Pause and begin again

Guitar & AT Project
Day 9/40

Unusual late and short practice today. It's this time of the term, 2 days before the break. The energy is low, although not as low as usually, I must say.

:I begin with sitting without the guitar and giving traditional AT directions (neck free, head forward-up, back lengthening and widening etc.) My sense is that my capacity to not 'interfere' with the thinking process has recently increased.

Mainly playing. At point I noticed unnecessary tension in my left elbow - a bit of self-expression there. I immediately pause and take the guitar off, then begin again.

I don't know how it exactly works

Guitar & AT Project 
Day 8/40

Today I paused ca. every 5 minutes during guitar work. No doubts this strategy supports me in cultivating the Use founded on the AT principles.

Not very structured practice today, just going with the flow. At few points I recognized certain quality that charactarised my playing about 13-14 years ago, when I was in my late teens: playful and spontaneous, without much analysing. Few interesting musical ieas flew by today. I attribute it to this ongoing AT work, how does it exactly work - I don't know, but I do look forward to how it develops!

Coin Tree - new UK species

Short video of F.M.Alexander

How interesting to have this glimpse into how F.M.Alexander moved:

One word that particularly spring to mind: Intention.

Lengthening vs. contracting

Guitar & AT Project 
Day 7/40

Today I chose to zoom in on one particular AT direction (without forgetting the other basic ones, of course) Several times doing the practice I thought of my arms lengthing before bringing them to the guitar - its aim being to maintain this direction going (thanks George!)

I usually don't notice the very moment of transition from the state of lengthening to the state of contraction, but it usually doesn't take long before I notice that the quality in the arms is gone. This is a good moment to pause and reconnect - but at the moment it's more of an idea. Something to work on in the future.

I was surprised to find out that my experience with the guitar was completely pain - free. I didn't register any tension or discomfort usually associated with carrying an instrument on my arms. How wonderful - it works! My practice is also becoming more enjoyable and playful.

Blanes, Spain

Less interference

Guitar & AT Project
Day 6/40

Today I introduced even more frequent pauses during guitar practice. Firstly because it was simply needed, but also because of a good influence of my GC & AT Bro George.

Today I noticed certain indifference in giving directions, which I recognised as something positive. My concern is just to direct without being concerned with how my system works it out. Less interference, I think.

Somewhere in North Yorkshire

Recollection Bell

Here's the link to a very useful online tool:

Mindfullness Bell

I use it for my AT work, as a reminder to pause / inhibit at regular intervals. It's especially useful for working at the computer.

Last year when I worked as a Maths Techer I used the sound of this bell (played through the speakers) as the means of asking students to stop working and be quiet. It brought some very interesting results, particularly with one Year 10 group. It also gave me space to pause and recollect myself during the lesson.

The picture above: courtesy of Agnieszka Pajor 

Work at the computer

Today I had to spend several hours working at the computer. In order not to be sucked into it and consequently disconnect from my body I re-introduced having the reminder bell on every 15 minutes. I actually used to use it for the same purpose several months ago, and then somehow dropped it. 

When I hear the bell the computer doesn't exist for me. I come back to myself and the environment around me. Pausing today reminded me how strong stimulae work on the laptop is, and how prone I'm to be sucked into that world! 

I see it as a preventive measure, and will definitely keep it going.

After few hours I noticed slight pain in the right shoulder – over extending of the right arm? Decide to bring the mouse few inches closer...

First week completed

Guitar & AT Project
Day 5/40

My AT lie-down practice is more efficient these days. I felt tired and distracted in the afternoon, but after about 25 minutes of constructive rest I felt refreshed and ready for action.

The guitar practice: I keep pausing at regular 10 minutes intervals. These pauses give me an opportunity to disengage from doing / action and reflect on how is it going and how could I refine doing what I'm doing. I wish to re-establish such regular pauses during the day. I need to buy the wrist watch first though!

I complete the practice with playing with the recording. It feels right to imagine lightness and space in the area of the armpits while playing, as there's some rigidity and holding there.

The first week of the project is completed. 7 more to go!

