Viewpoints Reflection

1) I thought the viewpoints exercise was very interesting and fun at times. I liked when we played music while doing the exercise because it made me loosen up a little and grasp the exercise a lot better. I enjoyed using the props, it made the exercise more entertaining and it created more things to act upon with impulse. 2) Moments that felt alive were mainly when the music was on and I could just loosen up and become in touch with how I was feeling and how I wanted to respond to how I was feeling. At the time knowing that it was absolutely Okay to respond to how I was feeling made me feel alive. Because in reality you may not always respond to how you are feeling right then and there without getting judged or looked at kind of crazy. 3) Yes. Most times in the beginning of the exercise when it was quiet. I think because when were first starting the exercise were just walking around in silence with not much impulse to do anything.

Body Learning 2

Primary control refers to the way our head, neck, and back relationship is a primary influence and dynamic organizer for the coordination of our whole body mechanism and our movements. Primary control is only useful when we are not interfering with it by tightening our neck muscles. Instead we must allow the head to balance freely on the atlanto-occipital joint at the top of the spine. FM Alexander referring to the use of his head as forward and up in relation to his neck and torso. Primary control can best be seen in the movements of animals, infants,and a few outstanding adults. Unreliable sensory appreciation occurs when we do not receive accurate sensory feedback about our physical condition and use. For example if a person is habitually slouched over this position feels right to them even though if they were to look in the mirror it would be bad posture. But if this same person were to come to an Alexander technique class and get assistance re-aligning their back the new position would be difficult to maintain because the body finds the new position uncomfortable because they are not in their comfort zone. Inhibition refers to a learned process that a person chooses to stop or inhibit an habitual action to a stimulus. This allows a the individual a moments pause to choose whether or not to respond to the stimulus and how to perform an action in response. Directions are the mental instructions we learn to give ourselves before and during an action. FM Alexander mastered this technique by taking care to inhibit the translation of these directions into habitual muscular action. In the technique of ends and mean FM Alexander realized that it was important to keep his options open right through the critical moment. He had three options to choose from, which were to do nothing about it, do something else, or fulfill his original aim. Instead of focusing primarily on the goal wish to attain and forcing ourselves towards it at any cost. I found it interesting that all of these techniques fall in an order one after another. Its just like math, one thing builds on from the thing before it. I did like reading about primary control because this is where success with the Alexander technique begins. This is also something I can take into consideration and learn how to do it more in depth.

Body Learning

F. Matthias Alexander was born in Tasmania in 1869. Education was not a priority, but his mother was determined that her children should be educated. Alexander first attended a Sunday school, and later the government school. He had a very strong relationship with his mother but not so much with is Father. However, his teacher, a Scotsman named Robert Robertson was sympathetic and acted as a father figure. He would excuse Alexander from daily school attendance and instead gave him lessons in the evening. Robertson gave Alexander a lifelong love of Shakespeare, theatre, and poetry along with a basic education. Alexander later took a full blown interest in the Arts after moving from Tasmania and following his aunt and uncle to Melbourne. He later became ill and was advised to leave Melbourne, three months on the sea helped him recover his health. He then went on to participate in amateur dramatic recitals. He began to witness hoarseness by the end of his scenes. The doctors were not able to diagnose the problem and some of his fellow actors thought he was taking in too much air when he recited his lines. After taking time off and having no improvements of his condition he then decided to do a self examination of himself. With time, he found that by using "conscious control" of actions, by inhibiting wrong movements rather than trying to "do" correct ones, and by focussing on the "means whereby" rather than "the end to be gained", his vocal problems and longstanding respiratory problems disappeared. He then quit his job and became a reciting coach and voice teacher. He began traveling and healing patients going to the same things he went thru. Later creating what we know of today as the Alexander Technique. When it comes to Operational Idea and Use and functioning, Alexander realized that he had always done what felt right and never questioned is unreasoned use. “He realized that the choices he made about the Use of his organism were fundamental since they directly affected his functioning and therefore influenced all his other choices.” Use is necessary to complete the picture. Bad Use does not have immediately observable serious consequences. For example the continuous dripping of water on stone that will eventually wear it away. The way we react and use ourselves as a whole affects the quality and way that we function in our daily lives. The second operational idea is The Whole Persons. “We often behave as though we are not one system but a compilation of different little personalities. A person is not a mind in a body, but a psychophysical unity. We cannot have a perception or thought without movement or vice versa. In order to make a decision we need wholeness. If we do not make the decision in wholeness of our entire body we may witness consequences from the decision we made.

