21 My Feldenkrais Lessons

Once a week, on Wednesdays, after swimming forty lengths in the pool, I get on my motorcycle and go to the place where there are lessons given according to the Feldenkrais method. This weekly hour is very important to me because even swimming cannot correct the damage that bicycle riding does to my back. A friend of mine, a firm believer in Yoga, says that it is better to stick to a system that has been tested and proven for thousands of years. But from outstanding teachers that I have had in various disciplines – I have already spoken of my violin teachers and at a later date I shall talk about my math teacher, as well as my phys. ed. trainer – I learned that it is not the system but the teacher. As a rule I think that "educational systems" in schools, for instance, are much less important than good teachers. However, good teachers are rare and outstanding ones even rarer. It is my good fortune that my teacher of the Feldenkrais method is a "master", that is to say, she is one of the best.

Moshe Feldenkrais was a colorful character. He was born in the Ukraine in 1904, immigrated to Israel alone when he was fourteen and later went to France where he studied science with Marie Currie and her son-in-law Frederick Julio-Currie (also a Noble Price winner) and received his Doctorate from the Sorbonne. At the same time he also studied Judo (and even taught it to the Currie family). In 1951 he was asked to come to Israel by President Chaim Weizman to establish the electronic branch of the Israeli Army. From the middle 1950's he devoted all his efforts to developing, applying and advocating his Feldenkrais method (incidentally he also stood Ben Gurion on his head).

Here we are, students of his faithful students, getting ready for our lesson. The teacher is sitting opposite us but does not appear in the picture. The empty mat is mine. I have taken the picture and am going to the mat to lie down on my back and try to observe "how my body meets the floor today".