We may have delusions about our ability to prevail against dark forces seeking to undermine all our good, hard work but the reality is that we can only use the skills and wisdom we possess. If we don’t have a reliable foundation to draw on during difficult times, we will be thrown on our behinds. You can only use the tools you’ve got at hand, only use them in the ways you have developed.
From the moment you arise in the morning until you rest your head on the pillow at night, you probably do quite a lot. We do so much that we have to consciously choose "down time” to give ourselves rest.
But what about the time in between those daily tasks? The transitions from Point A to Point B go by unnoticed, because we are busy getting to whatever is next.
Are you the owner of your body?
This is a fundamental question that reveals perspectives on the body and how yourelate to it. And depending on how you relate to your body, you will inevitably move according to the nature of that relationship. Along with your mind, this is your most intimate relationship. Yet attitudes about the physical self go largely unnoticed.
A 3-minute video about the 3 most common reasons people come for Alexander Technique lessons.
I learned a long time ago that I don't have to be afraid of fear. It's an energy, and a rather unpleasant one -- unless you're choosing a scary book or film as entertainment. It can be mild and continuous or sudden and strong, but as emotions go, it's one of the easiest to recognize. And one of the hardest to bear.
I often ask my Alexander students to explore walking backwards, because it provides so much useful information. It bypasses habitual assumptions about our bodies in motion and our relationship to the space we're in. For starters, how often do you move with an awareness of the space behind you? Are you, in fact, including what's in back of you right now (or to the side or above or below you)?
Today I did a trade with a gifted bodyworker, Oliver Danni Green, in payback for a wonderful massage I got a couple weeks ago. Ze kindly shared this endorsement of my work on Facebook: The best part of being a professional bodyworker is being able to do exchanges with other practitioners! I had an AWESOME session with Amy Ward Brimmer today, who does Alexander Technique and Somatic Release. If you're in the Philadelphia area and you have a body, I highly recommend that you get a session (or a bunch of sessions!) with Amy.
As if that was not enough, Oliver Danni's friend, Maryann Concannon, posted what has now become perhaps my favorite affirmation of the Alexander Technique, ever:
When I heard of Alexander Technique I thought, "what the hell would an orator know about body work?" I was sure it was bollocks. But after a friend used it and then I tried it -- it was freaking amazing!!!! I was cooking professionally at the time and had a bit of tennis elbow. My Alexander Tech teacher told me to bend my knees (WTF) to make my elbow feel better. And it worked! EVERY TIME.
Two terrific endorsements -- too terrific!
Thoreau said: "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." Walking yesterday and today I have been feeling this viscerally. I've covered about 12 miles between the two days, breaking in a new pair of shoes, experimenting with different layers of clothing and socks, trying to avoid blisters and learning how to treat the ones I get. (helpful information here about that) Spring is such a great time to take long walks, and it is stunningly gorgeous here in Bucks County, PA. Blazing azaleas, pink and white dogwoods, irises and tulips blooming -- and green absolutely everywhere, in every shade. William Penn knew a good thing when he saw one.
I walk along the Delaware Canal, just two blocks from my house. It's a wonderful state park that runs from Bristol to Easton, and offers a beautiful setting for exercise year-round. In spring one has to be aware of the geese who nest along its banks, and when I spot a sweet goose family with its mama, papa, and fuzzy yellow goslings, I am cautious. These geese are hell bent on protecting their young ones and often hiss at me as I pass by; they will attack if they feel threatened.
I have been considering how natural it is to want to protect the younger generation, how strong the survival instinct is in us, so much so that we would kill to stop any serious threat to our child. Yet we don't fight for the planet on behalf of the next generations. How can we be more fierce on their behalf?
Walking along a canal means having to turn around and come back the way you came. Some fundamental part of me does not like this. I'd rather walk in a loop, I suppose. There is something difficult psychologically about that moment where I turn around and start walking back, knowing that I am only halfway done. I almost always hear "only" halfway in my head, not "already" halfway. Luckily, it is also the point at which the endorphins usually kick in. I had actually forgotten about how fabulous endorphins are, as they flood my system after I have walked a few miles. I begin to feel sore or tired or bored or I tighten up and want to stop but there's nowhere to stop so I keep going, and then boom!--there's that nice "all-over" feeling, that sense of integration, in spite of how hard my muscles and bones are working. Then the walking does itself, and when I am walking along the canal I feel myself flowing, as the water is also very slowly drifting along. F. M. Alexander said, "The right thing does itself," and, like William Penn, he was really on to something there.
