Feldenkrais method
The Feldenkrais method is a body-oriented, educational process that is named after its founder Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984). Feldenkrais believed that kinaesthetic and proprioceptive self-awareness training would improve basic human functions and reduce pain, and would generally result in movements that were felt to be easier and more comfortable. The Feldenkrais method is based on so-called "organic learning" as it takes place in the development from baby to toddler and which Feldenkrais assumed on the basis of his observations and studies that this learning can also be continued beyond childhood. (See also “ Neural Plasticity ”).
Feldenkrais developed his method in two different techniques that he "Functional Integration" (English. Functional Integration ) and "Awareness Through Movement" (English. Awareness through Movement called). Functional integration can be described as an interaction between “teacher” and “student” that often takes place non-verbally on the physical level. “Awareness through movement”, on the other hand, is taught in groups, whereby the “teacher” leads the “students” verbally through structured movement experiments and directs their attention through questions of perception.
The founder
Moshé Feldenkrais graduated as an engineer . Subsequently, he studied in the first year, which should also lead to an engineer doctor for the first time . Due to the war, he was unable to complete this section of his studies because he had to flee France. Only after the end of the war in 1946/1947 did he obtain the degree of Ingénieur Docteur at the University of Sorbonne . He was also a judo teacher for 20 years. He was a co-founder of the Jiu-Jitsu Club de France , the first judo club in France. Feldenkrais wrote several books on judo and jiu-jitsu, the last of which - according to his teacher Koizumi - already shows that he understood judo as a scientist. Koizumi writes: "He has studied and analyzed Judo as a scientist in the light of the laws of physics, physiology and psychology [...] and he reports the results to the scientific mind of our time." (P. Vii).
After France declared war on Germany in 1939, Feldenkrais was part of the team that brought research documents and heavy water supplies from French nuclear research from France to England in 1940 to bring them to safety. In Scotland he worked as an engineer with others during the war on the development of military technology for the British Admiralty. To pass the time, the employees informed each other in lecture evenings about the topics they were dealing with. In this context, Feldenkrais also gave lectures in which he “[propagated] a new approach to stimulate and further develop the human brain, through work and self-awareness by experimenting with slowly building up sequences of movement patterns. he justified his theses with neurophysiological research results. His examples range from human learning, the role of gravity, the origin of fear, from human sexuality to the special role of the organ of equilibrium and a new concept of human maturity. ”Feldenkrais published these lectures in 1949 under the title Body and Mature Behavior. A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation, and Learning . At this point at the latest, Feldenkrais began to systematically develop his own method. The comparison between Higher Judo: Groundwork and Body and Mature Behavior clearly shows the relationship between the method and Judo, but also reveals the degree of generalization with which Feldenkrais detached and generalized it from its specific context.
Feldenkrais took three weeks of lessons from Heinrich Jacoby , who wrote about him: “Despite great physical agility, strength and courage, Dr. F. neither in his way of speaking nor in his quality of movement what he 'theoretically' formulates as desirable. (...) But he is very willing to admit it himself, ready to try and question it. "Feldenkrais described his encounter with Jacoby in a similarly open manner:" I was an athlete of quite a reputation and well built. Jacoby was a short, almost thin man who, he told me, hadn't learned to walk until he was seven years old. He was hunched over, but moved with great grace. "
method
The method is based on judo , on the artistic body training of the 1920s and on the findings of manual medicine . The focus is on movement patterns that shape a person's everyday life and the possibilities of varying them appropriately. It should enable people to expand their awareness through the perception of movement sequences and to achieve greater sensorimotor differentiation. Disadvantageous movement patterns should be solved and new movement alternatives pointed out. In this way he should ultimately be able to better recognize and understand how he perceives himself and organizes himself in daily life. Complaints are traced back to corresponding movement patterns and deficits are bridged if possible by other, newly recognized movement options. As the learner becomes aware of what he is doing, new flexibility for body and mind is created .
