Note to self:

To let the neck be free is to let the neck be free.

It is not: thinking about the neck, swearing at the neck, hoping for the neck, forcing the neck, judging the neck, feeling the neck, writing about the neck, understanding the neck, learning about the neck, congratulating the neck, moving the neck, looking at the neck.

...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.

It's been a while since I've written something here. That's partly because I haven't had AT lessons for four months. On the one hand, that's a pity, but on the other, it is also a good indicator of progress, whatever that may mean. The first AT-less period I went through, which was also about six months, I felt very unsure of how to 'do' AT on my own. I didn't understand how to internalize AT to such an extent that it could be useful to me outside lessons. As a result, I started doing things, started worrying about things, started blaming myself for not understanding, in short, started a lot of things, except leaving myself alone.

This time, it's different. I notice that:
- If I really wish to leave my self alone, I should have the confidence in my self. Not just by saying or thinking so, but by believing, with every cell in my body and every thought in my mind, that my self is capable, not only of handling the daily things that I encounter in life, but also in realising my dreams and facing my fears.
- My self can do this on its own, with no interference of me. I should allow it to do so, any 'help' from my side is bound to nip any kind of freedom in the bud.
- My self should never, ever be compromised, not by me, let alone others.
- Change is sometimes extremely painful and undefined. When I'm in the middle, I doubt whether I'm doing the right thing, if it's all worth it, if my decisions are the right ones. But if I keep with myself, and listen, really listen, I know what to decide.
- There's a difference what's good for me, and what's good for someone else.

Sometimes, it's just so overwhelming and paradoxical. I release my neck, and the world turns upside down. When I look for something, I find nothing, but when I look for nothing, I find everything. And that really sucks sometimes.

I guess that every AT student has sometimes wondered whether things have changed. I do, because change is so gradual that you hardly notice it. This week, though, I got a really nice answer to this question.

I'm currently taking a course in cognitive aspects of technical communication, to deepen the theoretical background of my job. This friday, I have an oral exam, which consists basically of me talking intelligently about 20 scientific articles. I've got a really nice boss; he sent me on study leave this week, so I'm at home, reading all these articles.

My traditional way of studying is to make written summaries of each text that I read. I tried typing them on the computer, but the learning effect is not that big compared to hand-written summaries. So I bought a new pen, a pad, made a pot of tea, sat down at my kitchen table and wanted to start writing. To my surprise, I just couldn't find a comfortable position, no matter how I kept shifting. And after two hours of writing, my shoulders started to hurt, my neck started to whine and my wrist objected to any more writing. My eyes were dry, because I forgot to blink. And apparently I was squeezing my pen, because it left marks in my finger tips. Misuse all over the place, so to speak.

And the great thing about this, is that it took me only two hours to notice. Why is this good? Because I spent twelve years of my life studying like this without noticing anything at all. Yeah!

Back in university, linguistics students like me faced a choice that would determine our later career: scientist, translator or teacher. My MA thesis almost gave me a nervous breakdown, because I got extremely bored with the futility of my research topic, so scientist was no option. I took courses in didactics and educational science, and taught Dutch to foreigners for a while, but I couldn't see myself teaching the basics of English to classes of obnoxious children for the rest of my life. Most of my family members teach, so of course I couldn't become a teacher too. Instead, I became a translator, and later on, a manual writer. I love writing, I like explaining things, so it wasn't a strange choice.

But in the last two weeks, I've been a teacher once more, for a group of professionals in my company. Rather than teaching them factual knowledge, I was asked to support them in becoming trainers for other professionals. This meant that I'd give information about effective communication and presentation, about what information processing does to a group of people and more things like that. And rather than giving them this knowledge on a plate, I was asked to let them discover it for themselves. And I found that I really liked it. It's great to see someone all of a sudden discover something that didn't make sense to him earlier. And it's great to see this happen just by asking some questions, or making a remark.

It also gave me lots of stuff to ponder over, like how I interact with other people, how it makes me feel, and how I can remain myself, even when I'm facing a group of others that don't necessarily have the same goals, interests or perspectives. From that point of view, it has been an extremely good learning situation for myself too.

I guess I can see myself teaching in the future sometime. But I'm not sure what.

It turned out that last week's rollercoaster rides, my AT lessons, a visit to the chiropractor, some funny drops in a bottle of water and other good, but sometimes uncomfortable explorations of Maaike turned out to be one big general rehearsal for today.

I've looked straight into the eye of it.

You know, the it as in first you go out of your teacher's way, then your own way and then it's way. I knew I was going to face it, scared shitless when I went to meet it and came out completely "over de zeik", but hey, I did it, I did it different from what I'm used to so far, I did it consciously, calmly and composed and I remained myself. Or perhaps became myself. With my brains, I ask so many questions right now, but half a meter below, I know that I can trust my own judgement, not because I'm right, but because I'm me. And that's something that nobody can take away, conquer or undermine.

