Freaky friday

I managed to make my peace with fridays. I accepted the temporary increase in numbers, and Matt changed his ways of running the friday group. I hesitated a moment when he asked me with whom I wanted a turn, luckily I decided to do (have done?) table work with him.

Enjoying the new freedom in my hips, and more connectedness of limbs and torso, I sat down with a tea to browse a bit through anatomy trains. When Ana came in, I commented 'breakfast time', but she didn't seem to want to talk to me. When I saw her cutting a loaf of bread, I started watching her hands, trying to compare her movements with the memory of the day when she cut her hand.

Then chaos broke loose. 'Stop watching me like this!' I looked at her in surprise, maybe said something like 'What?' 'You always watch people, trying to get eye contact, it's annoying me! And I'm not the only one annoyed...' I noticed her emotional upheaval, as well as my confusion. I mentioned that observing is part of our job as AT teacher, tried to make her aware of the use of the universal quantifier 'always' in her statements, to little effect.

Recalling the situation makes me aware of how well inhibition worked for me in that situation. Her tone, body language, the message itself, the group conformity call especially, all of those used to trigger easily my 'verbal fighting mode'. Yet I stayed relatively calm, I just laughed every now and then, which probably didn't help. However, I had no interest to take the bait to dramatize the situation, which wasn't too easy.

'You always look at people, it annoys me, I feel like invaded, and others too.' Whoa, here we go. Universal quantifier, external locus of control (i'm responsible for her being annoyed) and group conformity enforcer. I asked her whether she expected me not to look at anyone, and she finished our mini drama by promising a better solution.

Unfortunately, Sharon, who witnessed the situation, did not want to comment on it. I'm sure my frustration about her reply shone through, but I had no intent to inhibit my reaction. I found it hard to refocus on the anatomy trains afterwards, but I didn't want to cling to this incident while in school.

I probably learned more than I asked for, and some of my observations were confirmed. Another random group of people thinks talking about an individual instead of talking to them could change their perceptions and improve their interactions. Duncan's idea of using all the time in school to do the work suddenly seems very radical, pretty much unheard of.

Resilience. Mindfulness. I can't tell whether my non-doing contributed much to this complex web of misunderstandings. On the positive side, I might have a chance to inspect my self defence habits, I can imagine triggers coming up.

Walking

I had a nice chat with Duncan during my turn, explaining the advances made by analysing my initially very faulty body map. We did hardly any chair work, and I spend the rest of the turn with CJ.

Anatomy gave a detailed walk through of gaits, specifying each phase by naming its effects on joints and muscles.

Anatomy

I had my turn with Duncan today, and we did some chair work. He still seems to try to impose his idea of challenging me, yet no conflict arose. I volunteered happily to get some table work from Anne, with really good results. I felt my shoulders and hips slowly melting softer while she had her hands on, a really pleasant experience.

I enjoyed Ann's anatomy sessions thoroughly, her relaxed yet knowledgeable style suits me well. I explored movement of the scapula with Ana, our new Brasilian student, and the movement of the prime movers together with Steven. Experiencing the involvement of large parts of the torso in any arm movements revealed some of my funny ideas about arms, and will help me integrating my limbs better.

Taking it easy

While the first days at school felt quite odd, without Mum & Dad, David's presence took the edge away. Not only did I thoroughly enjoy my turn with Ann, I think I learned some bits as well.

The group with Duncan fitted into the category of criticism that came up in the group meeting, it seemed a bit random. However, using eating as activity unveiled to me that the time spend using a habit makes it more and more 'invisible'.

The second group with Ann worked out much better, even though she had the tough job of dealing with a really large group. However, it seems like she uses more of the Psychosynthesis approach, starting from the positive aspects. Unlike more paradigmatic Alexander teachers, she's using what works in a given situation, and thereby representing the mental clarity and flexibility promised by the technique.

Starting over

David is still in Europe, and Jenny went to NZ to attend the funeral of her father, so Duncan, Matt and John tried to run the show.

I got a bit upset when it looked like I wasnt gonna get a turn, yet Duncan did some last minute session with me. I made some interesting observations about my rising anger, and the attempts to stay content.