End gaining kicking in

Guitar & AT Project 
Day 4/40

Today I focus on working on pieces.

Begin with playing through Cantaloupe Island (bass) with the recording. In the past 3 days I worked on my use while practicing the guitar - the attention needed to be divided between two processes. Playing with the recording seems to be bit more challenging, because there's one more thing to pay attention to - listening to other parts of the piece. 

Then move on to reviewing the bass from Larks Tongues in Aspic II. That's when the end gaining creeps in, and even when I notice it I don't do anything about it - interesting. By end gaining I mean trying to get it at the expense of my coordination (excessive tension, suppresed breathing etc.) or the wholeness of the body. Finally I decide to stop, and change the speed to half tempo. My system also slows down.

Complete the practice with playing through CI again. This time play while standing , aiming to maintain gentle awareness of the flowers outside the window (but without staring at them)

Unfortunately I can't take the photo of these pink flowers. Instead, here's a lot of pink from Yorkshire, photo by Monika.

Constructive Rest audio by Imogene Ragone

I recently came across this website by Imogene Ragone with an excellent audio recording of guided Constructive Rest.

Here it is: Body Intelligence - Lying Down for Back Pain Relief

The recording (11:40 long) is wonderful, probably my favourite one from all I worked with so far. I particularly like very good introduction to AT Directions.

The whole body in action

Guitar & AT Project
Day 3/40

Continue to build on the work done on the previous 2 days.

I'm just about to sit down with the guitar, but first - pause. I notice that my knees are locked. They'll need to bent in order to sit down, so probably a fair amount of 'doing' will have to be involved in unlocking them. I ask for more freedom in the knees and also give directions: knees going forward, hips going back and head going up and down. Once I keep these directions going I have the sense that the body is now properly ready for sitting down. And indeed, little intention is needed to put it motion, the movement is close to effortless.

At the moment I have more interest in how the whole body is involved in the guitar practice, instead of just looking at the left hand fingers, or the release in the wrist of the right hand. I don't feel ready to properly zoom in on the hands in details yet, although I gave it some attention over the past few days. More detailed work on the GC Primaries soon. 

This week I spend the last 10 minutes of my practice playing. At one point today I looped one chord pattern and explored how is it to play it when paying attention to the whole body, especially when releasing the neck.

The creature of habit

Guitar & AT Project
Day 2/40

The Yorkshire duck must be wondering how did I get on with inhibiting and directing during the guitar practice today.

Well, it was a revealing half an hour!

I began with pausing before taking the guitar out of the case. Coming back to myself, before acting. A different quality of the beginning today.

After tuning I thought of practicing the right hand. The hand automatically reacted to this thought and moved the pick to the area above the strings, and then fixed in tension. Because I noticed it I was able to say no to this and proceded more constructively by letting go of the idea, dropping the arm to the side and thinking of the arm as lengthening. Take time.

Later on something similar happened with the left hand. Once I spontaneously decided to add the left hand chords to the right hand pattern, my left hand was already on the fretboard! Similar strategy applied.

Jacek is the creature of habit.

Embarking on the learning process

Guitar & AT Project
Day 1/40

This week I'm going to practice the guitar for 30 minutes per day. I did ca. 20 minutes lie-down (aka Constructive Rest) before the practice and ca. 10 minutes afterwards. It makes sense to wrap it up with the lie-down procedure, it works.

When I was about to take the guitar case from behind the table, I started to day dream about something I was going to do, and before I knew it,the guitar was already there, strapped on me! I'm glad to notice where do I begin from...

2 pauses (10 & 20 minutes into the practice) were introduced. I took the guitar off and took a minute or two to 'think up'.

By the way. Your comments, ideas and suggestions about applying the AT to playing the guitar would be very welcome! I don't claim to be an expert in the subject, rather a student embarking on the learning process, hoping to be instructed by his mistakes and experience.

 

Another picture from Yorkshire above.

Guitar & Alexander Technique Project

Over the past few days I pondered how could I best prepare for the upcoming Project in August, I felt stuck!At one point today all the pieces somehow came together and it became very clear what would be the right, practical focus in the next few weeks: applying the principles of the Alexander Technique to practicing & playing the guitar.

