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I was flicking through Paulo Coelho’s book Like the Flowing River, before throwing it out.  I own that I find Coelho’s stuff a little…simplistic and rather whimsical – like New Age meets Francis Gay.  However a piece On Elegance caught my eye, and there was some reasonable stuff in it – if I skipped over his phrases about  ‘correct posture’ – whatever that is.  It relates to the Quakers phrase of ‘walking cheerfully’ which I love. So here’s an experiment I play with my students to help them walk cheerfully and elegantly…as you walk imagine you are not moving at all, but that the world is coming to you. Maybe notice a lamp post or tree in front as you walk and watch how it gets bigger as it comes towards you. Notice how the wall is streaming past you, the floor beneath you….as you get used to this, you could also add the thought that the tree 200 meters in front of you is also your future coming towards you. The past is gone, the tree is not yet arrived, you are in the presence of your walking. Invariably, if someone can change their perspective away from hurrying towards some time or place, then there is a sensation of ease, grace and floatiness. The habitual tensions and pull-down disappear. It is a way of inhibiting your end-gaining. Very simple and very effective. Enjoy!

Still a couple of spaces left on the Alexander workshop in Alonnisos, Greece, September 4th – 11th  £495 inc. accommodation. More information on my sister site www.alexanderingreece.com

Here’s a picture from the last one in June. Every morning we walked down to the local bay and swam and did some Alexander Thinking and swam again to notice the difference, before trogging back up the hill  for showers and hands on work….

Thinking Alexander Directions in the morning

My first ‘small workshop’ in Alonnisos this year has just finished. Wonderful hotbed of discovery – working through Missy Vineyards chapters on inhibition, walking meditations, swimming experiments, Chi Kung at the local bay every morning, individual lessons and hands-on practice in the evening….o and time for chilling out or in Peter’s case riding the moutainbike half way up the island and running every morning as part of his triathlon training. And on one day we went on a boat trip to the nearby unihabited island of Skantzoura and visited the monastery there, luncheon and snorkelling in a couple of turquoise bays …….spaces on next small workshop in September,  and individual courses to suit your needs available throughout the summer.

looking from Skantzoura

docking at Monastery Bay

monastery at Skantzoura

view from my terrace

Well here I am on the island of Alonnisos for my summer sojourn. I have just about got my teaching terrace together – pruned the fig tree, tied back the vine,  put palm leaves over the gap in the pergola for shade where the ivy has not yet reached. The usual things.  O and OK got my teaching table out, the chair, the ball, the mirror…the stage is set.  So anyone wanting Alexander lessons with me will have to find their way over to Alonnisos until september 11th…..a wonderful journey and wonderful experience. There are a couple of spaces left for the teachers/advanced students workshop in July, and space on 4th-11th September for all levels small workshop.  Look forward to seeing you for these or fro a course of  individual lessons, and if not, have a great summer, with plenty of non-doing and stopping and staying present in the moment.

I’ve been doing more of this again on my walks in Alonnisos this Easter.  This is not just stopping walking, but stopping the internal voice for a moment, the thoughts of what I am about to do, or what I have done – all the busy-ness. 

 A few days ago on the beach at Mikros Mourtias. I stopped writing, reading, thinking, and stood up and looked out to sea. I received the sound of the water slapping on the rocks,  the smell of the seaweed, the light dancing on the water, the warm silkiness of my dog’s ear as he nuzzled my leg.  And then I saw the dolphins in the distance, leaping. 

 

I have just been reading Derren’s book ‘Tricks of the Mind’  (Channel 4 Books 2006) and he writes unknowingly on one of the principles of AT – psycho-phyiscal unity

“There is an intriguing physical correlative of this process: changing your physiology can make a marked difference in your emotional response to a troublesome thought. Find something (else) that makes you feel bad inside when you think about it……you’ll probably notice that it affects how you sit: you start slumping, or your head drops a little.  Now do this. Stand up, put your shoulders back, straighten your back and look forwards and upwards. Try to feel bad about the same thing. You can’t really, can you? ‘

So let’s put  that last bit into Alexander language “Now come to standing, let your neck free so that your head goes forward and up in such a way that your back lengthens and widens…….’     

and I think he and i would agree.

Had great fun last week with my theatre students: I designate one day for them to spend the whole day in clothes they don’t habitually wear. – out of their usual style. This means they wear make up if they don’t usually and vice versa. If they wear jeans down below their bottoms, they have to wear something smart and  high-waisted. Always wear bright colours? Wear some sombre ones. No parting in the hair? Put one in. Always neat and tidy? Find out what it is to wear unironed scruffy clothes for a change.  It can be extremely liberating to come out of our own style for a day – people change towards us or not at all – we become clearer about how over concerned we can be on how other people see us. I say ‘we’ because i too join in with this. This year i favoured the biker chick image, the year before the pretty patterned dress with heels. I would put some photos up but the web blog is refusing this at the moment, so you’ll have to imagine. And try it for your self and let me know how you get alexpen@onetel.com   It can be extremely discombobulating – not all my students enjoy the experience and look positively miserable without their usual clothes to hang onto, to shield themselves from the world.  Our personal confidence is often tied in to our ‘image’ when we’re  19……however if we inhibit our reaction, and direct ourselves all things are possible!

I was working with a group of young actors in training with learning disabilities from the Bradford-based Mind the Gap project last week. They are resident at ArtsEd in London where I teach Alexander Technique to the BA/MA acting students. Thanks guys for some fun sessions and for insoiring me with the following!  I like the name Mind The Gap – it’s very Alexandrian. The gap between stimulus and response, that’s where change lies….. in Alexander parlance it’s called ‘Inhibition’.  Deepak Chopra mentions  the Gap between thoughts, a meditative state, the potential for anything where we can contact the Universe and ask for help. Inhibition for me is a Gap where I have stopped the world and got off for a moment -the world being the ‘crowd of my thoughts’ *, my ego-laden reality. When I can stop all that there is an extraordinary peace and I may well choose not to bound back into the habit-laden rigors of my life.  So, whatever you are doing just now, ‘Mind the Gap’, stop what you are doing and look around you, take in the outside world, the sounds, the sensation of being alive right here right now. Then return to what you were doing – if you want. And maybe with a freer neck, a direction of ‘up’, feet released into the ground.

And practise these moments of stopping throughout the day.  In Alonnisos in January I was walking with my darling dog through the byways of the island, making a helluva noise with my crinkly anorak and then I just stopped. I heard the birds, the sound of the rain dripping, smelt the damp earth,  saw the myriad shades of green in the trees and bushes….and agreed anytime I thought of stopping I just would. It’s a great game and I’ve been playing it ever since. Just stopping, and finding out what happens. ( I don’t drive, but I guess it could be possible to just decided to safely pull up for a moment, before continuing a journey….) Happy playing!

News on my workshops and lessons in Alonnisos in the summer this year are now posted up on the website www.alexanderingreece.com I am there from June 7th and look forward to working with some of you out there. It’s such a beautiful place! I don’t know anyone who has been disappointed and there’s a cute little hosue next door you can rent out for only £200 a  week if you are taking lessons with me….