Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.” So wrote Marcel Proust.

Leaving monkey aside for the moment…changing the subject for now…to change of the entire psycho-physical self…and memory.

Who would have thought? I started taking Alexander Technique lessons in hope of alleviating neck pain. A month of lessons and the pain went away. And then I wanted more and more lessons. So I started training. Still took lessons along with the training. Then I had to stop training. Now I’ve started training again. And I had thought I was going into Alexander Technique only to manage that neck pain. Yeah the neck pain went away. The height that I lost due to the neurosurgery on my cervical spine came back. Yay! I am five feet tall again! But…here’s the thing. I find along the way that my whole mind and body are being totally reworked. My kishkas are definitely becoming untwisted. My brain is being re-wired. My trainer says that I’m going to be an entirely new person by the end of the training. So…a new Rena is emerging…

Also, as I progress in Alexander Technique teacher training, the more I am being revisited by old memories. Thus the core of myself is re-emerging…but in a different light. Childhood memories are re-appearing into my consciousness with the speed of lightening. My very first important memories are flooding back. Like, when I was so proud of myself for throwing that egg I was supposed to eat behind the washing machine…I was three at the time. I’m feeling again the glee of coming up with that solution for getting rid of the egg. I am so happy to be remembering that triumph of deception!

I find that I’m in über Ukrainian Russian Jewish mode. I feel like I am communing with past generations of my family. I have been needing to cook myself the Russian food that I grew up on. I wish I could blab away with impunity in Russian and Yiddish! It hits me that I really would like to have my real name back…the one that was summarily changed and dumped at Ellis Island…too Russian…an American, pronounceable name was needed. How sad!

All this happening makes me feel so in touch with myself. A validation of who I am. So…could my remembrances just be a coincidentally timed, or are they being set free by my going through Alexander Technique teacher training? Am I experiencing a re-reading of myself? Is there some kind of cause and effect here? Is the Alexander Technique proustienne in this way? It seems to me that it is the book tool par excellence with which to read oneself.

Here I am, in an imperfect, cropped photo, obscured a bit, but I am laughing so hard...that I love it!

Here I am, in an imperfect, cropped photo, obscured a bit, but I am laughing so hard…that I love it!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

The combination of asthma plus bronchitis is not fun. And then when followed up by pleurisy well…sigh…breathing becomes really painful.  But I am happy to report, that since I’ve been taking Alexander Technique lessons, and especially since I’ve been training to become an Alexander Technique teacher myself, my bouts of this stuff happening to me occur with less frequency and with less intensity. But, have to say, at the moment, I am so tired! Wishing for my own homemade chicken soup (the best) but being way too wiped out to make any.

My chicken soup beginning to cook...

My chicken soup beginning to cook…

After having been shut in for five days, I finally made it out, and the cold assaulted me. I was so fragile I could barely stand up. I felt that I was walking in slow motion. I had had to cancel every appointment I had scheduled. Freed up my calendar, so to speak, in order to stay in bed. Couldn’t go to work; couldn’t go to training. Couldn’t practice flute. I have to be pretty wiped out to miss work and Alexander Technique teacher training! That first sortie out was to a training class…I was not scheduled for work that day so I didn’t have to choose. I still cannot practice. I do have a ways to go before this thing is over.

Oh that class was so wonderful!!! It was the usual scenario. It consisted of: a long turn…chair table chair, a directed activity, a discussion of the reading…the end of  FM Alexander’s The Use of the Self, hands on: monkey with hands on table and then hands on real shoulders, a discussion of the Alexander Technique in general…this is ongoing… I cannot say that I was feeling refreshed, but, wow was it ever great to be in class again. It was luxurious. I was so grateful that I could breathe easier than I had been at the beginning of this illness…even if doing so with pain! I was so grateful that I could be there!

I am realizing that my sensory perception has improved. I know right away if my spine is coming down instead of lengthening when getting up from a chair. I feel all too well when I am gripping in the legs. I am assured that I am doing these less than I used to. I do have a long way to go. I’ll just keep plugging away.

The more I get into Alexander Teacher training, the more difficulty I have in describing succinctly what the Technique is. For me it is mystically life changing. Mystical because it is a mystery on how such a pragmatic thing can change every aspect of my being. I have to explore this thing that is changing my life in such an extraordinary way…to the max.

