Image: BodyParts3D/Anatomography web site: http://lifesciencedb.jp/bp3d/?lng=en. Located at: http://lifesciencedb.jp/bp3d/?lng=en. License: CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

Enjoy today’s new body learning 110%…because tomorrow, what you learned today will probably change. It still happens to me, and honestly I’m happy when it does because it’s called neuro-plasticity and it’s actually good for you! Come to your first Mobilignment™ morning class for free (just email me to get the link) and I’ll prove it to you.

I attract anatomy geeks in my practice because I love them. We understand each other and can spend happy hours geeking out on anatomy. Many of my students are body workers or experts in their own right, but even so there is a deeper thirst for the unknown, the new unexplored territory. Our body never disappoints. It’s like New York City – you try to visit all the different neighborhoods, but it’s so big, by the time you get back to a place you explored a couple of years ago, it’s all different!

In this spirit, I’d love to share a recent discovery that I’ve had around the structure of my shoulder girdle that I hope will debunk the idea that rounded shoulders are bad. People. Look at the shape of your ribcage. It’s round. Look at the shape of your shoulder blade, which wraps around your ribs. It’s round. Even the bones are round! You couldn’t make them flat if you wanted to.  Furthermore, your collarbone does not cover the width of the front or your chest, it instead ends a bit early, because your shoulder blade wraps forwards around your ribs to create your shoulder joint and the collarbone meets about 1/2 of an inch or so in from the widest part of your back.

It feels really good to find the little space between your collar bone and your shoulder blade with a hand, and to really let that shoulder blade slide forward so you are not wasting effort pulling your collarbone back and compressing that amazing, beautiful joint.

I knew this information intellectually, but when I started to investigate I found that I was indeed pressing my collarbones back, causing unnecessary tension in my shoulders, mostly my trapezius, which wraps around the body like a cape…perhaps more about that next week.

You can try it like this. With your right hand, locate this space between collarbone and shoulder blade. With your left hand, now hug your right arm. You’ll notice that if you fully engage your left hand with your right arm, your trapezius will let go,  your shoulder blade will slide forward, and it feels really good! Enjoy playing around with this in movement too – just knowing that the collarbone is not the shoulder blade, they are two different neighborhoods.

 GO HERE TO SEE GIL HEDLEY’S RECENT VIDEO OF THE UNWINDING HEART

Dear Dancers at heart,

Today is the day that the United States celebrates Martin Luther King’s birthday. Dr. King was not just a “leader” – he was connected to a radical and profound movement that lives on. He was one articulate leader among many, many beloved and connected activists.

When I think about what my life, my body, and my heart would be like without the life of Dr. King…..ach. I don’t want to think about that. I take time on this day to celebrate his radical vision for a life of abundance and dignity for all people, for the abolition of the caste and class inequality in the United States, for global justice and an end to colonial wars. For me, the joy of doing the work that I personally feel needs to be done outweighs my own perfectionistic tendencies. So what if things are really bad out there? So what if it’s an endless task that will never be done. What else is there to do? At the same time, I struggle with a tendency to overwork myself that can undermine every vision, every project that I give birth to.

Because of this tendency, born in the traumas of my childhood, I think I can safely say that the Alexander Technique saved my life. Yes, its founder was a white man raised in a colonial culture, a working class man who strived to succeed in high Victorian society and was willing to associate his work at different times with some disturbing ideas like eugenics  (like many other “human potential” movements.) Still, F.M. Alexander came up with a very special perspective on our embodied intelligence that saved my ass. I can’t disavow him, I’d rather see him for who and what he was. If there is one thing the recognition of the power of habit has taught me, it’s that my own thinking can be extremely distorted. My flaws may be on display next!

Even Dr. King had work to do around his own limited thinking. You can learn here about the attempted censorship of gay folk like Bayard Rustin as an example. Even Mr. Rodgers had work to do – he also suffered from homophobia, which you can read about in this excellent episode of The Moth, in which Officer Clemmons tells his truth. I’m still glad that Dr. King and Mr. Rodgers did their work.

So, maybe don’t worry so much about doing things perfectly. Do them with heart, be vulnerable, and the mess will work itself out. I’m going to bare my heart today and tell you that it’s taken me a lifetime to build a business that is more aligned with my core values, and I could only have done it in community. Here is a list I’m working on – I dream this kind of world:

– One that is more people centered and less materialistic and status oriented (The Experimenters Union is a non-hierarchical teaching & learning platform that supports the discovery of a teachers unique voice, and soon it will be opening up to all certified bodyworkers and embodiment educators!)

– One in which I do not contribute to violence against other living beings

– One in which wounded hearts and bodies have places that they can heal (I’m now offering both private and community based options for my work because both of those are important for healing)

– One in which profit and the accumulation of wealth is not placed above human life

– One in which everyone has a home, an education, and enough food to eat

So what if there is more work to do. Today, I need the joy of directing myself towards a higher plane, standing with my feet in the mud and mess, unwinding and rewinding my heart, spinning my blood,  I wish you a very happy Birthday Dr. King!

