About the Feldenkrais Method®

"The aim is a body that is organized to move with minimum effort and maximum efficiency, not through muscular strength, but increased consciousness of how it works."
-Moshe Feldenkrais

Learning, Healing, and Excelling

Feldenkrais® is story-telling through touch. It is designed as science-based neuro-muscular retraining, which uses the plasticity of the human brain to offer natural healing from stress, injury, or inefficient body use. It brings more ease and fun into life! Moshe Feldenkrais, who created the work, was a central figure in the development of the body-mind practices of Somatics. Grounded in physics, biology, and learning, his Method is one of the most advanced and comprehensive approaches available for developing human potential. In private and group settings, Margot teaches others how to access their creativity, internal authority and health.  They often claim it feels “better than massage” or gives them the sense they have meditated.

Feldenkrais® retrains the nervous system through gentle movement exploration, creating new physical and mental habits for optimal function. In Awareness Through Movement® group lessons Margot guides you verbally through gentle structured movement explorations, which lead to subtle or surprising results. Movements are done from a variety of positions, often sitting and lying down. It is not exercise as we think of it, working the heart, nor do you imitate others; you engage with yourself, finding your own path of learning. In individual Functional Integration® lessons Margot uses gentle touch to address your particular concerns, aid your nervous system in making connections throughout you, and guide you to more wholeness in being and action.

Clients and students report feeling lighter, grounded, more present, centered and balanced, looser, less pain, more energy, more joy… able to work and relate more consistently in ways that please them. They improve coordination, flexibility, mental function, and lengthen the spine. They reduce stress and pain, recover from injury and refine their sport or art, often realizing changes they had not imagined. Students gain access to their potential for a higher level of body- and self-organization, and more options in how to relate in daily life to the world. 

Feldenkrais is relevant to people in all states of health, from professional athletes and performers who want to refine their skills, to folks with back aches and neck pains who want to feel better day to day while walking, sitting or rolling over in bed, to those who’ve had stroke, injury, surgery or central nervous system disorders. There are no prerequisites, participation requires simply that you be curious and willing to listen to yourself. 

“I am inspired by the human capacity for transformation and healing. My first exposure to the Feldenkrais Method® was in a class. At the end of the first class my shoulder that had been tipped up rested flat on the floor. More importantly, I understood that this was different from all the other fun physical activities I had pursued, that in Feldenkrais, I am the authority in my body! I had lived a lifetime of creative activities and then received high impact injuries to my spine - this attracted me to study four years to be a Feldenkrais Practitioner. I am rewarded when my students embody their internal authority, thus improving their lives.” - Margot Schaal

What’s different about Feldenkrais is that as a neurological learning process, its benefits are long term and improvements can continue throughout life.