Felden-WHAT?

Back when I taught my very first day-long public workshop, summer of 1982, almost no one knew who Moshe Feldenkrais was nor had they heard of his method. When told people about what I teaching, the most common response was, “Felden-WHAT?” (To this day, I’m pretty sure the main reason anyone showed up in a church basement in Syracuse, New York was thanks to the TV interview I’d done on the local news talking about Moshe Feldenkrais, the method he created, and the good it can do.)

Over the next ten years, this was a question that I would hear over and over when I spoke about our work. After being interested, bored, annoyed, and frustrated, in turn, by it, I learned to be delighted by the question as the opening to a conversation and a chance to improve my answer. One fateful night, at the birthday party for a fellow Kinesiology grad student, someone asked that question yet again. My answer came easily, and the conversation that ensued was still echoing in my head when I got home in the wee hours. Instead of going to sleep, I sat down at my computer and tapped out the story of that evening.

Almost immediately after I published the article colleagues began asking for permission to reprint it, which was both surprising and gratifying. (My response was yes with the proviso my name as author, the copyright notice and the mindinmotion-online.com website was included.) It’s been wonderful walking into Feldenkrais offices and studios in cities and towns around the world only to find a stack of copies on the information table or one pinned to a bulletin board. The article has been translated and published in Feldenkrais newsletters and journals as well as posted to colleague’s websites. Little did I know that what I’d sat down to write the post-party wee hours twenty-five years ago would become one of the most translated and distributed articles about Moshe’s method.

After a long absence, we’ve made the article available again on the Mind in Motion website in eight different languages:

Just the other day someone offered, via Facebook, to translate the article into Portuguese translation. (If you translate the article into another language, please send it to me so that I can add it to this page.)To make it easier for folks to share the article, it is now available under a Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike license. Creative Commons provides a simple, straightforward and standardized copyright that makes it possible for authors, filmmakers, scientists, and many others to share their creative work. This particular license allows others to distribute the article and make changes to it for either personal or commercial use as long as they give me credit as author and share it under the same conditions.  In other words, anyone may modify, remix, build upon, or otherwise transform the article as they please and to distribute either for free or for profit if and only if they do attach the same license for the derivative work. That keeps the creativity and goodwill going.

Creative Commons is a beautiful example of a virtuous circle. Here’s what the CEO of the organization has to say:

Our work is to build a vibrant, usable commons, powered by collaboration and gratitude.

Ryan Merkley, CEO
CreativeCommons.org

This aim aligns with Mind in Motion’s mission of fostering an international community of those of us who using Moshe’s method to improve our lives by providing infrastructure, sharing information, inspiring interaction, and offering instruction. For now, we are making some materials available under classic copyright and others via Creative Commons license. Going forward we will carefully considering the conditions under which we make various kinds of digital content available.

One more thing before I forget: in keeping with making things easy and pleasant, you’ll find a  Download PDF  button at the end of each online article. That means you’re now only ONE CLICK away from downloading the PDF.


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