Fifth Post: Alexander Technique

Anthony de Mello 1) The most important thing you can do when no one can help you is self observation. No one can help you there and no one can show you a technique. 2) The difference between self observation and self absorption is that help absorption is preoccupation, when you are worried about yourself. Self observation means to watch everything in you and around you as if it was happening to someone else. Meaning that we do not personalize what is happening to you. 3) We suffer from our depressions and anxieties because we identify with them. By telling ourselves that we are depressed, instead of saying we are experiencing a depression right now. 4)Anthony de Mello defines the self/"I" as we are the sky and we are observing all the different clouds. We are a passive detached observer. 5)If we understand things they would change. 6)"What you judge you cannot understand." Reflection 7) I believe that "I am not my depression, I am not my joy." Means that although you may feel depressed or feel joy you are not depression. This is something that is happening that you, you are experiencing it. It does not define you. Seductive, charismatic, ditzy, and oblivious. These characteristics account for everything that I experience about myself. Because these characteristics do not define me. I am just being a passive detached observer of what I am experiencing. The Alexander Technique 1) When we experience fear, stress, and anxiety we shorten in stature, we narrow in size, we pull our heads back and down and compress ourselves. Because its our survival mechanism kicking in. 2)The Alexander Technique enables us to choose a different response and makes conscious how we are using our body. 3) "Nature would prefer to be in balance, she would prefer that we are sharing our body weight evenly between both feet." 4)Three points of contact on your foot is the base of the big toe, base of the little toe, and the heel. 5)The three hinges in our legs are the ankles, hips, and knees. 6)The hip joints are on the crest of your pelvis. 7)Allow the pelvis to be heavy like an anchor. 8)The top of the spine is between the ears and behind the eyes. Reflection 9)The mind is about the mental processes, thought and consciousness. The body deals with how the brain is structured. The mind and body become one and work with one another to create a balance.

Getting Out of Your Own Way

1) Our society tells children what the rules are so that they will know their way around so that when they are older they will be able to invent better rules. 2) Our societies preparation for life is a system of schooling that starts with grades, from grade school to college, to grad school, to life. 3)One often feels cheated because life feels the same as its always felt and they are conditioned to be in desperate need of a future. 4)The final goal of our society is retirement. 5)The goody that was lying at the end of the line never turns up. Making plans for the future is of use only for people living completely in the present. 1)The Chinese word for nature is Da ziran ,that which happens of itself. 2)If you tell nature you must do it you stop the spontaneous flowering. 3)Human beings are simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. 4)The secret of life is to be completely engaged in what your doing here and now and instead of calling it work, call it play. 1)Dr. Brewers experience of flow was bike riding on a trail in an event and once finishing saying woah! When can I do that again? 2)We get caught up thinking 50% of the time 3)A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. 4)During meditation the brain gets really quiet. 5)The test subject learned the difference between getting caught up and getting out of his own way. Response: The way this section of gotten out of your own way relates to yoga is because when doing yoga you should be getting out of your own way. What Dr. Brewer was speaking about has a lot to do with yoga, because it is a form of meditation and one of the most important parts of yoga is focusing on your breathing. Not focusing on it so much that your thinking about it, but just enough to know that you are breathing and getting out of your own way so you won't block yourself from the full experience.

Third Post

1)Mindfulness is a way of connecting with your life. 2)Our life depends upon mindfulness because attention is the faculty that allows us to navigate our lives in one way or another, and to actually know whats happening, or know that we don't know whats happening. 3)It does not matter what you are paying attention to. 4)Mindfulness is not a technique it is a way of being. 1)Andy suggest we take 10 minutes to do exactly nothing each day. 2)Almost 47% of the time our minds are lost in thought. 3)No. Mindfulness is about stepping back seeing the thought clearly witnessing it coming and going with a relaxed and focused mind. 4)The way juggling the balls relates with our balancing the stick exercise is that if we are we a calm and mindfulness setting we will do better balancing the stick but if we focus too hard we become stressed over it and begin to lose the balance. This exercise was very relaxing. Before I started the exercise I had a headache and once I finished the exercise my headache was relieved.

THTR 1029 Second Post

1)Patsy Rodenburg defines presence as allowing experience, and all the messages and tools required to survive physically, intellectually, and emotionally are taught when you are present. It is the energy of survival. 2)Presence can be lost out of need of control when someone may not want your presence, life may be too easy so you don't bother being present, or life is too hard and you unplug from your presence just to stop the pain. I feel a loss or weakening of presence when I become to comfortable with something. Say for instance in a lecture. Although I am physically there sitting in the lecture does not mean that I am present. I am not aware of what is being taught to me sometimes. 3) First circle is the circle of self and withdrawal. Your whole focus is inward and the energy you generate falls back into you. First circles also absorbs other peoples energy and draws all outward stimulus inward. Everything around you only interest you as a means to clarify yourself. I've experienced my self in first circle when I was talking with one of my friends and I was hearing her talk to me but I was not listening to what she was saying. I was too busy listening to what was going on inside my head. 4)Third circle is the circle of bluff and force. All of your energy is moving outward in any direction. Your attention is outside yourself but you are unfocused. A time when I was in third circle was when I needed to give a deployments briefing to my Major and some cadets and I had to present information about the deployment in a certain amount of time and answer questions. 5)Second circle is the energy of connecting. Your energy is focused and move outward towards whatever you have your attention on. I believe I was in second circle when my brother was bit in the face by a pit bull. From the time a heard the pit growl and the chatter of his teeth to the time I looked up to see my brothers face full of blood I instantly became alert and went into first aid mode in order to stop the bleeding and patch him up in order to get him to the emergency room.