Again with my brain, I know that this is not an absolute victory, and that it's just a step in the right direction, and that the same it will come back even bigger. But again, half a meter below, it's dancing in there, because I stood up for what I believe in, for what I am.

And I'm incredibly proud of that.

OK, the laundry did take a bit longer, but it's finished. Now I have to start on the dishes...

One of the first things I learnt by taking AT lessons is that my body is not a necessary evil, as I'd always considered it to be up to that point. Rather, it's something that deserves just as much of my attention, care and kindness as my mind and spirit. And something I'd been neglecting, not on purpose, but because I assumed that my body was just naturally 'limited'.

I've always had a talent for clumsiness, always stumbling over things, even walking into doorposts when I meant to pass through them. Movement was not my favorite thing, it felt awkward. My parents sent me to a physiotherapist because I couldn't skip rope, or even stand on one leg when I was small. Gym classes at school were nightmares- that's an understatement. And I cannot count the number of times people told me to open my eyes and straighten my shoulders.

So, in a way, I gave up on my body. Not that I wanted to harm it, but I just assumed that my talents lay elsewhere. And I lived happily ever after. Until I started AT, and later, Chi Gong. When I started out with AT, each lesson was a little surprise exercise in what my body was able to do (and how completely wrong it felt). I didn't recognize myself when I looked in the mirror, and it was then that I started to realize that:

a) it's not my fault, there's no question of blame here. I didn't miss balls at softball because I liked to, or walked into people on purpose. Even more, because I tried so hard, so hard, so immensely hard to walk straight and doing things right, I kept amplifying my habitual use to give even worse results.

b) changes in physical habits had an almost instant effect on my mental habits too. I've always been a dreamer and a worrier. When I look back, I don't think that I exaggerate when say that I spent 50% dreaming and 50% worrying so far. But I walked out of AT lessons with a head so clear and transparent that I didn't even notice it was there. This was such an incredible relief that it gave me the biggest motivation I've ever had for starting to re-include my body in my picture of me (and of course the biggest danger, because I wanted to do everything right once again...*sigh*).

I still wouldn't describe my movement as 'graceful', 'poised' or any of the other words that are usually associated with AT. But I start to care less and less about that. I have my moments when things are more free than they used to be, and that's what I want. Trends and tendencies. And little surprises each day. Like swimming and noticing that I cannot only keep up with the others all of a sudden, but sometimes even manage to get ahead of them. Discovering that trees consist of more than just a trunk; they've got leaves too. Or someone in church remarking how straight I stood when I was singing. Just when I couldn't care less, because at that exact point I discovered that religion was just an old habit of mine too.

I'll write a bit more later on. Even more? Yeah, loads more, I could easily write a book with all the things that AT made me discover.

Just returned from a wonderful holiday in the Yorkshire Moors, and look, there's a question by Julio in the comments: "I would like to ask you then, whether you have experienced any improvement so far?"

Speaking about cans of worms...I think I'm gonna need several posts to answer that one, not in the least because it's actually a really tough question. The simple answer would obviously be 'yes', since I benefit from AT on a daily basis, in lots of different ways.

But, looking closer, I start to wonder about the word improvement. That is a tricky word, it may perhaps imply that I started AT to solve a specific problem, which I didn't really. Before I started AT, my life was happy and easy enough, no major health problems, great job, great friends. I started AT as a preliminary before moving on to a singing teacher, and I can still remember some annoyed notes in my diary, because my AT teacher couldn't tell me how long it took to learn AT; I was more or less counting on the 30 lessons doing the trick :-)

More to follow after I've finished my holiday laundry.

Sometimes, things can be so obvious that I just can't think of them. Take singing, for instance. I've been struggling with my voice for quite some time, and so far always sought the cause inside: bad posture, bad technique, bad mentality, bad, baaaad Maaike.

But last week, I tried another choir. And there it dawned on me that I'm not the only factor causing my problems. This new choir is an all-women gregorian/ plain chant choir. Choir is perhaps a big word, because it's only six of us. The conductor payed lots of attention to proper breathing, resonance, using our voices to creat one sound, and singing with her and the others was wonderful.

After rehearsal, it struck me that I didn't have any of my voice problems. In fact, I felt really good, energetic, excited even. Which made me wonder, could it perhaps be that some choirs fit me better than others? I've been singing in choirs my entire life already, and only when I joined my latest church choir, I started having voice trouble.

So, I started listing differences between my problematic choir and other choirs that I sung in:
- We rehearse sitting in our chairs, while I'm used to standing.
- We do no voice warming up whatsoever.
- We only focus on getting the notes right; no attention for real music making
- We only sing Mozart and later composers, while I prefer polyphonic music and plain chant.
- My effective singing time during rehearsals is about 15 minutes, because we always have to wait for the men.

