



























 

Feldenkrais Research Journal​ • ​volume 6​ (2018-2019) 
 
Research in Progress 
 
 

Designing technology for active sitting: An example of Feldenkrais 
Method​®​-inspired body-centric interaction design 

 
Margaret Kaye 
Feldenkrais Practitioner, Feldenkrais Method Assistant Trainer, Sydney, Australia 

Lian Loke 
PhD, Certificate in Fashion Design and Illustration; Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, 
University of Sydney, Australia 
 

Keywords 
design technology, active sitting, Feldenkrais Method, body conscious design, activity-based workspace 
design 

Copyright ©:​ The copyright for this paper remains with the author(s). 

Please cite:​ (First published in the) ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​; 2018-2019. 

Service marks:​ The terms Feldenkrais​®​, Feldenkrais Method​®​, Awareness Through Movement​®​, ATM​®​, 
Functional Integration​®​, and FI​® ​are service marked terms of the International ​Feldenkrais​®​ Federation 
(IFF) and Feldenkrais professional guilds and associations in many countries. In keeping with academic 
conventions, they will not be service marked in the entire text as may be required in nonacademic use, 
but only for the first and most prominent use of the terms. In recognition that these phrases are formal 
terms referring to specific practices within the Method, and to the Method as a whole, capitalization of all 
the words in each term has been retained.  

 
Published by the International ​Feldenkrais​®​ Federation (IFF) ​https://feldenkrais-method.org 
Available online at ​https://feldenkraisresearchjournal.org 
 

 
 

https://feldenkrais-method.org/
https://feldenkraisresearchjournal.org/


 

Research in Progress 
 
 

Designing technology for active sitting: An example of Feldenkrais 
Method​®​-inspired body-centric interaction design 

 
Margaret Kaye 
Feldenkrais Practitioner, Feldenkrais Method Assistant Trainer, Sydney, Australia 

Lian Loke 
PhD, Certificate in Fashion Design and Illustration; Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, 
University of Sydney, Australia 
 

“The aim [of the Feldenkrais Method] is a person that is organized to move with minimum effort 
and maximum efficiency, not through muscular strength, but through increased consciousness 
of how movement works.” 
Moshe Feldenkrais 

With the increasing ubiquity of digital technologies in everyday life, we find our daily habits and 
routines dependent to a large extent on the interactions made possible by how these 
technologies are designed.  As digital technologies continue to be integrated into work and 
leisure activities, our very movements become choreographed and often restricted in range and 
quality – whether or not we are aware of it.  Recent studies in health science have raised the 
alarm to the negative health consequences of sedentary behaviour, linking a lack of physical 
activity to an increased likelihood of cardiovascular disease, not to mention musculoskeletal 
problems.  New evidence defines long term sitting as the ‘new smoking’ as cardiovascular 
action is restricted for long periods of time in many work, study or leisure contexts that rely 
increasingly on seated activities related to writing or screen work (Stamatakis 2017).  In this 
context acknowledgement is increasing of the importance of movement and variation (Chau and 
Engelen 2015). What this recognition of long periods of static activity does not acknowledge is 
the effect on musculoskeletal, or biomechanical function.  

The office workplace, in particular, is seen as a prime site for intervention.  A myriad of different 
approaches to transforming the workplace into a place of healthy productivity have emerged in 
the past decade: activity-based workspace design (Foley ​et al​. 2016), active design guidelines 
(Center for Active Design 2010), yoga and meditation rooms, and a host of new interactive 
technologies aimed at monitoring and motivating people to take breaks and move more 
(Stephenson ​et al​. 2017).  As yet no conclusive evidence has emerged to support widespread 
adoption.  What is more troubling are the paradigms of health that are reinforced by the design 
of environments and technology. 

As everyday technologies become more implicated in our physical health and mental wellbeing, 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 2
 



 

the dependent relationship between people, technology and the environment cannot be ignored. 
There is a responsibility to examine assumptions around the relationships between body, 
technology and culture.  What are the dominant paradigms and tacit assumptions underlying the 
designs and products that become embedded in daily life? How is movement and posture 
understood?  What implications do these models have on how people understand and use their 
bodies in daily life? 

It is this set of questions that underpins our research into the application of principles of 
Feldenkrais Method to interaction design, or what we call body-centric interaction design. We 
began this enquiry with a focus on the workplace, and how it could be redesigned through the 
lens of Feldenkrais Method.  Our approach shares the values of body-conscious design 
introduced by Galen Cranz (2000), and extends the focus from the design of furniture and 
environment to include the use of digital, interactive technologies. It also builds on Margaret 
Kaye’s previous Feldenkrais-based workplace consultancy, including running workshops, on 
sitting, examining individual work areas, and adjusting work physical structures to suit the 
individual person.  The consultancy was premised on the basis that we work with what we have. 
In contrast, the new study has enabled an exploration of new concepts using interactive 
technologies to support the aims of Feldenkrais practice in the workplace. 

