



























 

Feldenkrais Research Journal​ • ​volume 6​ (2018-2019) 
 
Reflections on Practice 
 
 

‘From the Coal Face’: Teaching Feldenkrais​®​ on UK Vocational Drama 
Trainings 

 
Victoria Worsley 
MA; Feldenkrais Practitioner, UK 

Correspondence: ​vicmworsley@gmail.com 
 

Introduction 
A version of the talk presented at (Re)Storing Performance symposium at Bath University in June 2015. 
The symposium was for performers (performance artists, actors and dancers), students and teachers of 
performance and somatic practitioners (especially Feldenkrais Teachers) in the field. There was a wide 
variety of presentations, from formal academic papers to performances, as well as less formal 
presentations about teaching and practice like this one. 

Keywords 
Feldenkrais Method, acting, drama schools, vocational drama training 

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 
 

 
 

mailto:vicmworsley@gmail.com
https://feldenkrais-method.org/
https://feldenkraisresearchjournal.org/


 

Reflections on Practice 
 
 

‘From the Coal Face’: Teaching Feldenkrais​®​ on UK Vocational Drama 
Trainings 

 
Victoria Worsley 
MA; Feldenkrais Practitioner, UK 

 
My intention in this article is to offer some insight into the practicalities and exigencies of 
teaching Feldenkrais for student actors within a vocational training in the UK and how it differs 
from teaching the public or even university students. This is based on my own experience of 
teaching for ten years in UK drama schools and also draws on my twenty years as an actor and 
theatre maker. There is a growing number of articles, chapters and even books (including my 
own recent publication ‘Feldenkrais for Actors’ (Worsley 2016)) for academics, teachers and 
actors about the various relationships between acting and Feldenkrais, but this article seeks to 
address the very specific demands vocational courses put on a Feldenkrais Teacher and to 
offer some thoughts about ways to work within those constraints. Until recently, only a very few 
of us were teaching in vocational drama schools in the UK as opposed to teaching on university 
drama courses, dance courses or performance courses with a broader artistic remit. All these 
situations are different to teaching the public, but I also believe that while there are inevitable 
cross-overs, the aims and intended outcomes of all these kinds of courses are also different to 
each other, so I am keeping this discussion to what I have found specific to vocational drama 
schools in the UK. Over the last few years, more of these schools have begun to include the 
Feldenkrais Method​®​ in different ways, and there appears to be a hunger amongst practitioners 
to discuss the issues this brings up. Given this article is based on my experience, it cannot be a 
complete picture, but my hope is that it might be, nevertheless, a useful contribution. 

Particular Demands of Vocational Drama Schools 

Students in vocational drama schools have a fairly singular goal in mind, which is to be able to 
make a career as a professional actor, and the schools claim their courses will prepare them to 
do just that. In fact, many of the students will end up writing, running theatre companies, 
teaching or exploring a bigger canvas in some way, but at this point in their lives they are 
usually very focused on training as a professional actor for a future in the business. That is why 
these young people are in drama school and not in a University or anywhere else.  The students 
will therefore judge my Feldenkrais class mostly by how much it enables them to become good 
and potentially successful actors. 

Secondly, unlike the public, students in a drama school have not chosen to come to my class. 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 2
 



 

They are there because it is part of their curriculum, and in most cases, they have to stay in my 
class whether they like it or not. Some of them may know something about the Feldenkrais 
Method, but most have never heard of it and have no idea why they should be doing it, how it 
might benefit them or what it has to do with making them better actors. 

In addition, some students arrive at drama school with an instinctive understanding of acting as 
a physical process, but many of them are surprised by the idea that acting involves so much 
movement training, let alone something as profound as the Feldenkrais Method. They may 
come expecting to do acting classes pretty much all of the time. They may come expecting to 
dance, get fit, get in shape and work out. Indeed, they may be disappointed that they are not 
doing as much hard physical graft as they expected. Regardless, their expectations probably do 
not include lying on the floor and feeling what happens in their pelvis when they roll one leg or 
noticing where their hip joint is. That mostly comes as a surprise. A big part of the job, then, is to 
help students bridge that gap so they can be available enough to even start to learn. 

