Feldenkrais News

New York Times

Jane E. Brody

"I had long refrained from writing about this method of countering pain because I thought it was some sort of New Age gobbledygook with no scientific basis. Boy, was I wrong! The Feldenkrais Method is one of several increasingly popular movement techniques, similar to the Alexander Technique, that attempt to better integrate the connections between mind and body. By becoming aware of how one’s body interacts with its surroundings and learning how to behave in less stressful ways, it becomes possible to relinquish habitual movement patterns that cause or contribute to chronic pain."

The Brain's Way of Healing

Norman Doidge, M.D. 

"He developed a method that integrated the role of mental awareness, brain function and the body, to heal himself, and then others. One of his chief contributions was to understand that in injury or illness, the brain areas that process movement and sensation in the body become underutilized, and waste away in the 'use it or lose it brain.' The brain processing areas lose the ability to encode fine detail, and hence become 'undifferentiated' with disuse. By doing slow movements, with great awareness, he found he was able to 're-differentiate' brain processing areas, and radically improve function."

The Washington Post

Lisa Rein

“Nearly 65 years after he began teaching it (post-World War II, in his adopted home of Israel), Feldenkrais’s method is finally having its moment. There are now 1,300 certified teachers in the United States and about 14,000 in 22 other countries, including China, Australia, Russia and Germany, where the method is most popular, according to the Feldenkrais Guild of North America. …

Way before the idea of a mind-body connection became a popular health concept, Feldenkrais promoted his technique’s potential to lead us away from bad physical habits that cause tension and pain and to restore the body’s capacity for efficient, flexible, coordinated movement.”