Would you like to have easy access to free breathing, calm yet alert awareness, readiness for movement, and ease in your posture? I invite you to come with me on a new educational journey that will last for one entire year. I’ll be making one video per month and writing newsletters once a week on related topics.

We will start at the front of the brain and work our way down into the brain stem. I’ll guide you in an exploration of each cranial nerve, giving you visual images to stimulate imagination and awareness, and explorations that connect each nerve with somatic experience, postural rebalancing, and ease of movement.

There are 13 cranial nerves, though what you’ll find in most anatomy books is 12. Today’s video and newsletter introduce the first, most recently re-discovered vomeronasal organ in humans and its cranial nerve, which is often called vestigial because it is so delicate in structure. If they had given it a number, we would have to re-write all the anatomy books! I like to call it Cranial Nerve 0 for fun, but officially it’s called “N.”

I’m going on this journey because I’m discovering so much from it about the the core of the Alexander Technique, which proposes that all human activity is more effectively coordinated when our head is balanced freely on our spine. One obvious reason that this might be the case is that so many of our guiding sense organs are in our head, and the more easily and freely it moves, the more detailed, accurate and subtle sense information we receive.

Each of these 13 nerves has a separate and distinct function in your coordination and expression. Some are purely sensory, others are purely motor, and some are a combination of both. They all tend to get glommed together in the blob we think of as our “head” – but I’ve found it amazing to spend time with each one separately as well, because our senses and movement can get blurred by the lack of distinction. A common habit I can give as an example is that if we are sighted, we tend to over-use our visual system and underutilize other organs.

When have you ever heard anyone complain about “nose strain?”

The vomeronasal organ is probably in constant dialogue with your subconscious mind. Its nature is to process pheromones – the chemical signals related to sexual arousal and other attraction or avoidance behaviors in animals. There is much debate about whether humans process and respond to these chemical molecules – but my interest is just in the fact that we have this organ, and a nerve that still carries some information from the organ to our brain. Vestigial or not, it’s still a part of us.

It’s in cartilaginous tissue of the nose, rather than the bony sinus cavities between your eyes. If you lead the movement of your head from this mysterious organ, it’s lower down and further out in front of your body. I think of it is more mobile and a bit more mischievous. When I imagine it having a mind and interest of its own, I get curious about the air around me, the spaces just over my shoulder. I stop being so oriented towards the front and become aware of what’s to my sides and around behind me.

Here is an image that shows where the organ is, in relationship to the olfactory cells higher up between your eyes in your sinuses.

EXPLORATION:

Rest your sensory awareness on this more forward part of your nose as you breath in, and out.

– Does it slow your breathing down, or speed it up?
– Do you feel breath motion in other parts of your torso as well as your nose and sinuses?
– Does it affect the length of your exhale at all?
– Your inhale?
– What is it like to move your head from “interest in chemicals” at this place, instead of visual interest or sound? Is the balance of your head different in any way?

This is part of what I’ll be exploring in my weekly Mobile Body Alignment classes. Come and explore with us! HERE is a link to more information.

Sketching ideas for my new website

People are always trying to sell the secret to success. Whatever it is, it usually involves an intense mindset that allows you to succeed against all odds, push through resistance, rise above the fray, separate from the pack. Except for most of us, visions of success involve being part of something greater than ourselves, participating fully in the world, in connection with other people. It’s a little confusing.

Here is the problem: they never talk about your bodyset!

Let me tell you a secret. A gentle bodyset has propelled me into the stratosphere of success. Success for me is defined by satisfaction in three areas:

1) Financial
2) Creative
3) Personal

A bodyset involves the inter-dependence between the way you think and the inner feeling of your body. Gentle thoughts make happy bodies. It’s not rocket science. Now I won’t lie – it’s taken a long time for me to realize just how important an inwardly gentle attitude is for generating revenue from my dream job, fully inviting my creative spirit into all that I do, and having time for a personal life even though I’m an entrepreneur. Of course, I tried everything else first. I hope you don’t have to suffer the way I did.

Here is my secret bodyset success generator that you can apply to any instructions you might receive from teachers, coaches, etc about how to have a successful mindset.

Add your body in by inserting the word “gentle.” These 4 “mindset” points are lifted straight from this Forbes article, so I can show you how it works.

1. (Gently) Ditch the Fixed Mindset and Go For (Gentle) Growth

2. (Gently) Adopt An Abundance Mentality, (Gently let go of) Scarcity Mentality

3. (Gently) Stop Fearing Failure. Instead, Be Willing to Fail (Gently)

4. Create a (Gentle) Long-Term Vision Instead of Only Short-Term Goals

You get my point. If a gentle attitude is at the center of everything that you do, it will bring you a certain quality of embodiment. Your body will respond to the quality of your energy and intention. A gentle attitude is one of the 6 Attention preludes that people learn in my classes, Embodied Learning Systems Mastermind Groups, and lessons. You find out about them below.

