This book is an edited transcription of a five-day public workshop taught by Dr. Feldenkrais at Mann Ranch in Northern California in 1979. The theoretical discussions and the movement experiences are interwoven throughout the book, making the relationship between theory and practice in the Feldenkrais Method more and more evident. The book is designed so that the reader does the movement lessons as he or she progresses through the book. The movements’ directions are clear and the themes are engaging. In a workshop situation, Moshe inevitably explored his teaching process, both to pace and move with the group, but also to evolve the ideas he was presenting.

Introductory Lecture: Detecting Small Differences
Lesson One: Twisting to Floor
Lesson Two: Thinking and Doing
Lesson Three: Exploring the Floor: The Movement of the Shoulder
Lesson Four: Crawling and Walking
Lesson Five: The Ribs and Rolling
Lesson Six, Part One: Arm Circles
Lesson Six, Part Two: Making a Circle with Your Hip
Lesson Seven: The Movement of the Eyes Organizes the Movement of the Body
Lesson Eight: The Seventh Cervical
Lesson Nine: Head Through the Gate
Lesson Ten: Jaw, Tongue and Aggression
Lesson Eleven: Rocking the Pelvis
Lesson Twelve: Learning to Sit from Lying

Read an Excerpt

From the Introduction by Carl Ginsburg:

In this transcript of Moshe’s five-day public workshop at Mann Ranch in Northern California in 1979, the full range of his thinking and his teaching style can be explored. All his major ideas on movement, human development, sensitivity, awareness, and so forth are presented both as exposition and exploration through movement lessons. These lessons, part of his unique contribution to human development, are the key to understanding the Feldenkrais Method^®. There are both old and new lessons presented here. But the lessons that may be familiar from previous Feldenkrais books are taught in a new way. In a workshop situation, Moshe inevitably explored his teaching process, both to pace and move with the group, but also to evolve the ideas he was presenting.

As you read and interact with this book, you may note some very unique aspects of the Feldenkrais work. For one thing, Moshe’s emphasis is on the kinesthetic, feeling aspect of your self-organization. You may become aware as you explore the lessons, that Moshe guides you away from visualizing or verbalizing what you do until you have begun to have some kinesthetic experience of yourself in movement and action. Moshe’s push towards the kinesthetic is based on his observation in himself and others that the feeling and proprioceptive senses are the least trusted and the least attended to in our culture. His further observation is that profound change in the kinesthetic, feeling image of yourself results in change in all aspects of your self-organization.

A second unique aspect of Moshe’s work is his insistence on function. Function, in this sense, is anything you do such as walking, standing, twisting, and so forth. A function is integrated when you carry it out with the whole of yourself, without self-interference. As you explore the lessons you may become much more aware of the movement of your own structure in space, and the relation of parts of yourself, your pelvis and head for example, to the whole of your action. In the transcript, Moshe emphasizes some of these relationships. They are clues to a functional integration for yourself. Only your own experience can make his words clear to yourself. There is no learning in the Feldenkrais way without doing: i.e., doing the lessons.