A Teacher
Moshé Feldenkrais
Awareness through movement
The transmission
Moshé Feldenkrais was born in 1904 in eastern Europe and died in 1984. As a young man he emigrated to Palestine, then studied in Paris, earning a doctorate in science at the Sorbonne and working as a physicist in the laboratory of Frédéric Joliot-Curie during the 1930s.
A dedicated martial artist, he was among the first Europeans to earn a black belt in judo and co-founded the Jiu-Jitsu Club of France after meeting judo’s founder, Jigoro Kano. A debilitating knee injury, with poor surgical prospects, set Feldenkrais on a lifelong investigation of the relationship between movement, learning, and consciousness.
Drawing on physics, physiology, child development, motor learning, and Eastern awareness practices, he developed the Feldenkrais Method, which holds that refined attention to one’s own movement can reorganise the nervous system and expand functional and self-awareness.
The Method comprises two applications: Awareness Through Movement, taught verbally in groups, and Functional Integration, an individualised hands-on practice. His approach treats the body and mind as a single learning system, proposing that gentle, attentive movement is a route to greater freedom, perception, and self-understanding rather than mere physical exercise.
What they gave
Awareness through movement: Showed that attentive, exploratory movement can reorganise the nervous system and heighten self-awareness.
- Bodymind unity: Treated body and mind as one inseparable learning system, anticipating later somatic and embodied-cognition approaches.
- Learning as the path: Reframed change as a process of sensory-motor learning and refined attention rather than effort or correction.
- Practical somatic method: Created a transmissible practice (Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration) bridging physiology and consciousness.
The line they stand in
Taught by / Influenced by: judo founder Jigoro Kano, the postural re-education of F. M. Alexander, and his scientific grounding in physics and physiology.
- Taught / Influenced: the broad somatic education movement and later bodymind, rehabilitation, and embodied-awareness practitioners.