On behalf of our global listener community, and the donors whose generosity powers the Feldenkrais Project, we are glad you’re here! We think it makes the world a kinder place when more people are learning how to move and feel better. In case you’re wondering how to say it, Feldenkrais rhymes with “paradise”!
The Feldenkrais Method harnesses neuroplasticity, the brain’s curiosity-based ability to change and improve itself and our body’s behavior. It’s our vision to enable and support this learning birthright for everyone on the internet with no barrier to entry.
Please explore our freely offered lessons below! While most Feldenkrais classes are an hour, Getting Oriented is our series of eight short Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons and brief talks designed to introduce or refresh the basics. We’ll cover some of the movements, guided attention techniques, and learning principles that Feldenkrais ATM study utilizes most often.
We hope you enjoy these lessons – if you do, please share them! And if you have the means, please join the Feldenkrais Project to support our work and enjoy our donor benefits!
– Nick Strauss-Klein, creator and voice of the Feldenkrais Project
Click here or scroll down to dive right into the talks and lessons, or click the questions below for more info.
Yes, and you can start anywhere. But for most people, progressing in order through the lessons is the best way to begin learning the powerful self-improvement techniques of Feldenkrais ATM study. It’s great to do one lesson every day or two if you can.
The first time through we recommend listening to the brief talks that introduce most of the lessons. The lightly colored background boxes indicate related themes of study, and show which lessons particularly benefit from which introductions.
Lessons 1-6 were recorded two-at-a-time over three weeks of introductory Feldenkrais workshops. You’ll hear some references to the other workshops, and mentions of studying for an hour together, but each of the lessons below is designed to be a standalone learning experience.
Lessons 7 and 8 were presented in other live class contexts, which you can read about in their interactive lesson notes if you’re curious.
For most Feldenkrais lessons you’ll need a comfortable place to lie down on the floor on a carpet, mat, or folded blanket. Some lessons only require a simple chair. It’s ok to start with the chair lessons.
If some of the body positions mentioned in the lesson descriptions aren’t possible or comfortable for you, or you begin a lesson and can’t find a way to make it comfortable, it’s best to skip it and come back to it later. You can read more on our FAQ page about other options.
Lessons can be repeated or skipped as you wish. Please make choices based on your comfort and curiosity!
Remember: comfort and safety first, and above all else. They are neurologically necessary conditions for learning.
There are scientific reasons that audio is the best way to study Feldenkrais, and we think you’ll feel and understand why quickly. Mostly it has to do with how distracting it is to focus on a screen while you’re trying to move your body freely.
But we know that audio study can be a bit disorienting for newcomers. Please relax and take your time, and don’t worry too much about “doing it right.” If you’re comfortable and curious, you are on track to learn, feel, and move better! (Even if you don’t understand a step sometimes.)
To see all our FAQ’s, and for more scientific detail about why audio study is preferable, click here.
The Feldenkrais Project is a crowd-funded labor of love. It’s Nick’s effort, together with all our listeners and donors, to make “Feldenkrais” a global household word!
Got two minutes to learn more and meet Nick? Play our intro video!
Click on a track title to go to its audio player, interactive study notes, and listener discussion.
Descriptions of each lesson give you a sense of its aim, though everyone’s learning process is unique and you may find other benefits.
Back to Basics
Talk: We Can Learn to be Better for Ourselves, Moment to Moment
An introduction to this Getting Oriented series, and to Lesson 1. Nick talks about why Feldenkrais helps, how Feldenkrais ATM lessons work, and how to take care of yourself and learn as much as you can.
Lesson 1: Spinal Support and a Powerful Pelvis
Back-lying, often tilting one bent knee. Improve the comfort, awareness, and organization of your hip joints, pelvis, back, chest, shoulders, neck, and head. Starts with a “body scan,” an awareness technique used at the beginning of most lessons.
Talk: Reducing Excess Effort and Sensing the Skeleton
Intro to Lesson 2. Nick talks about the antigravity function of bones and the challenge of learning to sense what better skeletal organization actually feels like.
Lesson 2: Dynamic Sitting and Chair Clock
Explore and improve seated uprightness by getting to know your sitbones and learning to feel more clearly where plumb is. Discover different ways of moving and supporting yourself in a chair through explorations with the head, shoulders, chest, spine, pelvis, and feet.
Access Your Axis
Talk: The Why and How of Growing Taller
An intro to lessons 3 and 4. Nick talks about the function of vertebrae and the axis, maximum skeletal length, unnecessary shortening, why trying hard can’t make us longer, and the power of imagery.
Lesson 3: Length Without Effort
Begins in standing briefly, then mostly back-lying, knees bent. Relating and improving turning and twisting functions from your head down to your feet and back, and becoming more sensitive to the movement and length possibilities between them.
Lesson 4: Sitting and Turning with Length
Improve turning and twisting while seated in chair. Access and enjoy your full length in motion even while seated, including head and eyes, pelvis and knees, and everything in between.
Stretch without Strain
Talk: How We Respond to Strain
An intro to Lesson 5. Nick recaps our explorations so far and talks about the choices we have when we sense strain, the dangers of “should,” and the value of choosing curiosity.
