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Emptiness is difficult to tolerate. I rush to fill the space with something… anything. Mostly displacement activities. A novel. Another cup of tea.

Instead, staying present and aware – reminding myself I am connected. Living and breathing – in process. I am not static, but expectantly alive.

Blank sheets and empty canvases are an invitation for something new to come into being.

Es gibt Dinge, die nur schwer in Worte zu fassen sind…

There are things that are hard to put into words…

Als ich gerade mit meiner Alexandertechnik-Ausbildung fertig war, fragte mich ein neugieriger Mensch: „Ist das wie Feldenkrais?“ „Für mich“, antwortete ich, „ist es mehr wie Zen…“

Fresh from my Alexander technique training course, someone asked me: “Is it like feldenkrais?” I said, for me, it´s more like Zen…”

Frederik Matthias Alexander hat seiner Methode keinen Namen gegeben: Für ihn war sie einfach „The work“.

F.M. Alexander didn´t give his method a name. For him it was just “The work”.

Die Arbeit. Eben das, was zu tun ist.

The work. That which needs doing.

Whatever you are doing right now, inhibit

thinking about all the things

you are not doing

My children have difficulty grasping the nature of live television. The idea that you can´t just go back and find the bit you want to see, that you can´t pause it so that you don´t miss anything while you go and do something else is a foreign one.

The same idea is creeping into our teaching. Am I teaching, if my students aren´t sitting in front of me? Can I teach into the void, let whoever, whenever, pick up the thread when and as they want? Will my online participants who didn´t make it today find me later? Who will read these words and when?

What does this do to my concept of time, to my teaching relationships? Is an author or an artist who´s work touches people down the generations somehow in relationship with them?

Improvising, there is only this moment, once. As Lucia Walker once said to us: “this moment will not come again. Don´t miss it.”

As a teacher it is my job to help you to say “no”.

“No” can be profoundly liberating. Think of a two year old discovering their new found possibilities to influence the world around them…

“No” to interference, “no” to controlling the outcome, “no” to doing things I don´t want to do, no to doing things I do want to do in ways that are not good for me. “No” to the rules I have adopted in childhood, or created for myself and which are no longer working for me.

allowing myself time to inhibit, not to end gain…. fully connected to my goal

… allowing more time than is reasonable, than is allowable…

in my teaching… in my directing…

…can I be so slow? A stillness emerges that is not fixed but tremendously alive, expectant with possibities

why am I still holding my breath?

To explore changing a habit needs a safe space. Inhibition, the process of not doing what you always do, can and hopefully does, lead to something new and unpredictable happening. Allowing this needs the right setting, perhaps the reason setting aside time and space for “the lesson” and the accompaniment of the teacher plays such a crucial role in learning the technique.

Inhibiting habits that are about “doing” something seem to me to be less threatening than inhibiting the kind of habits that relate to our way of “being”. The muscles that have a “holding” function that fundamentally affect our muscle tone and balance are also very much related to our way of being in the world. Exploring these can feel like a risky business.

Start right here where you are, standing, sitting, lying, reading these words…

… my practice begins where I stand typing them, unfamiliar with this new phone …

noticing whatever it is that you notice…

that I notice…

This is our starting place.

Eine Form ist ein Rahmen. Innerhalb dieses Rahmens entsteht ein Spiel-und Forschungsfeld. Eine Bewegungsform als einen Rahmen für das Forschen zu erleben, macht es lebendig, neu. Ob Chi Gong, Yoga oder Lindy Hop…

Dann ist das Üben keine Pflicht mehr, sondern eine Entdeckungsreise. Welche Formen in deinem Leben bieten dir welche Forschungsräume?

In diesem Sinne, seid herzlich eingeladen, bei mir simple Bewegungsformen zu entdecken und zu üben…