Change is Bred in a Context

A blog about the importance of giving yourself space 

Hello. Nice to see you here!

Today I’m starting a new series of blogs in which I mean to elaborate on the 6 principles that I work from.

This is why, in order to honor this new beginning, let’s take minute to center ourselves and return to the present. With closed eyes let’s slowly and deeply breathe in and out.

Today’s purpose is precisely that: to talk about this action of centering and returning back to yourself. I’d like to communicate to you a bit about how powerful and integrative this simple act of returning to your body before every new action can be.

We’ll therefore talk about the Principle of Context and Content.

And since we’re going to be talking about returning to our bodies, it’s a good idea to feel it a bit to begin with.

I invite you to yawn and stretch, move your joints a bit. Whatever makes you become aware of the physical presence of this fabulous container: your body.

Ready? Great. First the theory.

Principle of Context and Content:

Context determines your experience of the content.

This means that how you do something has a direct influence on how you live it. In other words, the conditions in which you perform the action are fundamental to your opinion of said action.

In terms of your body-mind, context is determined by space.

It’s quite different to perform a physical movement with space in your joints, than to do so in a state of compression and collapse.

It’s quite different to make a decision when you give yourself space for thought, than when you’re hurried.

It’s a quite different emotional experience to get in a tiny lift by yourself or with a close friend, than to do so with a stranger.

Minding the context does not mean ignoring the content; rather it means giving the content the best conditions for its manifestation.

The content (your ends) are the reason why you do stuff. If you go to a talk on a subject that interests you, you do so because of the information that will be imparted. In order to take full advantage of said content, know yourself, know what suits you and what doesn’t, mind your conditions.

Coordinating your context is the first step in every action.

First we need to organize ourselves both internally and externally; then we take action in the world. Certain people are born with natural inner coordination. If, like me, that is not your case, learning to coordinate and integrate your mind-body functioning should be a priority.

Enough theory, let’s get practical.

But first, let’s move a bit, shall we?

Interlace the fingers of your hands, rotate the palms outwards and stretch your arms forward and up. Release the fingers and let the arms come down slowly, drawing big semi-circles down your sides. Close your eyes and shake your arms and shoulders.

Great. Let’s move on.

Today’s practical bit has 2 components:

1. Creating a Safe Space.

2. Stopping and Remembering Myself.

1. Creating a Safe Space.

a) Physical Space:

The place where we perform our activities is importante for our sense of confort, security and freedom. All our senses are involved in this.

- Look around and check if what is in your visual field is pleasing to your eyes. What about the sounds? And the physical sensations? Smells? Company? Adjust whatever you need to feel safe and at ease.

b) Body and Mental Space:

Your skin, your muscles, your bones, your organs, all of them give you consistency, limits and support, as well as fill up your internal spaces. Learn to become aware of them with any of the following ideas:

- Feel your skin by caressing it all over your body, in all the nooks, crannies and crevices. Alternatively you can do so by showering, taking a bubble bath, or standing in the breeze.

- Check out some anatomy images where you can get a general idea of your bones, muscles and organs. Give yourself a loving massage while you palpate the different bits, becoming aware of their consistency, elasticity, density.

- Alternatively, try out some of the self-observation exercises I give in this blog, or this one.

Your thoughts also have a quality and consitency, get to know them and note their effects in your body.

- An excelente practice to discover the workings of your mind is to try a simple mindfulness meditation, following your breath.

c) Personal Space:

The space that surrounds you is also part of your personal space. It pays to recognize it and inhabit it.

- Notice how it expands and contracts depending on the circumstances. What determines its expansion or contracting? Can you do so voluntarily?

- If you are sitting, note how you can integrate the chair to your sensory system and “feel” where its legs touch the ground.

- With your feet on the ground, note how you can be aware of the floor not only right under your feet, but also around your feet. How far can you “feel”?

d) Shared Space:

We share our spaces with living and non-living things.

- Note how you react when something or someone comes into your personal space.

- Note how others react when you invade their personal space.

- Note if it makes a difference when permission to share space is requested and granted, both in yourself and in others.

