Congratulations to my student Rhia for bringing little Matilda into the world last weekend. She was having such an easy time inside, she didn't want to come out! So despite our endeavours to free her up, UCH helped out after all.
I have spent an interesting hour or so, thinking about an ill-thought-out newsblog from my website. I edited it without more ado when certain objections were put and I realised I hadn't explained myself well at all.
I am still amazed when students of mine take the teachings of FM and use them in a real way to help them through life. In otherwords they are owning the Work for themselves, and I am but a facilitator for their learning. The Work is great, and they learn despite my teaching!
What would it be if there were no national boundaries at all? After all the birds know of none, nor does the weather. Nation states are more recently created in the history of civilisation. The only boundary that can easily be seen from space is the great wall of china. We have habits of mind and body, and there are cultural and social habits, designed to organise us. If we can organise the Self differently - which is what AT does I think - then the world may be organised differently. We certainly receive the world differently, as our perceptions change. Often this change manifests in just being nicer people - 'I don't know why but my husband seems to be more calm and easier to get along with....' could be he's had the Alexander lessons, (often the case) or could be the wife has had the lessons and perceives the husband differently...
So a very philosophical day today. I visited UCH also this afternoon not to see the new baby, but to have more conversations with a specialist nurse about my bones. They are lighter than they should be for my age. I suspect there could be a factor of Alexander in this - floating around a little easier may not be giving the bones enough stress to thicken them up! Now I have a choice to let it be, exercise more, continue having high levels of calcium and other key minerals in my diet, or continue the medical intervention with a yearly jab. Hmmm.
Afterwards I went into the Wellcome Foundation exhibition called I AM, about personal identity and had fun looking at myself in a 'real' mirror. usually we see ourselves back to front, not as others see us. This reverses the image so we see oursleves as others do. I really do seem to drop my head to the right an awful lot when I am not consciously directing. Is my use pattern obeying structural reform though, with the light bones I have, particularly in L4. My discomfort in back and ribs may well be to do with this. Thank goodness for semi supine and all my Alexander training. Where would I be without it??
A late lunch at the Friends Meeting House Cafe in Euston Road was delightful, as I met my Friend Molly unexpectedly from our local Quaker meeting in Bunhill. She comes to my drop-in Alexander sessions I run there on a Wednesday evening.
There is a correlation of inhibition with Friends practice and AT. In meeting for Worship no-one says anything unless moved to do so in the moment. We meet ourselves, each other and the spirit in the stillness. Stillness is very moving. I was moved to start the drop-in sessions when I saw a photograph of a new sculpture at Woodbrooke Study Centre. It depicts a circle of Friends sitting in meeting for Worship and they were all rather scrunched up, pulled down and collapsed! As though Spirit was having to be squeezed out of them... Compare this to other depictions of Quakers in the old days, sitting very straight-backed and upright,their heads gently bowed from the top of the neck, the atlanto-occipital joint and their hats and bonnets firmly on!
I like two suggestions from 'Faith and Practice too: 'Walk cheerfully' and 'live adventurously.' Very Alexandrian!
The picture at the top is of some Friends lying down at Bunhill Meeting.
Woodbrooke Study Centre in Birmingham http://www.woodbrooke.org.uk/ is the former home of Quaker George Cadbury and there is a very interesting article on the Cadbury legacy and the sad Kraft takeover on the following website
Hello Penny - I found your blog through my recent roamings in the Twitter / Alexander Technique Project, it's a joy to read and I look forward to reading more. It resonates for me because as well as being at AT teacher, I'm a Quaker, and chi-gung student in the same school I think - at least our teacher often references Master Lam. I love the way all these things flow into and through one another, and you obviously feel the same!
ReplyDeleteSandra Riddell (Edinburgh)