Yoga, like the turn, proved to be a bit on the literal side. Not to mention the group work with Matt. On the good side, Robert worked well on my shoulders so I had at least some hands on experiences on the first day back.

Playful

Duncan found me playing with the Cj ball, and we worked a bit on this during the turn. Most of the time, however, he used quite significant force the demonstrate some vital points where the weight travels through my body.

During the group work to play with legs on the table, and ribcages while sitting. The stimulus gets reduced with anything but the head, yet the sensitivity has to grow. Yoga felt mellow today, no fitness attack like in the last two weeks.

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.

More communication

I had a good turn with Duncan today, we worked on maintaining the back in standing again. His hands made me aware about the curvature of my spine, as well as moderate and similar level of toning along the entire back of my body.

Today's communication and counselling session dealt with good and bad communication strategies. I felt a bit observed during the exercise, Stephen's approach worked well for me as talker. The listening part want okay for most of the time, yet at the end I couldn't resist to give some advice.

ShouldersI

I explored walking in my term with Duncan. I still have (at least) one area in my back where I shorten my torso, probably a remaining part of the pattern to pull the shoulders back. While doing lunges I noticed a similar pattern in that activity, and found a simple optical check for the state of my back.

We played a lot with bones in our anatomy session, I liked assembling clavicle, scapula and humerus together most. I had only a faint idea about the glenohumero joint, and seeing the hinge joint between humerus and ulnar proved fascinating as well.

In our group work we played with the monkey again. I discovered some variation that can give me an incredible amount of extra length, something worth playing more with.

Group work

My turn with Duncan turned out a bit confrontational. I felt like reducing the amount of stimuli by doing table work, yet he went down a different road. I went into the typical twist - wanting to answer his questions (probably with tensed neck and shoulders), while having to life with him stopping me from doing so.

I feel pretty much drained at the end of my first term, though I look forward to the residential, without knowing how this total immersion will work out. Although I like the idea of "quickening the mind" (in FM's words), I fail to see this happening to a larger extend with my fellow students.

I had some lengthy conversation with Bo, trying to tie AT principles into the chat about the use of digital cameras. The communicative aspect of the work appears much easier at the moment to me than observation and hands-on, although it challenges me a lot (especially to keep my directions while doing so).

Libby's group work really made my day. We played with resistance, assistance and neutral while doing chair work. Even though I didn't manage to sense the level of connectedness with Jane and Jen, the I distinguished the quality of movement in the different modes. Especially availability feels very distinct from resistance and assistance.

Working with Gen and Cal felt easy, probably as they direct themselves already very good. I realised that thinking directions helps connecting, yet moving people involves an activity. I need to find the fine line between directing while moving and pushing. I enjoyed the partner work with Cal a lot - she gives very precise feedback, and directs herself very good, which makes it easy for me to stay in my body while working with her.

Ann had her group of year 2 students preparing some group work, which we tried with everyone. I couldn't resist to play devil's advocate, yet I realised that not everyone takes criticism as feedback. Kaz, having his doubts about AT at the moment, provided the most fun way to do group work, using the snap gard came to demonstrate the principle of inhibition.

Undoing oneself doesn't come easy, and the perception of one's identity, or ego, stands mostly in the way. On a mental level, the ego prevents most people from changing their habits of thinking, and working on this opens a difficult battlefield.

Old pattern

During my turn with Jenny we worked on the activities sitting and standing. I still do some (useless) things to satisfy my concept of standing, instead of keeping my directions in activity. This reminds me of Duncan's comment about difficult (or hard) things while talked about the limits of attention. We have to deal with a high level of stimuli. Each stimulus potentially triggers a response, yet not like behaviourists assume, a definite and predictable one, more like an avalanche.

We notice the result of the avalanche as holding pattern, we might not know the path it took or which other avalanches might have triggered this one. Undoing one part of wrong doing often fits into a larger pattern of the same misconception, and some parts might resist undoing longer than other. Like with any other field of interest, more time spend in observation enables appreciation and awareness of detail.

The separation and mind and body, Descartes error, exists only as meme. Learning how efficiently the nervous systems uses the body helps undoing useless modes of thinking. The experience of mind-body unity and of the connection of two nervous systems challenges quite some scientific believes.

