Recorded ATM lessons in English spring 2025

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Senast ändrad: 04 september 2025
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The textbook for the lessons;
Improving  the ability, a theory that can be put into practice
Chapter 4; The Structure and Virtues of its Function
§9. Made at the end and planned from the start/ Last in deed first in thought
§11. The awareness correlates between the intention to achievement
Recorded lessons from teaching in English via Zoom spring 2025
You will gain more from the lessons if you read the metacommentary below before exploring.
The lessons are independent but follow a clear thread, and I teach what I judge to be necessary for the participants to engage in a meaningful process. You can explore the lessons in order or as you see fit. I do not teach anatomical parts or predefined functions, but rather selected aspects of how action becomes intelligible.

how-to-explore-and-learn-to-learn-again

Read more
Hover the pointer or your finger over the text to click.

Relevant reading material after and in preparation for lessons

The plan of lessons is based on what I perceived during the previous one,
and think need further clarification.
the lessons include meta-comments and also meta-meta comments.
There are gradual differences, and each one according to themselves.

meta-information concerning lesson 1, 250415
From the ATM book
“Part 2 of the [ATM]book is written in such a way that it is possible for the reader to start the practical work before reading part 1.
But it is better to read the book in the order in which it is written.
It gives the reader a broadened horizon and a deeper understanding of the practical lessons and the practice thus becomes more effective."
Moshe Feldenkrais

Notice the angle between the lower leg and the foot in lessons 1 & 4, as well as the connection between the thought and the deed. In Hebrew, deed and achievement are synonyms.

I suggest that you read the entire lessons or complete them. Enough to get the context of how it is an action with awareness and how the legs are positioned for exploration during the lessons that we talked about in the first ATM.

Lesson I Straight is not appropriate

"And now to the essential of the fundamentals, the dynamic link from sitting to standing.

We have now reached the most important point of all: the dynamic transition between sitting and standing....

How to stand up:
A. Without voluntarily mobilizing the leg muscles
B. Without voluntarily mobilizing the neck muscles
C. Refrain from the intention to stand up
D. Swing the knees rhythmically
E. Separate the action from the intention"

Lesson III Knowledge of some basic properties of movements

the fifth paragraph:

"After each movement of raising and lowering, take a complete pause, stop everything, and start each movement as a separate, new action."

Lesson IV differentation of parts of functions in breathing

The first paragraph, here only the initial text. Read and explore it all

"Lie on your back; stretch out your legs, feet apart, and draw up your knees. The soles of your feet will now be resting on the ground as in the standing position, with feet apart...

meta-information concerning lesson 2, 250422

T3-T5 Crossing Point
Location: 
These are the third, fourth, and fifth thoracic vertebrae in the spine. They are located in the upper part of the thoracic spine, below the cervical spine (neck) and above the lower thoracic vertebrae.
Function:
Movement and Stability: These vertebrae contribute to the flexibility and stability of the spine, which is crucial for overall actions.
Nerve Function: Nerves originating from these vertebrae innervate parts of the chest and upper back, affecting muscles and organs in these areas.

meta-information concerning lesson 3, 250429

Voltaire, in his work "Candide" uses the metaphor of cultivating a garden to emphasize the importance of personal responsibility and practical action in improving one's life and surroundings. Jacques Derrida, on the other hand, uses metaphors related to structures and spaces, such as the "House of Being" to critique the limitations of language and the complexities of understanding existence.

I myself use the metaphor of calling man a castle with many doors and one window. Turrets and towers, ballrooms, small and large rooms, back doors, and wings. Regardless of which door the lesson recommends you enter through; you are always inside your castle. Sometimes it's the main entrance, sometimes a basement door, or through a wing.

Classical Feldenkrais lessons do not address body parts or functions.
They always address the whole living person who breathes. They touch on functions per se. I give my recorded lessons a theme name for identification, nothing more. I don't know what you, as an explorer, will discover and clarify, which is your own private and unique experience.

The lesson enters through the gate of the hip, as requested by one of the participants last week.

I am writing in advance for the lesson that I intend to create together with you, suggesting that it might be interesting to use one or two rolls. I use rolls that are one meter long and 15 cm in diameter, but even a household paper roll is a roll in this context, one for each leg.

meta-information concerning lesson 4, 250506
Preparation around lesson 3:
The lesson is well described in detail in the book.

It is one of the first thorough instructions on what constitutes a lesson in lying, with scanning and everything. I do not intend to guide the written version, but rather I will interpret a variation in which the meta-comments that I consider interesting—based on the previous three lessons—will be developed in dialogue between us who participate in the actual lesson.