It also has to be borne in mind that we now live in an age where people pay for the tuition 
themselves or find funding for their higher education, so they are classed as consumers as 
much as they are students. My class is assessed by the students and its relevance marked and 
commented on through feedback forms. Of course, it is right that the students should have a 
say in their own education (and it often works very strongly in the teacher’s favour) but the 
consumer culture brings assumptions with it – which can easily tip into “they pay and you 
deliver”. Of course, as teachers we have to create the conditions for learning and that requires 
great skill, but finding how the students can think of themselves as learners becomes another 
big part of the job. It can become a vicious circle where a student is struggling with the work, so 
does not engage with it. Then, having had little result from the lesson, the student decides it is 
just not useful rather than looking at what is hard in it for them and how they can learn from it. 
Of course, this can be a difficulty with any kind of learning, but the consumer culture seems to 
legitimise it. Again, it does mean that as a Feldenkrais Teacher, finding how to create a learning 
culture in the room and how to make the lessons accessible to those who find it opaque 
becomes very important.  

Given that the primary purpose of a vocational course is to equip its students for a career as an 
actor, academic work, including essay writing and written exams, has not been a major part of 
the course in any of the schools I have taught in. There is certainly an importance given to 
understanding play texts, their historical contexts and a variety of vocal and acting methods, and 
to developing the kind of creative intelligence an actor needs. It is also true that all the main UK 
drama schools now offer degrees, which require some written work. However academic 
attainment is either not relevant or can be waived on the basis of a good audition for entry into 
most vocational schools. It is not of primary importance within the school either, and even when 
it is stressed for the purpose of gaining their degree, every acting student knows in their heart 
that, any exam result or theoretical knowledge that does not contribute to performance skill, is 
mostly irrelevant to their future as an actor. So, in a vocational school, however intelligent and 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 3
 



 

interested the students are, the theoretical aspects of the Feldenkrais Method will not count as 
useful learning for their own sake. The lessons need to translate into an experience that they 
can appreciate as useful in a fairly immediate and very practical way. In my experience, to justify 
my continued place in a packed school curriculum, I need to be able reach the students who 
have the most difficulty with the Feldenkrais Method and help them to find its relevance, not just 
the handful of natural ‘Feldy’ types who will fall in love with it and ‘get it’ immediately. Sometimes 
a whole class can fall into the ‘Feldy groove’ as the doubters get swept up in the enthusiasm of 
the rest. However, as a teacher, it is also easy to be seduced by the voices of those who love it 
and not really acknowledge the ones who are lost and seek to disappear, disengage – or simply 
fall asleep. 

Finally, every school is different depending on the governing body, staff, ethos, history and the 
kinds of students it attracts. In addition, the situation of a Feldenkrais Teacher within each 
school will differ, which may account for some very different experiences amongst teachers. 
One Feldenkrais Teacher may be a respected movement teacher in the school already, so their 
students will trust them implicitly when they introduce Feldenkrais lessons. Another may be 
brought into a school where the Feldenkrais Method is a natural fit with the values and 
processes the school nurtures. However, another teacher may find they have been brought in 
as a novel idea by the head in a school that does not really know what the Feldenkrais Method 
is, and who has decided it is a more dynamic version of the Alexander Technique that can be 
done in bigger groups (so will be cheaper and/or less time-consuming). Or perhaps movement 
teaching is on a very different track at the school, so the teacher finds themselves struggling to 
make the work understood at all. Sometimes it is only the voice department that welcomes the 
Feldenkrais Method, which can leave the students very confused as the lessons are named 
‘Awareness Through Movement’​®​. The Feldenkrais Teacher may be welcomed and integrated 
into a department where the tutors readily include them as part of a team that works together, or 
they may be brought in as an outside extra along with yoga or Pilates and find themselves 
isolated and with little idea of what else is going on. I have been in or around all these 
situations. This means there is no one answer to how you teach Feldenkrais lessons within the 
constraints of a drama school context. Rather, as Feldenkrais Teachers are wont to say in many 
situations: “It depends”. 

What Do I Do? 

Firstly, I try to address all the things I have just laid out. While I do not always achieve all of it, I 
try a variety of strategies which I outline here, some of which I will go on to discuss in more 
depth. 

● I always seek to contextualise the work and relate it to acting so that the students can, 
as far as possible, appreciate why it is a useful basis for their acting studies. 