Photo of frog doing nothing by Mathew Kosloski

Do you long for a different political climate, a different song, a different vibe? Me too!!!! But…how can we change anything if we don’t stop what we are already doing? Let me tell you the story of how I experienced the national crisis in the USA this past Tuesday, January 6, so you will understand what I’m saying.

My first response was to think “OMG, it must have been extremely traumatic!” for the people inside when our Capitol building was stormed by domestic terrorists. The police, the lawmakers, the regular old cleaning staff. Then I began to include myself in the picture and honestly, all of us who care about the democratic process upon which we depend. Me personally, it really stopped me in my tracks – although I was on a subway train, which kept moving!

It didn’t seem to stop much else, however. Life went on, the train kept moving, the tweets kept tweeting, the newscasters kept casting, the terrorists kept terroring, and the public kept outraging. Even when a person was killed, nothing really stopped. Then, when the police finally re-opened the Capitol and the lawmakers returned to work, politicians on both “sides” kept spouting the same rhetoric they were spouting before this particular crisis.

Nothing stopped. Nothing changed direction. Nothing changed, not really. But dear readers, we don’t have to live that way. We can change, and we can do it now. All we have to do first is stop doing what we were doing. The second step is to identify more clearly what we don’t want, and identify more clearly what we do want. But first, our biology requires that we stop filling our nervous system with what it’s doing, kind of clear the decks, so that something else can happen. It’s kind of like playing music. End one phrase – even just a beat of silence and intake of air, before beginning the next.

I’ve never tried to write about this, but it’s the best thing I could think of to do with my experience yesterday. So if you are game, curious, keep reading and I’ll guide you through stopping (or “inhibition”), a key component of the Alexander Technique process.

In a moment, you are going to stop reading these words. I mean, keep reading them right now, but in a moment you are going to stop. When you stop reading them, your heart will not stop beating, your body will not stop breathing, time will flow onwards. You can just sit there and enjoy it, watch the show go by. See how long you can enjoy stopping before some part of yourself starts doing something – thinking, planning, making movement, multi-processing, etc. It might manifest in physical tension or whirring thoughts, in which case, you can just play with stopping again. Trust your interpretation of these words, don’t worry about “getting it right.”

You can even set the timer on your phone for 2 minutes, just to give yourself a framework for the experiment.

OK – ready, get set, GO!

Wow. 2 minutes is so amazing when you aren’t doing anything! I just did this experiment myself, and here a few things I notice as I return to typing on my computer keypad – since that’s what I was doing before I stopped.

– I can feel my whole body
– My breathing is much easier
– The top of my hands and my shoulders are so much softer even though I am now typing again
– I’m aware of the sunshine pouring across the room, across my keyboard and hands
– I can feel a cool breeze on my skin

What do you notice? Did you take two whole minutes? So much happens in that time frame that to actually write it all down would take an hour. That’s how intelligent and sensitive you are. Even if discomfort or thoughts or whatever arises in that two minutes, you can just watch how it changes and shifts. You could talk about this in very abstract terms, but what I actually mean by “stopping” is just to stop sending messages from your brain to your voluntary musculature – the muscles that move your body around. There are plenty of involuntary things that will carry on doing stuff without you making anything happen.

This “stopping” capacity of your central nervous system is available to you at any time, such an amazing resource. I truly wish that we can all tap into it more in the coming year when the going gets tough.

NEWS AND REGULAR OFFERINGS BELOW:

1) Open meeting of The Experimenters Union:
The Experimenters Union is a non-hierarchical facilitated work exchange group for Alexander Technique teachers. We are hosting a free, open meeting for colleagues in Australia/New Zealand time zones on Sunday, January 24th, 6 pm EST/Monday, January 25th 10 am AEDT. All AT teachers are welcome to attend, you can register HERE.

2) Weekly Mobilignment™ classes:
Dancers at heart of all ages and abilities – come exercise your neuro-plasticity to it’s utmost with mindful movement! Book a spot in the Monday & Wednesday Mobilignment™ class HERE.

3) Facilitated Mastermind for online embodiment innovators:
Do you want to jump-start your online business and learn Mobilignment™ practices in the process? My first two groups are full but I am interviewing for the waiting list and will start a new cohort in May. You can sign up for a free interview here. This DOUBLE VALUE 6 MONTH FACILITATED MASTERMIND is open all kinds of embodiment educators. We focus on fluid & playful embodiment online using Mobilignment™, business clarity, and financial abundance.

4) Need to re-juvinate your bodymindsoul?
Book a single private session ONLINE or IN PERSON.

5) Need to re-juvinate but still struggling financially during this dreadful pandema-recession? Check out my YOUTUBE CHANNEL.