June 2025

 

Getting Started

 

Getting Started with the Feldenkrais Method® of Somatic Education

 

Regardless of what stage of life someone first encounters the Feldenkrais Method, the resulting stories and testimonies often have a similar flavour.

 

For people who have lived with pain or physical discomfort they find relief in ways that they have never found before, despite extensive searching.

 

For people that need to find ways to regulate themselves in a chaotic world, or learn how to accept and love themselves in a world that doesn't often encourage that connection, it can provide a sanctuary. One where people can learn about themselves in safety and develop themselves to their own standards. 

 

For people that want to take their already incredible human skill to a new level, it can provide increased sensitivity and self awareness, leading to new levels of detail and nuance in their movement, allowing them to reach new heights. 

 

If you have encountered the Feldenkrais Method and some of the above ideas have resonated with you, then you may be looking for ways to get started with the method.

 

This can sometimes be a daunting task, with an initial choice between the hands on Functional Integration® lessons, or the Awareness Through Movement® group classes.

 

Then choosing between in person or online lessons, and there are multiple Feldenkrais® lessons to pick from, so which one should you start with?! 

 

It's a lot of information, and perhaps overwhelming for people that are new.

 

In this edition we would like to simplify the process for you. We include two interviews with Feldenkrais practitioners who are well versed in introducing the method to new students. During the interviews we ask them for their help in guiding new students in how best to get started with the Feldenkrais Method. 

 

Firstly we have Frederick Schjang, a New York based Feldenkrais Practitioner with over 30 years of experience introducing the Feldenkrais Method to different groups and demographics. Frederick shares insights from his teaching as well as discussing some of the deeper implications of taking the inward journey of studying the Feldenkrais Method. 

 

Nick Strauss-Klein then provides an amazing written interview for new students, where he offers his advice as well as providing some great resources for people that are new to the method. Nick runs a Feldenkrais membership website called The Feldenkrais Project, and much of the knowledge he has gained about introducing new people to the Feldenkrais Method comes directly from his work on that project. 

 

We hope you enjoy this new edition of the SenseAbility newsletter. 

 

Jane, Michelle and Joe

FGNA Communications team

An interview with Frederick Schjang

 

In the interview Frederick discusses how he encountered the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education as a veteran fitness professional. He was then able to introduce the method within the fitness centres where he was already teaching. This new form of movement based learning took him on a fascinating new journey. Since then Frederick has had the fortune of working with many different demographics, working with athletes, dancers and musicians, and people from different cultures. He has also been a pioneer in introducing the Feldenkrais Method to the LGBTQ+ community, teaching classes for marginalised groups for a number of years.

As a result of working with these groups he saw a profound need to provide a safe space for self exploration to the LGBTQ+ community, where people could learn to accept, trust and love themselves through the medium of movement. 

Frederick is running a week long Festival next week (June 16th - 22nd) which has both free and paid events, that is designed to support the LGBTQ+ community, but also in the spirit of absolute inclusion, everybody is invited regardless or gender identity, ethnicity, or romantic preference.

 

Sign up below.

 

The LGBTQIA+ and Everybody Else Pride Feldenkrais® Festival June 2025

A video lesson with Frederick Schjang

 

In the lesson Frederick guides us through a short Feldenkrais® lesson that focuses on developing lightness in our legs by connecting them into the rest of our body. The lesson features multiple variations of lifting the leg that gradually increase the sense that the leg is a part of a larger picture of ourself, rather than a separate and isolated body part. 

 

It is taught lying on the side, with periods of intentionally guided awareness and rest while lying on your back. 

 

It's a great introductory lesson that will leave you standing more comfortably and walking with greater ease. 

How did you begin your journey with the Feldenkrais Method® of somatic education?

 

From high school through grad school I studied to be a concert pianist. I discovered the Feldenkrais Method while I was trying to recover from a music performance-related injury. Medical approaches didn’t help, and eventually one of my teachers sent me to a Feldenkrais Awareness® Through Movement® (ATM®) class. Lying down and quietly paying attention to small movements was difficult for me at first, probably because I was young and very driven and pretty scared of my career falling apart, but I felt better after my first class. I kept going back, and each week we did something else, usually strange and small movements, with these weird questions about noticing how one was different from another. I didn’t understand it but somehow I always felt a lot better after class. There was this intrinsic kindness in the lessons, too. Until I encountered the Feldenkrais Method, improving by being nice to myself wasn’t in my repertoire!.. (continued)

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