I always say that each lesson was the best I've ever had so far, and today is no exception. Not much explanation today, just flying across the room and having fun doing it. Lightness all over the place, I could've sworn that at one point I was floating against the ceiling.
Must be summer. Feels great.
Flying circus
July 28, 2006Ideas
July 21, 2006
Whether it was the ridiculous heat outside, or just a bit too much direction at once, I don't know, but when I got out of the chair this time, I felt the blood withdrawing from my face, and got a bit dizzy. So instead of the usual standing and sitting, we did a lot of hands on the chair instead. Very useful stuff indeed.
- Fingers are stretched, but not as in stretched out. Think more like fingers are glued to chair.
- Position of hands & wrists may look like it requires some effort; however, it does help to support the out & round idea. Effort in itself is not wrong, you're not after relaxation or limpness.
- Awareness of the connection between each part & how it relates to the whole. This is not a doing, just an idea is enough.
- Think separations & unity: arm runs from bottom of the spine to fingertips, but between each part, think a separation (just as you do with the head-neck-back).
- It's not about copying a previous good idea (e.g. of what it means to allow the neck to be free), but to renew this idea time and again, in each situation. Likewise, it's not about copying the experience of a lesson, but of taking home some ideas and slowly but gradually incorporating them into your life. Your body will find a way of expressing these ideas on its own.
Things went well today; it didn't take me very long to find the stillness inside, and I think I managed to stay there for most of the lesson, even with the heat. The notion that it just takes an idea to wake up my awareness really hit home; it's not about thinking with my brain, but thinking with my body, in a way. I tried both approaches, and I can see the difference more and more clearly.
- Fingers are stretched, but not as in stretched out. Think more like fingers are glued to chair.
- Position of hands & wrists may look like it requires some effort; however, it does help to support the out & round idea. Effort in itself is not wrong, you're not after relaxation or limpness.
- Awareness of the connection between each part & how it relates to the whole. This is not a doing, just an idea is enough.
- Think separations & unity: arm runs from bottom of the spine to fingertips, but between each part, think a separation (just as you do with the head-neck-back).
- It's not about copying a previous good idea (e.g. of what it means to allow the neck to be free), but to renew this idea time and again, in each situation. Likewise, it's not about copying the experience of a lesson, but of taking home some ideas and slowly but gradually incorporating them into your life. Your body will find a way of expressing these ideas on its own.
Things went well today; it didn't take me very long to find the stillness inside, and I think I managed to stay there for most of the lesson, even with the heat. The notion that it just takes an idea to wake up my awareness really hit home; it's not about thinking with my brain, but thinking with my body, in a way. I tried both approaches, and I can see the difference more and more clearly.
Small observations
July 10, 2006
...sometimes have the biggest effect. Like tonight, I was lying in semi-supine for a while, and I realised that my spine is curved, not straight. And tickticktickticktick, a whole lot of things just clicked into place.
July 03, 2006
I figured that if I want to enjoy singing once more, I could do a number
of things:
- wait until I'm 100 and try again, hoping for a new and improved Maaike with a smashing voice.
- decide that I'm going to have fun while singing and stick to that decision, no matter what.
I tried option number two. To make things easier, I traced back my steps to my last known point of genuine, spontaneous fun in singing, and I ended up back in my student years where I sang in a large choir with a big orchestra. Thinking that this may be a good basis to find back fun, I looked for a similar situation in the present, and found a 'scratch' performance of Verdi's Requiem. In a such a performance, lots of experienced singers come together for one day, rehearse a piece, and perform it at night, accompanied by a professional orchestra and soloists. This sounded ideal, because you don't have to spend ages with people that don't know the score; you can hit the ground running, as it were.
So, I set off, armed with a bag of liquorice, just in case. And a resolution: to hell with my intellectual understanding of AT, singing
lessons, Chi Gong, and supposedly right and wrong. If it's good, it will come. Just let it, give it a chance to manifest itself.
But I didn't need the liquorice. Amazingly, I managed to sing for 8 hours at a stretch, with a minimum amount of breaks, without any pain, just a slight trace of hoarseness which I've always had after intensive use of my voice, and which disappeared again during the breaks. Even more, with 50 sopranos around me and no prospect of having to sing any solo parts, I've used parts of my voice that were completely new and surprising to me. Definitely no switch to the altos for Maaike sometime soon :-) And it was lovely to sing with a proper orchestra again, I really, really enjoyed myself.
It's good to have walked the path that I've been on the last few months; it's made some things very clear to me. Like appreciating the place I came from :-)
of things:
- wait until I'm 100 and try again, hoping for a new and improved Maaike with a smashing voice.
- decide that I'm going to have fun while singing and stick to that decision, no matter what.
I tried option number two. To make things easier, I traced back my steps to my last known point of genuine, spontaneous fun in singing, and I ended up back in my student years where I sang in a large choir with a big orchestra. Thinking that this may be a good basis to find back fun, I looked for a similar situation in the present, and found a 'scratch' performance of Verdi's Requiem. In a such a performance, lots of experienced singers come together for one day, rehearse a piece, and perform it at night, accompanied by a professional orchestra and soloists. This sounded ideal, because you don't have to spend ages with people that don't know the score; you can hit the ground running, as it were.
So, I set off, armed with a bag of liquorice, just in case. And a resolution: to hell with my intellectual understanding of AT, singing
lessons, Chi Gong, and supposedly right and wrong. If it's good, it will come. Just let it, give it a chance to manifest itself.
But I didn't need the liquorice. Amazingly, I managed to sing for 8 hours at a stretch, with a minimum amount of breaks, without any pain, just a slight trace of hoarseness which I've always had after intensive use of my voice, and which disappeared again during the breaks. Even more, with 50 sopranos around me and no prospect of having to sing any solo parts, I've used parts of my voice that were completely new and surprising to me. Definitely no switch to the altos for Maaike sometime soon :-) And it was lovely to sing with a proper orchestra again, I really, really enjoyed myself.
It's good to have walked the path that I've been on the last few months; it's made some things very clear to me. Like appreciating the place I came from :-)