The method is used in particular to regain full mobility after injuries in rehabilitation and to reduce pain caused by poor posture . According to their concept, however, people can benefit from their possibilities in a wide variety of life situations. It should help to maintain mental and physical freshness into old age. It can also be useful for musicians , dancers , athletes, and others interested in exercise , for example .
Moshé Feldenkrais assumed that human thinking, feeling, perceiving and moving are never to be found in isolation, but are common “ingredients” of human action. The decisive idea for him was the human ability to educate oneself, an education that is not conditioned by external social circumstances, but is based on the wishes and possibilities of the individual. M. Feldenkrais described the human being's ability to self-reflect, i.e. to be aware of what one is doing, as awareness. Consciousness would therefore be the perception of oneself in a temporal and spatial orientation, while sleep, on the other hand, would be the release of consciousness from the spatial and temporal structure.
Moshé Feldenkrais assumed that a person acts according to the image he makes of himself and that this image is essentially linked to his experience of movement. He says that this image (“self image”) is partly inherited, partly educated and a third part comes about through self-education. Now when someone feels the need to change their behavior, e.g. B. to achieve greater athletic or artistic performance or to change pain-inducing or otherwise harmful patterns of behavior or to find alternative patterns of behavior, then this picture of yourself must be changed or expanded.
In order to be able to achieve this, Moshé Feldenkrais, building on his decades of work as a judo teacher, developed an educational concept of learning through self-observation and changing movement. These are not physical exercises in the conventional sense, but rather slowly and calmly executed sequences of movements that build on each other in small steps and invite you to try out and learn.
In practice, this can be taught in two different ways: as a verbal instruction for groups (“awareness through movement”) and as individual work rather non-verbally, by means of movement sequences carried out by touch. This individual work emphasizes the aspect of experienceability, understanding, changeability and integration of local, regional and global movement patterns (functional integration). He developed an extensive collection of lessons (over 1000), which he constantly tried out and revised himself, since he always saw himself as a learner in dialogue with his clients.
His credo was the idea that what matters is not what you do, but how you do something. This "how" can be made tangible, questioned and changed. As a method of self-empowerment, this is an open learning concept that can be used in all areas of life. In the area of bodywork, it was important to him that language is largely withdrawn or not used at all so that the body can understand itself, experiment with itself and learn in its own language, namely the self-perception of movement. Since the method represents an open learning concept for all participants, the learning process always applies to both the client and the teacher. The lessons and case studies documented by transcripts and video recordings are therefore not blueprints, but the procedure must always be adapted to the needs of the clients and the teacher's own experience.
The aim is to change and develop the elements of movement, sensation, feeling and thinking through the element of movement.
variants
The method is taught by trained Feldenkrais teachers in group and individual lessons.
- The group lessons (called awareness through movement ) lead verbally through a sequence of individual, often small, simple movements, which are accompanied by perceptual references to individual details of the movement. Often times, at the end of a lesson, the individual details come together to form a larger movement, which can usually be performed with more ease and less effort.
- Individual work ( functional integration ) makes use of lighter, more precise touch as a means of direct physical communication instead of language and enables the sense of movement contexts and the more efficient interaction of the individual components involved in a movement. Such a teaching unit can be aimed specifically at individual aspects introduced by the learner, or pursue a broader goal.
Feldenkrais teaching is used in many areas:
- Health care, injury prevention, pain management
- Work with disabled people
- Rehabilitation (e.g. after accidents, broken bones, tinnitus , neurological diseases)
- Dance, theater, music, art
- Martial arts, sports.
context
In developing his method, Feldenkrais was influenced by, among others, Gustav Fechner , Frederick Matthias Alexander , Gerda Alexander , Georges I. Gurdjieff , Émile Coué , Milton Erickson , William Bates , Milton Trager , Heinrich Jacoby , Kanō Jigorō and Mikinosuke Kawaishi . Newer movement and perception concepts such as semota are also based on the theoretical foundations of Feldenkrais pedagogy.