The recording will then serve as material for others to explore individually

The shoulder joint consists of many components.This film is a must-see for my students. The image precedes the action. Please improve the self- image!

Imagine the locomotion of a chimpanzee, characterized by independently mobile shoulder joints (forelimbs) and hind limbs that are structurally connected through the pelvic ring.

The earliest evidence of walking on two legs (bipedalism) dates back to approximately 6 to 7 million years ago. 

a) Sahelanthropus tchadensis (around 7 million years old): Some researchers suggest that the position of the foramen magnum  indicates upright posture,
b) Orrorin tugenensis (around 6 million years old): Fossils of the femur (thigh bone) show adaptations consistent with bipedal walking.
c) Australopithecus afarensis (“Lucy”), lived around 3.9 to 2.9 million years ago and had a body structure well-suited for upright walking.

Awareness Through Movement does not appear at all in the original text. Instead, awareness is described as the process that correlates intention to achievement.
Lesson 3: Some Essential Properties of Movements

*Identification of some of the elementary properties of the control mechanisms of voluntary muscles.

*Approximately 30 slow, light, and isolated movements are sufficient to change the basic muscle tone, that is, the grading of contraction in a voluntary activation.

*After a change in tone has occurred in one part of the body, the change spreads throughout the entire half of the body on the same side as the activated body part.

*The action becomes easy when the large muscle groups in the center of the torso perform the majority of the work, and the limb muscles more so guide the skeleton in the arms and legs and distribute the activity of the torso.

The fifth paragraph:

*After each movement of raising and lowering, take a complete pause, stop everything, and start each movement as a separate, new action."

The English ATM book p 93
Coordination of Breathing and Movement

Coordination:

Definition: Actively aligning your breath with your movement.

The Hebrew original p 115
Correlation of Breathing and Movement

Correlation:

Definition: Observing the natural relationship between breathing and movement.

Key Difference btw English & Hebrew

Coordination: Requires conscious effort and practice to synchronize breath and movement.

Correlation: Involves awareness and observation of how breathing patterns naturally affect movement.

Lesson 3: Some Essential Properties of Movements


38. The starting condition 
39. Pay attention to the situation of your body [Scan the state of your body]
40. The latent action of your muscles [Discover the latent work of muscles]
41. Every movement - new action [A new start for each movement]
42. Correlating the breathing and the movement [Coordinating breathing and movement]
43. Dwell in obervation [Pause and observe]
44. Deliberate controlled gentle and gradual movement [Slow and gradual movement]
45. Cease unnecessary effort [Eliminate superfluous effort]
46. Participation of back muscles (Use the muscles of the back)
47. Simultaneity in action [Simultaneous action]
48. Sensation of lengthening in the spine [Sensing lengthening of the spine]
49. Parasitic efforts shorten the trunk – [Superfluous efforts shorten the body]
50. What is more comfortable?
51. Which eye is open wider?
Part B repeat
52. Work on the left side
Part C repeat
53. Diagonal extremities [Diagonal movement]

meta-information concerning lesson 5, 250513

At the risk of repeating myself, I’ll share again that together with Gunnel Iverus, an older colleague and friend, I translated two books from English into Swedish: Body and Mature Behavior and The Elusive Obvious. The first was published in Swedish in 2010, the second remained a manuscript. We discussed every sentence until we reached a shared understanding. We are both educators and trainers, trained by Yochanan Rywerant—she in Stockholm 1, I in 2.

To read these two books carefully, in dialogue, was—as you can imagine—immensely valuable. Today I feel that the texts are deeply integrated in me, both in how I live and how I teach, as I do now. Some of you are practicing teachers, and from that perspective I would strongly encourage you to give special attention to these two chapters. Not because you should be able to recite the arguments in all their complexity—but because they add weight to your practice.

Chapter 7 in Body and Mature Behavior, published in 1949, corresponds to Lesson 7 in the ATM textbook.
Chapter 10 -“Body Patterns of Anxiety,” The elemental fear—is what all the lessons are really about. Lesson 3, as I understand it, is directed specifically at calming that fear.

[If you are up to it, read about World War II, fear and MFs acquaintance with Solly Zuckerman below]

“The tonus of the abdomen is affected by relaxing the eyes, mouth, the shoulders, the genitals, the anal sphincter, the legs, the toes, the fingers, the ribs and (most of all) the head.”
—p. 207, The Potent Self

Even in 1981, when Moshe Feldenkrais wrote The Elusive Obvious, he used the very same chapter as in 1949. If we consider him intellectually honest, we can assume he saw no reason to change the content. One could also think he didn’t have the capacity to write something new. Either way, the chapter is worth studying from the other end—with the insight that research has moved forward. Theoretical explanations shift with time, but the practice—then as now—remains just as convincing.

