Drawing

I had half a turn with David and a full turn with Bronwyn, both with interesting observations. David mentioned that my back gets more flexible, and I feel a holding pattern slowly shifting up my spine. Of course, this shift might as well indicate more sensibility in the area and probably a partly resolved pattern. Bronwyn reminded me to get back to the primary control, no matter where we locate problems. I suspect that the shoulder tension relates to some holding around the hip joints, so I have to continue to experiment without too much judgement.

We inspected breathing with hands-on during the groupwork. We had a visitor today, Kaya, who will come for two more days into the school.

Weight shift

The morning started with a turn with John, exploring the different ways to release my shoulders. Yoga felt really good today, especially with a good forward stretch with feet on my back.

We experimented with weight shifting in the group with Jenny. Lifting the heels from the ground while sitting and standing provided plenty of information about holding pattern and gave good opportunity to exercise inhibition.

Tube

I had an interesting turn with David, which ended with some surprising pattern of pain in my back. Using my tongue differently, or rather stopping to do too much with it, helped a lot.

Matt wanted us in the group work session to explore the head more detailed. We did hands-on to sense our partner's head movement, which turned our quite difficult. The head movements
centered around the idea to sense the breathing tube, and maintain it in an expanded state.

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.

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.

More of the same

I like having turns with Libby, we seem to connect easily and the sessions mostly end with mutual smiles. However, I feel the need to find out more about my own progress, as I still think that I suffer from faulty sensory appreciation.

I definitely need to resist the temptation to play mind games, although I consider this a valid strategy. During the first group session Margaret had a look on my use while talking, yet I still find an attentional layer to do it myself during the activity.

Back to school

The new term saw one new face, Jim, who already visited the school for anatomy sessions. And as had my turn with Margaret and Ria just like Maria, I did not start as first, and bounced around a bit during turn time.

Although I did hardly any work during the break, I have not yet forgotten everything. Playing around with hands-on proved again that human bodies by itself constitute a large stimulus. The day at school ended with a surprise pilates session, which might leave me with some sour muscles.