...even now...and now...
Once I have my directions up and running, I choose a simple activity, like lifting an arm or a leg. In doing so, I focus on:
- staying with my directions, especially at the end of an action; I easily fool myself into:"Yeah, I'm there, now I can stop"-type of thinking.
- taking care that I don't turn directing into pushing or forcing; upward is a finite concept, at a certain point upward leads to narrowing in other places. It helps to see directions as pulses, rather than lines or arrows.
AT strategy (7)
January 19, 2007AT strategy (6)
January 13, 2007
Work my way up along the spine & free my neck
From the bottom of my spine, I gradually work my way up. What I do, and how I do this, I cannot really explain this in words, but I'll give it a try. Sometimes, when I'm not that agitated, it's actually really easy, I just send a little flow upwards, and *dzjoing* my head flies away.
Most of the time, it doesn't work that fast. In those cases I have a number of approaches that work for me:
1) think of small pulses that travel up through my spine. Each time I send one off, I think of it travelling through the individual discs in my spinal column- not because I want to have an anatomically correct approach or something like that, but just to slow me down. Rather like a flight of stairs: rather than standing at the bottom and looking to the top, I consider each step I need to make to get there. I find that this helps me to actually focus on the task at hand, rather than flying all the way back up in my head again and think about directing, rather than directing.
2) think of the bottom of my spine and the top of my spine - nothing in between. What happens in between is up to my own body; I don't want to interfere with that. Sometimes, this results in spontaneous movement or release of parts of my body; especially my arm sometimes just shoots off on its own.
3) think of a finger or hand brushing up along my body, all the way from my feet to my head; starting with small strokes, ending in one continuous stroke. This thought, too, helps me to come out of my head and into my body.
What I try to avoid, is to repeat any of the words or phrases that I learnt during lessons, because I noticed that they trigger lots of intellectual activity and questions about AT theory. I do ask myself other questions, like 'Where is the top of my spine?', 'What is it that I'm doing now?', 'What does it mean to really let the neck be free?', 'Am I really letting, or am I doing something?'
After a while, these questions kind of start asking themselves within my body, rather than me formulating them in my head. Actually, after a while, it's like my body takes over the thinking, rather than my head. Instead of trying to visualise, say, my arm with my brains, my arm can address itself without my interference.
About freeing the neck: this is the part that I find most difficult to describe, and also the most difficult to put into practise. I try to go about very gently, indirectly, almost sneaky, because if I directly address this point, I stiffen almost instantly.
One idea that does work well for me, is the idea of the head floating on the top of the spine, like one of these compasses where you have a little ball in a small dome of water. It's completely free, but will alway incline towards one specific direction. Another idea that also helps is to imagine allowing my AT teacher (or anybody else for that matter) to take your head anywhere, without meeting any help or resistance from my part.
From the bottom of my spine, I gradually work my way up. What I do, and how I do this, I cannot really explain this in words, but I'll give it a try. Sometimes, when I'm not that agitated, it's actually really easy, I just send a little flow upwards, and *dzjoing* my head flies away.
Most of the time, it doesn't work that fast. In those cases I have a number of approaches that work for me:
1) think of small pulses that travel up through my spine. Each time I send one off, I think of it travelling through the individual discs in my spinal column- not because I want to have an anatomically correct approach or something like that, but just to slow me down. Rather like a flight of stairs: rather than standing at the bottom and looking to the top, I consider each step I need to make to get there. I find that this helps me to actually focus on the task at hand, rather than flying all the way back up in my head again and think about directing, rather than directing.
2) think of the bottom of my spine and the top of my spine - nothing in between. What happens in between is up to my own body; I don't want to interfere with that. Sometimes, this results in spontaneous movement or release of parts of my body; especially my arm sometimes just shoots off on its own.
3) think of a finger or hand brushing up along my body, all the way from my feet to my head; starting with small strokes, ending in one continuous stroke. This thought, too, helps me to come out of my head and into my body.
What I try to avoid, is to repeat any of the words or phrases that I learnt during lessons, because I noticed that they trigger lots of intellectual activity and questions about AT theory. I do ask myself other questions, like 'Where is the top of my spine?', 'What is it that I'm doing now?', 'What does it mean to really let the neck be free?', 'Am I really letting, or am I doing something?'
After a while, these questions kind of start asking themselves within my body, rather than me formulating them in my head. Actually, after a while, it's like my body takes over the thinking, rather than my head. Instead of trying to visualise, say, my arm with my brains, my arm can address itself without my interference.
About freeing the neck: this is the part that I find most difficult to describe, and also the most difficult to put into practise. I try to go about very gently, indirectly, almost sneaky, because if I directly address this point, I stiffen almost instantly.
One idea that does work well for me, is the idea of the head floating on the top of the spine, like one of these compasses where you have a little ball in a small dome of water. It's completely free, but will alway incline towards one specific direction. Another idea that also helps is to imagine allowing my AT teacher (or anybody else for that matter) to take your head anywhere, without meeting any help or resistance from my part.
AT strategy (5)
January 05, 2007
Find my sitting bone
The points I've discussed so far are, all fall under the header of inhibition, as I see it. Although it took me quite a lot of words to describe them, it only takes a relatively short time to realise them, sometimes a few seconds, sometime a few minutes.