- Ask someone you feel comfortable with to take your arm and move it around, while you keep your awareness in your inner and outer spaces. Do you contract away from the contact at any point?

- Switch roles and move your friend’s arm around. While you do so, be aware of your inner and outer space, integrating your friend’s space in your movement.

2. Stopping and Remembering Myself.

During any of the above practices you’ll notice that at times your attention has wandered off the task at hand. When you do so it’s time to stop and come back to yourself.

Returning to yourself is returning to your inner and outer spaces, it’s creating space for yourself and being aware of it.

Returning to yourself is how you take care of your context, so that your experience of life’s contents is as enjoyable as possible.

Well, that’s all for today.

Today’s was a longish blog. If you’ve read this far you surely need to move a bit your body again. Let’s yawn, stretch and shake like a wet dog one last time.

That’s better. As usual, any doubts, questions or comments you are welcome to leave them in the space for comments below.

Let’s breathe together one last time. In… Out… Ah!

Thanks for stopping by.

See you next time.

Victoria

Read More

The 3 key areas for deep and free breathing.

A blog about how to free your breath. 

Hi! Nice to see you again.

How did last week’s space-creation exercise go? If you have any questions or comments about it, feel free to write them here in the blog, or send me an email.

Let’s start with today’s work by coming back to our centers. Shall we?

Let’s stop with whatever it is we were doing and just breathe, allowing the air to reach our feet and ground us. Let’s now exhale allowing the air to flow up from our feet, through our pelvis, tummy, chest, neck, and out the top of our head.

The subject of today’s blog is how to liberate our breath. I mean to share with you three areas in your body that it’s worthwhile to have free of tension in order to facilitate the intake and outflow of air.

In order to perceive the areas I want to tell you about, it’s a good idea to start by creating a little bit of space in our joints. Therefore, I invite you to yawn and stretch a little, like a cat or a dog after a nap in the sun.

What do we need to know about breathing in order to free it up?

1.  Breathing has an effect and is affected by all your Self (principle of Unity). When your body is free of unnecessary tensions, your breathing generates a wave like motion that can be felt from your head to your feet, and which massages all the inner organs. Breathing is also a superb barometer for your mental and emotional states.

2. Breathing “happens”, it “does itself”. If you don’t interfere with the mechanism by tensing up, it works without effort or strain, and without having to think about it (principle of Design).

3. Even when you do not allow it to work freely, you still breathe no matter what. However, all the added tension affects the efficiency of your breathing (principle of Use).

4. When you realize that your breathing requires movement of your ribs (which means movement in your sides and back, and not only in the front of your chest) and that it generates movement in your belly, you can start to imagine which areas need to be free to be moved by each inhalation and exhalation (principle of

Perception).

5.  Since breathing “does itself”, you do not need to “learn to breathe”. What you need is to learn how to stop interfering with your breathing mechanisms (principle of Means and Ends).

6. And now that you know that breathing happens by itself, next time your asked to “take a deep breath”, you know you need to stop your desire to make a huge muscular effort to suck in a lot of air. Instead, give yourself a few seconds to become aware of the areas that need to be freed up to move freely and thus create more space for more air (principle of Habit).

Ok, enough theory for today. Let’s go to something practical. But first, do a shake out of your body to wake up. Move your neck, shoulders, hips, blink, yawn, wiggle your fingers and toes… or just shake out vigorously like a wet dog.

Where do I need to create space to free up my breathing?

The places that you’ll generally hear when you ask this question are your ribs (back and sides of your body) and your abdomen. And that is correct.

However, I’m going to tell you about 3 other key areas that need to be free to allow the back, ribs and abdomen to truly release their tension.

I suggest you try the following exercise lying down in semi-supine.

1. Your groins.

When you create space in your hip joint for free movement of your leg, you’ll find that the pelvic diaphragm, your lower back (lumbars), the abdominal diaphragm and the lower ribs also release, as the pelvis comes into a better relationship with the leg bone (femur).

2. Your armpits.

When there’s space in your shoulder joint, the neck, upper back and upper ribs on your sides get a chance to release too.

