Research that has emerged through the IFF Academy projects

Since its existence in 2001 Feldenkrais Practitioners working within the IFF Academy have developed a range of projects and workshops for furthering the quality of the Feldenkrais Method’s use and the competency of practitioners.  These activities carried by practitioners in “Local Academy Feet/Teams” or in workshops of “Academy Hands/Global Academy Themes” have been evaluated and networked within a process of reflective practice. They do have (and will have) an enriching impact on Research by gathering and providing data in a very broad and new way of questioning, collecting and approving ideas on new methodology and terminology, designs for research processes, on presenting and interpreting outcome. Additional contributions can include suggesting general approaches of developing and investigating the Method’s application. These valuable activities could be called "participatory research" and be further elaborated; they will initiate dialoguing with the scientific world and help to develop building steps towards a theory of the Feldenkrais Method.

Some examples of IFF Academy’s “participatory research”:

a)    IFF Academy Competency Profile Project
Within this project Rob Black (CAN), Rineke Brinkhof (NL), Markus Riesen (CH), Cliff Smyth (AUS/USA) and their consultant Dr, Walter Goetze (CH) have developed a sophisticated  methodology how to generate competencies of Feldenkrais Practitioners by having them “do the job”.  Significant research has been ongoing since 2000 into definitions of competency, concepts of development of a person in a profession; reviews of competency profiles in a variety of professions and countries; reviews of methods used. Reports on these can be found in the Competency Project area of the Website.  

b)    PRISMA-Yellow (Science)
Scientific concepts influence Feldenkrais Practitioners’ practice and play a part in determining perception, thinking, and actions. The project PRISMA yellow „Scientific Concepts in the Feldenkrais-Practice. Embodied Experiences“ by Daniel Clénin, Barbara Pieper, Werner Schacker, Local Academy Foot PRISMA Munich/Berne explore whether and how it is possible to discover  a practical, embodied and  specifically Feldenkrais-related access to “science”. For that purpose they have developed a workshop format for Feldenkrais Practitioners and a theoretical framework of different scientific models used in the Feldenkrais Method.
Reference: 2nd  European Feldenkrais Congress Berlin 2005, Hard Copy Congress Documentation, Munich Spring 2006, edited by Feldenkrais Gilde Deutschland e.V. www.Feldenkrais.de  The experiences from the workshop in Soesteberg (2003) can be read at this webpage: http://www.feldenkrais-method.org/index.php?q=en/node/716

c)     Werner Kraus (D) has initiated an community based oral history project about Moshe Feldenkrais: The Team string together the collective recollection of Moshe Feldenkrais and by that way will create a new type of biography. A biography that includes the emotional and personal quality of each contribution and accepts that “reality” is not a useful concept when we think about biography. These jewels of oral history will be collected and strung the IFF Academy web-site, Contact: Dr. Werner Kraus at <WerKraus@aol.com> d)   Isabelle Ginot , France, works on the Theme "Body Image - Self Image" with a group of French practitioners. From here interesting research  may emerge, too.
People who have strong interest in these topics are welcome to write to learn how to participate.