I feel that I am very lucky right now. I am in the right place at the right time…in my native city, in this particular training course, at this particular moment in time!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

“La vie ce n’est pas d’attendre que les orages passent, c’est d’apprendre comment danser sous la pluie.” Sénèque

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass, it’s about learning how to dance in the rain.” Seneca

So I’m learning how to dance in the rain with my recuperating knee. I’ve come through my first really mega-intense wave of emotionality through and elicited by Alexander Technique teacher training, phew, and well, I feel like I have been hiding and now I’m slowly coming out of my hiding place. I really need to practice that dancing in the rain stuff because I think these storms will keep happening. I better get used to being off kilter. I was just remembering when a colleague at work asked me the other day how I was doing, and I said “Oh I’m totally out of it!” With that I gave him a huge smile. And he told me that’s why he liked me so very much…I was always totally out of it in the same way he is totally out of it. We stood there grinning goofily at each other. So perhaps the thing to do when a wave of emotionality hits is to be totally out if it…ditsy so to speak…while dancing in the rain. Smiling in the rain! 😀

I am feeling a certain kind of quiet descend upon me, enveloping me. My trainer said the other day that when he is using himself better the kinesthetic chatter goes away, and that he feels a certain quiet within. Love that! Maybe that’s what’s happening with me.

But alas, I guess I have been run down lately. A persistent cough/cold thing turned suddenly into a nasty case of asthmatic bronchitis. Yuck. Why am I not surprised? It’s my go-to illness. What would FM Alexander say about this turn of events? That my use of self isn’t so hot? Sigh…I guess I’m stuck with another training hiatus…albeit a way shorter one this time around.

Meanwhile…on the training front…before the asthmatic bronchitis hit…it was monkey. What else? Now we are putting hands on each other. So first monkey with hands on back of chair, then monkey with hands on table, then monkey with one hand on a shoulder, the other hand on a hip bone. Find that hip bone! Of course I have put hands on before, in my first semester of training, and in lessons, but we are just starting to do this now in my present training course. So it’s been awhile. But now I am so much more aware of my use of self when doing so.

The famous in NYC dollar a slice pizza joint on the way to TCAT-NYC. Not bad in a pinch!

The famous in NYC dollar a slice pizza joint on the way to TCAT-NYC. Not bad in a pinch!

So, are you wondering, what the relevance of a photo of a pizza joint is to this blog post? Well I have no real answer. Except maybe that I was remembering that after the very first lesson I had with my teacher, who is now my trainer, I had a slice there. I had never gotten around to trying the place until that moment. A bit of historical perspective for you, dear reader. And, me personally, I do think that pizza is always relevant! Even now in this moment when all I want to eat is chicken soup!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

I thought I would write up a bilan after a month worth’s of training. I can never remember the English translation for un bilan so I had to look it up: appraisal, assessment, results, balance sheet are some of the equivalent words.

Emotionality…that is what’s happening. I’ve restarted Alexander Technique teacher training only a little over a month ago, and it feels so intense this time around. “Why?” I keep asking myself. Fourteen to fifteen hours of Alexander Technique per week. Okay. That’s a significant amount of time. And with this current training I feel that I am changing so rapidly both physically and mentally, I can hardly keep up with the changes. If I’m feeling physically so much better why am I feeling so out of control in the emotions department? Hmmm…because my body is being rearranged and body and mind are one? Because we hold our emotions in our physical selves as well as in our mental selves and rearrangement is going on in the entirety? Because I’m learning new ways of being…creating new habits? Because as I lengthen and widen my back and un-grip my shoulders is it that I’m becoming less and less defensive?

I place the mat in front of the heater to insure that I have a toasty/comfy lie down!

I place the mat in front of the heater to insure that I have a toasty/comfy lie down!

Well, whatever it is, it is certainly powerful stuff. I feel like I hardly know myself. My thoughts and my actions are foreign to me. I find that I have a funny dichotomy going on right now…I wish not to self-edit anymore and this throws me into a tizzy…and I am feeling a kind of soothing detachment from the bothersome stuff in life.

“For me, a person’s unconscious is nothing other than his/her biography, a life story that, although stored in the body in its entirely, is accessible to our consciousness only in a highly fragmented form.” So writes Alice Miller in the preface to her book The Body Never Lies: The lingering Effects of Cruel Parenting. So is this why the long-buried memories from childhood are creeping back into my consciousness? Aha! My life is coming back to me as I’m undoing. Okay…I’ll take it back…even if “painful.” After all I am now a different version of myself.

