Awareness Through Movement
Awareness Through Movement (ATM) classes are usually taught in a group (although you can request a private lesson) and are typically mat-based, hour-long movement classes. This set-up can mislead people into expecting an exercise class when the lessons are more akin to a guided meditation through movement. The lesson may include very small, slow, coordinated movements of specific body parts (like your eyes for instance), or even movement in your imagination. This is why the method is also suitable for those with movement challenges or limitations.
Your teacher verbally guides you, step-by-step, through a sequence of movements alternating with periods of quiet rest. The rest periods between the movements are as important as the movements themselves.
The structure of the lessons is carefully devised to bring your awareness to differences - it’s far easier to sense yourself if the movements are done slowly, with very little effort and in reference to something else (Weber Fechner rule). So we compare the left and the right, the before and after. It is not demonstrated by the teacher as each student will be seeking out their own way to act on the instruction - there isn’t an idea of an aesthetically correct way to act. You are experimenting with how to move and discovering things about yourself. The student should try many different ways of ‘doing’ until the easiest path is found. Utilising a metaphor - imagine you are a scientist - during an ATM class, you are the subject matter of the experiment; you are also the scientist undertaking the research; and you will also interpret the results. What you find out about yourself can be fascinating - and it is not always physiological.
What you experience from a lesson can typically be felt or sensed immediately, but sometimes it is revealed later. To pay attention to the new sensation, or notice when it integrates, is part of the legacy of the lesson. The magic happens away from the class really - when you become more aware, more of the time.
It’s ideal to attend a weekly class or a regular workshop over a period of weeks or months as you may find it takes time to let the method ‘sink-in’ and understand how to ‘do’ an ATM - to some it might seem easy to create the movements, but it’s less easy to be aware of how you create the movements - and no one can tell you how - you will experience and you will learn for yourself how to sense and hone your awareness.
Maintaining only the curiosity in the movement process, rather than striving to achieve our individual perceived idea of a correct movement; that is the hardest part for most of us to learn. What we are recreating in an ATM is how we first learnt to move as infants - not by being told what to do but by having a go, refining, trying again, adapting, resting, enjoying the process and finally after finding the most efficient, easiest movement pattern, the movement is integrated - normally to much admiration from our carers, our own joy and growing self esteem. If you have the opportunity to observe a baby move you will notice that there is seldom any effort in their movement - it is altered, adapted to remove strain. Children tend not to seek out the hardest path: keeping it pleasurable will keep you moving. Our learning takes on different characteristics once we move away from organic learning and toward more instructional education from parents and teachers. Letting go of the desire to achieve and make effort, which is ingrained through a lifetime’s exposure to this traditional pedagogical approach to learning, is unlikely to be experienced in your first ATM. For many, changing one’s approach to learning is the lesson that takes the longest to grasp. You should find that the movement lessons themselves will be playful, easy and interesting - hopefully invoking memories of childhood curiosity from those very early organic learning experiences.
What I would ask of anyone new to my classes is to come with a sense of curiosity, exploration and discovery - what you are signing up for is a journey to greater self-awareness, so that’s really all you need to get started.
“In order to recognize small changes in effort, the effort itself must first be reduced. More delicate and improved control of movement is possible only through the increase of sensitivity, through a greater ability to sense differences.”
“Learning to inhibit unwanted contractions of muscles that function without, or in spite of, our will, is the main task in coordinated action.”
