Draft translation — the English texts are awaiting final approval.
I am a Feldenkrais practitioner and a cognitive scientist — two paths that have belonged together for me for a long time.
I am concerned with the question of how body, perception and consciousness are connected — practically as a Feldenkrais and Taichi teacher, scientifically as a cognitive scientist at the University of Vienna. My doctoral thesis is devoted to imagination (mental imagery) and how it is anchored in the body; alongside that I accompany people in practice in sensing precisely this connection again — currently with a particular focus on neurodegenerative conditions such as Parkinson's.
This dual perspective matters to me: I do not only talk about movement, I stand in the middle of it myself every day.
B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the University of Osnabrück. Doctorate at its Institute of Cognitive Science on “Imagination and mental imagery — the dynamics of embodied representation”. At the University of Vienna since 2020 at the Cognitive Science Hub, most recently as Co-Principal Investigator of the FWF project “Creative Conversations with Materials”; previously Associate Researcher in the FWF project on the microphenomenology of intercorporeal synergy practices. (Draft translation)
Certified Tai Chi Chuan teacher. In Feldenkrais training, currently holding a teaching licence for Awareness Through Movement lessons; the Functional Integration training is being completed. Field research on somatic movement practices: Feldenkrais, Gaga Dance, Taichi and Ideokinesis. (Draft translation)
MA in Fine Arts in painting at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; collaboration with the writer and cyberneticist Oswald Wiener since 2001, several joint publications — this artistic background still informs my understanding of perception and movement today
grew up and worked in Paris, Birmingham, Cairo and Tel Aviv among others, at home in Vienna for some years now
For the full academic CV:
My research examines what happens in perception and body when movement is guided through language — precisely what happens in every Feldenkrais lesson. (Draft translation)
2026 · Schneider, S. M., & Kimmel, M.
„Mind Your Own Business“: Taichi Synergies From Individual Coordination To Collective Physics
Journal of Expertise
2026 · Anderwald, R., Grond, L., & Schneider, S.
Moving Bodies, Concepts, and Understanding
The Journal of Somaesthetics
https://doi.org/10.54337/ojs.jos.v11i2.108272024 · Kimmel, M., Schneider, S. M., & Fisher, V. J.
„Introjecting“ imagery: A process model of how minds and bodies are co-enacted
Language Sciences, Band 102
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2023.1016022022 · Schneider, S. M.
Intercorporeal synergy practices — perspectives from expert interaction
in: Collaborative Embodied Performance (Buchkapitel)
https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350197725.ch-0102019 · Schneider, S. M.
Bodily experience in somatic movement practices
Dance & Somatic Practices, Coventry University
2015 · Schneider, S. M.
Vorstellen als räumlich-zeitliches Konstruieren
in: Selbstbeobachtung — Oswald Wieners Denkpsychologie (Buchkapitel)
Full list of 18 publications on ORCID → https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0724-8282
The title of my site has a story of its own: “What makes you move?” was the title of a multi-part seminar I taught at the University of Osnabrück — on conscious anticipation, the moving body, sensing and deliberate practice. The question has not let go of me since, except that today I no longer ask it only in the seminar room but in practice: what makes you move — literally and figuratively? And how do we find that out together when illness, pain or simply the routine of everyday life has buried that connection?
Alongside my movement work I paint — inspired by space, speed, physicality and the connection of all living things. At present this is an independent, separate part of my work and not part of my Feldenkrais offer — but it perhaps explains why I never understand movement as merely technical, but always also as something creative.
