Sunday 28 February 2010

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.

Sunday 21 February 2010

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!

Friday 12 February 2010

a working week


I seem to have finished my working week.

MA students on Monday were treated to more body mapping – this time we focused on the pelvis and psoas muscle. They modelled plasticine pelvises to help them really understand its shape and intricacies.

It is lucky I happen to have several model pelvises for them to look at and copy: some years ago when I was still driving in London and had a car, I travelled back very late one night from the airport to my garage under a block on my estate. I always thought it would make an excellent set for West Side Story with its gloomy interior and rows of garages with graffiti, with such eloquence as ‘Mirati, I sucked your mother’...... So it wasn’t too surprising when I discovered the garage opposite my own had been used as a storage space, abandoned, and the front door wrenched off its hinges and the contents scattered in front of mine. None too pleased and very tired, cursing under my breath, I began using my foot to kick and nudge the stuff out of the way so I could park up my own car....and then I realised what it was I was irreverently booting about – model bones!! It had obviously been a store of a model skeleton maker. As well as model pelvises, there were vertebrae, shin bones, ribs, jaw, a hand made from real bone.....all of which I jammed into a black bin liner for future use. Sadly no skull. How very weird, that of all people to find it, it would be me, who could recognise and recycle such treasure! So that’s why it’s easy for my MA students to have a pelvis between two to copy and model out of plasticine...


I also gave them Feldenkrais exercises to help work the psoas muscle, plus the mindfulness of breathing meditation, o and a great ‘Happening’, their 5 minute exercise in Alexander thinking whilst performing.


This ‘Happening’ was entitled ‘Passion and nihilism’, and several of the instructions were for them to be caressing, swaying, hugging each other. Two were to flirt/and look for someone flirting with them, before embracing. Since the instructions are handed out randomly, I never know who will get which instruction, and in the first group it was a couple of straight guys who took AGES to find out and get over their embarrassment at having to come on to each other. Riveting to watch – very in the moment.


I spent a lot of time this week on finding good photos for the new design for http://www.alexanderingreece.com/ . I set up a ‘drop box’ on the computer so I could share the files with Kim who is doing the design for me in return for her Alexander lessons. Very useful device the dropbox. (http://www.dropbox.com/) Here are a couple of pix out of the 70 I chose! I looked at them all and thought, ‘wow what a wonderful place’ and ‘I wish I was going on a workshop there!’ So that has to be good.

On Tuesday I visited Refia Sack’s training school at the Highbury Centre for Alexander Technique. There are a lovely bunch of students there and a great atmosphere. I gave a few turns, watched the hands on groups, and took part in the overtone singing practice. My pal Judith was taking that. She and her husband Peter who both come to Alonnisos were both teaching that day. I always love the tea breaks on trainings. Ilana’s has an early lunch every morning, Karen’s have toast and tea, and HCATT tea and chocolate biscuits! They all had a nice lie down too.


After the session Judith and I had a coffee afterwards to chew the cud – plans afoot for a weekend conference on the Performing Self in the autumn, and a general catch up. We don’t live that far for each other, but we are all busy teaching and don’t manage to meet up that often. She has promised to lend me a violin which I am excited about – another personal project for me to learn how to play. She and Peter play cello and double bass and her sons also play stringed instruments. A very accomplished musical family.

In the evening I met Eleni my Greek friend form Thessaloniki who has started training at Anthony’s. (They don’t have communal tea and snacks, but go out to local cafes or bring their own in ) I took her to the beginner’s Chi Kung class with Master Lam. I enjoyed it very much this week – we were doing an exercise where the arms were mimicking the movement of the diaphragm.

On Wednesday I had my own Alexander lesson with Sue Laurie who teaches actors at the National. She it is who helps the puppeteers for War Horse that is doing so well in the West End. We swap work every fortnight, and is such a crucial part of my continuing learning. O the joy of being given a table turn and discovering I can free my left leg even more.

My theme in my teaching this week seems to be the nowness of being. I found something on this on YouTube and when I was waiting for my students to arrive, sat gently using the breathing meditation The lessons became more proactive, the students livening up under my hands as they widened their attention. I am reading Matthieu Ricard’s ‘Happiness: a guide to developing life’s most important skill’ which is advocating this too.
On Thursday two of my assistants at ArtsEd were unable to come at the last minute, so I re-organised the class and worked them between the two of us and set up the ‘changing clothes’ day next week. Every year after the half term they all have to come in with clothes they don’t habitually wear. This takes some discussion and I get their peers to instruct them on what to wear, so they can’t cheat. They all want me to change clothes too – I think this year will be the big hair heels make-up and floral patterned dress. Sigh. I am definitely not allowed to wear black. I have a double whammy as the MA’s do this too, so today I had the same discussions with them. No I am not coming to college in evening dress or leopard skin with cleavage showing ......I clearly still fulfil some young boys’ fantasies!
2nd years presented their Noel Coward plays yesterday and today: Private Lives and Present Laughter. Very challenging in both genre and accent for present day 19/20 year olds, and they all had a good stab at it, one or two really bringing it off.
I made little notes about their use to work with when I see them next week. Are they collapsing or pulling down, are they poking their head forward as their character gets irate (and in those plays they all get irate!), are their shoulders relaxed, are they too tense, interfering with the flow of the piece.....? They have been working with me now a year and a half, so want to be able to transform themselves from their habits. It’s so tricky when they are nervous –that’s when habit can all come flooding back, and Garry walks penguin style, and Amanda leans back....and Henry sits like a 21st century football fan....hmmm

