































 

Feldenkrais Research Journal​ • ​volume 5​ (2016) 
 

Original Research: Reprint 

 

 

United States ​Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers​®​: 
A survey of characteristics and practice patterns 

 
Patricia A Buchanan 

Nicole L Nelsen 

Simon Geletta 

 

This article was originally published in ​BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine ​14; 2014. The PDF 
version of the article follows. The HTML version can be found at BioMedCentral: 
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472­6882/14/217 
 

Abstract 

Background:​ ​Feldenkrais Method​®​ teachers help students improve function and quality of life through 
verbally and manually guided lessons. The reasons people seek ​Feldenkrais​®​ lessons are poorly 
understood. Similarly, little is known about practice characteristics and patterns. To address these 
knowledge gaps, we conducted an extensive survey of United States ​Guild Certified Feldenkrais 
Teachers​®​. 

Methods: ​We invited all ​Feldenkrais Teachers​®​ to participate in this survey delivered in web­based or print 
formats. We obtained overall and question­specific response rates, descriptive statistics, chi­square tests of 
response bias, and performed qualitative thematic review of comments. 

Results:​ ​Overall response rate was 30.5% (392/1287). Ninety percent of responders had college degrees in 
diverse fields; 12.5% had credentials outside health care, 36.9% held conventional health care licenses, and 
23.1% had complementary and alternative medicine credentials. Mean age was 55.7 years; most teachers 
were women (83%). California (n = 100) and New York (n = 34) had the most teachers. Forty­five percent of 
teachers earned ≤ 20% of their gross income from their practices, while 26% earned > 80%. Most saw < 10 
students/week for individual lessons and < 10 students/week for group lessons. Students were mostly 
women (71.1%) and 45–64 years old. The primary reason students sought ​Feldenkrais​ lessons was pain. A 
quarter of students self­referred, a fifth were referred by conventional health care providers, and two­thirds 
paid for services directly. Themes from comments included: beliefs that ​Feldenkrais​ training had important 
personal and professional benefits for teachers; recognition of the challenges of operating small businesses 
and succinctly describing the ​Feldenkrais Method​; the variety of practice approaches; and a deep 
commitment to the ​Feldenkrais Method​. 
Conclusions:​ Most ​Feldenkrais Teachers​ were well educated, often held additional credentials, were 
located in the West, were women, were older than 50 years, and had part­time practices. Most students 
were women, were adults, came from various referral sources, and paid directly for services. Teachers and 

 
 
Published by the International ​Feldenkrais​®​ Federation (IFF) ​http://feldenkrais­method.org 
Available online at ​http://iffresearchjournal.org/volume/5/buchanan­et­al 
 

 
 

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/14/217
http://feldenkrais-method.org/
http://iffresearchjournal.org/volume/5/buchanan-et-al


 

students utilized the ​Feldenkrais Method​ in diverse settings and applications. These findings may foster 
practice development by ​Feldenkrais Teachers​, improve communication between health care consumers 
and providers and assist decision­making, and stimulate more research concerning the ​Feldenkrais Method​. 

Keywords 
Feldenkrais Method​ of somatic education, US ​Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers​, Practitioner 
characteristics, Practice patterns, Communication, Decision­making, Research development 

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

Please cite:​ First published in ​BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine​ ​14​; 2014.​ ​Reprinted in the 
Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 5​;​ ​2016. 

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. 

 

Buchanan ​et al.​ • ​Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 5 ​ ​( ​2016)  2
 



RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access

United States Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers®:
a survey of characteristics and practice patterns
Patricia A Buchanan1*, Nicole L Nelsen2 and Simon Geletta3

Abstract

Background: Feldenkrais Method® teachers help students improve function and quality of life through verbally and
manually guided lessons. The reasons people seek Feldenkrais® lessons are poorly understood. Similarly, little is
known about practice characteristics and patterns. To address these knowledge gaps, we conducted an extensive
survey of United States Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers®.

Methods: We invited all Feldenkrais Teachers to participate in this survey delivered in web-based or print formats.
We obtained overall and question-specific response rates, descriptive statistics, chi-square tests of response bias,
and performed qualitative thematic review of comments.

Results: Overall response rate was 30.5% (392/1287). Ninety percent of responders had college degrees in diverse
fields; 12.5% had credentials outside health care, 36.9% held conventional health care licenses, and 23.1% had
complementary and alternative medicine credentials. Mean age was 55.7 years; most teachers were women (83%).
California (n = 100) and New York (n = 34) had the most teachers. Forty-five percent of teachers earned ≤ 20% of
their gross income from their practices, while 26% earned > 80%. Most saw < 10 students/week for individual
lessons and < 10 students/week for group lessons. Students were mostly women (71.1%) and 45–64 years old. The
primary reason students sought Feldenkrais lessons was pain. A quarter of students self-referred, a fifth were referred
by conventional health care providers, and two-thirds paid for services directly. Themes from comments included:
beliefs that Feldenkrais training had important personal and professional benefits for teachers; recognition of the
challenges of operating small businesses and succinctly describing the Feldenkrais Method; the variety of practice
approaches; and a deep commitment to the Feldenkrais Method.

Conclusions: Most Feldenkrais Teachers were well educated, often held additional credentials, were located in the
West, were women, were older than 50 years, and had part-time practices. Most students were women, were adults,
came from various referral sources, and paid directly for services. Teachers and students utilized the Feldenkrais
Method in diverse settings and applications. These findings may foster practice development by Feldenkrais Teachers,
improve communication between health care consumers and providers and assist decision-making, and stimulate
more research concerning the Feldenkrais Method.

Keywords: Feldenkrais Method of somatic education, US Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers, Practitioner
characteristics, Practice patterns, Communication, Decision-making, Research development

* Correspondence: PatBuchananPhD@iCloud.com
1Toledo, Ohio 43614, USA
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

© 2014 Buchanan et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and
reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain
Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article,
unless otherwise stated.

Buchanan et al. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2014, 14:217
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/14/217

mailto:PatBuchananPhD@iCloud.com
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/


Background
An estimated half of the United States (US) population
has used some form of complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM) [1]. In 2010, US health care consumers
spent $31 billion on direct payments to complementary
and alternative medicine (CAM) providers [2]. Among
these providers are certified teachers of the Feldenkrais
Method® of somatic education. These teachers, practicing
in more than 30 countries, work to improve the functions
and quality of their students’ lives [3]. Through the use of
verbally guided Awareness Through Movement® (ATM)
lessons and manually facilitated Functional Integration®
(FI) lessons, teachers (also known as practitioners) assist
their students (also known as clients; typically not pa-
tients) to become more familiar with their current
habitual behaviors, explore other movement options,
and attend to their actions, sensations, emotions and
thoughts [4,5]. These guided experiences presumably fa-
cilitate the emergence of more effective, flexible and
adaptable behaviors [4,5].
International training standards guide the educational

process to become a certified Feldenkrais Teacher. The
curricula of Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs
involve at least 800 hours distributed over 3–4 years to
allow for considerable experience with the extensive
repertoire of lessons, the development of teaching skills,
and interdisciplinary study [6,7]. Teachers with additional
credentials as Certified Feldenkrais Assistant Trainers and
Certified Feldenkrais Trainers instruct participants in
these programs. Only Certified Feldenkrais Trainers can
serve as educational directors of training programs [6,7].
According to personal accounts, teachers enter training
programs with a wide variety of backgrounds, credentials,
and experiences. However, little research exists to support
these reports.
The reasons people seek Feldenkrais lessons are poorly

understood. Many individuals purportedly choose this
method to aid with recovery from injury, manage chronic
conditions, or enhance performance even though limited
research supporting its safety and effectiveness exists to
guide decisions about use and referral. Beyond anecdotal
accounts, review of the literature suggests a broad range
of concerns lead students to try Feldenkrais lessons. A
small sample of reasons includes improvement of balance
[8-10], problems with pain [11,12], chronic low back dys-
function [13,14], multiple sclerosis [15-17], various mus-
culoskeletal conditions [18,19], and post-stroke functional
limitations [20,21].
Similarly, little is objectively known about practice char-

