Little things with big impact

Every environment you visit on a regular basis becomes co-creator of habits. Even before I started learning Alexander Technique, I had developed a kind of sense for the new (and some of the typical) ways of interaction in serendipitous situations.

Going to school certainly fosters new habits, and usually you will encounter a schedule or timetables as frame to attach various new behaviour patterns to. Luckily, David's school for Alexander Studies prevents 'over-habitualisation' by inviting one or two 'master teachers' per term, interrupting the routine and offering fresh perspectives.

Cathy Madden visits our school at the moment, for the third time while I study there. I still remember some of her observation from prior visits. She reminded me to use my clavicles when I move my arm, she encouraged me to investigate my speech patterns by switching between German and English, and besides that provided a great example of applying AT when she worked with our group.

I felt quite elated and 'ready for action' after both days of Cathy's weekend workshop, although I didn't seem to have advanced much. However, just by attending the workshop I surrounded myself by a nurturing, positive environment with the opportunity to learn more about a different approach to teach the technique.

Cathy knows well the typical Alexander lingo, yet she doesn't bring up such terms unless requested to. Her language keeps simple, and with questions gentler than a lot of AT teachers hand she elicits useful information from the student.

She picked up on my habit of stating a lot of things in directly and indirectly negative ways, by noticing a shortening when airing bits of negativity. I had a great learning moment when I observed this pattern in another student, and Cathy's elegant way to reframe the students desire in positive terms. Even without Cathy's explicit reminder my understanding of this pattern grew, and confirmed the usefulness of simply observing a good teacher in action.

I missed the opportunity to ask her to help me teaching until today, and still needed to convince myself that I wanted to get up and do it. I had a positive intent how to approach the situation, but noticed that I lost my coordination pretty fast. More precisely, when I wanted to speak more activity than needed happened. Cathy stopped me and put her hands on, while I had my next go in talking to my student.

I could not figure out what I did in this critical moment, and Cathy went on to explain bits about the mechanics of voice production. She noticed that I pulled my tongue back to produce sounds, so she simply asked me first to hum, and then to speak trusting that I don't need to do this.

I guess I must have looked quite surprised when I played around with a new pathway to make some noise. All of a sudden, the tiny movement my tongue made stood out sufficiently to allow me to let go of it, to reorganise myself so that I have a new plan I can follow when I want to speak.

I wonder what else I do with my tongue, yet it seems blindingly obvious that additional tension in my tongue affects my neck, and therefore my entire coordination. Playing around with speaking still feels odd. Allowing my tongue to do less seems to reactivate saliva production, and sometimes I get the impression that my speech gets a bit slurry.

The tiny bit of information about me pulling my tongue back to 'prepare' for sound production took an entire mountain off my chest. At some point of my journey of learning the technique I came across the fact that I did something extra to speak. Not knowing what but noticing that 'I did it again' became a relatively steady source of frustration, and contributed to the diffuse perception of my social awkwardness.

Besides observance, guidance with our hands, verbal explanations we teach AT by applying its principles, using subconscious mechanisms to model freedom in activity. My concern about dis-coordinating myself while speaking slowly dissolves, and I look forward using my voice in a new way.

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.

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.

Ping

We did a warm up walk like yesterday, with Cathy 'pinging' us when passing. I spend my time observing, and only suggested another observation game. Attention seeking interfered with progress, but I still enjoyed the ride.

Thinking of my jaw as a limb still needs to find the way into my thoughts. Together with the roundness it can change my way of talking. I think I need to simplify my AT thinking even more. The head moves so that the body can follow, together with a shortcut to access this idea. Brilliant.

Change of habit

This week we have to deal with a change in our school routine - Cathy Madden is our visiting teacher. Instead of slotting her into the regular routine, she runs kind of a workshop with us. She has a very gentle approach, and uses a language bereft of most Alexander lingo.

I like her idea to simplify Alexanders wonderful work even more, down to head leads and body follows, having a very easy way to demonstrate this relation. She started off by asking each of us about our goals for the time with her, and managed to teach already by making us clarify what we want.

I tried to explain my goal, to layer more directions into any activity, which she clarified to the desire to integrate the technique into my life. I volunteered to work on speaking in public, and discovered that I had connected the sensation of arousal with negative attitudes. Instead of using the extra energy to enhance my activity, I tried to block it off, reflected in my use.

I need more work to play with this idea, and the experience of succeeding in the friendly environment of the school will certainly help. Time flew, and after a contemplative lunch break I had a short private lesson (30 min).

I didn't notice too much change during the lesson, but I received useful information about the way I speak, and the different sound characteristic of German and English. I became aware of the different 'roundness' of these languages, and can focus on using more facial muscles to produce the sound (or rather, stop the idea to use just the visible part of mouth and lips).