Position: side-lying

59m

Effortless Legs and Hips (Patrons)

"The sensation of effort is the subjective feeling of wasted movement," wrote Moshe Feldenkrais, admitting that at first this idea sounds "utterly preposterous". This side-lying lesson probes his assertion by developing large movements of one foot sweeping along the floor while making precise distinctions between necessary muscular contractions and "effort." If you can resist trying hard, you'll find an esthetically pleasing dance of your whole self with benefits for uprightness, expansiveness, gait, and perhaps even the way you meet difficulty in regular life. See the Curiosities tab for more info.
August 15, 2025
60m

Sliding the Sternum, Twisting with the Miracle of “Just What’s Comfortable” (Patrons)

This alternate teaching of Sliding the Sternum takes the same Moshe Feldenkrais source lesson in different directions. Spatial awareness, developmental connections, integrating the arms, the length of the axis, and spiraling up and away from the legs are all emphasized in movements exploring how the sternum supports twisting with length.
May 22, 2025
60m

Curiosity, Not Mastery: Three Dimensional Shoulder and Hip Circles (Patrons)

Familiar ATM explorations are cast in a new light as we discover how the torso interacts with the ground and reshapes itself three dimensionally to generate action in faraway parts of the body. Later, a few playfully elaborate variations humble us all, but the goal is curiosity, not mastery. Notice how much change takes place, how much more ease and control is created, when "failure" is lighthearted. Framed with brief explorations of the diagonal relationships of walking.
March 19, 2025
31m

Essence for “Experts”: Whole Body Arms (Patrons)

A review version of this lesson. Organize action from your head, spine, and tail, and refresh their functional relationships with your shoulders. Then it's time for the arms: twist, roll, reach, and circle them while sustaining whole body awareness.
February 12, 2025
60m

Advanced Connecting Arms and Legs: Equal and Opposite (Patrons)

In this version, this classic side-lying lesson is framed by back-lying riddles designed to more explicitly connect your learning to gait and ground reaction forces. As you integrate various actions of your feet and legs with your pelvis, torso, and arms, you’ll rediscover the buoyancy and joy of walking with your whole self!
October 28, 2024
46m

Turning from a Spacious Center, Connecting Torso and Legs (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...."
August 14, 2024
60m

Spiraling into Circling the Arm Under (Patrons)

First we review the lesson called A Spiral of Length and Power, then we explore a riddle in the realm of “making the impossible, possible”: from lying on your back, one knee bent, foot engaged to turn you onto your side, how can you become supple enough to learn to circle the arm you’re lying on under your body? Adaptations, kindness, and patience are in the foreground, leading to wonderful new freedoms in your shoulders, ribs, spine, neck, posture, and day-to-day function. At the end, an exploration of simpler actions reinforces your learning – even if you couldn't “do” the whole lesson yet.
July 31, 2024
60m

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.
  • Lesson 1 - Reduce tension and anxiety, and free your breath, by sensing the details of how you hold and release it, then explore a new image of exchanging air with the environment.
  • Lesson 2 (begin at 34:00) - Experiment with the elasticity of both the ground and your breathing apparatus, and directly experience what physicists call ground reaction forces.
April 21, 2024
59m

Joyful Lifted Rolling (Patrons)

Starts with an exploration of grounding in standing. Then very simple side-lying movements gradually expand toward rolling. You'll learn to extend and gather the limbs on one side of your body, then the other, as you coordinate larger rolls with increasingly skillful control of your flexors and extensors. All this creates a profoundly lighter sense of your body and mind. Starts with a two-minute talk reviewing the major principles of grounding for liftoff.
February 29, 2024
54m

Free Your Torso for Better Posture, Walking, and Running

Mostly side-lying, framed by standing and walking explorations. Using your sternum as a reference point, free your shoulders, hips, chest, and back for better posture and upright movement. Experience how different organizations of your torso affect your ability to move with freedom and confidence.
September 28, 2023