Dr. Michael Merzenich on Neuroscience, Learning, and the Feldenkrais Method®

By Al Wadleigh, GCFP

Article Summary

In this excerpt from his 2012 conference keynote, neuroscientist Dr. Michael Merzenich identifies several points of convergence between brain plasticity research and the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education. He discusses the limitations of stereotyped action, the importance of variation and meaningful engagement, and the role that recognizing one’s own progress plays in learning. His comments illuminate particular learning principles within the Method.

A Neuroscientist Addresses the Feldenkrais Community

Dr. Michael Merzenich has spent much of his career studying how the brain changes through experience and learning. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Francisco—not the University of San Francisco, as the original video description states—and co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Posit Science. His work helped establish that the adult brain remains plastic: its organization and performance continue to be shaped by what a person repeatedly does, attends to, and learns. You can read his official biography at BrainHQ.

In 2012, Merzenich delivered a keynote address at a Feldenkrais Method conference. This short recording is an excerpt from that presentation. He is speaking to practitioners who already know the language and strategies of the Method, so he does not try to explain the entire practice. Instead, he identifies several places where the learning processes he studies as a neuroscientist correspond with what he recognizes in Feldenkrais practice.

Recording details

• Speaker: Dr. Michael Merzenich
• Event: 2012 Feldenkrais Method Conference keynote excerpt
• Original publisher: The Feldenkrais Method / Feldenkrais Guild of North America YouTube channel
• Video published: July 13, 2012
• Runtime: 9 minutes, 39 seconds
• Format: Conference keynote excerpt
• Platform: YouTube
• Original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rupZ-wlRdA0
• Achieving Excellence page originally published: July 26, 2016

Stereotyped Action Limits What the Brain Can Learn

Merzenich begins with a problem that is familiar in movement lessons. A person discovers one way to accomplish an action and then repeats it until the action becomes increasingly automatic. Repetition can make that particular solution more efficient, but efficiency is not the only measure of learning. If the person can act in only one way, the solution may be fast and familiar while remaining narrow and inflexible.

He calls attention to stereotypy—the tendency to reproduce the same answer, movement, or strategy. A stereotyped movement is not necessarily a visibly rigid movement. It can look smooth and still represent the only solution a person has available. The limitation becomes apparent when the circumstances change. A different surface, direction, speed, intention, or physical condition may require another organization, and the person has no ready alternative.

“One of the lessons of this research is that stereotypy is the enemy, and that you really want to exercise the brain with a variety of movement, with a variety of action.” — Dr. Michael Merzenich

This is one reason Feldenkrais lessons frequently use variations. A familiar action may be performed slowly, in a different orientation, with attention shifted to another part of the body, or with one component intentionally reduced. These variations reveal relationships that ordinary repetition conceals. The learner begins to notice which parts always move together, which parts can move independently, and where unnecessary effort enters the action.

The goal is not variety for its own sake. Randomly accumulating movements would offer novelty without necessarily producing useful learning. The variations matter because each one provides a comparison. Through those comparisons, the learner begins to recognize alternatives and the conditions under which each alternative is useful.

Learning Means Being Able to Approach a Problem in More Than One Way

Merzenich connects variability with what he calls the power of the brain. A capable brain does not merely arrive at the correct result under one set of circumstances. It can approach the problem from different directions and still find an effective solution.

Consider the ordinary act of turning to look behind yourself. One person may turn almost entirely through the neck. Another may move the eyes, head, ribs, pelvis, and feet in a coordinated sequence. Both people may succeed when the movement is small. The difference becomes clearer when they need to turn farther, respond quickly, or adapt around discomfort. The person with more available relationships has more ways to distribute the movement.

“You could say, from any direction—and that’s really what you want.” — Dr. Michael Merzenich

This is an important distinction between copying a correct movement and learning. A copied movement may reproduce a desired shape. Learning develops the ability to perceive the situation, vary the organization, and select an appropriate response. The learner gains more than a particular answer; the learner becomes better able to form answers.

