Developed by Russian-born Israeli educator Moshe Feldenkrais, this method establishes new connections between the brain and body through movement re-education. One of two formats of instruction is used: Awareness through movement and functional integration. In the one-on-one functional integration session, a teacher uses hands-on manipulation to guide the student toward new movement patterns. Awareness through movement classes are group sessions in which the teacher verbally guides students through repatterning. Feldenkrais proposed that nearly our entire spectrum of movement is learned during our first few years of life, but that these movements represent a mere 5 percent of all possibilities available to us. Habituated responses to problem areas in our lives are ingrained in our movement patterns. By retraining the central nervous system through the skeletal system, old patterns are eliminated and replaced with new skills that improve the physical, mental, and emotional functioning of the body. In this way, unconscious movement is brought into conscious awareness where it may be used as a tool for opening the human potential. Click here to find a Feldenkrais practitioner.

This definition is in context to Massage. See more contextual defintions for Feldenkrais Method.