Once at breakfast, I remember being interrupted by a girlfriend pleading with me in an exasperated voice:

“What’s wrong with you this morning?”

I was genuinely surprised (and a little irritated).

“Nothing.” I lifted my eyebrows.

“Fine”, she re-joined “have it your way.”

I was fed up with this.

“What are you talking about!?”

Have you ever noticed how often FM’s work is “discovered” in other methods?

Haven’t you ever wondered about that?

Of course (speaking from my own experience) it can be intensely irritating to explain…

“No, AT isn’t really like Yoga. Not at all.”

…because not only is the listener nonplussed by your response, they also become slightly irritated and defensive too.

It’s like two 5 year olds on a playground: “My daddy’s better than your daddy. There!”

I was in Betty and Paul Collins’ house in Onslow Gardens, N10 in London.

It was 1977 and I was in my second year of AT training. Robert Rickover was waxing lyrical about this American teacher I had never heard of – Marjorie Barstow.

“She talks about the head moving…” I remember Rickover whispering to a few of us in the back room. I was scandalized.

That’s dreadful, I thought to myself, doesn’t this woman understand non-doing?

I’ve spent a long time making a fool of myself.

Publically, loudly and with a lot fanfare. Or at least that is how I felt sometimes (foolish) and that is how I was told by others (sometimes). Yet as Brené Brown rightly points out – while risk taking opens you to the possibility of ridicule and hurt, it also opens you to all those other juicy emotions like vitality, joy, enthusiasm, love.

Just off a call with ATSuccess member Xiaosong in Buenos Aires, talking about her niche of Tango dancers. It seems most Tango dancers don’t read email, they culturally avoid committing to even meet for a coffee tomorrow – let alone joining a long term learning program! – and, well, they don’t behave in the nice, neat ways that ATSuccess has developed for the Japanese and Western markets.

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 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.