Talking shoulders

Today I had a turn with Emma, who graduated in our school a year ago. I chose to do table work, which gave some good insight about the work my shoulders do when I prepare to speak. Not only while speaking I pulled the arm into the shoulder, even while thinking about speaking I could feel the muscles moving, or least preparing to move. While on the table, I guessed that this pattern might originate from the school times, when I had to raise my arm to answer questions - and as the clever and ambitious kid I impersonated in school I used to put a lot of vigor in it.

"Education is dissassociation", and this my case the urge or the preparation to speak involves shoulder work. Now, while reflecting on the situation I can observe the activation of my shoulders as a preparation to speak. The impulse seems lesser when formulating speech in my mind, I could try to speak in a chorus - my inner voice prompting my audible voice.

Rachel Zahn spend another three hours with us, and this time I took notes. As I didn't find Bucky Fuller's three questions on the web, I could happily jot them down:
1) Where is nothing being done?
2) Where are resources passing each other unnoticed?
3) Where are known resources being wasted?

Rachel stressed again the importance to communicate abundandly and efficiently outside the Alexander world, to get more (scientific) recognition and exchange, and open new areas to find students. Only time can tell, whether we can rearrange the educational system, which currently suffers from an "architecture of madness", but I feel challenged to work on bridging the Alexander world to the rest of this lovely planet.

Rachel described the learning process of AT as a removal of filters, which enable a different kind of perception. When she first put hands, she felt some other life in her hands, a connection of nervous systems. The fields radiating from chemical and electrical processes in the body might explain the transmission mechanism for this process. I could nearly feel into her memories of that moment, that she called almost spiritual.

Yet far from appearing like sanctifying herself, she smiled about her former (faulty) conception, having removed that filter on her way, and understanding more about the obstacles that many students, including herself, encounter. Undoing liberates from restrictive patterns, which have physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions. (The AT lacks a concept of spirituality, and I might misconceive the latter part. )

A glimpse of the future

"I'd rather have my brain using my mind, than my mind using my brain."

We had no school today, instead, we attended a presentation by Rachel Zahn. She introduced first the concept of rapid learning, which demands a break each 20 minutes of two to five minutes to refresh the brain.

During the first break, everyone participated in the suggested exercise, which consisted of choosing a point a reference, closing the eyes and counting up to four breath out cycles. The next breaks ended in chatter and running around, which meant we skipped a lot of breaks, while skipping over some parts of the presentation.

Rachel talked about the approach to bring some scientific backup to the Alexander Technique, especially from the areas of neuroscience and philosophy. Unfortunately, I did not take notes, but might have a chance to ask about Buckminster Fuller's three questions on monday.

Alexander's (and John Dewey's) idea to use the technique for education becomes more tangible, and ideas of David Chalmers, Varela and others provide a link between the work and science. I just jotted down some of the names that I heard tonight, and will have to do some research about their concepts soon.