This is my 3rd of work at the seconday school in South East London, and Ionly have 40 days at work left before the Summer break. I'm at the end of a very challenging (and fruitful!) period and my plan is to work on this project during those 40 working days. 

3 reasons why I find it so exciting and useful - it'll support me in:

- focusing on preparing for the AT training, beginning in September. 
- preparing for the Guitar Project in August.
- completing the 3 years period at school by providing grounding and creative challenge (hopefully!).
 

The photo above was taken 3 years ago by my friend Agnieszka Pajor. Here's her website.

Violin student

The other day I had to cover 'independent study time' in the 6th form area. One student didn't have much to do, so I suggested that she could use the practice room for practicing her violin, as I saw the instrument on the table.

She mentioned that she had to perform with the Youth Orchestra recently, so she practiced longer than usual in order to prepare for that. As a consequence she injured her back and wrist. Hmmmm

I mentioned the AT - all new to her... I also printed out the following article. It's up to her now to give it a shot, or not.

4th AT Lesson with Michelle

I had my last (in a series of 4) lesson with Michelle yesterday. It didn't feel like dragging crashed car called Jacek to be repaired on this ocassion. My last lesson was 2 days ago and I felt in pretty good shape, actually. Thanks to this I began from a different station and was able to arrive at another, new location.

I requested her to work with Inhibition at one point. She moves my arm(s) while I work on refraining from 'helping her'. We discovered that my right arm (dominant) is more prone to do moving. Such exploration is something I really enjoyed doing during my early lessons in Harrogate in 2006. I still enjoy it, it's fascinating to observe how deep-seated our habits of doing are.

There was a moment during table work when I started to daydream. I recalled a moment last year when I brought my guitar to school. Soon after this M asked me if I play any musical instrument. Interesting ... coincidence? can she read my mind? I don't think so, but I'm pretty sure that thinking about playing the guitar triggered habitual muscle reactions, and perhaps she recognized them as something common amongst people who play musical instruments?

At the end of the session I noticed that after standing up from sitting on the chair I have a tendency to fix into standing.

Above: one of the pictures taken during our recent visit to Yorkshire.

I'm going to have some lesson-free time again, we'll see how things develop. If I see that my job is having a negative impact on my use, I'll have few more lessons, but that's after half-term in 3 weeks time.

Good news: only 8 weeks of work at school to go, and I'm going to begin the Training. Hoooray!

Quote from Dr.Barlow

The office worker, the conveyor belt engineer, the lorry driver, the mum-bent-over-baby, the dentist, the pianist, carry out occupations for so long that they eventually will hold themselves partially contracted even when they are not involved in the actual pressures of their jobs. The residual tension may not be conscious but eventually it is maintained most of the time. The summation of their various temporary attitudes eventually finds its expression in a posture - or in a limited repertoire of postures, which come to dominate a person's character. In small and at first unobtrusive ways we become enslaved to our past.
Dr Barlow - The Alexander Principle

In my experience one of the challenges of a day-to-day work (secondary school job) is a baggage of physical tensions with their corresponding attitudes, emotions and fixed thinking. That's why I think the release of unnecessary body tensions feels so liberating. I experienced that 2 days ago after the AT lesson with Michelle

Crossing the Threshold

Have you ever wondered how powerful group Inhibition can be?

There you go then:

This is the beginning of the Performance given at the end of one week residential guitar course. Amongst many other things, the Performance Team worked with an AT Teacher during that week.

The intentionality of that entrance simply blew me away.

More info: The Orchestra of Crafty Guitarist

3rd AT Lesson with Michelle

A very good lesson with M today. Virtually no verbal instruction on how to proceed from her - I simply work on myself while being supported by M's hands-on directions. This allows more space and I suppose it also helps to cultivate responsibility and independence in my own work. I am responsible for my own Use.

After the lesson I noticed that anxieties and concerns I carried with me over the past few days are almost completely gone. It makes sense: I did let go of them indirectly - by letting go of the corresponding unnecessary tensions. These tensions were holding me in the grip of emotions / thoughts.