I keep having fantasies about running away from training but…

Trainer to student: “Think up when breathing in and out! We tend to come down when we exhale.” This makes a big impression on me. And sure enough he is oh so right! I pay attention to my breathing, and I successfully do not come down when I exhale. My breathing feels suddenly transformed; my shoulders seem to soften, to un-grip. I feel wonderful.

This is the kind of self knowledge that I find pretty addicting. So, I will just have to go with the flow!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

Position of mechanical advantage aka monkey. Bring it on! Over and over and over again in many of its permutations. Monkey with hands on table palms up, palms down, monkey with back against a wall, monkey facing a wall, monkey with hands on back of chair, squats, monkey, monkey, monkey… Some instructions for yours truly include… “Knees forward and up.” “Lengthen from your thoracic spine.” “Lengthen as you go down.” “Need that elasticity when folding/unfolding those legs.” “Lead with your knees not with your hips.” “Lengthen and widen that back.” “After all, we want to keep that integrity of the lengthening and widening as we go about doing our daily activities.”

Monkey going into monkey…

“Don’t grip don’t grip don’t grip don’t grip.” Gripping is my specialty. A huge light bulb went off for me a few days ago. When I went into monkey, when I went up and down from a chair, when I started to do all sorts of movementswellI sort of held my breath. I was gripping in this particular way. So what if it took me over three years of lessons and one plus semesters of teacher training to finally figure out that I’ve been doing this? Whatever. At least I figured it out. So then of course I did the opposite…and intentionally started over breathing or something. “Don’t force your breathing!”

Going into monkey with fluidity and elasticity, while keeping all my directions going, is challenging. It’s getting better but when will it be really organic with me??? “Oh! There is more movement happening throughout your ribs!” “Your breathing is different.” “Yes!!! That’s good Rena!!!” “Did you feel the difference?” And so we practice monkey over and over and over again in Alexander Technique teacher training. Je suis crevée, moi! I am wiped out! This stuff takes lots of mental and physical energy, yes it does! But I happen to be feeling really fine these days. I am more “up” than I used to be. Big smile here!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

So here we have it: my Alexander Technique teacher training journal/blog. I wish I could say that I am feeling good in my skin…bien dans ma peau…but that is not quite happening yet.

Well you know…I had forgotten all about the fatigue factor of starting to train. My body feels slammed. I am so, so tired. I just didn’t want to get out of bed one morning to go to work. On the days when I have to get up I am sleeping soundly and am woken up by the alarm. On the days when I can sleep in for awhile…well…I wake up too early. Go figure. It’s a catch-22 situation. So tragic! One day, on a day I could have slept in, Doucette the cat started whimpering for food at 6h in the morning, as she knew that I was awake. I got up and fed her and then crawled back into bed and stayed there for another two hours. Not to sleep…just to mull things over…

At least I’m not totally sore this time around from getting into monkey over and over. I do not feel like I’ve been doing heavy weights for the first time ever on leg press at the gym. That’s good! Maybe because I am pushing lots of weight on leg press at physical therapy? Plus doing all the other leg exercises? Maybe my legs are strongish these days???

I had forgotten all about the emotional turmoil that accompanies training. OMG…I’m all over the place! Where is my equanimity? Hmmm not here now. What shall I do? Well…I cannot hop a plane to Paris at the moment so let’s see… shall I laugh like crazy with my fabulous and zany and gifted co-workers? Play lots of Bach? Eat pizza? Yeah…carbs! Go shopping? Have a glass of vin rouge? Do my Alexander Technique lie downs…my constructive rests? I guess all of the above.

Winter scene chez TCAT-NYC...

Winter scene chez TCAT-NYC…

Sigh…I find that I am mentally fighting going downtown to class. I am having internal battles. I don’t want to trek down on the subway during my low energy moment of the day. Especially now in the freezing, snowy, icy, slippery, messy cold. I have to wear 50 million layers of clothes. Blech. I fight what I need to do. I would rather hibernate. But then, once I am there and ensconced in the training, well, I revel in it. It feels wonderful. I feel wonderful. I feel myself being transformed. Go figure. Okay…so I’m confused. Oh well…I need to chill, right? And maybe go shopping for a new  pair of snow boots!

