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.

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.

After the intensive

The spirit of the improvised intensive didn't prevail until today. It took me some time to get into my body in my turn with Jane, still sweaty from the ride to school. We had a short debrief about the residential, with some very mixed feedback. The circumstances certainly tainted a bit the experience, but the fires left only short time to reorganise.

The group work unveiled my impatience. I got a bit upset with Stephen for my perceived lack of cooperation. It seems that my frustration threshold is pretty low at the moment, and I need to observe my reactions to emotional shifts a bit better. The topic shifted from hands-on to monkey, you can never enough monkey around.

I worked with Rossi in Lailani's group. Lailani's feedback made the hands-on session really valuable, doing less becomes easier. Or does the ease come with doing less? Anyway, using my hands seems the best way to stay directed, and motivated.

Jaw dropping

I continued my vision experiments today, I feel less intimidated by seeing less now than when I started. I had a turn with Jane, who worked Nili-style, which gave me good information. David's hands felt much more subtle, nevertheless with lots of direction.

We had a premature book session, so I had to master the challenge of doing my reading as well as proof reading Rossi's homework with pinhole glasses. We did the reading session in the large group, recapitulating the way Alexander discovered his method of re-learning.

We did bits of hands-on work in the group with Margaret, and I seem to have different habits with and without lenses - or rather, I fell back into my habit of falling into my students.

Handicapped

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

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

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

Common cold torso.

The weekend adventures left me with a cold, a new experience waited for me. Jane's table turn helped to start the week leisurely, and with new ideas about width in my torso.

Lailani showed a me bit more forward with the head, it still feels odd to organise my body below a head that's forward and up. I learned a lot about some of the holding pattern, but have yet to figure out what's left to release.

Yoga didn't feel to straining, probably I managed to use less effort just because of the cold (or the medication). I experimented with David's idea of releasing into an asana, and enjoyed the exercises.

We played with release of the ankles in Matt's mini group, just Will, Kaz and me. I liked revisiting an experiment after some time, and the information gained today felt more detailed.

More performance

I had a good turn with David today, noticing some of my bad habits while working with him. The group session crept slowly, mainly because nobody expected a book session on thursday, even though an email was send beforehand.

I managed to piss off Jane with talking about the government while waiting for the group work to start. We played with making sounds again, and a lot of my tension pattern connect to too much effort around my jaw.

Margaret worked with us on our performances, and her simple idea to rehearse the song mentally helped me heaps.

Up and down

Although I claimed towards Jane that I use to work on mental pattern more than the body when having turns with Duncan, I failed to do so today. I spend most of the time trying to direct myself while listening, and I hardly managed to influence the conversation into topics that allowed me to gain insights. I wanted to investigate the way my head moves while talking, which seems so much easier with less engaging topics.

However, Duncan told me that I'm not doing my habit when I observe myself in the mirror, and it took me about 10 minutes to convince him to share his observations. To my surprise, he told me that I move the head forward and down, not without hinting that I appear as a barrier to him sometimes. I thought my pattern works back and down, which explains the difficulty in noticing this habit.

During the first group we observed ourself while using our arms, and I noticed the tendency to fall back to bad habits when doing it fast, while movement with more primary control allows flexibility of all involved joints. The third year students presented their ideas of an introductory group session, which showed different ways of doing it less efficiently.

Counselling and communication

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

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

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

Performance

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

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

Ease

Working with Jane turned out to be fun, and she managed to give me a lot information while working on the chair. I tried to inhibit my head back, shoulder up pattern while speaking, and noticed the preparatory actions before I was speaking. I'm less confused by non-local effects any more, but rather cherish the opportunity to recalibrate my proprioception.

On the table Jane and I managed significant release of the shoulders, knowing more about the structure of this area helps a lot. I still need to develop a decent sensation of width throughout my trunk in a lengthened state.

Anne worked with me straight after Jane, and surprised me a bit when she asked to have an AID AT T-shirt. I might have found a first ally to use more of the internet.

Singing gets a bit easier, I manage my level of apprehension better. I chose a different song, and Cal noticed the different pattern between speaking and singing with me. Jenny needed less extreme movements to keep me on track, and glimpsed my self during the performance.