After that, I shift my attention to directions. How I do this, depends on the situation: sometimes, when I'm very busy in my head, I say them, so that I have a concrete starting point to work from. But most of the time, I simply become aware of the different body parts. Where awareness is not the same as attention or focus. Awareness, to me, is acknowledging the existence of something, say, my neck, in relation to, or without losing sight of, the rest of my body. Attention or focus is noticing the existence of something, and forgetting about everything else.
This is an important difference for me, because when I wish my neck to be free, my usual reaction is to focus on my neck, rather than becoming aware of the neck-head-back relationship: I start thinking about freeing my neck, trying to feel it out, which leads to narrowing. I think Alexander's directions are a bit tricky in that respect; just because the neck is the first one to be let free, doesn't automatically mean that it's the starting point for direction. I don't know whether Alexander ever talked about this, but I've always wondered whether directions have a source, a starting point, and if so where it's located.
So, even though it is about the neck, it's not about the neck. That's the nasty thing about language: in order to talk about non-doing, you still need a verb, which by linguistic definition is about doing. In order to talk about the absence of a thing, you still need to mention the thing (the classical 'do not think of a pink elephant' paradox).
That's why I usually start conscious direction by finding my sitting bone, or my heels, for that matter and become aware of my entire spine. I've discovered that, for me, this makes it much easier to leave my neck alone. And it's in line with what I was taught; to send directions up along the spine. I find that my sitting bone is always much lower than I think, and that, once I've properly found it, I'm already halfway home.
The points I've discussed so far are, all fall under the header of inhibition, as I see it. Although it took me quite a lot of words to describe them, it only takes a relatively short time to realise them, sometimes a few seconds, sometime a few minutes.
After that, I shift my attention to directions. How I do this, depends on the situation: sometimes, when I'm very busy in my head, I say them, so that I have a concrete starting point to work from. But most of the time, I simply become aware of the different body parts. Where awareness is not the same as attention or focus. Awareness, to me, is acknowledging the existence of something, say, my neck, in relation to, or without losing sight of, the rest of my body. Attention or focus is noticing the existence of something, and forgetting about everything else.
This is an important difference for me, because when I wish my neck to be free, my usual reaction is to focus on my neck, rather than becoming aware of the neck-head-back relationship: I start thinking about freeing my neck, trying to feel it out, which leads to narrowing. I think Alexander's directions are a bit tricky in that respect; just because the neck is the first one to be let free, doesn't automatically mean that it's the starting point for direction. I don't know whether Alexander ever talked about this, but I've always wondered whether directions have a source, a starting point, and if so where it's located.
So, even though it is about the neck, it's not about the neck. That's the nasty thing about language: in order to talk about non-doing, you still need a verb, which by linguistic definition is about doing. In order to talk about the absence of a thing, you still need to mention the thing (the classical 'do not think of a pink elephant' paradox).
That's why I usually start conscious direction by finding my sitting bone, or my heels, for that matter and become aware of my entire spine. I've discovered that, for me, this makes it much easier to leave my neck alone. And it's in line with what I was taught; to send directions up along the spine. I find that my sitting bone is always much lower than I think, and that, once I've properly found it, I'm already halfway home.
AT strategy (4)
January 02, 2007
Don't be serious
Or rather, don't be scared. Or don't concentrate. It doesn't matter really what I call it, as long as I keep myself from tightening, drawing in, turning inwards, closing up. Fear tightens and shortens, it makes you grab and hang on to whatever you've got, harmful as it may be. It causes you to focus on just one thing, blocking out everything else, leaving you unable to adequately address whatever changing situations may come your way.
It may sound funny, but it's true: getting out of the chair is among the most scary things I've ever done. Discovering that I was unable to let go and simply let my teacher take me out of the chair has literally sent me into a panic frenzy on more than one occasion. Afterwards, I always wondered how I'd let it come that far, what on earth made me feel that scared, and why I kept fighting it so hard. What could happen to me if I did let go? After all, it's just me and a chair, how hard could it be? There's no chasms, no jumping out of airplanes, no rollercoaster rides...except in my head.
When I notice the onset of such narrowing, for instance, in situations that involve singing (the 'I sound great in the bathroom, great during rehearsal, so why can't I sound great during performances?' issue), I physically broaden my view, simply by looking around and noticing my surroundings. And, very easy to do: I lift the corners of my mouth. It's just a tiny thing, but it makes it much easier to lengthen and widen if you do it. Give it a try, it's cool.
Or rather, don't be scared. Or don't concentrate. It doesn't matter really what I call it, as long as I keep myself from tightening, drawing in, turning inwards, closing up. Fear tightens and shortens, it makes you grab and hang on to whatever you've got, harmful as it may be. It causes you to focus on just one thing, blocking out everything else, leaving you unable to adequately address whatever changing situations may come your way.
It may sound funny, but it's true: getting out of the chair is among the most scary things I've ever done. Discovering that I was unable to let go and simply let my teacher take me out of the chair has literally sent me into a panic frenzy on more than one occasion. Afterwards, I always wondered how I'd let it come that far, what on earth made me feel that scared, and why I kept fighting it so hard. What could happen to me if I did let go? After all, it's just me and a chair, how hard could it be? There's no chasms, no jumping out of airplanes, no rollercoaster rides...except in my head.
When I notice the onset of such narrowing, for instance, in situations that involve singing (the 'I sound great in the bathroom, great during rehearsal, so why can't I sound great during performances?' issue), I physically broaden my view, simply by looking around and noticing my surroundings. And, very easy to do: I lift the corners of my mouth. It's just a tiny thing, but it makes it much easier to lengthen and widen if you do it. Give it a try, it's cool.