Lesson 5: Stretch without Strain
Feldenkrais isn’t stretching, it’s learning! Mostly side-lying. Learn greater ease and mobility of your shoulders, neck, ribs, and hips, and discover how a reference twist of sweeping a long, straight arm sideways through the air can improve without any strain at all!
Talk: A Radical Idea About Muscles
An intro to Lesson 6. Nick talks about how our muscles are rarely acting of their own accord, and how there’s usually a skill and awareness-based path to reducing unintended muscular efforts.
Lesson 6: Strength Without Excess
Feldenkrais isn’t exercise, it’s learning! Back-lying, often hands and head configured like a sit-up, learning to skillfully draw elbows and knees together by sensing and regulating the flexors AND the extensors.
More Feldenkrais Essentials
Lesson 7: Freeing Your Breath and Spine
Various positions, using what the Feldenkrais community calls “paradoxical breathing.” The back-lying first 16 minutes can be studied alone. Discover more pleasurable, adaptable breathing using 360 degree experiments with the chest and abdomen, and find a more supple, supportive spine along the way!
Lesson 8: Simple Floor Clock
Mostly back-lying, knees bent. (Begins briefly in standing, then sitting on the floor.) Using a mental image of a clock face on your mat, learn to better sense and coordinate essential arcing movements of your pelvis, and how they relate to your whole self.
Interview: MindBodyRadio Talks to Nick Strauss-Klein
Nick talks about how he discovered Feldenkrais, what the method is, and what he’s trying to accomplish with the Feldenkrais Project.
I’ve explored all these lessons. What now?
Sure! There’s more to learn: after you’ve studied the lessons in this collection, returning to your favorite ones or progressing through from the beginning again will yield new insights. The second time through (or third…or fourth!) won’t feel the same as the first.
Since your awareness and behavior is always growing and refining as you study Feldenkrais, it can be very surprising how lessons you already “know” are a different, valuable experience on subsequent explorations.
Dozens! In addition to the lesson above, all our primary content (about 40 full-length live Feldenkrais ATM class recordings with Nick) is available to all our visitors, thanks to our donors. Most lessons are about an hour long.
If you like the half-hour format, you can read on our FAQ page how to break them up into short study sessions.
A great first full-length lesson for most people is Fundamentals of a Healthy Back. It uses techniques you’ve just studied, and introduces a few more. It’s even particularly easy to break into sections if needed.
Or you can check out all our lesson collections on our homepage. If Getting Oriented was your first Feldenkrais learning experience, we recommend that you continue on to Lessons for Standing, Walking, and Running, or Lessons for Easier Sitting.
The Feldenkrais Project’s Patron-level donors have access to a rapidly growing additional collection of lessons called Straight from Class (go ahead, take a look). Nick adds at least 16 new lessons per year.
Most are hour-long classes, but there are many additional short lessons there, with new ones added periodically.
Moshe Feldenkrais was a celebrated scientist, accomplished in multiple disciplines, and a judo master, among many other things! There’s no magic here, just a beautiful intersection of physics, neurophysiology, human developmental studies, and the spectacular learning machine that is the human brain.
If you’re curious we’d love for you to understand how the method works. Please explore our Lessons menu and our About menu, above! On mobile it’s the 
icon.
In particular, our Learning Guides page in the Lessons menu include some detailed explanations.
Please donate if you can!
You won’t find this much high quality Feldenkrais content offered in the spirit of gratitude and generosity anywhere else online. We are passionately pursuing our vision of “Feldenkrais for all,” and we are 100% funded by heartfelt, freewill donations from our listeners.
The Feldenkrais Project’s efforts to 1) offer all our visitors and donors the best learning experience possible, 2) add new content, and 3) spread the word comprise most of Nick’s professional Feldenkrais Practitioner hours during quarantine. Additionally, paying our technical bills and compensating our part-time staff for the work Nick can’t do on his own requires thousands of dollars annually. Your support really matters!
And, we proudly offer great thank you benefits for donors! Depending on how you give, these can include mp3 downloads, more detailed lesson notes and cross-references, new lessons every month, and even live video Project updates and lessons with Nick.
By donating as little as $3 per month you can join the Feldenkrais Project, enjoy donor benefits, and support our work to share the life-changing benefits of Feldenkrais study as widely as possible.
If you have the ability, please donate! Click here to learn more about donation and benefits.
We all thrive when more people are doing more Feldenkrais. Please share this resource!
1 Comment. Leave new
I’m a Pilates teacher and I did Lesson 1 of Getting Oriented today on March 16, 2020 – the first day I am not teaching myself because of an effort to protect my family and community from COVID-19 and the first day both of my young daughters are home from school. I have been following the Feldenkrais Project since last fall and know that it is a powerful place for me to find a sense of calm and grounding. Thank you, Nick, not just for making this amazing method widely available but also for your gifts as a teacher, to invite us all in with such ease and grace and clarity. I’ll be sharing the Feldenkrais Project with all my students as a resource to rely upon as they navigate the challenging times ahead.