Sunday 7 February 2010

A week of malaise

My own consciousness was in a fog this last week, but it seems to be re-emerging.

A funny thing on Thursday. I was revising breathing mechanisms with the first years, and one of the male students asked me in all seriousness- ‘Do men and women have the same number of ribs?’ Then ‘o no, I lost the bet last night in the pub...’ with some further mutterings about the bible speaking false.

I have been teaching them the meditation of breathing and they are finding it a delight – ‘Are we going to do it again? ‘ with excitement. So little time for silence these days.

Friday morning with second years at ArtsEd continues to be like a training atmosphere, with hands-on, lying down, and experimenting for themselves. One particularly useful experiment I set up for a girl who pulls her head back when she sings. Very simple – ‘Get Luke to video you as you sing and play it back and watch what you’re doing’ They had done a singing presentation the day before and I’d had some feedback from Andrew our singing teacher about that. I feel so blessed to be working in an atmosphere of sharing, acceptance and respect. Of course the student saw herself doing what everyone had been telling her. ‘But how can I stop that?’ and began her experiments at last in inhibiting it.

Another student, a very good young actor, uses too much effort and tension, and we experimented with him doing less, but still keeping the truth and driving intention. His confusion was that the physical theatre teacher expects him to take on different shapes to accentuate character, and then he has Alexander and singing and voice classes that ask him for his ‘neutral’, balanced state...how can both be right?

He felt so relieved when I said he could take on any shape at all that’s appropriate for the character, as long as it’s a conscious choice and done with direction. ‘It’s a technique – you have to apparently cheat it - make a fist, now keep the same shape but release some of the tension....’ 'Doesn't that become untruthful?' So we experimented with this on his Coward character who is frightfully angry at one point. The first time he was making his voice crack with the tension, then he played with keeping the truth but ‘doing’ less – o my goodness, his voice powered out! He broke into a big smile and understood how FM he speak truth. So pleased – I had been aware of his tying himself up in knots for a while, and so good at last for him to express his beliefs and to have his own realisations.

MA’s were very low key on Friday. Like me, all rather tired, a few absent with illness. I think they all caught it off the director who came in with a heavy cold on Monday. His office is very small – like a large cupboard in which also sits the photocopier. AJ is not brilliant anyway first thing in the morning and there he was sitting at his desk visibly drooping whilst I was bumbling about on the photocopier and his assistant from Iran was passionately expressing his difficulties in finding work as a director or actor. I felt for him. So on Friday, one lad was still recovering and did look very pale and unlike his usual jolly self. Hurrah! He was far too tired to ‘do’ his habit, end-gain etc and try hard. For once he experienced himself coming ‘up’ and walking with that effortless floating sensation. Now he just has to marry that with being well.

Twelfth Night is out on tour in schools next week already. I saw them swanning about the corridor on Friday in their swashbuckling pirate costumes and thought they looked fantastic! I had done very little work with them on Thursday – just notes on the run I had seen – but most of them were stuck on the tube at Earls Court and didn’t make it in. They very kindly trooped into the staffroom and apologised to me the next day. I was very touched.

One of the girls said as a special favour to me she would really work with not bracing her legs and tightening her back.....I won’t be able to see them till they play the main house the week after. Perhaps I should offer her a bar of chocolate as an enticement? I go with inducement rather than violence – I heard that FM would stand in the wings and threaten to throw a heavy book at Henry Irving if he should dare to pull his head back.

The weekend has been a joy. Another pleasant evening on Friday with my friend J, with tea wine and chicken casserole with sweet potato, before setting off for home on the tube. I walked smartly up from Mansion House. I want to keep up some exercise in the week and I have completely blown it this week with my swimming – staying in for workmen, fogginess and social occasions put pay to that this week. I instead walked into Covent Garden on Saturday and half ran and walked to British Museum today. Several joggers went buy and I noticed one on his toes and remembered how AT teacher and runner, Malcom Balk suggests this in his running workshops. I experimented and it certainly made me springier. If he is doing another workshop soon I shall maybe attend.

My student Peter last year who does triathlons knocked off 40 minutes from his time last year in the marathon. He came over to Alonnisos for one of the workshops in the summer, and apart from his ability to sink in the water rather than float (very heavy muscular legs), we noticed he was tripping down the mule track on his toes.

