About FlexAware®

x The Story of FlexAware   |   The Science of FlexAware

The Story of FlexAware

Why do so many people have back pain? Knee problems? Carpal-tunnel syndrome? Other musculoskeletal conditions?

Are people's movement habits and differences a significant factor?

Is arthritis caused by aging, as doctors and other people say? If so, why does it usually happen in, for example, one knee or hand, not everywhere at once? (The other joints are the same age, after all, and get the same nutrients.)

Why does exercise help some people with some problems, but seems to make other people and problems worse?

These are some of the questions that inspired Steven Shafarman to create FlexAware.

Steve is a successful Feldenkrais Method practitioner, and has taught in Argentina, Australia, Europe, and Israel. He studied with Moshe Feldenkrais between 1976 and 1983, and the last time Dr. Feldenkrais taught in the United States, in 1981, Steve was his assistant and appointment secretary. Steve's other teachers include Jean Houston, Robert Masters, and Ilana Rubenfeld. He is the author of numerous articles and five books, including Awareness Heals: The Feldenkrais Method for Dynamic Health.

In 1995, Steve designed and taught an intensive Feldenkrais® program for a small group of long-term chronic pain patients of the Santa Barbara County Regional Health Authority, which provides medical services to low-income residents. Participants had a variety of musculoskeletal and stress-related conditions, including chronic back pain, migraine headaches, and pain subsequent to serious accidents.

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The program was evaluated by the American Academy of Pain Management. Each participant completed questionnaires before and after, plus phone interviews one year later, and the Academy used that data to compare it with other chronic pain treatment programs. Such programs typically use diverse modalities, including physical therapy, exercise, acupuncture, biofeedback, and psychological counseling. Steve's program was more effective at about one-tenth the cost. In the year following the program, participant medical expenses fell by 40 percent.

David Bearman, M.D., the medical director of the Health Authority, and Steve wrote an article about the program that was published in the American Journal of Pain Management in January, 1999. [Volume 9, No. 1.] [ To read it ]

Most of the participants, as they improved, wanted to do more vigorous exercises than they were getting from the Feldenkrais® lessons. Several did exercise, or tried to, and one went surfing for the first time since his auto accident two years earlier. But he and others found exercise painful, either while exercising or afterward. They asked Steve to teach them how to exercise more comfortably and effectively.

They weren't the only ones. In his ongoing Feldenkrais® practice, many of Steve's students told him that exercise was painful or unpleasant. He was particularly concerned, and sometimes frustrated, when he helped someone who then went to the gym and the pain or problem recurred.

Steve created FlexAware by studying the way very young children learn and move, applying insights from anatomy, physiology, and neuroscience. He started teaching FlexAware classes in late 2002. At an international interdisciplinary conference on the Science of Whole Person Healing in March 2003, Steve gave a talk that reviewed the chronic pain study and suggested ways to get even better results with FlexAware. His paper was published in the conference proceedings. [ To read it ]

At a second Science of Whole Person Healing conference, in April 2005, Steve presented some of the theory of FlexAware in a paper on "Outgrowing Back Pain, Arthritis, Asthma, and Depression: The Somatic Paradigm." [ To read it ]

The first formal program to educate new FlexAware teachers was in August and September 2005 in Washington, DC.

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