It’s the spontaneous smile that tells us whether a lesson was meaningful for the student. No need to ask.

 

meta-information concerning lesson 6, 250520

Lesson VII
The position of the head affects the conditions of the body's musculature.

During the lesson:

  1. A clarification of how the functioning of the entire body's musculature depends on the position of the head and the muscles of the neck.

  2. As the movements of the head become easier, and its rotations more comfortable and expansive, the turning of the body becomes simpler and approaches the possibilities allowed by anatomy.

  3. Attempts at mental motor activation and its immediate results.

  4. Mental activation separates between commands and the image of the action, between execution and an improved estimation of muscular effort.

Metacomment

The sensation of discomfort – or perhaps even pain – associated with the first movement when returning to a familiar situation, after having regularly and repeatedly performed a movement in a new situation, is of great interest. No one can use their body according to a different muscular pattern than the one they are accustomed to – and at the same time, that habit is the only one available to them. Now, however, changes are occurring in the majority of the muscles – or at least in the more essential ones.

Out of this arises a new, desired movement, in which the person controls their muscles automatically in order to maintain their habits – while the changes underway demand new habits, for better or worse. Only the new experience, and the insight that follows, can convince the person of a different self-image and a new form of self-control – one that differs from before.

This can only take place after the new experience presents the person with the possibility to sensorily inhibit the habitual movement that, in the present, seems lost to them. (A cerebral command is necessary, but not sufficient.) It is through this inhibition that the new can be integrated as habit or naturalness.

Our system allows for change in a distinctly traumatic way – but gradually. This is one of the functional difficulties.

That is why it is important to listen carefully to every change and simplification after each movement sequence, in order to do two things at once through sensation:

  1. To forbid the earlier habit, since it now seems lost, heavy, and less comfortable.

  2. To reinforce the new habit, which now appears more pleasant, more fluid, and more adequate.

This conviction is not intellectual, mental, or more acceptable on a rational level – it comes from within a tactile-sensory experience, as the result of personal learning.

With an awareness and an understanding that connects the change with the necessary conditions, it becomes possible to renew the sensory experience – and, with sufficient precision and repetition under similar conditions, to deepen the experience at the very level of perception.

meta-information concerning lesson 7, 250527

This is an Åkerblom chair from the 1950s—an ergonomic chair designed by an orthopaedist whose doctoral thesis focused on sitting. [[There is also an Alvar Alto chair and a 24 cm high stool by Isamu Noguchi (USA, 1904-1998)]]

The Åkerblom chair is lower than standard Swedish chairs: 42 cm at the front edge, 37.5 cm at the back. The seat tilts back at an angle of approximately 6.1 degrees.

I have many Åkerblom chairs, perhaps 10–15, including some with armrests. You’ll see the curved backrest.
When I work individually with students, we always begin there—with a brief conversation—and we end in the same way. It’s always the same chair. And it’s usually more comfortable after the lesson. Aha they say, and the breathing is often but not always lower.
The breathing reaches all the way down into the lower back. The back of the spine rests securely against the slats.

In one of the early talks in the Alexander Yanai material, Feldenkrais speaks about an Åkerblom chair—he had one himself.
The backward tilt is interesting: it moves you in the direction of squatting. In a full squat, the antigravity musculature is inhibited. EMG research on this was conducted already in the 1950s. You’ll find it on the new Advanced English theme page.

The lesson is seated—on a hard wooden chair. You’ll need two, and at least one should have a backrest. You’ll sit in the usual way on one chair and rest your hands on the backrest of the second chair placed in front of you. Through the chair, your hands are in contact with the floor. A table can also be used.

You are to use a clock face. I suggest printing the clock face for the lesson or using a clock with a face that you can place so you see it straight on. The clock face is a tool for understanding direction and orientation. You know that. In the lesson you will see what you think. It makes a difference!
Orientation, manipulation, and timing are central in the lessons. There is a long talk on this in the Amherst material, if nowhere else.

The distance between the ears is close to the distance between the hip joints. The inner measure, not the trouser size.

Here the anti gravitaional muscles are inhibited. That is known to an organsim. This is why we sit like this.Turn the picture 90 degrees and he is bending towards the ground. 70 degrees is the crucial angle.

