Extracted from The Back Pain Sourcebook by Stephanie Levin-Gervasi

Moshe Feldenkrais , a mind-body holistic health practioner, was an engineer who worked on the French atomic-research program in his prior life. A judo master and soccer player, an injury led him to apply his engineering mind to the mechanics of the body and brain that resulted in the Feldenkrais technique in the 1940's. There are literally thousands of exercises in this technique, and the mind and imagination play a key role.

Feldenkrais drew on the works of other pioneers. He recognized that a great deal of pain results from patterns of movement that involve unnecessary muscle tension. Insightfully, he felt people could "learn to learn" to move in a free and graceful way. Feldenkrais held that most people lose the grace, freedom and joy in movements that they had as infants and small children. He understood that the relationship of movement with thinking, feeling and sensing to effect changes in behavior.

He coined this "functional integration". A Feldenkrais session communicates to the brain precise movements that change habitual patterns and provide new information to the neuro-muscular system by gentle touch, movement variation and verbal guidance. A practitioner gently lifts, halts and supports the head, arms, legs, back and chest as they guide you through slow, easy movements. Touch is light, not deep.

Prior to his death, Feldenkrais worked with individuals affected by mutlitple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, posturing that if an individual had trouble with his movements, he could improve their health and well-being.

In some circles he was considered a holistic guru. For Feldenkrais, touch evoked cure. There is no risk involved with this method. Feldenkrais can be taught in a group setting or individually. Group classes range from $8.00 up, and individual classes may run from $35 upward.

Further information can be found at:

The Feldenkrais Method of Somatic Education