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Recorded ATM Lessons

The following ATM lessons are recorded live in class and offered for your interest and learning. They are not professionally recorded; the quality varies.

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The Foot and its Movements in Space

homunculus.jpg

Factoid verification, after the lesson. There's actually 26 bones in each foot....making one quarter of the bones in the human body, but nowhere near 66! And here's your sensory and motor homunculus images to contemplate. You feel more in your feet than you control, a feature shared in a more extreme form by teeth, gums, and genitals, which don't appear on the motor homunculus. And you comparative control some parts in greater detail that you actually sense in less detail. (Click the image to see.)

59:53 minutes (20.56 MB)

On the right side, head and knee under the frame of the left arm

When we fold forwards (flex) we think of this as shortening. But every shortening involves lengthening. You can lie on your back and take your knee and elbow towards one another--and that involves a certain level of challenge in lifting lefts and head.

read more »00:47:00 minutes (10.76 MB)

Lengthening Heels and Arms

The theme this month is "Finding Length." Here's a suggestion for working with this lesson. You might do it first in a very casual way where you pay attention only to getting comfortable with lying on your side with your legs in the positions described. Don't make too much effort with the arm/chest/chin directions on your first go through.

read more »1:00:37 minutes (27.75 MB)

Sphincters

Beyond the breath, many processes of digestion and excretion take place constantly as we go about our lives. This lesson plays with the actions of the voluntary sphincter muscles--these curious muscles around the eyes, the mouth, in the pelvic floor that don't open/close joints or pull on bones, but that open and close orifices. It's not as weird as it sounds.

read more »44:49 minutes (20.51 MB)

Integrating Breathing and Action

This is the first of two lessons in the Integrating Life and Action workshop, March 2010. I keep talking in this lesson about how your breath "accommodates itself" to your actions and positions in the world. This strikes me as a little strange as I listen to it and do the lesson.

read more »51:56 minutes (23.78 MB)

Tilting the ear to the shoulder

The last two classes (On the side, the sternum becoming flexible and On the Side, Bending and twisting the chest and spine) had everyone in class talking about our lack of clarity in side-bending. First, what it is when simply standing or lying flat on the floor, to maintain the face in the same plane in sidebending.

read more »54:23 minutes (12.45 MB)

On the Side, Bending and twisting the chest and spine

Oddly enough, this lesson takes place largely lying on the back. So "on the side" doesn't refer to the position of the lesson. This lesson follows on the lesson On the side, the sternum becoming flexible, which "really is" on the side.

read more »48:14 minutes (22.08 MB)

On the side, the sternum becoming flexible

The spine will only be as flexible as the ribs attached and the sternum allow it to be--and those will only move if they can see themselves moving relative to the pelvis. This lesson addresses that whole relationship.

read more »55:15 minutes (12.65 MB)

Making the spine flexible and integrating it

Albinus side view

Chronic tension of the lumbar and neck extensors is a fundamental pattern of limitation. This lesson addresses these areas actively and passively, with ingenious variations that address some key "hidden spots," particularly in the upper back and neck.

read more »41:53 minutes (19.17 MB)

Lengthening and turning arms by the fingers

To finish this month of fingers-to-spine lessons, we explore the connection between lengthening and turning along the axis of the arm--as though a gentle pull and twist from the fingers could draw across your spine and move your whole pelvis around your opposite hip joint. We also played with distributing intention.

50:31 minutes (11.56 MB)
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