acteristics and patterns, such as practice volume, settings,
and methods of payment. Present data about practitioners
are mostly limited to information contained in the Fel-
denkrais Guild of North America (FGNA) membership
print and on-line directories [22]. Entries specify year of

certification, geographic location, and may include in-
formation about other credentials (e.g., PT, RN, MD) or
advanced degrees, and practice specialties (e.g., perform-
ing arts, children, sports).
These knowledge gaps pose significant barriers to the

assessment of safety and effectiveness by consumers,
appropriate consideration of referrals by health care
providers, and development of quality research studies.
As an initial step in reducing these barriers, the first au-
thor conducted a small survey in 2009 to begin to col-
lect and distribute information about the characteristics
and practice patterns of US Feldenkrais Teachers [23].
Teachers were more commonly located in the West and
Northeast. While most responders were singularly cre-
dentialed as Feldenkrais Teachers, nearly 23% were also
physical therapists. Practice sizes varied considerably,
but most teachers operated part time practices. Just over
half provided exclusively Feldenkrais Method lessons in
their sessions.
Many questions about provider characteristics and

practice patterns went unanswered in that short survey
and new questions arose from the results. Therefore, in
2011 we took the next step and conducted this more ex-
tensive survey of United States Guild Certified Felden-
krais Teachers. The purpose of this study was to gather
in-depth information about Feldenkrais Teachers that
would assist them with practice improvement, enhance
communication between and decision-making by health
care providers and consumers, and support development
of relevant research. In addition to Feldenkrais Teachers’
demographics, we gathered information about: credentials
and education in the Feldenkrais Method, other CAM
practices, and conventional health care; practice settings;
and practice patterns.

Methods
Survey development
We used a survey to obtain a snapshot of the characteris-
tics and practice patterns of certified Feldenkrais Teachers
within the US. This survey was modeled after studies of
other CAM providers by Cherkin and colleagues [24-28],
adapted to the Feldenkrais field, and informed by the
preliminary study [23]. The Des Moines University In-
stitutional Review Board approved the study protocol
and consent forms.
After drafting the survey, we sought feedback from 2

focus groups of US Feldenkrais Teachers. The first review
occurred with 9 attendees at the 2010 FGNA Midwest
regional meeting. We revised the survey in response to
comments and obtained another review from 7 attendees
of the 2010 Feldenkrais Method Annual Conference. We
finalized the survey for delivery in either a web-based, se-
cure format utilizing Feedback Server® 4 or in print for
mail delivery.

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The survey had 7 parts: 1) Feldenkrais Method training
and certification, 2) educational background, 3) other li-
censures, certification, and specialties, 4) demographics,
5) overview of the past 12 months (January - December
2010), 6) review of representative month during the past
12 months (January - December 2010), and 7) open com-
ment. There was a maximum of 108 questions, with skip
logic included to direct responders away from questions
that were not applicable to them based on previous re-
sponses. In the instructions, we encouraged participants
to review their records, to take breaks as desired, and to
review the definitions of terms (see Additional file 1) be-
fore beginning the survey. In the definitions of terms, we
identified licensed or certified practitioners in health care
fields that are recognized by the American Medical Asso-
ciation and similar groups operating within a conven-
tional, Western medical model as traditional health care
providers. Throughout this report, we use the current ter-
minology of conventional health care (CHC) providers.

Participants
We obtained the listing of all US Guild Certified Felden-
krais Teachers as of January 25, 2011 from FGNA. We
mailed letters to everyone alerting them that they would
soon receive an invitation to participate in the survey.
The majority of Feldenkrais Teachers received the invita-
tion, including consent information and a link to the
survey, via email. Those who had a stated preference to
be contacted by mail and those for whom email deliver-
ies failed received the consent information and survey
with postage-paid return envelopes via mail.
Teachers had a 2-month window (February 15 to April

14, 2011) to complete and submit the survey. To encourage
participation, we sent up to 3 reminders by email or mail
during this period. Persons who completed and returned
the survey were eligible for 1 of 50 randomly-selected $50
payments to compensate participants for their time.

Data processing and statistical analysis
Once the survey response window closed, we manually
entered individual print survey responses into Feedback
Server® 4. We exported data for all responders into
Microsoft® Office Excel 2007 for screening and cleaning.
Subsequently, we used IBM® SPSS® Statistics 19 to obtain
question-specific response rates in the form of valid per-
centages (not all responders answered all questions), de-
scriptive statistics, and chi-square tests of response bias.
For our descriptive statistics, we determined mean ± stand-
ard deviation (SD) as measures of centrality and dispersion,
and 95% confidence intervals to represent true values of
key measures. We used information about Feldenkrais
Teachers provided with the January 2011 listing, other
Feldenkrais community resources, and internet searches to
assess for geographic distribution, gender, and advanced

Feldenkrais credential biases in the distribution of our re-
sponders. Finally, we exported responders’ comments to 3
open questions into Microsoft® Office Word 2007 for
qualitative thematic review. Two authors used conven-
tional, inductive open coding to independently review
the comments, discussed their analyses, and finalized
the themes. We selected exemplar quotations to illus-
trate the themes.

Results
Survey participation
Figure 1 summarizes the population, delivery method
counts, nonresponder and responder numbers, and survey
response percentage. The first author is a Feldenkrais
Teacher and chose not to complete the survey.

Feldenkrais Method training and certification
Nine of the responders (9/392 = 2.3%) graduated in 1977
from the first US Feldenkrais Professional Training Pro-
gram held in San Francisco, California. Thirty-three of
the responders (8.4%) graduated from training programs
between 1981 and 1990, 179 (45.7%) between 1991 and
2000, and 171 (43.6%) between 2001 and 2010. For the 52
responders (13.3% of 392) who provided the year in which
they first learned about or experienced the Feldenkrais
Method, the time interval from the introductory year to
graduation from a training program varied considerably
(mean = 9.1 ± 7.9 years). In addition to certification in the
Feldenkrais Method, 28.9% (113/391) of responders had
additional certifications in 1 or more techniques that are
substantially based on the teaching of Moshe Feldenkrais,
DSc, originator of the Feldenkrais Method.
The majority of responders (361/392 = 92.1%) com-

pleted their training in the US, with programs held in 24
states and the District of Columbia. California had the
most training program graduates with 156 (39.8%). Twenty
of the responders (5.1%) completed training programs in
Canada, 4 (1.0%) in multiple locations, and 7 (1.8%) outside
of North America. Twenty-two different educational direc-
tors, solely or in partnerships, led the North American
trainings. Moshe Feldenkrais led the trainings of 23 of the
responders (5.9% of 392).
In this survey, 27 of the responders (6.9% of 391) were

Certified Feldenkrais Assistant Trainers. Of the 26 who
provided their year of credentialing, 6 (23.1%) became
credentialed between 1981 and 1990, 14 (53.8%) between
1991 and 2000, and 6 (23.1%) between 2001 and 2010.
Three responders reported they were in the process of
applying to be Assistant Trainers.
Thirteen of the responders (3.3% of 391) were Certi-

fied Feldenkrais Trainers. Two (15.4%) became Trainers
between 1981 and 1990, 7 (53.8%) between 1991 and
2000, and 4 (30.8%) between 2001 and 2010. One re-
sponder was in the process of applying to be a Trainer.

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The 6.9% response rate of Assistant Trainers was more
than double the 3.0% (38 of 1287) representation among
the January 2011 listing. The 3.3% response rate of Trainers
was higher than the 2.1% (27 of 1287) representation as of
January 2011. The response rates of Assistant Trainers
and Trainers were not statistically significantly different
(Χ2 = 3.5, df = 1, P = 0.06). However, a significant chi-
square test (Χ2 = 31.4, df = 1, P < 0.01) indicated there was
a response bias with Assistant Trainers and Trainers more
likely to respond than Feldenkrais Teachers without these
advanced credentials.

