Introduction to the LESSON LOCATOR - a Mind in Motion project to create a database of attributes of Moshe Feldenkrais' written and recorded Awareness Through Movement (R) lessons. Contact naffie -at - sbcglobal.net for information

2. Do you know the lesson
where you’re . . .

3. What is it?
• The Lesson Locator is a database of all of ATM
lessons taught Moshe Feldenkrais that were
captured in some way, including audiotapes,
videos, transcriptions, and notes.
• The LL will serve as “card catalog” for the
library of lessons Dr. Feldenkrais left us.
• The LL is a means for quickly and easily sorting
through these lessons.

4. What we’re aiming for:
• Making the library less opaque and more user-
friendly so that the teacher community will
appreciate and utilize the lessons more easily.
• Develop a deeper understanding of the
content and structure of the ATM lessons.
• Creating the means for scholarly research into
the composition of ATM lessons.

5. History of the project
• Started in 2007 by Anastasi Siotas, Richard
Ehrman, and Larry Goldfarb
• First database built by Richard Green 2010
• Launch of Lesson Locator in July 2011
- Naffie Fischbacher – coordinator
- Invited 70-some practitioners around the
world to participate in initial - “proof-of-
concept” - phase

6. The steps in building a DB
• The lessons are translated into a common
structure – a synopsis
• The synopses is checked for accuracy
• The data from the synopses is added to the DB
• The DB entries are checked from accuracy

7. What is a synopsis?
• A lesson synopsis distills the structure,
instructions, and indications of a recorded,
transcribed, or notated Awareness Through
Movement® lesson into a special outline
format. The synopsis captures the necessary
and sufficient details of an ATM providing a
comprehensive, detailed representation of a
lesson’s composition.

8. The format of synopsis
• Lessons are considered in an outline structure
consisting of:
ACTS
Scenes
Variations

9. Each scene contains
• Position: The student’s relationship to the
support surfaces.
• Configuration: The student’s relationship to
her/himself.
• Action: What the student is doing.
• Indications:
- How to the student performs the action.
- What the student is asked to notice.

10. What we’ve learned:
• It takes a village.
Creating a structure for the process
• You find what you’re looking for.
Humbled by habits of perceptions
• This is an iterative process.
Revisions continue

11. Where we are now:
Phase One continues :
• Continuing to create synopsis
• Redesigning the database structure according to
what we’ve learned
• Creating the data input and query interfaces
• Preparing for Phase Two
Guidelines Sample lessons
FAQ Cheat Sheet
Contracts Overview
History Completing the list

12. Where we’re heading
• We aim to complete the indexing of all 550
Alexander Yanai Lessons for the 40th
Anniversary of the death of Moshe
Feldenkrais, 1 July 2014
• A sneak peek . . .