I love this: Reading about Alexander this morning and thinking about order and our design. "When the head is leading and the spine following, all movement is organized and supported dynamically, and it is that organization and support that gives moment its breathtaking beauty and integrity." Conoble from How to Learn the Alexander Technique. Then I find this on brainpickings.org : http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/09/14/a-theory-of-pure-design-beauty/ "By order, I mean particularly three things - Harmony, balance and rhythm. These are the principle modes in which Order is revealed in nature...." Denman Waldo Ross on design and the experience of beauty.

Run Run Run said the pine tree's mom

Now that we have the internet... Our tour took us to way out there places and I found the urge to run. Maybe it was because we were constantly on the move, migrating in an overloaded vehicle, to a new destination daily. I got caught by this feeling to move forward and it came from seeing the dramatic shifts in landscape in a magnificent, humbling, ...holy continuous changing contour over the earth - feeling a part of that somehow and being taken by possibility. We started in California and when we hit Yosemite, I felt I needed to run beside these mountains - to be that small and that big at the same time. Then it was the deserts, around the rim of the Grand Canyon (like whoah - shouting into the canyon at 7 am on a deserted path is surreal)...animal, Rocky Mountain National Park, and oddly beside golf courses in Denver. It's been so hot that waking up at 7 and going running has become my routine (except today, my alarm didn't go off so I decided to write in the blog now that I can!). To start off thankful for my space in the world and needing to move forward in it has become my practice. I'm still nursing my ankle a little bit and oh so close to my running goal this summer. Now juggling...that's another thing. Haven't found much inspiration there.... JJ

We were working on "vocals" during a Mary Jane rehearsal several week back, and I experienced a very clear moment of...integration. I felt my voice through my physical self in very distinct way - harnessing my whole instrument to move this sound - or this sound harnessing my whole instrument. I was taken by the power I felt - the realization of power from this vocal/physical connection. My voice and body weren't working in tandem - it was something different - I felt it all happening together/ simultaneously.  I have always thought of my voice as a thing supported by my body - in partnership with breath...but I've been incorporating voice into my physical routine. Normally I run in silence, I do handstands in silence, I do pushups in silence.  This moment of integration is something I'm very curious to continue to investigate this summer and so far I've found vocal engagement in my practice to be a driving agent. The movement of body and voice together - the resonating feeling that happens - the sense of whole hurling through space - the spaces in the body where voice comes from.

Summer 2012

Hello Fellow Authors:
 
You have made it- the end of your second year. For the next year you will be co-authors of this Blog- the place to inspire and motivate one another over the summer months.

Lets get started by listing our priorities and goals for the summer.

Personally I would like to focus on hand balancing, writing, and running. 

Hand balancing
I would like to develop and implement a 30 minute hand balancing work out that builds strength, endurance, and coordination while targeting flexibility in the muscles engaged in the hand stand. 

Writing
I want to have the curriculum for each of my subjects in each of the three years of the program ready to go when school starts. I would also like to have the first draft of a book about Acrobatics started.

Running 
I would like to work myself back up to being able to run for 30 minutes. This will be the last step in my ankle rehabilitation.

If each of you could comment on this post with your priorities and goals by Friday June 8, 2012 I will put together a proposed schedule for comment and discussion.

Here we go...

Joe

Holiday Post

So here it is, the post. The main things I'm proposing you keep in your body over the holiday break are your work with the Alexander Technique as it relates to Semi-supine, walking into running, and handstands.

Post your questions, thoughts, victories and defeats here.

Here we go...

"Everyone is an athlete. The only difference is that some of us are in training, and some are not."

It's been difficult for me to keep up with this, my schedule having been so bumpy. It's not my day, but heck! I'm sure you won't mind.

Brown, House Master: They certainly drive themselves hard on the playing fields.
Ruxton Towers Reformatory governor: They're high-spirited Mr Brown.
Brown, House Master: If they weren't, they wouldn't be here.

~The Loneliness of the Long Distance of the Runner

Have been running more and more, at least in terms of adding time. I ran for about an hour and twenty minutes last Saturday, and then today I took about 15 minutes off that route by changing the streets a bit and running almost all of the hills. It's Oakland and Berkeley, and there are hills galore here. As Jon always tells me, hill work is speed work in disguise.

Am I trying to get faster? It's thrilling to run fast, and when all of my muscles are resting where they should be and I'm not tensing my shoulders or shortening my stride I know that this is flying. Maybe not objectively, Maybe objectively I look slow, maybe I am as earth-bound as a boulder. Still, it is a kind of power, but not a stingy one, not one that is hoarded and tight. Rather I feel the expansiveness of something that doesn't belong to me but that is of me, that I don't have to own because it is not separate from me and cannot be divorced from me.

That sounds crazy. What am I trying to say? I'm trying to explain how sometimes I do experience the sublime, through a combination of both effort and surrender. I don't have to think too much, at least not in a language of words. I just have to surface and dive and then surface again, rhythmically. No explanations or justifications, no criticism. Meeting myself, in a way, on the roads, on the trail. Recognizing what is possible in the moment it manifests.

Alexander on the Rocks (and Lakes)

Last week, I spent 6 days canoeing, hiking and camping at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. I went with Tyler and Soren Olsen and Tyler's friend, Jason. We traveled approximately 30 miles in those 6 days.

When I was in the wilderness, my well-being depended on good self-use. If I wanted to avoid lingering aches and pains, I had to become more aware. Adding a huge metal object helped. Here are two brief examples:

Example #1:

I've never canoed before. (I take that back - I think I paddled around a lake once when I was 14.) Well, I've never canoed with purpose for long periods of time before. It became painful very quickly, so from my Tai Chi and Alexander training, it was glaringly obvious to me that I wasn't using myself well at all. Tyler gave me some pointers on efficient ways to paddle. It didn't make any sense to me at first. But the more I paddled, the more pain I was in, and the more I had to adapt my use.

Eventually, I came to a shift in my thinking: I realized that when I thought about grounding the paddle in the water and moving the canoe forward, rather than simply moving the paddle in the water, I found myself paddling from my core, rather than just my arms. By the 6th day, my stamina sky-rocketed and consequently, my canoe moved much faster than the other canoe in our group.

Example #2:

There's a lot to learn from carrying a canoe on your shoulders for a mile and a half (with breaks.) I learned quickly that I have a solid sense of balance. I also learned how important it is to be aware of every step on a narrow, rocky path with a canoe overhead because that balance is easily lost.

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And now a tangential rant:

We're turning into robots. All of us. With cell phones and GPS and Ipads and Ipods and every other doo dad and gadget we can get our hands on, we're becoming dependent on our technological/mechanical parts. So we HAVE to get away. We have to remind ourselves of where we come from and that we're just fine without all of it. We can get around okay. Our instincts are strong enough. If we keep adapting to a technological world, we'll become completely desensitized and lose our connection to our ground, our foundation, our earth. And for the actor, if we lose that connection, we lose our life force. We might as well be dead.

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If anyone's interested in going to the Boundary Waters, feel free to talk to me. I'd be happy to show you pictures from my trip and tell you all about it. I HIGHLY recommend going. And Tyler's guided trips are SUPER cheap, so there's no excuse!