Educational background
All 388 responders (99.0% of 392) reported having at least
a high school education. For highest degree earned, 47.7%
(185 of 388) of the responders reported holding Bachelor’s
degrees, 33.5% (n = 130) held Master’s degrees, and 9%
(n = 35) held Doctorate degrees. In listing up to 5 degrees
and majors, responders reported a highly diverse catalog
of areas of study ranging from A (accounting) to Z (zo-
ology). We grouped areas of study across all degrees into

similar disciplines (e.g., zoology with biological sciences)
and determined their frequencies. Physical therapy ranked
first (n = 112) with more than twice the responses of any
of the next most common fields of education (n = 44),
music (n = 43), psychology (n = 38), and biological sci-
ences (n = 35).

Other licensures, certifications, and specialties
We first asked responders if they held current licenses or
certifications that were not specific to conventional health
care or CAM and, if so, to list them. Forty-eight of the
385 responders (12.5%) did. Most common were educa-
tion licensures (n = 11) and exercise certifications (n = 5).
Next, we asked responders if they held current licenses

or certifications as a conventional health care provider
and, if so, to identify them. One hundred forty-one of 382
responders (36.9%) answered yes. Most of those respond-
ing yes (n = 133) held 1 conventional license, while 7 re-
ported having 2 licenses. Among those credentials with
more than 1 response, physical therapist was the clear
leader (n = 93). There were responses from 15 occupational

Change delivery from email to mail

Initially due to shared emails = 2

Undelivered/bounced emails = 10

Email recipients requested mail = 9

Population of US Guild Certified Feldenkrais
Teachers at time of survey

N = 1287

Teachers preferring email at time of survey 

N = 1200

Nonresponders:

Lead author = 1

Other nonresponders n = 894

Total nonresponders

n = 895

Responders (partial or complete)

Mail = 39

Email/web = 353

Total responders

n = 392

Response percentage

392/1287 ∙ 100 = 30.5 %

Teachers preferring mail at time of survey 

N = 87

Change delivery from mail to email

Mail recipients requested email = 1

Final counts by delivery method

Email = 1180

Mail = 107

Total = 1287

Figure 1 Population, delivery method counts, nonresponder and responder numbers, and survey response percentage.

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therapists, 5 nurses, 5 speech-language pathologists, 4
athletic trainers, 4 physical therapist assistants, 4 social
workers, and 2 medical doctors.
Third, we asked responders if they were licensed or cer-

tified in CAM practices and, if so, to list them. Eighty-
nine of 385 responders (23.1%) reported having 1 or more
of these credentials. While most of those responding yes
(n = 47) identified 1 CAM certification, 23 listed 2 certifi-
cations, 8 named 3 certifications, and 5 others reported
4–11 certifications. For certifications with more than 1 re-
sponse, massage therapist was most common (n = 36).
The subsequent certifications with more than 5 responses
were Reiki (n = 13), Pilates (n = 12), tai chi (n = 9), yoga
(n = 9), qigong (n = 7), reflexology (n = 7), craniosacral
therapy (n = 7), and meditation (n = 6).
We considered what combinations of credentials (Fel-

denkrais Method, licenses or certifications not specific to
conventional health care or CAM, conventional health
care provider licenses, and CAM practice certifications)
the 382 responders identified. While 40.3% were solely
credentialed in the Feldenkrais Method, over half of re-
sponders were certified in 1 or more additional areas.
The credentials combinations above 10% were Felden-
krais Method and conventional (27.7%), and Feldenkrais
Method and CAM (13.1%).
We asked responders whether they promoted or ad-

vertised any of their nonspecific, conventional health
care, or CAM provider credentials. Of the 215 (54.8% of
392) who answered, 25.6% promoted none, 55.3% pro-
moted some, and 19.1% promoted all of their credentials.
In addition, we asked responders if they had specialty areas
that were not identified by these 3 groups of credentials.
Ninety-two of 376 responders (24.5%) reported specialties.
Of those, 90 clarified how they promoted their specialties:
21.1% promoted none, 46.7% promoted some, and 32.2%
promoted all specialties. We categorized the reported spe-
cialties into related groupings and identified those with
more than 3 responses. These 8 specialties were led by
work with performing artists (n = 25), followed by appli-
cations with infants and children (n = 22), chronic pain
(n = 15), elderly and aging (n = 11), neurological condi-
tions (n = 9), sports, martial arts, yoga (n = 7), horses
and riders (n = 6), and balance (n = 4).
Finally, we asked responders to think about all aspects

of their practice and to identify the forms of promotion
that applied to them. All teachers who were also mem-
bers of FGNA had detailed listings in the FGNA print
directory, could opt in or out of the FGNA online direc-
tory, and had an AltMed web listing they could develop.
Non-members only had their names and years of certi-
fication listed in the print directory. The most to least
frequently used forms of promotion for 25% or more of
the 380 responders were the FGNA print directory
(89.2%), FGNA online directory (87.6%), email (54.7%),

flyers (50.3%), personal website (45.8%), and social media
(25.0%). Among other forms of promotion (20.0%),
word-of-mouth/personal referral (n = 16) was the most
common response, followed by distribution of business
cards (n = 5).

Demographics
We asked teachers to identify their gender. Responders
were 83.0% women (318 of 383) and 17.0% men. While
we could not reasonably confirm the gender of 5 of 1287
teachers in the January 2011 listing, the response rates
were similar to the list distribution of 81.9% women (1050
of 1282) and 18.1% men. Based on a non-significant chi-
square test (Χ2 = 0.47, df = 1, P = 0.49), there was no indi-
cation of gender bias in the response sample compared to
the population.
On average for 380 responders (96.9% of 392), teachers

were 55.7 ± 9.2 years of age. There was 1 responder over
the age of 79 and no responder younger than 29. Table 1
presents the distribution of age groups. The largest group
of responders were in their 50s. The 27 Assistant Trainers
averaged 57.9 ± 7.4 years of age, while the 13 Trainers
were 62.2 ± 5.1 years old.
Table 1 summarizes the numbers of responders (total =

381; 97.2% of 392) by geographical regions. Regional re-
sponse rates were 16.3% for the Northeast (state with most
responders: New York, n = 34), 13.1% for the Midwest
(Illinois, n = 14), 17.1% for the South (Virginia, n = 15),
and 53.5% for the West (California, n = 100). Geographical
distribution based on the January 2011 listing (n = 1287)
was 20.5% for the Northeast, 13.4% for the Midwest,
16.0% for the South, and 50.1% for the West. There was
no indication of geographic bias among our responders
per chi-square test (Χ2 = 6.41, df = 3, P = 0.09). There were
no responders from 10 states (Northeast: Rhode Island;
Midwest: Kansas, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota;
South: Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi; West: Montana,
Nevada) and the District of Columbia. This compares with
no teachers living in Delaware, North Dakota, and South
Dakota as of the January 2011 listing.
We asked responders to identify their ethnicity and race.

The majority of responders selected not Hispanic, Latino
or Spanish as their ethnic background (98.4%) and identi-
fied their race as white (94.5%).
Responders provided information about their individ-

ual gross income from all sources during 2010. Table 1
indicates the frequencies and percentages for 4 levels of
gross income. Women were more likely than men to
have incomes under $25,000, while men were more
likely than women to have incomes at or above $75,000.
We next asked responders what percentage of their in-
dividual gross income during 2010 came from earnings
related to their Feldenkrais Method practices. The mean
percentage for the 373 responders (95.2% of 392) was

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Table 1 Profile of Feldenkrais Teachers and traditional
format practice patterns during 2010
Characteristic Responders Percentage Mean (SD) 95% CI

Age group

18–29 years 3 0.8

30–39 years 14 3.7

40–49 years 71 18.7

50–59 years 153 40.3

60–69 years 112 29.5

70–84 years 27 7.1

Region

Northeasta 62 16.3

Midwestb 50 13.1

Southc 65 17.1

Westd 204 53.5

Gross income level

Less than $25,000

All 88 23.6

Men 11 17.2

Women 77 24.9

$25,000 to $49,999

All 124 33.2

Men 21 32.8

Women 103 33.3

$50,000 to $74,999

All 88 23.6

Men 9 14.1

Women 79 25.6

$75,000 or more

All 73 19.6

Men 23 35.9

Women 50 16.2

Percentage of gross
income from
Feldenkrais practice

0

All 37 9.9

Men 2 3.1

Women 35 11.3

1-20

All 132 35.4

Men 29 45.3

Women 103 33.3

21-40

All 46 12.3

Men 6 9.4

Women 40 12.9

Table 1 Profile of Feldenkrais Teachers and traditional
format practice patterns during 2010 (Continued)

41-60

All 30 8.0

Men 4 6.3

Women 26 8.4

Traditional practice
format, 12-month
overview questions

How many weeks
did you practice?

