How I got into the Feldenkrais Method®

Article Summary

Al Wadleigh first encountered the Feldenkrais Method while seeking help for severe back pain, back spasms, and difficulty breathing. Private Functional Integration® lessons with Jack Heggie relieved those problems, but seeing the organization behind the lessons led Al to undertake a four-year professional training. More than two decades later, he continues to study and benefit from the Method.

Pain Led Me to Jack Heggie

People at the time didn’t know how to work with it. I was bright—too bright for remedial classes but too dyslexic for regular classes. I didn’t fit in.

I became more anxious than I had been before. My social skills were impeded. I felt out of place, awkward, and foolish. All of these intense emotions showed up in my posture. My shoulders rounded forward, my back hunched a little, and my abdomen was tight from anxiety.

Even as I learned new skills—taking NLP training was very helpful in this regard—the deep physiological patterns I had developed while growing up were still there. They started to take a toll on my upper back. In my mid-thirties, I began having severe back pain, back spasms, and difficulty breathing.

That is when I sought help from Jack Heggie, an internationally known Feldenkrais practitioner and author in Boulder, Colorado. Over the course of about seven private Functional Integration® lessons—the one-to-one, hands-on form of learning in the Feldenkrais Method—things started to change. My posture changed; I could breathe more easily; the back spasms stopped; and I felt much more human. I remember getting into my truck after one lesson in particular and having to adjust the rearview mirrors and the seat. I never put them back after that.

Seeing the Structure of Functional Integration®

By 1997, through my audio publishing company, Genesis II Publishing, Inc., I had published several audio programs on Ericksonian hypnosis, NLP, and Living Metaphors. After working with Jack, I suggested that we put his work on audio. As a result, we created A Healthy Back, Total Body Golf, Running with the Whole Body, and Total Body Vision.

In January 2000, Jack was teaching a workshop for Feldenkrais practitioners called “The Primary Forms of Functional Integration.” He asked me to videotape the workshop for him, which I did. I was fascinated by what I saw, and because there was an odd number of people, I got to participate a little bit too.

Jack taught several fundamental Functional Integration lessons.

I could see that he was working with people’s organizational patterns and teaching new ones.

When I had received lessons myself, they had seemed like a bunch of random poking, pushing, and pulling. Once I saw what Jack was doing, however, it became apparent to me that the lessons had a very coherent structure. Now they made perfect sense to me.

That night I went home to my wife Sarah and said, “Let me try this Feldenkrais stuff with you!” So she let me. I moved her around as best I could remember from what I had learned, and when she got up, she felt better. For the next month, I repeated what I had learned with my friends and family. Almost everyone felt better when they got up. I became even more fascinated.

Deciding to Enter a Feldenkrais Professional Training

And then it was as though the universe organized around me to get me into an excellent training. My wife said, “You have to go.” My boss said, “Take the time off you need.” My parents said, “We will help you pay for it.”

I decided to enter the Feldenkrais Professional Training at Feldenkrais Resources in Berkeley, California. Elizabeth Beringer was my educational director and core trainer. The training lasted four years, from January 2000 through October 2003, for a total of 800 hours. It was the best training I had ever taken in my life—and I had taken a lot of training, having been involved in the Ericksonian hypnosis and NLP fields for many years.

I traveled from Colorado to California to attend training segments in the spring, summer, and fall of each year. As it turned out, my best friend from junior high school lived two miles from the Berkeley training site and invited me to stay at his house throughout the entire training.

What the Training Changed

The training was profound. It changed me in ways that nothing had before and in ways I hadn’t known to expect. It touched something deep in my organization that neither NLP nor hypnosis had come close to reaching. Those deep patterns of anxiety from my early learning in life began to ease and change. I became taller, my shoulders became wider, my voice grew stronger, and my presence became larger. My confidence grew, and I became more at ease with myself.

What the Feldenkrais Method Continues to Teach Me

More than two decades after graduating from the training, I continue to experience the benefits of the Feldenkrais Method.

My practice and study of the Method are ongoing, and through that practice, I continue to learn and improve.

I first came to Jack Heggie because I was in pain and needed help. What began with those private lessons became a way of learning that continues to affect my posture, my breathing, and how I experience myself. Today, I am the healthiest and happiest I have been in my life, and I remain curious about what else I can learn.