Moshé Feldenkrais was born in Ukraine in 1904, then part of the Russian Empire. Three major influences shaped the life of Feldenkrais: soccer, judo, and his studies in physics. His soccer career ended due to a knee injury. Although he recovered, Feldenkrais continued to experience persistent pain thereafter. As a result of this circumstance, Feldenkrais eventually developed a unique method of movement education designed to enhance physical healing.
Decades later, psychiatrist and author Norman Doidge introduced Feldenkrais’s healing method to a broader audience through his bestselling books The Brain That Changes Itself and The Brain’s Way of Healing. One could persuasively suggest that, together, their contributions provide valuable and hopeful insights into how we learn, adapt, and recover, particularly in relation to physical injuries.
This physical therapy perspective, according to Doidge (2015) who cites Feldenkrais, originated from his judo training and teaching. During his judo teaching, Feldenkrais found that for the pupils he was working with, in relation to pain management, “difficulties were caused as much by how their brains learned to adapt to their structural abnormalities as by the abnormalities themselves” (Doidge, 2015, p. 176, italics in original). To change what was taking place, Feldenkrais had his judo pupils focus on slow and specific movements to work towards the success they were aiming for.
According to Doidge (2015, p. 176), Feldenkrais had the view that “[m]ost conventional treatments assume that function is wholly dependent on the ‘underlying’ bodily structure and its limitations.” This then led Feldenkrais to establish Principle Eleven of the Feldenkrais method titled: “Many movement problems, and the pain that goes with them, are caused by learned habit, not by abnormal structure.”
Goju Karate Training and Teaching
The focus on slow and specific movements compared favourably with what took place in my own Goju karate training and teaching, which also involved slow and specific technical movement performances.
In relation to my complex brain-based, multi-movement therapy with John Famechon, the same principle of slow, technique-specific movement was applied. As sports science research points out, according to Coyle (2009, p. 85): “going slow helps the practicer to develop something important … a working perception of the skill’s internal blueprints – the shape and rhythm of the interlocking skill circuits.”
The Debilitating Effect of Muscle Tone
Muscle tone, which may also be described as persistent involuntary rigidity, according to Feldenkrais (as noted by Doidge (2015), prevents voluntary movement from taking place. As such, in the opinion of Feldenkrais (as noted by Doidge (2015), this persistent involuntary rigidity muscle tone occurs because there are differentiated brain maps for the movement in question.
Due to this brain-based neurological inability, as noted by Doidge (2015), large muscle groups would fire and contract simultaneously. As a result, these adjacent muscle contractions would cause muscle rigidity, preventing any voluntary movement from occurring (Doidge, 2015).
Self-Initiated Voluntary Physical Movement
To remedy this, Doidge (2015) notes that Feldenkrais was of the opinion there needed to be a “body directed program,” i.e., a self-initiated physical movement that would, according to Doidge, citing Feldenkrais, change the brain to where different brain maps would be developed. According to Doidge (2015), this would lead to a situation where the current, contiguous muscle contractions, resulting in muscular rigidity, would no longer occur.
To achieve this, according to Doidge (2015), citing Feldenkrais, Feldenkrais had his patients participate in a wide variety of processes that included but were not limited to the following behaviors: (a) being completely still; (b) only using visualization; (c) only moving the non-affected limb, or what Feldenkrais often referred to as the non-distressed limb, rather than the distressed limb; and (d) having the patient engage in self-directed almost imperceptible micro-movement of the distressed limb (Doidge, 2015).
Functional Integration
Additionally, Doidge (2015) notes that Feldenkrais advised everyone not to be concerned with anything that might be viewed as a negative thought. If, during the course of a movement, a muscle tone – i.e., involuntary muscular rigidity – returned, Doidge (2015, p. 177) notes that Feldenkrais directed that the individual not to “attempt to ‘push through’ a restriction or ‘correct’ an error.”
What was needed, according to Doidge (2015, p. 177), citing Feldenkrais, was that the individual needed, with intentional and great focused deliberation, “to explore different kinds of movements, to see which felt best, which seemed most efficient and graceful.”
All of this, according to Doidge (2015), citing Feldenkrais, was about non-judgment. It was all for the purpose of finding ways to “help the brain” to assist the brain, mind and body in creating new brain maps; that would, according to Doidge, potentially lead to seamless and efficient segmented and/or holistic movement taking place (Doidge, 2015).
Brain Maps
In relation to brain maps, Doidge (2015) informs that “brain maps [are] governed by competition for precious resources and the principle of use it or lose it” (Doidge, 2010, p. 59, italics in original). Doidge (2010, p. 59, 46), referring to research undertaken by Merzenich et al. (1983), found that “when it came to allocating brain-processing power,” the brain always allocated “its neurological resources” to those parts of the brain that were the most active.
With this hypothesis of brain maps established, Doidge (2015, citing Feldenkrais) noted that what Feldenkrais was trying to intellectually advance was a coordinated brain and body scenario, where the brain, mind, and body operated as a single, integrated, and holistic neurobiological unit. According to Doidge (2015), Feldenkrais reported that the therapeutic application of this coordinated, holistic brain and body process would potentially lead to healing success. As noted above, this became known as functional integration.
Functional Integration Is All About Non-Judgment
To reiterate, this process of functional integration is all about non-judgment and finding ways to help the brain support the mind and body, enabling the brain to create new brain maps that lead to seamless and efficient movement. This non-judgmental movement process played a constant role in the application of the complex, brain-based multi-movement therapy with John Famechon, the former World Featherweight Champion.
The Event Horizon
As John advanced from simple movements to complex brain-based multi-movements, my hypothesis was (without evidence) that this movement-based rehabilitation process would further enhance John’s physical, mental, and emotional capabilities. This enhancement gradually continued until these sequential complex movements reached what became the “event horizon” circumstance.
The “event horizon” condition refers to a state in which movement sequences, regardless of their complexity in terms of thought and action, cannot be accurately performed, if at all. The process and purpose of the event horizon are intentionally demanding in a holistic sense. The ultimate aim of the event horizon process is to achieve holistic, complex, and successful brain-body integration, thereby expanding the possibilities for holistic movement.
In addition to this, I also hypothesised that the “event horizon” process would lead to the greatest neurological and neuromuscular potential. Although I had no evidence to support this hypothesis, John’s near-normal ultimate recovery suggests that this complex brain-based, multi-movement therapy, along with its associated “event horizon” process, could be described as an empirically evidence-based, successful brain and body therapy, particularly in response to an acquired brain injury circumstance.
If You Don’t Try, Nothing Will Ever Happen
However, it is important to note that there was never any guarantee that this outcome would ever occur. Still, my thinking was and has always been based on the premise that if you don’t try, nothing will ever happen. This is precisely what I explained to John and Glenys when we met for the first time on December 11, 1993. With this in mind, on December 18, 1993 (with the approval of John and Glenys), I began applying what marked the start of complex brain-based multi-movement therapy.
