The Feldenkrais Method is for anyone who wants to reconnect with their natural abilities to move, think, and feel. Whether you want to be more comfortable sitting at your computer, playing with your children and grandchildren, or performing a favorite pastime, these gentle lessons can improve your overall well being.
Learning to move with less effort makes daily life easier. Because the Feldenkrais Method focuses on the relationship between movement and thought, increased mental awareness and creativity accompany physical improvements.
Everyone can benefit from the Method. The Feldenkrais Method helps those experiencing chronic or acute pain of the back, neck, shoulders, hips, legs, or knees, as well as healthy individuals who wish to enhance their movement abilities. The Method has been very helpful in dealing with central nervous system conditions such as multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, and stroke. Musicians, actors, and artists can extend their abilities and enhance their creativity. Seniors enjoy using it to retain or regain their ability to move without strain or discomfort.
The gentle movement lessons of the Feldenkrais® method allow the student to explore movement and to find ways to make it easy and pleasurable. This can alleviate pain, help develop new movement options and the lessons are in general experienced as being very relaxing.
Feldenkrais lessons are offered in two ways, enabling you to discover which learning style is most appropriate for your needs:
In group Awareness Through Movement® lessons, the Feldenkrais® teacher verbally leads you through a sequence of movements in basic positions: sitting or lying on the floor, standing or sitting in a chair. These precisely structured movement explorations involve thinking, sensing, moving, feeling, and imagining. By increasing awareness, you will learn to abandon habitual patterns of movement and develop new alternatives, resulting in improved flexibility and coordination. A lesson generally lasts from 30 to 60 minutes.
Private Feldenkrais lessons, called Functional Integration® lessons, are tailored to the student's individual learning needs. The teacher guides your movements through gentle non-invasive touch and words. The student is fully clothed, lying on a table, or in a sitting or standing position. At times, various props (pillows, rollers, blankets) are used in an effort to support the student, or to facilitate certain movements. The learning process is carried out without the use of any invasive or forceful procedure.
Regardless of which learning style you choose, the Feldenkrais Method can help you overcome limitations brought on by stress, misuse, accident, or illness and/or improve your ability to perform better in what you do well already.
Learn more on the webpage of the Feldenkrais Guild of North America:
http://www.feldenkrais.com/method/frequently_asked_questions/
Walk for Life: http://movementintelligence.org/WFL.html
