Iceland Effect

I have spent a whole three months teaching in UK and not written a thing. Yet I had so many insights with the work and influences – a workshop with Tommy Thompson, a lesson and talk with Alex Farkas. I read the Open Focus Brain by Les Fehmi and reconnected with my work with David Gorman. My teaching had an extra edge to it and became an easy experiment, my students learning this stuff and responding and taking responsibility for their learning.

My practice expanded, although my hours at ArtsEd have decreased and I am still in negotiation with them about my new pay scale.

I have a wonderful new band of voluntary assistants helping my hands-on work at Arts Educational Schools in both BA and MA courses in acting.

My friends from Australia stayed for a three weeks and my lodger moved back in again. My Alexander friend C has had her adorable baby – conceived by donor as she doesn’t have a partner and the biological clock was ticking fast. He stopped crying for a while with me, and looks like his Mum.

I returned to Alonnisos for a week at half term and did lots of work in the garden, levelling a piece of land and planting some bulbs and redesigning another part. It was good weather, and I swam a few times.

My swimming had stopped in London and I took 4 lessons in the violin. I have brought it over with me for this Christmas visit to Alonnisos – a wonderful instrument that I purchased for about £50 on ebay. She is worth 4 times as much and I call her Belinda. She has to put up with a lot of squeaks and scrapes but I am making some slow progress. O the joy of learning something new! I don’t find my arms ache too much. I most enjoy putting on some Vivaldi and trying to play along. Or sit in a daze bowing along to a Leonard Cohen film.....It probably sounds dreadful but no-one is listening and I am having fun.

I haven’t yet decided whether to go to Lugano for the International Congress this summer. It is a year earlier so we don’t clash with the Olympics. And the second time we are using Lugano as our venue. I usually lead a workshop and am unclear what I would do it on. Maybe something about the repetition exercise in Meisner as a way of bringing us to the present moment.....or perhaps now this new insight about Unified Field of Attention. I need to purchase my air ticket before VAT rise in January if I decide to go.

All my students at ArtsEd along with me are supposed to be lying down in semi-supine everyday and writing up their experiments as their holiday assignment. I haven’t been assiduous with this myself – I spent four days in Iceland as soon as college broke up – marvellous place. Some years ago ArtsEd had a number of students from there and one man wrote me a great paper on AT entitled the Iceland Effect . Quite right. Iceland has a slow unhurried wide open space effect on the brain. Such an easy holiday and o those Northern Lights (my main purpose for going) dutifully performed as we waited in minus 13 on a thickly frosted landscape. It requires waiting and allowing them to appear. Then two days to get here. Travelling and semi-supine doesn’t work easily. Meditations and application of the principles no problem.

I like best to lie down outside if I am wrapped up and it is warm enough, listening to the surf crashing down, the seagulls wheeling overhead. Otherwise, by the stove in the evening, the tv shouting loudly in the room above, the dog nestling up to me, maybe a cat or two....That’s what it will be today, lazy Sunday in Alonnisos......

Farewells

Farewells. Just said the last farewell to the workshop members. What a great time we had again. The weather was unsettled and one morning we were doing our Chi Kung practice and swimming in a gentle rain! (I was intent on taking everyone for a walk into the forest, but my group insisted they wanted a swim....) The sun came out again for the last three days and a splendid time was had by all. My highlights: Romina’s lesson with us in Inner Tango, Aoife’s magic lemon experience, Fraser playing with his voice, and Susie’s Hot Seat answers and discovery of hip joints.

A few days ago I was travelling round Isomota with a friend and pointed up a driveway ‘ Helene the herbalist lives up there. She teaches Nia dance too.’ ‘She must be very strong woman to live here’ my friend responded – true it is in the middle of nowhere, but with such beautiful views over to Peristera. But tonight I am to drink a toast to Helene in celebration of her life, as that very evening she was driving back home from Steni Vala and turned the car over the edge and was killed. No-one knows what happened. Only the week before she had hosted our annual ‘4 strong women’ dinner at her place –for Waultraud, fellow herbalist, Uschi my CST practitioner and I. An evening of dance and salad and Pimms! ‘Send not for whom the bell tolls....’. We never know when our time is up.
My time is up here on Alonnisos for the summer. Spiros is following me around as he knows the signs. I have one more lesson to give, and then I will pack up the table, get out the suitcase, and try and stuff some of my life into it. Mo and I as usual are grown up and keep cheerful despite not seeing each other for 6 weeks........my diary in London is full for next week, so I will be engrossed in settling back to urban life. The dog meantime will sniff my shoes miserably and Mo will sleep better without a restless Pen beside him.

August is the hottest month

Very hot and humid these past two weeks and today at last a little breeze but the temperatures are still in late 80’s/90’s. This is what Muffin does to stay cool....

I am very pleased with photographs I just took of the humming bird moth. The creature is very blurred because it moves so fast it’s the best I can do with my little Canon Ixus 70 (which i highly recommend by the way). But you will notice how enormously long its proboscis is to suck out the nectar from my Lantana flowers . Again! If you look earlier on my blog this summer you will see the pix I took of this bush with the butterflies all over it.

It has been a still busy month on the island despite the economics. The Aug 14th festival here, Panagia day when the Virgin Mary is assumed into heaven and also the day 15 islanders were shot by the Germans in 1944, was a little quieter than usual. However the band were really loud and I know some didn’t stay longer than 10 minutes. Too loud to talk to people. I love watching the line dances, and had a little go myself. Always a bit tricky when the foreigners join in as we don’t understand the 5 beat imperative, and as usual I found myself stretched between two people in different rhythms and pace.

I have also taken a trip further up the island to Monturo, where my good friend Waultraud lives. She is herbalist and there was a gathering on account of her birthday one evening. Delicious pasta with pesto made from Alonnisos pine nuts, which her companion Martin had hand peeled and mashed! And the home-made bread I took home with me, herby and fresh and wholesome. We ate and drank wine in their pretty garden, full of useful plants, overlooking the sea and Peristera. The heat has been making me very sleepy and in good quiet company speaking German or French, the muttering of voices and tinkling of laughter, I managed to doze off as I sat in a deck chair, looking up at the shooting stars...zzzzzzzz. How perfect. Uschi, another magic person who lives in the forest near the village gave me a lift home (my little motor bike got taken away to the knackers yard earlier this year). Uschi teaches yoga in Bavaria, as well as vision training and gives cranio-sacral therapy.

