































Feldenkrais Research Journal • volume 1 (2004)

Editorial

Introduction

Werner Kraus
Passau, Germany; Former IFF Board Member and IFF Research Portfolio

Keywords
Feldenkrais, Scientific research, self-education

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

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


     
IFF Academy 

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

 
 
Introduction 
 
By Werner Kraus 
 
    Personally, I believe that dark-colored 
clothing makes people look thinner, that 
power corrupts and that a good 
Feldenkrais lesson makes you more 
flexible and a little bit more mature. But 
do I really look thinner in black clothing? 
Does power really corrupt? And has a 
Feldenkrais lesson always a good 
result? 
It certainly happens all the time, that 
after a beautiful ATM lesson someone 
gets up from the floor and claims that 
nothing really has changed. She doesn’t 
feel more flexible than before and 
certainly she has not experienced a 
minor explosion of maturity. 
 
In order to deal with this problem we 
have a number of possibilities to react: 
1) we could in a more or less friendly 
fashion reject the experience of the 
client and regard her as a trouble maker. 
Aren’t we sure that our method works 
anyway?  
2) we could accept her experience and 
admit that not everything is good for 
everybody.  
3) we could become curious about the 
fact that her experience stands in stark 
contrast to the experience of her 
neighbor and try to find out why that is 
the case. And most probably this 
investigation would lead us to questions 
like: what does “more flexible” mean? 
What is “flexibility” anyway? What do I 
mean by “maturity” and what is the 
client’s understanding of such a term. In 
short, we would find ourselves engaged 
in a scientific discourse. In order to deal 
with this kind of everyday irritations 
science developed a tool called 
research.  
Scientific research is, as Max Weber  
used to term it, the central force for  

 
 
 
 
 
 

demystification of thought and action. 
Science developed as a highly  
historical trend which rules today, at 
least on the surface, a vast terrain of our 
social interaction. If you want to 
convince your next-door neighbor that 
the Feldenkrais Method shows good 
results, you probably can resort to your 
own experience and convince her to 
believe it. If you have to convince the 
chairman of a health insurance company 
he wants to see scientific results. The 
public expectation that we proof our 
claims in a rational acceptable way is on 
us. We cannot reject it anymore. Even if 
we are of the opinion that the 
canonization of science is just another 
form of re-mystifying phenomenological 
experience and that the Feldenkrais 
Method should be classified under the 
category of non-researchable 
phenomena. And there are a lot of good 
arguments to substantiate this opinion. 
But even in this case we have to accept 
that the majority of our contemporaries 
want to see some sort of scientific 
evidence before they accept that our 
method works. And some might even be 
interested in how and why it works. 
However we look at it, we have to build 
up a sound research base in order to be 
able to communicate with essential parts 
of the societies we are living and 
working in. 

 
The founder of the Feldenkrais Method, 
Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, certainly 
understood his work as teachable, 
learnable and therefore researchable 
project. Only a method that can be 
discussed in scientific terms, can be 
handed down to a next generation of 
practitioners. As far as I am aware Dr. 
Feldenkrais never worked on a research 



 
2 

W.Kraus/Feldenkrais Research Journal 1 (2004) 

design to investigate scientifically certain 
aspects of his teachings himself. Maybe 
he was to busy, maybe he knew how 
difficult such an endeavor would be. After 
all, the core of his method asks for nothing 
less than a holistic understanding of the 
world and its phenomena.  Fortunately his 
students where not quite as reluctant as 
their teacher. Over the last years a lot of 
Feldenkrais research has been done, as 
documented by the IFF Research List 
attached to this journal. 
The online IFF Research Journal, which is 
planned as an ongoing endeavor, 
understands itself, in the best tradition of 
the International Feldenkrais Federation, 
as a documentation service.  We, this first 
volume’s editor and the organizer of the 
IFF Academy Journal, would like to 
present to the Feldenkrais community 
samples of research works done over the 
years by different people in different 
cultures. The selecting criteria for the 
articles of this edition are not arranged 
along the line of “good” or “bad” research. 
To repeat it again: we are not the ones to 
decide, but to document. We are the ones 
who offer the community access to an 
ever-growing selection of Feldenkrais 
research and the wisdom, competence 
and knowledge of the community will 
finally decide how Feldenkrais research 
could be improved. After all the 
Feldenkrais Method basically stands for 
self-education. 
 
The first volume, which is presented to 
you here, includes American 
(Bearman&Shafarman, 
Buchanan&Ulrich), German (Laumer), 
Swedish (Lundblad) and Belgian 
(Frydman) research works. It begins with 
a very wise friend of Moshe Feldenkrais – 
Friedhelm Kemp - followed by articles on 
the nature of Feldenkrais research 
(Stephens, Ginsberg, Yoly) and it includes 
a rather blunt critique of Feldenkrais 
research methods by a non-Feldenkrais 
movement scientist (Ives) as an answer to 
an article by Buchanan&Ulrich; it ends 
with thoughts about a future dialogue 

(Schacker) and last but not least offers a 
little help for beginners in the matter, a 
‘Beginners guide to Science’ (Theuring) 
gives an introduction to all those who 
hardly ever got in touch with any 
research projects, but would like to 
contribute in the future. 
Besides a wide geographical range we 
also have a historical depth – Frydman’s 
article is regarded as the first 
Feldenkrais-related research work ever 
done. Kemps’ essay ‘Walking Upright’ 
was published 1969. As an international 
institution the IFF Academy decided to 
have most articles in their original 
language of publication and in an 
English version as well.  
Finally the journal presents the most 
substancial list on Feldenkrais research 
and Feldenkrais research related works. 
To keep this list up-to-date everybody is 
invited to give notice of any research 
piece not yet included in this list. 
(contact: Werkraus@aol.com) 
The hope of the editor is, that this journal 
might encourage one or the other of our 
colleagues to engage in Feldenkrais 
research. As a community we have 
reached the “critical mass” for a major 
break through. Let’s move on. 
 
 
Passau/Germany March 28, 2004 
 

 