266 96.7 39.6 (14.3) 37.9-41.3

How many hours of
direct contact with
students did you
have in a typical
week?

265 96.4 10.5 (9.8) 9.3-11.7

How many
appointments (visits)
for individual lessons
(Functional
Integration® or
Awareness Through
Movement®) with
students did you
have in a typical
week?

257 93.5 8.7 (8.6) 7.7-9.8

How many students
did you have for
individual lessons in
a typical week?

255 92.7 7.9 (8.0) 6.9-8.9

How many minutes
did your individual
lessons last?

Most often, typical
lesson

260 94.5 58.4 (9.3) 57.3-59.5

Shorter lessons 174 63.3 43.5 (11.8) 41.7-45.2

Longer lessons 171 62.2 77.0 (14.9) 74.8-79.3

How many classes
(visits) for group
lessons (Awareness
Through Movement)
with students did
you have in a typical
week?

275 100.0 1.5 (2.4) 1.2-1.8

How many students
did you have for
group lessons in a
typical week?

275 100.0 8.1 (11.2) 6.8-9.4

How many minutes
did your group
lessons (classes) last?

Most often, typical
lesson

190 69.1 58.7 (9.1) 57.4-60.0

Shorter lessons 102 37.1 48.7 (11.3) 46.5-51.0

Longer lessons 101 36.7 71.7 (23.5) 67.0-76.3

How many public
workshops based on
the Feldenkrais
Method did you
offer?

275 100.0 2.0 (3.2) 1.7-2.4

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43.0% ± 39.3%. Grouping percentage of income from
Feldenkrais practice into bins revealed a bimodal distri-
bution (see Table 1) favoring the ranges of 1%-20% and
81%-100%. More women than men reported no income
from Feldenkrais practice, yet more men than women
reported 1%-20% income from Feldenkrais practice.
Percentage of income differences between women and
men were small for the other bins.
As another perspective on responders’ practices, we

asked if they considered the practice of the Feldenkrais
Method to be their primary occupation. Of the 377 re-
sponders (96.2% of 392), 46.7% marked yes; 53.3% selected
no. We then asked responders to provide their primary
occupation. Similar to the diversity of college majors, re-
sponders reported occupations from A (accounting) to Y
(yoga). Of the 380 responders (96.9% of 392), the most
commonly reported occupations with at least 10 responses
were Feldenkrais Teacher (n = 40), physical therapist (n =
27), educator (n = 11), and retired (n = 10; n = 13 including
semi-retired).
Finally, through a series of 3 questions, we screened

responders for whether or not they practiced in a formal
setting (meaning teachers were paid or compensated for
their practice, and they worked with students other than
family and friends) during 2010. When asked if teachers
practiced the Feldenkrais Method in any manner at any
time during 2010, 98.9% of responders (373 of 377) re-
ported yes. Twenty of 368 responders (5.4%) reported
they only practiced informally with family and friends,
while 89.4% (330 of 369) reported practicing in a formal
setting. We embedded skip logic in the survey to direct
those who did not report having a formal practice to the
last, open comment section.

Overview of the past 12 months (January - December 2010)
We began this section by asking teachers what percentages
of their Feldenkrais Method practices were in traditional
and integrated formats (see Additional file 1 - Definition of
terms). At this stage of the survey, 77.3% of the initial re-
sponders (303 of 392) answered that 68.8% ± 37.6% of their
practices were in traditional formats and 31.2% ± 37.6% of
their practices were in integrated formats.
Two hundred seventy-five of 305 responders specifically

reported that part of their practices were in a traditional
format. Those who responded yes answered several
questions about their contacts with students, length of
lessons, and delivery of workshops. Table 1 summarizes
the question-specific numbers of responders, means, SDs,
and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for these items.
One hundred sixty of 294 responders reported that

part of their practices were in an integrated format. For
151 of those who responded yes, the mean weeks of
practice was 37.4 ± 17.0 (95% CI 34.7 to 40.1). The mean
hours of direct contact with students in a typical week
of integrated practice for 147 of these responders was
13.9 ± 12.5 (95% CI 11.9 to 15.9).
We asked those who practiced in an integrated format

to give a short description of how they integrated their
practice of the Feldenkrais Method into their other occu-
pation or professional context. Most of the 154 responders
(39.3% of 392) basically stated with what they combined
the Feldenkrais Method. As examples, “I integrate ATM
lessons into voice therapy sessions,” and “When teaching
yoga, I teach an ATM lesson around the theme of the
class, i.e., twisting, reaching, sitting”. Many responders of-
fered comments about the impact of a Feldenkrais per-
spective on their practice. One physical therapist stated, “I
am a provider who respects the complexity of every indi-
vidual and I do not impose force during my treatments”.
Several commented on how deeply they have integrated
the Feldenkrais Method into their work. One responder
stated succinctly, “It is impossible to separate Feldenkrais
[Method] from other modalities”. Another responder elab-
orated: “Since learning the Feldenkrais Method, I incorp-
orate the process of looking at, feeling, finding origins of
movement, feeling of pattern change into my speech/lan-
guage work. I no longer tell a client what to do or how to
do it based on a standard/model but ask him/her to find a
way to make changes in current thinking/production out-
side level of comfort or habit in order to notice differences
which may or may not become new and/or more useful
patterns”. A final exemplar provides another perspective
of the impact of the Feldenkrais Method on the teacher:
“Awareness of self use from the Feldenkrais Method is a
key point in my professional work”.
We asked responders to consider their whole practice,

including traditional and integrated formats, in answer-
ing the remaining questions in this section. First, we

Table 1 Profile of Feldenkrais Teachers and traditional
format practice patterns during 2010 (Continued)

How many
workshops for
Feldenkrais
practitioners and/or
students in
accredited
Feldenkrais
Professional Training
Programs did you
offer?

275 100.0 0.6 (2.4) 0.3-0.9

Item-specific numbers of responders and percentages for all characteristics;
means with standard deviations (SD), and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for
12-month overview of traditional practice format.
aNew York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maine, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island.
bIllinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas,
North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota.
cVirginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Alabama,
Oklahoma, Louisiana, Tennessee, Delaware, South Carolina, West Virginia,
Arkansas, District of Columbia, Kentucky, Mississippi.
dCalifornia, Washington, Oregon, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Idaho,
Hawaii, Utah, Alaska, Wyoming, Montana, Nevada.

