The Ultimate Feldenkrais Guide to

Relieve Neck
and Shoulder Pain
Experience the Immediate Benefits of doing Awareness Through Movement®

Al Wadleigh,
Guild Certified
Feldenkrais
Practitionercm

The Feldenkrais Store

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

What is Awareness ___

In Feldenkrais we
Through Movement? call these exercises
Lessons.
Feldenkrais exercises are what we call Awareness Through
Movement lessons. These lessons use the principles of
___
developmental learning - the same kind of learning that naturally
allows a child to crawl, walk, and interact with the world. While Several essential
development is rather haphazard, Feldenkrais lessons use these principles will help
ideas in specific sequences combined with awareness to
you get the most
improve our movements, abilities, and well-being.

from doing
The Feldenkrais Method® was developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais
Feldenkrais, an Israeli scientist and martial artist. There are two
Awareness Through
approaches to the Feldenkrais Method. One is Functional
Movement lessons.
Integration®, which is the hands-on approach to the work. The
other is Awareness Through Movement, which is the verbally ___
guided aspect of the method. While the same principles apply
to both, we will be doing Awareness Through Movement in this Let’s put these
ebook.
principles into
action so you can

Getting the Most from actually feel and see

the differences they
Feldenkrais Lessons make in your ability
Several essential principles will help you get the most from to learn and
doing Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons.
improve.

But, let’s not just talk about them. Let’s put these principles ___
into action so you can actually feel and see the differences
they make in your ability to learn and improve.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___

This lesson will

improve your
ability to turn by
differentiating the
movements of the
eyes from the head
and neck. Thereby
creating a greater
range of motion
through the entire
chest and spine
while reducing
tension in the neck
and shoulders.
___

Let’s do a Lesson
To begin with, we will do a short lesson. This one is based
on a lesson that Dr. Feldenkrais presents in his Awareness
Through Movement book, Lesson 10 - “Movement of the
Eyes Organizes the Movement of the Body.” This is a very
simplified version of this lesson adapted to sitting in a
chair.

In essence, the lesson will improve your ability to turn by

differentiating the movements of the eyes from the head
and neck, thereby creating a greater range of motion
through the entire chest and spine while reducing tension
in the neck and shoulders.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
Create a Space for Your
Lesson Key Ideas to Keep
in Mind.
To begin with, sit on a firm chair. Most lessons are done on
the floor on a blanket. But this lesson will be done in a chair. ___
A dining chair is perfect. If you don’t have one, find the
Move Within Your
firmest chair you have. If you are using an office chair, make
Range of Comfort.
sure it doesn’t roll or turn when you do the lesson. We want
the movement to be in you, not the chair. Position the chair
•
so you are facing a wall.

Smaller, Slower
Movements Allow
Some Key Ideas to Keep in You to Sense More.
Mind Before You Begin •

💡 Move Within Your Range of Comfort The Nervous

When you make a movement, refrain from going to the System Thrives on
maximum. If you feel a stretch or a strain, you have gone Differences.
too far. So make the movement smaller and slower.

•
When you do these movements, you want to move within
your range of comfort. Why? Because these lessons will Your Breath
increase the range of motion in which you are comfortable. Reveals Effort and
In other words, by exploring variations in your movement,
Can Create Ease.
sensing, and awareness within your range of comfort, your
range of motion with automatically expand.
___

💡 Smaller, Slower Movements Allow

You to Sense More
Large effortful movements consume your sensation and
your attention. There is a direct relationship between how
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much effort you put into something and how much you

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

can sense. For example, if you are carrying a sack of ___

potatoes and a butterfly lands on it, you cannot feel the
butterfly. But if you hold a feather between your thumb and I believe that the
index finger and that same butterfly lands on it, you can unity of mind and
feel it.
body is an
This is the kind of sensitivity we want to cultivate when objective reality.
doing Awareness Through Movement.
They are not just
parts somehow
💡 The Nervous System Thrives on
related to each
Differences other, but an
We want to make as many distinctions as possible when
inseparable whole
we do these lessons. This is something we need to learn to
while functioning.
do. Often when people start doing Feldenkrais lessons
A brain without a
they only have a few ways to evaluate themselves: hurts/
doesn’t hurt, tight/loose, or tense/relaxed. We want to body could not
leave these evaluations behind and notice differences in think.
the domains of quality of movement, the range of motion, – Moshe
and sensing skeletal parts.
Feldenkrais
___
💡 Your Breath Creates Ease in
Movement
As you do a movement, pay attention to your breath. How
are you breathing? Make sure your breath is easy and
comfortable. Sometimes in a lesson your breath is
coordinated with a movement. Other times it is separate
from a movement.