Hmmm...go figure. Of course, this doesn't mean that I want to put all 'blame' outside me, but when I see this list, it does make me think.

I'm under a lot of stress right now because of work, and that's when the meaning of faulty sensory awareness becomes so clear to me:
- I feel hungry, even though I've eaten enough (and healthy).
- I feel tired, even after more than 8 hours of sleep.
- I enjoy daydreaming, even though I know it's bad for me and staying focussed is going to do much more good in the end.

Ever since I started Alexander lessons, I've learnt that emotions are very smart things indeed: they know how to disguise themselves as physical manifestations. AT gave me a 'logical me' that tells me that, because it's logically not possible to feel hungry with a full stomach, the sensation of hunger must be caused by (and solved by) something else.

AT also gave me the means to do that too: the peace and quiet to stop and investigate what's really going on, plus the guts to face anything nasty that I may discover on the way.

*tomtidomtidomtidom* Just returned from choir practice without even a trace of hoarseness *tomtidomtidomtidom*

I rediscovered my jaw tonight: I can direct until I grow a beard (for those readers who wonder: I am of the female persuasion, thanks), but it's not going to help if I keep my jaw locked as tight as a Dutch mussel, is it? So instead of singing, I played around with my jaw for a while, dropping it, then letting it drop on its own accord, finally trying to integrate it with sending directions.

Some things I noted:
- as in every activity, it's quite hard to stay with the important things; I had to put in a lot of effort to keep from singing, or I guess I should call it the habit of singing: concentrating on the music, the people that sing next to me, becoming annoyed because the men don't know their part *again*. (Un)fortunately, I had one very marked reminder to get me back to the important stuff: as soon as I felt even the slightest pressure on my larynx, I stopped, waited, directed and let my jaw lower/soften.
- every time I managed to do so, I got a lot of extra space in my mouth and throat, which made it a lot easier to produce sound.
- it helped to project my voice inwards, rather than sending it outwards.
- oh, and did I mention that my throat wasn't hoarse? :-)

Funny, AT even seems to help me overcome my fear of flying. I'm not scared of aircraft; in fact, I'm fascinated by them, I know how they work, and I can even tell some of them apart when they fly by. But the physical sensation of flying has always made me sick, especially during take-off, when at the end of the climb, the plane moves back to level flight and during turbulence, when you sometimes all of a sudden fall down a couple of metres.

I think that one part of the problem is that I'm an uber-control freak, so I hate giving up control. Apart from that, I don't know where my body is in relation to the plane, and even more, to the horizon. When I don't have any visual reference, I think I fix my body into one relative position and expect this to stay so. Then, when an unexpected movement occurs, my body sticks to this fixed position, and I loose all orientation; for a moment, I feel this sinking sensation and I can't tell up from down.

When I try AT during flying, this first of all gives me something to do, so I don't pay to much attention to flying :-) But it also enables me to give up my own control and let the movement of the plane guide me, instead of me imposing my rigid position on the plane (which, let's face it, is not going to work anyway...). In a way, it doesn't really matter if I don't know where up is in the plane, as long as I know where up is in me.

Last night, when I switched off the light and wanted to go to sleep, I decided to stop worrying about AT and just do it for a while. I started out by trying to find my sitting bone. It took me quite some time to locate it, it's always so much lower than I think. I started looking for it somewhere at navel height, which meant that I first had to go down before I could even think of going up. During this search, I constantly had to remind myself to not start giving directions straight away, but first make sure that I'd stopped (in this case, found my sitting bone).

Once I found my sitting bone, I thought out some directions. And again, I had to immediately remind myself to *think* them, not to *do* anything, because even while I thought I was just thinking, I could feel my neck stiffen immediately. So I kept directing and reminding, and after a while, I felt a tingling sensation near my sitting bone. Of course, as soon as I noticed this, I started doing stuff, so it disappeared, but after trying a few times, I could more or less direct the tingling feeling upwards a little.

After directing this little flow for a while, something very exciting happened; it's hard to explain in words, but I'll give it a try. First of all, it felt like some kind of thick layer was peeled off, almost like taking off a thick set of winter clothes. Usually I hear all kinds of stuff inside, like music, me talking to myself, that kind of thing. But now, that all went completely quiet, and I could hear everything around me with great clarity. I also felt very aware of my spine, I could perceive it from bottom to top.

I tried sending some more directions, and then I discovered that "when you stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing will do itself" is *not* a figure of speech, because my body started opening up on its own accord, without me doing anything other than sending directions. At that moment, I had no doubt at all about where forward and up was, because I was taken there by my head :-) Stupid words, they don't even convey half of what I want to say. It was like having a blueprint body inside, with my outside body simply folding around it. Once I reached that state, it was easy to get rid of the tension in my back and shoulders; just by sending directions to the sore spots, I could open and release them.

No need to say that I'm quite happy...