Cold

The week started calm, and the weather prevented me from unicycling to school. I seem to gain so much more insights by just inhibiting when I work with teachers, although the new experiences tend to drag me into 'feeling it out'. I take these slips into feeling more lightly, and get more used to inhibit any reaction to new sensations, at least sometimes.

I dragged myself with a cold to school, which has changed a bit my facial tension. Bronwyn surprised me by continuing ideas from our last session together. My turn with Jenny worked quite well, and it seemed like no bad feelings stood in our way to work together.

AT intro in ctv

The end of the week

Only me had a turn with David, and he brought me up after thinking too much about yesterday's conflict. Stephen had an attempt to talk about this beforehand, and managed to turn this talk into something more productive after school.

Then David asked me for a talk, and unsurprisingly mentioned the lack of inhibition during the performance session. I hope I will notice this unproductive behaviour pattern earlier next time, David suggested that I could simply leave when I don't manage to inhibit.

I stayed pretty calm during the group work, where Matt experimented with two and three dimensional thinking. After a short warm-up, we revisited taking an arm during table work, while engaging spatial thinking. Of course, doing this for the first time didn't yield spectacular results, yet I realised how 'flat' I conceptualised the skin contact. The tendency to overuse my shoulder diminished a bit, and I manage better to stay present and more in my body.

Conflicting performance

I enjoyed the turn with Penny, and learned quite a lot about my different thinking modes. My first attempt to walk backwards felt impossible, like I was glued to the floor. Knowing that I still need to bend my knee helped to get me moving, the sensations differed significantly at each go. I got more aware of the switch between thinking and feeling.

I partnered up with Kaz for the group work, where we explored jaw movement one more time. I don't notice too much what I do in this area, especially when speaking. Taking time to explore this area starts to integrate it into the perception of my 'whole'.

The performance session ended a bit controversial. I taped my performance, unfortunately I ran out of memory before this happened, so it's tough for me to say how my use changed when I clashed a bit with Jenny. When I started to explain that I'm not a musician, she interpreted this as self-imposed limit. This aristotelian interpretation got me upset, and a little emotional turmoil arose. I hope to have a chance to talk with her about our communication problems soon.

Conscious guidance and control

I realise more and more that progress in our work depends on the willingness to change one's own thinking, or rather thought patterns. I experimented today with some of the ideas from Missy Vineyards excellent book 'How you stand, how you move, how you live'. Her lucid description of inhibition didn't solve any mystery for me, yet advanced my understanding of this vital skill immensely.

Missy's ideas about spatial thinking inspired me massively as well, and using this concept in hands-on work with Andrea worked out quite well. Gaining new experiences of free movement rewards the work we invested, yet we need to integrate this experience in a connected way into our thinking, 'understand' it.

When we discussed the first chapter of Universal Constant of Living the question arose whether the world would change for the better when more people learned the technique. Jenny's reply caused a bit of conflict, she claimed that everybody would need to change to make this happen. I loudly objected again this very absolute statement. I noticed the lack of willingness to change thinking, or to work on each others thinking outside the safe boundaries of a turn.

The disassociation of body and mind looks to me pretty similar to the disassociation between individuals and the communities, and the fragmentation of society. When it comes to solving problems with a foot, an AT teacher would address it indirectly, sorting out the primary control instead of doctoring around in the symptomatic area. In a living organism symptoms are not considered the origin of a problem, they rather indicate specific use, often lacking primary control.

It surprised me that Jenny managed to think about her connection to society in vastly different terms than the connection within her self. As student we have to push 'impossibilities' aside, at least for limited periods of time, and once we took this temporary leap of faith we can experience the connectedness of our selves. This experience transcends the linear thinking of the mind-body dichotomy and allows us to glimpse wholeness.

This remains me of the Flatland story. During an Alexander lesson, we can leave Flatland for a while and experience Spaceland. This gives us a new perspective. In Flatland, body and mind can never come together, merely touch at each other. Let's think of our body as a little square, and the mind as a little circle in flatland. Philosophers of all time have not yet solved the problem of squaring a circle, no matter how hard we try, creating a unity between circle and square (body and mind) in two dimensions is not possible.

There's a lot of variations you can create with the circle and the square: separated, touching at one point, intersecting to varying degrees, the circle embedded in the square, the square embedded in the circle. This represents the varying degrees of wholeness achievable in two dimensions, it cannot be complete.

Now let's move into spaceland. A square is just an intersection of a (2d) plane with a (3d) cuboid, a circle the intersection of a plane with a (3d) sphere. If we extend square and circle into the third dimension, they will meet like legs at the hipjoint. Even if square and circle were disconnected in flatland, their connection (and unity) becomes apparent from the 3rd dimension.

(I need refine this image, as I understand it better).

Ann-atomy

The day started with a very revealing turn with Ann. She moved me around in a fun way, before she made me bounce with increasing ease on a gym ball. I spend the rest of the turn time with reading, getting aware of the different points of support while doing so.

Jen talked us through the nervous system, quite precisely presented yet getting very lengthy. The distractions from people talking didn't make it easier to stay focused. Stephen and Jim improvised about the respiratory system, and Kaz and Andrea walked us through the circulatory system.

Hearing about the pulsimory and systemic blood flows made my day - I enjoy getting a more detailed picture of intrisicate workings of our bodies.

Additive Thinking

The morning began with a lazy drive to school, and a good turn with Libby. I get more sensitive for the extra work I'm doing, sometimes it feels like the muscles activate, sometimes just like they want to.

The reading yielded, like often, quite mixed responses. And the topic, I have to admit, seems quite advanced to me. I experimented a little bit at Golden Beach with additive thinking, and although I have an idea about it I still need much more practise. I asked Jenny whether its possible to experience the effect of additive thinking with the help of a teacher. Funny enough, after something that sounded like agreement she insisted finally to disagree.

The groups, with Jenny and then with David, did a lot of hands-on work. We played again with listening hands, and I noticed how much more sensitive my hands become, if I manage to inhibit the overuse of my shoulders while putting hands on. I still have to figure out what I do with my wrists, currently much more gets activated when I think about them.

Off the rail

I spend quite some time observing the strange loops I happily enter in certain situations. After all, that didn't work too well for me, and I arrived in a bit of a mental chaos at school. The turn with Marigold worked well to get me back in my body, like contact juggling after the turn.

The group work with Marigold had some strange turn to it. Stephen asked me whether I worked with Marigold putting our hands together, and appreciated using a wall for this exercise instead of continuing to work with me.

Luckily we did a bit of yoga to finish the day off. I'm quite glad that some of my habits and attitudes towards yoga have changed, and how I much I used tension as indicator of 'doing the asanas right'. Doing less becomes finally a bit easier.