Feldenkrais | Imamother

Ingoodhands

Wed, Feb 28 2024, 3:09 pm

I'd like to bump up this topic cause people in my family have benefited from this method.
In short, what it's about:
Moshe Feldenkrais (a Jewish engineer, one of these genius types, passed away around 1980) realized that the seemingly random movements infants do are not nonsensical. Their brains are alert and constantly learning about their muscular system and body. He realized (brain plasticity) that grown-ups can do this too. He developed hundreds of lessons to facilitate this. These are series of simple movements that progress to more and more novel and nonhabitual patterns. It's very clever and gentle. At the end of a lesson, a person often feels very alive, and will have used muscles that they forgot they even had, or familiar muscles in new ways.

It is useful in many ways.
Some people make a practice out of it, similar to meditation or yoga. It's all about mindfulness and being rather than doing, since there is no goal of ending up in certain position or such. The goal is simply to be more aware of one's self and learn what is possible.
Some people who are in pain are able to get pain free, since they learn new ways of distributing movement across their body, and can avoid the historical patterns that caused the pain.
Then there are people that study this as an aid to their performance. Musicians, singers, actors, athletes, etc. The idea here is that when we practice, we often go into our movement habits, and so don't really improve. Awareness of new options allows for real growth of ability.

The lessons can be done by following the voice of an instructor (there are many free lessons available online, for example feldenkraisproject.com ).

Maximum effect comes from working hands on with a practitioner. They gently move you in nonhabitual ways.

There is a 80 year old woman in Flatbush names Sarah Daskal who is really really good. her phone is (718) 258-1603

She doesn't work with children, only teens and adults.