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Barry Levine Brings Movement Therapy Pioneer

Moshe Feldenkrais’ Method into Practice

By Susie Davidson

Advocate Correspondent

In the late 1940’s, Moshe Feldenkrais, engineer and physicist, suffered a severe knee injury. Drawing from his base of experience, he incorporated mechanics of physics and engineering intrinsic to anatomy, physiology, anthropology, linguistics, biology, prenatal development and athletics, and taught hinself to walk again.

He discovered underlying relationships between the mind and the body as he studied bodily mechanics and self-rehabilitation, and for the next 30 years, he proceeded to refine and teach the technique throughout the world to thousands of students. The Feldenkrais Method was the result of his journey to heal his knees; today, it is a standard treatment modality embraced by nearly 3,000 alternative practitioners around the world. “The aim,” he said, “is a body that is organized to move with minimum effort and maximum efficiency, not through muscular strength, but increased consciousness of how it works.”

Born in 1904 in Russian Poland, Feldenkrais emigrated to Palestine at age 15. Following a doctorate in Physics from the Sorbonne, he worked with Frederick Curie-Joliot as a research assistant, and was the first European to earn a Black Belt in judo.

Locally, Feldenkrais classes are offered at Harvard University’s Hillel. Barry Levine, M.Ed., studied with the master and is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner at 124 Harvard St. in Brookline. “People can have dormant physical problems, but under stress these hidden problems can become painful, and can further increase under everyday stress,” he says. The Feldenkrais Technique, he encapsulates, is “a unique approach to improving body motion which in turn alleviates pain, enhances self image, minimizes work-related stress as it enhances personal growth and a sense of well-being.”

Levine taught exercise clases at the YMCA, taught and practiced Feldenkrais in hospitals, led workshops at Interface, the YWCA and has practiced privately for twenty years. He has been an Assistant Trainer of the Feldenkrais Guild for ten years.

"Have you noticed how you can recognize your friends from far away?" asks Barry Levine, Feldenkrais practitioner based at 124 Harvard St. "You can do this because you know their walk, their posture and how they are in their world. These habits of movement and function determine how a person will feel and perceive themselves and how they will react in certain situations."

"The Feldenkrais Method," he says, "gives you a chance to do it over again, learn to move differently and recognize habitual patterns of behavior while discovering new ways of action so that posture and emotional outlook can be altered and changed.

"Our lives were shaped by early experiences before we were aware enough to reject their effect," he continues. "Ordinarily, we learn just enough to function. The Feldenkrais method teaches functional integration through slow gentle movements. The method helps to eliminate pain, movement restrictions, improve posture, breathing, coordination, and relieve tension and stress. People who come to see me have been in car accidents, or have various types of physical pain; they also come to improve their golf or tennis game."

Feldenkrais divides into two applications: Awareness Through Movement (ATM), which consists of verbally directed, gentle exercise lessons (there are hundreds, addressing every joint and muscle group and human function of the body) involving sophisticated movement sequences, accessing the sensory motor processes of the brain and involving attention, perception, imagination and cognition., and Functional Integration (FI), which is an individual approach to working with people, utilizing specific skilled manipulation and passive movement in order to achieve learning, change and improvement. Functional Integration can address serious muscular or neurological problems without pain.

Moshe Feldenkrais’ books include The Potent Self (1985), The Elusive Obvious (1981), Body Awareness as Healing Therapy: The Case of Nora (1977, 1994), Awareness Through Movement: Health Exercises for Personal Growth (1972.) Higher Judo: Groundwork (1952), Body and Mature Behavior: A Study of Anxiety, Sex, Gravitation and Learning (1950, 1980), and Judo: The Art of Defense and Attack (1944, 1967).

"Feldenkrais isn't about curing or fixing people,” explains practitioner Lawrence Wm. Goldfarb, Ph.D. of Champaign, Illinois, whose book, “Articulating Changes,” was published in 1990 by Feldenkrais Resources. Dr. Goldfarb also wrote The Back Into Action Handbook, with lessons and audiotapes, which was published by Therapy Skill Builders, and leads seminars and teaching in professional training programs. “It isn't a medical treatment, it's an educational approach. It's about helping people get control back into their lives by understanding why they feel the way they do and by learning how to move differently so that they don't have to keep feeling that way. My job isn't to get rid of the disease; my job is to help them move so that they don't stress the affected joints. Even when there is a structural problem i.e. with discs, the question is how can the person move in a better way, so that they increase their comfort and avoid future problems."