Proof of concept

If I had to earn money with some of my leisure time projects, I certainly would need to learn to do better estimates of the time involved. About a week after I prepared all the struts needed for my first geodesic dome, I dared to attempt another proof of concept.

I spend about two hours to make sure that each and every strut retains in the connector, gaffer taping the ends to prevent slipping. I hoped that as long as the structure remained connected, I could assemble it entirely. To my surprise, it worked out well, just the idea to document the build failed.



Next time, I rather trust that I hardly notice the camera working on a minute interval. After 14 minutes I wondered whether the camera worked as desired, and stopped the sequence incidentally... however, it took me somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes to get the structure up, and about 20 minutes to deconstruct the frame again.

Although the hose connectors don't stabilise the structure much during assembly, once everything is in place it feels quite sturdy. I could carry the structure around easily, but I certainly have to skip the idea of decent door opening. If it becomes a shelter, I rather climb through a lower triangle than endangering structural integrity.

Pegging down, probably already at a very early state, might be a good idea as well. I wish a had a tarp around, or better some house wrap, to test the integrity with a bit of wind and a skin. The surface area doesn't seem to big, though I want to have quite a snug cover, repeating the shape of the frame. I can't really say whether I want to trust it even with skin as a shelter, but I'm more than curious to cover it decently.

While I managed to do my directions in some of the various dull stages of this project, I happily forgot about directing today. Yet all the crawling around, squatting and bending has left no pain, the only thing I notice is more exposure to midday sun. Any dome project will offer plenty of opportunity to apply the technique - heaps of repetitive tasks, most of them unfamiliar, so there's heap of opportunity to stop and reason about the means-whereby.

That doesn't in any way mean that I spend much time thinking about the means. It's hard to tell how much end-gaining was involved - I remember being calm and collected most of the time, having time for a chat with a curious passer-by. I felt primed for success, with the absence of real set-backs (two rods slipped out before during the assembly of the final pentagon) not too much exhilaration did express.

I enjoyed some minutes sitting in the shade of the tree in the middle of some sacred geometry I materialised in my neighborhood. Without a skin, a dome provides a space that seems sheltered and open at the same time. an amazing experience.



I couldn't really stand up in it, the apex was about 165 cms (rough estimation, not measured), which means that in 2v dome the radius approximates the height quite well. So as long as I don't tackle the stability problem (or the strut length), it's rather a personal shelter than a communal space.

The next challenge is finding some clever material for the skin and testing the stability under wind... Still haven't found a shop that sells Tyvek, and shelling out $90 for some other house wrap doesn't tempt me yet. I need about 30 sqm's for the skin and ground cloth, with about 10% waste included.

It has been an amazing adventure so far. From building smaller models to go large-scale, dealing with all the set-backs on the way, finding flaws and eliminating them. I know it's still a long way into my own dome home, yet it's feasible.

Free serving

I managed to forget setting my alarm, without breakfast and a bit of a haste I arrived about half an hour late in school. Although 'being late' used to be one my personal no-nos, I still did the few things I wanted to do, and laid down on a table for semi-supine, instead of being worried and apologetic about my mishap.

Jen's student didn't arrive in time, and so she asked to work with me. Her hands helped me release a lot excess tension in my legs, and connect me a bit more from head to toe. I returned to the table soon, and then Carina worked with my shoulders and head, while first Ria and then David gave her a bit more up. What a great start into the day.

The turn with Bronwyn gave me the opportunity to experience a more consistent up in walking, although I had a hard time inhibiting my desire to feel out the ease I noticed. Without embodying ideas they literally cannot make sense, and a good amount of continuity and repetition is usually needed to achieve this.

Ann's anatomy class had some sad undertone, it was her last visit as regular anatomy teacher. We studied gait again, playing around with different ideas of bad use while walking. Entertaining and enlightening at the same time.

Stop thinking?

Yesterday I ran into an interesting controversy about thinking. There is a definite desire in some people to 'stop thinking', but I suggested that you will have to be dead to achieve this. Luckily, we moved onto a different topic instead of getting into a senseless debate.

I define 'thought' as specific, repeatable nervous system pattern that accompanies muscular movement. In this way I presume that the activity of the autonomous nervous system is 'thinking' as well. This very technical definition allows me to avoid consciousness for a moment, and it also implies the peaceful coexistence of simultaneous thoughts. Ornamental decorations in mosques can give you an idea of the complexity of thinking in any given moment, a variety of interwoven patterns creating a whole. To make this analogy closer to experiental reality, you will have to animate the ornament.

Fractal imagery suits also well to represent the intrinsic combination of order and chaos. We don't need to be aware of our life-preserving patterns like heart beat or breathing, yet we don't gain any advantage by labelling those processes 'non-thought'.

In terms of Alexander Technique, meddling with breathing or heart beat would have been most likely called 'interference' by the master himself, and in most cases rightly so. People do all sort of things when you ask them 'to take a deep breath', imposing 'conscious' thoughts how to take a deep breath over the 'unconscious' thought deriving from the carbon monoxide level in the blood.

I admit, this extensive definition of 'thinking' contradicts the cultural habit to link 'consciousness' or 'awareness' to thought. Usually the verbalizing part of the neuronal fireworks is considered 'thinking'. Following this idea strictly, music and other art forms would be thoughtless.

Experience always exceeds any verbal description of it. The words I type here are not only shaped by the verbalizing faculty of my brain, but at the same time i have to breath, keep myself upright and move my fingers over the keyboard. The quality of the last three 'thoughts' influences immediately the quality of the 'verbal output' or consciously verbalizing thinking.

Stopping to think from this perspective means death. Stopping the internal dialogue is how I understand the desire to 'stop to think', and from my experiences as not too persistent meditator I can easily empathize with this desire. As much as I can consciously release the tension in my neck, I can consciously release the tension created by holding onto thoughts I become aware of, but those skills need to be learned.

This might sound like pure semantics. This broad definition of thinking would require additional considerations about the level of awareness/consciousness involved in different thoughts, however, it still would make 'stopping to think' equal to sudden death. Inhibition might not be the best suited word to decribe how not to get caught in habitual loops of our verbalizing faculty, it works for me as long as I haven't found a better one.

Taming the beast

One peculiar thing about Alexander Technique you cannot 'do' it. Do whatever you like. When you observe yourself in doing, apply the means-whereby while doing, you're using the skills Alexander Technique teaches.

However, having an excellent MacDonald style teacher in the school can look a bit like one can 'do the technique'. Nili's directions are precise and efficient, and we went through a lot of 'traditional' approaches like chair work, table work, hands on the back of a chair, monkey, lunge and finally the whispered aah.

Just watching Nili made it easy to give myself directions and keep myself up, the increased amount of 'uptime' might have led to the bit of discomfort between my shoulder blades. Or maybe just my bad use while taming a beast, namely a biggish tensegrity sphere.

I found in a cheap shop decorative bamboo struts with a nice dark red colour, together with some Sisal garden string. I build a lot of 6-strut symmetrical tensegrities lately, with a variety of connection methods and tension elements, so I started off with 50 cm rods and about 120 cm string. Sawing the grooves with the Dremel becomes more and more routine, although I find myself often crouched over the work piece.

I experimented with tying the strings to the rod, and making loops with knots to slide the ends through. This would save me sawing 60 grooves into the 30 elements, for the prize of 120 knots. A lot of repetitive activity, a great challenge to consider how to do it easiest. I was eager enough to prepare all elements before the assembly, a strategy I changed soon.

Some of the loops were too big, there wasn't enough tension on the strings, and the ends could slide around. The beautiful idea of easy reusability didn't work out. Back to grooves. The next attempt used sisal strings, but as some of it ripped too easy under tension I went back to nylon line.

I cut the strings so that they had nearly no slack - this might work with more elastic strings, but after about 15 struts it became obvious that it rather break than bend into a sphere. As there is no way of lengthening too short strings, the next set of strings needed preparing. To break the monotony of preparing everything at once, I prepared 5 struts at a time (there's six building stages requiring each time 5 struts).

