You’re scanning the list of classes offered at Balanced Movement Studio, wondering what to take. Your eyes slide right past the title “FELDENKRAIS®” because you’ve never heard of it. Maybe you thought “Felden-WHAT???” Your conclusion: “Whatever it is, it’s not for me”.
Not everyone comes to that conclusion. Here are 12 Benefits of FELDENKRAIS®, as experienced by folks who didn’t let the funny name stop them from trying it out:
1. Improved sports performance: Kevin took 18 minutes off his best half-marathon time after his 3rd private session. Moving smarter (not training harder) increased his speed.
2. Reduced joint pain: Em hiked the entire Appalachian Trail with no knee pain after private sessions. Seven years earlier, during her first experience hiking the trail, she had suffered from acute knee pain. The pain was so bad she had had to quit at the halfway point. She couldn’t do stairs for weeks after coming back home. Her second hike (post-Feldenkrais) blew her mind, but not her knees.
3. No more back pain: Jeanne’s acute back pain brought her to private FELDENKRAIS sessions. Now pain-free, she is playing soccer again, and taking Zumba classes.
4. Recovery of a lost skill: Private sessions tailored specifically to her needs taught Jane to lift her arm overhead once again. Now she can reach into her kitchen cabinets.
5. Improved posture: Diana found herself standing more erect than she has done in years after one private session. Effortlessly. Who said improving posture is hard?
6. Greater comfort: Nancy and Susan can stand more comfortably to sing during their 2 hour choral concerts than they used to before taking FELDENKRAIS classes. They discovered that effortless standing translates into better sound too!
7. Ability to work more efficiently: Cynthie uses less effort to do her job as a landscape gardener than she used to use before taking FELDENKRAIS classes. She is not as tired or sore after work as she used to be.
8. Faster recovery from surgery: Karen regained the full use of her knee within two weeks of knee surgery using FELDENKRAIS-based movement explorations.
9. Stress relief: Private sessions have taught Jude how to release lifelong pockets of tension in her shoulders and jaw. This has really helped her drumming and singing.
10. Better balance: Kathy, a multiple hip resection patient, notes improvement in gait, balance, and overall mobility from her FELDENKRAIS classes.
11. More comfortable sleep: After just a few FELDENKRAIS classes, Sue no longer has shoulder and hip pain while lying in bed. She falls asleep much more easily now.
12. Enhanced creativity: Nancy’s writing flows more freely and creatively since joining a weekly FELDENKRAIS class.
Which of these benefits would make the biggest difference in your life?
The FELDENKRAIS METHOD® is an innovative method for human improvement. It harnesses the neuro-plastic capacity of the brain to re-organize neuro-muscular control. This improved coordination shifts us from our unconscious, inefficient and frequently painful movement habits to new patterns of comfort, efficiency, and effortless power. Given that your brain is the core of your strength, stability, and flexibility, when you improve the way your brain coordinates your muscles, you will become stronger as well as more flexible, even though you will not have been strength training or stretching. Classes engage your curiosity, stimulate your thinking, train your proprioception, improve your coordination and broaden your capabilities beyond what you thought you could do. All this, while being fun!
Join a class, or schedule a private session, and you too will soon have a story to tell of how your life has changed for the better. You can “make the impossible possible, the possible easy, and the easy elegant.” – Moshe Feldenkrais