3. Your jaw.

When you stop clenching your back molars and allow a little space between the top and bottom back teeth, some of your face, throat, tongue and upper neck tension are allowed to let go.

Now, create space in your whole torso and neck by drawing imaginary diagonal lines that join opposite armpits and groins, and opposite armpits and ears.

Finally, become aware of the flow of air that goes in and out naturally as your system breathes. When the air comes in, allow your jaw, armpits and groins to let go a little more, feeling how the sides of your body expand.

When the aire comes out, allow your diagonal lines to let go a little more and expand your whole torso and neck, feeling how you thus grow in width and length.

If you’re feeling adventurous and want to play around a little with your breathing, you can try making your exhales longer than your inhales, by just thinking a longer release across your diagonals as the air comes out. This is a great exercise to calm down the nervous system, for it slows down your breathing rate without tension.

Always remember that you are not “doing” anything, you’re simply “allowing” breathing to happen more freely by letting go of unnecessary tension and thus creating more inner space.

And since we’re already breathing so freely, why don’t we go ahead and yawn and stretch allowing our bodies to expand and contract freely?

This week, I invite you to experiment and play around with these ideas on breathing, and then tell me if you want what you discovered.

If you have any questions, doubts or comments, please feel free to write it down below or send me and email.

Let us close this meeting by returning to our centres, breathing there, allowing the waters to come to a stand still, and thus preparing ourselves for our next activity.

See you next time.

Victoria.

Read More

Going Back Home

A blog about creating spaces

Hello. I’m Victoria. Welcome to the blog. How are you today?

I tend to be a bit hurried; out of my center. That’s why I like to stop when I do realize something new is about to start.

Let me invite you to center ourselves. Just stop with whatever you were doing, notice your breathing and the sensations that arrive to your from your senses. Let’s inhale and exhale together…or go ahead and YAWN!

Thank you. Now yes, let’s begin.

In this blog I’d like to tell you about what I’ve learnt about creating spaces: mental and physical spaces, spaces within and without, spaces between the stimulus and my response.

I’ll be happy if by the end of this blog I am able to communicate some of this freedom that comes from giving oneself those spaces; and if you don’t know anything about it, perhaps to tempt you to try it out for yourself.

 What has been your personal experience with your personal space?

I’m going to show you how I create my own.

I work from the following principles:

Unity: If I create space in my body, I’ll have space in my mind to think clearer.

Design: My body is designed to occupy a certain space in full freedom, and it will do so if I allow it to.

Use-Structure-Functioning: When I give my structures their due space, they seem to work a lot better.

Improving perception: When structures have space, I can perceive them better than when they are all tight and pressed together.

Stop and Choose: Since my habit is to trip over myself in my haste to do stuff, I need to stop before acting, to give myself space to choose better.

How over What: I can only give myself physical space if I give myself mental space too. How I give myself those spaces is important. That is why, if I’m all hurried and frazzled, I lay down in semi-supine which gives me the best conditions to actually stop.

How about if we stop before moving on, and give ourselves a little space?

I invite you to yawn and stretch a little, just to lighten up and air out the tissues and joints.

Ok, so, how do I create my spaces?

The first thing to do is decide which spaces need to be made available.

Where is the flow of movement or energy getting stuck? Where is the tension? Where do I feel out of rhythm or out of tune?

Once I identify the area that is asking for more space to work better or to become integrated to the whole, I look in its structure for some points to use as reference, and try to understand how the area is designed to work.

If what I want is to create space in my feet, I can look at their bony anatomy in a book, and then palpate the area in my own body.

If I have no idea where to start or what to do, I ask for help from someone who know a little bit more than I do.

I choose two points in the structure that I want to free up. I touch them simultaneously and realize there is a space between them. I joint them with an imaginary line and imagine that the ends of that line float away from each other, as if carried away by opposing water currents.

I invite you to try this out for yourself. Choose some points in your body, join them with imaginary lines, and alow those points to float away from each other. It helps to do all this while lying down on the floor, with your knees bent and your feet on the floor, and your head lying on one or two paperback books.

