March 2025
Ā
What is Functional IntegrationĀ®?
Ā
|
What is Functional Integration (FIĀ®)?
Ā
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.
Ā
āHomo 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.ā - Moshe Feldenkrais
Ā
When Moshe Feldenkrais was introducing the Feldenkrais MethodĀ® 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.Ā
Ā
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.Ā
Ā
āThrough awareness, we can learn to move with astonishing lightness and freedom at almost any age.ā - Moshe Feldenkrais
Ā
Functional IntegrationĀ®, 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.
Ā
Here is a great quote from FeldenkraisĀ® trainer Carl Ginsburg (1938-2018), which we feel helps clarity how the above ideas are incorporated into the term 'Functional Integration'.Ā
Ā
āA second unique aspect of Mosheās work is his insistence on function.Ā Function in this sense is anything you do such as walking, standing, twisting, etc.Ā A function is integrated when you carry it out with the whole of yourself, without self-interference.ā
|
To explore this subject further we have some great contributions in this months SenseAbility edition.Ā
Ā
We have a lovely interview with Prisca Winslow, FeldenkraisĀ® practitioner and assistant trainer based in Taos, New Mexico. She shares the impact that Functional IntegrationĀ® lessons and the Feldenkrais MethodĀ® 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.
Ā
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.
Ā
Sabina is a long time practitioner and trainer based in Europe and her wealth of knowledge really comes through in the article.Ā
Ā
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.Ā
Ā
We hope you enjoy this new edition, and it inspires you try a Functional IntegrationĀ® if you haven't already!
Ā
Jane, Seth, Michelle and Joe
FGNA Communications team
|
|
|
An Introduction to Functional IntegrationĀ® |
Podcast Interview with Prisca Winslow
Ā
In this month's Senseability podcast we interview Prisca Winslow. She recalls her own personal journey with being introduced to the Feldenkrais MethodĀ® of somatic education and Functional Integration lessons. She shares impactful stories from her own life and her private practice as a FeldenkraisĀ® Practioner. They provide great examples of the remarkable ability for change after Functional Integration lessons.Ā She explains how FIĀ® helps facilitate the untapped potential of a student and empowering them to live life confidently and fully.Ā
|
Prisca Winslow, GCFP and Assistant Trainer, like everyone else, began her life discovering the world through movement. She has continued to do so through a variety of intriguing forms of movement arts, all of which Feldenkrais movement has informed and made more doable and fun! She first discovered the Method in 1983 after a four year search trying numerous other methods and therapies to heal from chronic ankle and back pain. It quickly brought her to enjoy again what she has always loved... Dance. The process continues to be expansive and rewarding and she is excited to share her learning.
Prisca has presented Awareness Through MovementĀ® classes and workshops for the general public, performing and movement artists, athletes and equestrians since 1989 and enjoys a full Functional Integration practice in Taos, NM. Recent years brought her to once again personally experience how meaningful and effective the Method is for recovery!
Her website is: moveintobalance.com
|
An article by Sabina Graf-Pointner
Ā
Touch is at the very heart of the Feldenkrais MethodĀ® of somatic education no matter whether we touch with words or hands, because our intention is always to touch the person.
Ā
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 āsomeone touching my kneeā and someone ātouching ME at my kneeā.
Ā
This perceptible difference is only possible if it is anchored in the FeldenkraisĀ® 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 ā making maneuvers like machines.
Ā
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..Ā
|
Sabina's passion for movement led her from competitive sports to New Dance and Contact Improvisation, and then to various methods of somatic learning, including her first experiences with the Feldenkrais Method in 1983. An accident in 1990 abruptly cut her intensive time as a dancer and teacher of dance and movement short, but this also marked the beginning of an intensive exploration of the Feldenkrais Method.
Since completing her Feldenkrais training (1993) in Holland with Mia Segal, Dr. MoshƩ Feldenkrais's first assistant, Sabina has worked as a Feldenkrais pedagogue in her own practice in Erlangen. Her Feldenkrais practice became so successful that, starting in 1998, she steadily expanded it into a Feldenkrais Center, where other Feldenkrais colleagues work.
In addition to her intensive work as a leader of seminars and training courses for Feldenkrais colleagues, she has participated in various Feldenkrais movement training programs in Germany and abroad since 1996 ā first as a training practitioner, since 2005 as an assistant trainer, and since 2018 as a trainer. Since 2023, she has been leading a Feldenkrais movement training program in Barcelona together with Philipp Unseld.
Her website: www.feldenkrais-erlangen.de
|
|
|
What is a Functional IntegrationĀ® Lesson? |
Replay of podcast interview with Paris Kern
Ā
Seth DellingerĀ interviewsĀ Paris KernĀ about the experience of Functional Integration
sessions, where a FeldenkraisĀ®Ā practitioner works with an individual client through touch.
Ā
Link to full July 2023 Senseability edition: Exploring Function Integration
|
|
|
Manage your preferences | Opt Out using TrueRemoveā¢
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.
|
401 Edgewater Place, Suite 600 | Wakefield, MA 01880 US
|
|
|
This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.
|
| |
|
|