The first two attempts were still too long, and I waited a day without doing anything before I went with the final approach. The water balloons I used to prevent the strings from sliding were easier to attach than the rubber ring wrapping I used most of time. Unfortunately, they came as easily of again.

The youtube video that inspired me in first place shows an assembly within about five minutes. I spend already the third afternoon and still wasn't sure if everything would fall into place. As the waterballoon failed as security, I looped the string once around the strut before using a rubber band wrapper. I must have started building a sphere at least a dozen times, I know now how to connect the elements with maybe referring to one of the models. I wouldn't be surprised to rediscover the build pattern as weaving pattern.

The skewer model gained stability after stage 4, it get itself balanced on five struts as dome. I got fairly confident when I managed to move the model from its gymball 'mould' onto its own feet. The sculpture rolled in elliptical shape on the floor, I leaned with my body against it to attach the remaining struts. I assembled the final five struts as a pentagon, and carefully slid it into the still wobbly dome.




The pentagon needed 10 connections, after attaching half of them I could turn the model around and do the last connections. I even dared to leave them unsecured. The model flattened still a bit, so I removed some of rubber wrappers and looped previously unlooped connections, decreasing the overall string length slightly thus increasing the tension.

I wouldn't roll it downhill now, but it hangs nicely on a single hook on the wall. Tuning was fairly easy, so I might remove the remaining security rubbers for an overall fine tuning. For now, I rather keep it untouched for some time to see whether it tends to undo itself.

That's it, that's it!

For the next two weeks Nili Bassan visits our school, but I had a good chance to apply the technique even before then. Last night my world map fell off the wall, taking down no less than five tensegrity sculptures with it. Naturally, or so it seems, my latest project, a 30-strut sphere, unfolded again.

So I exercised patience, delayed my desire for a quick fix, and went to school. The turn with Jenny eased me a lot, and her idea to feel amused rather than irrated by the asymmetrical way of using my body helped with this a lot.

The hands-on group with Jenny offered more interesting experiences. I worked with Alysha, and surprised myself by a mixture of old doing habits and some surprisingly effective directing.

In Nili's group I partnered up with Jane Azul, continuing basically where we left off with Jenny. I got quite nervous when Nili came to work with us, however, I picked up some valuable information of some of the 'extra' I put in when putting hands on.

Spherical hysterical

The transformation from sticks and strings into three dimensional structures still stuns me. And provides me with ample opportunity to learn about my end-gaining tendencies.

Producing the elements required to build this airy structures meant that I had to some repetitive activities with a specific target in mind: precision. I noticed that especially the flexibility of the tension elements provides some leeway for the measurements, having quite uniform elements simply eases construction.



With a closer look you can see rubber band along the compression elements, I used those to prevent the nylon string from slipping out of the grooves. The model was quite sturdy yet bouncy, and I decided to take the 'safety rubber' off. At some point my ambitions backfired, and sphere flattened into a sheet. Bummer.

The construction of the sphere was quite straight forward, but I realised that not all the grooves were narrow enough to hold the string in place, I delayed the next construction attempt until better tools arrived.

It took only a week until a set of diamond blades arrived, and instead of using 6mm wooden dowels I took some large bamboo skewers. Again, I had to manufacture more than 30 identical elements to build my sphere, this time using transparent elastic string as tension element.



It took two or three attempts, and a bowl to provide some initial curvature to build this model, and this time it remained stable after removing any rubber band used to prevent slipping. It even survived inserting a balloon on the inside, to provide some more photographic attraction.

The balloon decided its fate. I build a small tensegrity base for the sphere, and took some photos on the outside, utilizing sunlight.



Slight gusts were sufficient to get the sphere rolling off its base, and I when placed the sculpure in front of the next backdrop a gust dropped it to the pavement, where it collapsed. Well, I got it together once, and I already have the next idea how to tackle my string slipping out of groove problem can be handled. At least, I got into the habit of taking photos of the finishing stages of my tensegrity before I do further experiments or 'improvements' with them.

Rubberband man

Nearly 5 metres of wooden dowel were waiting to be transformed, for weeks. I wanted to build to tensegrity sphere, as precursor for a model of an eye. I found a great demonstration how to do this, yet it meant a departure from my prior ways of attaching the tension elements.

Many small models made of units that combine a tensile and compressive element, which basically offers a bit more flexibility than the 'tension loops' I used before. The loops, on the other hands, reflect some of the 'Great circles' created by rotation.

Like so often, I departed a bit from the original measurements, using thicker dowels makes the sphere less 'airy' than the model in the youtube video. The biggest challenge was precision this time, I had to saw a groove to hold the string at both ends of the dowels.

Using my new Dremel, I went through some cutting blades, luckily wearing goggles that saved me from the first violently disintegrating blade. I still haven't got the proper gizmo for wood cutting, and the different blades I used produced different wide and deep grooves. Also, I didn't glue the strings to the dowels, so some became easily undone.

My first attempts to assemble the sphere failed badly. Most grooves were so wide that the strings slipped out easily, so after some frustrating trials I called it a day. I had made 32 elements (the sphere needs 30), and wondered if I could use them for something, at the same time thinking about simple solutions to overcome the slipperyness.

Again, rubber bands saved my day. The models I build with them deteriorate quite fast, but as temporary solution they worked wonders. I secured each connection between the units with a rubber band, and, voila, I could follow the demonstration video nearly step by step to success. Unfortunately, this went much faster than my camera batteries recharged. Before I'm brave enough to see whether the sphere will survive without any rubber bands, I'll wait to document the first bouncy bit.

Moderated

Another week of change of routine, the AUSTAT moderator visits our school. I had a turn with Penelope Carr, in the privacy of the back room, and it felt a bit like the first private lessons I had. I liked her gentle and kind approach, and the idea of just "one percent more". I could inhibit some of my habits while putting hands on her, and got a better idea about how long I should keep them on. The end-gainer in me probably wanted to see a result from my activity, it's so easy to forget that caring about my own use comes first.

In the group we shared some experiences of our own process, and I picked up - surprisingly - some habits of others in the group that fell under the radar so far. It seems like my blurry vision provides sufficient input (at least on short distance) about movement, so there's one thing less to worry about.

The yoga session worked out nicely, it's getting easier to stay aware of my movements, instead of going from position A to B.

Speaking

I had a good turn with Jenny, working on my habit of 'checking in' or 'feeling out'. It seems like I start conceptualising when I become aware of new sensations, instead of continuing to inhibit and direct my movement. Somehow, Ann's idea of the freedom of the neck as gauge, got stuck in my thinking.

We explored the 'whispered ahhh' in prone. When I'm close enough to a student, the 'non-moving' parts become salient even without any optical clarity. My hands picked up a lot of Tristans movements, and I could see how much of his neck was involved in raising the head.

Bronwyn changed the performation session a bit, and experimented with voice projection. No chance to premier my new song, heaps of interesting new information nevertheless. I was surprised about the amount of pre-tension I build up to enter the stage... hmm do I associate a certain head position or jaw tension as 'right feeling' for starting to speak?

I still need to investigate different strategies for habits arising from imprints, conditioning and learning. I wonder whether trauma applies to all three layers, most likely.

The stutterer

I managed to detect some of my student habits in my turn with Libby. I thought somehow the 'right way' of sitting down links to feeling out what's happening. Instead of 'checking the quality' of my movement I added a direction for my front, extending ease from the initiation of the movement until close to its end. I learned a lot of movement this way: Achieving my end by feeling the right conditions to start, and staying with a sequence of feelings that hone into the targeted movement.

Being wrong in social situations poses still a high stimulus to me, yet I enjoy it more and more. I paired up with Jane in Matt's hands-on group, well, it rather happened by the seating arrangement. I might have looked a bit unhappy, she re-assured me by stating not to repeat our last group work mishap, and we started with a friendly laugh. The session worked out really well, I found some more ways to stay out of my way while putting hands on, and pleasantly surprised by the precision of Jane's observation and verbal guidance when she put hands on.