While doing this exercise, recognize all the space that is available between point and point. You can also acknowledge the space around you, allowing your lines to float beyond the limits of your skin, into your surrounding space.

This space that you create within, without, between you and the stimuli that arrive to you, this space makes you multi-dimensional, it makes your real, it gives you back to yourself.

I invite you to live from this space and to return to it as many times as you wish.

It is your own personal space after all.

It is your house, your true home.

See you next time.

Victoria

Read More

Is Knowledge of Anatomy Necessary for Postural Work?

A blog about why some anatomy basics are useful in coordination work.

Welcome to the blog. We’re starting right away, so get comfy to read.

Let’s breathe fully and deeply once together, just so we’re both on the same page.

Ok. Let’s start.

Today’s blog will try to explain why I believe it’s important to know some basic anatomy in any attempt at trying to correct postural issues. I’ll be happy if by the time you’ve finished reading you are able to recognize anatomical knowledge as something alive, in constant development, something that grows from evolving ideas and sensory information.

What attracts you to the study of anatomy?

To beging with, let’s recap the paradigm from which we’ll look at the issue.

Unity: we learn with our mind and with our bodies, and we consider the body as an integrated whole.

Use-Function-Structure: we look at anatomy (structure) in relation to what function it performs, remembering that our use affects both.

The Coherence in our Design: everything in our anatomical design has a reason for being there.

Interferences to Accurate Perception: our ideas about our bodies and the feelings and sensations we get from it don’t always coincide, and sometimes our ideas are way off-center.

How above What: It’s more importante to understand how it works, how the bits and pieces relate to each other and to the whole, than to fill ourselves up with anatomical data and trivia that we cannot comprehend nor make practical use of.

The force of Habit: Old ideas die hard, like weeds… they come back again and again every time we let our guard down.

Let’s now consider why it’s a good idea to study some basic anatomy.

But before moving on, yawn and stretch. If we hold one attitude of mind and body for too long, our bodies and brains go numb. Move your tissues a bit to allow oxygenated blood to return to them.

Great. Let’s continue.

Does knowing anatomy guarantee I’ll have good posture?

No. If knowing anatomy automatically made you an elegantly poised individual, then all doctors, anatomists, physiotherapists and P.E. teachers would be paragons of good posture and carriage. Sadly, this is not the case.

What’s the use of studying anatomy then?

1. Good posture is a matter of coordination. If you’re not one of those naturally (and unconsciously) well-coordinated people, then you’ll have to learn conscious coordination. In order to do this, you need to be able to feel where your different body parts are and what they’re doing in relation to each other. And for this you’ll need to know your most important bits and how they feel.

2. Knowing basic anatomy (name, shape and feel of the main bones and joints) gives you a common language to be able to follow instructions in an intelligent way.

Even if you rank among the naturally well-coordinated, it’s not a bad idea to know how you’re doing it, for the following 4 reasons:

a) In case you lose it and want to get it back.

b) In case you get stuck in your progress in any physical discipline you practice.

c) In case you want to explain or teach someone else how you do what you do.

d) To open yourself up to other possibilities and choices you may not imagine you have.

Our bodies are fascinating universes waiting to be explored.

This is all for now.

See you next time.

Victoria

Read More

In Defense of a Good Yawn

A blog about the importance of stretching and mobilizing.

Hi! How are you today? Good to see you around! Today we have a special blog.

But first; let us take a moment to fully arrive. Get comfy and share with me a few seconds of quietude, let us close our eyes and breathe deeply three times.

I like to give myself every so often a respite of inner silence, just so that I can better acknowledge that a new action is about to begin. It’s a way of honoring every new beginning. It also allows me to connect with the purpose of this new encounter, which would be hard to do if the inertia and noise of what came before was still active in me.

The purpose of this blog is to clarify why it’s important to mobilize daily all our tissues and joints.

I’d feel satisfied if at the end of your reading you feel a little more inspired to move your joints daily… even if you don’t start doing so right away.

So, knowing what this blog is about, what is your purpose for being here?

I’ll begin by revising the fundamental principles that underlie what I’ll suggest as a daily practice.