Introspection opens the gate to consciousness. Consciousness can then connect and communicate. So much for the idea, as I did not connect too well today. My emotional system sends irritating signals, the next system that needs further introspection and understanding.

Group work consisted of further observation of saying ah while lying done. Different breathing and holding pattern emerged. The performance showed an interesting dynamic. Obviously, not only me feels uncomfortable with the idea to sing in front of the others. I have to find out whether stating the obvious helped or harmed.

Antigravity

Another day with two turns, yet with less revelations than yesterday. The first turn was with Duncan, and therefor more on the verbal side of things, which sometimes overstimulates me a bit. Nevertheless, this gives me the opportunity to exercise using directions as a background process, and I learned a bit more of the relation between my knees and back.

I worked with Ferry for the first time, and had to adjust to his firm hands. I plunged into the chair when I sat down, as I didn't use my hip joints properly, while he directed me by putting hands around my neck. When Libby started working on him while he worked on me it felt much lighter, and I responded much better to a more gentle approach. However, I could collect useful information while doing it "wrong", especially about releasing with verbal suggestion, which worked very well to increase the mobility of my arms.

We came back to ordering and directing in the group work with Libby. We started observing each other undirected, and I happily plunged and collapsed into the chair. The most amazing change happened (with me) when we tried to keep the directions during the movement. A simple "neck free" allowed me an easy getting in and out of the chair, and the other group members (and me) noticed some drastic difference between directed and unconscious movement.

The anatomy session with Anne covered unfamiliar territory, and I liked especially the idea of the antigravity reflex that can kick in once the neck is released. I went into a bit of disagreement about the kind of nerves for muscular control - I brought up intramuscular nerves in addition to those connected in a spinal reflex cycle and those ending in cortical motor area. I better research whether those exist (or not, as David and Anne insisted), as well as the concept of the antigravity reflex (or positive support reaction).

Kung Fu

Duncan came in today to work with the students, and we working on my horse stance and my punches. I hesitated to work on this, as I thought that without knowing Wing Chun correcting anything would not work, but Duncan proved me wrong. After two years I still lean back in the horse stance, which affects my punching as well. I got pretty much used to a specific stress pattern in my legs, and just by moving the hips a bit more back I get can upright in my stance. And instead of allowing the elbow to go straight up to finish a punch, I wanted to extend from my shoulder.

I felt overstimulated during the group work, as Duncan explained a lot, which made focusing on my proprioception more difficult than usual. The simple of act of directing myself out of chair after leaning back allowed for some variations full of effort. I got more tired this week than before, although I'm still progressing, at least I think so.

Activities

I had my turn for the first time with Anne, and it yielded some interesting results. She made aware about my tendency to anticipating the teacher's move, and her hands were sufficiently sensitive to make me feel the difference between availability and helping the teacher. I felt as well a connection from my feet up to my head - well, just with a released neck, of course.

I juggled as activity, and managed some noticeable ease, after releasing hips, knees and ankles. Duncan's idea to consider when an activity starts (does it start with the throwing of the first balls, putting the arms in front of the body or by picking up the balls?) helped a lot in conducting this activity.

I still have no clue how to use my hands to do teachers work - but I realise how much fine-tuning into my body I need to keep myself coordinated. Anne's anatomy group helped in raising this awareness, as she talked us to different areas of the body. Her homework challenges my constructed self-image. I tend to consider myself as the whole body, but spontaneously just my eyes appeared in front of mental eye. Mentally, my head still floats around somewhere, yet I certainly felt easy after the turn with Anne.

Let's see how much I can get a conversation going about psycho-physical unity, and use language more precise to avoid constructing a distinction between mind and body.

Literature

Today I worked a lot with Libby (or she with me :), and just a little bit with the freshies. Bo borrowed me his anatomy book, so I can do my homework for next week, until I got my own copy. Libby helped me discovering mobility in my tailbone, something I never thought of before.

I enjoyed discussing the readings, and as group work we played with the position of position of mechanical advantage. From a coordinated position sitting on the back of the chair Libby put a book between my back and the back of the chair. I wasn't really leaning on it, just touching it with the shoulder blades.

Although I expected to see Duncan at some point, it felt a bit different than the private lessons. Yet it allows me to see him working, and observing teachers has some great value.