I have always found CST powerful work, first coming across it during my training in AT. Our co-director Margaret Edis was training up in this at the time and wanted guinea pigs. It is not uncommon for teachers of AT to further train in this work as it is very non-doing, and is affecting the cranial rhythms, the spinal fluids and deep connective tissue. My vertebrae T 9 10 11 get stuck sometimes twisted from my right SI joint and my neck vertebrae. Without AT I would be in a very poor state, but occasionally I need outside help to untangle these old patterns. (If osteopaths are the car mechanics, we are the driving instructors....) I recognise I have also been emotionally affected by the loss of some hours teaching at ArtsEd – my course has been hacked apart! - so it was no surprise that my back has been saying hello again in a big way. I also have osteoporosis in my L4 and took some heavy medication for this in February which I found really unpleasant. With discomfort in that area too, I decided to ask Uschi for help.

We have often swapped work in the past, and she gladly came over to my bower, my glorious teaching den, shaded with bourganvillea, vine, ivy , Virginia creeper and honeysuckle....It is fairly cool for this steamy weather, but connecting quietly in an Alexander way with such lovely people here year after year, the place has a really peaceful atmosphere. I lay down on the back on my table and my journey began, Uschi’s hands immediately hot with energy. And almost immediately I was drifting into ‘yugen’ as the Japanese call it, ‘half-concealed beauty’ half wake, half sleep, dream time. All sorts of thoughts and visions came up, none memorable except some understanding of pulling away from having fun, and this was the word that Uschi suggested I remember and use. When at the end she placed a finger on my forehead and another on my chin, my whole face/skull/jaw released opened and reshaped itself.....when she finished I floated off the table and felt refreshed and new and still in a state of wonder at the subtle energies and connections .....

Since then I have been singing to myself as I walk down to Mikros, or singing on the quay if no-one is there, singing myself into a present state, singing my bones into density and health, affirmations in song. Singing my surroundings in opera recitative is a wonderful way of halting the chattering mind and thinking only of what I see and hear and experience right now. And my back has been so much easier and freer, needless to say.

Because of the heat, I have been sleeping outdoors at night – sleeping under the stars on our balcony. I make sure I cover myself with anti-mosquito fluid, and lay looking up Jupiter who is shining brightly at the moment, till I fall asleep. When I wake at 5, Orion has risen, and today I slept more until the sun had woken properly and made myself a cup of tea, munching toast looking at the sea and the Two Brothers from my nest, faithful dog at my side, before the sun’s heat fiercely came round the wall. Sleeping out a night means I don’t feel I’ve been to bed! I’ve not done the usual ritual of climbing onto an inside platform and snuggled up to the pillow (and my partner!). Clearly I have had a night’s sleep, but it feels more intimate with the night, conscious of the movement of the earth, turning in space, changing the canopy of stars..... and I feel rested. Very glad dog is at my side and Muffin our cat came and found me this morning too. All helps to keep any other night creatures at bay!

I have been teaching now and then, but mostly resting and reading and swimming and walking. Teaching in this heat reminds me of Haifa, in Israel. In the 90’s I had a student teaching at the Technion there, a mathematician who was working on neural networks and had RSI. She had been working successfully with me in London so when she returned to Israel invited me out there several times to continue her lessons. Rivka Cohen had an Alexander training there too, so I would also take the opportunity to visit her school. One August I went, it was 40 degrees and no air conditioning. We were slippery with sweat as we put hands on and Rivka called to us ‘Up! Up!’ . Rivka is a great teacher and full of kindness to me at the beginning of my practice and very green. She was very open and wanted to find out what David Gorman’s work was all about. I also remember her lying on the table for me to work with her, her eyes closed and resting. They opened a slit and she said, ‘Penny, you have healing hands...’ This is separate to any ability I might have in getting the Primary Control going - which is her big thing. A very dynamic teacher, full of direction.

In two weeks I start the last workshop, possibly depleted by 2 as they had booked with a UK travel company Kiss airlines that have gone bust. One of them has had this happen for the second time, as they had booked with Gold Trail . When Gold Trail went into liquidation in July, three of my teachers had probably been on their last flight to Skiathos. Luckily one had phoned to confirm their return flight and discovered what had happened. A quick call to Dimitri at Skiathos meant they all managed to secure a flight back home – but they did all have to pay again. There are still flights available in September but all horribly expensive – over £400. I suggested they wait till the last moment and see if they can get a cheaper deal.

Heat, flights, dreams and stars, all part of the rich tapestry of Alonnisos in August....

Violin lesson, swimming and song

Sitting on cold marble tiled floor out of the reach of the sun’s hot steamy rays this day. No-one to teach today – hooray, a proper weekend!

And I did the usual walk down to Mikros Mourtias a little later than usual having ignored our cat Moaner’s plaintive cries to be fed at 6.30am and slept in for another 2 hours...

Despite my late arrival, there was no-one there. Spiros and I had the place to ourselves for a whole hour. I swam gently over to the quay remembering what I had learnt in my violin lesson with Angela.

Angela comes here every year with her daughter and busks in the evenings. It turns out she knew our cello player on the teachers course, and they hadn’t seen each other since the Royal Academy days x years ago. (That is not unusual on this island for old connections to be discovered. Our busking guitarist Akis turns out to be a friend of a friend living in Lamia.)

Anyway, I have a desire to learn the violin. It’s good for the brain apparently to learn an instrument, and I have always loved it. I had a go at 16 and got on very well – twinkle twinkle little star- but let it lapse. So I treated myself to 2 lessons with Angela, and discovered the essence of non-doing, how the bow will play the violin all by itself if I let it. I learnt with joy of my wings and the balance of the bow. I allowed myself to move, my arm to flow through space and lo and behold beautiful music came from the instrument! Very very Alexandrian approach, although Angela has only has 20 lessons in the Technique herself yet her teaching is the very essence of FM’s work, not end-gaining, and sticking to the means-whereby.

And as I swam this morning I heard Angela telling me gently ‘You’re doing too much’ and I effortlessly moved in the water till I arrived at the quay. So violin lessons can improve your swimming it seems!

During Chi Kung I sang. No-one was there so I could quietly sing Bach-type fugues affirming my bones as strong and dense and flexible, a singing meditation to keep my poor old bones healthy.

After Chi Kung I lazed on the beach as others gathered and dipped in and out of the cool clear waters, before heading back up the path continuing this sense of non-doing. Although always a huff and puff particularly in the heat of the day, yet I was walking as easily as I could, taking my time and enjoying the fragrance of the pine and herbs, playing with being present, staring at my clumps of thoughts as they arose....Some of the thoughts were more songs.

On the first workshop we experimented with singing as a way of helping us up the steep path, setting up a rhythm – as many armies do. I began with The Grand Old Duke of York, which was universally deplored, and then we began musical theatre scores.

Today I found myself singing ‘When we go big bug hunting , when we go big bug hunting, when we go big bug hunting, With a gun and a spray and hip hooray! When we go big bug hunting!’

This popped up from nowhere – but was a song from a Cap and Bells Puppet Theatre show I did in the winter of 1978 with Violet Philpott for her tour of Bandicoot stories. We toured junior schools and Mervyn (where are you now?) was the Lion and I did the voice and hand operations for Monkey. Monkey and Lion got up to all sorts of tricks with Bandicoot and each other when Violet and the children weren’t looking.

