Deliver Feldenkrais Method Teaching
Overview
This standard is about delivering teaching in the Feldenkrais Method to learners. The Feldenkrais Method is a somatic learning method which uses sensorimotor processes to develop psychophysical function.
In the Feldenkrais Method, movement is used to facilitate learning. The method is delivered during ‘lessons’ – participants are referred to as ‘students’ or ‘learners’.
Lessons in the Feldenkrais Method help learners develop self-awareness, proprioception, exteroception, interoception and functional movement patterns. Changes in self-awareness and the experiencing of new patterns lead to changes in self-image, improved self-regulation and improved autonomic nervous system regulation. This can help increase ease and range of motion, balance, flexibility and coordination. Becoming aware of fixed or unconscious habits helps learners to rediscover their innate capacity for efficient movement and to develop new strategies for addressing pain or physical limitations.
Integration of new patterns occurs consciously and unconsciously, always at the speed of the individual. The Feldenkrais Method has two distinct modes: group lessons called Awareness Through Movement (ATM), and individual sessions called Functional Integration (FI). In Awareness Through Movement lessons, the Feldenkrais practitioner guides learners using verbal instructions in structured sequences that foreground moving, thinking, sensing and feeling. These sequences guide students to continually explore and differentiate movement options, with the aim of offering the possibility to integrate these new experiences/options into their daily lives. In Functional Integration lessons, the Feldenkrais practitioner guides the student to explore a range of movements, using non-invasive touch and verbal instruction. Often the student will lie on a low table, or sit in a chair. The student remains fully clothed throughout. A Functional Integration lesson encourages learners to explore new ways of moving and organising their whole self (via the nervous and musculo-skeletal systems). In sensing new movement patterns, learners find their options expanded. As moving, thinking, sensing and feeling are inseparable aspects of every action, many also find that their thinking and feeling acquires new ease.
Users of this standard will need to ensure that their practice reflects up-to-date information and policies.
Performance criteria
You must be able to:
1. Create and maintain a safe learning environment.
2. Explain the role of the teacher in the Feldenkrais Method and obtain consent, including to work with touch.
3. Explain the structure and purpose of a lesson in the Feldenkrais Method and the learners role in participating in it.
4. Deliver an Awareness Through Movement lesson
5. Deliver a Functional Integration lesson
6. Use a range of strategies, methods and resources to help learners acquire and develop the skills and knowledge they need.
7. Assess learners’ movement patterns and habits and make appropriate adjustments to the teaching to meet identified needs.
8. Facilitate the learners’ awareness of changes during, and due to, the lesson.
9. Maintain awareness of your own posture and movement according to the principles of the Feldenkrais Method and modify it appropriately during a lesson.
10. Use props and positioning aids when appropriate.
11. Help learners process the lesson and relate it to daily activities.
12. Respond to learners’ reaction to lessons, and make appropriate adjustments to the teaching to meet changing needs within and between lessons.
13. Evaluate the learning experience after lesson(s) and adapt future sessions accordingly.
14. Work with learners in accordance with relevant ethical and professional codes of practice, and current legal requirements.
15. Complete and maintain records in accordance with professional and legal requirements.
Knowledge and Understanding
You need to know and understand:
- The history and development of the Feldenkrais Method.
- The purpose and scope of the Feldenkrais Method.
- The relevant ethical and professional codes of practice, and current legal requirements.
- The core range of texts, materials and resources available to support the Feldenkrais method
The key principles and concepts of the Feldenkrais Method including:
- Characteristics of effective somatic learning;
- The nature of psychophysical self-image;
- The primacy of awareness;
- The quality of movement, including the skeleton as primary reference, functional movements, the three elements of timing, orientation and manipulation.
- The principles of movement, including reversibility, proportionality, differentiation and integration, proximal-distal inversion.
Key principles and concepts of anatomy and physiology including:
- The structure and function of the musculoskeletal system;
- The principles of biomechanics including leverage, axis of rotation, centre of gravity;
- The structure and function of the nervous system;
- The respiratory and breathing mechanisms.
- Developmental patterns of movement, motor learning and maturation
- Application of the Weber-Fechner Law
How to observe, analyse and evaluate learners’ habits and patterns of functional movement.
- How to take into account individual differences including particular beliefs, attitudes and preconceptions which may facilitate, or interfere with, learning.
- The wide range of motivations which will lead learners to come to lessons, including seeking to address injuries, long standing physical or neurological conditions and chronic pain.
- How to teach an Awareness through Movement lesson.
- How to teach a Functional Integration lesson.
- How to adapt existing, and develop new, Awareness Through Movement lessons
- How to develop new Functional Integration sequences, including from Awareness Through Movement lessons.
- How to identify challenges or issues that learner(s) may experience and help them find solutions.
- How to assess learners’ progress and understanding.
- How to help learners to process their experience of the lesson and relate it to their daily activities.