In our study, we are using Feldenkrais Method principles of conscious awareness to our 
mind-body in the context of the workplace. We conducted a series of workshops to explore 
possible thinking and ideas, as a dialogue between a Feldenkrais teacher (first author), an 
interaction design researcher (second author), and a software developer.  The exploration 
began with Margaret leading a set of Awareness Through Movement​®​ (ATM​®​) lessons, to 
ensure we all had a basic understanding of the Feldenkrais work and shared bodily experience. 
The premise of the movement lessons included finding skeletal support while sitting on chairs, 
finding efficiency in standing, and increasing the range of motion for ease and efficiency in 
movement while engaging with a range of activities, including just sitting or standing without any 
other intention. 

We undertook conceptual explorations of broader interactive, and active workplaces, where 
playfulness and movement are considered.  We then brainstormed several ideas, starting either 
from a desired movement pattern and then speculating on what kind of interactive technology 
could support that movement, or examining a specific technology and identifying what kinds of 
movement-based concepts could be possible with that technology.  When we shifted to 
prototyping ideas, we used existing products that could be ‘hacked’ and repurposed, e.g., the 
Nintendo Wii balance board and the Microsoft Kinect motion sensor. 

In this article, we will focus on just one of the concepts we are exploring for seated solutions to 
address the issue of prolonged sitting.  ​Let’s Sway​ is a pressure-sensitive seat that provides 
feedback and feedforward on the act of sitting.  Through this concept, we are critiquing 
conventional models of posture and sitting.  Our intention is to challenge the dominant paradigm 
of corrective behaviour such as ‘fixing’ posture.  Our approach is more concerned with somatic 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 3
 



 

learning as an ongoing process versus disciplining the body. To illustrate our points, we will 
compare ​Let’s Sway​ to a commercial product, ​Lumo Lift​ (The Grommet n.d.). 

With ​Lumo Lift​, a person wears a small device positioned just below the collarbone that 
monitors when the body is not in an upright posture.  When the person leans over, or slouches, 
the device emits a simple vibration to alert them to their incorrect posture. In our view this kind 
of device is in the corrective behaviour paradigm, where there is a correct and an incorrect 
posture. 

Popular understandings of ‘correct posture’ are developed from childhood through a social 
process of learning.  We become accustomed to our cultural patterns of movement, and this 
includes in many contexts, the requirement to sit on a chair, to sit in a certain way, to sit without 
too much movement, and to sit in a way that demonstrates compliance with cultural norms and 
subordination in recognition of authority. 

We learn that sitting upright and certain ways of standing are ‘good posture’. We are told to ‘pull 
the shoulders back’, ‘pull the belly in’, and to ‘sit up straight’.  Or to stand straight.  But in reality, 
nobody knows what this actually means. People may respond to this concept with rigidity, which 
then collapses with fatigue. Another common and relatively new idea is the concept of ‘core 
strength’.  This varies greatly depending on the model of enquiry.  Generally, it relies on 
muscular strength in the pelvic region without detailed consideration of muscular skeletal 
patterns or inherent movement pathways. 

Another deterrent from finding efficiency and comfort is the opposite effect, of self-evaluated 
‘bad posture’, where people may be reluctant to discover non-habitual practices as it feels too 
unusual, culturally infrequent, or makes them feel ‘bad’ about themselves. Some people 
become so habituated to the patterns of movement that become culturally embedded, they feel 
‘out of sorts’ upon invitation to do something new. 

This kind of thinking, of good versus bad posture within a corrective behaviour paradigm, is 
antithetical to the principles of the Feldenkrais Method, where effective posture is related to 
function, and found naturally through awareness and movement.  In our model, the act of sitting 
is understood as ​dynamic​, not static.  In a static model of posture, sitting is understood as 
holding a posture, of which there are good and bad instances.  Whereas in a dynamic model of 
posture, the body ​moves​ in the act of sitting.  The spine is able to articulate and adjust itself in 
relation to the whole body – what Moshe Feldenkrais (1985) calls “acture”, in contrast to 
posture. 

Instead of using technology to monitor for ‘poor posture’ like the ​Lumo Lift​ does (which means 
embedding a model of poor posture into the technology), we are working from a premise of 
enhancing awareness of how one is sitting over time, and using technology to encourage 
people to be more dynamic in how they sit.  The person is not disciplined to correct their 
posture, instead they are encouraged to become more aware of how they habitually sit and to 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 4
 



 

learn strategies for active sitting.  

In our prototype ​Let’s Sway​, the shifts in weight whilst sitting are displayed in a visual form on a 
computer screen.  The position of one’s centre of mass on the pressure-sensitive seat is 
represented as a dot on the screen. The series of weight shifts is displayed as a trace pattern of 
the dot in motion, providing direct feedback to the sitter. The display is intended as a reflection 
of how the person is moving (or sitting still), to draw awareness to how they habitually sit.  It is 
also intended as a gentle stimulus, a reminder to change how they are sitting, to experiment or 
play with how they are sitting, or to take a break from work. 

