Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Feldenkrais
To improve a movement and reorganise the body’s coordination by rehearsing it vividly in imagination — using mental practice when a movement is hard, painful, or to be refined — and to feel the change by comparing an imagined side to a physically practised side.
Imagined movement in 5 lines: Pick one small movement; feel it once for reference. Rest, then imagine doing it — from inside, slowly, with great ease and lightness, many times, resting between. To prove it, practise it for real on one side and only imagine it on the other, then compare. Do the real movement again and feel it freer. Use imagination whenever the body can’t.
What it is
Feldenkrais repeatedly told ATM students that a movement too hard, painful, or strenuous to do can be done in imagination instead — and that imagined movement is not a poor substitute but a genuine way to learn and improve coordination.
A classic teaching device makes the point unmistakable: do a movement physically only on one side of the body for a while, then either imagine the same movement on the other side or simply pause — and discover that the worked side (and often the imagined side) feels lighter, freer, and longer.
He grasped, decades before brain imaging confirmed it, that imagining a movement engages much of the same nervous system as doing it. This makes imagination a real tool for re-patterning movement, especially when the body can’t yet perform it.
The Method
Drawn from Feldenkrais’s recurring ATM instructions (1972) and his writing on mental practice:
- Choose a small, specific movement. Pick one concrete movement — turning the head to one side, raising an arm, rolling the pelvis, reaching. Keep it simple and clearly defined.
- Establish a felt reference. Do it physically once or twice, slowly, just to feel where it is easy, where it catches, how far it goes, how much effort it takes. (Or, if it’s painful, just sense the intention to move.)
- Rest, then rehearse it in imagination. Lie or sit still. Imagine performing the movement in fine detail — not a picture from outside, but the felt sense of doing it: which parts move first, the path, the contact with the floor, the breath. Feldenkrais’s guidance: imagine it with great ease, smoothness, and lightness — imagine it better than you can currently do it, as something effortless and pleasant.
- Imagine it many times, slowly, with rests. Repeat the imagined movement several times, pausing between repetitions to sense. Keep the imagined version slow, small, and refined — never strained, even in imagination.
- The one-side device (optional but revealing). For a two-sided movement: physically practise it on the right for several slow rounds; then only imagine it on the left (or leave the left alone). Afterward, slowly compare the two sides — the practised side, and often the imagined side, will feel freer and more available. This shows imagination’s reach directly.
- Then do the movement for real, slowly. Perform the actual movement once more and notice the difference — usually easier, smoother, larger, with less effort, even though the body “rested” while you imagined.
- Use imagination wherever the body can’t go. When a movement hurts, is blocked, or is new, substitute vivid imagined practice — Feldenkrais treated this as full participation in the lesson, not a fallback. (Sourcing note: “do the movement in imagination,” “imagine it with ease, lightness and smoothness,” the substitution of imagination when movement is hard or painful, and the one-side-physical / other-side-imagined comparison are Feldenkrais’s documented ATM teaching. Wording is faithful paraphrase, not reproduction.)
Source & Lineage
Moshé Feldenkrais (1904–1984) — physicist and judoka — built motor imagery into Awareness Through Movement and discussed the mind–movement link in The Potent Self and The Elusive Obvious.
His insight predates the fMRI-era science of motor imagery and mirror/motor simulation, which later confirmed that imagined and executed movement share neural substrates. The technique also connects his work to the broader mental-rehearsal tradition in sport and rehabilitation.
The Traditions' versions
Motor imagery / mental rehearsal (sport science) — athletes rehearse skills internally to improve performance; the same mechanism, performance frame.
- Graded motor imagery & mirror therapy (neuro-rehab) — imagined and mirrored movement to restore function and reduce pain after stroke or with CRPS; clinical descendant.
- Visualization / mental practice (New Thought, self-help) — rehearsing a desired action or outcome; Feldenkrais’s version is specifically kinaesthetic and movement-precise.
- SATS / acting “as if” (Neville) — imagining a desired state vividly; shares the felt-sense, first-person quality.
- Yoga nyasa / kinaesthetic meditation — directed felt attention to body parts and movements.
Common refinements
Imagining from the outside (a movie of yourself). Feldenkrais’s version is first-person and kinaesthetic — feel it from inside, not watch it.
- Imagining strain. Imagine ease, lightness, smoothness — rehearse the good version, not the struggling one.
- Rushing / no rests. Slow imagined reps with pauses, like the physical lessons.
- Vague imagery. The more specific the felt detail (sequence, contact, breath), the stronger the effect.
- Treating it as inferior. It is full practice, not a consolation prize — especially valuable when the body can’t perform the movement.