After a coffee-free coffee break we had the book session, with me running Jenny's group with Ana, Alysha and Martin. I managed to use the mindmap I made to keep the summary quite concise. I could feel some sort of excitement every now and then, but looking around the group, and actively listening helped me to get through all key points and questions in a way that involved the entire group. I forgot an essential question though, whether there was anything left to add. It's an elegant way to indicate the nearing end of the session, and gives anyone not heard 'enough' the chance for a last word.

Yoga

I had my first turn with David after the holidays, I experienced more of my asymmetric use, and some of my 'Alexander student' habits. I think I will dedicate this week to observe my habits at school, being banned from coffee during the Aurum experiment can certainly help.

Observing without glasses, however, still feels quite odd. I could pick up some patterns while we worked in Lailani's group on walking, but then, the average use certainly improved already a lot.

I can still get into my old yoga habits, I certainly often 'stare' when doing asanas. Layer by layer by layer. The shift from reaching a position to observe the movement doesn't come easy, yet becomes more and more enjoyable.

Complex habits

Thinking in movement does not come easy, it takes quite some work to undo old habits. Our (western) culture promotes many ideas that seem to contradict FM's ideas - for example, being 'right'.

Everyone wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right.

I want to start with a little criticism of the master himself, setting a dubious example in using universal quantifiers like 'everybody' and 'no one'. Let's develop this statement, even if this process might take away the ease and poignancy of FM's words.
'People wanting to be right (which there are many of) rarely stop to consider if their idea of right is right.'

For me, this is just another quote warning about end gaining. If we just 'do it right', victory is ours as well, that's one of the promises of the training to be an endgainer (also known as education system). Wanting to be right produces in social interaction quite typical strategies, mainly based on violence, aggression and emotional game play. The twin sister, not wanting to be wrong, deploys more passive strategies like defense and withdrawal. Their father, Aristotelian logic, has died long ago, yet its ghost still haunts many. Thinking about right and wrong often leads to the fallacy of categorizing nearly everything into this mutual exclusive terms, ignoring anything that fails to fit definetely into one of those boxes.

The opposite of wrong is in many cases just as wrong. We certainly gain new experiences when we push our shoulders forward instead of pulling them back, our overall use most likely doesn't improve. Too easy, one might think, AT is all about changing habits, I relocated my discomfort from one area to another. Strike!

Maybe it helps to assume that we never do it right. If we stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing can happen. Doing one thing to 'counteract' another produces a change of habit, and if we stay clear from thinking that this was the 'right' change, we slowly improve our use as well. As long as we view the world through the black and white filter of right and wrong the view of details remains obstructed.

But isn't there something 'right' to 'do' in life? The mystical answers to this question founded religions, I wouldn't yet dare to answer this for anyone else but myself. Life is self-propagating and self-aware (at least in the human form). The 'right' thing as such is survival of the individual and the species. From this evolutionary perspective we did nothing gravely wrong - otherwise I couldn't carve these words with electronic ink into the global memepool.

Although I spend quite some time finding the right way to get in and out of a chair, when I undid this tense idea I gained much more information out of it. Once the inner judge became more quiet, I had a better chance to integrate the somatic knowledge I received. Good judgement is a desirable skill, but many situations in life work out easier without it.

Especially when observing oneself the right-wrong filter prevents (or delays) accepting undesirable habits. Just accepting that right and wrong have no relevance for the here and now seems to contradict the tenets of our culture. The skill for life changes oneself radically, unless one clings too much on specific symbol sets.

Observations

Self-awareness includes self-observation, a very complex and interesting process. Not every 'voice in your head' belongs to an impartial observer, most of the time other parts of yourself play conductor of re-activity. I started reintegrating my reptilian 'voice', listening more closely especially to the need of food. Low blood sugar levels activate a lot of unwanted 'emergency circuits', and give the pre-frontal cortex not too much energy to be heard in the chatterbox brain.

It's not too healthy to spend much time in the 4f domains of the reptilian brain. Fight, flight, food and fornication can integrate with our behaviour without allowing them to be the 'decider'. A friend of mine compared his collection of inner voices with the parliament, commited to follow the Prime Minister's decisions. He shared with me his way of organising his inner struggle between his wants, needs and social norms, an insight into his private decision making process, based on an advanced form of self-reflection and inner dialogue. Thanks, Dave.

I prefer other mapping models to improve the quality of my self-observation. The triune brain models offers a good start, or Leary's 8 circuit model of consciousness. The map is not the territory. With one of my maps I can name the reptile, monkey, man and sentinel in myself.

Monkey oversimplifies the mammalian brain, mammals developed emotions to organise their communities. Nevertheless, even in 21st century successful emotional game strategies, found in many other mammals as well, still dominate the political arena of humanity.

The 'reasonable' or 'rational' or 'conceptualising' part of our being happens mainly from the cortical areas of the brain. We might ruminate here why something appears beautiful to us, and find the labels to verbalise our experience. It's easy to place the 'observer' here, as we might already have the habit to conceptualise and contextualise our experience, listening to the 'voice of reason' in our head.

In as much we can mistakingly feel torn apart between body and mind, we can mistakingly feel an inner fight of reason and emotion. The 'voice of reason' happily claims to be impartial observer, which leaves the 'voice of the heart' quite sulky, being left out of the game. But the voice of reason is not the sentinel.

Our emotions allow us to connect to other people, and our reason helps us to find meaningful ways to share this connection. Okay, that's prophecy or even gibberish. Or just an example for the challenge. As soon as we phrase observations in a way that assumes some objective reality we have 'diagnosed'. The perception of isness leads to a host of undesirable side effects, and prevents acceptance and the potential for change.

No matter how many voices talk to you, which map or concept you use, don't fight yourself. The voices get so much easier to understand when they communicate non-violently. The trying ends with the fighting, surrendering allows the sentinel to observe, direct, act and re-act.

Of course, I dare to be totally wrong here.

Bucky

Fulleresque

Don't you think that body and mind
are really two of a kind.
With some body-mind connection
you can expand in any direction.

One and one adds up to four,
don't let that knock you to the floor,
Up, wide, forward and now
let's you ride the holy cow.

The path is long, it never ends,
it has so many twists and bends.
You stumble and you fall,
So do we all.

Don't look ahead, don't look back,
just be here and you're on track.

Special treatment

I had a turn with David, mostly to ask him about some legal aspects of being a 'travelling AT teacher'. In this highly restricted world it seem still advantageous to have multiple passports, but then, I still have some time before I'm probably forced to leave the country. I managed to keep directed while talking to him, and at the same time discovered new parts of my patterns while doing chair work.

I gave Alysha a table turn, and it seemed to work out quite well. It wasn't too easy to stay with myself, and the background noise in the downstairs area made it partly very difficult to combine verbal and tactile instructions.

We had a short debriefing of Jean Clark's visit, and then everyone besides the friday group went through the Dart procedures. Steven, Craig and me worked with Marigold, which turned out to intensive, informative and fun. After getting to know parts of myself better, I can now start to integrate these areas better into a whole, and Marigolds work especially around the pelvic floor offered plenty of new experiences.

I was quite amazed that her hands guided me through movements I deemed impossible, and I realised that letting go of my kneecaps involves a lot of different areas. Bending over and coming up through the front allowed me to sense my spine in new ways, and the work on the saddle helped me to redefine torso and legs.

Middle of a short week

My turn with Penny gave me an amazing amount of information. I felt a lot of pattern reverbarating through myself (or aspects of a single patterns in different stages), a release starting with the thumb, affecting the scapula, hips, legs and feet in tiny yet noticable ways. I still want to integrate my arms better, when Penny moved one around I could feel some parts 'wanting' to get involved. Following the movement with my eyes helped keeping them connected, albeit lots of inhibition was required to go through this unfamiliar sensations.