Regarding strategies for active sitting, we are experimenting with forms of visual suggestion (or 
feedforward) to encourage certain kinds of simple geometric movement patterns whilst sitting 
and shifting weight, such as forward/backward, side-to-side, circling around the pelvis, or 
figure-of-eight spiralling.  It is also possible, of course, to perform free-form movements of 
weight-shifting and instantly view the emergent visual drawings.  These feedforward patterns 
are informed by Awareness Through Movement principles and exercises.  

Whereas in previous work Loke ​et al​. (2013) included an audio recording of an Awareness 
Through Movement lesson as part of an interactive artwork, here we are exploring how to 
embed Awareness Through Movement principles into the interactive visuals. The speed of the 
feedforward visuals is deliberately rendered at a slow pace to encourage the person to slow 
down as they mimic the geometric pattern and notice the quality of their movement.  The 
drawing of the geometric patterns is intended to encourage the person to smooth out the 
trajectory of their moving and shifting of weight. This smoothing out of movement enables a 
person to gain mastery over small movements which are then chained to form larger movement 
arcs. 

This study is in its formative stages, at an exploratory level, and no conclusions have yet been 
reached.  We are continuing to experiment with strategies for providing visual feedback and 
feedforward on active sitting. 

In conclusion, previously there has been a reliance on furniture doing the work of body 
alignment.  Ergonomic approaches generally assess the fit between person and environment, 
and endeavour to provide solutions that allow optimal functioning, both physical and cognitive. 
However ergonomic approaches and assessments may not take into account the person's 
habitual tendencies in function. 

Trends in posture correction (e.g., ​Lumo Lift​) (The Grommet, n.d.) and workstation design (e.g., 
sit stand desk) (Foley ​et al​. 2016) are attempting to introduce new ways of working aligned with 
good health, but don’t necessarily address the question of how comfortable and efficient we are 
– how we do what we want to do in the best ways.  The rhetoric is often around the impact of 
sedentary behaviour, such as cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.  Despite musculo-skeletal 
issues also being identified as resulting from poor workplace design and lack of physical activity, 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 5
 



 

the ​quality​ of moving is never really addressed.  

Under a Feldenkrais-inspired approach to body-centric interaction design, the ethos is about 
giving agency back to the individual. Agency to make choices about how to use one’s body. 
Agency to find comfort and ease through awareness that will lead to sustainable, revitalising 
practices in the workplace, and beyond. 

References 

Center for Active Design (2010) ‘Active design guidelines’. [online] available from < 
https://centerforactivedesign.org/guidelines/​ > 

Chau, J., and Engelen, L. (2015, August 3) ‘Health Check: The Lowdown on Standing Desks’. 
The Conversation​. [online] available from < 
https://theconversation.com/health-check-the-low-down-on-standing-desks-37515​ > 
[January 3, 2017] 

Cranz, G. (2000) ​The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design​. New York: WW Norton  

Feldenkrais, M. (1985) ​The Potent Self: A Guide to Spontaneity​. San Francisco: Harper and 
Row 

Foley, B., Engelen, L., Gale, J., Bauman, A., & Mackey, M. (2016) ‘Sedentary Behavior and 
Musculoskeletal Discomfort are Reduced When Office Workers Trial an Activity-Based 
Work Environment’. ​Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine 58​ (9), 924-931. 
doi: 10.1097/JOM.0000000000000828 

Loke, L., Khut, G., Muller, L., Slattery, M., Truman, C., & Duckworth, J. (2013) ‘Re-sensitising 
the Body: Interactive Art and the Feldenkrais Method’. ​International Journal of Arts and 
Technology 6​ (4), pp.339-356. doi: 10.1504/IJART.2013.058283 

Shrestha, N., Kukkonen-Harjula, K.T., Verbeek, J.H., Ijaz, S., Hermans, V. and Bhaumik, S. 
(2016) ‘Workplace Interventions for Reducing Sitting at Work’. ​The Cochrane Database of 
Systematic Reviews, 3​, p.CD010912. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD010912.pub3 

Stamatakis, E. (2017) ‘Why sitting is not the new smoking’. ​The Conversation​. [online] available 
from < ​https://theconversation.com/why-sitting-is-not-the-new-smoking-72568​ > [January 
3, 2017] 

Stephenson, A., McDonough, S.M., Murphy, M.H., Nugent, C.D., & Mair, J.L. (2017) ‘Using 
Computer, Mobile and Wearable Technology Enhanced Interventions to Reduce 
Sedentary Behaviour: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis’. ​International Journal of 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 6
 

https://centerforactivedesign.org/guidelines/
https://theconversation.com/health-check-the-low-down-on-standing-desks-37515
https://theconversation.com/why-sitting-is-not-the-new-smoking-72568


 

Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity 14​ (1), 105. available from < 
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0561-4​ > [January 3, 2017] 

The Grommet (n.d.) ‘Lumo Bodytech: Posture and Activity Tracker’ [online] available from < 
https://www.thegrommet.com/lumo-bodytech​ > [January 3, 2017] 

 

 

 

 
Kaye and Loke • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 7
 

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-017-0561-4
https://www.thegrommet.com/lumo-bodytech

