Being, Awareness, Bodywork and Feldenkrais Method®

I am a Registered Massage Therapist and a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner. I hope to use this Blog to share material I find to be interesting. A log on development as Human beings.  I invite discussion, as understanding and language will never be complete and each of our experience is a part of the whole. 

The Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education.

For those that have not heard of the Feldenkrais Method I will provide a brief description, but I encourage people to get descriptions from multiple sources as the Method is of such large scope, there are different answers for different situations.

At the beginning of "Awareness Through Movement" by Moshe Feldenkrais, the originator of the Feldenkrais Method® he writes,

"We act in accordance with our self-image. This self image - which in turn, governs our every act - in conditioned in varying degree by three factors: Heritage, education, and self-education."

Feldenkrais goes on to say that our biological endowment in the most immutable, and education is the characteristics of groups and individuals imposed on us. These influence our self education to some degree. But the imposed education is largely to,"...mold individuals who will not be social misfits..."

      "Heritage makes each of us a unique individual in physical structure, appearance, and actions. Education makes each of us a member of some definite human society and seeks to make us as like every other member of that society as possible."

If our own individual organic needs are not in line with that of society, many people create a mask, a facade that they portray to others and themselves. Therefore the organic drives of the individual are not pursued, and the drives toward the values of the society are unfulfilling. One can identify with their mask so thoroughly that they lose all sense of organic needs or fulfillment.

The Feldenkrais Method® provides the means for self education to return to a state of being that allows us to recognize our own needs and how to fulfill these needs. To allow oneself to clearly sense what is best for them, according to them and not an external authority or meter.

 Education (to fit into a social hierarchy) largely forms our self image, which is what governs our action and also forms our habits. Our habits are formed on a social value, not our own organic needs. Through gentle verbally guided movements and attention or hands on guided movement, in the easiest of ranges, a Feldenkrais Practitioner can help one recognize the habits of movement that are present in us. In recognizing our habitual tensions and self use, we can explore outside our "regular" movements and decide from a more varied action, what is (according to you) best for you.