How the IFF Academy Emerged

The International Feldenkrais Federation (IFF) was commissioned by its member-organisations to develop and implement visions intended to further high-quality professional applications of the Feldenkrais Method. For several years now the IFF has therefore been involved in emerging the Feldenkrais Method into it’s own professional field. The May 2001 annual meeting in Kassel saw the establishment of an IFF Academy for Practitioners. Previous IFF projects concerned with quality in the Feldenkrais Method and its practitioners’ professionalism were thus given a shared lasting basis.

History: The project emerged organically. The guiding interest was that many graduates who want to practice the Feldenkrais Method effectively do not. At IFF Assemblies many reasons for this have been discussed. A number of ways have been explored to improve this through: continuous learning in peer groups, supervision, self-study, advanced training, mentorship, networking and practice, practice, practice. Realising the frequent complaint about the weak position of the practitioners, the IFF identified three different challenges that have to be met helping to support the practitioner's increasing requests for personal and professional improvement, and for the social, legal and financial standing of the Feldenkrais Method:

• The needs of practitioners working all over the world. They are at the centre of concern. There is no Method without the practitioner.
• The evolution of the FK Method after half a century of existence, i.e. its emergence into a professional field promoting advancement rather than dilution.
• Current trends in modern Western societies describing work and educational issues in terms of quality and competency.

The term “academy” takes up the original Greek idea of continuous and creative dialogue between practitioners, thinkers, and artists. Like the Feldenkrais Method itself, the IFF Academy entails an ongoing process of learning and evolution – not a finished product or predetermined structure. Modern means of communication (Internet) allow the IFF Academy to grow into an international forum, where Feldenkrais practitioners learn together, as well in local groups as globally connected, articulating their work and also making it visible within a social context. The IFF Academy thus offers practitioners new ways of developing and sharing their potential.

All activities taking place within the IFF Academy are composed according to a specific “logic”, reflecting and maintaining the process-character of this model:

1. team-work among practitioners,
2. relevance of activities for the Feldenkrais Method’s professional field,
3. evaluation,
4. publicizing and exchanging activities, and
5. such activities thus are conceived and further developed as “open sources”.

This will give rise to an expanding variety of further education-workshops (run by so called "Local Academy Feet") and supervision contexts; a competency-profile for Feldenkrais professionals will take shape; and Feldenkrais research will be encouraged.

The IFF Academy also sees itself as a creatively open space offering support to newly qualified practitioners in order to facilitate their transition into a professional career. The IFF Academy will be of assistance too, when locally-organized practitioner initiatives and interest groups – whether already established or newly-formed - wish to make their ideas known within this context.