I tried running some years ago with a vague idea to train up for the marathon. I was teaching at The Broadgate Club and influenced by working with a very fit German trader who, following our AT lessons, successfully reduced his time in the London marathon and his fatigue – managed to walk home to Mayfair afterwards still feeling ‘up’ whereas before he would have lain flat out on the ground, moaning ,muscles aching. Inspired, I thought perhaps I could do havea go. It never got off the ground as after 4 weeks I ruined the ligaments in my feet – I wasn’t wearing good trainers and was running on hard pavements with flat feet. Ouch.

So it was with delight today that I realised as I was running that I really enjoyed fast movement and perhaps my ligament problem was over. Watch this space. Half an hour running would take less time than half an hour of swimming. That sounds absurd, but I mean that it takes more time to walk to the swimming pool, get undressed and showered and into the pool and the reverse on the way out.

In going over my week of malaise, I realise still quite a lot was achieved despite my foggy consciousness. Maybe that is like my students being ill and not able to do and try so much. I can’t say I enjoyed my fogginess. But then I guess my students don’t like having colds.

Wednesday 3 February 2010

mellow days

I’ve had two days slightly influenced by outside events – the arrival of workmen and parcels.

A man came to fix the radiators that were stuck on. A man came to re-hang the front door which was getting so jammed I could hardly open it. I had japed too long with my students on their way out- ‘it’s a test to see if you can keep your directions going whilst trying to open the door’- whilst I leaned back in monkey and it grudgingly gave way. My passport was delivered with new microchip which made me feel much freer – I can go back to Alonnisos, hurrah!- and another man delivered my next batch of postcards I had printed for the workshop this summer. All men. Women don’t do deliveries very much, do they?

So I had to stay in and sacrifice my swimming time, and continue my journey through publicity for my Alexander workshops on Alonnisos. It’s a long process, and requires some work at the laptop, but I am very pleased that despite this, I have somehow managed to stay relatively free, up and not an achey shoulder in sight. Clearly, all my years playing with Alexander Technique has had some benefit. I don’t really enjoy organising publicity. I like the artistic bit – designing the postcards, but sending them out, emailing everyone.....I wish I didn’t have to do all that part of the work. But we all have to wave a flag , let people know we’re here, keep the wolf from the door. How lovely it must be to have a business assistant who could do all that! I guess this blog is partly about publicity. But I enjoy this. The old writer in me.

I changed my Tuesday. I was due to visit a training and go to Chi Kung class, but I had a student book in extra and I realised I needed to be in this hibernating state, so instead gave myself the pleasure of watching Carousel on the tv and sobbing as usual ( how unright-on is that to ‘What’s the use of wonderin’ if he’s good or if he’s bad...?’ Oh yes and of course when he hits her it’s as though she cannot feel it....hah! )

I visited my niece who lives 10 minutes away for a late beer, before heading home for my bed. Sometimes it is necessary to go with the flow of the weather and be kind to myself. Not surprisingly some of my students seemed also in this mellow February mood: trying stopped, and acceptance started.

Monday 1 February 2010

'Monday, Monday, so good to me...'

I had a lot of tunes going through my head today. 'Whip crack away!', the Conga....?! I put on my Bach for Meditation CD and it helped clear out the junk...

A lot of people had colds today. My line manager, a private student....oh, just two. It seemed more. I take vitamin C and use an antiseptic on my hands when someone has a cold to stop my being a carrier. Or from catching the wretched lurgy myself. Health and Safety and all that.

This morning, MA’s were treated to Dart Procedure ‘flippers’, to complete their education on arms this morning, the gift of a ‘magic lemon’, (thank you Quantum Reading, Paul Hobbs), a Happening inspired by silent meeting of my local Quaker group, a whizz round the map of our breathing apparatus, and a demonstration to the ‘Higher Creative Self’ (applying AT to character transformation) as presented by me at the last AT International Congress in Lugano 2008. Wow! That was a lot.

The relationship with the photocopier first thing continues to be not particularly happy - same with sewing machines, they often seem to jam with me. (Must be the Penny electro magnetic field which I was discussing in a private lesson later today – the existence or otherwise of this, also called Chi perhaps....)

A working lunch ,as we had a staff meeting to discuss students' progress, a swift walk to the main building (allowing the trees, lamp-posts, ArtsEd building, 2 pm to come to me as I walked) and an enjoyable first stagger-through of 12th Night. My lips are sealed. Feedback to director on Thursday. Great to see some actors really transforming themselves out of quite stubborn ‘use’ patterns.

Another swift return to Old St and private lessons this evening, too private to write about. Except to say one was an ex-ArtsEd student which was nice. In fact it was that sort of ex-ArtsEd-student day, as S knocked on the door of our staff meeting with her new baby. Hurrah! She was pregnant in the course and so good to see the outside version of the bump!

Chilled out afterwards, eating supper whilst watching TV NCIS and missing my darling Mo whom I won’t see now till April. Sigh.