We'd got complaints. It was not going well…

This is the final of 3 dispatches on BodyChance's escapades within the corporate corridors of power. I write the story of our triumphant return with a new, re-engineered BodyChance group experience.

I was the re-engineering.

Turns out, it was a bit of a ladies club.

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!

Desmond Morris, in his 1971 book Intimate Behaviour writes:

"If the monkey is a male, it will never again, as an adult, know the total intimacy of a loving bond. Until the day it dies, it will continue to exist in a loveless world of rivalries and partnerships, of competition and co-operation."

Isn't that the life of an increasing number of people today?

Reflecting on an end of intimacy I experienced recently, I wrote to a dear friend that I was mourning the loss of

At Golden Week - BodyChance's annual residential near Mt Fuji - I usually teach a dozen beginners who brave a world of strangers to explore Alexander's discovery.

This year there was only one.

There is a secret to BodyChance's Golden Week residential, and I am going to reveal it.

Anyone who follows my feed on Facebook knows there is a frenzy of activity every May.

During the Japanese holidays of Golden Week (what a great name!) BodyChance holds its annual residential. We started it in 1999, and still going strong.

Back in the 70s, when I first arrived in London to train, the big scandal was group teaching.

Of course, EVERYONE KNEW you could not teach Alexander's discovery in groups. It was almost a heresy back then, a betrayal of principle. What are you thinking!?

Except that "unreasonable" teachers started to teach in groups.

The story I heard - back then - was of an infuriated Dr Wilfred Barlow, at the last STAT AGM he ever attended, pointing a finger quivering in anger at Walter Carrington:

"It is because of you!"

Clare-Newman Constance pished back about my email "Teachers who Speak Nonsense":

Why is “send your back, back” wrong?

All the others I get, and seem like cultural norms but not what AT teachers say.

But we (or some) do say “back, back”

***

OK, you may know what you mean by that.

Does your student?

Here’s a few things I don’t like:

1. Back is a vague term, suggesting a plane or surface area, without volume or substance.

I had to lie to get my first acting job.

I landed a part in Jack Hibberd’s Dimboola – one of Australia’s most successful plays. Trouble was, I was still only 17.

So I instantly became 18, just like that.

Back in those days, things were lazier. Trust was stronger. I said was 18, that was good enough for everyone. I was in!

Boy was I nervous on the opening night. Shaking.

I have a confession to make.

My original motivation for creating my 2 year certificate course in “BodyThinking” was fear of what would happen if I didn’t. It was 2003 and I was worried.

Fear is not always a negative thing: running away from a fire is clever.

Here’s the story of the fire I was running away from…

When I was 11, I played a dangerous game of running on rocks at Avoca Beach in Australia.

I didn’t think it was dangerous, instead I was exhilarated.

It was dangerous because the rocks were sharp and bulky – crashing into them could have split my little head open. They were boulders with diameters as wide as my nimble legs. The rocks extended onwards from the beach, reaching into the overhanging cliffs and disappearing around a headland.

The game was simple: running on rocks as fast as I can.