Then I’ll tell you a little about:

- why it’s important to move your joints daily

- what joints you should be moving

- how you should move your joints

Whenever you actually do this mobilization work, I suggest you remember that:

1. You’re a Unity: All your tissues are connected, which is why when you move one part of your body it is inevitably having an effect in the whole. Try therefore to be aware of your whole body as you move a part of it.

2. Your Use, Your Functions and Your Structure are all interrelated: Remember that body and mind are also a unity, which is why the quality of your attention and your thoughts will be affecting the quality of your tissues and the degree of tension in them.

3. If you Remove Interferences Everything becomes Easier: When your tissues and joints are tight, contracted and lacking space for free movement and expression, all actions that you undertake will require a lot more effort and tension. As you start gaining space and mobility in your joints, your physical and mental output will increase with half the effort you are exerting today.

4. Interferences are spotted as Perception becomes more Precise: The more perceptive you become, the more you’ll discover about your own functioning, and hence the better able you’ll be to catch your habits as they come in to interfere.

5. The Key to raising your Sensory Appreciation is keeping your Curiosity Alive: Your habits will want to make you believe that you already know everything about a certain action. Do not allow them to misguide you so. There is always something new to learn, one new layer to peel, from even the simplest action.

Why is it important to move your joints daily?

Cats, dogs, horses, toddlers to it instinctively and regularly.

Even you do it occasionally. A good yawn and stretch after a long day’s work.

The body and mind do so to self-regulate, especially after they have been fixed in one same position or attitude for a long time.

Mobilizing your structures with conscious awareness will also help you to:

1) rediscover the movement possibilities of your body;

2) recognize the effect of having a limber, loose and flexible body on every level of your being;

3) calming your mind and teaching it to inhabit the body, improving your ability to hold and focus your attention.

.

What joints should be moved?

The ideal, of course, is to move all of them in all possible directions and ranges.

Observe how dogs and cats do it, how they stretch, yawn, roll-over and around, twist and shake all over, and go on with their day.

If you prefer a more detailed guide, you can use the following:

Legs and Feet:

- tense and stretch your toes and feet

- rotate your ankles

- bend and straighten your knees

- allow your leg to loosely rotate in the hip socket, making circles inwards and outwards.

Arms and Hands:

- tense and stretch your fingers and hands

- rotate your wrists

- bend and straighten your elbows

- - allow your arms to loosely rotate in your shoulder joints, making circles inwards and outwards.

Head and Neck:

- gently say “yes”, “no” and “maybe” with your head, as if you were drawing lines and arcs with your nose in the air.

- Remember that your head meets your neck at the midpoint between your ears, right in the center of your head. As you move your head be aware of that pivoting point.

Eyes and Mouth:

- Squeeze your eyes and your jaw and then open them wide.

- Yawn deep and wide and unabashedly.

- Think of something funny or sweetly pleasurable and allow that memory to bring a true smile to your face, one that shines in your mouth and eyes.

Trunk:

- Interlace the fingers of your hands, straighten your arms, and stretch forward, up, slightly back, sideways and twisting around side to side.

How should you move your joints?

This series of gently stretches and movements can be practiced by anyone. The important thing is to do it consciously aware of each movement.

Remember to breathe. When we concentrate sometimes we hold our breaths, and this generates unnecessary tension in our systems. Breathe freely and in rhythm with each movement.

If you do the full practice, remember to take frequent breaks to rest body and mind between one exercise and the next. If you are not used to taking your attention into your body, the practice can be at first quite tiring. So allow your body and mind to wander a bit between exercises, and then gently rein them back in for the next set.

Ok, that’s all for today.

Stretch. Yawn. Make it big, exaggerated and noisy.

Get rid of the cricks, cobwebs and lethargy.

Expand, contract and expand again, like an acordion.

See you next time.

Victoria

Read More

The 5 Fundamental Ideas behind the Work of Changing Habits

A blog about the basis of the work in the Alexander Technique

 

Hello. Welcome to the blog.

Before we begin, take a few seconds to get comfortable to read.

Ready?