Feeling quite elated I offered Craig a table turn, and managed quite well to stay calm and with myself while talking him through the idea of spatial thinking. It's still not easy to 'stand aside' while using my hands, but intending his release as invitation liberated me from end-gaining, and I could curiously observe the changes that happened. Margaret joined this session after a while, and helped me with gentle touch to continue a nice session. Although I think I used myself quite okay, I felt a bit exhausted after a while, and stopped before I got into too much doing.

Jenny introduced us to some experiments she picked up on the conference, using different ideas for breathing, like 'abdominal breathing', breathing in the back, breathing to the sides, breathing from the feet up. The changes I noticed in myself and in my partner seemed very obvious, yet I noticed to my dismay how some ideas dramatically restricted the flow of breath. It seems like most ideas about 'proper breathing' just produce interference.

The next task for partner work addressed locked knees, using hands and words to get a student out of this. I got quite doey when working with Cal, and didn't notice too much happening. I realised that although we work in an 'indirect' way, asking the student for release in specific areas is sometimes very necessary. Nothing but my own intention to unlock my knees worked when I acted oblivious to Cal's verbal and tactile suggestions, an interesting experience.

I like the performance part more and more, instead of seeing it as an embarassing moment I rather try to embody the text than to just recapitulate it. Sarah's feedback helped a lot to set up an intention that allowed the text speaking through me, instead of me speaking it. I still have a lot of room for improvement, using more 'empty space' and staying lively, though it's getting more enjoyable than I thought possible.

Brainbox

I managed to turn up early enough to have a turn with Jean, which provided me with lots of new information. Jean spotted a misconception in my body map for my head, and helped me getting more aware of the real dimensions of my 'brainbox'. Although she works (as a student of Walter Carrington) quite traditional (chair and table) she stressed the teaching part of the technique - changing the thinking with new ideas and information.

I especially like the idea for swivelling back and forth on a chair: a sphere rotating along its central axis uphill (or downhill on the way back). The motion in this mental image prevents a bit the giving directions and feeling them out part that happens easily while doing chair work. I feel my ankles freeing up more, yet they still seem quite stiff.

When Jean demonstrated one of Dart's flipper exercises with me (laying sideways on the table), I became aware of the lack of ideas about the mobility of my feet. Again, being taken out of the habit (table work in semi supine) offered an interesting new perspective about the location of my joints, forward and up in a different orientation of the forward and up relative to gravity.

Four directions

Although Jean Clark visits the school this week, the turn times in the morning make it seem like a 'regular' week in school. I had turn with Libby, which felt more like a debrief. I realised that I had some kind of idea what to work on when coming to school, I should take my time to inhibit more my preconceived ideas and have a go at simply tuning in.

I worked a bit with Sharon before the group started, going through a variation of hoboc (hands on the back of a chair). Jean wants to through Alexanders four directions, we started with 'freeing the neck'. Instead of moving the head on top of the top, we kept the head (with the help of a partner) still, and moved the body underneath. It doesn't sound too different, but it allowed for interesting observations.

Jean demonstrated hoboc with Cal, and I was surprised how slowly she took it. I like the idea of this radical slowdown, it's so much against the habit that it allows students to observe themselves in a new way.

Primary control

My turn with Jenny worked well, also there is only a slight difference in my perception of directing with primary control and without. I don't know whether I managed to maintain my idea of non-violent communication, I certainly want to improve my listening skills.

While waiting for the book group, Sharon helped me with contact juggling, with amazing results. Moving my left arm freely seemed virtually impossible, having it moved by Sharon felt incredibly 'wrong'. Wriggling along the wall helped losening my shoulder blades, but allowing my arm more movement feels still quite alien.

The second chapter of 'Use of the Self' picked up on faulty sensory appreciation, the process of improving use by replacing harmful habit by primary control, and of course psycho-physical unity.

In the second group I had another misunderstanding with Jenny. I wanted to tell Jim that I was planning to listen with my hands, and not actively directing. I started off with explaining that I'm not going to try to direct him into the chair, when Jenny stopped me cold, assuming limiting thinking on my side. I had a good chance to observe my emotional reaction, but my verbal reaction made Jenny move on quite immediately. I surely want to improve our verbal communication efficiency and mutual understanding, yet I still wonder whether it's appropriate to take the first step.

Yoga

I started the week with a table turn with Margaret. I wonder whether the weekend or the trip to school in the car tensed me that much, it took me while to get grounded. I still react strongly on the weather.

In Jenny's group we continued with the idea to change the thinking while putting hands on. I guess the efficiency depends a lot on the stage a pupil is in, I still want to train my hands much more.

We debriefed Cathy's visit in the large group, looks like she left some confusion behind. Some complaint about the format, 3 days with 4 hours sessions, and therefor a limited amount of work that she spend working on individual people. I still cherish the memory of her presence in school, the way she used herself to demonstrate visibly what she explained set a real good example, .

Her art to point out 'tensional ideas' without making the student feeling bad about his 'wrong' idea needs a lot of practise. Especially when students notice these kind of thinking in teachers, which made her example of making and pointing out her own mistakes so valuable.

The yoga session tired me a bit, dog and warrior pose en masse. It seems to slowly get back in touch with my spine.

Performance

I had an amazing turn with Penny, working on contact juggling again. Now, as I recall the session, more ideas pop up how to play with the information I gathered today. Although my shoulder girdle has gone through various states of alignment, the process of freeing it up gets more and more refined. We experimented with just lifting the arm (to put the CJ ball on it). With Pennys hand on me I noticed a swing to the side initiated the movement, and going into a straight line seemed 'impossible' at first. It was fun to notice some impulse in my arm while it moved with much less interference than usual.

I even managed to enjoy working on the whispered aaah. Jenny asked us to observe a partner (first Jack, then Rossi) and experiment with changing the intent while whispering. It was great to see that some ideas worked well, and even without the use of hands change happened. Observing a pattern and changing it indirectly (just by adding a different intent to the primary control) felt exhilarating, and stressed again how important the student's intent is for the process.

The performance session with David brought a lot of valuable information as well. Although my observation was affected by the loss of one of my contact lenses, I noticed more the fluidity (or lack) of movement. I think I might have rather tried to observe something 'static' (posture?), instead of staying more with the observation of movement. It looks like an AT teacher just opens up a different direction for the student to move into.

Reciting my own poetry for the third time produced a sufficiently high stimuli to investigate some deep seated habits. I took a 'deep' breath before starting, probably just like FM, pulling my head back and tensing my torso. Going the process of 'exposing' myself in front of an audience again offered many insights, especially the loss of coordination after the performance.

Trusting the process

I focussed a bit more on observation today, last chance to see Cathy in action. She mentioned that it's easier to pick up patterns by trusting the guidance of teachers, yet even without some of her hints I noticed a lot of movement patterns, and of course changes in the people she worked with.

I like especially Cathy's use of language. Her description of the process, wanting, recognising, gathering information, deciding on a plan, experimenting contains no typical Alexander Technique phrases, yet encompasses the ideas of mindfulness, inhibition and direction. She managed carefully to avoid saying anything that indicated the mind-body split.

We went to the park to work outside for a while, and I had a chance to work on my unicycling. The increased level of free movement meant I needed to readjust my balance, yet it certainly is more fun to work on myself like this then straing at myself in the mirror.

Wholeness

Cathy did a bit of quick-ease to start today's session, and then demonstrated her way to give an introduction, in this case directed towards IT workers. I really enjoyed watching her in action, as she definately walks her talk. She stressed the importance to relate to her audience, choosing examples that are easy to follow along. Also, she didn't use her hands until the participants started experimenting themselves.

Using a simple movement to demonstrate the difference between a deliberately distorted head-neck relationsship involves the participants, gives the teacher plenty of opportunity to observe pattern, and gives the participants the experience of choosing 'the easier way' themselves, without anything else but a change in thinking.

The getting involved part continued. Split up in groups we had the task to solve a puzzle, putting a spine together. Again, Cathy could observe our use while we did this, but we could enjoy 'playing' with essential knowledge, in this case the structure and curvature of the spine.