That is also where imagination enters movement learning. A person can rehearse a possibility internally, compare it with the movement actually performed, and use the difference as information. Imagination is useful because it expands the field of possible action before every possibility has to be physically executed.

The Brain Must Be Meaningfully Engaged

Variation alone does not guarantee learning. Merzenich emphasizes that the brain must be engaged in what it is doing. The differences among movements have to matter enough for the learner to notice them, and the task has to invite an active search for improvement.

Meaningful engagement is different from effort in the ordinary sense. A person can strain intensely while paying very little attention to the quality of an action. Another person can make a small, comfortable movement while noticing changes in timing, pressure, direction, balance, and ease. The second activity may look less demanding, yet it supplies the brain with more discriminated information.

This helps explain why attention is built into Feldenkrais teaching. The teacher does not simply prescribe repetitions and count them. The learner is invited to notice how the movement begins, which parts participate, what changes with a variation, and how the action feels afterward. Attention turns movement into a source of information.

Merzenich also connects engagement with the learner’s sense that change is possible. If an activity seems meaningless or improvement appears impossible, the biological conditions supporting learning are weakened. When a person detects a real difference—perhaps a movement becomes smoother, an area is easier to sense, or an action requires less effort—the change itself becomes part of the next round of learning.

Recognizing Progress Is Part of the Learning Process

At the end of a Feldenkrais lesson, participants are often asked to return to an action from the beginning. They may stand, walk, turn, reach, or simply notice their contact with the floor. This final comparison is sometimes mistaken for a pleasant way to conclude. In fact, it serves an important learning function.

The learner needs an opportunity to recognize what changed. Without comparison, an improvement may disappear into the general experience and never become available as usable information. With comparison, the learner can connect the process with its consequence: after exploring several variations, this action is now organized differently.

“Witnessing the progression of change is a critical part of improvement.” — Dr. Michael Merzenich

The word progression is important. Learning is not limited to the final result. A person notices an initial condition, explores several possibilities, detects small differences, and gradually arrives at another organization. Recognizing that sequence helps the person understand that the change was produced through a process rather than appearing by accident.

This recognition can also alter expectations. If a long-familiar action changes within a lesson, the learner has direct evidence that the existing pattern was not the only possible pattern. That does not mean every limitation can be changed immediately or that every person will have the same result. It means the person has experienced change as something observable and learnable.

Returning to More Elemental Movement Relationships

Near the end of the excerpt, Merzenich discusses distorted or constrained patterns and the value of returning to more elemental aspects of movement. A complex action can conceal the source of a difficulty because so many parts participate at once. By simplifying the action, the learner can examine relationships that are usually buried inside the whole.

A lesson might separate movement of the eyes from movement of the head, movement of the head from movement of the shoulders, or movement of the ribs from movement of the pelvis. The separation is temporary. Its purpose is to make distinctions clearer so the parts can later participate together with more choice.

This process can be described as differentiation followed by integration. First, the learner discovers that two parts do not always have to move as a single unit. Then the learner brings them back into a coordinated action. The whole movement may become easier because its parts are no longer bound to one compulsory relationship.

Merzenich recognizes this return to elemental movement as one of the strengths of Feldenkrais practice. His point is not that there is one neurologically correct way to move. The value lies in restoring alternatives where a person had previously experienced only one organization.

Related Resources

• Movement Science: Explore additional articles connecting movement, perception, and learning. https://achievingexcellence.com/blogs/movement-science/
• How Feldenkrais Helps: Read more about the learning approach used in the Feldenkrais Method. https://achievingexcellence.com/blogs/how-feldenkrais-helps/
• Awareness Through Movement® Class: Experience a guided lesson and observe how variation and comparison are used in practice. https://achievingexcellence.com/awareness-through-movement-class-1/
• Michael Merzenich’s official biography: https://www.brainhq.com/world-class-science/science-team-research-partners/dr-michael-merzenich-phd/
• Original keynote excerpt on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rupZ-wlRdA0