President of the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine and Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress
Celebrating famous Jews from Ukraine: Moshé Feldenkrais
This photo depicts Moshe Feldenkrais, creator of the Feldenkrais Method, illustrating the function of the human skeleton in sitting. By International Feldenkrais Federation, www.feldenkrais-method.org - International Feldenkrais Federation, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=26042346
Several years ago, a sculpture of a man standing on his head appeared on a beach in Herzliya. It is easy to recognize the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion, in this sculpture by the characteristic hairstyle with spreading gray hair, and its prototype was a photograph of Ben-Gurion himself, which became world famous in 1957.
At the time, the 71-year-old prime minister, who was suffering from severe back pain, took a few lessons from Moshé Feldenkrais and soon posed bare-chested on the beach in an upside-down position.
Moshé Feldenkrais, the grandson of famous in Hasidic circles Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, was born in Slavuta, Khmelnytskyi region and spent his entire childhood in Western Ukraine. He received a comprehensive education, and already in Paris he defended his doctoral dissertation under the guidance of Marie Curie. According to some reports, a great deal of credit in the Nobel Prize of Marie Curie’s daughter, Irène, must go Feldenkrais.
A talented engineer who perfected sonar for detecting submarines during World War II, the head of the IDF electronics department, Feldenkrais had been simultaneously developing his own method of body self-improvement throughout his life.
According to his theory, a person in everyday life gets used to performing a certain set of movements, which both the muscles and the brain use only by 10%. His method helps to awaken the sleeping 90%, as demonstrated by Ben-Gurion on the Tel Aviv beach.
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