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”     Marcel Proust

Butterflies in the stomach are abating…still waiting for my comfort zone to really set in…however I can say that it is best that I took that fork in the road. Here I am, training again…on my journey again.  At the Training Center for the Alexander Technique. Its très chic acronym is TCAT-NYC…Thomas Vasiliades, directing. Someone on the phone at AmSAT referred to him as “my boss.” Pretty hilarious that. I’ll not tell him.

What can I tell you? It’s wild to be part of a brand new venture. After having had so many private lessons with Tom, and having had many turns and much hands on work with him in my former training program, I am now training to become a teacher of the Alexander Technique under his direction. My intuition tells me that my training will be a wonderful experience.

The word “intimate” popped out at me in the two introductions to The Use of the Self, which we are reading closely. John Dewey wrote, in his succinct 1939 Introduction, on describing Alexander’s work: “Each lesson carries the process somewhat further and confirms in the most intimate and convincing fashion the claims that are made.” And in Wilfred Barlow‘s Introduction to the 1985 edition: “Alexander’s work was and is concerned with the intimate management of our moment-to-moment perceptions of ourselves.” Mais oui!

Intimate. In-depth, profound, thorough: intimate work in an intimate, welcoming setting.

Monsieur le Gargouille keeps the evil spirits out of the training room...

Monsieur le Gargouille keeps the evil spirits out of the training room…

And rigorous. I just want to plunge in deeply. We started “at the beginning.” Position of mechanical advantage aka monkey…in several permutations. “Knees forward and away.” Etcetera. And so I am again experiencing the huge divide between merely taking AT lessons and training to be an AT teacher. I am again exploring in depth the ongoing kinesthetic conversation with myself that will lead me to have better use of self. And this ongoing process will never end.

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, Alexander Technique Teacher Training.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” So goes the famous Yogi Berra saying. It seems that I have come to a fork in the road. Should I take it? I am supposed to start Alexander Technique teacher training again but this time around in a spanking new training course. It is to meet during hours that are great for me…primarily in the evenings…thus permitting me to work my normal schedule while I am undertaking my training. Just as I was feeling tentative about returning to work, after having had to take over two months off for my knee surgery and recovery, well, I am having cold feet about starting to train again. After all, the last time I trained was back in June. That’s quite a hiatus. The scaredy cat feeling at work didn’t even last a day. But before that moment, I didn’t want to return, talk with anyone from work, message anyone at work. I felt like I was thinking that I would feel like a stranger when I returned; like I was starting a new job. I am feeling exactly the same way about returning to training. I am hoping that my cold training feet will last not even one class. But right now I am harboring dark thoughts of fleeing in the opposite direction. Even take a time out from lessons. I want to pretend that I never even heard of the Alexander Technique. I am going through my stuff, right?

After all, training to be a certified AmSAT teacher is a huge commitment in time, energy and funds. “Is it worth it?” I keep asking myself. Do I really want to do this? As I know oh so well the answer (yes it is!!!) obviously I’m obsessing and getting worked up for nothing. Such a waste of energy, no? Time to inhibit and redirect (in Alexander terms) right? I will try not to fret.

I'm kinda feeling like Doucette the cat has the right idea!

I’m kinda feeling like Doucette the cat has the right idea!

Being at work now is my panacea against this agita. I’m just thrilled to be able to go to work! It represents sort of a safe haven for me. I just want to tune out the preoccupations of my life while being with my amazing co-workers. One thing though…all my colleagues keep asking me when I’m going to start training again. It seems that I cannot escape.

Well…you know of course that I will bite the bullet. Rumor has it that the first reading we will undertake will be FM Alexander’s third book  The Use of the Self. I read this book when I first started taking lessons. So no biggie here. It will be fun to re-read it. I have gotten my copy down from the shelf, and I have found a nice postcard from La Côte d’Azur, sent to me years ago, to use as a bookmark. Oh and I scheduled in a last lesson before training starts!

Alors, en avant!

My copy of The Use of the Self

My copy of The Use of the Self

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique.

I woke up listening to some of my favorite cold weather sounds: the combination cacophony of the steam heat coming up…the gurgling and hissing along with the pipes clanging, and Doucette the cat purring loudly in my ear. Lately I have taken to directing myself in bed when I wake up in the morning. I am becoming a real Alexander Technique junkie! In my defense…I feel so good…both mentally and physically. Big smile here!

It's snowy, cold and windy!