We will often hold the breath or breathe shallowly when we

encounter something unfamiliar or that we expect to be
difficult. When you sense the breath and keep it easy, you
will create more ease in the task at hand.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
Begin With a Scan
A scan prepares
Most Feldenkrais lessons begin with a scan. Scanning is
when you move your attention to sense different parts of your mind, brain,
yourself. A scan has a couple of essential functions. One, it and nervous
turns your attention inward to your sensations in preparation system for the
for the experience. And two, it gives you a baseline to which lesson and
can compare back as you progress through the lesson.

establishes a
Sit toward the front edge of the chair. Remove your shoes. baseline which
Place both feet on the floor under your knees which are open you can compare
a little wider than hip-width apart.

back to as you
As you sit, close your eyes and begin sensing your feet on progress through
the floor. Notice how each foot contacts the floor a little the lesson.
differently. There may be more weight on the heel, the outside
of the foot, or the front of the foot of each foot. Bring your ___
attention to the pelvis as you sit. Can you feel more weight on
In a class setting,
one sit bone than the other? Move your awareness to your
shoulders. Is one more forward than the other? And finally, most scans and
attend to the spine between the pelvis and the head. Are lessons are done
some parts of it more easily felt than others?
lying on the floor.
And sometimes
sitting or standing.

___

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
1. Turning to the left
In Feldenkrais
Bring your right arm out in front of you at shoulder height.
Have the elbow bent a little, so the hand is 10-12 inches in lessons, we use a
front of your face. Look at the hand. Now turn your arm, reference
head, and eyes to the left and then return to the front. Do this movement. It’s a
several times.
movement we do
that allows us to

2. Establish a Reference measure our

progress through a
💡 Measuring Your Progress lesson.
In Feldenkrais lessons, we use a reference movement. It’s a
___
movement we do that allows us to measure our progress
through a lesson. Sometimes there is one, sometimes there
are many reference movements. Sometimes they are
explicit, sometimes they are implicit. The ones we are using
in this lesson are explicit.

Do a few movements like this and turn to the left and stop.
Look over your right hand and mark a spot on the wall with
your attention as a reference point by which you can measure
your progress.

Let all that go. Bring your arm, head, and eyes back to the
front and rest. When you turned to the left, what did you do
with your left hand? Was it hanging by your side? Or resting
on your lap?

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
3. Separating the Movement
of Your Head and Shoulders Resting is very
important.
Now bring the right arm up, look at your hand, turn to the left
and remain in that set position. From this position, turn your ___
head and eyes further to the left and then back to the hand.

Rests give our

Do this gently and slowly. If you feel any strain at all, make the brain and nervous
movement smaller. Find a way to do it comfortably. Do it as system a chance to
many times as is comfortable and then rest. If you start to feel
refresh.
fatigued at all, stop and rest. When you rest, bring everything
back to the front, and bring your arm down.
•

💡 The Importance of Resting If you get tired,

We rest for several reasons.

stop and rest.

One is to punctuate the movement. If we don’t, it starts to If your mind

become like a long run-on sentence and loses its meaning.
wonders or you

But, if we stop, take a rest, even briefly, the movement lose track, stop
becomes much more meaningful to your nervous system.
and rest.

Another reason is fatigue can develop in the nervous If something hurts,

system. This may be felt as tiredness in the muscles or a stop and rest.
lack of focus. Resting helps to revitalize the nervous
system.
•

Ideally, take a rest before you get tired.

Ideally, stop and
rest before you
If your mind wonders, if you get tired, or if you experience
discomfort, stop and rest. Then come back to the need to.
movement. It will be more comfortable, and your attention
___
will be refreshed.

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___
4. Check your progress
Sometimes our
Bring your right arm up again, look at your hand, and turn to the
left as far as you can comfortably. Look over your hand to the physical parts get
wall and notice how much further you turned this time stuck together
compared to the beginning. Rest again.
resulting in limited

This was just one straightforward variation and brief rest. You movement, pain,
have already made improvements!
or injury.

___

5. Separating the Movement Feldenkrais

of the Eyes from the Head lessons help to
“differentiate”
Let’s continue. Bring your right arm in front of you again, look at
the hand and turn to the left. Go as far to the left within your these parts one
range of comfort and remain there.
from another.