● I frame it in as many different ways as I can so that if they don’t understand it one way 
they have a chance to connect to it in another way. 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 4
 



 

● I look for ways to intrigue the students, engage their curiosity and give them strong 
experiences they are less likely to forget. 

● I try to validate any kind of experience the students have, even – or especially – if it is an 
experience they don’t like or find ‘weird’. In fact, I try and get them to understand that this 
is as much about experiencing themselves in different ways, of tuning themselves to 
notice those differences and developing a sense of nuance, as it is about becoming 
good at movement, standing nicely or improving their voice. 

● I keep shifting the focus of the process away from teaching and towards learning as 
much as I can by asking the students a lot of questions, getting them to pick out themes 
from what we are doing and giving them time to tell me why they think it is relevant or 
how it is affecting their work or life. 

● I try to reach the students where they are by acknowledging their concerns and interests 
and seeking to address, re-frame and gradually re-direct rather than ignore, belittle or tell 
them they are wrong.  

● I try to never give up on someone but also accept that I am not going to reach or enable 
everyone all of the time. 

● I try not to teach in schools where I am unlikely to be able to do the above. For example, 
when the class is too large to make a connection with each student; the class time is too 
short to contextualise a lesson; or one or more departments do not welcome the 
Feldenkrais Method or teach in a way that is very difficult to bridge to or support (such as 
forceful stretching or strict rules about “alignment” that must be adhered to), leaving 
students confused as to why they are doing Feldenkrais lessons and how it relates to 
their other learning.  

There are a great number of ways I use to contextualise and frame the work for them. Most of 
these form the chapters in my book, ‘Feldenkrais For Actors’ (Worsley, 2016) I explore a few of 
the major approaches here. For example, we could pick something obvious like posture or 
alignment – terms that are referred to in so many of their other classes. These are often 
specifically focussed on in the first year as ‘preparatory’ work and are likely to become an 
obsession for many students for years to come. 

Contextualising the Feldenkrais Method for Acting Students 

Posture 

The Feldenkrais Method has very useful ways of thinking about posture in a less prescriptive 
and more dynamic way than is sometimes taught or than students might expect (Feldenkrais 
1980, 2002, 2011). The Method steers away from prescribing a ‘correct’ posture and instead 
enables the learner to explore how they organise and support themselves in a wide variety of 
different movements (often on the floor) and then to notice what new way of standing simply 
emerges at the end. Having only one ‘correct’ way to stand is particularly unhelpful when actors 
have to play characters who don’t stand with whatever ‘correct alignment’ they have been 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 5
 



 

taught. The idea that posture involves being sensitive to the relationships between many parts 
of themselves and that those relationships can shift according to what they are doing, the 
situation or the environment rather than imposing a universally correct order, is something an 
actor will find very helpful for the variety of possibility they will need. Therefore, I link posture to 
other terms and ideas they will be encountering in the school such as ‘grounding’ and ‘centre of 
gravity’ as they do Feldenkrais lessons that give them a clearer experience of what these terms 
actually ​feel​ like.  

I use fairly simply structured Awareness Through Movement lessons until students are better 
able to trust the process. I also offer them a few different ways to notice changes because not 
everyone can feel what has happened in themselves. For example, I invite them to see changes 
in each other by observing something relevant to the lesson in pairs or groups before and after. 
I invite them to hear the differences in their voices too. In fact, I often use voice during the 
lesson so they can feel where they do something that interferes and help establish the link 
between voice and movement, and because, for some, the difference in their voice will be the 
clearest outcome. 

Presence 

From here it is easy to move away from posture for its own sake to what it means for an actor’s 
presence on stage – that elusive quality. I try to bring out how this more dynamic idea of posture 
involves the ability to go in any direction at any time and to reverse easily. I help the students 
begin to see how that translates into a readiness and an ability to listen, respond and play, and 
how an audience responds to that simple openness and availability. So, I might frame a 
Feldenkrais lesson with an exercise where all the student has to do is come into the space, 
introduce themselves to the ‘audience’ (their other classmates) as simply as possible and keep 
contact with the audience until they feel the moment that they should leave. The audience 
considers each student’s ability to do less and be simple, and compares their presence and how 
open and available to the audience they seem to be before and then after the lesson. The 
results are often striking. It usually enables the students to understand why seeking to use only 
the effort that is needed and no more within the small movements of an Awareness Through 
Movement lesson is directly relevant to this important aspect of performance. 