1) Mobile Body Alignment™ Intensive: 12 awareness points of the legs

Sunday, May 23, 1 – 4 pm EDT, $50. All Welcome! Go HERE for more information, if you are ready to register go HERE.
We’ll take a deep dive into the dermatome mapping roots of the 12 Mobile Body Alignment points of the legs. Only 12 registrants allowed so that we can really go in depth – so register soon!

2) Want an individual course of study?
My root practice, The Alexander Technique, addresses the use of the whole self: body, mind, and spirit. Mobile Body Alignment™  addresses each specific body part and segment of our nervous system, wrapping distinct and articulate parts back into a sense of your embodied wholeness. You can use it to target specific issues in surprising ways. It’s a super fun problem solving system! Book a single private session online or in person. We can design a course of study based on your specific issues and needs. If you would just like to meet and talk, you can book a free 15 minute consultation.

3) Embodied Learning Systems Facilitated Mastermind for online embodiment educators:
All Mastermind groups are currently full. EMAIL ME to be put on the waiting list.

4) The Experimenters Union is now open to all professional embodiment teachers. Go HERE to read more. Your first 30 days are free. We have two meetings a week (Eastern Daylight Times given): Monday nights from 5:00 – 6:15, and Fridays from 12:00 noon – 1:15 pm. Bookend your week engaging with colleagues who support you and challenge you!

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

I am writing this post for both teachers and learners. Both of us have been on one side or the other of that equation at some point in our lives, even if it’s only with our children.

In my experience, emphasizing excellence does not bring the desired result. It only causes over-efforting and disappointment, because it assumes that excellence is definable in some kind of standard way. It also implies, in English anyway, that there is something at the top of a hierarchy called “excellence” that everything else will be judged by. It is very linear and does not reflect the reality of learning at all.

Learning happens in for me more in starbursts, or side trips, or waterslides into giant pools of muck.

Many of us have traumas around learning, especially in trying to understand words or verbal requests. Zoom has exacerbated this because words are all we have! Many teachers also have traumas around it actually.

Have I understood what the teacher said? How do I know? Have I communicated clearly with the student? When it comes an individual’s experience of their own moving body and the words a teacher uses, there are so many possible interpretations that happen between a teacher expressing a verbal instruction, the student receiving it, and the non-verbal experience of one’s own movement, it’s kind of mind boggling.

I’m really interested in defusing that situation.

So my favorite new teaching word is, drum roll,

ORDINARY

That’s not a word you hear in dance classes right? Actually, I can’t say I’ve ever heard it in a movement class of any kind.

If you find yourself in a learning environment, try adding this word to whatever instruction you get:

– ordinary jump
– ordinary run
– ordinary stretch

If you are a teacher, try giving this word as a possible way in which your students can explore a question or activity.

I find it so refreshing. Right now, can you move your hands and arms in an ordinary way, just to see how they work? Try simple actions:

– swing

– fold joints

– unfold joints

– some bones can turn in their sockets, and some can’t. Which ones?

Notice the sensations you have as you move in ordinary ways. Don’t dance!

For me, it makes clear that there is no such thing as ordinary, which means there must be no such thing as excellent.

This is the kind of exploration I’ll be using in my upcoming class on legs. Yes, we cover alot of anatomical information, and we detail very specific locations and connections within the body. Step by step, we bring alive parts of the body that may have slipped out of your awareness long ago, or other parts that may have never consciously been combined with other parts. Yet, the capacity to do that is quite ordinary and doable, nothing special…and yet so so satisfying. I hope you will join us!

You can find out more about the workshop HERE.

WAYS TO CONNECT:

1) Want an individual course of study?
I teach classical Alexander Technique, Alexander through the lens of developmental movement, and Mobile Body Alignment™. If you would just like to meet and talk, you can book a free 15 minute consultation.

Book a single private session ONLINE or IN PERSON. In person lessons are only on Wednesdays, at Balance Arts, 151 West 30th Street and slots are limited.

Mobile Body Alignment™ addresses each specific body part and segment of our nervous system, wrapping distinct and articulate parts back into a sense of your embodied wholeness. You can use it to target specific issues in surprising ways. It’s a super fun problem solving system! We can design a course of study based on your specific issues and needs.

2) Facilitated Mastermind for online embodiment educators:
Only 2 spots left in the upcoming double value 6 month facilitated Mastermind! It’s open all varieties of embodiment educators who want to thrive physically and financially in the online space. The next group starts May 12 so book your interview soon.

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