What is Functional Integration?

PRIVATE ONE-ON-ONE Feldenkrais lessons, called FUNCTIONAL INTEGRATION ®, are tailored to each student’s individual learning needs; In a typical Functional Integration session, you lie or sit fully clothed on a low table while the practitioner touches and moves you in gentle, non-invasive touch. All lessons are designed for step by step improvement in movement abilities. The intent of this touch is to explore your neuromuscular organization – the way in which you respond to touch and movement – and to have tactile communication with your central nervous system about how movement is directed and controlled. You learn to reorganize your neurophysiology in new and expanded functional motor patterns that result in improved movement. Practitioners of Feldenkrais use small gentle movements. These are given either by verbal instruction or through gentle, non-invasive touch. The method helps students explore and develop self-awareness and intentional control. The method focuses on the central organization of movement—the image in the motor cortex of the body in movement. The teacher presents some novel stimuli which the student then explores and attempts to incorporate into an action image. This is done without the intention of a particular outcome. Thus the student is free to explore the sensory images and motor responses without forcing a particular type of response. Students develop a clearer image of how movement is controlled and performed. In this way it is possible to change old movement patterns and learn new ones. Because the work engages the student in a cognitive, sensory way, it gives the student the means to take charge of his or her own care and self-improvement. Functional Integration