Funny how the brain works and remembers and associates. I hope I don’t have that banal song on my brain every time I tread the path now!

I am dipping into a very interesting book entitled the Mind and the Brain by Sharon Begley and Jeffery M Shwartz, in particular about quantum theory and how our attention affects things, and can change the hardware. It’s the sort of book that is fascinating for a small amount of time and then my personal quantum brain can’t take any more and needs to check out. To take another choice in the alternative universe of possibility. And now I choose to stop writing and sing my way out of the door.

PS I am teaching a terrific singer of Greek traditional songs. He did a concert at the bus stop last week. I took a video of him and we looked at it together discussing his pull down, and how much is needed for the style and how possible it might be to stay ‘up’ and not pull the head back when singing. I am delighted that he intends to continue the lessons in Athens on his return.

another corker

My Teachers workshop finished on Friday
Another corker. Such good fun, great team spirit and learning for all.

My highlights: watching Michel doing the Chi Kung quietly on his own at the end of the workshop on the quay at Mikros Mourtias, realising how truly powerful and centred it is (Even when he has to suddenly hop about and swat the air to discourage large flying thing in the vicinity. );

Angela tromping up the prickly path to the monastery in her Crocs and swimming costume;

the late night drinks at Maureen and Michel’s when wine was quaffed and viola’s played;

James finding the lightness of ‘inclusive awareness’ ;

‘plastic bowl thinking’ for climbing up the steps;

Anthea realising monkey was an old skill she used when playing netball;

Susan floating in the shallows, experimenting with her fear of the water;

and the last evening at the sunset when all shared a heartfelt piece of music or prose for the rest of the group.

Now a break from workshops till September to teach some individuals, and spend more time with my darling Mo who has been my ‘wind beneath my wings’ - sorry I always think of wind being about farting, but once that schoolgirl joke is over, I really mean he’s been my support, just there and being him and socialising when necessary, and watching his tv and feeding me.....thank you Mo!!

Workshops, boat trips old friends and a trip to Volos.

Two successful workshops have been and gone, and my fellow teacher Becky came with her family to visit me from Cape Town.
She and I trained at the same time, so come of age together – 18 years - this Thursday. It’s always good to talk of old times and discover how we’ve grown, how life has developed. She teaches singing and has had a lovely child Rouane who is tall and 14 now. Her husband Paul is also a teacher but does muscle relaxation therapy too. He used this on Costas at Paraport, their favourite tavern. He saw him limping and recognised immediately where the trouble was and had him face down on a bench (there weren’t other customers at that time) giving him deep massage in the lower back and showing him how to do it for himself. It was much relieved and his mother gave me a spinach pie to give to Mo.

First workshop was dogged with changeable weather, our last session under the canopy of ivy leaves on my pergola was just possible as the raindrops fell. The boat trip was an experience of waves and rain and sunshine and calm – sunny for us to have a nice lunch at the fishing village of Kalamakia and a snorkel across in Peristera, before the clouds arrived again. But much learning and joy in the work itself.


Second workshop boat trip was great and we saw three dolphins on the way back. We searched for a wreck on the Two Brothers but didn’t find it, just some debris of guard rails. And we visited Skantzoura and walked up the top of the hill to the abandoned monastery. So peaceful.

In the morning walks down to Mikros Mourtias, snorkelling was preferred to help rid us of pulling the head back as we swim, and for one anxious swimmer, a way of breathing more easily. With my small knowledge of Shaw Method, having watched both Jan Jordan and Stephanie Dutton teach beginners, I was also able to give some sound advice to June to not hold her breath when floating, but breathe out as she gently let the water take her and breathe in as she came up. It was a revelation and by the boat trip was confident to be happily snorkelling about - with her better half keeping a watchful eye and towing when needed.


I have also been helping a Dutch yoga teacher for a couple of weeks. She was getting terrible neck pain after practising so we were really playing with her not trying hard! Her new iphone sadly stopped working whilst she was here, and the greatest story is that she discovered our local priest is a whizz at modern technology and mobile phones! But sadly even he couldn’t fix it. I think sometimes the universe speaks to us very loudly and clearly to stop and let go. The island is very good at this.


A long term resident is having a few lessons in return for doing some washing for us (we have no washing machine). I am so happy as I know she has had a lot of back pain in the past and at last I can give her some help. A doctor recently diagnosed a herniated disc in the thoracic spine, and suggested AT might help. So far so good, and her head is turning more easily in both directions now and she has a smile on her face.


The other big event is taking my partner off the island yesterday to go the Volos hospital to get an infection checked out at casualty. It cost a return flight from London to Athens to get us both there, but well worth the relief of knowing all was well, and the antibiotics should do the trick. There is a medical centre here, but it is limited.

Last time Mo had septicaemia he left it very late to go to Volos and it left him with two months in a UK hospital, three skin grafts and a bad foot. So we don’t take chances anymore.

And it was very good for him to leave the island. He has lived here for nearly thirty years. I took him away for five when we first got together, but in the last 12 years he has left the island once for an overnight in Athens, three or four times to get his IKA card in Skopelos and to make a will, and now this. It wakes the brain up to have new surroundings and I enjoyed travelling with him- particularly on the way back when we were no longer anxious.

Our lovely dog Spiros was a very good boy without us. He did howl from the balcony (sorry neighbours!) for about an hour or two now and then apparently, but Cathy and Simon, two of my students who are dog lovers, looked after him for the day and took him for his usual morning walk and wade to Mikros Mourtias.

Clearing the Space

Hot here in Alonnisos. I have spent most early evenings getting the teaching space ready. Still not ready yet. Dug out the cloths for table and shade, took them to my dear German friend Heidrun for washing, dug out my wobble cushion, the head rests, the anti-slip mat, the floor mats.

It is much pleasanter to be pruning ivy and honeysuckle and sweeping it all up and tying back the bourganvillea, etc than just hoovering and dusting the space in London! It is very pretty at the moment with my lambada bush hosting lots of tortoiseshell butterflies.

I have been walking down to Mikros Mourtias every morning with Spiros, having a swim and practising my chi kung on the quay. I get there about 9, so I have about an hour before an English couple join me and head for the quay. At which point I slip on my goggles and all hot from the sun, slip quietly into the cool water and head for my towel on the beach. I was very proud of myself yesterday as I saw an ‘ear’ shell, a tiny rainbow amid the sand and rocks below and actually managed to dive for it and pick it up on the second go. It lay there quite deep.

I can tell my swimming has improved too, as I want to swim further and get into a nice Shaw Method rhythm in my breast stroke, eyes leading me into the clear waters below, up to the blue sky above....

