This is a video of Moshe Feldenkrais, teaching in Amherst, MA 1980-1981. Shared with permission from the International Feldenkrais Federation, Copyright 2014.

“Therefore, it’s not a question of doing that trick or the other trick. We are always saying that we use the trick in order to… we use different movements in order to do the same thing until it’s clear that we have to involve our entire being if you want to do it properly, if we want to do it elegantly, so that I feel that I am aesthetically satisfied with my performance instead of feeling that I’m no good and the teacher is no good, the classes no good, everything except that you can’t do it.

Now when you can do it, everything will be all right. The teacher, and everything else. Once you can do it, everything is alright. So it’s important to be able to involve yourself in everything we can’t do in such a way that you find there are means and ways of organizing oneself, until it becomes clear.

When it’s clear how I involve myself into the action, with myself, the whole thing falls together, it’s just pleasant to do. And if it’s not pleasant to do, it’s not worth doing anyway.

There are things where we sometimes must do when it’s unpleasant. But if all the life you do the things just because you must, they will always be unpleasant!”