DETROIT - Joanna Myers is a 35-year-old professional violist in Michigan who plays with the Ann Arbor and Saginaw symphonies.

She's also a certified Feldenkrais instructor, leading people through the very movements that helped her overcome a troubling tremor caused by tendinitis in her left hand years ago that threatened her ability to play.

"You're experimenting with how you move," she said. "The improvement builds with each lesson. You're engaging in organic learning. Change happens quickly, and in an effortless way."

Like yoga and Pilates, Feldenkrais (fell-den-KRICE) has been around for a long time. Moshe Feldenkrais, a Russian-born judo black belt, physicist, mechanical engineer and educator, first started full-time teaching of his technique to improve the way people move, think and feel in Israel in the mid-1950s.

And like yoga and Pilates did, Feldenkrais is creeping into the consciousness of American households. Every week this spring in the Detroit metro area, there are new Feldenkrais classes starting at local YMCAs, colleges, hospitals, physical therapy clinics and parks and rec departments.

"It's definitely more popular locally," said practitioner Joan Clarahan, 52, a physical therapy specialist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. "There are many classes. Doctors refer patients to me as a physical therapist specifically to incorporate this into their physical therapy. I think it's one of those things that's all of a sudden going to go big."

AWARENESS THROUGH MOVEMENT

Sometimes Feldenkrais classes are sneaky: they pose as courses on pain-free horseback riding, better running, a way to improve yoga form. Generic Feldenkrais classes are often called "Awareness through Movement" instead.

"Because Feldenkrais is such a strange-sounding word, people think that it's a religion, or a cult," said Marjorie Levine, an occupational therapist in Southfield who leads an introduction to Feldenkrais for gardeners. "It's marketing."

Sandy Hubar, a 54-year-old nurse and dedicated student of Myers', first got into Feldenkrais by taking a class on ways to improve her running and walking.

"The first class I went to, it was really bizarre to me," she said. "I was lying on the floor, making small movements that made absolutely no sense. I sat up - and my posture was a lot better. It doesn't make sense that it's going to work. But as you get used to it, you know what's going to happen.

"I wanted to walk better. I had no idea that my posture or whole body movements would change."

It's helped her swing dancing, horseback riding, walking and sailing, she said.

"It feels really good. You feel really relaxed afterwards - you sleep really well," Hubar said. "I love yoga. Yoga's hard. This is sooo easy."

SMALL, GENTLE MOVEMENTS

Michele Schoel's voice is calm and soothing.

"Sit on the edge of your chair, feet flat on the floor. Now gently turn your upper body, neck and head to the right. Stop before there is any pain, tightness or discomfort. Note the spot on the wall where your eyes have stopped."

Schoel is a 43-year-old physical therapist and certified Feldenkrais Method practitioner from Farmington Hills, Mich. She works at the Abilities Center in Walled Lake, Mich., where she and another therapist use Feldenkrais to help children with disabilities.

She's leading a demonstration of the method. The focus is on small, gentle movements done with focus and concentration, first to the right, then to the left. There is no stretching. There is no force.

"Now turn your head, eyes and shoulders to face forward. Keep your head and eyes facing forward and turn just your shoulders to the right, then back to the middle, five times. Don't force the movement. Don't hold your breath."

Despite its recent successes, Feldenkrais is anything but a fad. Its instructors tend to be physical therapists, occupational therapists and massage therapists. And like Myers and Clarahan, Levine and Schoel, almost all of them got into teaching Feldenkrais because they had an injury or pain or other problem that it helped.

"Now turn your head, eyes and shoulders to the right again and see if you are turning farther than the first time. Return to facing forward."

Schoel took the rigorous 4-year, 800-hour program to become a certified Feldenkrais instructor after the method helped her overcome pain and posture issues related to back surgery she had in her early 30s.

The key to Feldenkrais, and what sets it apart from yoga and Pilates and its more-strenuous brethren, is its total focus on how people move. While those other disciplines may ask you to work on achieving a particular pose or position, Feldenkrais is all about making tiny motions that force you to think about how you move - and force your brain to focus on those movements .

If you've tried Schoel's exercise, you're probably struck by two things: how easy it was - done properly, you should have felt no pain or tension - and how much difference there was in how far you turned before and after you tried it.

"You teach your body to move in ways it has forgotten," Schoel said. "The idea is to get more fluid movement throughout your skeleton. As we grow, we develop movement habits. This is neurological retraining."

FINDING QUALIFIED TEACHERS

"There's a lot of kinesthetic evidence to show that it does help in a lot of ways," said Colleen Greene, wellness coordinator for the University of Michigan. But she has steered clear of scheduling Feldenkrais sessions on campus, for one simple reason: She has no good way to select who will lead them.

"It's difficult to know how well they know what they're doing," she said. "If I'm leading a step aerobics class and I don't know step aerobics that well, people won't get a good workout. With Feldenkrais, people could get hurt."

If she were seeking a Feldenkrais class or practitioner, she'd look for someone with an additional medical background - a physical or occupational therapist, for example. And she'd go to class to watch.

"There are lots of different teaching styles," Greene said.

EASING PAIN AND TENSION

Hubar's friend Cyndy Cleveland, a 47-year-old master's degree coordinator for the Erb Institute at the University of Michigan, says she adores the classes. She takes group sessions when they're available, or she and Hubar and others will arrange their own group lessons from Myers.

Cleveland does a wide variety of activities, ranging from dancing to skating to sailing to swimming.

"It feels really different from anything else I'm doing," she said. "It's really `Less is more.' "

Levine agrees. The 55-year-old occupational therapist has been practicing Feldenkrais for eight years. She got into the method after it helped her cope with debilitating arthritis. A decade later, she was certified.

"With Feldenkrais, we don't ever try and fix anything," she said. "We attempt to improve the whole system. The Feldenkrais Method is about learning, not about doing exercises."

"Most of us use a lot of muscles to hold ourselves up," Clarahan said. "We overwork our muscles. If our muscles are working to do what the skeleton is supposed to do, they're not free to move. We feel restricted or tight or sore. You don't have to stretch; your muscles just start to release. It's how you coordinate what you have."

Individual Feldenkrais sessions are different from group classes. The practitioner focuses on specific problems, selecting the appropriate lessons from the hundreds that the method includes. In the individual sessions, instructors will provide hands-on help to guide individuals through proper movements.

For Cleveland, it has helped with the upper body and back tension she feels after working in front of a computer for 10-12 hours a day.

"I couldn't shake it," she said. "I'd get a massage and it would feel good for a day."

Now she takes a break and does a few of the exercises from her Feldenkrais sessions. "And then I'm fine. It's amazing."

Nora Foster, a 57-year-old dietician from West Bloomfield, started taking Schoel's classes after she saw a book that mentioned the method in a doctor's office where she was working. She was having trouble getting rid of her everyday stress- related neck and back pain.

"I didn't think it was going to do anything. You don't feel like you're doing anything," she said. "You lay there and you do this little movement this way, this little movement that way. It builds. The movements, they just seem quirky. You might spend 15-20 minutes just moving your eyes."

But she could see an impact immediately, she said.

"You notice that you feel different. It really helps your balance, your posture. And I felt a lot better. It's so easy, I really liked it. I did get results - I wouldn't say they were real dramatic. But I know I'll go back to it when I get the chance."

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Feldenkrais videos, information and links to local instructors: www.feldenkrais.com