Today as I stood there in Wu wei I saw tiny fish circling near the surface of the sparkling water and I thought how in my brain were thoughts that I could fish for, then like that Australian fisherman, Ray..? I could kiss them and put them back so they swim away. Like Buddhists suggest to stare at the thoughts to dissipate them. I was surprised how few clumps of thought I had. Mostly it is repeats going round in my head. Anyway, this imagery really worked and helped me find a quieter mind.

I went to a flea market today in the village and bought a couple of rugs which may be useful to use in the teaching space. The vendor enquired after lessons and I suggested they have a lesson with me in return for the rugs....we shall see if they take me up on the offer.

I also met Julia who was here last year and swapped lessons for clearing up and preparing the little house next door for visitors. She is happy to do the same – although she talked of swapping massage in return for the lessons. This is not so useful for me! I don’t always like massage. Depends how it is done. I am an AT sensitive!

I am reading The Plastic Brain which I highly recommend, where neuroscientists and the Dalai Lama meet to exchange views and information about the brain. I am reading about the recent experiments demonstrating neurplasticity - we grow new neurons as well as forge new connections all our lives which I find exciting and a relief!

Three people arriving in Friday for the first workshop. Need to photocopy some papers for them and finish preparing the space. I’m sure it didn’t take so long last year. I am being thorough- a messy area I curtain off is being cleared this time. Clear the space, clear the brain, start afresh, beginner’s mind.

Some lessons in my travels

My nephew Toby and I had a wonderful Alexander lesson together. We were outside the hotel we were staying in at Mathraki, (there is only one hotel, completely empty except for us) on the concrete square where the washing lines were. The wind was blowing Toby’s shirts on the line as we talked of consciousness and awareness and he rose gently up from the chair and sat down again and walked about with me, my hand on his back, or his hand on mine, discovering when we had lost our widened attention and lost contact. It was very exciting and I am pleased to say Toby’s eyes twinkled and his whole self glowed when I suggested we continue in the autumn for a weekly lesson.

I was sad to leave him and my brother at the security queue in the airport in Corfu. I was getting a later flight and had a lunch appointment with Miranda, who teaches at the Ionian University, at the Esplanade.

Also at the table was a colleague of hers, Spyros, who teaches violin and just back from teaching in Ohio. He asked me about his stiff neck/shoulder and a pain in his thumb which he gets when doing vibrato. So a short table consultation, and I suggested he be aware of what he is doing with his legs whilst playing. Aha! He realised that more recently the pain has been getting less and he is standing rather than sitting to play....he promises to attend my next workshop in the autumn which Miranda is hoping to arrange. She made the point that musicians playing for 5 hours at a time are like athletes, and have no lessons to help them with their bodies and fitness.

I stayed with Alexis in Thessaloniki for a couple of nights. He has been on a number of my workshops there, is a wonderful composer and musician and has found Pilates very helpful to help him out of his old use patterns. I gave another lesson to a man who is hoping to come over to Alonnisos this summer and who found me in London in the winter. He had been feasting as you do on a Sunday with friends with the help of wine and ouzo....not so helpful for lessons to be feeling giddy, but by the end he said he felt much more centred.

But my favourite lesson was with Alexis – he is so sensitive to the work, and had one of those sartorial experiences when I placed my hands on the bottom of his ribs at the back and he had a sudden release that gave him more breath and height and o...almost impossible to recount except he put it nicely ‘ Pilates gives you the external, it is nothing like Alexander, it is exercises. But this is something completely different, it gives you change on the inside. It is unbelievable...’


We went off for a drink at his favourite bar to talk more – I needed to be back early so he dropped me home at 12.30am before going off into the night with another friend....and in the morning at 6.30 I was half asleep and jammed the plug into his wash basin with no way of removing it. Ho hum.

All of this to say how fun it is to sow a few seeds in my travels.

Travels with my nephew

I write this in an empty hotel, windows flung open, the light streaming through the French windows and the sound of waves insistently rolling and swashing onto the sand below. It isn’t sunny – intermittent cloud cover is keeping the savage sun at bay, for which I am quite grateful: I can lounge late in bed and not feel guilty that I haven’t immediately risen to walk on the shore or bathe in the Ionian waters with the backdrop of Corfu and the mountains of Albania gleaming in the distance.....I am on Mathraki a small island off the coast of Kerkyra where my brother has bought an abandoned olive press in the hopes of making some living quarters in the ruins. My nephew Toby is a young architect and here to make some plans and suggestions. I am here simply to admire and make helpful comments, en route for my summer sojourn in Alonnisos.

My brother met us at the airport at 3 am on Tuesday mornings. He drove us to the bar at the port where we could drift off to sleep before waking to catch the 6.30 boat. Toby found somewhere to stretch out his long legs, whilst my brother and I sat talking over hot chocolate before I realised he wasn’t answering anymore....I went for a stroll round the large desolate bar space and wondered at my own wakefulness – remembering times like this in Athens airport waiting for the bus to Syntagma and the ensuing journey to Alonnisos. There’s something otherworldly about the early hours, the sort of space and time that Edward Hopper was good at capturing. I was careful to prop my head against the wall. If I sleep free-fall my head droops in front curling my spine downwards in the C bend of my habit which ends up with a stiff neck and painful back. Sleep is the last refuge for our habit, Walter Carrington (Important Alexander teacher) allegedly said.

When I eventually sucumbed Lethe-wards for an hour I actually woke with my head on my brother’s shoulder which was rather sweet. By 6 the weather had turned. The sky was green and grey and stormy. The wind was bending the palms and we waited with low expectations for the Alexandros, our small ferry to the island. It bobbed up and down in the harbour and I was glad when it was cancelled. A hotel and a day in Corfu instead.

I had visited Corfu last November to give a weekend workshop for young musicians studying at the Ionian University and had explored Corfu town – the streets so like the canals of Venice. After booking ourselves into a hotel and taking some more hours sleep, Toby decided he wanted to explore the south of the island which none of us knew. It is one of my delights to pour over a map, decide to take a route and then find out if it’s as I imagine. In other words having an intention and enjoying the journey, the unknown ‘means whereby’ which in this case took us through mountain passes and hairpins with stunning vistas of valleys and slopes peppered with sharp shaped Cyprus trees poking up into the sky....Toby was taking photos and doing the map reading hurrah! My brother doing the driving so I could just drink in the scenery.

We stopped at a 13th century fort we happened to pass by. In the centre a wooden platform had been erected with an abandoned coco cola fridge nearby – a spot for summer concerts maybe? It had a fabulous acoustic, so first my brother spoke lines from the Tempest and I joined in the Shakespeare fest with my Isabella from Measure for Measure, using my brother as my Angelo. O it was the best I have ever done it! Always when we are calm ,relaxed not trying, but enjoying, the poet is allowed to come out, unhampered by the doing of interpretation of the actor....Hamlet was FM’s favourite, but whichever, the bard is really extraordinary.

