“Are there more short lessons?” is a question we get all the time, especially after listeners complete our 10 free Getting Oriented lessons. We’ve noticed that lots of folks aren’t aware our Patrons library includes over 20 more lessons that are well under an hour.
Below is the complete list. And more are coming soon!
You can also always find and search these lessons using the red link near the top of every page of this website, and filter them by free/Patrons and full-length/shorter.
Patrons-Only Shorter Lessons
Long Belly, Strong Back (38m) »
This simple, powerful lesson is designed as an antidote to pervasive cultural messaging about flat stomachs. The truth is that tensing and withdrawing your abdomen severely limits freedom of movement, contributes to anxiety, and can even affect digestion. Feel for yourself the ease and potency of a long belly and well-organized back, and unlock profound benefits for spinal health, hips, shoulders, posture, confidence, athletic skill, and everyday actions. Framed by explorations in standing.
Turning from a Spacious Center, Connecting Torso and Legs (46m, Patrons) »
While cultivating an almost meditative awareness of breath and spaciousness in the tanden (lower abdomen), you'll explore fascinating side-lying movements: one hand is on your knee or shin as you organize your legs, hips, pelvis, torso, and head in curious actions of folding, arching, rolling, and twisting. Discover powerful, flexible legs and easy, confident upright action. As one participant said, perhaps you'll find your "hips are really ready for the Olympic games...."
Breathing for Liftoff (35m + 25m, Patrons) »
This pair of short lessons is designed to be completed together the first time, or with a short break between them.
Integrating the Feet, Torso, Head, and Breath: Connecting to the Earth (44 min, Patrons) »
Back-lying, framed by standing. Refine your connection with the ground and use it to improve your posture, breathing, and action. Lengthen your feet and heels, differentiate your toes and ankles, and integrate your feet with your hips, diaphragm, spine, ribs, shoulders, head, and eyes. This lesson points at powerful primitive biological organizations of flexion, extension, and uprightness.
Differentiating the Pelvic Floor Part 1 (35m, Patrons) »
Back-lying. Refine your pelvic floor sensitivity, awareness, and control by learning how distinct, gentle contractions of the front and back of the pelvic floor are neurologically connected to movements of the pelvis, spine, hands, and lips. A brief chair-seated beginning helps you identify the four skeletal landmarks of the diamond-shaped pelvic floor.
Differentiating the Pelvic Floor Part 2 (25m, Patrons) »
Back-lying, then chair-seated. Refine your pelvic floor sensitivity, awareness, and control by learning how the two sides of the pelvic floor can be differentiated. Link gentle contractions to side-bending movements of the legs, pelvis, spine, and head. Later, generate unusual sensory distinctions by sitting and moving on a towel "saddle" to further clarify the pelvic floor.
Pelvic Floor Connections (37m) »
Back-lying. Discover the "non-Kegel"! Gentle, gradual contractions and releases of the pelvic floor – connected with the breath, belly, back, and various ways of tipping the pelvis and knees – help you find more detailed awareness and control.
Two Sitbones, Two Sides of the Pelvic Floor (31m, Patrons) »
Chair-seated. Get to know your sitbones (illustration in the Curiosities tab), then sense that you have two diaphragms, and discover more awareness and control of your pelvic floor through gentle weight shifting experiments.
Global Breathing with Floating Ribs and Sternum (49m, Patrons) »
Back-lying, framed by brief standing explorations. Encounter, expand, and enjoy the three dimensional movements of your floating ribs, sternum, and the rest of your chest in this detailed investigation of your profoundly adaptable breath. Discover how changes to breathing and internal spaces alter your perception of yourself and your presence in the world.
Calming Your Nervous System, Integrating Hands and Eyes (37m) »
Back-lying, using a "bell hand" movement to differentiate and integrate the hands, eyes, and breath. This lesson is a powerful tool for self-regulation and reorganization, stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system and shifting us away from "fight or flight" and toward "rest and digest". Begins with a 2-minute introduction to this lesson’s particular bell hand movement (see photos below the lesson notes).