Now keep your head oriented toward your hand and just look ___
with the eyes to the left and back to the hand. Don’t move your
head. When the eyes go to the left, take them into the left So when they are
corners of eye sockets. Of course, be gentle. Don’t strain the brought back
eyes. Do this as many times as is comfortable and then rest.
together,

Bring the eyes back to the hand, return to the front, and rest. As “integrated”, the
you rest, notice what sensation you are having.
whole movement is
smoother, easier,
and more comfort.

___

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6. Separating the Movement ___

of the Head and the Eyes Check your

Bring your arm up again, look at the hand, and turn to the left. breath! We will
Once again, go as far as you can within your range of comfort often hold the
and remain there. Now, leave the eyes resting on the hand and
breath or breathe
turn just the head further to the left and back to the hand.

shallowly when we
This can be tricky. So go slowly. Make sure you are breathing. encounter
Now, as the head turns to the left, the eyes remain on the
something
hand, and the eyes move into the right corners of the eye
unfamiliar or that
sockets.

we expect to be
Do this movement as many times as is comfortable. Then
difficult. When
bring the head, eyes, and hand back to each other and return
you sense the
to the front. Take a nice rest.

breath and keep it

As you rest, sense your breath, your pelvis and your feet on
easy, you will
the floor.

create more ease

in the task at
7. Check Your Progress hand.

Once again, bring the right arm out in front, rest the eyes on ___
the hand, and turn to the left as far as you can comfortably
and stop there. Look over your hand to the wall and notice
how much further you have turned now.

Do a few more movements for your enjoyment. Bring your

awareness to your breath and coordinate it as you turn. Feel
the movement through your chest, ribs, and spine. Do this as
many times as you like and then rest.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
💡 What is Important About Working in
this Way? Big effortful
By engaging the wisdom of your nervous system and tapping movements engage
into your brain’s innate ability to learn, you have increased more muscular
your ability to turn to the left easily and comfortably.

effort than is
So why is this important? What does it matter that you can necessary to do the
do that now? Why is it better than efforting, stretching and action. By making
straining?

smaller moves, you

For one thing, big effortful movements engage more learn to engage
muscular effort than is necessary to do the action. The extra only the muscular
muscular effort just gets in the way of a smooth and even,
work you need to do
powerful movement. By making smaller moves, you learn to
the action you want.
engage only the muscular work you need to do the action
This means your
you want. This means your movements become more
efficient, congruent, and can be more powerful.
movements become
more efficient,
Often, we may feel like we have to put more effort into a
congruent, and can
movement or to stretch because it seems like we are met
with resistance. That resistance is just the preoccupation of be more powerful.
your brain and nervous system with “other” movements that
___
are not compatible with the ones you are trying to do. It’s like
unconsciously you are trying to enact more than one
intention. Dr. Feldenkrais called this “cross-motivation.”

In these lessons, you learn to separate your motivations. So

you can enact each one separately from the others. Do we
know what these motivations are? Not necessarily. But we
can sense them through our muscular effort. We can begin to
sort these unconscious intentions in the process of a lesson.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

8. Compare Your Sides ___

Sit with your hands on your lap and just turn to the left and then Remember, your
turn to the right. Notice which way is more accessible to go? nervous system
How do the two sides feel different from one another? Which thrives on
way do you turn further?

differences.
Stand up from your chair. Feel your feet on the floor. Sense the Taking the time to
differences between your sides.
notice differences

Now turn to the left and turn to the right and feel the difference as you progress
as you stand.
through the lesson
helps to deepen
Walk around for a couple of minutes, look at things, notice what
is different in your perception. After you take a few minutes to and integrate the
do this, return to your chair.
learning.

___
💡 The Mind, the Brain and the Nervous
System
As you have probably gathered by now, Feldenkrais
Awareness Through Movement lessons work with the
interplay of your mind, brain, and nervous system. We can
use our thoughts, awareness, and intention to change
neurological patterning, and hence, our movement habits.

Let’s take this idea a little further and do some work turning to
the right.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
9. Turning to the Right
You can use your
Using Your Imagination to Change imagination to
Your Brain (and Your Movement) prime your brain
and your nervous
9a. Set Your Reference Movement
system to accelerate
Sitting in your chair. Bring your left arm in front of you at
learning.
shoulder height and rest your eyes on your hand. Make one turn
to the right, notice how far you turn by making a reference point ___
on the wall and then return to the front and rest.

