Functional Integration (FI) lessons are tailored to a person’s individual needs and interests, focusing on their individual habit patterns, helping them become aware of their unconscious habit patterns that limit movement.  They are hands-on movement lessons with a Feldenkrais Practitioner where you lie or sit, comfortably clothed, on a low padded table, and last approximately one hour. The practitioner guides the person through a series of precise movements that demonstrate new movement possibilities to the nervous system. This allows new, more functional movement patterns to be available, and changes habitual movement patterns. 

For example, two riders might both habitually lean to the left on the horse, but the reason can be very different. One rider might have had an ankle injury that was healed long ago, but still holds the ankle stiffly, causing that side of the body to be unable to fluidly open to facilitate the turn on the horse. Another rider might remain habitually contracted in the ribs on one side, unable to open the ribs to allow a fluid movement through the turn. The Feldenkrais Method teaches riders how to stop interfering with themselves when on the horse, and move in a more symmetrical and balanced fashion.

A lesson explores what habit patterns and movement restrictions cause the leaning to the left. The result of the lesson is greater awareness of the movement patterns, and the ability to have new choices for movement, so it is possible to turn easily in both directions.