Skip to main content

Feldenkrais Practitioner

Malcolm Manning

The Feldenkrais Method helped me give up learning to move and start moving to learn

I discovered the Feldenkrais Method 30 years ago and it changed my life. I’d always loved to move, but I had a history of physical problems since birth. When I was 14-years-old I was advised, “not to move too much and avoid lifting things”.

The method opened the way for me to fulfil my dream to become a dancer. In the last 20 years I have taught in some of the leading dance educations, centres and festivals both in Europe and worldwide.

I believe movement is fundamental to all aspects of life. I also teach on architecture and design degrees, pedagogy and psychology professional trainings, and at social welfare and health conferences to name but a few other contexts.

You can read more about my other activities on my main wed site at www.movetolearn.com.

Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses

Moshe Feldenkrais

Moshe Feldenkrais

Dr Moshe Feldenkrais

Moshe Feldenkrais 1904-1984

The Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education was developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais. Born in Russia, Feldenkrais immigrated to Israel at the age of thirteen. After receiving degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering, he earned his D.Sc. in Physics at the Sorbonne in Paris. He subsequently worked for a number of years in the French nuclear research program with Joliet Curie.

Physically active, Feldenkrais played soccer and practiced the martial arts. He studied with Jigoro Kano, the originator of Judo, and in 1936 became one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt in that discipline and opened the first European Judo school in Paris.

A chronic knee injury prompted him to apply his knowledge of physics, body mechanics, neurology, learning theory and psychology to a new understanding of human function and maturation. His investigations resulted in the formulation of a unique synthesis of science and aesthetics, known as the Feldenkrais Method. Dr. Feldenkrais wrote five books about the method as well as four books on Judo.

He conducted three professional trainings during his life, one in Tel Aviv, Israel (1969-1971), one in San Francisco, CA, USA (1975-1978) and one in Amherst, MA, USA (1980-1983), training approximately 300 Feldenkrais® practitioners in total. Today, there is a thriving community of over 10,000 Feldenkrais practitioners worldwide.

By the mid-1950s he was working with people with all kinds of conditions, giving both classes (Awareness through Movement) and individual sessions (Functional Integration).