DIY Feldenkrais?

Yesterday i received a feldenkrais treatment from a friend.It was a short session, but effect was unbelievable.I can put it this way: It was like my hand has been frozen for whole my life and for those couple of minutes on session, i felt blood pumping through my veins for the first time.And then, that beautiful thing went away.My question is: What do i have to do to recreate that myself and is there a way to make this change last longer?

A tough question and one that many people in the Feldenkrais community ask as well. There are Awareness Through Movement lessons online which, if you do them assiduously, will give similar effects. You can also buy CD's or Mp3's of lessons. It is great to have the instructor's voice telling you what to do, because then you can devote your whole attention to the specific kinesthetic sensations of the lesson, and it is this that makes the process work. In Feldenkrais we use such tiny increments of movement because it is only on that very low level of effort that the neurological element of movement can be clearly felt. The brain works with very fine levels of electrical impulses, and you must learn to do these tiny, finicky movements and feel the result in order to access the way the brain can change - it is not easy! Sorry I can't really give you a lesson here, but the information and experience IS out there... AFF

Hi, I'm a newbie here and 76 yr old retired chemist. In my youth I had 5 years of piano lessons. Just over 3 years ago I decided to get back into it and make a hobby out of trying to do it without lessons. I soon had back problems and was referred by my eminent pianist friend to the Alexander technique (AT) about a year and a half ago. Again on my own, I tried to learn it and mesh it into my piano playing. I soon had great relief from back pain. But after doggedly staying with AT, the promised improvement on piano performance has really only been recent. Mainly its been a matter of sharing concentration on the actual piano playing while also concentrating on AT. Bare with me and I'll tie this into Feldenkrais. Reading about the ATM and movement aspect, I very recently decided that instead of just going thru my AT routine with the AT directions just before actual piano, I would do something pianistically simple while going thru my AT routine that involves both hands. For this I chose the one octave C major scale using both hands simultaneously. To me, this approach has a similarity to Feldenkrais (F) in that I was including movement on the piano into my AT routine (anti alexandroid). Not only could I see immediate benefit, but when I tried to proceed up the major scales (C sharp, D etc,) I was finding them easier to play. Furthermore, when I went to the pieces I've been working on for a long time, there was added body freedom over what I'd experienced before and I played better. So all this told me that short of actually taking lessons, if I could find a list of F exercises specifically geared to piano players, I could get a lot of benefit. Now I realize that Alan Fraser has provided a few, that I know of, and maybe I should just focus on those. And I do have a very long list of F excercises, but it would be very difficult and time consuming for me to pick the ones I need from that list. So my wish for the day is to have a list of maybe 6-10 F exercises specifically geared to piano. Maybe I already have it in my recently bought second edition of Alan's book and just have to look. I also have the ATM book. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Very interesting post, thanks for sharing this interesting question with us. I would say both my second and third books will have more of interest for you, because in my first book I intentionally focused on the fingers, hand and arm alone. I felt that other people were handling the relationship of whole body to the hand in piano, and felt that my focus would be more useful. The second edition does have a little body/hand material added, but I couldn't really add a lot without changing the structure of the book too much. In my subsequent books I go into this important relationship in much greater depth. You can look at the tables of contents of both books on the online store, and perhaps decide which one seems to address your concerns better. Good luck and do keep us posted! AFF

Thanks Alan, for your valuable comments. I will keep in touch.

Following up on my 4-6-13 post, I'm not sure what I stated is all I said it was. I've not been satisfied with my ability to repeat my initial findings but still feel this approach is worth further evaluation.

Hi there, please accept my apologies for the long delay in a reply... I've been busy! 1) I think a dose of regular, generic ATM's could go a long way towards helping your approach to piano. These can be found on such sites as and 2) my books contain many ATM's for the hand and fingers alone plus several linking hand and body. 3) I myself am still in a process of developing ATM's that link piano and body, so if you come up with any insights, I would be more than happy to see them shared here! All best wishes, AFF