Jane Brody Walks on Air

“I had long refrained from writing about this method of countering pain because I thought it was some sort of New Age gobbledygook with no scientific basis. Boy, was I wrong!”

So wrote Jane Brody, health and fitness writer for the New York Times, in the Well blog this past Tuesday. She went on to describe her experiences with a group Feldenkrais class and an individual lesson and explain a few basic things about how the method works.

I’ve been following Brody’s work since college (a looong time ago!) and it was quite a delight to see this piece in the Times, to say the least.

When I got married in NYC a decade ago the Times refused to print that I was a Feldenkrais practitioner in our wedding announcement because they didn’t consider it a legitimate profession.

So this is real progress, coming about not because anything about the method changed, but because bit by bit, serious people are finally looking into it.

As a reader of this blog, you know I use the Feldenkrais Method to help runners run better. That historically has created a range of difficulties for me.

Some people look at me askance when I say what I do and think it means I’m in some kind of cult or doing, as Brody said, “New Age gobbledygook.”

Others dismiss what I know about running technique and how it can be improved because they don’t perceive the difference between what I do and the cues a form-minded coach gives runners.

But in fact I’m practicing a neuroplastic method developed by a scientist who was ahead of his time, and it’s got great potential to help runners among many other people.

As a serious person yourself, you might also want to look more deeply into the Feldenkrais method. If so, here are a few of the pieces on the method published lately:

And in case you’re hankering for more scientific materials, here’s the database of research involving the Feldenkrais Method published to date.

And if you want to try a Feldenkrais class yourself, here’s a free introductory lesson I recorded for runners:

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