March 2025

What is Functional Integration^®?

What is Functional Integration (FI^®)?

To answer this question we would like to start right at the beginning of life, with the relatively blank canvas of the human nervous system.

“Homo sapiens arrive with a tremendous part of his nervous mass left unpatterned, unconnected, so that each individual, depending on where he happens to be born, can organize his brain to fit the demands of his surroundings.” - Moshe Feldenkrais

When Moshe Feldenkrais was introducing the Feldenkrais Method^® of somatic education (at the start of a new course or training), he often led with the idea of 'Neuroplasticity'. He would explain that a human being's ability to learn is unique among animal species, and that our behaviour (Habits, abilities, difficulties and skills) are the direct result of what we have learned in our lives. 

He must have felt this provided a good context for his teaching because it showed that we develop based on our lived experience. But more importantly, it introduced the idea that it is possible for us to improve at any point in life, due to our capacity to have new experiences. 

“Through awareness, we can learn to move with astonishing lightness and freedom at almost any age.” - Moshe Feldenkrais

Functional Integration^®, then, is a process designed to help human beings rediscover their ability to change; change the way they are organised, as well as how they move, at any point in life.

Here is a great quote from Feldenkrais^® trainer Carl Ginsburg (1938-2018), which we feel helps clarity how the above ideas are incorporated into the term 'Functional Integration'. 

“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, etc.  A function is integrated when you carry it out with the whole of yourself, without self-interference.”

To explore this subject further we have some great contributions in this months SenseAbility edition. 

We have a lovely interview with Prisca Winslow, Feldenkrais^® practitioner and assistant trainer based in Taos, New Mexico. She shares the impact that Functional Integration^® lessons and the Feldenkrais Method^® of movement has had in her own life, as well as some of the beautiful examples of change and improvement she has received from her clients over the years.

We also have a great article by Sabina Graf-Pointner, about why the skilled touch of a Feldenkrais practitioner is able to help clients so effectively. In the article she explores how the touch and careful attention of a trained practitioner can help their client find new ways of listening to themselves and new options for movement.

Sabina is a long time practitioner and trainer based in Europe and her wealth of knowledge really comes through in the article. 

Lastly, we are re-airing a previous SenseAbility interview with Paris Kern from 2023, in which she goes into detail about what Functional Integration is and how it all works. 

We hope you enjoy this new edition, and it inspires you try a Functional Integration^® if you haven't already!

Jane, Seth, Michelle and Joe

FGNA Communications team

Podcast Interview with Prisca Winslow

In this month's Senseability podcast we interview Prisca Winslow. She recalls her own personal journey with being introduced to the Feldenkrais Method^® of somatic education and Functional Integration lessons. She shares impactful stories from her own life and her private practice as a Feldenkrais^® Practioner. They provide great examples of the remarkable ability for change after Functional Integration lessons.  She explains how FI^® helps facilitate the untapped potential of a student and empowering them to live life confidently and fully. 

An article by Sabina Graf-Pointner

Touch is at the very heart of the Feldenkrais Method^® of somatic education no matter whether we touch with words or hands, because our intention is always to touch the person.

In a way that perceives, addresses and responds to the person in his/her uniqueness.

Even if hands only touch a specific area, such as a knee, there is a significant difference in the experience of the person being touched between “someone touching my knee” and someone “touching ME at my knee”.

This perceptible difference is only possible if it is anchored in the Feldenkrais^® Practitioner's inner attitude and orientation. Accordingly, it is not only the hands of the Feldenkrais Practitioner that touch a body part of the other person. Just as no knee leads a life detached from the rest of a person, there are no hands that perform certain grips detached from the person touching – making maneuvers like machines.

In the encounter that becomes possible through this specific Feldenkrais movement way of touching, two people are present in this very moment with their indivisible physicality and the fullness of their embodied experiences. This presence gives room to whatever may develop.. 

Replay of podcast interview with Paris Kern

Seth Dellinger interviews Paris Kern about the experience of Functional Integration
sessions, where a Feldenkrais^® practitioner works with an individual client through touch.

Link to full July 2023 Senseability edition: Exploring Function Integration

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