Since I never know what kind of titles to pick for my jottings, I might as well use some of the profound nonsense that D and I exchange during lessons. Went there half asleep and just returned completely awake, with at least an inch added to my spine. Cool.

Notes:
- Although directions follow in each other in text, they should actually be sent simultaneously. So not first the head, then the neck and then the back, but all together.
- Macdonald had a piece of writing on the wall saying 'Letting an elbow out is not pulling it in'. It's the letting that matters here.
- When sending directions out, try to guide them through the centre/core/essence of your joints/arm/being.
- Arms start at the sitting bone. Send directions all the way from there.

Did some new work with my arms: standing next to a wall, putting my hand on it and sending directions out. Had another of these hilarious moments where lots of stuff happens and you can only state the obvious (in this case "But I'm not doing anything!" Duh...)

So how come I enjoy this so much more? I sometimes wonder, because on paper, these lesson notes look pretty much the same as those of my other teachers. I guess the big difference lies in that I'm really learning something here. During lessons, even though we joke all the time, D does not allow me to wander off for even a second. For a course in non-doing, it's actually pretty hard work.

First release head from neck. After that release head from the entire spine, really from the bottom, not halfway.

Had an AT lesson last friday, just before heading off to a U2 concert, so in all, it was a great day :-)

I had one of these aha-moments where you actually experience what you've been taught all these years. At a certain point, I was able to finetune my directions more and more; meantime, my teacher was talking about how directions are a set of ideas and that you should not help them by any kind of physical activity. In particular, lengthening of the spine should not lead to narrowing of the spine.

I kinda let this sink in, like I usually do (after all, this is not the first time that I've heard this), and all of a sudden it all made sense on an experience level, not just in my head. And it suddenly hit me that up in forward and up is not so much up as it is out: a way to get the maximum amount of space between all parts of me, not creating space somewhere by compromising space in other parts.

I really felt like I made the discovery of the century (which, at that particular time, it was, of course), so I cried: "Up isn't up, it's out". To which my teacher (grinning) replied: "That's what I've been telling you all the time (the Dutch directions go: "Ik laat m'n nek vrij, om m'n hoofd uit het lichaam te laten komen).

I feel like an eternal onion sometimes. I keep peeling off layers and layers, only to discover the same thing again and again. But different, because I'm different. This is not a bad thing, it actually feels quite OK to be an onion. They don't seem to worry much.

This is cool:

"People who are unenlightened have not yet reached the integral truth, for they cannot direct their mental energy to flow in the right channel. Instead, they adhere to totally false, rigidly formed belief systems that are composed of concepts derived from the limited sensory organs. This distorted information is stored and arranged by the memory and judgment systems. Thus, the more one knows and understands, the more dimness and confusion are created.
[...]
All of this conditioning builds up layer upon layer of conceptual filters through which one then looks at the world. Thus, not only is one's perception of the world distorted by the interposition of these false images, but one's very being becomes distorted."

Meanwhile, my Chi Gong teacher is off to Tibet for two months. I hope he manages to get his Chinese herbals through customs this time :-)