Balance and Vitality

The juggling balls came out again for an encore. My kneejerk reaction was, cool! Let's do it! I told a slightly stunned Alexis that juggling was fun (fun! I said fun! So not a part of my regular vocabulary!!) and proceeded to quite happily not succeed at juggling.

Looking back on the first juggling session and the state of utter panic it produced, I think this is clear pro-AT evidence. One could argue that I'm simply getting more comfortable with the juggling exercise, but that doesn't factor in the sensation of fun that I've been feeling off and on recently.
 
I'm finding that the secret of fun -- and maybe this is obvious to everyone else -- is to be in the moment, whatever you are doing. And it's not easy to be in the moment if you're focused on doing it right, getting something out of it, trying to be better than everyone else etc... in other words, you hinder your enjoyment when you're end-gaining. Ironically, end-gaining won't even give you the best results so you may as well relax and enjoy whatever it is you are doing.

A few months ago, I probably would have finished this post with "Easier said than done." But in this session, fun was as difficult as throwing around some vinyl balls. It's nice to see how easy fun can be.

It's hard to believe I've already had fourteen AT sessions. They seem to go by so quickly (time flies when you're having fun) and with life being so hectic (as it inevitably is), it is difficult to keep track.

The ability to sit, unsupported, on the métro is no longer a source of giddiness for me. The novelty is wearing off, which I see as a positive development. Until now, I was doing Alexander Technique for the sake of doing Alexander Technique. Now that the concepts are really sinking in, I look forward to applying the principles to enrich areas of my life that really matter to me. My posture on the métro isn't a high priority, after all.

I catch myself very often during the day, clenching or contorting, and I almost automatically re-align myself to be more comfortable. The first correction usually happens within three minutes after I wake up, when I brush my teeth at my ridiculously low sink. The second, while walking to the métro. The third, on the métro. The fourth, walking to the office. And so on and so forth. But it's the stressful situations that make me realize how glad I am that I started taking AT lessons.

For instance, when I have to speak to someone in my pitiful franglais, I often pause for a second to soften my deer-in-headlights look. That doesn't mean that AT has made me fluent in French but I feel good that I look slightly less ridiculous doing it. It helps to have something neutral to focus on in these instances.

If my AT progression were to be plotted on a graph, I suspect I'm at the beginning of the first plateau. 

During my fifteenth session, Alexis asked me what was new in my life, AT-wise. (She was much more eloquent than that. I just can't remember how she worded it.) It made me panic a bit, because all I've been doing is lying on the floor with my knees bent, and rectifying my slouch whenever I notice it.

Of course she wasn't referring to any AT homework, which would be more end-gaining than F. Matthias Alexander could bear. She was asking if I had seen any more results from my AT sessions "in real life".

Truthfully, I have been so busy that I haven't really been focused on it. I just found a fantastic flat and am in the process of preparing my dossier (which is like a full-time job). I was recently given a prestigious project to nurture at my main job. At my other job, I was given a mini-promotion. And the rest of my plate is full of little writing gigs, which is something I've wanted to do for years.

I thought about this question after I got home and realized that AT has played a big part in all of these new developments. AT has a thankless job -- its effects are so far-reaching that it's difficult to define what they are.

I don't know how or why, but I find that I've been more optimistic and relaxed about things since starting my AT sessions. That, in turn, has helped me to make some good decisions that have led me to my current place, which, while it's not perfect, is a big improvement from my life a few months ago.

The end-gainer in me wanted a list of positive effects of AT before my first lesson. Google gave me a very mixed bag of results: amelioration of backaches, removal of creative blocks, physical rehabilitation. It didn't make much sense at the time that sitting and standing would help get rid of backaches and make you a better violinist in one fell swoop.

Going through the process myself, I see that the Alexander Technique gives you the tools to be better at whatever you give your attention to, be it pain relief or your job search.