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inquired about what percentages of their practices in-
volved students across 7 age groups. Most commonly, 297
responders (75.8% of 392) had students who were 45–64
years old (see Table 2). Second, we asked for the percent-
ages of students who identified as female, male, or some
other identity. Responders (295 of 392) reported that most
students identified as females, with mean = 71.1% ± 17.6%
(95% CI 69.1% to 73.1%). For male-identified students,
mean = 28.8% ± 17.7% (95% CI 26.8% to 30.8%). Several
responders worked with students who had some other
identity, with mean = 0.1% ± 0.5% (95% CI 0.0% to 0.1%).
Next, we asked responders to identify the top 5 most

frequent reasons that students came to their practices. We
categorized all reasons into pain (7 subgroups) and non-
pain (12 subgroups) groups (see Table 3). Pain was the
most common reason students sought Feldenkrais lessons.
Subsequently, non-pain reasons were more prevalent.
Two hundred eighty-eight responders (73.5% of 392)

identified the percentages of their students who came
from select referral sources. Self-referral was most com-
mon (mean = 26.9% ± 28.0%, 95% CI 23.6% to 30.1%),
followed by referral from a conventional health care pro-
vider (mean = 22.3% ± 29.3%, 95% CI 18.9% to 25.7%).
There were 216 responders (55.1% of 392) who reported
that students self-referred and provided the percentages of
those students who learned about the responders’ practices
through 11 sources. The FGNA online directory (mean =
23.0% ± 30.5%, 95% CI 18.9% to 27.1%) was the most fre-
quent specific source of practice information.
Results from 287 responders (73.2% of 392) regarding

the percentages of 11 sources of payment for services
indicated that 65.2% ± 35.7% (95% CI 61.1% to 69.4%) of
students paid out of pocket. For another perspective on
payment sources, we grouped 285 responders (72.7% of
392) into 8 certification/credential combinations: 1) Fel-
denkrais Method (FM) only, 2) FM plus conventional
health care (CHC), 3) FM plus CAM, 4) FM plus certifi-
cations that were not specific (NS) to CHC or CAM, 5)
FM plus CHC plus CAM, 6) FM plus CHC plus NS, 7)
FM plus CAM plus NS, and 8) FM plus CHC plus CAM

plus NS. The 80 responders who were FM plus CHC on
average had the highest percentages of payments from
Medicaid (mean = 4.9% ± 14.5%), Medicare mean = 15.5% ±
21.9%), private insurance (mean = 22.2% ± 24.2%), and
workers compensation (mean = 2.5% ± 7.0%); and the lowest
percentage of payment by self-pay (mean = 34.3% ± 35.5%).
We asked responders to review where they provided

services (where they gave lessons) and identify the per-
centages of their practices that occurred in those loca-
tions. Of the 288 responders (73.5% of 392), 41.3% ±
42.1% (95% CI 36.4% to 46.2%) practiced in offices lo-
cated outside their homes, while 28.6% ± 35.6% (95% CI
24.5% to 32.7%) practiced in offices inside their homes.
Feedback from 284 responders (72.4% of 392) indicated

the most common of 7 practice settings was a solo prac-
tice in a traditional format (mean = 53.8% ± 43.0%, 95% CI
48.8% to 58.8%). By grouping 282 responders (71.9% of
392) into 8 certification combinations, we identified that
FM only responders were most likely to have solo trad-
itional settings (mean = 72.5% ± 37.1%) and to teach within
Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs (mean 3.4%. ±
12.6%). FM plus CHC responders were most likely to
work in a multidisciplinary group practice of Felden-
krais Teachers plus CHC providers and/or CAM pro-
viders (mean 38.7% ± 45.0%).
We asked the 78 responders (19.9% of 392) who re-

ported they practiced within a multidisciplinary group to
list up to 4 of the most common types of colleagues or
practitioners they worked with other than Feldenkrais
Teachers. We categorized the types of colleagues into 3
groups: conventional, CAM, and other. The first 2 categor-
ies followed the definitions of terms (see Additional file 1)
for CHC provider and CAM provider. Across the first to
fourth most common types of colleagues, responders were
most likely to work with conventional providers (low of
46.9% for fourth to high of 74.4% for first), followed by
CAM, and lastly other providers. When we considered
common types of colleagues by certification combinations,
the responders most likely to be colleagues with conven-
tional providers were those with FM plus CHC (low of
58.6% for first to high of 71.9% for second). FM only re-
sponders were most likely to have CAM colleagues (low of
41.2% for first to high of 54.5% for fourth). FM only (first:
66.7% and second: 44.4%) and FM plus CHC (third and
fourth: 33.3%) responders were most likely to work with
other types of colleagues.
Lastly, we asked responders to review whether or not

they combined other approaches in which they were li-
censed or certified with the Feldenkrais Method. Over
half of the services offered by 280 responders (71.4% of
392) involved Feldenkrais Method lessons alone (mean =
56.1% ± 42.5%, 95% CI 51.1% to 61.1%). The most com-
mon combination was with conventional health care
(mean = 16.9% ± 33.3%, 95% CI 13.0% to 20.8%).

Table 2 Percentages for age groups of students across
responders’ whole Feldenkrais Method practices during
2010
Age group Mean (SD) 95% CI

0-4 years 6.2 (18.8) 4.0-8.3

5-11 years 3.9 (11.4) 2.6-5.2

12-17 years 2.9 (6.3) 2.2-3.7

18-24 years 5.1 (10.0) 3.9-6.2

25-44 years 18.0 (18.2) 15.9-20.1

45-64 years 40.4 (25.3) 37.5-43.3

65 years and above 23.5 (22.6) 20.9-26.1

Means with standard deviations (SD), and 95% confidence intervals (CI).

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Review of representative month during the past
12 months (January - December 2010)
For this section, we asked responders to review their Fel-
denkrais Method practice during the previous 12 months
and identify a typical, representative month (average; not
the busiest, not the slowest). Responders answered ques-
tions similar to those in the prior section. In screening
these data, we omitted some responses due to inconsist-
encies in reporting (i.e., despite instructions, some re-
sponders reported percentages instead of numbers). The
224 responders (57.1% of the initial 392) most often chose
October (18.8%) as their representative month. They se-
lected July the least (2.2%). The results for the representa-
tive month were comparable in all areas to the review of
the past 12 months.

Open comment
In this last section, we gave responders the opportunity
to share information about their Feldenkrais Method
practices that was not addressed elsewhere in the survey.

We analyzed comments from 101 responders (25.8% of
392) and identified 5 main themes.
First, as suggested by the earlier comments about inte-

grated practice, several responders thought their skills in
another profession were significantly enhanced by their
Feldenkrais training. Here are 3 example quotations:

! “My dance teaching is infused with Feldenkrais
[Method] and it is for this reason I am hired.”

! “My skill as a PT [physical therapist] has sky rocketed
since my training in the Feldenkrais Method. Clients
and physicians can tell there is ‘something different’
about how I work. Since the Feldenkrais Training, I
will never be bored at work now.”

! “Even though I had been a social worker for many
years, I did not feel capable of being a therapist
before I completed my Feldenkrais training; it
was only after learning to be with people in a
Feldy-specific [sic] way that I felt I could handle it
and had something to offer.”

Table 3 Top 5 most common reasons students sought Feldenkrais lessons during 2010
Reasons Reason 1 Reason 2 Reason 3 Reason 4 Reason 5

Main groups n = 292 n = 289 n = 265 n = 216 n = 180

Pain 62.7 38.4 24.2 16.7 13.3

Non-pain 37.3 61.6 75.8 83.3 86.7

Pain subgroups n = 183 n = 111 n = 64 n = 36 n = 24

General 73.8 45.9 42.2 38.9 20.8

Upper extremity 0.0 4.5 10.9 13.9 16.7

Lower extremity 0.5 3.6 9.4 22.2 16.7

Back 20.8 27.9 15.6 8.3 20.8

Spine, other 3.8 8.1 12.5 5.6 4.2

Upper quartera 0.0 7.2 4.7 2.8 20.8

Lower quarterb 1.1 2.7 4.7 8.3 0.0

Non-pain subgroups n = 106 n = 178 n = 201 n = 180 n = 156

Balance-posture 7.5 9 8 13.3 7.7

Developmental delay 19.8 10.1 6.5 6.1 6.4

Education 0.9 0 0.5 0 0

Emotional health 0.9 6.7 4.5 8.9 5.1

Health-wellness 3.8 10.7 10.9 8.3 17.3

Injury-surgery-trauma 12.3 13.5 14.4 11.7 8.3

Mobility 10.4 16.9 10 8.3 5.8

Neurological 10.4 12.9 16.4 12.2 16.7

Performing arts 4.7 2.8 3 2.2 1.9

Quality of life-function 8.5 6.2 6.5 7.2 5.1

Sport-athletics 4.7 1.7 8 6.1 9

Other 16 9.6 11.4 15.6 16.7

Numbers and percentages of responders.
aUpper quarter includes cervical, thoracic, shoulder girdle and arm combinations.
bLower quarter includes lumbar, pelvic girdle and leg combinations.