Dr. Feldenkrais
9b. Imagining Movements to the Right often said,
Bring the left arm up again and with the eyes directed to the
“If you know what
hand, close the eyes and imagine you are turning to the right.
That’s right, just imagine it in whatever way makes sense to you.
you are doing, you
can do what you
Coordinating the movement with your breath, imagine you are
want.”
turning easily and comfortably. Imagine doing this several times
and then rest.
Meaning, if you are
Did your breathing change when you stopped to rest? aware of your
Sometimes, even when imagining, we might hold our breath movements,
indicating we are efforting in our imagination.
sensations,
thoughts, and feels,
9c. Separating Movements of the Head and
you can have choice
Shoulders
about them.
Once again, bring your arm up, direct your eyes to your hand
and close them. Imagine turning as far to the right as you can ___
comfortably. From this imagined place, turn your head and eyes
further to the right and back. Coordinate each movement with
your breath. Go gently and slowly.

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It’s your imagination. You can imagine doing this movement with
tremendous ease, smoothness, lightness. Imagine the ___
movement as something that is satisfying or comforting.

It’s your
Stop and rest.
imagination. You
can imagine doing
9d. Separating Movements of the Eyes from
this movement
the Head
with tremendous
Bring your left arm in front as before. Imagine turning even
ease, smoothness,
further to the right and this time, from this imagined position,
leave your head oriented toward your hand and just think the lightness. Imagine
movement of the eyes further to the right. Can you image seeing the movement as
around behind yourself? In thought, your eyes move into the something that is
right corners of the eye sockets.
satisfying or
Rest again.
comforting.
___
9e. Separating Movements of the Head from
the Eyes
Now bring the arm in front again. Imagine turning even further to
the right this time and staying there. And from this imagined
position, leave the eyes resting on the hand and think the
movement of turning your head further to the right. And now in
thought, the eyes move into the left corners of the eye sockets.

Bring everything forward again and rest.

9f. Actualizing Movements to the Right

Again, bring the left arm in front and rest the eyes on the hand.
Actualize the movement this time. Turn everything to the right.
The head, the eyes and the arm all go to the right. Go as far as is
comfortable and see how far you have gone now. How far do
you go? Most likely much further than when we started this side.
Perhaps even a greater distance than you went on the other
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side.

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How is this possible? How can just thinking a series of

movements create such a remarkable change in such a short ___
period?

…self-knowledge
💡 Imagined Movement and Actual through
Movement Ignite the Same Neuro- awareness is the
Pathways goal of
It is the interplay of the mind and the brain. By using our reeducation. As we
imagination, we can activate the same neuro-pathways as by become aware of
actually doing it. Dr. Feldenkrais understood this decades what we are doing
ago, long before there were fMRIs that allowed neurologists
in fact, and not
to confirm that doing a movement and thinking about a
what we say or
movement activated the same neurology.

think we are

10. Return to the Scan doing, the way to

improvement is
Sit comfortably again. With your feet on the floor and your hands
wide open to us.
resting on your thighs. Sense yourself now. Remember the scan
– Moshe
we did in the beginning? Sense your feet on the floor. Has the
pattern of contact changed? Bring your awareness to your pelvis Feldenkrais
and your sit bones. What has changed here? Attend to your ___
shoulders. Is the same one forward or has the way your
shoulders rest changed? Move your sensing to your spine. Is it
easier to sense? Are the areas that were absent in your attention
more available now?

Now, just turn left and right and notice the ease to both sides.

Stand and turn left and right. Walk around for a few minutes and
notice what has changed in your perception.

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

___
In Conclusion
There are literally
So there you go. This is a straightforward lesson which hopefully
has had a profound impact on your personal experience.
thousands of
Feldenkrais
There are literally thousands of Feldenkrais lessons to explore.
Lessons to explore
Each experience works to improve a different aspect of our
functioning so we can lead fuller, more satisfying lives.
and learn from.

___

What have you learned about In his lessons, Dr.

doing Feldenkrais Awareness Feldenkrais

touched on nearly
Through Movement lessons? every aspect of
human
• Feldenkrais lessons almost always use a scan in preparation
for the lesson
functioning.