Awareness 

The fundamental factor in all of this is developing the ability to notice differences – the 
“awareness” in Awareness Through Movement. Once they have seen something change in any 
of these lessons (anything, however fine or gross) I can bring that to their attention and point out 
that this is what they are actually engaged in and the importance that it has for learning and for 
creating different characters, dynamics, emotions and situations when they are on stage or 
camera. Feldenkrais is very often quoted as saying: “When you know what you are doing, you 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 6
 



 

can do what you want” (1994-2004: 3649) . That will in turn help to explain why it is useful for 1

them to be on the floor noticing small differences in movement during a Feldenkrais lesson. 
Working in pairs and groups, observing each other, making drawings and just developing a 
sensitivity to difference through the scans and lessons over time all help. However, despite 
everything, some students will still not put it together: they will have real difficulties with feeling 
what they do, noticing differences at all or appreciating why they should be interested. This is 
where giving them some strong experiences comes in. 

Strong Experiences 

At the moment one kind of tactic I often use is to start with bigger, more dynamic lessons. 
These are not only fun, but also tend to elicit more obvious changes that students can feel. For 
example, I might spend some lessons with a variety of ways of getting up and down from the 
floor so that the students can have a clear experience of how much more easily and fluidly they 
can do it at the end of each lesson. They can then notice how the lessons affect their posture 
and breath, and voice as well. Once they have made that kind of connection I can often begin to 
move the class towards noticing some of the finer details, and then start on lessons that involve 
smaller movements which require closer attention and more patience.  

Another game I have started playing recently to help the students feel – very graphically – how 
differently people hold themselves, involves a box of sand. When someone leaves their prints in 
sand, the depth of the print reveals where the person’s weight goes, as well as how the feet are 
angled. Someone else trying to match their feet to those prints will have a very strong 
experience of how differently that other person supports their weight and of how strange and 
difficult it can be to accommodate that organisation in themselves. Jaws drop. This may be the 
first time the students really get what you mean by different patterns of being upright. The shock 
is not forgotten in a hurry. 

The realisation of how different we all are in these fundamental ways can begin to lead the class 
towards what is involved in developing different characters, which is something that always 
interests them. There are many ways, of course, but one route they can usually connect with 
easily is via an examination of walking. Again, there are many possibilities here, but one way I 
have found to take apart how we walk is through planes of movement: rounding/arching, side 
bending and twisting. I use simple Feldenkrais lessons to get into the detail of how the 
movement of the legs (and arms) connects to the back in these planes , then, at the end of the 2

1 Feldenkrais said this many times in different ways. One example is in the Alexander Yanai materials 
(Feldenkrais 1994–2004) lesson #536 “Fingers Interlaced on the Chest”: “You begin to distinguish and if 
you distinguish, you know what you are doing. If you know what you are doing, you can do what you 
want. If you do not know what you are doing, you cannot do what you want. It is done in the way the limbs 
learned how to do it” (1994-2004: 11, 3649). 
2 Just a few examples: from Feldenkrais (1980): Differentiation of Pelvic Movements (begins page 115); 
Co-ordination of Flexor Muscles and Extensors (begins page 109); and Some Fundamental Properties of 
Movement (lifting arms and legs) (begins page 91).  From Feldenkrais (1976): Tilting Legs on Stomach 
(begins page 40); Using Knees Like Drumsticks (begins page 90). From early in the first year of my 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 7
 



 

lesson, I ask the students to walk again and feel what kind of person they are now, what the 
world feels like, how they feel about other people and so on. Bringing in these kinds of 
differences are likely to catch their attention.  

To help the students really appreciate how this is useful, I will often accompany these kinds of 
lessons with a project in which they observe a person outside school and then copy that 
person’s walk for the class. This is not an original idea – they may do this kind of copying in 
other classes too. But the Awareness Through Movement lessons usually encourage a different 
level of detail in what they are feeling in themselves and so in what they can observe and at 
least attempt to then re-create. This allows them to work at a greater level of subtlety and 
precision. In fact, this is an example of why the Feldenkrais Method can be so valuable in a 
drama school. The specificity and level of detail that the students get from the lessons can 
support everything else so well.  