My new after lesson strategy: no internet, just lie on bed and let go of any work, even concern to work on myself. This approach worked well today, as it allowed my system to simply digest new information. No mental processing or trying to maintain good use necessary here. Simply rest.

And now for something completely different: Ukrainian cat:

Photo taken by Monika.

Interesting: while chanting in the evening I noticed that the register I'm usually comfortable with lowered down - the benefit of the AT Work?

The power of habit

The power of habit - I suppose every day I could write at least one post related to this topic.

Am I aware of my habits? Sometimes they pop up on the surface, and I often tend to ignore them - a natural resistance of that animal called Jacek.

One of my strong habits is turning my laptop on when I come back home. I'm aware that there are no purely bodily, emotional or mental habits. The habits consist of all these elements, but this consist mainly of emotional component, so I think anyway.

Today when we came back home I had an opportunity: an opportunity of having a choice. I stopped, and refrained from turning the laptop on straightaway. And it doesn't matter that I turned it on 10 minutes later anyway. I had a flavour of what does it mean to say no and choose more constructive alternative, at least for time being.

Body Learning

One of the most basic and widely recommended first books to read about the Alexander Technique is Body Learning by Michael J.Gelb

I have read it for the first time about 5 years ago. It's easy to say I have read it before, so there's no need to come back to it, but is it really so?

Well, I have read it at a certain point in my process of learning, after having several private lessons and after having an established daily practice of AT lie-downs (several months). Body Learning is simple and straightforward, and this makes it very suitable for newcomers to the Technique.

8 years after coming across the AT for the first time, I still feel like a newcomer. I wish to begin again and to cultivate the beginner's mind, and I'm very happy to dig into this book again.

Here's the cover of my first copy of this book - its old edition:

Obviously, the lady on the cover is very excited about embarking on the AT Journey.

Some time ago Monika bought a second hand copy for £1.25 at one of the local charity shops - nice bargain, isn't it?

I'm as excited about this new edition as the person on the cover:

I found author's operational ideas a very useful framework for looking at the Alexander Technique. These ideas form the essence of AT work:

I. Use and functioning
II. The whole person
III. Primary control
IV. Unreliable sensory appreciation
V. Direction
VI. Inhibition
VII. Means and ends

The new edition has some extras included in it. I particularly appreciate checkpoints at the end chapters dedicated to each operational ideas.

Food!

Does the quantity and quality of food determine the functioning of my body?

Yep!

It was interesting to see the effect of eating a lot of mostly meaty food over the period of 3 days last week. Eating larger than usual quantities of not so easy to digest (but very tasty) food slowed me down and made me tired. What happened to the lightness and the alertness of the body?

Today it stroke me again that the act of eating is something I don't pay much attention to. I made a simple and quick soup I really LIKE. Having food like this in front of me is a very strong stimulae, and this is the moment when I turn into an animal.

Starting point for addressing this: acknowledge the beginning (inhibition) and the completion (inhibition)

Nikolaas Tinbergen on the Alexander Technique

Here's an excerpt from Nikolas Tinbergen's Nobel Price acceptance speech where he talks about the Alexander Technique. It's really interesting to hear his take on it:

A thought

Dear Reader,

If you have no practical interest in the Alexander Technique, then you are probably going to find this post / blog very boring. However, if you find the Technique of value, than I hope reading this blog is going to be of some interest / use for you. I'm writing as a student of the Technique - by no means I claim to be an expert!

2nd lesson with M

Today I had a second private lesson with Michelle. I was more tired, but also in better shape than the last time we worked together.

One image I'm going to remember from this lesson: thinking of my sitting bones as feet, so to speak.

During table work I noticed the release in my left hip joint. It's something I'm interested to investigate further, as I'm aware there's a strong holding there. Anyway, the aim is not to focus too obsessively on the hip joints, arms or whatever. We're working with the whole body here.

After the lesson I noticed that I'm unsettled. This I recognize as an integral part of the process of change. I don't always have a strategy at hand to deal with it though. After trying to engage in several activities the penny finally dropped and I decided to simply have an AT lie-down. I didn't have enough time for it though, because of the planned skype conversation with a friend. Next time I'll plan better to provide more space for digesting the experience after the lesson.