It’s snowy, cold and windy!

So it’s the New Year. Let’s hear it for auspicious, new beginnings. I am shortly going to restart my Alexander Technique teacher training. I will be, again, often walking across West 38th Street to make it over to ATCPD. 

West 38th Street falls within the old Garment District. It’s a jumble of tacky old-fashioned, louche…along with upscale, gentrified. Fascinating place indeed. It is homey. It is captivating. I am charmed by this street. The shops and the energy provoke wonderful memories in me of when I was a kid hanging out in my grandparents’ taylor shop. Very proustien. I kind of love walking along the street, especially in the nice weather when I can photograph to my heart’s content.

Jumble of stuff in a shop

Jumble of stuff in a shop

But right now it is winter and it is pretty cold. Ça gèle. I have noticed lately, that when walking in the cold, I don’t crunch down and hunch over like I used to. I used to do this I think to protect myself from the cold…and I am totally susceptible to the cold. I found out that this stuff doesn’t keep me warmer. Not being able to walk around lots for a New Yorker is kind of torture. It’s what we do…as I was so reminded by un ami when he was voicing concern about the state of my knee hampering my ability to scurry around town. So now that my knee is permitting me to walk a lot, and quickly, and it’s cold, well, directing myself to lengthen, widen, un-grip, free up that neck of mine, seem to be in place as I go along. Even in the cold. Well maybe especially in the cold. So I let Monsieur know that all is kind of terrific right now.

Hey, I guess this blog of mine will actually be turning into my Alexander Technique teacher training journal after all! Imagine that!

Gimme a pretzel box

Gimme a pretzel box

Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, torn meniscus.

After over two months since my knee surgery I finally was able to go back to work. At first I was feeling kind of timid. It was feeling like I was starting a new job. I found that I was receiving two sorts of welcomes…the heart felt ones from colleagues who were so happy to see me back, and the ones which were totally perfunctory. I was grateful to have been absent for so long to find out who really cared about me. Great knowledge to have! Bittersweet. And then…well…I started receiving hugs. Hugs all around! So many hugs! I cannot remember receiving so many hugs at one particular time. All day long. Some of my co-workers didn’t know where I had been. “Yo Rena, haven’t seen you in awhile. Were you in France?” “Nah…knee surgery.” One of my colleagues, who had also had had time off because of torn meniscus surgery simply said “see I told you” (that I would be out longer than the four weeks I had imagined). Wow to be surrounded by my fabulous co-workers! Amazing energy! Big shot in the arm!

I had a conversation with a French guy who came in. He and I have opposite situations. His wife is American and they visit NYC twice a year. My husband was French and I visit France often. So we blabbed away in French about it all, kind of thrilled by the impromptu exchange. I told him that I had to cancel my planned January trip to Paris because of my knee situation. Oh the sales I will be missing! Hélas! And I began to again wonder about the transformation that happens in me when I change languages. A friend of mine had told me that when I speak French I flip a switch and immediately become joyful and animated. I glow. He says that it happens every time. I finally understand why. I become a different version of myself and I can actually pretend not to be me. Everything sort of shifts. I go outside of myself. I am now wondering about the psychophysical/linguistic reasons that enable this positive-ized transformation of myself. When I speak a different language I hold my jaw in a different way, I gesture a different way, even the pitch of my voice changes. Of course I speak with a totally different intonation. This New Yorker becomes parisienne. I trade one unique accent for another. I drop different syllables. Well, yet again, I was reminded how happy I am to be the de facto French translator at work!

So…how do I feel now being at my “new job?” Well…I feel that I inhibit and direct with total aplomb! That’s how I feel! I feel a tad removed, and very objective about everything and everyone. It’s a great place to be in, I must say! I hear that I have really great energy. I certainly am smiling a lot! So…obviously I do not have much time for AT lessons right now. I mean, after work, I have to go home and ice my knee. I am finding that, at the end of my work day, well, my poor knee is all inflamed and stuff. Obviously I’m in for a long haul. But when I think that even two weeks prior to my first day back, I couldn’t at all stand up much, or walk much, well, I’m totally cool with my physical state of being at the moment.

I came across a bagel café in Paris this summer but I didn’t try it. After all, I do not even bother to purchase camembert here in NYC, do I?

I came across this bagel joint in Paris in July…I didn't try it...

I came across this bagel joint in Paris in July…I didn’t try it…