International Feldenkrais® Federation
Standards of Practice of the Feldenkrais Method®
1. Any attempt to write a definition of the Feldenkrais Method might be seen as producing a somewhat static description of a highly fluid and dynamic method
International Feldenkrais® Federation
Standards of Practice of the Feldenkrais Method®
1. Any attempt to write a definition of the Feldenkrais Method might be seen as producing a somewhat static description of a highly fluid and dynamic method. Feldenkrais practitioners/teachers continually evolve their understanding and practice of the Method and in offering definitive statements about the work we must not lose our perspective of dynamism and evolution. This document should be interpreted in this light.
2. Innovation and growth in this field are valued, especially when based on a solid foundation of understanding, sensitivity and skill embodied in the Methods’ present form. As valid innovations become accepted in the Feldenkrais community, these standards will be changed accordingly.
3. This document will be updated at regular intervals by a committee to be appointed by the Board of Directors for the purpose of reviewing and making revisions to the Standards of Practice.
1. The Feldenkrais Method assumes that human beings have transformational potential and that all people, regardless of their age or condition, have the ability to learn.
2. Moshe Feldenkrais wrote in HIGHER JUDO, “In a perfectly matured body which has grown without great emotional disturbances, movements tend gradually to conform to the mechanical requirements of the surrounding world. The nervous system has evolved under the influence of these laws and is fitted to them. However, in our society we do, by the promise of great reward or intense punishment, so distort the even development of the system, that many acts become excluded or restricted. The result is that we have to provide special conditions for furthering adult maturation of many arrested functions. The majority of people have to be taught not only the special movements of our repertoire, but also to reform patterns of motions and attitudes that should never have been excluded or neglected.”
Section 1 - What the Feldenkrais Method is and what it does.
1. The Feldenkrais Method is an educational system that develops a functional awareness of the self in the environment. The Method utilises the fact that the body is the primary vehicle for learning.
2. The Feldenkrais Method is an approach to working with people which expands their repertoire of movements, enhances awareness, improves function and enables people to express themselves more fully.
3. The Feldenkrais Method directly addresses the question of how to facilitate the learning that is necessary for organising the whole self and recovering excluded and unconsidered movement patterns or actions.
4. This is done by expanding the self-image through movement sequences that bring attention to the parts of the self that are out of awareness and uninvolved in functional actions. Better function is evoked by establishing an improved dynamic relationship between the individual, gravity, and society. Feldenkrais, himself, defined function as the interaction of the person with the outside world or the self with the environment
5. The Method enables people to include in their functioning, movements and parts of the body unconsidered, forgotten or excluded from their habitual actions or images of actions. By allowing a person to learn how their whole body cooperates in any movement, the Feldenkrais Method assists people to live their lives more fully, efficiently and comfortably.
6. The improvement of physical functioning is not necessarily an end in itself. Such improvement is based on developing a broader functional awareness which is often a gateway to more generalised enhancement of physical functioning in the context of one’s environment and life.
7. The Feldenkrais Method is based on self-organisation and self-regulation in learning.
8. The Feldenkrais Method is expressed in two parallel forms - Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration®.
9. Awareness Through Movement consists of verbally directed movement sequences presented primarily to groups. There are several hundred hours of Awareness Through Movement lessons. A lesson generally lasts from thirty to sixty minutes. Each lesson is usually organised around a particular function.
10. In Awareness Through Movement lessons, people engage in precisely structured movement explorations that involve thinking, sensing, moving, and imagining. Many are based on developmental movements and ordinary functional activities. Some are based on more abstract explorations of joint, muscle, and postural relationships. The lessons consist of comfortable, easy movements that gradually evolve into movements of greater range and complexity. There are hundreds of Awareness Through Movement lessons contained in the Feldenkrais Method that vary, for all levels of movement ability, from simple in structure and physical demand to more difficult lessons.
11. Awareness Through Movement lessons attempt to make one aware of their habitual neuromuscular patterns and rigidities and to expand options for new ways of moving while increasing sensitivity and improving efficiency.
12. A major goal of Awareness Through Movement is to learn how one’s most basic functions are organised. By experiencing the details of how one performs any action, the student has the opportunity to learn how to:
• attend to his/her whole self
• eliminate unnecessary energy expenditure
•