I thought of F.M. today when I encountered a local great blue heron. I have a special connection with this bird, since the first time we met. A few days after we moved here I went out for a walk, harboring grave doubts about what we had just done to our lives by leaving Brooklyn for Bucks. As I rounded a bend in the towpath, I came upon this heron standing on one leg and instantly realized why I had chosen to relocate. Today when I saw the heron on the path ahead, I slowed down, fearing I would scare it. But as I crept closer, the bird remained still, until I was mere inches away. Our eyes met and I watched as it quite deliberately and delicately raised one foot and stepped away like the world's most elegant dancer, its long neck a reminder of "up."
Such diversity of life, such strength and beauty all around. Careful stepping of the bird, former dinosaur. ancient eye, primal connection, reminder of the interconnectedness of everything, reminder that we ought to step carefully too.
May I walk with a fierce protection for the web of life in my heart. May I be grateful for Heaven under my feet.
I welcome your positive wishes, prayers, and good cheer for me and everyone with the Earth Quaker Action Team as we embark on the Green Walk for Jobs and Justice, this Monday, April 30.
Yesterday I facilitated a training that explored theapplication of Alexander Technique principles to the activity of walking. I was leading this training as both a
fundraiser and in preparation for the Green Walk for Jobs and Justice, Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT)’s upcoming 16-day, 200-mile walking expedition from
Philadelphia to Pittsburgh to build support for our campaign to stop PNC Bank
from financing mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. I will be one of
the “Mountain Justice Walkers”, walking between 10 and 17 miles a day over
several days.
This Green Walk for Jobs and Justice is about restoring the balance in
our economic, environmental, and spiritual systems, or establishing right
relationship. I am so lucky that I get to do nothing but walk, step by step
toward a clear and obtainable goal: to ask PNC Bank why it prefers to invest in
destruction and degradation instead of clean, sustainable, prosperous
communities.
The whole time I can just focus on my body.
Eugene Gendlin said, “’Body’ means interaction with the situational
environment. Even the simplest living bodies are complex and purposeful
interactions with their environments.” So in restoring the environment through
cutting off the money supply currently funding its destruction, I am engaging
in a “purposeful interaction”, mile by mile.
I know I will be restoring myself, my own bodymind, as I walk.
I am so blessed to have this chance to work
intimately with people I admire and respect.
Seeing this group come together in about 6 weeks to literally put this
Green Walk on the map has been a lesson in the miraculous. When we say “way opens” we are not
kidding. People are really ready to be
helpful, to join in and give their support in many ways. I think a lot of the
time most of us are anxious and afraid, and any tangible, practical thing we
can do somehow mitigates that, and feels good. The best part is, we’re actually
not doing all that much. Certainly we’re
challenging ourselves mentally and physically by walking, but essentially that
is all we are doing. Just walking.
And maybe connecting with our neighbors as we go. So it feels productive, and
it is, but not in the usual way of our daily, multi-tasking selves running
around trying to Get Stuff Done.
There is a refreshing quality of honest and
direct communication in the planning process that I have seen, amongst ourselves
and also between EQAT representatives and the hospitality and activist contacts
we’ve been calling statewide. It seems that even when people cannot accommodate
a request, they have been generally supportive and their reasons for saying no
almost always have to do with what is best for their congregation or community
group. In explaining themselves, they reveal their values and contribute
something of themselves even in the refusal. That feels like good politics to
me.
These
are just 22 of the possibly hundreds of reasons I am joining the Green Walk for
Jobs and Justice. I do hope I will have enough energy on the road to write
short, frequent posts on this blog.
Meanwhile, I welcome your comments.
Why
are you joining the Green Walk? If you want to but can’t, why would you want
to?
What
messages should we bring to James Rohr, CEO of PNC Bank, when we get to
Pittsburgh?
Stay
tuned.
Tonight I began a six-week course, "Mindfulness for Educators." I have the privilege of being able to take this class, taught by Irene McHenry, my supervisor and the Executive Director of Friends Council on Education. This is such treat for me, for so many reasons. First, it is conveniently being held at George School, a mere 15 minutes from home. Second, Irene is a master teacher of this practice. It's a pleasure to experience my boss in a different context, giving the gift of encouragement as she asked us to go deep and show up for ourselves in the present moment. Third, there are quite a few wonderful George School teachers taking this class, which is great because it means more mindfulness practice will find its way into classrooms at GS, plus it's fun to be learning with the amazing folks who taught our oldest (now in college) and our youngest (a current student).
What I want to share is that during the Body Scan meditation at the end of our two hours together, when my mind was focused on my feet, I heard Irene say, "both feet," and I was suddenly overcome with the most complete awareness of having two healthy functioning feet, and a nervous system to feel their connection to the earth. And I was filled with such gratitude and felt so reassured.
