Observation Blessing

I have the honor of watching my son, Finn, grow.  This past Friday was his 2nd birthday.  I still can't believe how time flies!  He has literally been with me from the beginning of my teacher training.  I found out I was pregnant about 5 months before I was to begin at CBAS.  Thankfully Robin, my director, was extremely encouraging and welcoming to my big news.  I almost postponed my schooling, but she assured me that now was just as good a time as any.  And she was completely right!  I am SO thankful I had my fellow CBAS peers to help me through the pregnancy and motherhood transitions.  And now we call Finn our Master Teacher - and for good reason!

The other day I observed how he picked up a crayon to hand to me... it's a bit hard to translate to you without showing you... but, I'll give it a go:  as he bent over, his knees were free and moving forward, he had his full back as his arm extended out onto the floor, his eyes saw the object and I didn't sense any tension in his Self, his fingers grasped the crayon then his fingers led his arm which led his shoulder and torso to turn toward me.  With his eyes still on the crayon, his head followed this movement and then his hips and legs followed everything else.  It was such a great example of All Together, One After the Other!

I was also taken in by how he was not in a rush.  He had all the time in the world and there was absolutely no need to give his Mama the crayon faster than he did.

So many lessons like this one play out before me every single day.  I am so blessed to get to see them first hand... especially while I'm working through my teacher training!

Strong Stimuli

So... I am often stumped on what to do with strong stimuli.  You know there will be something (could be anything) maybe an electronic device, a loud noise, a room, or even a person... whatever it is, it seems to always get your goat.  And by that, I mean bring you down both literally and figuratively.

So... how do we handle strong stimuli?  Ignoring it sometimes makes the "down" stronger.  Removing it might be an option, but when it's not an option what can you do?

One thing I like to play with is "inclusion".  Whatever the stimuli, I try to include it into my environment. Accept it.  I don't mean I have to like it, but rather say to myself "It is what it is.  I am with myself and the stimulus is doing it's own thing.  I do not need to take on the negativity I am feeling with this stimulus.  I will allow the stimulus to have it's own space while I have my own space and Self.

OK - So, I know this is a lot easier said than done.  I'm not saying I succeed a whole lot, but maybe over time this concept will start to sink into my being and become second nature to me.  What can it hurt?

Meade Andrews' Preparing the Receptive Field

I am very fortunate to study under Meade Andrews.  She has taught at many of the Alexander residential workshops I have attended and also visits my school, Chesapeake Bay Alexander Studies.  She was teaching us this past November and walked us through what she calls "Preparing the Receptive Field".  This is an activity that she leads groups through at the beginning of the day or the beginning of the conference.  The idea behind it is that is an activity that helps unite the group and focuses the individual on their Self and their surroundings.  This activity has taken various modes - but whatever the awareness activity, it helps our sensory receptors to wake up and look around.

This past weekend, we started with the "sacred circle" which means the group stands in a circle (not an oval, not an ameba but an evenly spaced circle).  We enjoy that environment for a moment.  Next we turn around so that we are facing away from the circle.  We check in with our own backs.  After we have our own back we sense the backs of everyone in the circle and then turn back in to face the circle.  It is amazing how much the energy of the group has changed by this point!!  We were really cookin' that morning.  Each of us have our own back and we also have the support of the collective back of the group.  We take a moment and with no one indicating, we take one step into the circle.

After this introduction, we walked about the room sensing the dynamic of our own back while in movement.  We would pause occasionally and come to stillness.  Our partners were then allowed to put a hand on our back or shoulder while we paused in space.  This symbiotic connection was pretty darn cool.  No matter if I was the one with the hand on my back or if I was the one with my hand on the other's back, we both were sensing one collective back.

Another really cool thing that happened was that Meade was explaining this type of connection and she offered her hand to me.  I took her hand as if to shake it and I completely felt a wave go through my body.  Sounds a little crazy, I know.  But what it boils down to is that whatever we have in our hand - be it a pencil, fork, violin etc - we automatically map it to our body.  So if two people are aware of this mapping, then one of the results may be this type of tangible wave or energy flow.  All we were doing was connecting hands while thinking through our use.  Pretty amazing!