The International Feldenkrais Federation Research Network is a network-in-the-making of 200 Feldenkrais practitioners with academic and/or research backgrounds. It is organized by a Steering Committee, a coordinator and volunteer task groups. The Events Group organizes research events for the network and the broader public. The Communications Group publishes blog articles on research topics and sends out a newsletter. The Data Base Group is a research group responsible for the Feldenkrais Reference Database.
Members of the Steering Committee and the volunteer task groups:
Hillel Braude, MD, PhD
is a Integrative Medicine Doctor, Feldenkrais Practitioner and Neuro-Ethicist. Hillel is the Founder-Director of SomaticWell, an Integrative Medicine Clinic providing specialized treatments for infants and children with autism, and other neurodevelopmental disabilities. Hillel has published extensively in the field of Neuroethics, Somatics and Philosophy of Medicine. He is the author of Intuition in Medicine: A Philosophical Defense of Clinical Reasoning (The University of Chicago Press, 2012). He is member of the Research Network Steering Committee.
Prof. Dr. Corinna Eikmeier
studied Violoncello, Contemporary Music and Improvisation. From 2007-2009 she was a Dorothea Erxleben scholar, working on a project about Feldenkrais and improvisation. She continued this as her PHD project at Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Vienna. Title of her dissertation: Movement Quality and Music Practice. About the Relationship Between the Feldenkrais Method and Musical Improvisation. Since 2020 she is professor for instrumental- and voice pedagogy at Musikhochschule Lübeck. She is member of the Research Network Steering Committee and of the Events Group.
Roger Russell, MA, PT
is a Feldenkrais Trainer in Heidelberg, Germany. He had the luck to participate in the San Francisco and Amherst trainings with Moshe Feldenkrais between 1975 and 1981. Roger was a coordinator in the FEFNA conferences Movement and the Development of Sense of Self (2004) and Embodying Neuroscience (2012). He has presented in conferences in Paris, Oxford, Berlin and Heidelberg. He is member of the Research Network Steering Committee and of the Communications Group.
Theresa Sawicka, PhD
Prior to her recent retirement from formal academic life she was a university administrator: She worked in two universities in New Zealand as both a Director of a Graduate School and as an Associate Director of a Research Office. Originally trained as a Cultural Anthropologist she worked as a Research Fellow on various research projects and prior to that on her PhD. She graduated as a Feldenkrais practitioner in 2010. She is member of the Research Network Steering Committee and of the Communications Group.
Liz Senn, PhD
Liz’s interests lie in infant and neurodevelopment. She graduated as a Feldenkrais practitioner in 2022 and is working towards opening a practice working with children. She is a member of the National Council of the Australian Feldenkrais Guild. Her PhD investigated the relationship between both maternal and infant gut bacteria and infant neurodevelopment. As part of her PhD, she has presented in conferences in Australia and in Detroit. She is member of the Research Network Steering Committee and leads the Database Group.
Cliff Smyth, PhD
Cliff has been practicing Feldenkrais Method for 30 years. As a member of the IFF Board and more recently the Research Group Steering Committee, he was involved in starting the IFF’s research lists, the Feldenkrais Research Journal, and the current research network initiatives. He is a Faculty Member in the Department of Mind-Body Medicine at Saybrook University. He is the editor of the Feldenkrais Research Journal and member of the Research Network Steering Committee.
Anne Frütel, MA
is an actress, stage director and acting and movement teacher. She finished her Feldenkrais training in 2021 and teaches Feldenkrais for actors. She also teaches a perception-based approach to acting, loves to build interacting human systems and is working on updating knowledge about acting to knowledge standards of our time. She is the coordinator of the Steering Committee and member of the Events Group.
Joanne Bouckley, BSc
developed a passion for movement later in life, which led to a career in sports science and physiotherapy. She enjoyed working with athlete’s coordination, motor skills and movement patterns to prevent injury and progress rehabilitation. A personal back injury in 2014 introduced her to the Feldenkrais Method, which sparked a change in how she interacted with people and widened her range of clients. Jo joined the Melbourne training in 2019. A previous research interest re-emerged and Jo moved to Adelaide to commence a PhD in 2020. She is member of the Events Group.
Ulrike Dengl, MA
studied sociology, psychology and history of art. Focusing on how knowledge is being created in societies, she got involved and interested in Systems Theory and aspects of epistemology. Attending the Feldenkrais training with Ulla Schläfke and Roger Russell in Heidelberg 2008- 2012 and recently also their graduate program she was surprisingly thrown back into the systemical way of thinking. This background in combination with the refining somatic approach of the Feldenkrais Method has given her a fundamental basis for for her life as a piano- and feldenkrais teacher and mother. She is member of the Database Group.
Pavla Prochazkova, MA
Pavla completed her studies in English and American Literature, Slavonic Languages and Modern History at the University of Bern in Switzerland. After having worked in investment banking and executive search, her lifelong interest in movement and sports and the experience with having a special needs child led her to the Feldenkrais Method. She completed her training in Heidelberg, Germany in 2020. She works as a Feldenkrais Practitioner and organizes Feldenkrais trainings in Prague, Czech Republic. She is also active in the Czech Feldenkrais Guild. She is member of the Communications Group.
Stéphanie Ménasé, PhD
Researcher in philosophy and painter, having worked for different publishers for many years (France), she is the author of a book Passivité et création, PUF, 2003, and of many articles, notably, around the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and others in relation to the Feldenkrais Method ; attending the Method as a “user” since 1991, she is certified since 2012; she has developed, during these years, an understanding of the practice of Feldenkrais as a research on human skills. She teaches Feldenkrais in French and English.
International Feldenkrais Federation Research Network 