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Moshe Feldenkrais (Doctor of Science, Sorbonne) was an engineer, physicist, inventor, martial artist and student of human development.

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Born in eastern Europe, he emigrated to Palestine as a young man. Later he studied at the Sorbonne and worked in the Joliot Curie laboratory in Paris during the 1930s.

His interest in Jiu-Jitsu brought him into contact with Professor Kano who developed the sport of Judo.

He was the founder of the Jiu-Jitsu Club of Paris and was one of the first Europeans to earn a black belt in Judo.

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He began to develop his Method and wrote his first book on the subject in Britain in the 1940s. A knee injury, and uncertain prospects for surgery, began Feldenkrais on what was to become a life long exploration of the relationship between movement and consciousness. 

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In developing his work Moshe Feldenkrais studied, among other things, anatomy, physiology, child development - his wife was a pediatrician, movement science, evolution, psychology, a number of Eastern awareness practices and other somatic approaches.

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He wrote books on movement, learning, human consciousness and somatic experience. He taught in Israel and many countries in Europe through the 1960s and 1970s and in North America through the 1970s and 1980s. 

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In his life Dr. Feldenkrais worked with all kinds of people with an enormous range of learning needs -from many infants with Cerebral Palsy to leading performers such as the violinist, the late Yehudi Menuhin. He taught over a number of years for the dramatist Peter Brook and his actors. He was a collaborator with thinkers such as anthropologist Margaret Mead, neuroscientist Karl Pribram and explorers of the psychophysical Jean Houston and Robert Masters.

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