As part of this exercise, the class discusses who they think each person being presented is from 
what they have seen: male/female, age, background, emotional life, place in society, interests 
and so on. They may or may not be right in their guesses; it doesn’t matter. The point is for the 
students to notice that they get a story from ​how​ they see the person walk. Students often 
disagree with each other and have very interesting discussions based on small but very specific 
elements of how the person walked, once again bringing home the understanding that small 
differences make all the difference, and that how we are and who we are is not separate. This 
can be a very big step for students who wish to simply act out some image they have in their 
head rather than engage with their sensations and physicality. Interestingly, one or two of the 
young struggling professional actors who come to me for private sessions have realised that this 
is exactly the piece of learning they have managed to miss despite three or four years of 
training. They wrote movement lessons off as ‘wanky’ or just didn’t take enough of an interest, 
never really appreciating that movement is fundamental to who we are. This is the enormous 
insight we can offer as Feldenkrais Teachers in a way students can usually understand. 

Clarifying The Link to Emotion 

Once the students have seen the link between who they think a person is and how they move, 
and have argued about whether the person walking round the room in front of them is sad or 
just tired, introverted or busy, arrogant or enthusiastic, they are also on the road to 
understanding that emotional responses and physicality are not separate. It becomes easier to 
accept that an emotional shift involves changes in muscular tonus, breath, heart rate and that 
being in touch with this enables an actor to find different emotional responses and move in and 

training, which followed the Amherst Training, 1980–1981 (Feldenkrais 2007–2017): Circling the Arms, 
Rolling Fists, Rolling Side or Front to Back, and Four Points. From Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais at Alexander 
Yanai (Feldenkrais 1994–2004): Elbows and Knees Touching, lesson #27 (1 (2) , 165-170); On the back; 
twisting the spine with the head fixed, lesson #110 (3 (1), 721-726); and Twisting the Pelvis with a Long 
Arm, lesson #240 (5 (2), 1655-1660).  

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 8
 



 

out and through them more fluidly. 

It is beyond the scope of this article to explore all the facets of this complex topic, but I explore 
ways of working with the links between movement and emotion in my recent book (Worsley 
2016: 161-177). The central idea is to enable the students to notice their sensations as they 
encounter different emotional responses and to recognise how noticing can help them re-find 
the emotional journey of their character every night of the show or every take of the scene. For 
example, how the sadness evoked in that scene feels in their breathing, heart rate, muscular 
tonus and so on, as opposed to a moment of fear, anger, pleasure or hope. In relation to this, I 
wrote  

...it can form a background awareness against which you can navigate through a play or 
find the moment in front of a camera…. It is not a self-consciousness, but a 
connectedness to what is going on inside you. It also enables you to sense the ebb and 
flow of the ‘currents’ of feelings and emotions within you: once you have a sense of the 
shape of those currents in a scene or even a whole play, something in you will seek it, 
shape it from within as you go through the performance. (2016: 172-173).  

There are similarities here with ideas articulated by other acting teachers, notably Michael 
Checkhov’s) ‘Psychological Gesture’ (2003: 63). Before I knew his work, I developed an 
exercise which is similar and which I call ‘moulding to a character from within’. This exercise 
invites the actor to simply bring a character to mind (possibly at some particular point in the film 
or play, as what comes out of this will vary depending on that) and notice what changes in their 
sense of themselves just by doing that and – before they make any kind of conscious movement 
what changes in their muscular tonus, heart rate, breathing, where they have their weight and 
so on. From there they can very gradually let those sensations increase and feel, for example, 
what emerges in how they hold themselves and how it takes them into a little movement. The 
full exercise can be found in my book (Worsley 2016: 193-195). 

It helps the students to know that the connectedness and sensitivity they are developing in 
Feldenkrais lessons can open up these kind possibilities in their acting. It is also possible to 
relate the Feldenkrais principle of reversibility (that all well-organised movement is reversible) to 
emotion (Feldenkrais 2002: 113-114) as it is easier to find how to reverse something that occurs 
via changes in breathing and muscular tonus than something that is considered to be purely 
‘mental’. 

This article can only serve as an introduction to this very large topic, but I believe I have shown 
some of the ways that student actors can begin to understand the relevance of small movement, 
doing less and noticing differences to emotional fluidity.  

