Change in routine

David informed me via email that I had to go to the Body-Mind Centre instead of the school in Fitzroy, so I took the opportunity for an adrenaline-laden unicycle ride to the CBD. Although I walked most of the last part, Jenny noticed at the start of my turn that my legs were still pedalling. It seems like quite a habit to pull myself down in a lot of interactions, especially in talking. It's still difficult to remind myself of the directions before acting, and feels a bit odd. Nevertheless, I manage much better my habitual response to 'feeling wrong', and allowing myself to integrate certain levels of discomfort without actively ignoring them.

I noticed as well that my hands work more in a 'teaching' way, yet only while I take of myself to a decent degree. I got more patient with myself, and when no movement happens, I rather renew my directions and explicitly release arms and shoulders a bit more. I worked a lot with Stephen today. It was great to experiment a lot, both of us knowing to expect little and helping each other to stay present.

We discussed the chapter of CCCI in which FM describes the procedure to put hands on the back of the chair, perfectly suited to go through this as practical part of our group work. One of the pseudo-hinges along my spine became very discomforted during the process. I wonder whether I was trying too hard, or activated some underused part of muscles around and of the trapezius. It seems to be the part from which I pull my shoulders in place, and potentially bend the spine back (or even to one side) at the same time.

While during some earlier table turns 'non-local' effects (release happening far away from a teacher's hands) provided me with a rather distracting stimulus, I integrate more of the whole body into this kind of sensations now. While Sharon gave me a turn, I noticed a lot of up coming from my feet. Her hands prevented me from pulling down to 'feel out' what was happening, instead I stayed with the nice sensation in my legs and Sharons hands on my head. My limbs can still connect a bit better into this awareness. At least I know now much better what I'm doing with parts of my body, without 'sinking' into them at the same time.

I'd still call my whole-body-image quite hazy, yet it is definitely less fragmented and gets more familiar. I got now a better idea when I'm grounded. I'm sure some experiences on the unicycle had a 'skyhooked' quality. The next step will be to become more centered / aware of my center, connecting heaven and earth. Or so.

Taking it slow

I had a chance to jump the queue for our turns, and opted for a table turn with Jenny. I guess I'm tempted at the moment to try hard, so I used the opportunity to slow down and observe. Jenny helped me to release my shoulders quite thoroughly, and I noticed in better detail the connection of my arms into my torso, as well as some habits I acquired while lying on the table. My eyes were fixed a lot of the time, and I pushed my head a tad into the books. When I started observing Jenny, I managed to inhibit this tendencies, and rather started wondering about where she was looking while working with me.

By staying aware of the things I just found out, I learned as well about my tendency to fix my legs on the table. Once I allowed them to slightly balance, I could extend my observation a bit more to my whole body. Instead of wallowing in the release for a longer time on the table, I asked Jenny to lift me off the table, and was surprised about the ease in this movement.

I played a bit with my CJ ball, but then asked Briar, who was next to me in semi-supine, whether I could work with her. Table work on the floor is very challenging, but I was tempted to play with John Appleton's alligator imagery. I don't know whether asking student to imagine things works by distraction, it certainly helps for a more light-hearted approach. I hardly zoned out, and rather stayed with the idea of a good contact with my hands.

The book session got me a bit over-active, yet I managed to stay directed during most of my comments. However, I want to reduce my input a bit - I still get carried away sometimes, especially when we're talking about FM's sociological ideas.

The hands-on group with Jenny challenged me a lot, taking heads from the back of a chair. Having both thumbs directing through the skull and the fingers lightly under the jaw suits group sessions well, and seems less intrusive than one hand unders the jaw and one on the back of the head.

In the second group we explored the changes in tonus of the torso when thinking about different weight distribution in the feet. There's certainly the danger of internalizing while becoming aware of our feet, however, seeing an x-ray showing the relation between calcaneus, patella, tibia and fibula reminded me that our weight arrives in front of the heel and can spread over the entire foot.

Awareness

We had three two hours of anatomy this week, and I noticed how tiring the traditional frontal teaching format is. Luckily Mick Gleeson presented the material in an interesting and light-hearted way, deepening my knowledge about anatomy in a productive way.

