Ira Feinstein: How did you meet Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais?

David Zemach-Bersin: In April of 1973, I was a senior at the University of California Berkeley, and I saw a flier on a telephone pole saying Moshe Feldenkrais was coming to town. I'd already heard of him because my psychotherapist had seen him work on somebody, was impressed, and had told me about it. I decided to register for his Berkeley workshop.

Ira: How serendipitous! What was the workshop like?

David: It was extraordinary! There were two workshops; one during the day that met for five weeks, and an evening class twice a week, open to the public. I went to one of the evening classes, which was very crowded. Probably 150 people were there. I was immediately hooked and began sneaking into the daytime class, limited to only about 30 participants studying in depth with Dr. Feldenkrais. He was in Berkeley for five weeks, and I managed to study with him most days during those five weeks.

I was stunned by the positive...

Some of you may know that Zemach became part of my surname when my wife, Kaethe, and I joined our last names. Kaethe's grandfather, Benjamin Zemach, was a dancer, actor, and early member of the Habima Theater company in Russia and Poland. Benjamin and his wife, Elizabeth, lived in New York and California before immigrating to Israel in the 1970s. Benjamin knew Moshe Feldenkrais well; they often shared Friday-night dinners together, and Benjamin attended the weekly ATM class for performing artists that Moshe taught at Habima for many years.

Last week, Kaethe was going through some papers and found a letter from her grandmother, Elizabeth, in which she refers to receiving FI lessons from Moshe. She says, "My back is much better, and if I can get the knack of riding these buses without slipping more discs, I'll be sailing pretty. Feldenkrais is quite exceptional, but also like a child who has made a discovery...

Over the last year, a new approach to Functional Integration^® has blossomed in my individual work. I call it 'Harmonizing' because that's what it feels like; a dynamic, three-dimensional way of working with a strong undercurrent of joining in action. In the past, I've used this idea at the end of my FI^® lessons to help clients integrate their new learning in an upright position. But recently, a new avenue opened up, and I find myself giving entire lessons this way. I was surprised when it started happening; for a moment thought I'd invented something new. But then, I remembered that actually, this approach invented me.

In 1975, I was a student in the San Francisco Feldenkrais^® Professional Training program when, on a Thursday or Friday toward the end of our second month, Moshe invited me to come to the front of the room and sit on the edge of his table. He began to work with me, and as I recall, his goal seemed to be to find an effortless path to bring me...

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."