The Feldenkrais Method is a way of learning through movement. Through small, slow, attentive movements, you discover how you actually move, where you use more effort than you need, and how the same movement can become easier. It’s taught in group classes called Awareness Through Movement, or one to one, with a teacher guiding you. People come to it with chronic tension or while relearning movement after an injury. Musicians and athletes use it to refine what they already do well, and many people come simply because they want to feel freer in their own body.
The Feldenkrais Method in plain words
We learn most of our everyday movements in childhood, through thousands of attempts, and then stop noticing them. We walk, get up from a chair, and turn our heads the way we learned to back then.
Take a simple example. When you reverse into a parking space, you turn your head to look over your shoulder. One person does this almost entirely with the neck, and after a long drive the neck aches. Another turns with the whole body: the eyes, head, and chest all move, and even the pelvis shifts a little on the seat, so the same look takes far less effort. Both ways were learned, and both feel natural to the person who uses them.
The Feldenkrais Method works with exactly these differences. In a lesson you gradually discover what you’re actually doing, and that discovery gives you a choice. Moshe Feldenkrais summed up the idea in a line his students like to repeat: “If you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.”
In Awareness Through Movement, Feldenkrais starts from the idea that each of us acts in line with our self-image [1]. That image includes the body: how you picture your shoulders, how wide your pelvis feels, where exactly your neck begins. When the image is blurry, the movement is blurry too. Lessons slowly bring it into focus, one part at a time.
Who was Moshe Feldenkrais?
Moshe Feldenkrais was born in 1904 in Slavuta, a town in what is now Ukraine. Later, in Paris, he studied engineering and physics and worked in the laboratory of Frédéric Joliot-Curie. He was also one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt in judo.
A knee injury changed the direction of his work. The surgery available at the time had uncertain odds, so he decided to study how he moved instead. He studied anatomy, physiology, child development, and the psychology of learning, and patiently examined his own movements, as his biographer Mark Reese describes [2].
The method that carries his name grew out of that inquiry. The violinist Yehudi Menuhin and the theater director Peter Brook worked with him. Today more than 7,000 certified practitioners in 21 countries teach it, after a four-year, 800-hour training.
Two forms: group classes and one-to-one work
The method has two forms, which Feldenkrais described in The Elusive Obvious [3]. Awareness Through Movement is a class in which the teacher guides a group through a sequence of movements with their voice. Feldenkrais left behind a huge number of these lessons, covering every part of the body and almost every everyday action. Functional Integration is one-to-one work: the teacher guides the movement through touch and adapts it to one person.
My sessions are online, one to one. I talk you through each movement, we adjust its pace and size to what suits you, and together we look at what has changed. The principle is the same as in a group class, except the whole lesson is built for you.
What a class looks like, minute by minute
A group Awareness Through Movement class usually lasts between forty minutes and an hour. Here’s what happens.
The first five to ten minutes: how you lie
You lie on your back on a mat or a blanket. The teacher invites you to lie in whatever way is comfortable and asks a few questions: which parts of your back touch the floor, whether one shoulder blade feels clearer than the other, where the gap between your body and the floor is largest. What you notice becomes your starting picture. At the end of the class, you compare how you lie with it.
The next twenty to thirty minutes: one movement, many questions
Then the movement begins, small and simple. Say you slowly roll your head to the right on the floor and back again. The teacher draws your attention to what else moves: whether the pressure under your shoulder blades changes, what your shoulders are doing, whether you hold your breath. You repeat the movement about ten times, slowly, and each time your attention goes somewhere new. Between sequences you lie still and rest. The pauses are part of the lesson: they give the nervous system time to take in the difference.
The next ten minutes or so: variations
Only then come variations of the same movement. You turn your head to the right while your eyes look left. Or only your eyes move while your head stays still. Or you just imagine the movement without moving at all. Some variations feel strange, and that’s fine. They loosen the habit of moving the eyes, head, and neck together as one block.
The last five minutes: comparing
You lie still again and check the picture from the beginning. Many people notice that their back lies wider on the floor, that their breathing is calmer, or that their head turns farther with less effort. Then you slowly get up, walk around, and notice how you stand. The teacher usually asks just one thing: “What’s different now?”
When a lesson works on one side only, the difference is often striking. That side of the body feels longer and softer than the other. The contrast is a deliberate part of the method, because it shows the difference between the old way and the new one so clearly.
Why the movements are so small and slow
Feldenkrais explained this with an everyday example. When you lift an iron bar, you won’t feel a fly land on it. When you hold a feather, you’ll feel it at once [1].
Movement works the same way. When you strain, you can’t sense the fine difference between two ways of doing something. When you reduce the effort, the differences become clear, and you can choose the easier way. Slowness gives you time to notice the difference. Speed comes later, once the new way is familiar.