Even today the school routine didn't kick back in, half of the students explored swimming with Penny. Ria and Jenny were our teachers for the performance day, having plenty of time for each of us. I worked with Ria on maintaining my directions while talking to a student, which worked out well in many dimensions.

Not that I don't like having hands on me, but Rias communicative approach improved a bit my self-esteem. And as we both maintained our use, the quality of the conversation, even with many interruption, reached a lot of mutual understanding.

We explored the role of the jaw in sound production as group activity, after exploring each others torso during breathing, monkey and whispered aaah. The more I allow all of the sensory information to come together, the easier it gets to get an idea what's happening in another person.

During the performance session, Ria picked up on my extra breathing when singing. After my first attempt, she used her hands to remind me to inhibit this habit, then she just cued me verbally in time. I was surprised that my performance looked like I was thinking less, as I was acutely aware of the diversity of intentions I was juggling with while singing.

Back to school

The unicycling training paid out, I arrived quite relaxed at school. I enjoyed Margarets hands during my first turn, being happily wrong again yet more precise in my directions. I had about 10 minutes semi-supine before, just enough to get settled back into school again.

I'm going to experiment with Philip Pawley's idea for semi-supine quickies: Just a few minutes, yet with some extra awareness of the whole process and directing from getting down to the floor until standing again. I wanted to get my hands on again, so I skipped this good resolve today.

While working with Carina I noticed some of my bad habits flashing in front of my inner eye in moments of inhibition. Although my arms feel much better connected than ever, I still can easily forget my hands (not really a useful thing while putting hands-on).

I could pick up some of her movement habits, and helped her releasing some extra tension. Jack volunteered for the next session, and I got more confident with my hands. However, I need to order a bit more what I'm doing when putting hands on, I tend to forget about my left arm.

That's the good thing about the group classes. Jenny has an amazing way to work with us while putting hands on, very precisely pointing out the extra bits we don't need. And of course, directing us the same time.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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).

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.

Inhibition

I had my turn with Libby, easy going and informative like most of the time. Chair work has the certain advantage of a limited set of stimuli, which makes inhibition and direction a bit easier. The chapter for the reading dealt with inhibition as well, and Matt provided us with the opportunity to exercise inhibition. The talks and group work made the distinction between withholding consent and inhibition much clearer, one is non-doing and the other rather the act of doing something.

Jenny's group helped me understanding more how a teacher approaches teaching inhibition, and how important inhibition for the teacher is.

Performance

During the turn with Jenny we detected a funny pattern: By releasing my wrists more my shoulders came undone, and my back lengthened. Interesting to find out how complex something like moving wrists can end up to be.

We did a re-briefing of Vivien's visit in the first group, and especially Tony aired his criticism extensively. Maria did her best to defend her, and appreciated the emotional experience Vivien put her through.

I forgot my lyrics sheet, which made performing a difficult task. Nevertheless I made some progress, the sound of my voice changed a lot in my 15 minutes of fame/shame. I have to remember to bring my camera with me,

Bad news

The day started with the pleasant surprise of another turn with Vivien. Her subtle hands moved around my shoulders to encourage more release, yet I still need to increase my sensitivity in this area. I know that my sensory feedback is unreliable, yet I have some trouble to let unknown feeling states happen.

Discussing the reading in the big group didn't allow to in-depth insights, yet worked out very peaceful, unlike the group work with Matt. He claimed that inhibition weakens the habitual pattern, thereby focusing on the 'wrong-doing', while I argued that it rather creates and strengthens the inhibition circuits.

I got tense and frustrated when he ignored/refuted my comment with "That's just semantic". I get the impression that many people in school don't want to deal with the thinking/language aspect of the work, unaware of their communication/interaction habits.

The group with Jenny worked out much better, taking heads and shoulders on the table. I can easier sync with Jenny's instruction, they seem better timed and very concise. My use while putting hands on improved a lot, although I still don't notice too much with my hands. Doing less will certainly help.

The bush fires around Melbourne interfere with our plans for the residential, which means it loses much of its attraction. I hardly can handle setbacks outside school at the moment, this change of plans affects me more than I want to.