I graduated as a Certified Practitioner on The Feldenkrais Method in 2004. I attended a training course in Australia run by Larry Goldfarb and Alan Questel, both of whom attended a training course run by Moshe Feldenkrais in the 1980’s.

The Feldenkrais Method can be hard to define because it is like nothing else. It offers a practical and powerful way to improve your life and gain greater freedom and ease of movement. It is an educational method focusing on learning and movement.

 

Feldenkrais lessons provide a safe, meditative space where you can relax, relieve stress, and improve unconscious movement patterns beyond familiar limitations. Through these gentle movements you can learn to think, move, and act more creatively and comfortably. And, because the muscular patterns which govern posture are deeply interwoven with the emotional and psychological patterns which govern personality and behaviour, changes in movement patterns also free people to be more open and spontaneous, and more able to handle stress with relaxed balance and poise.

It is named after its originator, Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), an engineer and physicist as well as a Judo teacher.

What are the benefits?

• Relief from tension and muscular pain
• Easier and fuller breathing
• Greater relaxation and well-being
• Improved performance in sport, dance, music and drama
• Greater ease in everyday activities
• Increased vitality

The Feldenkrais Method can be taught in group lessons called Awareness Through Movement (ATM) or on a one to one basis (Functional Integration).

 

Individual lessons (Functional Integration):

Each lesson revolves around a question: What habitual pattern of movement do you want to become more aware of and change? In a typical lesson, you and your teacher discuss this, then you lie fully-clothed on a low table as the teacher’s hands gently support you, suggesting, encouraging and guiding you towards new ways of moving and organising yourself.

Each lesson is unique and designed by your teacher to address your particular habits of moving and holding yourself. Your increasing self-awareness enables you to let go of these habits, to find and choose new patterns of movement; you may find similar development in the flexibility of your thinking and feeling.

The lesson will often lead to suggestions by the teacher for ways of working on your own, in order to help the new choices become a lasting part of your life. Lessons are particularly useful for specific or long-standing problems, to deepen your experience of Awareness Through Movement classes, or to provide ongoing support for your everyday life.

Both Awareness Through Movement classes and Functional Integration lessons are appropriate for a wide range of people, for all ages and for all abilities.

I have worked with people with Parkinson’s disease and who have had a stroke using The Feldenkrais Method to help them achieve greater freedom of movement as well as people with chronic back pain and other physical health related issues.

 

For more information about The Feldenkrais Method visit www.feldenkrais.co.uk

 

I can see you in your own home or you can come to my comfortable home. There are no set number of sessions and it may be that you just need one or two sessions. However, six to eight sessions are most common.