August ATM's a variety of lessons #1

Some Fundamental Properties of Movement - Moshe - lesson three from the book

Welcome to the Feldy mix…. which will have the whole series of Moshe’s recordings from his Awareness Through Movement book.

Subscribers who have moved their way through the lessons in this first series with myself(dot)study may now have a feel for the way these lessons are orchestrated…
like music,
one note is developed
and then another added,
and another beat…. some rhythm
until every note is brought together to create the sound of a beautiful movement.

Feldenkrais is like that.

Many practices push people with an attitude of
“I want you to….
lift more, run faster, do more stretching”…
however very little attention is given to the timing of movement.

It’s a critical element in developing awareness, as most people here most probably know from their daily lives… the WHEN something happens can shape the mood, the flow, of events… sometimes to avoid potential disasters, and other times to bring together something magical.

In this first recorded lesson Moshe really gives us space to explore the timing of our movements - tip: it might be worth having a pillow for under the arms and legs at the beginning… then you can take them away at the end if you like to feel what has changed in the way your limbs connect with the ground. When I first did this lesson it felt like my arms were falling asleep - as in going numb, and it was really hard to bring them down to my sides when suggested! I’ve since done this particular lesson numerous times and can now use my torso in different ways to alleviate that concern.

In typical Moshe fashion these recordings are not entirely consistent with the lessons in the book. The first ‘lesson’ is not really a lesson at all, he goes through a series of movements for people to explore his teachings in numerous ways… for example:

ways to measure your mistakes and improvement - by placing bathroom scales under the feet while sitting down and standing up to see the needle on the scales move as weight is shift. This was obviously in a time where only those types of scales existed.

Then he offers several ‘aids’ worth trying… to:

avoid conscious mobilisation of the leg muscles
avoid conscious mobilisation of the neck muscles
cease intention to get up
explore rhymical knee movements
separate action from intention

Each different directive in this particular chapter offers mini lessons for people to get a grasp on where he is coming from with his Method. I see this first chapter as an invitation to explore and feel how his way differs from other methodologies.

Then he invites people to ‘test’ if you like some of his theories for what “good posture” is, by offering a few more mini movement lessons to feel how “efficient force acts in the direction of the movement”.

He concludes with a paragraph explaining why he thinks “lack of choice makes strain habitual”.

There is no recording for this chapter.

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The second chapter - What action is good?
- simply talks about more of how his method differs from others, starting with:

Efficient action improves the body and its capacity to act.
And then he writes further, explaining why:
Reversibility is the mark of a voluntary movement
Light and easy movements are good
Avoiding difficulties establishes behavioural norms
There is no limit to improvement
Use large muscles for the heavy work
Forces working at an angle to the main path cause damage
Develop paths of ideal action

There is no recorded lesson for this chapter either.

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The recorded lessons begin at chapter 3
Some Fundamental Properties of Movement
and this lesson is divided in to two separate recordings.

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With these audio lessons there’s a little more direction than what is written in the book. Why I thought to offer them to you is so that you can get a sense of Moshe’s pace and style, the way he guides people through movement as he interweaves his wisdom with little nuggets of gold… through them he verbally talks about some of the qualities he wrote about in the first two chapters.

In this first recording of the ATM book, before we even begin moving, he establishes what is up, down, left, right back and front. Then, later during the movements he shares the ‘why’ we do what we do… which you may have heard many times before…

“if you know what you’re doing,
you can do what you want”…

with a bit more explanation as to why for him this knowledge is important.

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With all that in the background, we now start this August special with
part 1 of lesson 3 in the book:
Some Fundamental Properties of Movement
(page 91)

Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In simpler terms, when one object exerts a force on another object, the second object exerts an equal and opposite force on the first. This means forces always come in pairs, acting on different objects. The forces act in opposite directions.

Do what you feel comfortable with, take pauses/rests whenever you need… or go the distance with Moshe and feel what you feel at the end. It might be worth taking a selfie before and after to see the differences you might be imagining match up to reality.

Enjoy learning more with, for and about your Self through these movements,
with Moshe :)