Toby didn’t spout, but looked handsome and took pictures.....until when we reached the Lake and beach we had intended and then sadly the wind was whipping fine sand up from the dunes and it got into his camera. Oh Poo! He watched his father walking, plodding along ahead of us and said ‘He always walks with his head and neck at right angles, doesn’t he?’ This is true. He also used to drop his neck to look at his laptop computer screen until recently he started getting pain and had an x ray to reveal bone spurs on his top vertebrae...Despite my entreaties for him to see an Alexander teacher regularly and my own session with him, he fixed the problem by having the screen higher, so he couldn’t droop down. Good for him. One of his pieces of luggage coming over this time was a large screen for his tiny travelling notebook that he can leave here, as he was beginning to have the same pain starting up again.

It’s a funny thing with my relatives and AT. Some teachers seem to have their whole family involved. I have given sessions to my father, mother, sister and two of my brothers, nieces and nephews, but none have taken it up. They enjoy the sessions, are intrigued by the philosophy, admire my work, my life, but that’s about it.

So I was very pleased when Toby last night, after we had eventually arrived on Mathraki here mid-day, asked me for a session some time before we go. I think he had seen his Dad, in his 60’s with the family habit of dropping neck and hips pushed forward (which makes his stomach look much fatter than he is ) and decided he didn’t want that for himself. Toby has a philosophical bent and as an architect understands the nature of design, structure and how a structure is used. I have great hopes here.

Poems and plays

The man on the bus
looked like Clint Eastwood
short greying hair, blue eyes
and a furrow between his brows.
But then Clint Eastwood went pear-shaped
as in a dream when something’s not right at all
and all that was well becomes a horror....

He sat in his blue tee shirt that
matched his eyes
in a slump on his coccyx
his chest sinking
his shoulders rounded,
and it mattered not
he put his sunglasses on
he simply didn’t look cool anymore

and I was glad when he picked up his backpack
and got off at the next stop.

21.5.10




On the bus

The little girl with long dark curly hair
and a cute nose and freckles
dangled her feet from her seat.
She wore Indian sandals
flip flops with fringed fabric colourfully slung between the straps.
She smiled intermittently at
her mother who sat nearby
as she licked her ice-cream....

Her little arms were resting on the
giant arm-rests and her shoulders
were up by her ears

and I had a vision of her as a young woman
smiling on reception,
pretty, shy, friendly
her shoulders still up by her ears and wondering why
she had a pain in the neck
by Friday afternoon.

21.5.10

Do you like them? They are the sort of thing that this Alexander teacher sometimes thinks of when travelling on a 214 bus from Old St to Hampstead Heath for a walk in the hot sunshine (the world and her husband was there this Saturday!)to Parliament Hill before catching a train to Brondesbury to meet Alexander friends to watch 'Shrunk' by Charlotte Eilenberg at the Cock Tavern. Charlotte trained in AT at LCATT in Highbury and was an assistant at ArtsEd with me briefly when she graduated. And clearly she still writes plays! Very very clever - I won't give the plot away, but not unlike a fantasy I had once about a student who suddenly turns into a terrorist in my teaching room and challenges my assumptions about inhibiting reactions to stimuli. 'INHIBIT THIS!' as she pulls the trigger....

Happy days!

On the subject of poetry another student of mine, Peter Daniels won the TLS poetry competition with his poem The Pump. http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/tsl-pdfs/poetrycompetition.pdf

Creative lot my Alexander colleagues and students.

travelling

April 25th saw me travelling from Alonnisos to Volos on my way back to UK. This is what I wrote:

'I am on the Skiathos Express with friends from Alonnisos, two also travelling back to UK , two to visit the cardiologist and an operation for the heart.

My dog Spiros I left sulking on the bed. He wouldn’t look at me, head on the pillow, deigning to let me stroke him goodbye....Mo came down to the port to see me off. We sat and drank our coffee and beer staring out to sea, just like when we got together 17 years ago....

I was supposed to have left on Friday to do a workshop for the union of music teachers at Thessaloniki – EEME - on Saturday. I had been suffering with appalling dizziness since Wednesday however and had to cancel. I hate doing that. But I spent a day in bed and slowly slowly got better – thanks to some advice by the German ladies I knew who all told me it was labyrinthitis and needed to crash down head first sideways onto the bed both sides to release the stones from the hairs in my inner ear. That and a couple of exciting journeys on the back of Mo’s scooter to Patitiri to change my ticket and buy some ibuprofen. Love the feel of wind in my hair in the sunshine and clapsing the back of my beloved as we zoomed down the hill.

People often ask what do I do on a Greek Island. Well.....at this time of year, work on myself, the garden and being domestic.

I planted an olive tree on the land below, plus a couple of cacti, clearing some of the weeds whilst keeping the poppies going.

I walked the dog long walks, took photos of the wild flowers and views of the light and the village.

I went with the Walking Club and walked up the stony bed of the Gorge to magnificent views above Agios Dimitrios and the new reservoir that is being built with EU money– our water table is going down with more tourists and more swimming pools, showers, toilets etc etc being built.

One evening we went to a rock and roll night at Mary’s Bar and danced the night away with the Aloni Band – you can see them on YouTube, and they’ve been on Greek and French TV – rock with the over 50’s... Mo was very stiff afterwards, but so nice to have a go at jiving with him.

April 13th was Alexander Thinking Day when all my 1st year students are supposed to think in AT terms. I remembered by about 2pm. I laughed and laughed and realised I had already been thinking in Alexander terms of course. I started out walking with Spiros not knowing where I was going, but if I kept going, I’d get there! We ended up visiting Polly and John for a cup of tea near the well, then going on towards Chris and Julia’s and turning off down the path through the olive trees to the kalitheri to the track through the burnt pine forest and around lesser known paths till we arrived on the road from Patitiri to the village. Just before I met our summer neighbour Senora ‘Pou pas?’ ‘on my way to milk my goats’, then nearer home on the mule track I met Fat Maria (no longer fat since her diagnosis of diabetes, as Thin Maria is no longer thin as she has got older) walking her goats up the hill past Panayiottis’ mules and shouting the time of day. Then we met Aleko who was clearing his olive grove, and I felt part of the community for a moment – connected. It seems Kafka’s quote about life rolling at your feet was truly happening without my doing anything – it has no choice.

Of course the volcano erupting in Iceland and stopping air traffic was big news and affected our neighbour Charlie who turned back from Athens airport and stayed a week longer than intended. I seem to have escaped any flight problems – I just missed BA cabin crew strike coming, and the aeroplanes are flying again as I return.

I gave two lessons whilst I was there. One was to Claudia who I have been dying to get onto my table ever since she complained of neck pains some years ago now. The sun was going behind the house by the time she arrived and it was beginning to be a little cool out on my terrace, but nonetheless she wrapped herself up in an extra hoody and I believe she had some new experience of herself.

