Looking for Clues: Mystery Novels & Functional Integration
Sherlock Holmes was one of Dr. Feldenkrais' heroes. Moshe enjoyed reading Conan Doyle mysteries, and Sherlock's devotion to clues. I'm into my fourth John Le Carre book now, with George Smiley. Agent extraordinaire Smiley makes inferences from tiny fragments of evidence and gathers clues not only by observing the environment and the people in it but also by listening to his own sensations and feelings. Smiley allows himself to trust his intuition in search of information. He goes to places without knowing why he is going there and lingers in places allowing his sensations and perceptions to coalesce, in search of clues. Since reading Le Carre, I've been watching strangers on trains differently, and thinking about the interviews I saw Moshe conducting with people before giving them their first Functional Integration lesson. They were a marvel of curiosity, investigation, compassion, and reframing.
Moshe often said that the FI lesson begins when the person walks in the door...
A Meeting of the Minds: Margaret Mead and Moshe Feldenkrais
During the third year of the San Francisco training program, Margaret Mead visited us for most of a week. At the time, she was considered the pre-eminent cultural anthropologist of North America (and a very public intellectual). Friends had introduced Moshe and Mead, and as she became familiar with both Functional Integration and Awareness Through Movement, she became an advocate for him and his ideas. Some months later in an article, Mead wrote,
"Feldenkrais' method is the most sophisticated and effective method I have seen for the prevention and reversal of deterioration of function. We're condemning millions of people to a deteriorated old age that's not necessary."
Throughout her visit, she made herself available for conversations during class breaks, which were often quite long. I remember talking with her about language and abstract thinking and hardly being able to keep my end of the conversation going because I was so completely knocked out by her unique brilliance and...
David Zemach-Bersin
David has maintained a Feldenkrais practice for over forty years, and has taught in Feldenkrais Training programs for 35 years. He studied directly with Moshe Feldenkrais and graduated from the first US training program in 1977.