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Second, many statements clustered under the umbrella
of practice challenges. Responders wrote about the diffi-
culties of explaining what the Feldenkrais Method is and
issues common to self-employed practitioners and small
businesses (e.g., building a practice, cost of health insur-
ance, impact of the great recession, practicing in smaller
communities, marketing, governmental and regulatory
constraints, and record keeping). Several described strug-
gling with these challenges, while some highlighted paths
of success. These quotations exemplify this theme:

! “I would like to have more of my income come from
my Feldenkrais practice however I find the following
to limit my ability to make my Feldenkrais practice
my sole income provider, or even more of my total
income:

– very difficult to market Feldenkrais [Method]
– health insurance benefits are difficult for a self-

employed person to obtain
– the current recession (poor economy) is limiting

people from paying for self improvement methods/
therapies such as Feldenkrais [Method].”

! “I had a Feldenkrais office for a few years but
struggled to pay the rent. There was simply not
enough business for me in this little town with less
than 9000 citizens. I also compete with more and
more yoga teachers, massage therapists, and a
Rolfer. . . . I find it too cumbersome to always explain
in many sentences the difference between Feldenkrais
[Method], yoga and other methods. I decided to let go
of any ideas to make money with it.”

! “I continually hear that 'we' are hard to find or know
about. As a profession we need more mainstream
exposure, mainstream magazines, advertising,
articles etc.”

! “I have opened a business, but the result is Zero, I
practice on friends and family at the moment. But to
touch someone in CT [Connecticut] you have to be
a massage therapist, and now I am a [massage
therapy] student . . . and then I can promote the
Feldenkrais in a lawful way.”

! “To be clear, I do not have accurate records of my
classes in particular.”

! “I teach ATM lessons in rented space. I have
changed locations 4 times in the last 3 years and
finally found a space that is working.”

! “Persistence, stability and good communication skills
are essential ingredients for a private practice using
the Feldenkrais Method.”

Third, responders’ comments demonstrated the variety
of views that teachers have about their practice of the

Feldenkrais Method. This ranged from personal use to a
hobby, a retirement activity, a desired part-time practice, a
part-time practice seeking growth, to a full-time business.
The following 6 quotations illustrate this range of practice.

! “. . . My involvement with the Feldenkrais Method is
basically personal.”

! “I am fortunate that I have another source of
income that requires very little time. I feel no
pressure to build a Feldenkrais practice. I tend to
treat it as a hobby, and not a business.”

! “. . . I don't need the money or the bookkeeping.
Also, I travel with my retired husband and am not
always available.”

! “Dating 10 years from my personal ‘discovery’ of the
Feldenkrais Method as a student in serious need, I
graduated from basic Training with an express
intention (call it a business plan..?): I wanted my
early retirement from my (previous) career (enjoying
gainful employment in sales & marketing) to
dovetail with the commencement of a part-time
practice as self-employed Feldenkrais Teacher. After
2.5 years since graduation, I have steady part-time
workload teaching 4–5 ATM classes per week with
an occasional FI student or 2. You might say I have
taken my bows [sic] of poverty and love it! My
income from Feldenkrais practice covers all expenses
associated with the practice (Guild membership,
insurance, room rental, advanced training, books &
supplies) and provides me flexible spending over and
above what I derive from other sources to meet my
fixed expenses. I am very grateful that I do not
have to depend upon income from a traditional
Feldenkrais practice to meet all my financial needs.”

! “I love the Feldenkrais Method and I'm working and
ready to increase my practice in a ‘Wellness
Center’”.

! “I stopped practicing in 2004; during and prior to
that, I supported myself and my family on a very full
(40 plus hours a week) Feldenkrais practice.”

Fourth, several responders made clear that they per-
sonally value the Feldenkrais Method. Closely related to
this value was the desire to share with others what has
been so meaningful to them. These 5 quotations point
to this theme.

! “The method remains a lifeline, an anchor for my
curiosity and a sense of joy and calm in my life.”

! “In 1976 I met a dancer whose father had helped
Moshe [Feldenkrais] come to the US on his first
trip. She taught me several ATMs. I was hooked. It
was water when I was parched–an answer to a
question I had not yet formulated.”

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! “I feel it is something that I give back for the help
that the Feldenkrais Method did for me.”

! “Since I am retired I do not advertise my practice. . . .
I charge a low fee because I do not want money to
be the reason someone says 'no' to learning about
the Method. I justify all of the above because I have
received many personal benefits from Feldenkrais
[Method]. And because of that I want to share it
with anyone interested. My aim is not to make
money.”

! “I see 2 students pro bono on average per month
but I do not see that as payment but a mission.”

Finally, despite any challenges in building and maintain-
ing Feldenkrais practices, many responders expressed their
deep commitment to the value of the Feldenkrais Method
and to seeing it grow. Here are 3 exemplar quotations.

! “I love my work and the knowledge that it really
helps to make life better for those I work with!”

! “I appreciate anything anyone can do to further the
profile of this valuable Method. I would love to do
more as a practitioner and have it be more
recognized.”

! “If what we are doing is to improve one's life we
need to let people know it does, the Feldenkrais
Method has BENEFITS for them, not a lot of
community/professional explanations and emphasis
on a vague concept of 'learning'. . . . We need a
several year plan to expose our work. What happens
is we get caught in jargon about descriptions and
forget that to sell something you have to make it
needed and useful. And we DO have to sell our
Method, we have to make it desirable, needed, easy
and useful.”

Discussion
This survey is a significant expansion of a preliminary sur-
vey [23] of US Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teachers. We
invited all teachers to provide information on many more
topics. Despite the sizeable increase, overall response rates
were similar: 32.3% in 2010, and 30.5% here. In this sec-
tion, we reflect on the current results, use them to address
several questions raised by the preliminary survey, situate
these results with other CAM studies, and suggest areas
in need of more inquiry.
The number of Feldenkrais Teachers, although small

compared to other CAM disciplines such as massage
therapy [25], increased dramatically in the decades after
Feldenkrais’ death in 1984. Nearly 90% of responders
completed their training between 1991 and 2010. Dur-
ing that time period, CAM use in general increased in
the US to about 40% among adults [1,29] and 11%
among children [1].

While the increase in Feldenkrais Teachers was stable
in the past 2 decades, the numbers of teachers rising to
the ranks of Assistant Trainer and Trainer were lower in
the 2000s than in the 1990s. If the profession does not ad-
dress this pattern, it may reduce the capacity for training
Feldenkrais Teachers moving forward, given the average
ages of 57.9 for Assistant Trainers and 62.2 for Trainers.
Feldenkrais Teachers were typically well educated in a

wide range of fields. Ninety percent held bachelor’s de-
grees or higher. Physical therapy was the most frequent
area of study. As was the case in the preliminary survey,
physical therapist was the most commonly held conven-
tional health care credential and massage therapist was
the most common CAM credential. Percentages were
similar in both surveys. Sixty percent of respondents in the
current survey held credentials in conventional health care,
CAM, or another discipline outside of health care. Unlike
in the preliminary survey, we could identify here that most
conventional health care providers held 1 such license.
Conversely, over half of CAM providers held more than 1
CAM credential. It may be more prevalent for CAM
practitioners to hold more than 1 credential. For example,
studies reported half of Australian naturopaths [30] held
credentials in other CAM fields, while up to a third of
acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists, and na-
turopaths were licensed in another CAM or conventional
health care field [25].
Overall, our results suggest that Feldenkrais Teachers

have educational backgrounds that complement and en-
hance their Feldenkrais certifications. Open comments
indicate the converse is also true, as many responders
stated that the addition of Feldenkrais certification sig-
nificantly improved their abilities in health care and re-
lated disciplines.
Responders used a broad range of tools to promote

their practices. The most common were the FGNA print
directory and online directory. As was the case for pa-
tients of naturopaths, acupuncturists, massage therapists
and chiropractors [26], students most often self-referred
to Feldenkrais Teachers. Students frequently found their
teachers through the online directory. Given that only
members of FGNA have access to listings in the online
directory, membership in FGNA can be an important in-
vestment in practice promotion for Feldenkrais Teachers.
This resource can also serve as a tool for health care
professionals who wish to refer patients for complemen-
tary services or follow-up care.
Over 80% of Feldenkrais Teachers were women. We did

not locate other gender data for Feldenkrais Teachers, but
did find studies that identified greater proportions of
women acupuncturists [25,30], herbalists [30], massage
therapists [25,31], and naturopaths [24,25,30]. Feldenkrais
Teachers overall were somewhat older than other CAM
practitioners. Over 75% of Feldenkrais Teachers were aged

