Feldenkrais vs Yoga

I started practicing yoga at 18, and did my Feldenkrais training in my late twenties, so people have asked me: "What's the difference between Feldenkrais and yoga? Don't both promote awareness?"

My short answer is: you bring Feldenkrais to yoga classes, but you don't bring yoga to Feldenkrais classes.

Feldenkrais has shaped my lifestyle ever since I started my professional training. It has changed how I relate to other people, how I communicate with my partner, how I treat myself, how I project myself into the future, how imperfect I know I can be, and how well I feel. After a break of a few years, I've attended yoga classes after having started Feldenkrais: the experience was so much richer. The enhanced perception I had of every movement, of all the parts of myself, and of my attitudes, made it so that the yoga was a much fuller experience than I remembered. I would also be much more capable of bringing myself into action to take a position, to recruit all parts of myself to get there.

On the other hand, the value of yoga experience during Feldenkrais classes is to me harder to pinpoint. I don't think having done a lot of yoga will help in doing Feldenkrais. You don't need to be flexible to do Feldenkrais. You definitely don't need to be able to hold a down-dog to do Feldenkrais. Many yoga positions require significant muscular activity, while in Feldenkrais we explore ways in which we can use the least effort while still doing the thing we want. In yoga you are busy holding positions and doing, while in Feldenkrais you are with what you are experiencing in that moment, and you are busy exploring possibilities. I find it's a completely different mindset.

These days, I don't need to spend hours in asanas to calm down and enter this more peaceful state. I can lay on the floor, roll my head a couple of times to one side, a couple of times to the other; invisibly lift my shoulders; sweep my arms around me ... and I reach that peace, I reach that wholeness.

"It's not flexible bodies I am after but flexible minds." [Moshe Feldenkrais]