After the break I had the pleasure of improving my CJing with Cathy's help. I clearly remembered the observation about my immobile clavicles, and they still don't move too much. I learned CJ with some strong habits, as my shoulder girdle gets freeer I need to clarify my intent. It's a good chance to observe how much time I still waste with feeling/checking it out.

Her answer to Jim's question that reaffirmed the body-mind split stunned me: Whole. Pause. This part of the job seems really tricky, guiding a student's language and thinking towards wholeness, without disregarding their inquiries. A lot of my questions during the process of learning the work evaporated into meaninglessness with the trust in wholeness, yet this paradigm seems quite foreign to many.

Different routine

Cathy Madden visits our school this week, and presents her way of teaching groups. Although a vivid little girl produced some remarkable background sounds, the group attention kept mainly on Cathy. She took good care to give us some instructions for observing while she works with single people.

I chose again self-written poetry, and the stimulus was much higher than on performance day. However, standing in front of a group seems getting easier, although I felt a bit fading away once I noticed adrenaline rushing. I don't really know what changed when Cathy put her hands on, it felt to me as if the words floated towards the audience, travelling through space while I took my space on stage.

I had a bit of a talk with Martin and Craig after school, about the power of limiting ideas. I'm curious how many changes I can notice tomorrow, so far it looks like the beginning of a fun week.

Tempory transmission

I had many laughs while having a turn with Jenny today, although I couldn't inhibit reacting on some of her thoughts about thinking. The release we achieved together threw quite off balance, it's still not easy for me to sustain direction/observation when too many new/strange/'wrong' sensations come to awareness. The simple anatomical fact she made me aware of turned out as full on hit. Jenny reminded me that the gluts attach to the lower back (iliac crest). Now as I write this it seems obvious that the forward shift of my hips in the habitual conditions past needed some extra work of the gluteals, and I need to integrate this information the next time I feel 'wobbly'.

During the group work we listened with our hands to different backs while producing sounds. I still wonder whether I will be able to sense another body without conceptualising the information in some visualised way, especially when we are asked to verbalise our observations in some way. I simply need patience to wait will happen after enough repetition.

I went through my self-chosen challenge to present my own poetry, and I'm quite happy that I did. I felt still quite nervous, yet managed not to feel 'stupid' about myself.

Anatomy

I had a turn with Bronwyn which extended yesterdays play with 'space within the head'. She asked me to direct my face away from the lower bottom of my skull. The perception of sensations in my head and neck area starts to get more subtle, yet I still misinterpret how my head moves in the relation to the body.

My legs feel recently quite often 'twisted', I suspect more flexibility and agility of the muscles in the pelvic bowl links to this faulty sensory appreciation. My legs felt a bit sore as well, I wonder whether this relates to the higher position of the unicycle seat.

We continued the exploration of suboccipital muscles, Michael and Alysha talked us through the larynx and pharynx. I got out the tensegrity toy when Jack had some questions indicating a static, building block idea of the structure of our bodies.

OCD

I had a turn with David, after some interesting observations in semi-supine. I still tend to react a lot on enviromental stimuli, but it's getting easier get my focus back. I developed the habit of placing my feet in a position that tends to curve the lower back, when placed closer to the bum I can release much easier into the ground.

I wonder whether I managed to maintain my directions during the turn with David. Talking poses currently a big challenge to me, and I want to get back to work on this more. Kaz reminded me of this in the mini-group we did. I think it wasn't too bad during our book discussion, no sinking feeling this time, and hopefully some audible full stops.

I'm glad we're doing more hands-on, and my fingers seem to get more sensitive. I still want to learn to use the whole hands more, palms, fingers and intention working together. Too many memories and thoughts stray around when I put hands on, looks like I could do with less thought and clearer intention.

I worked for 10 minutes with Alisha in the second turn time. I get a better idea about the diversity of bodies and body pattern, but it's still hard to have an inspiration where to start to work. So I got back to a lot of talking, acutely aware how much I challenged Alisha with working and talking. The way talking is integrated in teaching came up when I was working with Andrea. I explained my experimental plan to her. She didn't understand me, and responded quite disencouraging. I realised that this happened to me some times before during lessons, I certainly have to take of how I verbally interact with students.

Jenny suggested in the final group thinking the brain forward from the skull, with some amazing results. How do I 'think' the brain away from the skull? It seems like (conscious) thoughts are either predominantly conceptual or predominantly visual, but our work seems to create a new class of perceptual engram. Or maybe, just brings us back to the state of playful exploration of physicality before speaking.

More Back

This time I changed my plans myself - when Marigold arrived and had no one to work with, I moved from David to her for my turn. We worked on maintaining the back and using the arms in an integrated way.

I spend most waiting time working with others, first Anne, then Jen and Cal. I like putting my hands on the upper part of the chest. Most 'older' students and teachers move a lot in this area, and tuning into the rhythm of another humans breath satisfy my end-gaining for 'sensation'. I still forget my ordering, however, moving my arms connected gets easier.

We didn't put hands on in the last group, instead we explored crawling. Taking it slow, maintaining an activated back and keeping the weight mainly on the lower limbs allowed nice animal like movement.

Cozy friday

Only four students came in this friday, making this friday a relaxed and productive day at school. Matt did some chairwork with me, before we played around with moving within a monkey. Now, as I begin to understand what the monkey is about, I don't like thinking about monkey anymore (although I haven't found a new word for attitude connected to a monkey).

The second group dealt with table work, providing the pleasant mix of collecting experience of hands-on work with getting plenty of work done on oneself. I still notice the impulse of 'zoning out', but with Matt's help I managed to maintain my directions much better. I become more aware about different 'classes' of stimuli - the stimulus (and connected habits) of the teacher-student situation, of doing a specific procedure (getting into a monkey, sending the hands away from the back), of having a living human being in front of me, of dealing with the emotions arising with different persons.

Trusting the process becomes more and more important for me, yet it feels like the speed of change has increased this term.

Faith healer

Without David, timing goes even more out of the window than usual. I'm still figuring out how to stay more in emotionally laden situations, I might simply experiment with asking the teacher 'to push some buttons'. Penny seemed rather confused what I wanted to work on, but still managed to maintain a nice up in me while working together.

O, how much I'd like to ride the wave of gravity,
Currently it feels more like creeping insanity.
I don't blame distraction,
just habitual reaction.
Yet where is the satisfaction
of some successful direction?
By giving up my strive
I get ready to arrive
in this very moment of time,
tuning into the present's chime.

As long as I stay in motion,
allowing each and every emotion,
the moment is mine
and I feel fine.

I didn't do poetry in the performance session (maybe I should?), but instead got into Alex Harvey's 'Faith healer'. The small audience, only Penny, Jane and Sarah, made it easy to get more expressive while singing. However, unless I find some guitar backing I might as well increase the level of stimulus by more exposure of myself.

Unexpected

AT can teach to react adequately in any situation, much more than getting in and out of a chair, or releasing specific areas while laying in semi-supine. Our reactions are implicitly holistic - although we might only guess as to why a person blushes during a conversation, we can safely assume that the blush is more than a physical phenomenon.

I looked forward to a turn with Ann, but she didn't arrive in time for the quick-ease, and changed the order of turns a bit. I asked her about that, and she offered me a turn either in the break or after school. I reacted a lot when she told me about the change of plans, yet agreed on a later session.

I took me a while to direct my attention away from the change of plans, and towards observing some fellow students while cycling. I had a bit of a table turn with Ferry, so I didn't have to go 'turnless' into the group.

The anatomy session was like so often a mixture between dull facts, nice anecdotes and some group work deepening our topic, muscles of head-neck region. Our group gave examples of misuse while speaking, demonstrating poking the head out to make a point, gasping, and shyly talking towards the ground.