In this last section, I would like to share some ways in which I address the question of meeting 
students where they are and enabling them to re-frame or vary their ideas and practice. 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 9
 



 

Meeting the Students Where They Are: Fitness and Agility 

Recently I have started consciously meeting students where they are in terms of their desire to 
be fit, strong and look good. I am very aware that those are words which carry assumptions that 
the Feldenkrais Method often, very usefully, calls into question. But this is a place where a 
number of students are or will be pushed by the pressure of the business, and while you cannot 
always serve everyone, the more people you can reach where they are and then take 
somewhere more useful, the better. Also, fit and strong is not a bad thing to want to be per se. 
We Feldenkrais Teachers sometimes forget that the Feldenkrais Method’s founder was very 
strong himself: an aggressive football player, very skilled in street fighting from his days as a 
member of the Hagannah in Palestine in the 1930s, and a martial artist. Our Method clearly has 
roots in what Feldenkrais learnt from Jiu Jitsu and Judo.  

So actually, we have first-class lessons to help students approach strong physical training so 
much better. In fact, these days gym training is not all lycra and inflated muscles. There is a 
popular move towards functional training and integrated strength training that does not rely on 
machines to train isolated muscle groups, but uses body weight, whole body movement training, 
gymnastics, athletics or martial arts-based skills work and a variety of free weights. Many of the 
students know at least something about this kind of training already because it is considered 
sexy – parkour  is part of that style of training for example – and the Feldenkrais Method 3

actually contains the foundation work for much of that kind of training. I have found relating to 
these kinds of students a great deal easier since I did a study of barefoot running, and even 
more so now that I train regularly and have successfully gained my first black belt in a pretty 
tough form of traditional Okinawan Karate. I now really appreciate what drives people to train 
and what it means to take that away from them, allowing me to build better bridges to somatic 
work. Also, I suspect that a few of my students can relate to my teachings more easily if they 
know I train as hard or harder than they do – and yet the Feldenkrais Method is what I teach 
and credit with enabling me to do the training I do. 

Extreme sport or martial art is not every Feldenkrais Teacher’s area of expertise, but it does not 
matter. The lessons are there for all of us to teach and, if you do not stand in silent judgement of 
students who train which will only alienate them – you can enable them to approach their 
training in a more varied, nuanced and useful way, and to consider more carefully what strength 
and power might involve for an actor. 

Obviously, every lesson will help students feel the support of their skeleton and the ground, 
which are very significant for strength and power. I also use many of the Awareness Through 
Movement lessons that are drawn from developmental movement, which is now becoming very 

3 Also known as ‘free running’, parkour involves developing ways to move in and over the environment by 
climbing, jumping, sliding, rolling and more. It developed in urban spaces, and while its more daredevil 
aspects of jumping between buildings caught public attention, its fundamental principles of efficient 
movement in, over and through any environment can also be more widely applied. 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 10 
 



 

popular in functional training methods too. I use any of the reaching, pushing, pulling, kicking 
kinds of lessons, lessons that prepare for jumping and even lessons that help with squatting, 
which is the basis for weight lifting, amongst other things. There are many, many more you can 
use; it just depends how you frame them and what you bring out of the lesson. For example, I 
use one of Jeff Haller’s (2010) breathing lessons to help students push more effectively, and I 
have even used one of the ‘basis of hopping’  lessons (Feldenkrais, 1994-2004) to help teach 4

the relationship of the head and neck for voice. Many of the developmental lessons (crawling 
and locomoting in different ways) also contain the fundamentals for animal work that most 
acting schools do, and clearly help with their fight and dance classes. These sorts of lessons 
are never just for those who like to train though; they are wonderful lessons for everyone in a 
myriad of ways, just as every Awareness Through Movement lesson is. The class spends time 
noticing the difference in the clarity and power of their presence in their voice, in their ability to 
be simpler, and more efficient in their use of self. and how they can experience themselves in a 
different way. 

Integration for Acting 

I would like to conclude with a quote which I often read to the students. It captures something of 
what the Feldenkrais Method can do very well, and may be why Peter Brooks may have chosen 
to work with Moshe Feldenkrais. John Heilpern talks about Peter Brooks’ famous journey 
through Africa with his theatre company, Centre International de Recherche Théâtrale (CIRT): 

Brooks told me that if you watch any cat, it isn’t just that his body is so relaxed and 
expressive. It’s something more important than that. A cat actually thinks visibly. If you 
watch him jump on a shelf, the wish to jump and the action of jumping are one and the 
same thing. There’s no division. A thought animates his whole body. It’s in exactly the 
same way that all Brooks’ exercises try to train the actor. The actor is trained to become 
so organically related within himself, he thinks completely with his body. He becomes 
one sensitive responding whole, like the cat (Heilpern 1999: 146). 