• Reference movements help us to consciously and ___

unconsciously measure our progress

• Working within your range of comfort will expand your range

of comfort

• Using less effort helps us to sense more of what we are

actually doing

• Your breath reveals how much effort you are using and can
help you create ease

• Feldenkrais lessons are an interplay between the mind, brain

and nervous system

• Imagined and actual movements ignite the same neurology

• You can accelerate your learning by using your imagination

• You can use your mind to change your brain

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

As You Continue Your ___

Exploration What I’m after

isn’t flexible
Keep these ideas in mind as you continue your exploration into
bodies, but flexible
Feldenkrais lessons. Attend a class, get private lessons and
brains. What I’m
study at home. My online shop, The Feldenkrais Store, at
AchievingExcellence.com, is a treasure trove of Feldenkrais, after is to restore
books, audio, and video that you can purchase. In addition to each person to
that, I have a large selection of articles on a wide range of topics their human
about the Feldenkrais Method.

dignity.
If you have any questions, please reach out to me: – Moshe
[email protected]
Feldenkrais
___

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

About the Author,

Al Wadleigh, GCFP
Al Wadleigh is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitionercm,
practicing in Madrid and Cerrillos, New Mexico. Al works
with clients one-on-one, teaches Awareness Through
Movement® classes, and presents in and sponsors
Feldenkrais workshops. His background includes
extensive training in Ericksonian Psychotherapy and NLP,
seminar and workshop design and promotion, and a
degree in Psychology.

He created and designed the website, The Feldenkrais Store to be the best source for media
and information pertaining to the Feldenkrais Method®. Just as each private session with Al
is composed of guided movements that are unique to each client, Al also designs classes
and workshops to achieve group outcomes for increasing flexibility, strength, and ease of
movement.

“Al is amazingly good at guiding you into states of ease, clarity, comfort, and
freedom of movement that may have been constrained by years of habitual
patterns. His methods are therapeutic and effective. You can feel the difference and it
feels good.” – Dave DiRito, M.A.

“Al personifies many qualities of a master teacher: patience, competence, empathy

and strong communication skills. These skills can be experienced in each class that
he teaches. In my thirty plus years as an educator, I never taught or mentored a
teacher as dedicated or effective as Al. Al’s level of mastery translates to a happy,
healthy, active, life-long learner of seventy-seven years that attempts to attend a class
taught by Al every week. Thank you, Al for the joy that you bring to my life.
– Jean Rice, Retired Teacher

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 Doing Awareness Through Movement Lessons

About Dr. Moshe

Feldenkrais (1904-1984)
The Feldenkrais Method® was originated by Moshe
Feldenkrais, D.Sc., a pioneer in movement science and
the innovator of therapeutic and educational approaches.
Feldenkrais was born in Russia in 1904 and immigrated to
Palestine at the age of 14. He undertook this journey
without his family as a member of a caravan from his
village. As a young man, he was an excellent athlete and
through the influence of a British officer, learned Ju-Jitsu. He was both a very physical
young man and an excellent student with a creative mind. Even at a young age he was
interested in the inner development of the human being. He was influenced by Coue’s work
in autosuggestion and early writings on both the unconscious mind and the self-image.

Feldenkrais earned his doctorate in physics at the Sorbonne in Paris, where he assisted
Nobel Prize Laureate Frederic Joliot-Curie at the Curie Institute. During his university years,
he met Kano, the originator of Judo. He became one of the first Europeans to receive a
black belt in Judo and was the founder of the French Judo Association. Feldenkrais studied
Judo intensively and became a well-known Judo teacher.

During World War II, Feldenkrais went to England where he worked in antisubmarine
research, trained paratroopers in self-defense techniques and authored books on Judo. He
aggravated an old soccer injury to his knees and began many years of extended work on
himself. His own recovery process and subsequent wide-ranging research resulted in the
creation of the unique educational system — the Feldenkrais Method and it components
Awareness Through Movement and Functional Integration — which incorporated his
background in physics and Judo along with a lifelong interest in human development. Upon
moving to Israel, he gave up his work as an engineer and researcher and proceeded to use
his genius to directly help people live more fulfilling lives. Feldenkrais was fluent in six
languages and authored six books on his method. Feldenkrais died in 1984, leaving a small
group of highly-trained practitioners who have continued to teach his method worldwide.

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Contact
Genesis II Publishing, Inc.

The Feldenkrais Store

PO Box 241

Cerrillos, NM 87010

AchievingExcellence.com

Message: 303-709-0639

[email protected]

Google Business Listing

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Find a Practitioner
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Copyright
Copyright 2019, Al Wadleigh, GCFP, Genesis II Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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