The other lesson was with Charlie and we had great fun as we took the lesson out to a terrace at the end of the village to experiment in being present, and discovering what was happening to our attention as we gazed down at Mikros Mourtias and over to Skopelos and ducked under the mulberry tree...

I had some more bookings for the summer workshops which I'm very pleased about. I think it's more companionable for participants if there are three or four people to share the experience with.

So there are some memories of my Easter break on Alonnisos. Full of wild flowers and butterflies and fragrance of sage and thyme.'

Another busy day in Alonnisos

I have been here over a week and just about let go of habitual London tensions and speed and slowed down to my island life. Instead of charging about the highways and byways with dog in tow hoping to get fitter and lose weight (my jeans didn’t seem to fit me too well when I was struggling into them to travel in) I am now walking happily engrossed in the beautiful spring flowers and natural events that surround me, allowing the day to unfold as it will.


As Kafka says ‘Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.’


This is quoted in a marvellous book called The Actor’s Art and Craft. William Esper teaches the Meisner Technique by William Esper and Damon DiMarco, pub. by Anchor Books, available through Amazon. I brought it with me for the plane and coach and Cat, and am still savouring every moment. It makes it so clear how AT can help in the actor getting out of the way of her/himself, to allow something else to happen. My colleague Aileen at ArtsEd suggested it to me as I have 4 sessions left with MA’s where I can really play and experiment with them, and this will be a great foundation, so they really understand at last that AT is not all about posture or bodies but a profound psycho-physical experience in living.


Natural events that happened in the last week: meeting a snake on the path, a big black grass snake basking in the sun, curled back on itself and having to shout NO SPIROS!! very loudly and run speedily after my dog who was also running towards it barking and hoping to play with it/savage it or something equally dangerous. The poor snake slid off into the undergrowth at all the noise and I breathed a sigh of relief and cuddled Spiros so he knew I wasn’t really cross.


Today we met a very dozy rat that refused to move from the path skirting an olive grove. I held on to Spiros’ collar just in case he tried to have a go, as it occurred to me perhaps the little animal wasn’t well. Spiros was poisoned 18 months ago from insecticide and has had a dicky tummy ever since. They use strong insecticide sometimes on their olive trees.


A few days ago Spiros snuffled out two pheasant from where they were hiding in long grass. Don’t know who was more surprised – him, me or the birds! They lumbered off into flight Spiros wagging his tail and laughing.


On my walks with the dog, I spend some time stopping – either for chi kung practice or to lie down in semi supine. Spiros is used to this now and doesn’t winge too much, but curls up nearby until I have finished. It is very special to do this practice in such a beautiful place.


I have also been thinking about the axis vertebrae in the neck. It is the end of the ‘fixed’ spinal column. I mean that below there are no freely moveable joints, just firm discs, that allow the spine to distort according to our use and movement. And then sitting on its prong is the infinitely moveable atlas which swivels to let our head rotate , and on top of that the skull sitting on the fluid of the joints and balancing itself. Remembering that as I walk somehow changes how the head is sitting, and my spine lengthens. I get a bigger sense of my trapezius too, the neck as it were connected all the way down my thoracic spine. I had a model of the axis sitting on my shelf at home at an odd angle and it was this which set up a new exploration in my thinking and experience .


Today I actually gave a lesson – to Charlie my neighbour here who is out for a few days and who is a long term student of mine. He first came for lessons here some 11 years ago, just wandered down the road and happened to see me on the balcony and said ‘Are you Penny? Do you do Alexander lessons?’ He had read my advert somewhere and come over on a whim hoping to find me and some accommodation. We were able to put him up next door and he has since bought the place when it went on the market a couple of years ago.

So Charlie and I had a great lesson which started as we walked to a quiet sunny spot at the end of the village, and played with balance, intention, allowing, staying present in a unified field of attention - with a view to die for, and blue sky space over our heads to direct up to.....and to include more and more, and still be open and available even delighting in the light of the green leaves as the sun set over Kalovoulos and the sea turned silvery, without narrowing to this or losing our selves.


Two more people booked up for the workshops this summer, so I hope they have equally extraordinary moments as we work together. I have been working on the computer quite a lot, answering questions for them, helping them book flights and booking accommodation for them, and also for Becky who I Alexander trained with 18 years ago at David Gorman’s Centre for Training in North London. She is coming over this June with her husband and 14 year old daughter, and haven’t seen any of them for years. She teaches AT in the context of singing lessons in Cape Town. I am hoping a couple of contacts will come up trumps for a very low cost house for a week. It will take some searching but I think it is possible.


My other joy of course is to be with my darling Mo who waits and watches my London brain slowly change gear – siga, siga...It helped in a funny way that I got a funny tummy for a few days. Just wanted to doze in the sun and not do anything very much. I thought it was some well water that I had filled my bottle with, but I understand there is a bug going round and sadly Mo now seems to have it. He is upstairs sleeping and I will join him soon. I do find the bed here INCREDIBLY uncomfortable for my back, and move around a lot in the night trying in vain to get comfortable. Not helped that I am squidged between heavy dog and man. Thank goodness for my AT.


In contrast I sadly heard that a neighbour up the road found the operation on her back made it even worse and is now mostly in a wheel chair. She had some relief from a few lessons with me the year before but it was unlikely the condition of narrowed nerve channels was going to get better completely. Hmmm....... She wasn’t looking forward to the operation either. However, she has an indominitable spirit and went on an Antarctic cruise with her husband at Xmas and is planning to have her 70th birthday her in Alonnisos next month.

Wizard of Consciousness

Wizard of Consciousness

Do you like that? It’s me apparently. (Not in the picture - that's Faye. Though I think she is one too.) I am not an AT teacher but a wizard of consciousness using Alexander Technique as my magic wand or book of spells. It all sounds quite thrilling – intimidating maybe to some- but made me gurgle with delight.

You might be able to tell I was at an Alexander and NLP workshop run by Annie Kaszina.

I thought it up because of my experience when I was attending the International Congress of Alexander Technique at Lugano in 2008. I just felt we were all wizards descended quietly on the world of muggles, walking around incognito. I would come down to breakfast at our little hotel every morning and see lots of fellow wizards sitting up eating their muesli or croissants, and in between a few muggles stooping low over their cereal, growling at the world......It was so lovely to witness this – that for once there were more if ‘us’ than them. Sometimes it’s lonely out there.....

The workshop was fab, not least because as usual there were quite a few teachers I knew, so another chance to catch up and swap stories. One I was amazed to discover was someone I had taught many years ago and was now in her eighth year of teaching herself. She knew my ex-husband who was also a Nicheren Daishonin Buddhist and coincidentally so is my new lodger. I liked the coincidence – the Buddhists are out to get me!

