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Editorial

Foreword: Science, Research and our Professional field

Cliff Smyth
IFF President; Feldenkrais Center for Movement Education, San Francisco

Keywords
Feldenkrais, Learning, Brain, Movement, Embodiment, Scientific method, Phenomenology

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

Please cite: (First published in the) Feldenkrais Research Journal, volume 1; 2004.

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

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https://feldenkraisresearchjournal.org


     
IFF Academy 

Feldenkrais Research Journal 1 (2004) 
® 2004 by the author 

 
Foreword:  
Science, Research and our Professional field 
 
By Cliff Smyth 
 

I am delighted to be able to write a few words of introduction to this new International 
Feldenkrais Federation Journal. It is published at a very important time. There is clearly an 
upsurge of interest in science and research in our professional field. In December 2002 almost 
200 Feldenkrais practitioners and other professionals gathered in Paris for the "Learning, 
Brain and Movement" meeting – "a dialogue between leading scientists and Feldenkrais 
teachers". 1 Coming later this year is the Symposium on Research and the Feldenkrais Method 
on "Movement and Development of Sense of Self" 2 – to be held in Seattle in August. We can 
all benefit from the development of the thinking and dialogue in our community about 
research and our developing relationship with the world of science. 
 
What is research for? I believe that for us, as practitioners, and for most of our clients and 
students, we don't 'need' scientific research to 'prove' the Feldenkrais Method 'works'. We 
experience its effectiveness for improving our action in the world. Ours is a sophisticated 
practice. One of the scientists at the Paris meeting suggested that it might take 500 years to 
conduct research into all the aspects of the Feldenkrais Method! 
 
There is an enormous amount to be understood about our Method – just for ourselves. 
Research is a particular way of asking questions – sometimes hard questions. Useful 
understandings can flow. Implicit in our work are many aspects of the scientific method as it 
is actually practiced in the lab. There are new bodies of scientific knowledge – from cognitive 
psychology, neuroscience, and many other fields – we can draw on to reflect on our practice. 
Increasing our scientific literacy can improve our ability to think about our work. 
 
At the same time, the rest of the world is increasingly seeking to understand us and wondering 
how to value what we do. We live in a world that continues to privilege scientific paradigms. 
The nature of modern society means that institutions seek proof of the efficacy when adopting 
or including new approaches. They look for at least some research into outcomes to justify 
their decisions – especially financial ones. 
 
How to go about researching our rich practice? In many ways we are at a similar stage of 
development that the natural sciences were hundreds of years ago before the development of 
strong theories and sophisticated tools of measurement. 
 
One possible approach is to pursue phenomenological concepts: finding ways to create the 
kinds of 'thick description' of what we do that the anthropologists utilise in their fieldwork. 
We have made a good start with a strong tradition of writing and publishing case studies in 
our journals. We need to continue to improve upon our ability to reflect on what we are doing 
as we are doing it – this is essential for practicing professionals. This will not only inform our 
                                                 
1 The “Learning, Brain and Movement” meeting in Paris, December 2002 was initiated and made 
possible through the united work of Sabine Pfeffer and Accord mobile, Carl Ginsburg and Roger 
Russell. 
2 “Movement and Development of Sense of Self” in Seattle, August 2004, was initiated by Esther 
Thelen, Roger Russell and Ulla Schläfke and is supported by the FGNA.  



 
2 

C.Smyth/Feldenkrais Research Journal 1 (2004) 

practice, but help us "...to find ways of articulation what we are actually doing, moving it 
closer to the possibility of empirical studies that would in turn illuminate our work".* 
 
There are many challenges. One is non-specificity of the 'outcomes' of what we are doing. 
What should we be observing, measuring and asking questions about? What constitutes 
improvement? When is an improvement in one part of a complex system meaningful in the 
dynamics of the whole system? Should we be asking about movement, pain, creativity, 
quality of life? Many of us, thinking about the Feldenkrais Method, find an affinity for ideas 
falling under the heading of 'dynamic systems approaches'. Yet these conceptual approaches 
present significant difficulties in designing research – identifying suitable questions, 
identifying and capturing the complexity of the interactions between large numbers of 
variables, etc. Empirical research presents its own unique challenges: What should we be 
measuring? What tools are appropriate? What is a meaningful result in terms of our practice? 
 
Despite – or because of – these constraints, embracing the question of research has much to 
offer us. To better understand what we think we are doing. To better understand some of the 
phenomena we observe in practice. Clarifying our language. And the possible social 
acknowledgement. For these benefits we need to engage in a dialogue within our professional 
field about research – and a dialogue with science and scientists about their practice. This 
Journal will be part of that process. 
 
I am very pleased that this is the first of step of a continuing project of the IFF Academy to 
publish an ongoing IFF Research Journal. 
 
Very special thanks go to Dr Werner Kraus, former IFF Board member and holder of the 
Research Portfolio, who has worked for a long time to see this Journal come to fruition. Also 
the IFF's new Academy Co-ordinator, Carolin Theuring, who has worked to pull this Journal 
together in the last months. 
 
 
Cliff Smyth, IFF President, March 2004. 
 
 
 
* Don Hanlon Johnson (Ed). Groundworks: Narratives of Embodiment, North Atlantic Books, 
Berkeley, 1997, p. 4. 
 