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50 or older. Studies of other CAM providers reported
mean ages in the 40s [25,31]. Comparable to these CAM
providers, with the exception of acupuncturists [25,31],
Feldenkrais Teachers were majority white and not His-
panic, Latino or Spanish.
Similarly, the students of Feldenkrais Teachers were

mostly women and mostly 45–64 years old. Other CAM
studies also identified that women were more frequent
consumers [1,24,26]. Barnes [1] found users of manipula-
tive and body-based practices, the category that includes
the Feldenkrais Method, were mostly 30–59 years old.
Cherkin [26] used wider age ranges and reported most pa-
tients of naturopaths, acupuncturists, massage therapists
and chiropractors were 15–64 years old.
For both the preliminary survey and the current study,

most Feldenkrais Teachers practiced in California and
New York. Regional rankings varied somewhat between
surveys. Responders to the first survey were mostly lo-
cated in the West, followed by the Northeast, South and
Midwest [23]. The Northeast and South reversed rankings
in the current survey. Both distributions differ from the
2010 US Census data that identified the Midwest as most
populous region, followed by the Northeast, West, and
South [32]. From the perspective of utilization of manipu-
lative and body-based practices, Barnes [1] reported high-
est usage by adults in the West, then Midwest, Northeast
and South. For children, West and Midwest were similar,
followed by Northeast and South. Another factor to
consider in understanding the distribution of Feldenkrais
Teachers is the location of Feldenkrais Professional Train-
ing Programs. The first occurred in California and the
second in Massachusetts. Subsequently, nearly 40% of re-
sponders graduated from trainings held in California, 6.9%
in Illinois, and 6.6% in New York. The distribution of Fel-
denkrais Teachers may reflect an interaction among train-
ing history and population-based factors.
Similar percentages of men and women responders had

individual gross incomes above and below $50,000. Thus,
half or more had incomes above the US medians for full-
time workers in 2010 (men $47,715, women $36,931) [33].
Higher percentages of women than men had incomes
below $25,000 and between $50,000 and $75,000, while a
higher percentage of men had incomes above $75,000. In
comparison, Whalen [34] reported that men who were chi-
ropractors earned 49% more than women. Hale’s survey
[30] of acupuncturists, herbalists and naturopaths found
men were more likely than women to earn 81%-100% of
their income from their practices. Women were more
likely to earn less than $30,000 (Australian) while men
were more likely to earn over $100,000. Thus, while gender
differences existed in earnings among US workers and
CAM practitioners, Feldenkrais Teachers were likely to
earn more than the median income with under half of their
annual income coming from their Feldenkrais practices.

The finding that just over half of responders did not
identify Feldenkrais Teacher as their primary occupation
likely influenced the percentage of income from Felden-
krais Method practice. This finding may also be reflected
in our results that suggest Feldenkrais Teachers on aver-
age had part-time practices. Results from the preliminary
survey were similar with means of 7.6 students per week
for individual lessons, 8.4 students per week for group les-
sons, and 2.9 new students per month [23]. Reports for
massage therapists ranged from 10 to 19.5 visits per week
[25,28,31]. Conversely, acupuncturists and naturopaths av-
eraged about 30 visits a week, meaning most had full-time
practices [25]. If desired, many Feldenkrais Teachers have
room to grow their practices and their incomes.
Students of Feldenkrais Teachers were of all ages. The

most frequent age group was 45–64 years. This is compar-
able to the most common age group for all CAM con-
sumers (30–69 years) and manipulative and body-based
therapies specifically (30–59 years) [1]. It also nests within
the wider age range of most prevalent consumers of ser-
vices by naturopaths, acupuncturists, massage therapists
and chiropractors [26]. The proportion of students who
were women was about twice that for men. This gender
distribution was similar to other CAM studies that re-
ported higher usage by women [1,24,26].
Our responders reported that pain was the leading reason

that students sought their services. Within the pain group,
the primary location of pain was the back. Pain [35] and
specifically back pain [1,26,29] were top reasons for seeking
CAM services in other reports. Subsequently, reasons cited
for seeking lessons focused increasingly on non-pain con-
cerns. More commonly reported reasons included neu-
rological conditions, recovery from injury-surgery-trauma,
health-wellness, mobility, and balance-posture. This pattern
is similar to that reported in a study of CAM providers that
included Feldenkrais Teachers [35]. Although there is very
little evidence of adverse effects from Feldenkrais les-
sons [3], research should examine the safety of this som-
atic learning method.
Research supporting the effectiveness of the Feldenkrais

Method for the cited reasons is broad yet relatively limited
compared to more widely used interventions [3]. However,
there are multiple studies supporting effectiveness for
people who come for Feldenkrais lessons to improve pain
[11,36,37] and particularly back pain [13,14], and improve
balance [8-10]. Given that 1) Feldenkrais students were
mostly 45 years and older, 2) people in this age range ac-
count for a disproportionate amount of health care costs
[2] and 3) falls in seniors are a serious contributor to nonfa-
tal and fatal injuries [38], Feldenkrais Teachers may be well
positioned to offer effective health promotion interventions
to impact back pain and enhance balance. Appropriately
designed studies could determine if Feldenkrais lessons that
improve balance in turn reduce the risk of falls.

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While a quarter of students self-referred to Feldenkrais
Teachers during 2010, conventional health care providers
referred over 20% of the students to Feldenkrais practices.
The implication is that a substantial number of students
were seeing both conventional health care providers and
Feldenkrais Teachers. This is consistent with other studies
that reported health care consumers often combine con-
ventional health care with CAM practices [1,29,39-41].
However, it is not always clear whether conventional health
care providers are aware of their patients’ use of CAM
practices. A survey of patients with arthritis reported that
most used at least 1 type of CAM and a smaller majority
had discussed this with their physicians [42]. A study of re-
habilitation medicine physicians indicated most had been
asked about CAM by their patients and most had spoken
against some form of CAM use [40]. Broader surveys re-
ported that less than half of patients who combined CAM
and physician visits discussed the CAM visits with their
physicians [29]. Reasons for this communication gap in-
cluded the failure of physicians to ask patients about CAM
use and perceptions of patients that physicians would be
judgemental [43]. Patients did not expect physicians to be
experts in CAM, but desired open-minded inquiries from
their physicians [43]. In another study, many patients indi-
cated they would prefer providers who combine CAM and
conventional health care [44]. This may be a factor favoring
the practices of Feldenkrais Teachers who also hold con-
ventional health care licenses. Future studies could inquire
directly of Feldenkrais students about their usage of CAM
and conventional health care providers, and their commu-
nication with their providers.
The findings of the present study offer much more de-

tailed information about the characteristics and practice
profiles of Feldenkrais Teachers to the broader health care
community. This information, combined with existing
and subsequent research, can enhance communication
among all members of a person’s health care team. Oppor-
tunities for collaboration and continuing education may
emerge that mutually strengthen providers’ practices and
benefit patient-centered care.
Self-pay was the most prevalent form of payment for

Feldenkrais services. This is consistent with several stud-
ies of CAM practices and usage that reported consumers
often pay for services directly [24,26,29,31,34,41]. Some
CAM practitioners (e.g., naturopaths and acupunctur-
ists) were more likely to be included in insurance plans
and therefore had notable payments from such sources
[26]. Among Feldenkrais Teachers, those who held a
conventional health care credential were more likely to re-
ceive payment from insurers and less likely to receive dir-
ect pay from students. While individual FI lessons allow
Feldenkrais Teachers to customize lessons to students,
group ATM lessons provide low cost access for those with
limited financial resources.