That’s why in class you never go to your limit. You stop well before it, in a range that feels clearly comfortable. Effort proves nothing. A movement that always sits at the edge of what you can manage is hard to learn.
Before your first class
“I have almost no flexibility. Can I still come?” Yes. The movements are small, you do them within your own range, and nobody compares your movement with anyone else’s. Many people find their flexibility improves along the way, as movement gets easier.
“My back hurts. Is it OK for me to take part?” Yes, with one rule: you only do what feels clearly comfortable. If a movement hurts, you skip it or simply imagine it. Feldenkrais treated imagined movement as a full part of the lesson, because the nervous system keeps learning even when you only imagine.
“I’ve been working on myself for years. What’s new here?” The way you learn. There is no right or wrong movement and no form to achieve. You learn from small differences you notice in your own movement, without mystique and without big promises.
“What if I fall asleep?” It happens, especially in the first classes. Slow movements and pauses shift the body from alertness into rest, so if you’re tired, sleep comes on its own. Over time it gets easier to follow the lesson to the end.
Who the Feldenkrais Method can help
Many of the people who come to my workshops already work with the body or with people: yoga teachers, physiotherapists, psychotherapists, and coaches. They come for themselves and for their work, because the method gives them a new way of looking at movement. Here are a few typical situations.
- Someone who works at a computer all day and feels their neck and shoulders turn into one stiff block by evening. In class they learn that the eyes, head, and chest can move separately, so the neck no longer carries the whole load. I write more about this in the article on neck and shoulder tension.
- Someone who clenches their teeth under stress, usually without noticing. Lessons for the jaw and tongue help them catch the habit earlier, before the grip gets strong. More on this in the article on jaw clenching.
- Someone who, after an injury, is afraid of a movement that used to be easy. Small, safe versions of that movement help them gradually trust it again.
- A musician, dancer, or singer who uses the body as an instrument and wants more ease and precision in movements they repeat every day.
- Someone who finds it hard to relax and can’t settle into sitting in silence. For many of them, movement is an easier way into calm than stillness.
- Older adults who want a steadier walk and better balance. Research on the method is still modest. In a 2015 review of the published studies, Australian researchers Susan Hillier and Anthea Worley found the strongest support for improved balance in older people [4].
All these examples rest on the same idea. Tension, clumsiness, and fear of movement are learned habits, and what has been learned can be learned differently.
Change usually shows up along the way, when you’re not expecting it. In a parking lot, for example, you turn to look behind you and notice that your chest is turning along with your neck, and the look over your shoulder has suddenly become a shorter trip. By then the habit has already started to change, without a single reminder to “stand up straight.”
Where to go from here
If you’d like to explore how you move, we can work together one to one, online. In my online Feldenkrais sessions I guide you through movements with my voice, adapted to you and your pace. It starts with a free 20-minute call, where you can ask questions and see whether this way of working suits you.
If you’d like to experience an Awareness Through Movement class as described here, see the upcoming workshops and retreats.
Frequently asked questions
How do you pronounce Feldenkrais?
FEL-den-krice, with the last syllable rhyming with “rice.” The method carries the surname of its founder, Moshe Feldenkrais.
Can you do Feldenkrais online?
Yes. Lessons are guided by voice, so a class over video works much like a class in a studio.
Do I need special equipment?
No. A mat or blanket, a little floor space, and comfortable clothes are enough. Some lessons are done sitting on a chair.
How often should I practice?
Briefly and regularly. Fifteen minutes a few times a week gives the nervous system more chances to learn than one long class a month.
Is Feldenkrais the same as physiotherapy?
No. A physiotherapist works on recovery from a specific injury or condition. Feldenkrais is learning: through movement you discover how you move and how it can become easier. That’s why many physiotherapists take classes themselves.
Who can teach the Feldenkrais Method?
A certified practitioner. The training takes about 800 hours, spread over several years.
Sources
- Feldenkrais M. (1972). Awareness Through Movement. Harper & Row.
- Reese M. (2015). Moshe Feldenkrais: A Life in Movement. ReeseKress Somatics Press.
- Feldenkrais M. (1981). The Elusive Obvious. Meta Publications.
- Hillier S., Worley A. (2015). The effectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method: a systematic review of the evidence. Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2015, 752160.
I am Nikola, a certified Feldenkrais practitioner and somatic coach, with about nine years of somatic work. Here I write about different approaches to the body: how to understand it better, how to learn new ways of using it, and how to build a more holistic relationship with your body and with life.
Ways to work with me
- 1:1 somatic sessions onlineindividual work, online
- Online Feldenkrais sessionsIndividual guidance through movement on Zoom
- Workshops and retreatsin person, in a group
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