Final friday

I had a turn with David, and got a bit more aware of the subtle remainders of old pattern. During our group work we revisited some of Peter's ideas, with mixed enthusiasm. I spend nearly half, maybe even more of my waking hours without lenses, and get more and more used not to wear them at school. While Cal insists that we can't feel inside our brains, I notice the activation of a relatively distinct area inside my skull we I think about my thalamus, and directing my thalamus forward and up yields reliable results.

Luckily, we ended with some hands on after all the passiveness before. I get more confident in using directions and using the other body to get myself up. I took Bo's leg, but felt just little whether something happened with him. Probably our little conversation in the tea room before still stuck in my mind.

Eyeless in Fitzroy

The last three days went clearly in a blur.I got some pinhole glasses last week and started investigating my visual system a bit more. Peter Grunwald's book seemed very cvompelling to me, so I looked forward meeting the man himself to see for myself what he had to offer.

I wnet to school on sunday with my lenses in my jacket, and I didn't wear them at school since then. It takes me about 30 minutes to walk to school, plenty of time to experiment with my vision. I did not find a comparable case of my vision problem in his book, so I wanted to find out whether I belong to the contracted or overexpanded or mixed type.

Currently I have the impression that my right eye (my left visual cortex) contracts, while the other part overextends, however, I want to confirm this in my private lesson tomorrow. During the workshop guided me through specific parts of my visual pathway, the palpability of this communication between nervous systems stunned me.

Like with everything Alexander, repetition helps achieving an ever more subtle understanding. The workshop participant seemed more receptive than my fellow students, while I used the opportunity to enhance 'thinking' myself into the visual pathway. The thought of regaining my vision still exhilarates me, a bargain I never asked for.

Base of the skull

Before Ann's anatomy session started, I had two short terms with Ferry and David. I notice more the subtle levels of doing, but I still have to work on maintaining a bigger (unified) attentional field. I wonder if I can incorporate some thoughts about the vision system, the experiments at home showed some good results.

We had to prepare a demonstration of the muscles of the base of the skull as homework for anatomy. Thanks to Rossi's idea we managed to improvise a little play in short time, so the homework turned out fun and informative.

Ease

I did chair work with Margaret, I kind of got my limbs tight in my joint over the weekend again. Margaret gave me a good up, and I managed to get in and out the chair with ease. Andrea worked a bit in the saddle after that, a real interesting experience.

In David's group we observed walking, and was interesting to see my fellow first years doing this again after some months. After the short group we went through the student feedback.

We did more hands-on in Jenny's group, exploring ways to move an arm by directing. It seems to get easier to stay in myself while putting hands on, the additional sensitivity training pays out.

Tailbone

I worked with Libby on distinguishing better between directing and doing directions. Both produce movement, yet of different qualities. The chair work helped a lot to identify some of tensions on my leg I acquired during my injury.

I played a lot with my cj ball before the group work started, and even played with taking Cal's arm while she laid on the table. The group work itself posed some challenge. We experimented with thinking about the tailbone movement during the breathing cycle, directing it forward with the in breath, and imaging the air rising through the front of the body with the out breath.

Dropping the tail bone slightly feels a bit like rounding the back, yet increases the movement of the back of the ribcage significantly. The thought of up through the front prevents collapsing, together an amazing tool (at the moment) to feel connected throughout the body. We extended the exploration of the tail bone into some table work, and I went through the challenge of taking Jenny's tailbone while she laid in semi-supine. It felt less awkward to work between her legs than I expected, staying directed and just synching into her breath cycle took most of my attention.

However, I resisted the temptation to feel what happened, and tried to cope with the amount of stimuli and thoughts presented to me by thinking about myself. I'd liked to have seen whether I still coordinated myself, Jenny's feedback (and release twitching) made me quite content with today's hands on experiments.

Tongue

David used his waiting time to give me and Michael some chance for hands-on exercises, before I started exploring the difference in perception of movement when I 'did' my directions in contrast to just think them. I wonder whether it helps the process to communicate the increase in precision of proprioception exactly, something to ask a teacher.

We made loud noises again, after exploring the relation between breathing and the movement of the tailbone. Our body moves a lot in any given moment, which makes integrating the relevant information into a connected image a challenging task.

I started the performance session off, and felt significantly less nervous when doing so. I went smoothly through the first half, and then became self-conscious again, or rather lost my intention a bit. Penny reminded me of the bad habit to do more than needed with my tongue. Allowing it to stay in the front of my mouth stopped me from swallowing tunes at the end of a phrase, and certainly increased my fun while doing it.

Inhibition and direction

I can use my foot again, but acquired already some interesting pattern of changed use in the meantime. With David I detected a bit of asymmetry, probably due to the shift of weight I habituated. Ferry helped me releasing my hip joints a lot, and my proprioception gets more 3 (4?) -dimensional. I don't notice only things close to my skin, but get more inside.

The communication session dealt with anger management, interesting yet in my point of view kind of off topic. I inhibited my averse reaction as good as I could, and focused more on observing the group interactions.

Student meeting

I walked over my heels in my turn with Libby, and I just needed to convince me that I can do so. I guess I can figure out heaps of avoidance pattern once I can use my left foot in normal ways.

We did a lot of hands on work in the group with David, and although it takes still some effort to stay in myself, I like it more and more. As long as I don't care whether I can 'listen' with my hands, I can use the stimulus of another body to maintain my directions.

The student meeting went quite okay, just in 'Alexander time'. However, Michael and I managed to put our criticism about Razia C&C sessions forward. I realise more and more how much I expected General Semantics as our communication module.

We had more hands-on with Jenny, and again I noticed the importance of my own use when using my hands. We played with taking an arm and a shoulder, and it helped a lot toi experience this on the table and doing yourself.

Handicapped

During the half turn with David I noticed some elements of my old pattern of bending myself out of a chair. I haven't managed to visualise bodily pattern in myself, but my understanding of the interacting parts grows daily.

The table turn with Jane made me aware of pulling in and out of my shoulder and hip joint. I have to fight the temptation to complain about pain and my reaction to it - I did not act very clever and have to pay the prize now.

Doing yoga felt okay, taking it slow and focusing on the whole body made it a worthwhile affair, staying with the means whereby and not the end.

Singing

I worked on using my injured foot better with Penny, but I still don't feel comfortable standing for longer times. I want to play a bit with Penny's idea about the 'neutral position' for the tongue, as I noticed that I do a lot with it without being aware of it.

I see more and more the use of our voice warm-ups, it's a good chance to create feedback through sound. Kaz reminded me of the difference between speaking and singing, I still move my head (in a down way) while talking.

Communication

I had a turn with Libby, like yesterday, this time a table turn. I managed to direct myself away from my leg while Libby held it, an amazing sensation. I spend most time until the group work started with CJ.

The communication session consisted of some basic ideas about positive thinking, and I had to inhibit a great deal to stay happy. However, I will see whether I will gain something from the goal settting exercise.

I seem to make progress on different fronts. I had my turn with Carol, and she managed to give some surprising new ways of sitting down. Although I felt quite shortened and stiff, I preserved my use relatively well (while doing nothing :)

Carol and David shared their experiences from the teacher congress in Lugano, so I didn't need to go through Yoga with an injured foot. We used our hands instead in the group work, and I enjoyed working with Robert and Jen. We played with sensing the difference between helping, working against, collapsing and availability.