The Hardest Thing To Do...
On mind wandering.
Brrrrrr!!!
My NYC studio is marginally freezing now that we’re in December. It’s probably high time that I just wrap the place in heating pads and put old movies on repeat. How many times can one watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark in a month?
The answer is already twice…
Learning a new skill takes time. We live in a world of shortcuts and AI slop promising to give us a cheap bang-for-your-buck quick fix for a variety of tasks. But the process of learning and crafting something that is worthwhile takes time.
When I explain this to anyone, they will instantly agree with me (aside from the truly brainless eejits). Yet when it comes to certain things like learning a language as an adult or investing in your personal health, people tend to discount the magnitude of the task at hand. It isn’t that people want to quit and do things half-heartedly, they (we) just get busy with life and things.
I mean… I need to get through a LOT of holiday movies in the next month…
This isn’t a blog post that is going to extol the virtues of patience. If all you ever do is take your time and be patient with your learning process, you might not ever STOP and ask yourself if you’re even doing the thing that you think you ought to do! This blog post is about persistence; the hardest thing one can do.
Persistence in Example
One of the skills that I talk about in this blog is the skill of allowing muscular release. This skill is one part attention, one part imagination, and one part kinesthetic sense. To date, I think each and every student of mine has experienced this sensation to one degree or another in nearly every lesson1.
The more lessons a person has, the more readily the release mechanism happens. This is great, but what happens when you’re all on your own and you’re attempting to type without any part of your head, neck, back, or arms stiffening up? Should it not be a simple task to just take the experience of a lesson and immediately put it into practice in your daily life?
For today’s blog, I’ve given myself just that task. I would like to write this post AND allow myself to kinesthetically sense the muscles of my neck, head, back, legs, and arms. It is my experience that if I can do that WHILE typing this post, then I will not experience joint strain or muscular fatigue.
This is not a small feat to pull off. My usual way of writing a post would be to sit down, think of something clever, and type away2.
And you know what just happened? Marie just asked me a question and I lost my train of thought and my head dropped a bit! This happened even though I put my intention behind the task at hand.
These little distractions are a part of life. I really don’t want to become a bubble-boy and block out the world every time I type so how can I go about allowing muscular release during everyday activities? What is persistence as it applies to the Alexander Technique and am I actually doing it?
The type of persistence I am really describing today is principally one of engaging with the kinesthetic sense. Yes, in my case I’m giving extra kinesthetic attention to my head, neck, and back. And YES I have experiences that give me confidence with this process but even then I must make the decision to engage this sense and use it during the course of this writing exercise.
The Beginner’s Retort
Oftentimes when I give someone a few lessons, they will ask me questions like,
“But what do you think about stretching?”
“But I don’t want my muscles to atrophy! I must exercise”
“But I don’t want to look like a total nerd and walk funny!”
These are tricky questions for me to answer. If we start talking about stretching and exercise, there’s a damn good chance that we are going to STOP talking about our sense of kinesthesia and just try to do a movement therapy that fixes a pain point. If this is the avenue someone wishes to go down, I typically just ask that they attempt to do all of them while kinesthetically feeling their neck.
This can sometimes leave the student feeling frustrated because it is so damn mysterious. People want to know if training the sense of kinesthesia will help them feel better. The short answer is ABSOLUTELY. The long answer is probably a whole other post. But the hard truth of the matter is that persistence with engaging the sense of kinesthesia WITHOUT bullying yourself to be perfect and WITH a sense of mild enjoyment is the best way to reliably learn the Alexander Technique.
Does This Resonate With You?
These blogs are hopefully a way of helping you better understand yourself, how you function, and why things sometimes feel off in a general way. If these posts are helpful, I encourage you to subscribe, leave a comment, ask a question, or check out the archives for my previous articles. I like hearing from everyone and I’ll do my best to respond as I can.
Get In Touch
If you’re in NYC, you may learn more about my private teaching practice at johndalto.com.
If you’d like to book any lesson time with me, you can find my booking link here.
My success rate is absolutely NOT 100%!!! It is confidently above 80%…
Ok… so I’m always TRYING to do this in every post but today is EXTRA