This connection or coincidences have visited again this week – at Quakers this morning I met a woman who has a house on Skopelos, the next door island to Alonnisos and knows a fellow Alexander teacher who lives there and who I’ve arranged to meet when I am over in April. O and the night before I met new friends who have a house on Skiathos, another island of the archipelago....

Perhaps there is some wizardry afoot after all.....

Teaching at Artsed has been winding up for the Easter break and I have been very inpressed with the level of acting by both BA and MA students, and dare I say, with their use patterns on stage. This Alexander stuff seems to work! Every year I video the students at the beginning of the course and at the end. For the MA’s it is a two term course, so time to video them again and compare the two. Such an eye opener for some of them to see how far they have come. And for me too. One or two have really worked at it and transformed themselves. I am very proud of them.

The other bit of wizardry this week is to have suddenly set up an Event on my ‘I like lying down in semi-supine’ Facebook Group. I invited everyone to lie down some time after 2pm today, Sunday, and put up a pic and report on where they were and what happened. I Tweeted it too, so am hoping there may be a few. Already there are 3 pix up – one of 2 year old Faye, who wanted to copy her big sister Scarlett. It is sooo cute!! That's her at the top of the page. The ultimate wizard.

Voice and Alexander Technique

Voice and Alexander

I’ve been poorly. Last week I began to lose my voice as I was teaching MA’s and Tuesday and Wednesday had to cancel lessons to allow myself time to be ill and recover. Not being able to speak is not nice, but it isn’t that unusual for me with colds. Then I get better except for a dreadfully tickly cough which can grab me at any time, and there is nothing for me to do but cough and cough and cough and go red in the face and require water. That happened this Monday as I was giving the MA’s at ArtsEducational School, the answers to their body-mapping quiz (eg ‘does the spine lengthen or shorten when you breathe out/sing/speak?). Bleah.

Ironically I went to a voice workshop for Alexander teachers on Saturday with Michael Deason Barrow, a fabulous singer himself as well as running courses for singers, Tonalis workshops, and trained for 2 years in the Technique. Thankfully a lot of exploration of how the voice works, how breathing works, as well as the ubiquitous singalong with Amazing Grace. If only he didn’t work from Gloucestershire, I would be along like a shot. I learnt a lot.

I was able to use some of his teachings when I went to my regular gig at Ilana Machover’s Alexander Training in Queens Park to explore voice with the students there. Michael specialises in singing of course and I am working with the spoken voice, which has some different requirements. I had asked the students to prepare a poem they loved, to share with the rest of the group. And those that had forgotten, I provided with poems I love! We had ‘When I am old I will wear purple’ and ‘What life is this if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.’ and one that says ‘sometimes things work out all right...may this happen to you’ (an unpoetic summary, but such a great sentiment) It was so interesting to listen and after I had made a few suggestions or put my hands on, there were some really different sounds coming out – fuller and richer and more confident. My favourite was a woman who habitually has quite a nasal tone, which suggests the soft palate is dropping. So we did all spoke as Margaret Thatcher for a while and when she spoke again, the soft palate was still raised and out came a voice ‘that doesn’t sound like me’. It was so interesting we overshot the usual brunch spot, and had to eat at the end of the morning. Oops

I also shared with them the short animations of the diaphragm on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpXstUTg_Rc and Alexander teacher Jessica Wolf’s website www.theartofbreathing.org

These are fabulous for really showing what it looks like in motion. And the first one includes the movement of the lungs and guts as well, so it looks like the ribs are just getting out of the way to allow the movement through the torso.

So, just when my voice is particularly ropey I am involved with learning/teaching voice. Could this be a sensitive issue with me rather than just a coincidence? Hmmm.

I have gathered in all the papers from MA’s as next week they are doing presentations of their work-Shakespeare, voice, animal transformation, singing, and I am expected to assess them – give them a mark for Alexander Technique. A mark in conscious awareness! I think I would get a very low mark: The more I explore the work I become more conscious of how unconscious I am!

I have been working with awareness and attention with BA first years this week. I set them the task to find the golden Labrador puppy over the week – a treasure hunt. It was a tiny picture which I stuck high up on the side of a small cupboard near the toilets. I had to give them hints before anyone found it! Do kids play ‘hunt the thimble’ anymore? They loved it. They can be an excitable bunch - resting tongues isn’t a choice they make sometimes, so quiet attention is a wonderful experience for them to explore. And they are learning so fast! I gave the winner a bag of ‘minstrels’.

We went on to walk around and talk aloud what we could see, hear, touch, feel and what we were doing....all excellent ways of bringing the mind to the present moment. And my assistants and I found it much easier to work hands-on with them because they were interacting, rather than sitting/standing waiting for us to ‘do’ something magic to them!

And just now, I had to get up too early for a Saturday and let some Romanian carpet cleaners in to spruce up my teaching space. Such is the gritty reality of being an Alexander teacher, conscious or not.

Just come in from a beautiful workshop with Miranda Tufnell, Alexander teacher, dancer and author of The Widening Field. It was a STAT organised seminar for professional development. Of the twelve of us there only three I had not met before, so a joy to meet with some old friends and put faces to names I had connected with only by email before now.

At the beginning...well it started late because the Holland Park tube was closed due to all the maintenance work going on in the London Underground this weekend and most of us had to catch a bus down from Marble Arch and it was terribly wet and windy and I had been appointed tea lady for the day so was trying to get there early and only succeeded to get there in time, and I saw someone get off the bus and thought ‘o she looks like an Alexander teacher’ as we smiled at each other from under our umbrellas, and then I shot across the road dashing through the traffic and then thought to wait for her in case it was someone from the workshop and it was rather rude of me to charge off, but I was so cold and dying for a pee, and then she didn’t appear from round the corner so I dashed off again, wheeling my little bag behind me with the biscuits and tea and coffee, and then by the time I got there and someone had let me in and said hello to Miranda, well then of course Michelle just floated up a moment behind me so cool and I thought, there you go again girl all that rushing for no reason...........sigh.

Anyway, as I was saying, at the beginning Miranda laid out different bones or collection of bones on the floor and we had to choose one to look at with a partner and find the movement in it. Ilan had chosen half a pelvis, which of course looks like Henry Moore with exquisite form and shape, but I saw this funny piece of skull that I decided was probably the sphenoid bone, a bone I didn’t really know at all or have hardly ever looked at properly. I was gagging for something new and there it was this funny little butterfly bone with insect legs that made me laugh. We had to place it somewhere appropriate in the room. Ilan placed his pelvis on a stool – like a sculpture, and my butterfly flew over to a potted plant and hid amongst the leaves- just as it hides in the centre of our skull behind the eyes and above the larynx.