Since the method is only partially understood as a direction of therapy and is based on a complex image of man, the question of appropriate assessment criteria and a corresponding methodology also arises. Feldenkrais educators support healing in various medical fields (e.g. in rehabilitation, in psychosomatic clinics as well as in trauma therapy). Sensorimotor learning happens here by becoming aware of movement sequences.
Scientific studies have only partially proven the therapeutically predicted effects.
Study situation
- S. Hillier, A. Worley: The effectiveness of the feldenkrais method: a systematic review of the evidence. In: Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Volume 2015, 2015, p. 752160, doi : 10.1155 / 2015/752160 , PMID 25949266 , PMC 4408630 (free full text) (review).
Primary literature
- Moshé Feldenkrais: Higher Judo. Groundwork . 1952, 2010, ISBN 978-1-55643-927-8 .
- Moshé Feldenkrais: awareness through movement . 1968, ISBN 3-518-06929-2 .
- Moshé Feldenkrais: Adventure in the jungle of the brain. The Doris case . 1977, ISBN 3-518-37163-0 .
- Moshé Feldenkrais: The discovery of the obvious . 1981, ISBN 3-518-37940-2 .
- Moshé Feldenkrais: The strong self . 1985.
- Moshé Feldenkrais: The Path to the Mature Self. Phenomena of human behavior . 1995, ISBN 3-87387-126-2 .
- Moshé Feldenkrais: Wisdom Embodied. Collected Writings . 2013, ISBN 978-3-456-85268-3 .
Secondary literature
- Jeremy Krauss: Just move: Feldenkrais - The way to improve movement and flexibility . Junfermann 1996.
- Roger Russell (Ed.): Overview of Feldenkrais . Junfermann, 2004.
- Norbert Klinkenberg: Feldenkrais pedagogy and body behavior therapy . Loeper, 2005.
- Roger Russell: Turning Your Back on Pain: The Smart Solution for Back Pain. The Feldenkrais Method in Practice . Junfermann, 2005.
- Carl Ginsburg: The Intelligence of Moving Bodies: A Somatic View of Life and its Consequences . AWAREing Press, 2010.
- Carola Bleis: Feldenkrais . BLV, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8354-0741-1 .
- Wolfgang Busch: Feldenkrais and Psychosomatics. Effects of the Feldenkrais method - awareness through movement - with special consideration of psychosomatic aspects. Dissertation . BoD, 2011, ISBN 978-3-8423-4606-2 .
- Christian Buckard : Moshé Feldenkrais. The person behind the method. Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-8270-1238-8 .
Web links
- Feldenkrais Network
- Feldenkrais Association Germany
- Feldenkrais Association Austria
- Swiss Feldenkrais Association
- Association for Feldenkrais and Somatic Learning e. V.
- IFF Academy Feldenkrais Research Journal , documentation of various research papers on the Feldenkrais method
- Feldenkrais - five exercises to imitate
- Link catalog on the subject of Feldenkrais at curlie.org (formerly DMOZ )
Individual evidence
- ^ Higher Judo: Groundwork ( Memento November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), North Atlantic Books, 2010.
- ↑ Quoted from Robert Schleip: somatics.de ( Memento from November 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Foreword to M. Feldenkrais: The way to the mature self (orig. Body and Mature Behavior )
- ↑ The discovery of the obvious , p. 34.
- ↑ See Arnd Krüger : History of movement therapy. In: Preventive Medicine. Springer Loseblatt Collection, Heidelberg 1999, 07.06, pp. 1–22.
- ^ GM Gutman, CP Herbert, SR Brown: Feldenkrais versus conventional exercises for the elderly. In: J Gerontol. 32, 1977, pp. 562-572.
- ↑ M. James, G. Kolt, J. McConville, P. Bate: The effects of a Feldenkrais program and relaxation procedures on hamstring length. In: Aust J Physiother. 44, 1998, pp. 49-54.