The Feldenkrais Method: Moshe Feldenkrais’s Vision Beyond Neuroplasticity and Physical Touch

This blog post addresses Moshe Feldenkrais’ vision for humanity’s future; the foundation of which he briefly introduces in chapter 3 of his seminal book Awareness Through Movement. He elaborates on this introduction at length in the closing pages of his final book, The Elusive Obvious.

In the third chapter of Awareness Through Movement, titled “How and Where to Begin,” Feldenkrais mentions three “under appreciated and often misunderstood” foundations of his method; Kaballah, Zen, and Raja Yoga. In the last few pages of “The Elusive Obvious,” Feldenkrais describes the level of transcendental consciousness these practices and his method can provide as “quantum thinking.” He states that the elevated, extra-dimensional awareness that these advanced practices generate provide our best hope for sustaining humanity’s continued evolution. This seems even more urgent now in 2026 than when Feldenkrais first wrote about it in 1990.

Because we are so much more than just our physical bodies — and because all the layers of who we are are inextricably connected and inter-dependent — the physical renewal provided by the Feldenkrais Method can help provide a parasympathetic reset of the autonomic nervous system. This shift can generate elevated mental, emotional, and even transcendent levels of awareness. These elevations can immediately be seen or felt in the decompressed spines, the fluid movement, the bright eyes, and in the heightened mental, emotional, intuitive acuity of those who have recently had Feldenkrais lessons. This comprehensive tune-up is why so many who experience Feldenkrais lessons often experience an expansive, more integrated sense of themselves after a group class or individual table session.

Elevating into parasympathetic “peace and release” in the autonomic nervous system has been a gateway to heightened awareness throughout human history. These expansions can provide renewal on multiple levels of being, including new dimensions of creative expression, and for some who are ready, even the experience of unity with all of creation. These types of shifts have been written about in spiritual and esoteric texts throughout history. One can often feel the stirrings of these expansions at the conclusion of their first Feldenkrais lesson.

Feldenkrais’s thoughts on all this, as described in the last few pages of his final book, The Elusive Obvious, describe a vision for the future where human evolution rises above the often limited, self-centered motivations that separates us from others. When the renowned teacher Ramana Maharishi was asked, “how should we treat others?” he simply replied “…there are no others.” For many seekers, this is where their spiritual practice begins — meaning that it begins after their first experience Nirvana, as they travel the world and learn to navigate the almost unlimited ways we can connection with others.

This unification with all of creation is the ultimate goal of many mind-body practices, the highest branches of esoteric Yoga, and the writings of human visionaries in most every culture throughout history. As Moshe Feldenkrais espoused, this can all begin by simply taking the time to be consciously aware of the subtleties of how we physically fine-tune ourselves as more of who we have always been at our highest potential.

Feldenkrais knew that achieving a higher state of awareness than the state that produced whatever limiting behaviors we hold is the first step in transcending our individual outmoded habits — and in the larger picture, humanity’s self-destructive tendencies. He believed that accessing higher consciousness propagates our continuing evolution as the instruments tuned to humanity’s future.

For more detail on all this, please refer to Appendix B of my book, The Calculus of Life: An Esoteric Overview on the Teachings of Moshe Feldenkrais.

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Here is Moshe Feldenkrais in 1981 working with the final Educational Director of the Feldenkrais Practitioner Training I attended… the late Dr. Steve Rosenholtz. When I met Steve on his first day teaching the practitioner training that Iattended, I knew nothing about him. I had an intuition as I was packing up my car early that Monday morning to start the next 2-week training segment in Eugene, Oregon. I knew that for whatever reason I needed to bring along this picture that I had a photo shop print a few weeks before. All I knew about it was that it was taken in 1981 at the Amherst Feldenkrais Practitioner training. Other students told me when I arrived in Eugene that morning that our new instructor was a student in that 250–person Amherst training. So on our lunch break, I introduced myself to Steve, and asked him if he knew who the student was with Moshe in the picture I brought to Eugene. He immediately teared up as he said that he was the student in the picture! Then he opened his iPad and immediately brought up several different almost identical shots of the two of them taken a few moments apart. He said that it was the most memorable event in his life.

I had hoped to make a framed art glass mosaic based on this photo for my studio… however when Steve identified himself as the one in the photo receiving the session from Moshe, I switched gears. I found a frame shop in Eugene that promised they could get this print framed with an engraved brass plate on the frame by the end of the training segment in just under 2 weeks. This framed picture became the class present to Steve on the last day of that training segment.

No one knew at that time Steve received the framed photo that the educational director position of the training would unexpectedly open up in a few months. Steve was the only trainer the Feldenkrais Guild could find who was willing to take on the responsibilities of becoming the replacement Educational Director on extremely short notice. The student enrollment was small enough by then that he was mostly donating his time. Many students in the training did not have the resources to attend other trainings in more distant cities, so it turns out that Steve saved those students by stepping up.

None of the eventual change in training personal had happened when I presented Steve with the framed photo — it’s dated March of 2017, which was before the educational director opening occurred. I love it when serendipity takes over life events!

Steve told me in a thank you card that this framed picture was the most memorable present he had ever received. I was thrilled it worked out. The picture was taken in the late summer of 1981 — just before Moshe left Amherst for the last time.

On a side note, the very last class Moshe taught on his last day at Amherst before returning to Israel for health reasons was a hands-off demonstration he called “Irradiating the Knee.” I had not heard of this session or even knew this work existed when I was writing my book, THE CALCULUS OF LIFE. Chapter 19 of my book is a long chapter that details in step-by-step instruction how to palpate a hands-off somatic session, identifying and reinforcing 15 second-order chakras of the heart by palpating the area in front of the heart in specific layers extending almost 2 feet out from the chest. The video I eventually saw (after my book was published) of Moshe demonstrating the hands-off palpation of the area around his knee on the last day of the Amherst training was a monumental validation for me of how relevant and important my guidance was to include this second-order palpation meditation in my book.

This meditation is now a favorite with my advanced clients. It provides an extraordinary rebuild of 15 layers of compassion that no one I have met to date has ever experienced or even dreamed of before.

Thanks to Moshe Feldenkrais for inspiring and validating so many layers of profound renewal in this complicated but fascinating human condition we’re immersed in! ❤️🙏🏻