Wednesday, April 30

More communication

I had a good turn with Duncan today, we worked on maintaining the back in standing again. His hands made me aware about the curvature of my spine, as well as moderate and similar level of toning along the entire back of my body.

Today's communication and counselling session dealt with good and bad communication strategies. I felt a bit observed during the exercise, Stephen's approach worked well for me as talker. The listening part want okay for most of the time, yet at the end I couldn't resist to give some advice.

Tuesday, April 29

Duality

I worked with Jenny on the my pattern of standing with my hips arched forward. I can see this pattern in the mirror, and sense some of its components, but haven't managed to inhibit it. I noticed more distinctly the moments during the movement when I tend to shorten myself.

David made us observe each in the group work getting in out of the chair. Our misuse is less apparent, which makes this task challenging, but quite efficient as well. The book session led into a discussion about the historical context of Alexanders writing.

Jenny gaves an inspiring task on the chair: Slowly tilting forward, while thinking about picking up something and getting up from the chair alternatively. The initial torso movement does not differ for both activities, which allowed us to notice the superfluos activation of muscles for either activity.

Monday, April 28

Feet

The week started a bit unusual - due the coordination for the Yoga exhibition the turn time git shifted arounnd a bit. Margaret worked with me on the sensation of weight, grounding it with my heels. I enjoyed the yoga session, I get the impression of improvement.

John let us play with each other in the group session. We tried to guide each other by using our hands around the head and on the back and worked on our observation skills.

Wednesday, April 23

Counselling and communication

The day started with a bit of a surprise - Libby helped me experiencing some significant lengthening in the thoracic area. The pull back of the shoulders might as well belong to a holding pattern around my hips, I gradually get more sensitivity to feel the weight travelling through my body, although I didn't get to the heels yet.

We had the first C&C session with Razia, a psycho therapist and Alexander teacher. She stressed the importance of a gentle approach to enable an interactive communication and lined out some simple ways to achieve this. As a teacher our listening skills have to exceed our talking skills, without sucessfull communication no rapport can happen.

The exercises made me aware of some of known communication flaws, like my impatience while listening. The feedback from Jane and Kaz offered new insights. Jane attested me good reinforcement skills, but noted also the difference between this exercise and my usual ways of talking. She can see different tensional patterns in my face when I'm listening and when I'm preparing to say something, while Kaz noted more nervousness when the questions became more personal.

Tuesday, April 22

Drawing

I had half a turn with David and a full turn with Bronwyn, both with interesting observations. David mentioned that my back gets more flexible, and I feel a holding pattern slowly shifting up my spine. Of course, this shift might as well indicate more sensibility in the area and probably a partly resolved pattern. Bronwyn reminded me to get back to the primary control, no matter where we locate problems. I suspect that the shoulder tension relates to some holding around the hip joints, so I have to continue to experiment without too much judgement.

We inspected breathing with hands-on during the groupwork. We had a visitor today, Kaya, who will come for two more days into the school.

Monday, April 21

Weight shift

The morning started with a turn with John, exploring the different ways to release my shoulders. Yoga felt really good today, especially with a good forward stretch with feet on my back.

We experimented with weight shifting in the group with Jenny. Lifting the heels from the ground while sitting and standing provided plenty of information about holding pattern and gave good opportunity to exercise inhibition.

Saturday, April 19

Tube

I had an interesting turn with David, which ended with some surprising pattern of pain in my back. Using my tongue differently, or rather stopping to do too much with it, helped a lot.

Matt wanted us in the group work session to explore the head more detailed. We did hands-on to sense our partner's head movement, which turned our quite difficult. The head movements
centered around the idea to sense the breathing tube, and maintain it in an expanded state.

Thursday, April 17

Performance

I decided to have a fix me table session on my turn with Jane, the real work started in a short turn with Jenny. I felt quite fixed in my neck, and we played more with talking than anything else. I tend to press my tongue down (at least while singing), which might cause the tension between my shoulder blades.

We used our hands to sense each other breathing as group work, and later extended this to our jaws. The overuse of my tongue might provide the key to unlock some useless patterns.

Wednesday, April 16

ShouldersI

I explored walking in my term with Duncan. I still have (at least) one area in my back where I shorten my torso, probably a remaining part of the pattern to pull the shoulders back. While doing lunges I noticed a similar pattern in that activity, and found a simple optical check for the state of my back.

We played a lot with bones in our anatomy session, I liked assembling clavicle, scapula and humerus together most. I had only a faint idea about the glenohumero joint, and seeing the hinge joint between humerus and ulnar proved fascinating as well.

In our group work we played with the monkey again. I discovered some variation that can give me an incredible amount of extra length, something worth playing more with.

Tuesday, April 15

More of the same

I like having turns with Libby, we seem to connect easily and the sessions mostly end with mutual smiles. However, I feel the need to find out more about my own progress, as I still think that I suffer from faulty sensory appreciation.

I definitely need to resist the temptation to play mind games, although I consider this a valid strategy. During the first group session Margaret had a look on my use while talking, yet I still find an attentional layer to do it myself during the activity.

Monday, April 14

Back to school

The new term saw one new face, Jim, who already visited the school for anatomy sessions. And as had my turn with Margaret and Ria just like Maria, I did not start as first, and bounced around a bit during turn time.

Although I did hardly any work during the break, I have not yet forgotten everything. Playing around with hands-on proved again that human bodies by itself constitute a large stimulus. The day at school ended with a surprise pilates session, which might leave me with some sour muscles.