We changed partners and explored the movement in our partner – rather like I use ‘sticky hands’ exercise at college for my theatre students, only this was not necessarily hand-based and finding support and resistance with each other. One had the eyes closed, the other was there to support the exploration of movement in the other....Another time we leant into each other 50-50 resistance and support, needing each other, and moving against each other . Later in the afternoon we lay in prone and listened with our hands to another’s breathing pattern and encouraged movement to start from the breath itself......Ilan said it was as though the hands were like boats moving on the waves of the ocean...

And at the end we picked up our piece of bone from the morning and asked what gift it had given us, something new it had found for us in the workshop...I giggled suddenly as I found the anchor points for the larynx, if you turn it upside down look like two hands with two fingers sticking up as though to say ‘fuck off!’, and so I had to share that, and didn’t know what sort of gift that was – except perhaps the quirky sense of humour that says not to take life so seriously. Everyone had a good laugh, before they gave poetic sensible answers for the messages from their bones.

I am wondering if the sphenoid may be related to my eye strain and migraines that I have been experiencing now and then this winter.

Last weekend i saw the 3rd years strut their stuff in Colour of Justice, the play based on the transcripts from the Stephen Lawrence enquiry showing the inherent racism within the police force in 1990’s, when he was left to bleed to death on the pavement after a racist attack by a gang of white youths who were never charged with his murder. It was a very moving piece and the students were very authentic, although some having to play several parts. I was very proud of them from both acting and Alexander point of view. And for the college to have put on such an understated powerful play.

I came across Stephen Lawrence again in a huge picture by Iffizi at Tate Britain, a large beautifully poised head, with tears streaming down, inspired by Stephen’s mother. I remember it. I loved the hugeness of the paintings and the colour - but not sure I would want to live with them. Perhaps two of the small watercolours. I went with two friends – one a colleague who has been on my summer workshops in Alonnisos, the other a painter, also someone I met in Alonnisos. Isn’t life gorgeous the way it brings in connections? Like knowing most of the participants in the workshop. Life is a connected place , or my brain seeks to make these connections, and find the mutual support.

I did a very good class for the 1st years this week. We were marking the quiz on body mapping ( the mini easter eggs were a welcome prize for s/he who gave the best definition of the Technique) and revising monkey, attaching it to the act of cleaning the teeth. We first worked in a large group, then divided into 3 groups, so 5 could have hands on with monkey, 5 lie down and 4 take the DVD camera next door and film themselves doing monkey...It was just kind of neat.

Here's me working with 2nd years - they are all learning lines for their Shakespeare project.

MA’s are cracking on apace, and there were some very profound discoveries for some on Friday when I did the Higher Creative Self Exercise. It is a bridge for the actors to find the psycho-physical aspect of the work and how it can transform them from habitual self through to neutral self, to the character. I gave a workshop on this at the Lugano Congress 2008 for AT teachers. And have published a paper on this .....watch out for it on my website soon.

On Tuesday I tried to get to my Chi Kung class and failed miserably as the Northern Line was crawling along because of signal failure. I got off at Bank and decided to walk up to the Barbican to see if there was a film I wanted to watch instead. I saw Peter Brook’s piece 11-12 was on and in the queue for a ticket, found someone willing to give me a very good seat for a very cheap price. Destined I thought. And sure enough, I met an ex-student from ArtsEd and reconnected. The play itself was not exciting for me. I get irritated when an ensemble piece has no women it. And I began to nod off. I always sleep so well in theatre these days....Give me the rawness of student productions, full of potential, not rather tired accomplishment.

Presenting ourselves

21st February
The big event this week was the changing clothes day at college – Thursday for BA 1st year students, Friday for MA students. Double whammy for me, as I join in with this exercise. They were all magnificent. The purpose is for them to realise how clothes can change your use and that AT is more than changing postural balance.

As often is the case, some looked so much better – more attractive and alive, but they couldn’t wait to get back to their old ‘habits’. A few of the young women found wearing no make-up extremely uncomfortable. One or two, including one of my assistants, looked extremely pale, and their unhappy face made them look very ill! I wonder if the face looks so pale because it’s so used to being covered up, it doesn’t get the natural weathering which brings a natural colour?

One young man we have been working with finding weight and maturity, simply did now he was wearing dark clothes instead of yellow shirt and skinny jeans....

I was very irritated by my make up and nail varnish by the end of Friday. Also it felt like I was making a show of myself which also made me uneasy. I didn’t mind at the beginning (and it did seem that I was getting more ‘looks’ from the general public on the tube) but I was very happy to get back to my usual clothing identity on Saturday.

Our film director said true – that usually I look a little younger for my age (54! How did that happen?) But with the make up etc it didn’t suit at all and made me look older – and we discussed how this is often the case for older women who put on the glam. The opposite effect from what we are after perhaps, trying to keep back the years and disguising ourselves.

It takes me to another brief discussion with colleague Judith. We get nervous when we are about to perform, but there could be little difference between communicating on a large scale or in communicating one to one. Our clothing is a way of presenting ourselves to the world – at least in the wealthy west where there is this huge choice. In other cultures, and where there is dire poverty, clothes are not such a fashion statement! How many of us are genuinely communicating, and how many performing or presenting ourselves? Hmmm.

I visited a folk club last weekend and watched the guest singer pull his head back the large vein in his neck stick out and his eyes close as he sang in that time-honoured nasal folk way. It looked a lot of effort. He was forgetting his words and I did wonder if he had a cold.

My friend and I were leaving at the interval anyway, but I heard the call for floor singers - ‘if anyone wants to come up and sing, just give your name at the door’ and just the faint thought of singing The Blacksmith Song got my heart racing, palms sweating....yet what difference is there between me sharing a song there, or earlier to my friend before we went out? What is it that my poor system fears? I may want to explore this more.

David Gorman’s Learning Methods (http://www.learningmethods.com/) on performing anxiety is rather like ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’, as the reality is there is no-one judging us except ourselves and the fear of going wrong is self generated. I question this when theatre students are being judged and assessed for example...or at auditions, when some outside assessment is being made about the performance.....but this desire to be right, our old end-gaining friend again is definitely interfering in genuine authentic communication.

As an AT teacher I need to wave a flag and let people know I am here, yet part of me feels I’m making a show of myself. Faulty Sensory Appreciation perhaps? Or making a performance of my life? In our trade paper this month I had three adverts (for the workshops, and for assistants to join me at ArtsEd) then a review of a book and then a co-signed piece about The Performing Self Conference in the autmn. I felt embarrassed. Can’t I just be a quiet little AT teacher getting on with her life and teaching without apparently blowing her trumpet? I do recognise the irony of my writing this blog and I am having the same doubts.

There is quite a non-endgaining, gentle push on to bring us AT teachers up into the media age – blogs facebook and twitter- but I also find it time consuming and little bit of a pressure. So I’m inhibiting, taking a step back and releasing myself from the laptop. I wonder if it is this which has been giving me migraines which have been hovering about this week.

However, my summer workshops are booking up nicely I’m pleased to say, though still some places left. So my publicity is working!