Definition of the AT

The Alexander Technique eludes precise definition because it involves a new experience - the experience of gradually freeing oneself from the domination of fixed habits. Any attempt to put that experience into words is necessarily limited, rather like trying to explain music to someone who has never heard a note.
Michael.J.Gelb - Body Learning (Introduction, p.1)

Yes, having one AT lesson is definitely more useful than reading many books about it.

Crossing the river

We went to Bolton Abbey with my sister Ania, mum and Monika today:

We had to cross the river and one possible way of doing this was to walk on the stones in the river. What a great opportunity to play with the AT principles in activity. At one point after few steps I realized the possibility of getting wet is not unlikely. I started to loose the sense of grounding and had to stop and "think up" for few moments. After considerable pause I resumed the walk care while paying attention to my footsteps. 

  

 

 

Two other clear moments of AT work today: preparing for sitting down and standing up at the cafe. My aim in doing this was to keep the work invisible to others and inhibit & move my body as a whole unit.

Travel to Leeds

Today we are going to Leeds to visit my family.

Just arrived at the Victoria train station. The bus leaves in half an hour, it takes about 7-8 minutes walk to the coach station and I'm rushing... Why? What does the way I'm walking say about my attitude to doing things? I'll leave this question unaswered for now.

Stopping doesn't even occur to me at this point , but I keep paying attention to myself while walking. At some point something clicks and I'm suddenly able to have control over the the parameters of my movement. I can ask myself to slow down, at certain point I enjoy being in charge of my body and ask it to simply STOP.  Yes, I know it sounds strange, but being in charge of body is not something an average person can take for granted.

Another example of habit at work: we're on the bus, and my wife just laid her head on my shoulder. She's having a nap and I don't want to disturb her, so I keep sitting still, although my shoulder feels achy. I'm trying to

'do', to actively use my muscles to stay upright and support the weight of her lovely and sleepy head. At certain point I question this and experiment. I allow the weight of her head to sink down through my body and at the same time I "think up". What a relief! Not much effort is actually needed to do this and I regain the sense of wholeness in my body (reconnect with the feet and the hip joints)

Pic above by Monika

The work continues

3 days after the last AT lesson, and it still continues to resonate away. Great! I was hoping for more continuity of the practice, and here it goes: every day this week I had the sense of some constructive Alexander work done.

Examples: inhibiting before standing up or sitting down - looking for the sense of the wholeness of the body before proceeding. Extention of the work done in the lesson...

And more frequent pausing...These days the pauses more clearly allow my nervous system to calm down a bit. It felt more comfortable to pause over the past few days: the experience of the organic sensation in the body was stronger than tension and discomfort which was also to some degrees present, at the same time.

It's great to be more alive in your body.

AT & Grace

The essence of the Alexander Technique is to make ourselves more susceptible to grace.
F.M.Alexander

What an amazing quote from the founder of the Technique.

Computer habits

Working at the computer habits - I suppose exploring these would be something very beneficial to do.  

Today for example I noticed one of them: pushing the belly / lumbar area forward – what's going on here? Why? It started to intensify once I got bit more excited and more identified with what I was doing...

Actually... I don't even remember!

The fruits of the lesson

One thing that also came up yesterday in the lesson was what am I doing with my feet when standing up. M has asked me to stand up and I considered how was I going to go about it. I have a habit of pulling one feet back while standing up. She has suggested actually moving both of them back – sure, happy to experiment with that. While standing up I experienced my body moving as one unit.

This morning I was very surprised to wake up with an unusual lightness of movement. The fruits of yesterday's work are still in the system. I'm wondering how long it's going to last for, but I'm not too much concerned about it.When I worked as a Maths teacher I would very quickly disconnect from the work done in the lesson - that's how stressful and overwhelming that role was.

Yesterday in the evening we practiced singing with Monika. I noticed the difference in the projection of my voice. It was more confident, stable and clear. Monika also noticed the change, but not sure how would she described it. No doubts the AT lesson benefited me in this respect.