What Feldenkrais actually is

You have not lost the movement. You have forgotten it.

Muscles do not tighten on their own. Your nervous system holds them, and after enough years of holding, it stops registering that it is doing it. The muscle feels stiff. It is not stiff. It is being held, and you can no longer feel your own hand on the switch.

That is why stretching buys you twenty minutes and then it comes back. Stretching pulls on the muscle. It does not reach the part of you that is doing the holding.

A Feldenkrais lesson goes to the switch. You move slowly and gently, with close attention, until the movement is something you can feel again. Once you can feel it, you can change it. That is why the change tends to stay.

A great deal of what gets filed under aging is this, and it can be learned at any age.