grey autumn day

learning to walk again,

learning to talk again,

feeling old and unknown pain,

always rewiring my brain.

a moment cannot be captured,

but you can open up to it.

if the connection is ruptured,

you can still open up to it.

with leaving behind certainty,

i can only win more clarity,

and with tender loving care

receive what's really there.

destruction, nurture and creation

keep the wheel of life in motion.

Evolving Meme

When our habits have grown strong,
changing them just feels really wrong.
somehow, we reached our end -
is there any need to mend?

If only pain keeps us alive,
existence becomes a strife,
we have fallen from grace,
caught in the daily rat race.

All it needs is the penny to drop,
learning gradually to say stop.
The new ways will be unknown,
it's good to have them shown.

And with a little bit more connection
we can shape this planet's resurrection.

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.

Performance

I had an amazing turn with Penny, working on contact juggling again. Now, as I recall the session, more ideas pop up how to play with the information I gathered today. Although my shoulder girdle has gone through various states of alignment, the process of freeing it up gets more and more refined. We experimented with just lifting the arm (to put the CJ ball on it). With Pennys hand on me I noticed a swing to the side initiated the movement, and going into a straight line seemed 'impossible' at first. It was fun to notice some impulse in my arm while it moved with much less interference than usual.

I even managed to enjoy working on the whispered aaah. Jenny asked us to observe a partner (first Jack, then Rossi) and experiment with changing the intent while whispering. It was great to see that some ideas worked well, and even without the use of hands change happened. Observing a pattern and changing it indirectly (just by adding a different intent to the primary control) felt exhilarating, and stressed again how important the student's intent is for the process.

The performance session with David brought a lot of valuable information as well. Although my observation was affected by the loss of one of my contact lenses, I noticed more the fluidity (or lack) of movement. I think I might have rather tried to observe something 'static' (posture?), instead of staying more with the observation of movement. It looks like an AT teacher just opens up a different direction for the student to move into.

Reciting my own poetry for the third time produced a sufficiently high stimuli to investigate some deep seated habits. I took a 'deep' breath before starting, probably just like FM, pulling my head back and tensing my torso. Going the process of 'exposing' myself in front of an audience again offered many insights, especially the loss of coordination after the performance.

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.

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.