The Feldenkrais (rhymes with “rice”) Method is a 60-year-old form of neuromuscular reeducation with applications similar to physical therapy, but it’s a more holistic approach.

It’s for anyone seeking more comfortable, efficient, sustainable movement and greater self-awareness for purposes of pain reduction, performance enhancement (day-to-day/athletic/artistic), self-discovery, and quality of life improvement.

It’s taught in two forms:

• Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons are verbally led and can be taught to groups or studied alone from recordings, text, or memory.
• Functional Integration (FI) lessons are one-to-one lessons taught hands-on, with the practitioner using a gentle, non-invasive touch, and the student fully-clothed, usually lying on a low, comfortable table.

Students describe lessons as pleasurable and relaxing, and normally find reductions in pain, specific improvements to function in day-to-day life, and tools for continuing to improve themselves.

When someone wants to reduce pain, recover from an injury, or improve aspects of themselves (usually movement, balance, posture, flexibility, or performance related), a Feldenkrais lesson addresses the whole person – not just the symptom – by eliciting changes in the nervous system. Scientists call this process “neuroplasticity,” which is the brain’s extraordinary ability to acquire more efficient patterns of movement and action if given the right environment. Nothing creates that environment like the Feldenkrais Method.

With this method, you can increase your range of motion, improve your flexibility and coordination, and rediscover your innate capacity for graceful, efficient movement. By expanding the self-image through movement sequences and directed attention, the method enables you to include more of yourself in your movements. Students become aware of their habitual neuromuscular patterns and rigidities, and learn to move in new ways.