Having a turn after school went against my habits, and it was the first time it happened for me. Ann went with me to the back room, and we spend most time talking in a very insightful way. She reflected on my reactions earlier, and lots of lightbulbs went off in my head. Interactions are driven by intentions. If I manage to keep up my intention while just observing my reaction to emotional stimuli, a 'problematic' situation can have a positive outcome. Brooming emotions under the carpet, or riding blindly their waves just makes matters worse. Like so often, happiness lies in the golden middle.

More tensegrity

School started again with 15 minutes quick-ease, walking into the hands of teachers and older students to get some up on the fly. I worked with Jenny on staying more present throughout my body, but I still can't easily let go of expectations.

The book discussion veered a bit off, without getting too excited. Each of us has an idiosyncratic understanding of Alexander owns writings, which seem to reflect a bit in which phase of the process we are.

I enjoyed the hands-on sessions a lot, although I still don't register too much with my hands. I stand less in my way, though, and my arms certainly move lots easier than during my first explorations. I noticed in Libby's group how much I got used to a specific relation of my hands, playing around with different ways gave me plenty of new insights.

At home, I stumbled across a new idea for a sculpture, a tensegrity icosahedron. It is symmetrical, and stackable (I will have to try this for myself....). I found different examples on the web, and experimented with different methods to assemble the structure. I started off with rubber bands in a variety of configurations, and lots of them got destroyed in the process. At some point it looked like I succeeded...



I managed to tune the model to give it more depth, and nearly collapsed it in the process. I fixed it, and thought about the right length for nylon cords. I had to take care not too overstretch any rubber, which happened just two or three times.



After experimenting with 40cm and 50cm loops, having models collapsing over and over, I prepared 45cm loops, got some unused rubber rings and started over again. Once all nylon cords were attached, I cut the rubber away, and, hooray!, I had a stable model in my hands!



I wanted to stand the model on only two legs, and used magnetic repulsion to keep it balanced. It can swing a few millimeters, blowing against the struts suffices to get it moving for just under a minute or so.

Back on track

As I still don't trust my sensory awareness too much, I didn't really know how well I fared without school and without semi supine. All in all, I think unicycling did a good job in advancing me on my way, although I nearly forgot how much more I gain during a turn when I feel less urged to talk.

The turn with Marigold gave me a good idea about working much more subtle, especially when we moved our hands together. Although my visualisation skills feel quite underdeveloped, my attempts to visualise movement/release/extension work out somehow, and seem to prevent extra effort.

Yoga felt okay. It's getting easier for me to let go of end-gaining, and stay with easy movements, instead of going to and through pain to make the postures look good. We worked with movements from the hip joints, and continued doing so in the group work as well. I'm not too sure how much distance (if any) existed in my body map between sitbones and hip joints, but it certainly increased today. Bending forwards towards a ball felt just wrong after I released my hips more, there's still the strong habit of judging movements by specific tension patterns.

Parts of the brain

A modern genius

While looking for ideas how to 'animate' sculptures, I came across the experiments of Theo Jansen. Fascinating.

Toying with tensegrity - part 3

I guess the first time riding a bike on your own felt pretty exhilarating, but this special event just started your bike riding career. Riding in different speeds, stopping exactly where you want to, doing turns with body weight shifts, stopping without blocking wheels, stopping with deliberately blocking back wheel, riding with hands off, etc, all those skills had to be mastered later. And many accidents happened until then, but if you get on the saddle again you could experience more dimensions of bike riding.

As children we understand learning as our 'work'. Improving our skills by relentlessly exercising them provides fun and gains valuable experience. As 'grown-ups' we easily lose this experimental pleasure, in a society where money can buy anything anytime our patience grew thin. I certainly notice a lack of patience in myself, and wanted to change this a bit.

I started building tensegrity models, feel free to read about the very first steps of this exploration in part 1 and part 2. I tested my patience by ordering stretchy cord via ebay. Last friday 100m of translucent beading cord arrived, after being delivered at a wrong address first.

Finally I could go ahead and build a tensegrity tower just like I had seen it in the magazine! Or so I thought. I cut and knotted my cords tensule by tensule, tuned them so that the upper triangle seemed level in both orientations. The tensuls felt rigid, but were still tuneable. I decided to use rubber bands for the 'security triangle' first, but somehow it just collapsed the tower.

I studied the photos from the instructions, and realised how much imagination and spatial thinking I need to transform the visual 2d information into a tactile 3d idea. I managed to tune a 4 story tower to keep it stable, sat back and I wondered why it still had only little resemblance to the tower I wanted to build. I turned the tower a bit and noticed its fragile balance. Instead of a lean pointy thorn I build the leaning tower of Brunswick.

I found the model lying next to the shelf the next morning, disassembled everything and started over. I wanted to figure out how the security triangles worked with only two tensuls, hoping not to collapse and entangle four level of a tower again. The way I attached the security triangle doubled some tension cords, yet all that's needed is a simple single tension line (like the ones that connect upper and lower triangle of a single tensul).

Depending on how much you entangled the different cords, it takes only little time to disassemble a tensegrity model. I reused some longer struts for the first level (and for a different visual effect) and retuned the model with the security tension cords on each level.



Attaching the connecting security cords took me a fair bit of fiddeling. They improve the balance of the tower, although I still hardly know it all works together. I learned to appreciate having rubber bands lying around handy, although I went back in this case to the builders line.

Another project awaited me: The stellated tetrahedron. I gave up when I realised that I needed more stretch than the nylon string offered, not wanting to break the dowels. Now I know that my basic problems lay somewhere else: My misconceptions how to construct the structure.

If you cut away the corners of a (space-filling) tetrahedron, you get four triangular planes instead, the triangular sides transform into a hexagonal plane. Using a cord triangle for the corners seemed obvious, but somehow I thought the remaining connections would run triangular as well.

Finding an easy way to lay out the 6 struts to have 4 corners where 3 of them meet in a specific direction proved a decent puzzle by itself. I used a zome tool model, connected the upper three triangles with stretch cord, secured the resulting mini-tetra with gaffer tape, carefully removed the model from its 'mold', and secured the final corner.



I repeated this step quite often in the last few days, until I found out how connect the for triangles to pop up into a magic tensegrity structure. Depending on how solid the model is fixed at this stage, it still can be folded (or constructed in the folded state and twisted into three dimensions.



After playing around with different ways of connecting four more triangles to my structure I went back to study images and the java applet. The final structure represents a stellated tetrahedron, I simply had to install tensors along its edges.

With a better idea of what I was doing the assembly got easier. I just had to imagine in which direction the triangles rotate, and connected the closest point of these triangles. The model twisted quite a bit while I attached the tension cords, but this time I felt confident that the model would 'emerge'.



Indeed, after cutting away the tape from the first corner the rods twisted away from each other, and I looked forward to see the miracle unfolding. As I can see now, I still got some connections wrong, I fixed the structure with two corners secured. However, I had done it!

After I bit of tuning I could balance the structures on one of the cut-away corners. It does not balance on all the corners, I think the cord triangles vary too much in length. As I used all 'recycled' materials, some of the cords could have gotten a lot of prestretching. More tuning, and fixing the cords parts of the triangles, will be the next step.



I really like the stellated tensegrity tetrahedron, and it could be fun to connect either tensuls or other tetras to it. I want to use colour as well, and/or different strut sizes. Once a structure obtained its shape, I can still tune a lot around, the stretchy cord provides enough flexibility to experiment a bit.

Size matters, in this case. Longer struts make the construction a bit easier, there's more room to cut away the securing tape without getting close to the tension cords. I might run out of display space, it doesn't appear too crowded yet.

Freaky friday

I managed to make my peace with fridays. I accepted the temporary increase in numbers, and Matt changed his ways of running the friday group. I hesitated a moment when he asked me with whom I wanted a turn, luckily I decided to do (have done?) table work with him.

Enjoying the new freedom in my hips, and more connectedness of limbs and torso, I sat down with a tea to browse a bit through anatomy trains. When Ana came in, I commented 'breakfast time', but she didn't seem to want to talk to me. When I saw her cutting a loaf of bread, I started watching her hands, trying to compare her movements with the memory of the day when she cut her hand.

