Day 2

I was late for class because of parent teacher conferences.

First, I HATE being late....and hate is not a word I use much. I learned early in my life that "hate" is a strong word and is not to be used lightly, also, that I should never "hate" a person. I think it was actually one of my teachers at church who taught me that and she didn't teach it to me in the building, I'm pretty sure we were at an activity of some sort and I said I hated something. She asked me if I really meant what I said, I couldn't answer her, I didn't know. Hate was a word that I used to fling around without thinking about it, not so much since then.

Anyway - HATE being late.

Second...hm..I'm not sure what is second. Moving on.

We talked about direction last night, oh, and inhibition. I think I need to look up the origin of that word... brb...

hmmm...here's what the Oxford dictionary says:

Origin (of Inhibit)

Late Middle English (in the sense ‘forbid (a person) to do something’): from Latin inhibere ‘hinder’, from in- ‘in’ + habere ‘hold’

Inhibition:

A feeling that makes one self-conscious and unable to act in a relaxed and natural way.

Well, that doesn't make sense! The whole point of AT is to act in a natural way...hang on....

mass noun The action of inhibiting a process.

Well, that makes a little more sense I think. Oh here's another one

inhibition (n.)

late 14c., "formal prohibition; interdiction of legal proceedings by authority;" also, the document setting forth such a prohibition, from Old French inibicionand directly from Latin inhibitionem (nominative inhibitio) "a restraining," from past participle stem of inhibere "to hold in, hold back, keep back," from in-"in, on" (from PIE root *en "in") + habere "to hold" (from PIE root *ghabh- "to give or receive"). Psychological sense of "involuntary check on an expression of an impulse" is from 1876.

I really like word origins, especially when looking at text and ideas that are not so 20th or 21st century. They help a lot!

We talked about direction and inhibition. These two things are the KEY to AT.

We talked about our skull and AO joint above C1 where all of the nerves come through that then go down and branch out to the rest of our body. I already knew about a lot of this because, well...nerve damage seems to be my middle name. I have two fusions (C4/5 and 5/6) and I've had radial tunnel surgery on my right arm, I have some idea of nerves, how they work and what can happen when things aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. 

The head being back and down - like in the left of this diagram - is not so good for the nerves trying to come thru the AO joint. Unlike owls or other raptors (I'm a bird person, bear with me), who have adaptations that allow for nerves and blood vessels to do what they need to when they turn their heads somewhere between 200-260 degrees, people are unable to maintain good blood flow and nerve reception when that small space is impeded upon. This means that we no longer have good communication from our brain to our body and vice versa. 

It makes all the sense in the world to me. If you cut off communication how well does anything understand what is happening or being said and then how well is it able to respond? 

After this discussion we bounced a ball and looked at how we were inhibiting, or not. 

Alexander's "neck free" really came to focus here because most of us were looking down trying to manage the ball. The realization that we had to keep the neck free and bring the ball to us instead of going to the ball was a real eye opener. I talk all of the time to my students about bringing the instrument to the body not the body to the instrument. Well geez Jen, why wouldn't it be that way with other things too??? Duh moment! 

I then started to use my arms differently to push the ball to the floor to have it respond as I wanted it to. Well, how much easier is that on my body?? Geesh!

On our break time we learned a little more about each other, where we were from and what we all did. I feel a lot inexperienced around these people. S and C have lived all over the country and traveled quite a bit it sounds like. Ch and J seem to be so well read and have tried so many things I really feel rather small in my experience. I try not to judge myself against others but you know as well as I do that it can be difficult. 

Our last hour was with L, the 2nd of our two teachers, his experience in the dance world makes his movement concepts so much different from our primary teacher. It's a good thing to have both of these perspectives.

We started by partnering up and putting one hand on the chest and one on the back of our partner and then having them look up and down. What direction(s) were our hands moving? Were they moving? We then moved our touch to the arm and did similar look up/down motions. Then our touch went to the thigh. 

I was grateful that the instructor was close by, my look up movement has been forcibly inhibited by my dual fusion, but he wasn't going to let that go. Interestingly enough, I wasn't the only one not allowing my whole body to do what it was meant to do.

He showed us how up and down are an arch. He talked about an imaginary elastic that runs lengthwise down our back, between our legs and up our front and over our head and how our movement needs to be along the lines of the WHOLE elastic, so EVERYTHING moves. Wow, was that different. Suddenly I was looking UP much further than I've been able to in years, fusions and all! 

He then went on to discuss "primary" and "secondary" positions. Here's where I started to get confused. Initially I thought I was getting it, but as the discussion progressed I got more and more lost. It may be that I was tired too, and I always do better if I have some written material to refer to so I can read and re-read. Show me, tell me, and let me read and process examples work best for me. I need to find some reading material to help.

"Primary" seems to be a rest or going to rest attitude.

"Secondary" seems to be going toward activity or engaging

But then that seemed to change. Granted, there are no hard fast rules about all of this, but I'm having a hard time with the basic concept. Maybe tonight that will get better.

My take away from today comes from a quote that "C" read to us as we were talking about direction. From Pedro de Alcantara:

" We do not use or misuse our bodies, we use or misuse ourselves."

Truer words, eh? 

Here's to a day of inhibitions and good use!