Raediness for action.
The sculptor Bror Hjorths lover 'Maggan'

Sorrow (Body pattern of anxiety)

meta-information lesson 8, 250603

Manipulation Orientation Timing

by Eva Laser 2007
Read more

Observe the difference when the figure stands on one leg. The contraction of the back muscles is evident, as is the S-curve. We assume that the curve will invert if the other leg becomes the standing leg. This is not always the case. Often in cases of sciatica, the contraction is not inhibited, and one side works twice. We might refer to this as a scoliosis, but that would be a simplification. The skeleton itself is undamaged.

This video illustrates one of the more important functions in a human capable of handling gravity - the hip

Muscles that cross major joints and serve more than one function. A key element here is the rotational component of the iliopsoas. We engage that often in lessons.
If this function is impaired, the rectus femoris is recruited in a somewhat parasitic way for hip flexion, which in turn disrupts the elegance of the biceps femoris and and and
At this point, we are addressing the brain—and the map is not the territory.

meta-information lesson 9 250610

This girl parents are two feldenkraisteachers...

I find it very fascinating to see that she rises as a Sumowrestler, And look at the rotation of the lower leg! The control of the knee.

Anatomy Trains. 
7 posters by a Rolfer, the first one shows the anti-gravity muscles.

The book is interstings as well. He studied at Amherst.

Ida Rolf developed Rolfing with inspiration from Body and Mature Behavior. She and Moshe Feldenkrais were friends, but he criticised her for leaving out the brain—or more precisely, the central nervous system. Rolfing is based on structural change and painful techniques. The theoretical literature of Rolfing can be valuable for understanding biological posture, even though its practical approach has nothing in common with that of Classical Feldenkrais.

A participant once asked how to explain the so-called anti-gravitational muscles (and fascia). This question touches on more than anatomy; it invites reflection on how awareness is organized in relation to orientation and support.

In Moshe Feldenkrais’ model, the image of achievement is not defined by muscular effort, but by a refined temporal-spatial organization. Understanding this is essential not only for functional insight, but for the formation of self-image in action.

The posters presented here can serve as a starting point for developing your own way of explaining these principles. Rather than viewing muscles as separate units, they invite you to consider lines of transmission—more like train lines than isolated stations—through which intention and support are coordinated.

This overview compares how the concept of 'line' is understood and used in various languages -
focusing in particular on whether the word implies straightness by default, and to what extent it has abstract or metaphorical meanings.
The comparison includes Swedish, English, French, German, Hebrew, Japanese, Italian, and Greek. 
Language
Word
Implicit straightness?
Abstract/metaphorical usage?
Comment
Swedish linje No Yes Very flexible usage: form, direction, thought, body.
English line Often yes Yes, but often specified Commonly assumed to be straight unless clarified.
French ligne No Yes Rich usage – e.g., ligne de fuite, ligne de conduite.
German Linie Partially Yes Often straight in technical contexts, otherwise context-dependent.
Hebrew kav (קו) Partially Yes Technical and symbolic meanings; not necessarily straight.
Japanese sen (線) Often yes Yes Often straight in calligraphy and technical use; other meanings also occur.
Italian linea No Yes Form depends on context – body, thought, design, communication.
Greek grammí (γραμμή) No Yes From 'to draw/write'; used for structure, form, direction.
       

 

meta-information lesson 10 250617
I have three guiding references in my Feldenkrais practice.


In addition to Moshe Feldenkrais and Yochanan Rywerant—both of whom had a profound mastery of anatomy—it is anatomy itself, and in particular skeletal anatomy, that serves as a central compass in my teaching. The solid framework of the skeleton, its ingenious joints, the connective tissues, and the muscles all offer orientation. And—naturally—it is also a continuous inquiry into how the brain functions.

Below are links to 13 short videos on joint physiology.


It’s not about taking them one by one—it’s really all of them at once. My advice is to understand this, because unlike the brain, this is not plastic. The original structure is always best. But few of us match the original. Still, that is what we are meant to relate to. And if there is any limitation, the whole system knows it. The key is to learn to use yourself within the constraints you cannot change—and to become more able where it is possible

But—and this is important—structure is shaped by function.
Think of a narrow trail worn into the ground by repeated use. A cattle path.

Neuroscientist Daniel Wolpert starts from a surprising premise: the brain evolved, not to think or feel, but to control movement. In this entertaining, data-rich talk he gives us a glimpse into how the brain creates the grace and agility of human motion.

I haven’t arranged the videos in any particular order—there is no fixed sequence.
There are many of them, and the purpose is for you to develop a deeper understanding and engage your spatial sense.
During the lesson, we will explore the unique functions of the shoulder girdle.

End 

Eva Laser

Mobil: 070 655 04 70
Swish: 123 412 67 51

Besöksadress: Lostigen 14 Bergshamra, 170 75 Solna

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