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Who was Moshe Feldenkrais? Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-1984), the developer of the Feldenkrais Method®, was a fascinating person who participated fully in the history of the Twentieth Century. He was born in what is now the Republic of the Ukraine. He left his home in Eastern Europe at a young age to emigrate to what was then Palestine. While there, he worked at a number of jobs and became active in sports and the martial arts. At the age of eighteen, Feldenkrais went to Paris to study mechanical and electrical engineering and later earned his Doctorate of Science in Physics, working as a research assistant with Nobel Prize winner Frederic Joliot in nuclear physics. While in Paris he met Jigoro Kano, the founder of Judo, and became one of the first European black belts in the art. When the Nazis took over France, Feldenkrais escaped to England, where he joined the war effort. Working in anti-submarine technology, he re-injured his knees, which he had damaged as a young man in a soccer match. He made his debilitated knees an object of study and developed what is now known as the Feldenkrais Method. To do this, he merged his acquired knowledge with his deep curiosity about biology, perinatal development, cybernetics, linguistics, and systems theory. He taught himself to walk again and, in the process, developed an extraordinary system for accessing the power of the central nervous system to improve human functioning. Feldenkrais's study of the potential for human learning brought him in contact with some of the most brilliant minds and talents of his time, including David Ben-Gurion, Yehudi Menuhin, Margaret Mead, Gregory Bateson, Julius Erving, Milton Ericson, and Peter Brook. Before his death in 1984, Feldenkrais wrote several books and trained over three hundred people in his work. There are now more than five thousand Feldenkrais practitioners worldwide. These practitioners continue to study and develop his work, applying it in diverse fields, including health and rehabilitation, dance, theater, athletics, and education. For more information on Moshe Feldenkrais, read the article A Concise Biography of Moshe Feldenkrais, written by Feldenkrais Trainer Mark Reese. |
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The terms FELDENKRAIS METHOD®, AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT®, and FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION®,
are registered service marks of the Feldenkrais GUILD of North America