We have another of Olena Nitefor’s ATM lessons available. The lesson is called “Legs pushing pelvis and rocking the back” and it is based on AY#224. This lesson was the first lesson taught at a recent workshop. Note it is quite long (70+ minutes) but is very rich.
The lessons can be downloaded at Olena’s ATM page. We hope you enjoy them and feel free to give feedback here.
I am happy to annnounce that Assistant Trainer Olena Nitefor has contributed two more ATM to openATM.org: AY#60 “On the Stomach” and AY#341 “Simpler, On the Stomach and Back”. In Olena’s own words:
I teach five day advanced trainings which are dedicated fully to ATM. While each workshop has its own particular theme, I have an ongoing dedication to Moshe’s insistence that, “It will organize itself.” He does not suggest that we are learning to organize “it.” Quite a distinction to consider! From this comes my interest in how to guide the “I” so that the intelligence of “it” has time and space to emerge. Moshe in AY #478:
“Do it more easily at the points where it is difficult.Do not try to push more, but at the points where it is difficult, do it more easily, a gentler movement, more slowly. Then, slowly it will organize itself.”
Each of the ATMs below comes from the context of a different five day workshop. The way I teach, and the length, depends on the group on the floor, as well as the sequence of the particular ATM within the workshop. Some therefore, will not have a formal scan, some will have a long one. As a teacher, I am working on not starting every sentence with “so,” not to repeat “a little bit” quite so much. and how to not huff and puff into the mic. While I code the lessons as AY#, they are versions thereof.
The lessons can be downloaded at Olena’s ATM page. We hope you enjoy them and feel free to give feedback here.
The openATM project is happy to announce the release of Olena Nitefor’s interpretations on the Mia/Gaby San Fransisco Evening Lessons. There are 12 lessons in all. To view the lessons, please go to
Olena Nitefor’s Recordings Page
or click on over to the Recordings page.
In Olena’s own words:
These ATM lessons are my interpretations of the 1977 Mia Segal and Gaby Yaron San Francisco evening classes lessons taught during the San Fransisco training. The notes for these lessons are available from Feldenkrais Resources. These versions of the lessons were recorded at the request of a practitioner and were recorded with her as the only student on the floor, which is why they may seem idiosyncratic. Most are under an hour long, but a few extended longer, and even much longer. After each ATM, before checking the recording device to see how much objective time had passed, she and I discussed our subjective time perception. The first question was: did it feel too short, too long or just fine to each of us. The second step was guessing how much time had passed, so we could laugh about the constant discrepancies between the sense of time, the thinking about time, and objective time.
When I started out as an ATM teacher 25 years ago, these evening classes were my treasured source. I have always appreciated the conciseness with which Gaby and Mia address basic functional relationships. It has been illuminating to revisit these lessons, and to understand them through the experience of the intervening years. Conscious that I was recording with an aim to share, I found myself self-conscious at the beginning of some of the ATMs. You’ll hear it. I will add classes as we continue to record them. Page numbers refer to the new, formatted edition of these lessons. I highly recommend purchasing the book of lessons for deeper study.
We would love to hear your feedback on the lesssons.
Some of you may be new to Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons and don’t really know where to start. There are so many lessons on the site with a great variety of movements. Although in theory any ATM lesson should be appropriate to anyone (as long as they follow the principles of ATM), for newbies, certain lessons are just easier to digest than others and create a greater feeling of learning and change. But which ones? Well, it does depend on the individual but below are some ideas of places to begin.
Note that these are a biased to my own lessons as I was able to observe the students during the lessons. All the above lessons are part of the ATM canon and can be found on the ATM recording page
Any ideas for additional starter lessons are welcomed
yesterday (may 7), was the free ATM marathon at the anoone feldenkrais studio in solana beach ca. many fine feldenkrais practitioners from across the county came and taught. classes were packed with lots of people new to ATM. it was very cool. I taught two ATM classes and recorded one of them (the other was highly improvisational and would’ve made no sense as a recording). The lessons is called “Working with the Dominant Hand” and is derived from AY#124. This lesson was taught twice in our training and is a wonderful slow meditative lesson. The lesson is all lying on the back and mostly doing small movements with the wrist, fingers, and forearm.