Good. Now, close your eyes and allow a deep inhale to happen, filling you up with air, and exhale, long and sweetly, emptying your lungs of all residual waste. Repeat the cycle 2 more times.

Now we’re really ready. Let’s begin.

Today’s blog is about the 5 fundamental ideas (or beliefs) that explain the work we do with the Alexander Technique.

My objective is to share these ideas with you in the briefest and clearest way possible.

But before you go on reading, consider:

What do you want to get out of this blog? Is your objective aligned with what I am offering?

The Alexander Technique has its own fundamental principles (the full list appears at the very end of this blog). All these principles are in some way included in the 5 key ideas I will explain. Working with these ideas as a platform implied a particular “way of being and perceiving” in this world.

The 5 key ideas are:

1. The indivisible unity of the organism.

2. Use is a constant that affects the structure and its functioning.

3. The right thing does itself if you remove the interferences.

4. Use improves by improving the quality of perception.

5. Change happens when we understand the mechanism and force of habit.

Let’s explain the reach of eash idea.

1. The indivisible unity of the organism.

- Body and Mind are inseparable.

This implies that what happens in the body is a reflection of an idea, and vice-versa.

- You cannot change a part without altering the whole in the process.

This applies both to the interrelationship between body and mind, and to the interrelationship between parts of the body itself, or between ideas.

2. Use is a constant that affects the structure and its functioning.

- We use ourselves (body and mind) constantly.

Living means using our body and mind all the time. “Using” yourself implies “directing” the functioning of the structures in your body and mind, (in much the same way that “using” a pencil” implies “directing” its trajectory along a surface).

- The way we use ourselves changes us (for good or evil).

The way we use our bodies and minds affects their functioning and their structures.

3. The right thing does itself if you remove the interferences.

- The structural “design” of our body-mind system is “coherent” for the functions it has to perform.

That is, everything in your body-mind system has a reason for being there, an inherent logic. The most efficient thing to do is to use the structure according to its “design-logic”.

- Given the correct conditions, the design works efficiently and effectively.

When we give ourselves conditions that favour the logic of our design and we use ourselves respecting that logic, we do not waste energy in unnecessary actions that do not server our main purpose. We therefore have all our energy available to achieve that which we really want.

4. Use improves by improving the quality of perception.

- Perception is an act of consciousness which associates and idea to a sensation.

This means that a big part of our problems of functioning and of structure have their root in an incorrect interpretation of sensory data. We are ignorant of our own design. If we work on this coordination of ideas with sensations, we have a chance of improving our use.

- The way we perceive (interpret) quickly becomes a habit (automatic response), and stops requiring our conscious processing of sensations.

This  means that the basis of any work in chaning our use is to first make conscious that which has become unconscious. In this way we are able to uncover which ideas and sensations (interpretations) are at the foundation of our reactions.

5. Change happens when we understand the mechanism and force of habit.

- Habits are strong because they require no conscious thought-energy to be executed.

Habits are an automatic, a pre-set, ready-to-be-used response for specific stimuli. Habits of thought and action make up our lives and guide our daily actions.

- To overcome a habit, conscious thought-energy has to be applied every time we encounter the stimulus to action.

In order to do so, one has to first be aware of the habit, and then apply enough conscious thought-energy to undo the automatic response and guide the new response. One has to be ready to do this every time the stimulus presents itself; so patience, self-compassion and the ability to laugh at oneself are requisite. 

This is all for today.

Any questions, comments or doubts, you can write them down in the space for comments below, or send them to me in an email to vstanham@gmail.com

See you next time.

Victoria

--

List of the Principles of the Alexander Technique

• Psychophysical Unity & Unity of the Organism
• Use of the Self affects Functioning of the Self
• Inhibition & Direction
• The force of Habit & The Necessity of Saying ‘No’ to a Stimulus
• The Primary Control
• Unreliable Sensory Appreciation
• The Means-Whereby Principle rather than End-Gaining & The Principle of Non-doing
• Recognition of the need for Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual and of Use as The Universal Constant in Living to achieve Man’s Supreme Inheritance

Read More