Then chaos broke loose. 'Stop watching me like this!' I looked at her in surprise, maybe said something like 'What?' 'You always watch people, trying to get eye contact, it's annoying me! And I'm not the only one annoyed...' I noticed her emotional upheaval, as well as my confusion. I mentioned that observing is part of our job as AT teacher, tried to make her aware of the use of the universal quantifier 'always' in her statements, to little effect.

Recalling the situation makes me aware of how well inhibition worked for me in that situation. Her tone, body language, the message itself, the group conformity call especially, all of those used to trigger easily my 'verbal fighting mode'. Yet I stayed relatively calm, I just laughed every now and then, which probably didn't help. However, I had no interest to take the bait to dramatize the situation, which wasn't too easy.

'You always look at people, it annoys me, I feel like invaded, and others too.' Whoa, here we go. Universal quantifier, external locus of control (i'm responsible for her being annoyed) and group conformity enforcer. I asked her whether she expected me not to look at anyone, and she finished our mini drama by promising a better solution.

Unfortunately, Sharon, who witnessed the situation, did not want to comment on it. I'm sure my frustration about her reply shone through, but I had no intent to inhibit my reaction. I found it hard to refocus on the anatomy trains afterwards, but I didn't want to cling to this incident while in school.

I probably learned more than I asked for, and some of my observations were confirmed. Another random group of people thinks talking about an individual instead of talking to them could change their perceptions and improve their interactions. Duncan's idea of using all the time in school to do the work suddenly seems very radical, pretty much unheard of.

Resilience. Mindfulness. I can't tell whether my non-doing contributed much to this complex web of misunderstandings. On the positive side, I might have a chance to inspect my self defence habits, I can imagine triggers coming up.

Old habits

I still haven't found much opportunity to work constructively on one very old habit, speaking. Today started with quite an amazing turn with Jenny. I did not notice the slow, gradual increase of freedom in my movements. Although I can hardly remember the stiffness in my movement, I got very aware of my availability during Jenny's turn.

More freedom means as well more chances to 'help', or forgetting to remember to inhibit. I hardly noticed a difference in sensation when I changed my thinking, inhibiting my desire to help with the movement Jenny suggested with her hands. However, Jenny allowed me enough time to inhibit and renew my directions when undoing my shoulders, leaving me with a smile and new experiences.

I worked on my speaking habits again during the performance session. Although we were confined in the tea room, the atmosphere seemed to me more cooperative than on my first attempt. I really appreciated Kaz's approach as teacher. His question posed enough of a challenge not to shoot out an answer immediately, although I needed two attempts to answer it.

At first I lost my directions quite typically, and went a bit on a tangent. After some feedback and Kaz's friendly reminder that I didn't really answer, I stunned the group by a concise one-liner. Kaz wanted to know what I learned so far about my speaking habits, and I realised that I usually ignore my (body) awareness while speaking.

Kaz didn't stop here, although he can take pride in guiding me to an interesting revelation about my habit, and allowing me the positive experience of achieving my end by the right means. He noticed that I miss out on the chance to renew my inhibition with every full stop. Instead of telling me what I do wrong, he suggested in a friendly way a different approach, giving me the chance to choose whether to identify with his criticism or not.

Kaz's way of giving feedback certainly fits into the concept of 'indirect procedures'. He doesn't impose the interpretation of his observations to a student, he just offers them. A good example to follow and study.

Ethics

I'm doing consciously more than needed - our next reading session is about ethics, and I'd rather take some time to express my thoughts explicitly than to keep them creeping fuzzily around in the back of my mind.

1. WC states (Teachers) “are not justified in intruding into (pupils’) emotions, their thoughts, their feelings, their beliefs, their attitudes.” FM says that "Unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions, prejudices and fixed habits, are retarding factors in all human development. They need our serious attention, for they are linked up with all psycho-physical processes employed in growth and development on the subconscious plane." (CCCI – Chapter 6)
Presumably for a person to change their habit of use these factors FM enumerates have to be change. Do you think it is possible to help people change their pattern of use without dealing with people’s emotions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs?


I don't think it's possible to change a person's pattern of use without dealing with emotions, thoughts, feelings and beliefs. Former factors are an integral part of a person's self. Assuming that an AT teacher could help a pupil to change his/her use of the self without dealing with these factors neglects Alexander's core idea of psycho-physical unity.

The key word in WC's statement is in my point of view 'intrude'. A teacher does not intrude a student's body (like maybe physio's or chiropractors do), so a similar 'soft' and 'guiding' approach is required to deal with thoughts, beliefs, attitudes and emotions.

Psychological studies have shown that changes in attitude hardly change behaviour, but changed behaviour affects attitudes. An AT teacher can create the space to explore different ways to behave (act, do), which in turn changes attitudes, beliefs, etc.

2. If the answer is “no” how might we give these “our serious attention” in a way that doesn’t take us out of our range of what we are trained to do as AT teachers?


Basically, an AT teacher should deal with 'mental' pattern in a similar way to physical patterns, by the use of indirect procedures. We would not treat a broken bone with AT, and severe emotional problems belong to a similar category. When making pupils aware of bad use in thinking, we need the same sensitivity we apply with our hands.

3. If the answer is “yes” then what is the process we take people who suffer from these “retarding factors” through to help them to change their use?

Giving pupils new experiences, having a consistent way of teaching the principles of AT and avoiding 'emotional triggers' are essential to help the pupil to gain more freedom.

4. What does Walter suggest and what are your thoughts?

I would summarize Walter's suggestion about ethics to three major points:
1) Mind you own business
2) Teach the technique as hands-on as possible
3) Don't hesitate redirecting pupils to other sources of help, know your competencies

This doesn't prevent you as teacher from providing just what a student needs to release 'mental holding patterns', albeit with indirect procedures. This can be best achieved in a cooperative, subtle manner, confrontation is counterproductive in most but rare cases.

5. In regard to “unduly excited fear reflexes, uncontrolled emotions, prejudices and fixed habits” and “individual errors and delusions” how does FM propose that we approach these “retarding factors”?


FM suggest to rebuild confidence in the pupil by liberating him/her from the idea of doing this 'correctly', and providing sucessful experiences of deploying satisfactory means-whereby. It is also necessary to improve the reliability of sensory appreciation. The student then has to apply the AT principles generally, and not only for specific situations.

6. If you can accept that some types of beliefs are harmful to a persons use and others not harmful pick an example of a harmful and a non-harmful belief.

Harmful believe: There's a quick fix for everything.
Non-harmful believe: There's more between heaven and earth than science can tell us.

7. If a pupil is undertaking a procedure, treatment or doing exercises, which are clearly impacting badly on their use, what is a teacher’s responsibility? If you decide that it is appropriate for a teacher to give advice in such a case how could this be done?

The advice should be given in a careful manner, by making the student aware of the bad impact of his choice.

Toying with tensegrity - part 2

Please start with first part, in case you missed it.


Even though photos cannot capture the dynamics of a tensegrity model, they simply help illustrating why I got hooked on tensegrity. I managed to find a shot of the very first tensegrity tower I build, using nylon string for all cords. You can see some slack triangles, but the structure proved rigid and balanced enough to hold a juggling ball.



The limited stretch of nylon produces very rigid structures, and tuning can be quite tedious. However, when the cords have good prefabricated length, these models can easily used in groups to explore its dynamics.

The tower itself looked quite different from the model shown with the instructions, the tensuls kept their shapes instead have being shaped by the different loads on the tension elements.

Without elastic cord my tower had interesting qualities, but not the aesthetic appeal and surprising dynamic I expected. I decided to construct a 4 strut tensegrity structure next, which started an amazing learning experience. I estimated the cord length by using figure from a Java applet, and prepared what I needed. I didn't have any visual instruction how to lay out and construct this model, so I just started off, triangulated around and attached cords.

