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Definition of the Feldenkrais Method 2006

Articles for Somatics  and The Feldenkrais Journal

Modified: 05 January 2025

Clarifications and comments regarding
the definition of the Feldenkrais Method

"The Feldenkrais Method is teaching people to be aware of the possibilities of action, mental and bodily, additional to those that man uses habitually in accordance with a habitual mode."

A transaltion of a letter to the Feldenkrais Guild in Israel in the fall of 2006.

Clarifications and comments regarding the definition of the Feldenkrais Method

by Yochanan Rywerant

Written in 2006, after 54 years of explorations as a learner, teacher, trainer and author of the Classical Feldenkrais Method


You restored my neck!

Moshe Feldenkrais

"...In the beginning of 1982, Moshe Feldenkrais returned home to Tel Aviv, shortly after undergoing a major skull operation for a subdural hematoma.

The operation had been successfully performed in Switzerland, and Feldenkrais had remained there for an appropriate convalescence. Now that he was at home, he wanted to regain the physical ability to work on people giving Functional Integration sessions as quickly as possible.

I worked on him three times a week, giving him Functional Integration sessions. What struck me immediately was a deterioration of the relationship between head and trunk. I knew that wonderfully organized neck from before the operation, and Moshe's old ability to move his head with the greatest of ease in all possible directions..."

Self-Image and Action

An important principle:

As teachers we do not imitate actions, rather we fulfill principles.

- Moshe Feldenkrais

The Principles of Judo

1998


The Story of Hanoch's Return to the Flute

Somatics Vol 2 nr 3 1979

Interview

Ilan Jacobson

For the time being, only the titles!

Improving the Ability to Preform

Somatics Spring 1977

An instance of the Feldenkrias Method of Functional integration

The Problem of Pain by Faulty Functioning

Somatics Spring- Summer 1981

Reflections on the Creative Process

Somatics Vol 1 nr 4 1978

IN MEMORIUM: Moshe Feldenkrais 1904 -1984

Somatics Autumn-Winter 1984-85

A statement

Thomas Hanna: Philosopher, Poet, and Friend

Somatics Spring - summer 1991

Remarks on Pain, Function, and Structure

Somatics Vol 3 nr 2 1981