I think I needed this mindful restoration of my feet because today I wore a new pair of high-heeled boots, something I try to limit in my life. They are cool kicks but they strain my ankles and shins. On the up side, they keep me continuously aware of my center of gravity as I maintain my balance.
Recently I was asked to provide a brief definition or description of the Alexander Technique for an interview I was giving. This is always such a challenge, because the work needs to be directly experienced to be understood. However, I am rather pleased with the following, and I hope it helps you understand what AT is and does. If you want to find out more, contact me -- amy@wayopenscenter.com -- or find another Alexander teacher -- www.ati-net.com or www.amsatonline.com.
As you may recall from my 2011 New Year's post, I don't much like resolutions, at this time of year or any other, especially when they involve "improving" oneself. I think we're all okay as is, that we each have more than enough within us to meet the demands of life. We're resilient. We contain multitudes, as Walt Whitman said.
Nevertheless, we are continually either growing or stagnating. If you prefer evolution to entropy it is vital to keep learning more and more about your self, how you relate to that self, and how that self relates to the environment and those with whom you share it. This doesn't necessarily require learning a new skill; it might mean strengthening a skill you already possess or adapting a well-known skill to a new purpose.
For 2012 I am reviving a discipline I had going about ten years ago, when I was teaching Alexander Technique to groups of graduate students in MFA programs, first for opera singers then for actors. I nearly always began each class with a 20-30 minute warm-up, which stretched muscles, opened joints, got people breathing fully, and unified mind and body (at least for a few minutes at a time). After that we could really get down to work (or play).
I have become much less physically active than I was in those years, and while I do manage to find time once or twice a week for exercise, I don't do it every day, and so I need something to keep my bodymind in shape and centered. As with sitting meditation, consistent practice is essential.
So I now get up one half-hour earlier than I used to, grab my yoga mat, and begin the sequence I taught 3 or 4 times a week when I was teaching groups. It feels really good to be moving in this familiar way once again. Plus, rather than having to split my focus and track my students as we do it together, I have the freedom to pay full attention to myself as I slowly wake up through movement.
That's the nice part. Here's the not-so-wonderful thing: I am ten years older. That's ten years of an increasingly sedentary existence. That's the difference between age 40 and 50. I knew I would not be as flexible and that in some ways my body would resist even as it hungered and thirsted for the stretching and the lifting and the balancing and the deep breathing. Yet I was surprised -- shocked, even -- to discover how simultaneously stiff and flabby I have become. In both body and mind.
All I can say is, it's a good thing I don't talk to my students the way I talk to myself.
There is the notion in Alexander world, and in some yoga traditions, that we bring our most prominent habits into every activity. In my case, the very first habit I noticed on Day One was my mental/emotional habit of negatively judging myself. All the time. No matter what. Despite any reality to the contrary.
Thus, as I began my first few mintes of stretching, grounding, and centering (which was going pretty well, by the way) I heard,
Boy, are you out of shape!
You call yourself an Alexander teacher?
Who do you think you're fooling? You are fat and old and doing this won't change that.
This is pointless.
(and a bunch of other really mean things.)
Luckily, as I heard myself say "pointless," I stopped and took half a second to consider whether or not that was true. I instantly concluded that even if it would not change how I looked, it would certainly change how I feel, because even five minutes into it I was feeling my energy rising and I like that feeling. So, not pointless at all.
How could I stop the inner critic, or at least detach from it? Mindfulness has taught me to always return to the breath, so I did that. And as I did, I remembered something I learned more than 20 years ago at Kripalu Center, where I often visited once upon a time. Some of the yoga teachers there were heavy into holding yoga poses for long periods of time. Maybe that's characteristic of "Kripalu style" yoga, I don't know, but man, we maintained those poses for hours ! Okay, it was only a few minutes. But it felt like hours, and so the teachers gave us a strategy for being with the challenge of lengthy posture-holding:
The spine is the central column of support and the core energetic pathway in our bodies. At Way Opens Center Alexander Technique offers a way to access the central support of the spinal column and move according to its design. In lessons, we focus on freeing up the spine, allowing it its full length and renewing its supple, flexible nature. Thinking up, inhibiting downward pull or collapse, and rediscovering the poise of the head in movement -- these are all excellent ways to encourage the body to reorganize itself so that activities are easier and more enjoyable. But do you really know anything about your spine?
This is the time of year when many of us begin to think about turning over a new leaf. We make resolutions to change some bad habit we know is harming our well-being, begin a new program of exercise, or otherwise embark on a program of self-improvement. I'd like to make a radical suggestion: don't bother. It probably won't work (whatever it is). What's more, it's not necessary.