It can be downloaded from the ATM Recordings Page or below
| Date | Title | Source | Time | |
| 05/07/2011 | Working with the Dominant Hand | AY#124 | 51:13 | Download |
I hope you enjoy the lesson.
Hi everyone, I’ve posted a new ATM by Liz Sisco. The lesson is called Bridge 1 – and is in the canon of classic ATM lessons. It was taught on Febuary 26th 2011 at the Feldenkrais Institute of San Diego.
It can be downloaded from the ATM Recordings Page or below.
| Date | Title | Source | Time | |
| 2/26/2011 | Bridge 1 | Esalen | 53:58 | Download |
I hope you enjoy the lesson and post a comment if you have any thoughts about the lesson.
I’ve posted a new ATM by Liz Sisco. It is called “Chair Lesson” and it is an adaptation of a lesson taught by Jack Heggie from his Healthy Back series. It was taught on Feb 5th 2011 at the Feldenkrais Institute of San Diego. In Liz’s words:
From morning to night we sit: in our cars commuting to and from work, at our desks, when we eat, on the couch, or in our favorite easy chair. This week we will explore how to make sitting a dynamic, integrated activity that leaves you feeling refreshed and relaxed at the end of the day.
It can be downloaded from the ATM Recordings Page or below.
| Date | Title | Source | Time | |
| 2/5/2011 | Chair Lesson | Heggie Healthy Back | 56:55 | Download |
I hope you enjoy the lesson and post a comment if you have any thoughts about the lesson.
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Back in Oct 2010, I taught an Improve Your Surfing Workshop: 1. Paddling at Anita Noone’s very cool Solana Beach Feldenkrais Studio. I had meant to write about it, slacked, and I’ve finally been kicked in the bum.
One issue that many surfer’s have as they get older is that paddling becomes more and more difficult. Unlike swimming, paddling a surfboard requires the ability to extend throughout the entire back to effectively paddle. This is because on a surfboard one cannot rotate the torso during a stroke cycle – as one can in freestyle swimming – otherwise one rolls off of the board. By extending the back, the shoulders are elevated over the water surface making the paddle stroke easier. Furthermore it also allows one to bring the face and eyes to the horizon so one can see where one is going, where the waves are, etc. Often older surfers lose the ability to extend leading to a cascade of effects including 1) reduced paddle power, 2) not being able to comfortably handle late drops into waves, 3) surfing bigger bulkier boards they might have disdained when younger, and 4) neck, shoulder or back pain.
Thus the focus of the workshop was to improve extension from the prone position. We did a number of ATM lessons. The first 3 are posted on the Workshop page. Participants got to evaluate their paddling position with a paddling simulator – an old surfboard mounted on foam pillows to provide some instability like when paddling in the water. Some pictures were taken both before and after, and here are two case examples
The first is from T. (see below) who has been surfing since he was a kid. His initial paddling position isn’t too bad, but notice the difficulty with getting the face and eyes to the horizon
After the 5 1/2 ATMs (!), T. got back on the paddling simulator and notice the ease with which the face is to the horizon and the lift through the entire back
Another example comes from C. (see below) who has learned how to surf much more recently. Notice the great difficulty in raising her head and shoulders. This severely limits paddling power and probably leads to tired shoulders and neck even after short surfing sessions.
After the workshop, notice below how C is laughing at her surprise as to how much she is able to lift her head. The back is extending now when before it kinda wasn’t.
Of course there is a lot more to paddling a surfboard than just extending the back. But for many surfer’s, improving this is the most simple way to better more pleasant paddling. The clever will notice that of the 1st 3 ATMs in the workshop, none involved extension movements and only a little bit of lying prone (on the stomach).
Comments?
Back in October 2010, I posted some statistics about how many ATMs were being downloaded from the openATM.org site and in all the different parts of the world. Well it is a year now that the new openATM.org site has been active and I thought it interesting to look at some of these statistics now. Over the past year there have been:
We keep on slowly adding lessons and improving the site. I welcome any feedback you may have. And now, lie down on the floor, scan yourself, and enjoy the lessons.