I read an interesting post recently on the FeldyForum, an international Yahoo Group of Feldenkrais Practitioners and students that is moderated by Feldenkrais Practitioner Ralph Strauch

The FeldyForum post was written by noted Feldenkrais Practitioner and sculptor, Martin Weiner of Ojai, CA. I spoke with Marty on the first two podcasts that I conducted: A Conversation with Martin Weiner and Further Down The Rabbit Hole with Martin Weiner. I like to stay in touch with what Marty is doing as I find him a rather interesting fellow.

Below, he speaks to the limits of the medical model. I did not change or edit a single word of the post, but I did change the spacing to make it easier to read on this page:

I have often talked on the forum about how seeing things from a medical model limits our capacity to see what is there. I had an experience with a young woman the other day that I’d like to share in this regard.

A woman called me on the phone and asked if she could come see me. She said she had very severe pains in her neck that woke her up many times during the night. She also had numbness in her hands. She had gone to a chiropractor who took an x-ray of her neck and freaked out. He was so anxious for her that she had to quiet him down. He sent her to an orthopedic surgeon who had the same reaction and said she needed surgery immediately to fuse three of her cervical
vertebrae. She was supposed to have the surgery next Monday. She is a mother of two toddlers and said she is very active.

I said, “Let me get this straight. You are not paralyzed or crippled or hobble about. You run after two little kids and exercise regularly. Your only problem is pain in your neck and numbness in your hands. Aside from these two guys freaking out you would have no idea that there is an emergency going on in your body?” She said,”That’s right”.

So I told her, “Great, I’d love to see you.”

My point here is that these two doctors looked at x-rays and did not see her. She is an active woman who runs around all day long. Instead of seeing her vertebrae they should have seen her and realize that these vertebrae live in this woman and she is pretty healthy. They saw what they saw which is conditioned by their training. Moshe trained us to see the world differently and to interact with people from a non-mechanical orientation. We have the capacity to help those who many others can’t because we do not get seduced into diagnostic categories.

She came to see me last Saturday and we worked. Today she came back to tell me that she has been sleeping through the night pain free and that the numbness is now down to just a little spot. She cancelled the surgery and is looking forward to feeling better without it.

As Hippocrates said, “Don’t tell me what someone has. Tell me who has it.” See the person and not the so called “disease” or problem.

Cordially,
Marty

Martin Weiner
805-640-6410
www.martinweiner.com

I think Marty’s post speaks for itself. I hope you enjoyed reading it. - RN

I bumped into a lovely webpage by a Stanford Professor named Sanjeev Arora, What is the Feldenkrais Method?. I thought his ideas about the method were quite sound and can serve as a useful introduction to the method. Here are his first few words:

The Feldenkrais method, invention of Israeli physicist Moshe Feldenkrais, is a way of retraining the body. There are two modes of this retraining. The first is group classes called Awareness Through Movement or ATMs, which are reminiscent of yoga or tai chi classes, but very different. (For instance, the instructor makes no movements; he/she sits around and talks while you do the movements!) The second mode —more capable of causing dramatic improvements— is one-on-one sessions (called Functional Integration or FI) with a trained practitioner, which can cost about $100 per hour in the US. In such a session you lie fully clothed on a low table and the practitioner gently moves or presses your body in different directions to make you aware of (a) subconscious tension and holding patterns that make your movement less efficient (b) efficient ways of coordinating your body.

FI is the trump card of the Feldenkrais method, which I think makes it superior to yoga, tai-chi, pilates etc.

There are a couple of small points that I would like to add. First, I don’t think of the Feldenkrais Method as way of “retraining the body” but rather as a way of creating actionable distinctions in the mind-body or perhaps better said “brain-body” system. So, neither training nor retraining are words that I use to describe the method.

And though I like Dr. Arora’s idea that Functional Integration is the “trump card” of the method, and in the past may have even agreed with it, I have started to realize that in an internet era, with the huge potential of transmitting viral and web content, the trump card of The Feldenkrais Method - the tipping point - will likely be voice-guided Awareness Through Movement.

Modalities such massage therapy and physical therapy (to name a couple) do not have such an easily created and transmitted vehicle of their work as we do in the world of Moshe Feldenkrais.

My post today is nothing more than a cursory treatment of Dr Arora’s ideas about the Method if your want more, read his website: My Experiences With The Feldenkrais Method.