Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais
• Judo
• Higher Judo
• Body and Mature Behavior
• Awareness Through Movement
• The Elusive Obvious
• The Master Moves
• Adventures in the Jungle of the Brain (The Case of Nora)
• The Potent Self
Feldenkrais during a Functional Integration lesson.
The last training program taught by Dr. Feldenkrais himself in Amherst, USA (1980-81)
Feldenkrais during a Functional Integration lesson.
"The Feldenkrais Method is the most sophisticated and effective method I have seen for the prevention and reversal of deterioration of function."
- Margaret Mead, Ph.D., Anthropologist
"Feldenkrais has studied the body in movement with a precision that I have found nowhere else."
—Peter Brook, Film and Stage Director
Moshé Feldenkrais was born in 1904. At the age of 13 he left his home in Russia, travelled alone for a year until he reached Palestine where he worked as a laborer, cartographer, and tutor in mathematics. He also became active in sports (gymnastics, soccer) and the martial arts (jiu-jitsu). In his mid twenties he left for France and eventually became a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnic in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. Later he earned his Doctor of Science in physics from the Sorbonne in Paris, where he assisted the Nobel Prize winner Joliot-Curie in early nuclear research.
In Paris he also met Jigaro Kano the creator of modern Judo and became one of the first Europeans to earn a Black Belt in Judo (1936) and to introduce Judo in the West through his teaching and books on the subject. In the early 1940's while working in anti-submarine warfare for the British Admiralty he patented a number of sonar devices, and continued his studies in psychology and the burgeoning field of neurophysiology. In 1949 he returned to Israel where he continued to explore in greater depth these different disciplines, and eventually integrated and refined them into the system known as the Feldenkrais Method®.
Before he died in Tel-Aviv in 1984 Moshé Feldenkrais trained some groups of practitioners in Israel and in the USA to carry on his work. Among his writings are:
“My first definition of health is somebody who is capable of realizing his or her unavowed dreams.”
- Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais