What do you believe about how you are designed to move?

There are two schools of thought:

1. I have a flawed design – I must find a way to improve it.
2. I am perfect – I can discover how to use my design well.

I follow the second idea...

You are already perfect – there is nothing wrong with you.

Pain – if you have pain or discomfort – is friendly. It is trying to tell you something is being used incorrectly. Pain is not what is wrong about you, pain is what is right about you.

When you wake up in the morning – what is your first thought?

What do you usually feel – excitement, sleepiness, dread?

We are literally creatures of habit – fully 99% of our functioning runs on automatic. Neuro-scientists have yet to find a distinct part of the brain that runs our “will power” – it’s still a mystery how that works...

All our systems interact and rely on each other to know what to do: all based on the learning of our past. Our past throws us into our future, and it operates with an unerring consistency.

What could you say if I commanded you:

“Go and look for it NOW!”

An obvious rejoinder is:

“Look for WHAT?!”

To which I’d say:

“Exactly; you’ll know when you find it.”

People who seek, seek to find the unknowable.

Truth starts out in the dark. It shines once you find it, which is how you know you found it.

Self-growth is like that. Your dark is where you have no awareness of how you are generating the problems you are experiencing.

What is your kind of holiday?

Here I am in Melbourne, early morning at David’s place, my teenage daughters still sleeping with a cup of tea at hand. Relaxing. Or am I?

What is ‘relaxing’ - what research has been done into this?

One study I can think of was completed by Dan Buettner (you can watch his Ted talk at this link). Dan’s team collected information on the behaviours of 5 communities that have a statistically abnormal number of centenarians in their midst.

One of my mentors, Brendan Nicholls, was incredibly circuitous in the way he assessed a new business partner. He was driven by a fractal idea that goes like this:

“How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything”

FM said it in a different way:

“If you apply the principle to the carrying out of one evolution, you have learned the lot.”

What does this mean?

When your biz goes AWOL, when there’s no money to pay your rent, when your inbox has another email from an unhappy student, when you’re partner keeps asking you when are you going to get a real job? When all that is happening, when you are in despair, lost, depressed, confused – this is hell.

Or is it?

Let’s look at pain from the point of view of neuroscience – yes, let’s get off the spiritual train for a minute and jump down into little contested facts about the physiology of movement.

What is the function of pain? Is it friendly or unfriendly?

When was the last time you asked anybody this question:

“What do you know about me that I don’t?”

I tried that question last Sunday with a bunch of trusted biz owners – guys and gals all working in ways similar to me to build their businesses. We were 9 people and as I sat silently listening, I felt my ego being silently ripped out of my guts and spilt all over the floor.

When you do it, be sure you are already secure in your love for your Self.

Keiko Isomura passed away in 2013.

She was one of the first trainees to graduate from BodyChance in 2003 – when it was still called ATA (Alexander Technique Associates) in honour of Don Burton.

I encouraged Keiko-san to explore the world of alternative trainings, so a year after she qualified, she travelled to London and spent 3 months studying with Walter Carrington at the Constructive Teaching Centre in Lansdowne Road.

Keiko became a trainee again.

Ramachandran is the neuro-anatomist who successfully amputated a non-existent arm by using nothing more than a $2 cardboard box and a vertical mirror. I’ve written about him previously here. Not only is he wonderfully inventive, he is a harbinger for a new breed of scientist which gives me hope of a path forward to validate Alexander's discovery.

He was their last hope, the desperate solution, the final wacky choice before the lid of their coffin was fastened over the top of their finally resting heads.

And of course – as we know – FM came through.