Moshe Feldenkrais was born in Ukraine in 1904. He spent his early childhood in Belarus during the years of WWI. At the age of 14 he emigrated to Palestine. As a young man in he worked as a laborer and studied Jujitsu. He returned to school and received a degree, and then was employed by the British as a cartographer. In 1929 he injured his knee in a soccer match. This injury would reoccur later in his life and be an impetus for developing his somatic method.
Feldenkrais moved to Paris in 1930 and enrolled in a doctoral engineering program at the Sorbonne. He took up work at the Radium Institute with Fredric Jeloit-Curie as a graduate student. Later he worked in laboratories developing atomic fission experiments, magnetics and ultrasound During this time in Paris he met Judo founder, Jigaro Kano, in 1933. He began to train in Judo and later became a 2nd degree black belt. He left Paris in 1940 just before the Nazi's arrived and went to England.
During WWII Feldenkrais worked as a scientific officer for the British. He continued to teach Judo and self defense and published several books on the subject. However his knee injury was reaggravated during this period and he began to work with himself to rehabilitate his knee. He was quietly developing his method and gave experimental classes and private lessons during the later years of the war. After the war ended he moved to London and continued his Judo studies. He published his first book on his method The Body and Mature Behavior in 1949.
He returned to newly established Israel in 1950. He worked with the Israeli Army's Electronics Department until 1955. At this time he moved to Tel Aviv and began to practice the Feldenkrais Method® full time, giving classes and private lessons. In 1957 he gave lessons to Israeli Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, teaching him how to stand on his head! And in the late years of this decade he began to present his method in Europe and the United States.
He trained 12 students in Tel Aviv in the late 60's to be practitioners of the method. Next he gave a 4 year training course for practitioners in San Francisco at Lone Mountain College ('75-78). Feldenkrais had several strokes during these years. He managed to rehabilitate himself and continue to work and teach. His final training in the United States was at Hampshire College in 1981. He died in July of 1984.
Selected books by Moshe Feldenkrais:
The Potent Self Awareness Through Movement (1972) The Case of Nora (1977) The Body and Mature Behavior (1949) Higher Judo (1952) The Elusive Obvious (1981)
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