Awareness Through Movement Guidelines

Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons (known as ATM lessons) are effective learning tools for self awareness, pain management, and finding ease. Whether you are studying in person or at home, please read this page before taking an ATM lesson.

These guidelines and responsibilities are essential for any ATM student to read. Scroll down further for practical tips like what to wear, what to lie on, and what props you may need. For a descriptions of what Feldenkrais is, try the About the Feldenkrais Method Page. 

RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE STUDENT WHILE STUDYING FELDENKRAIS ATM LESSONS:

• If you have any concerns whatsoever about beginning a movement and somatic self-study program, check with your doctor first.

• Take off anything inhibiting your movement and breath such as watches, belts, hair buns, bras, etc. Take everything out of your pockets. 

• Breathe, and take your time. Move slowly. Slow enough that you feel relaxed and slow enough that you can breath easily. The lessons are designed to prompt neuroplastic changes in your brain, changing habits of movement and awareness to create more effective and ease filled functional movement. The Feldenkrais Method utilizes the natural human learning process, in which there is no value or need for hurried action.

• Move well within your comfort range. Never continue movements or configurations that increase your discomfort. Never move through pain. You can always imagine the movement. Rather, take even slight increases in discomfort as a prompt for curiosity and a source of creative inspiration. Ask yourself, How can you enjoy yourself more in these or similar movements, in the very next moment? When you need to improvise and adapt the movements and positions as necessary for comfort. For instance, if lying on one side is not possible for you, you can do the whole lesson on the side that is comfortable, or even do the lesson sitting in a chair while utilizing the same movements. There is nothing in Feldenkrais Method lessons that will benefit you if your nervous system perceives a threat and if pain is present and persists. Increasing discomfort qualifies as a threat, even if we’ve built habits of ignoring it in other activities in our lives. Responding kindly, compassionately, and intelligently to discomfort during Feldenkrais study is essential to your learning and improvement.

• Pause for a moment after each movement, before you re-initiate the movement again. Try to leave “autopilot” behind. ATM movements have little to no value when you’re not attending to them, so try not to repeat movements without any attention. Feeling bored of a movement? Sense around your whole body; you’ll probably quickly find a sensation you weren’t aware of. How is it related to the current movement? Or, rest your attention and pause. Ignore the lesson for a few moments – you might simply need a break!

• Develop a curiosity of your self in movement, this may lead to improved comfort. The intention of the method is to teach you how to learn from yourself. Intrinsic to each human being is the ability to learn, and learn something new. By attending more closely than usual to your experience of moving, your behaviors and habits are clarified as a result of your increase in awareness.

• You can pause the recording any time to rest or to explore further the movements you are particularly enjoying.

• Focus your attention on how you perform precise movements, noticing how it can feel simple and in harmony with easy breathing. This can be the doorway to a deeper experience.

ON RESTING:

• The rests in each lesson are of great importance as they are an opportunity to pay attention to the effect of what you have just done. Observing the effects of movements, both as you do it and as you rest are as important as doing the movements themselves. Rest in any orientation that is comfortable.

• During the resting time, your brain says, “What was that”? “What did I just do”? “How do I feel different?" It's not a rest so much so that you can catch your breath, but so that your brain can compare. During the rests integration is happening and you may feel that something is changing in your field of sensation. 

ON THE BODY SCAN:

• Something we do in a Feldenkrais lesson is a body scan. It is similar to a mirror. But instead we take in the floor kind of like a mirror. It's a very neutral surface and it reflects back at yourself as a feedback tool. A little bit like Newton, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. The floor is reflecting back at yourself, how you're organized, how you hold yourself and how you respond to gravity. The body scan illuminates your habits, your skeleton, your muscles, your image of yourself. This is traditionally done at the beginning and the end of a lesson as a way to compare how things feel different for you. 

PRACTICAL HOME STUDY TIPS:

• For most lessons you’ll need to be able to lie down on a carpeted floor, or smooth blanket or mat for about an hour. Yoga mats generally create too much friction, though a bath towel or quilt on top of a yoga mat can work. Some lessons are done sitting on the floor, sitting on a chair, or standing. 

• Dress in layers or be sure the room is warm enough. This is not aerobic or strength-based exercise; these lessons are a challenge to your awareness, coordination, and self-use, and we learn and improve in those spheres most efficiently using slow and often small movements.

• Have a bath towel or two nearby to fold to different heights for head support as needed, depending on the positions (lying on your back, side, or front). It’s assumed that you’ll take the time to place whatever support you need under your head at the beginning of the lesson, and with every change of position. Unless required for your comfort, using a regular pillow or a cervical roll for your neck is not recommended because it dampens the free movement of the head.

• The directions are always relative to you, in your current position. For example, while lying on your back the ceiling is forward, not up. Up is toward the top of your mat. Or, lying on your right side, forward is toward the wall in front of you, the ceiling is to your left, up is still toward the top of your mat. I’ll repeat and clarify directions frequently.

• If you are puzzled by my verbal instructions, you can of course do what you want, but it is best to wait and listen to the verbal instructions until they are clarified. I would suggest, at those times you are unsure, to please resist the temptation to look over at your other classmates to see what they are doing or how they interpret the instructions. By doing this, it unfortunately takes you out of your what could be otherwise, a SELF learning process. If you are listening to recorded audio, you may pause or rewind the recording as much as you wish. Even if you don’t rewind, you’ll often find your way after a minute or two. It’s often easier to stay present and enjoy the lesson if you’re not grabbing your device to rewind frequently.

• During a live class, if I feel you are misinterpreting my directions, I will gently attend to you verbally while in class. 

• If you can’t get comfortable and you are unable to alter the configuration or movements in a way that helps, you can skip a lesson and come back to it after trying other lessons. Most of the lessons are very unique in their positions and movements. The order of lessons and series are designed to inform each other. For any recorded audio lessons, it’s really easy to listen through your smartphone, tablet, or laptop – put it next to you on the floor!

In an ATM study context, we are “learning to learn”. Students become more sensitive and responsive to daily sensations of movement, and discover quality of life improvements that show up in unexpected places. The ATM principles and experiences from the lessons start to become part of regular life and functional movement becomes more effortless and ease filled.