Moshé Feldenkrais was a physicist, engineer and Judo master who memorably said, “What I am after is more flexible minds, not just more flexible bodies”.
In his quest to start walking normally, Feldenkrais developed a system to integrate the mind and the body to achieve fitness, and physical as well as mental ability. He believed in using self education for the development of the mind as well as the body.
The Feldenkrais method is meant to be a way to achieve efficiency of movement while eliminating inefficient movement, poor muscular coordination and consequent internal stress.
The method aims at and is able to solve problems such as poor balance, bad posture, muscular and skeletal pain etc. While it can solve problems such as RSI (repetitive strain injury), incorporating the principles of this method into life can result in improved sporting performance or skills. Feldenkrais can help you with fitness related issues such as:
Improved Posture: Over time or because we never paid any attention to it, posture can deteriorate causing musculoskeletal problems, and aches and pains.
Sitting at a desk all day can also cause this to happen. Using principles of Feldenkrais one can improve posture, which can not only help with a number of different problems, it can make you appear more attractive and mean a fitter, healthier body.
Decrease in aches and pains: Because one is becoming more self aware and better physically coordinated, one is learning efficiency of motion.
Consequently, there is less stress where earlier stress would result in various aches and pains. Becoming proficient in the Feldenkrais method, people have reported a lessening of pain in the neck region as the body learns how to balance the head better.
Lower back pain is also associated with poor posture and other stressors, which can be considerably lowered with this method.
Better body awareness and ability to focus: Many people who enroll for classes, report in finding a difference right from the first class. As one learns to marshal their physical resources while cutting out on inefficient movement; the awareness of the body, its motions and its abilities increases.
What also improves is the ability to focus, which results in improved performance. Changes may be subtle or unnoticeable to begin with; but people have reported things like improved muscle performances even by using the Feldenkrais method.