Moshe Feldenkrais
1904–1984
Born in Slavuta, Russia and raised in Baranovitch, Poland, Moshe Feldenkrais emigrated to Palestine at the age of 14. After working as a laborer on many construction projects (including the opera house of Tel Aviv), and as a surveyor for the British, Feldenkrais traveled to Paris, earning his engineering degrees at the Ecole des Travaux Publics des Paris and his doctorate in science at the Sorbonne. His training eventually lead him to work in the laboratory of two Nobel laureates at the Radium Institute in Paris: Marie Curie and her husband Frederic Joliot-Curie.
In addition to his scientific work, Feldenkrais was also a black belt in Judo. In the 1930’s Paris he met the founder of Judo, Jiguro Kano, and began studying intensely with his assistants, eventually helping to found the Judo Club of France. Feldenkrais published several highly regarded books on Judo, examining the martial art’s application of body mechanics, balance and self-awareness. Judo formed an important foundation for his understanding of human function.
In his twenties, Feldenkrais had severely dislocated his knee playing soccer and was unable to walk for several months. The doctors at the time recommended amputation and a prosthetic. Feldenkrais refused the surgery, and instead embarked upon a quest to improve his own understanding and function. His extraordinary curiosity, tenacity and his ability to ask questions and solve problems not only enabled him to teach himself to walk again, and to regain his functioning to an extraordinary degree, but his insights lead him to help others. The processes he created became known as Awareness Through Movement® and Functional Integration®.
He trained a group of 13 practitioners in Israel in the late 1960s, and a larger group in San Francisco in the late 1970s. In 1980 he led a 235–person training in Amherst, MA, but only finished the first two years of instruction. He was sidelined by a stroke in 1983, and passed away in Israel in 1984. His work is carried on by the people he personally trained and their students that have followed.
Images provided courtesy of the International Feldenkrais Federation (IFF) archives.
Posing on a roof in Palestine.
Teaching in the United States.
Martial arts training in Palestine.
Teaching in his last training program in Amherst, MA.
Teaching Awareness Through Movement in Amherst, MA.
Posing with a judo colleague, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Maria Skłodowska-Curie and judo students.
Judo training.
Judo training.
Providing Functional Integration to a child during the Amherst, MA training.
Demonstrating Functional Integration.