The Power of One Foot (22 or 36 min, Patrons) »
A "short version" stopping point is noted in the middle. Back-lying, one knee bent, framed with brief walking explorations. This potently asymmetrical lesson dives deeply into the common ATM lesson ingredient of pushing one foot into the floor. Intended to inspire improvisation after studying, this lesson asks: can you learn how to improve how you’re feeling and functioning even with short or very simple ATM explorations? How about one-sided, or self-led?
One Bell Hand / Two Bell Hands…and Feet (31m + 29m, Patrons) »
Named after the shape the hand makes, this pair of half-hour lessons is designed to be completed together the first time through. Reset your nervous system and learn to relate the activity and skillfulness of your hands with your whole self.
Side Clock: Hips (42m, Patrons) »
Side-lying. Uses the image of a clock face on your mat to explore precise movement coordination, developing freedom and skill in the hips, lower back, chest, and more, with nudges toward improvisation. This lesson can be studied on its own, but you may enjoy the learning challenge of, over a couple of days, exploring Side Clock: Shoulders (and Intro to Hip) first, then experimenting with your own improvisations as recommended in that lesson, THEN going on to this lesson.
Holding Your Breath, in Awareness (15 or 39 min, Patrons) »
Back-lying and some front-lying. Relaxing the nervous system by exhaling through consonants, then bringing awareness to what actually happens when we hold and release the breath, so we can become freer and more spontaneously adaptive to life's different breathing situations. The first 15 minutes can be a standalone lesson.
The One Shoulder Lesson (19 min, Patrons) »
Don't miss this brief, potent, asymmetrical exploration of movements of one arm and shoulder in relationship with the whole self. It's intended to leave you experiencing the differences created between the two sides of your body, which is a curious and powerful learning state that will improve both sides. (You can also repeat the recording for the other side, or improvise it, later.)
Refining the Shoulders and Hips (45 min, Patrons) »
Back-lying, sometimes knees bent. Explore small, precise movements of the shoulders and hips, and the fine relationships between them, with an intention toward reducing unnecessary efforts in the torso and improving walking.
Lifting and Pressing (38m, Patrons) »
Back-lying, some front-lying. Relating to the support surface with simple, potent movements designed to promote whole-self awareness and distributed, lengthening efforts as we physically connect to our world.
Your Naturally Asymmetrical Spine (35 min, Patrons) »
Back-lying, learning to sense the relationship of movements of the arms in the plane of the floor with movements along the side aspects of the spine, and eventually to initiate them from there. Discover essential differences between one side of the spine and the other (which I call the primary spinal bias), and how those differences are part of every action we take.
Easing the Jaw and Neck: the short edit (28 min, Patrons) »
Back-lying, briefly framed by seated explorations. Exploring and refining basic movements of the jaw, and integrating them with movements of the head and neck. This lesson is often helpful for reducing many types of jaw-related tension and discomfort, including some kinds of headaches, TMJ pain (temporomandibular joint), and discomfort and stiffness in the neck, shoulders, and spine.
Lengthening the Arms, Freeing the Scapulas (33m, Patrons) »
Back-lying, knees bent, arms often resting loosely upwards on the floor, and in self-hug position at other times. Lengthening the arms, differentiating the head, and expanding the mobility and self-image of the shoulder blades (scapulas).
Finding and Using Your Spinal Bias to Step Down (33m, Patrons) »
Framed by brief explorations in standing, this mostly side-lying lesson helps you discover your primary spinal bias. You’ll explore how a refined awareness and conscious use of your spine’s natural bias can improve how you send your foot out into the world in all upright activities.
Supple Ankles, Shifting Pelvis (32m, Patrons) »
Framed by explorations in standing, this mostly back-lying lesson explores how improvements in the sensitivity and function of the ankles and feet relate to movements of shifting and turning the hip joints, pelvis, spine, and chest.