I marked the dowels so I could distiguish them, and had a way to write out the needed connections. The 4 strut model has 4 triangles and two 'diagonals'. On my first attempt to attach the second diagonal, while the model popped into three dimensions, some cord slipped off and the model collapsed into a chaos of rods and strings.

It took me roughly a day to figure out decent length for the final tension cords, and how to lay out the struts to allow them to unfold. I didn't count the amount of times I assembled and disassembled the flurry of strings and dowels, and how often I repeated the same mistakes in the process. Perseverance paid out, and I had a new structure to explore. I won't take it apart too soon, though, I'm still not too confident about rebuilding it again.



I used 30 cm length (instead of 20cm) for the 4 strut model, and used the left over struts for easy task: A simple 3 strut tensul with the same cord length for the main triangles. I had some elastic cord now (still not the right thing), yet combined nylon and stretch cord for the model. The final model appear much taller than the elements of my first tower. I placed the model next to it, and noticed that by adding 50% length to the compression element I gained twice the height.



Finally I found the material suggested for these kind models: Plastic stretch cord used for beading. Well, currently I'm waiting for a delivery of enough supply for extended experimentation. I picked up a similar material in a craft shop, unfortunately with just 0.5 mm diameter. It works okay so far, although the stretch factor does not work as expected yet.

The material makes it difficult to tune the models, and fix the cords to their attachment points. I managed to get three levels together, but the stabilizing triangles permanently flattened the lowest level. I guess I'll take more time for tuning the single tensuls, and fixings the cords more to the attachment.

I fiddled for a while with more securing triangles, and ended up with some entangled cord on one strut. Instead of trying any more to stand the model up, I took two more cords and hung the model up.



Depending on the lighting, the transparent tension cords are virtually invisible, enhancing the floatiness of the model. It reminds me of the idea of being 'skyhooked'. Funny enough, you can move lower parts of the model around without affecting the 'head', but when the head moves, the body follows...



I still have a long way to go if want to skeletal structures as tensegrity models. I wouldn't mind coming across enough model to buy them. Experiencing tensegrity helped me a lot understanding the process I started with learning the Alexander Technique.

Tuning one part of a tensegrity structure affect the tension levels throughout the entire structure. When we release a habitual holding pattern, other tensors (muscles) have to become active. A tensegrity model balances by specific patterns of pretension, more overall tension yields more rigidity. Sounds familiar?

By doing less we retune the tension elements, or rather, develop new patterns of feedback with our muscle spindles. We need to change our habitual reaction to this muscle spindle feedback, inhibiting the impulse to 'hold on' and send our head forward instead. This sounds easy, but many obstacles lurk on that path.

Depending on how one has used him/herself the tensors responsible for balance have weakened. Using them can 'feel wrong', and can cause discomfort and pain. We might not be aware that changes affect more than one area, or underestimate the importance of primary control.

Seeing, building and touching the floating elements of a tensegrity structure changed my conception of my own bones from the semi-solid stack of columns to mere floating compression elements. And I hope it will help my future student's understanding.

Toying with tensegrity

About half a year of weekly Alexander Technique lessons I doubted a bit about their use. My teacher told me that our body works as a tensegrity system, and I got hooked again. Even more, I decided to get on a teacher training myself - finally I could integrate Buckminster Fuller's ideas actively into what I want to do for a living.

The notion of tensegrity reappeared lately during our anatomy sessions, and I realised that most people seemed to have no idea about tensegrity. I had yet to learn that conceptual knowledge has to be embodied for a full understanding.

I had seen a good instruction for building a tensegrity table, and I wanted to give a shot myself. I decided to start with a proof of concept, using PVC instead of copper, trying to translate the imperial measures into metric, adapting a bit for the conversion.

The first prototype didn't work well, the cord length of the main triangles of the tensules was too long. The second prototype taught me about the importance of prestress for the connecting diagonals, and dampened my hope a bit to soon have a nice self-made coffee table.

So I researched the web a bit to stumble across the building instructions for a tensegrity tower made of wooden dowels and plastic cords, and the next visit in the hardware store was due. I don't consider myself a handy man, but I usually don't shy away from manual tasks. Sawing a dowel, drilling some holes and knotting some strings appeared easy preparations to gain some insights to the dynamics of tensegrity structures.

Working on this model allowed me to work on myself as well - I had no time constraints, no boss, no obligation to finish the project, nothing but my curiosity that motivated me. I felt quite proud after cutting the dowel into twelve pieces of similar lengths (2mm tolerance on 20 cm). surprised about the difficulty finding an easy way to drill the holes and about my patience following the instructions step by step. I prepared everything for four tensuls, again translating from imperial to metric measures and improvising with the chocie of materials.

I didn't find stretchy plastic cord, and used nylon string instead. When I tried to assemble the first tensule, the nylon cords wasn't stretchy enough to put the model together. I realised some frustration about preparing more than 30 pieces of string I couldn't use, but decided to make some bigger loops, this time only enough more one model.

I started off with main triangles, and thought about reusing some of the loops already prepared to see how it works out. The first structure that emerged rigid still looked very crooked, I used different length for the connecting diagonals. But I had entered the third dimension, and now wanted to find out a decent length for this 3d puzzle. I unhooked one diagonal, and due to the tension and flopped over from rigid box shape to a messy bunch of rods and strings. Wow.

I found a good length experimentally and prepared the next set of loops for the remaining tensuls. Fixing the orientation of the rods with rubber strings made the assembly easy and fast, and I had four tensuls ready to be piled on top of each other.

The nylon string didn't stretch easily, and I needed some force to threat the first two tensuls together. Although the lower triangle of the upper tensul hung around without tension, the combined tensuls showed increased rigidity.

Finally, I could tune my first tensegrity tower to balance it out. Stunned by the weird thing I build, I took some photos - unfortunately too blurred to be usable. However, as a picture cannot really capture the surprising qualities of a tensegrity model (unless explicitly designed for artistic purpose), I didn't regret capturing this historic moment for me with a crystal clear digital image. The experience I gained provides me with an embodied memory, and images will accompany the next part of the story.

Elephants and AT

When thinking about animals that move very gracefully, elephants seem not really like typical examples. Outside the circus elephants hardly ever lift more than one foot off the ground, and it looks rather funny when they run.

Do elephants have a place in the Alexander Technique, although they don't move very gracefully? O yes, because positive and negative imagery can influence our thinking. Some people carry thoughts as heavy as a full-grown elephant with them, and just like an elephant these thoughts will stand even taller when they feel threatened.

Depending on the amount and placement of these 'heavy thoughts' the elephants in our mental landscape doesn't stand out, and might even contribute to some sort of heavily loaded balance. As we tend to lean onto our 'heavy thoughts', we hardly notice the elephant in our back, while it might appear highly salient to anyone around us.

Our mental landscape can encompass the entire planet (and even much, much more), yet even in a city-sized mental landscape elephants are hard to find. Unless we feel threatened, engage in emotional warfare, question reality or social rules most of our elephants remain invisible.

Our mental elephants can only survive as long as we feed them. They might not move as graceful as a wild cat, but they move, allowing change. If one of our elephants has died, it still weighs us down, and limits our perspectives.

One way of getting rid of our dead elephant is by eating it. And here comes the Alexander Technique handy. How do you eat an elephant? Ask yourself, and dare a simple answer. Meanwhile I extend this silly picture a bit more. Of course, if our mental elephant in an unvisited part of our mind it might decay before we even learn of its temporary existence.

If we find the dead elephant in a decomposing state, I certainly wouldn't suggest eating it. You might even think it's impossible to do at all. In my humble opinion, the easiest way of eating an elephant is piece by piece. Please don't expect your Alexander teacher serving you elephant steaks (and please believe me that I never have or wanted to eat elephants outside of metaphors).

Learning a skill for life does usually not come easy or fast, I can't eat the elephant at once. And if I forget why I started eating the elephant, I can easily get distracted, bored or frustrated. While we certainly don't learn to move like an elephant, we should invest enough patience not to try to eat an elephant in one piece.