Moshe Feldenkrais on Functional Integration (FI)

-I wondered what is the difference between what you are doing now and physical therapy.  Why do we call it FI?
 
FI works with the functioning of the person rather than with an isolated part of the person-we deal with the function and not with the ingredients.
 
Now, let us see what we mean by “FI”. FI is not chiropractic, osteopathy, massage or biofeedback.  It is not gestalt.  It is not Rolfing.  It is not massage.  As FI, it is something different from all those things.  It actually contains all those items in different proportions.  It is just like a good digestion which can eat a little bit of ice cream, and a little bit of salad, and a little bit of meat.  Some of all that is organised in one function known as digestion.  It is important to realise that what we do contains some of all these things.  It does not contain them in equal portions.  FI contains them in a harmonious way which you could never separate.  The proportion of the ingredients is not ours.  The proportion of the ingredients depends upon the person whom you touch.  That person will decide it.
 
The skeleton only has bones. Yet, there is some function possible- with bones alone-  even if there isn’t someone alive to move. Therefore the proportion of the movement is not decided by me.  It is decided by the thing I touch. How much do I press that?  How far this will twist depends upon the structure, and not upon my skills.
 
Through the first years of life, you organise your entire system in a direction which will forever after guide you in that direction.  You will be confirmed forever after that you will be like that. You end up being restricted.  You find yourself capable of only doing those things that you know.  You become so attached to the things that you know.
 
In FI the person lying on the bed. We will relieve that body from the necessity of standing. All the extensors, all of the anti-gravity muscles have nothing to do. Therefore, the brain will let them stop. Therefore, all the habitual contractions in standing become futile and useless.
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In FI we are moving away from patterns which are maintained by habit and by not knowing how to go away from the familiar. 
 
We try to excite the sensory apparatus. That means the external world influencing you, going to your brain and provoking an intentional response. Intentional means the person wants to do it. Intentional means it is not a response to this stimulus, it means that the person wants to do it. Even the non-intentional will be improved. This means exciting the final function by using the entire sensory apparatus. You are not just asking the muscle to contract. Instead, you are asking the muscles to contract, harmoniously, with the rest of the body, and the way the whole body is used. The fact is that impulses which try to arrive through the normal route (which they would use for functioning) have a better chance of functioning.

Learning is one of the extraordinary things.  It is impossible to learn if everything you hear is classified by you into your prior knowledge. No human brain is capable of learning unless he sees the thing as something standing out clearly on a white background.  It must be something which enables him to feel or sense the difference.  

Moshe Feldenkrais on Functional Integration (FI), {from a lecture during training}
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