Summary
Jeff Warren and Tasha Schumann speak with Donna Ray, an internationally recognized Feldenkrais trainer and psychotherapist who has been practicing since 1985. Donna explains the method's origins in Moshe Feldenkrais's background as a physicist, engineer, and judo master, and describes how it improves health issues ranging from chronic pain and automobile accident recovery to anxiety and depression. The episode includes a guided Awareness Through Movement seated lesson where Donna leads listeners through sensing the pelvis, noticing breathing, and exploring rotational movements. She emphasizes that pleasure is a guiding signal for quality movement and that the method organizes all the joints and skeletal parts to move together harmoniously. The conversation draws parallels between Feldenkrais and seated meditation, noting that both use awareness for integration, though Feldenkrais expands this into the body in a more direct way.
Key Points
- Dr. Feldenkrais was a physicist, engineer, and judo master who developed the method through working with his own severe knee injury
- The method is not a medical model but improves pain, injury recovery, anxiety, depression, and overall movement quality
- Functional Integration (hands-on) differentiates and links body parts until they move harmoniously; Awareness Through Movement (group classes) teaches the same through self-directed practice
- The pelvis is the center of gravity and pertains to balance, twisting, turning, bending, and reaching
- Noticing breathing helps regulate the nervous system between over-activation and excessive relaxation
- Pleasure serves as a guiding signal for quality movement and self-organization
- The method can improve anything you want to learn: tennis, golf, running, sitting, standing, or rolling over
- Feldenkrais shares deep parallels with meditation but expands awareness more directly into the body
Key Moments
Origins of the Feldenkrais Method in physics and judo
Donna Ray explains how Dr. Feldenkrais developed the method from his background as a physicist, engineer, and judo master, combined with working through his own severe knee injury from age 19.
"Dr. Feldenkrais was a physicist, engineer, and a judo master. And over the course of his lifetime, he developed the Feldenkrais method. He certainly did not set out to do so. It was circumstantial."
Discovering Feldenkrais through the experience of feeling amazing
Donna describes how a three-hour introductory Feldenkrais class left her feeling physically amazing, mentally organized, and emotionally calm without any pain or catharsis, leading her to immediately sign up for training in 1983.
"when I took a three-hour introductory class in the Feldenkrais Method, I felt amazing. And there was no pain. There was no catharsis. It was gentle. It was self-observation. I stood tall. I moved so beautifully. And I didn't feel any discomfort emotionally or in my sensations."
Guided Awareness Through Movement seated lesson
Donna guides a seated Awareness Through Movement lesson, starting with sensing feet and pelvis on the chair, locating sitting bones, and exploring how weight shifts when rounding or lengthening the spine.
"notice your breathing. And by noticing your breathing, you help regulate your nervous system. So we can rev up, as you know, or we can calm ourselves down. And we want to find the middle ground."