I don't believe in "self-improvement," because I don't think we need to improve ourselves. I think we are all just fine the way we are. If anything needs improvement, it's the way we talk to ourselves about, well, our selves.
Does this mean you shouldn't quit smoking or cut back on your sugar intake? No. What I'm saying is that you are sufficient already, have amazing powers of intuition, empathy and creativity. In particular, your body-mind is nothing if not highly resilient.
I have to thank Dodinsky for reminding me of this. For those of you who aren't familiar with this wonderful soul, Dodinksy has a Facebook page called The Garden of Thoughts, and he posts beautiful photos and little messages of positivity there. He recently posted:
Do not sell yourself short by promising to be a better person. You have always been amazing. Recognition starts from within.
One of the principles of the Alexander Technique is that when we allow it, our systems operate beautifully, reliably, and dynamically. Alexander lessons provide the means to restore innate balance so that "the right thing does itself," as we like to say. And not even "restore" balance actually, but simply access it. It's not like it's not there already. One component of the Alexander experience is the process of eliminating interferences -- unnecessary excess tension, misuse of various moveable body parts, application of excess force, dulling of the sense gateways, unconscious automatic thought patterns. Once you get out of your own way, amazing things can happen, and often do.
Okay, so that's a form of "improvement," I get that. But to me, it's not the same as resolving to be a better person. I find the whole "self-improvement" industry a little insidious, frankly. The underlying message I hear is that I'm not good enough; I'm broken and need fixing. Nope. (I have the same problem with fundamentalist Christian theology too, but that's for another blog.) I have my flaws, but so does some of the most beautiful artwork ever created, and most of the living creatures on the planet.
So if we're not improving ourselves when we study Alexander Technique, what are we doing? Are we learning a new skill? Well, sort of, but it's a skill we already possess, if only we knew it. I sometimes describe it as waking up to myself, encountering my whole self in real time (i.e. now) and noticing how highly functional and able I really am. This takes consistent practice, so if we're improving anything it's our ability to recognize this inherent wellness.
F. M. Alexander recognized it, or at least refused to sell himself short. A professional actor in late 19th-century Australia, he suffered from vocal problems. Doctors could not find a permanent solution to his problem and, as the story goes, finally one of them told F. M. that he just had a "weak" voice and would be better off choosing another profession. Luckily for us, he did not take kindly to this advice and had been raised to be self-determining (he also appears to have been a little arrogant, like me and maybe you), so instead of giving up his art and livelihood, he set about to understand his part in the whole situation. He discovered that his voice was not weak at all, but the way he had been using it masked how powerful it actually was.
I agree with Dodinsky that recognition starts from within. Give yourself a little recognition, remember how amazing your body-mind is. Let it do its thing. Don't resolve to be a better person in 2011; just resolve to be. Then go about the business of quitting smoking or losing weight or strengthening your core or whatever you think you should be doing more or less of.
One of the services available at Way Opens Center will be Somatic Release sessions. Few people are familiar with the name "Somatic Release", because it is an approach that evolved out of my 20+ years of Alexander work, my decade of experience as a labor doula, and my own personal journey of healing. I created the name for this form, but the fundamentals of Somatic Release are rooted in the Alexander Technique as taught by my mentor Alan Katz. I also incorporate elements of Therapeutic Touch, Reflexology, Feldenkrais, Hypnotherapy, and intuitive common sense.
How is Somatic Release different from the Alexander Technique? Alexander lessons are by definition an active period of intentional learning between teacher and student. Although therapeutically beneficial, the AT is not a series of treatments or exercises.
By contrast, Somatic Release sessions are therapeutic treatments, a time for deep relaxation. Fully clothed and lying on a bodywork table, you will experience safe, supportive touch and positive, encouraging words that help you let go of tension. Depending on what the situation calls for, I use my hands in ways that are somewhat different from Alexander lessons. I sometimes use more specific pressure point techniques, for example, or work with the subtle energy field off the body, with very little direct touch. Some movement of limbs and opening of joints may be incorporated, and perhaps various breathing patterns might be explored. Improved energetic flow is the goal.
Alexander work asks you to actively participate as you learn about yourself; Somatic Release does not. During a session you might be asked to make a mental or visual connection, but for the most part, clients find themselves drifting into a deeply relaxed state of being, thoroughly refreshed and at ease as a result.
Somatic Release is especially useful for individuals recovering from physical or emotional trauma, for those with mobility issues, and as a supplement to healing from surgery. It is also great for times when one is just plain exhausted and wants a little tender loving care. If you are feeling overwhelmed, a Somatic Release session might be just the thing.