The image of the cat is a strong one that the students can understand at a visceral level as well 
as intellectually. It is often an inspiring image and has credence because it comes from such a 
legendary theatre director. It is possible to point out that this quality of the cat is exactly what the 
Feldenkrais Method enables in so many ways: that while the Method does indeed help students 
be more relaxed and expressive, it also contains the other qualities described in the quote. For 
example: 

● Becoming clear enough in what they are doing in any movement in an Awareness 
Through Movement lesson, however small, and developing choice at a very fine level, 
enables the actor to execute their intention – or to tell their story – precisely, clearly and 
immediately. They are not stuck in one blind compulsive choice that may not always fit 

4 Feldenkrais (1994–2004), lessons #281, #282, #283 (6 (2): 1917-1940), and #298 (6 (2): 2043-2050). 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 11 
 



 

the moment or chime well with the audience.  
● Responding as an integrated whole in the moment like the cat (not according to a 

thought they had in the bath last night and are now trying to somehow impose with part 
of themselves) is something an actor is consistently asked to look for in every moment of 
a Feldenkrais lesson. 

Once a student can appreciate that these kinds of essential skills are the territory of the 
Feldenkrais Method, the very special relevance of these strange lessons to what they came to 
learn can become clear – and so its importance to the curriculum too. 

References 

Chekhov, M. ([1953] 2003) ​To the Actor.​ London: Routledge  

Feldenkrais, M. (1976) ​San Francisco Evening Class Notes 1976​. Berkeley: Feldenkrais 
Resources 

Feldenkrais, M. (1980) ​Awareness Through Movement​. 3rd edn. London: Arkana, Penguin  

Feldenkrais, M. (1994-2004) ​Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais at Alexander Yanai (Vols. 1–11)​. ed by E. 
Solway. trans. A. Baniel and J. Krauss. Paris: International Feldenkrais Federation 

Feldenkrais, M. (2002). ​The Potent Self​. 2nd edn. Berkeley: Frog Limited 

Feldenkrais, M. (2007–2017) ​Professional Training Transcripts: Amherst, Massachusetts, 1980 
–1981​. ed. by B. R. Humiston. Paris: International Feldenkrais Federation 

Feldenkrais, M. (2011) ​Higher Judo​. 2nd edn. Berkeley: Blue Snake 

Heilpern, J. (1999) ​Conference of The Birds​. 3rd edn. London: Routledge 

Haller, J. (2010) ​Discovering the Roots of Integral Strength​. [Video recording] Berkeley: Inside 
Moves 

Worsley, V. (2016) ​Feldenkrais For Actors​. London: Nick Hern Books 

 

Biography 

Victoria Worsley, MA, member of The Feldenkrais Guild (UK), studied movement and 
performance with Monika Pagneux and Philippe Gaulier in Paris 1984-87 while she also gained 
her degree in Literae Humaniores from Oxford University. From 1986-2006 she worked as an 
actor straddling the worlds of physical theatre, new writing, traditional text plays and TV and 

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 12 
 



 

film. She also created or wrote a number of plays with her theatre companies Tattycoram and 
Jade and worked as a movement director. Having already discovered the Feldenkrais Method 
while studying with Monika Pagneux, she finally trained as professional practitioner in Lewes 
2003-2007. Since then she has built a busy general practice in North London and taught 
Feldenkrais and movement in a number of drama schools including Mountview and Oxford 
School of Drama. She teaches workshops and seminars for organisations including The Actors 
Centre, The Royal Ballet School and Shapes in Motion at Sadlers Wells and coaches individual 
actors. Her book ‘Feldenkrais For Actors, How to do less and Discover More’ was published by 
Nick Hern in November 2016. Victoria is also training for her black belt in traditional Okinawan 
karate (Goju Ryu) and teaches barefoot running.  

 
Worsley • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 6​ (2018-2019) 13 
 


