronic Pain. Jane Brody's celebrated 40-year Personal Health New York Times column Oct. 30, 2017

Feldenkrais Movement Lessons Improve Older Adults’ Awareness study, Comfort and Function. Gerontology & Geriatric Medicine Journal 2017

Your Body Can Change Your Mind, TEDx Talks with Feldenkrais Practitioner Astra Coyle

Feldenkrais Method In The Press

Feldenkrais National Organizations and Guild

Feldenkrais Educational Foundation of North America. Education, public awareness and research materials and opportunities.

Feldenkrais Guild of North America. Find a practitioner near you, learn more about the certification process, method, Moshe Feldenkrais or just about anything else you might be curious about.