Feldenkrais Teachers were most likely to see students
for lessons in offices outside their homes, with offices in
their homes being the next most common location. Hale
[30] reported a similar location pattern for Australian
CAM practitioners. Overall, Feldenkrais Teachers were
most likely to have solo practices, especially if they did not
hold other credentials. In contrast, Feldenkrais Teachers
who were also conventional health care providers were
most likely to have multidisciplinary group practices that
most likely included other conventional health care pro-
viders. Acupuncturists, chiropractors, massage therapists
and naturopaths also commonly had solo practices [25].
Their multi-professional group practices included CAM
and conventional health care providers [25].
Similar to the preliminary survey [23], over half of the

present responders offered purely, exclusively Felden-
krais Method lessons. A distant second was Feldenkrais
Method and conventional health care. While we know
that other CAM providers have credentials in other health
professions [25], it is not clear how they combine them in
their practices.
Whether expanding on teaching the Feldenkrais Method

in integrated formats or offering open comments about
their practices, Feldenkrais Teachers expressed percep-
tions of the value that the Feldenkrais Method added to
their personal and professional lives. In spite of the typical
challenges of self-employment and small business man-
agement, and the particular challenge of marketing a
distinctive somatic approach to learning, Feldenkrais
Teachers stated their convictions in the method. The
challenge of succinctly describing the Feldenkrais Method
and positioning it relative to more popular categories was
mirrored by the myriad ways that Feldenkrais Teachers
put their professional training into practice. The complex-
ity of the method, while making a short description
difficult, apparently facilitated its application to many situ-
ations for both teachers and students.
The results of this study have expanded knowledge

about the characteristics and practice patterns of Felden-
krais Teachers. These findings are consistent with anec-
dotal accounts about the diverse backgrounds of teachers
and the wide range of reasons students seek their services.
Still, there is considerable room for more research. We ac-
knowledge the present limitation that this is a retrospective
study and subject to recall bias. We instructed responders
to review their records as they completed the survey, but
accept that may not have occurred in all instances. Add-
itionally, some responders commented that the survey
helped them recognize areas for improved record keeping.
Prospective inquiry could reduce or eliminate many of
these concerns. The details of utilization of Feldenkrais
services by students remain unclear. The number of indi-
vidual lessons or group lessons a student attends over time
is not known from our results. This may vary with the

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reasons students seek the services of Feldenkrais Teachers,
for example, back pain vs. wellness. Future studies could
query students directly for information about why they
sought Feldenkrais lessons and what other providers they
were using to assist with their health and wellness.
The present study grew from a preliminary study and

offered participation to the census of US Feldenkrais
Teachers via web-based or paper formats. While training
standards are similar worldwide, findings are limited to
the US and might differ from surveys of teachers in
other countries. Strengths of the survey include its in-
corporation of questions adapted from prior surveys of
CAM providers and consumers, inclusion of items spe-
cific to the Feldenkrais Method, and rounds of review by
focus groups of Feldenkrais Teachers before finalization.
No response bias existed based on geographical distribu-
tion or gender. However, Assistant Trainers and Trainers
were more likely to respond than teachers without these
advanced credentials. The main limitation is the overall re-
sponse rate of 30.5%; this may indicate a risk of lower ac-
curacy for the survey results. However, responses for
questions in the preliminary survey that parallel ones in
the present survey provided comparable results. As a check
on the reliability of the 12-month data, we asked respon-
dents to provide information for representative months of
practice for comparison. Responses for the representative
month review and the 12-month review were similar.
While these factors provide support for the reliability and
validity of this survey, we cannot eliminate the possibility
of non-response bias in our results.

Conclusions
The results of this survey of US Guild Certified Felden-
krais Teachers indicated that 90% were college educated
in a broad range of disciplines. The most common was
physical therapy. Over half held 1 or more credentials in
conventional health care, CAM, or disciplines outside of
health care. The most common in each category were
physical therapist, massage therapist, and education. The
growth in the number of Feldenkrais Teachers was sig-
nificant during the 1990s and 2000s and occurred at a
faster rate than that for Certified Feldenkrais Assistant
Trainers and Certified Feldenkrais Trainers. Feldenkrais
Teachers were predominantly located in the states of Cali-
fornia and New York, and in the West region. Most were
women and ages 50 years or older. Practices varied in size
and settings. Just under half of Feldenkrais Teachers
earned 20% or less of their gross income from their prac-
tices, while a quarter earned over 80% of their income
from Feldenkrais practice. Information about visits and in-
come indicate most Feldenkrais Teachers had part-time
practices. Feldenkrais Teachers mostly had offices outside
of their homes, operated solo practices, offered purely
Feldenkrais Method lessons, and were directly paid by

students. Those who were also conventional health care
providers were likely to have multidisciplinary group prac-
tices with other conventional health care providers, com-
bine Feldenkrais Method with their licensed practice, and
be paid more often by insurers. Students were mostly
women and mostly 45–64 years old. Their primary reason
for seeking the services of Feldenkrais Teachers was to
help with pain, followed by non-pain reasons. A quarter of
students self-referred while a fifth was referred by conven-
tional health care providers to Feldenkrais Teachers. Con-
sistent with the description of the Feldenkrais Method as a
learning approach, teachers and students utilized the Fel-
denkrais Method in a wide and diverse array of settings
and applications.
These findings can assist decision-making by stakeholders

in conventional and CAM health care in several ways. First,
it may promote strategic planning and practice develop-
ment for Feldenkrais Teachers through appropriate access
to certification, and enhanced marketing strategies and
practice management. Second, this study can improve com-
munication among Feldenkrais Teachers, health care con-
sumers and providers that informs decision-making and
fosters mutually beneficial alliances. Finally, researchers can
use the results to design studies of the characteristics of
Feldenkrais students and investigations of the safety and ef-
fectiveness of the Feldenkrais Method.

Additional file

Additional file 1: Definitions of terms provided to teachers in
survey introduction.

Competing interests
The first author is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Teacher and member of the
Feldenkrais Guild of North America (FGNA). She has received small honoraria
from FGNA for presenting workshops at its 2005 and 2009 annual
conferences.

Authors’ contributions
PB conceived of the study and coordinated and participated in all aspects of
its conduct. NN contributed to analysis and interpretation of data, and
helped to draft the manuscript. SG contributed to survey development,
performed statistical analyses, and helped to draft the manuscript. All
authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgements
This study was supported by a grant from the Iowa Osteopathic Education
and Research Grants Committee of Des Moines University (DMU) with
additional support from the Dean of the College of Health Sciences. We
thank Stacey Long, Alanna Phillips, and Donna Taylor (DMU) for their help
with development and delivery of the web survey, and the staff at the
Feldenkrais Guild of North America for their assistance with membership
information and review of survey materials.

Author details
1Toledo, Ohio 43614, USA. 2St. Anthony Regional Hospital, Carroll, Iowa
51401, USA. 3Master of Public Health Program, Des Moines University, 3200
Grand Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50312, USA.

Received: 27 March 2014 Accepted: 25 June 2014
Published: 2 July 2014

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doi:10.1186/1472-6882-14-217
Cite this article as: Buchanan et al.: United States Guild Certified
Feldenkrais Teachers®: a survey of characteristics and practice patterns.
BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2014 14:217.

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http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/14/217

http://www.feldenkrais.com/method/frequently_asked_questions/#8/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/method/frequently_asked_questions/#8/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/profession/international_training_accreditation_guidelines/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/profession/international_training_accreditation_guidelines/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/practitioners/find/
http://www.feldenkrais.com/practitioners/find/

