BodyChance has a chequered career with corporate gigs.

Big learning curves for jc (ME).

(I need a nick name for my Self - any ideas?)

First big shock was with a famous bank here in Japan.

Years ago now, can't say which bank - they don't like it. One the big ones. We had a strong supporter who opened the door for us. I didn't do it because, well jc has no Japanese, he is often in Australia, and bringing a translator in toe is clumsy/difficult to price/organise and follow through etc. etc. etc.

Carol Dweck, in her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success* tells the story of hugely successful athletes, who all started out, with no particular signs of greatness about them.

Michael Jordan wasn't recruited by the college he wanted to play for. He wasn't drafted by the first two NBA teams that could have chosen him. He was cut from his varsity team.

His response?

Do you start planning your teaching day by thinking:

"How could I best undermine my students today? How could I make sure they lose confidence, motivation and the desire to study Alexander's discovery with me?"

No, of course not.

Would it shock to know that you could be doing exactly that?

Not intentionally, but does it matter?

Teaching groups involves giving affirmation to students - but often teachers, in their desire to celebrate an achievement, affirm the wrong thing.

I am tackling again in this dispatch the role of Consciousness in human life.

Years ago, at a workshop in Sydney, I suddenly heard my teacher Marjorie Barstow saying:

"If I Only had 4 Tongues, I Could Explain It Better"

As usual, Marj managed to encapsulate complexity into an amusing metaphor; a metaphor that graphically captured the essence of our challenge in consciously managing co-ordination. If that's what we're even doing…

You see - I write long sentences like that one, and Marj just makes you laugh.

SORRY!

People seem obsessed by the different sizes of groups that they teach.

Individual vs small groups vs large groups vs massive gatherings.

All different? Not really.

Thinking group size matters is a recipe to get confused. It's a spurious division.

Sure, the emphasis is different, but watch Anthony Robbins teach a group of 5,000 people, and you still see Anthony Robbins teaching individuals.

One human being is the discrete component of any teaching situation.

Yes - I can teach alone, in absentia!

I've always been trying to run away from Japan.

I feel like Al Pacino as Michael Corleone in the Godfather III* movie, when he growls:

"Every time I think I have left, they keep pulling me back in!"

The first time, I took a 6 month sabbatical from BodyChance, and lived in Australia with my family. I tried to start BodyChance in Sydney, and all I succeeded in doing was losing $40,000, disappointing 5 trainees, ending my marriage, getting another retinal detachment and very nearly destroying a beautiful friendship.

To live a public, vulnerable life takes a lot of self-love.

When you are looking to others to validate your actions: HOPELESS.

You have the life you imagine others want you to live…

• I must do this for my children
• My partner won't like that
• Can I really say that to him?

And so on and so on until you don't know who is listening, and you don't know what to say and you end up in bed, in the morning, with no energy to get up, with no energy to live.

This is not the life you want to lead.

Teaching as a teacher is a horrible thing to do to a student.

For a start, it's an arrogant position to start from. How do you know they don't know? When you project ignorance onto another person, it's a pretty egonic position.

"I am the one who knows."

How does it feel to be taught by someone like that?

Of course, SOME kind of teaching is all about information, BUT NOT our work. There is no curiculum for Alexander's discovery.

How can you learn what you already know?

Discovery needs celebration.

Without it, the physiology required to imprint insight fails to energize. Celebration is physiology - it facilitates oligodendroglial* cells to myelinate the axon pathways ignited by your discovery. The result is the ability to act faster.

Yesterday, I nearly yelled at one of my students.

Metaphorically, I certainly did. These days I have stopped being middle-class nice – what a wasted life! - instead telling it how I see it. My trainee was a robust, heavy-set man with a problem. He could handle it.

When you're in pain - what do you do?

I personally follow one of two stategies: medicate or meditate. The first takes the form of netflixing, shopping, drinking - you get the idea. Alternatively, I become the monk: withdraw, go silent, pray, be good and hope insight will lighten my mood.

However, there is a middle way, that straddles two worlds and it all starts with with physical/emotional/spiritual pain.

I find myself - when teaching in BodyChance - telling my trainees over and over:

"Pain is what is right about you."