Curiosity is innate Curiosity is something we’re born with. It’s one of the 7 emotional patterns we come wired with. It creates our desire to explore, know more, to understand the world around us. Curiosity pushes us to connect, find out more, or see what’s around the corner. It’s what propelled our ancestors to travel … More Curiosity and the Hands
Human’s opposable thumbs are thought to have developed c.2 million years ago during the Homo Habilis time of our evolution. They may have been used for food gathering, and most certainly contributed to the development and use of tools. Our Chimpanzee cousins have opposable toes as well as thumbs, which makes them much better at … More Musicians’ Fingers and Thumbs
You are your primary Instrument… Whether that’s a Strad or a factory violin is up to how you use what you have! All of our technique, whatever we play or sing, boils down on movement: we move ourselves to create music. The less effort and tension we use, the better, and more efficiently, we can bring across to … More Feldenkrais Method for Musicians – Why do it?
Unwrapping yourself One of the things we talked about this weekend was this idea central to Feldenkrais, of stripping back. We used to play this version ofpass the parcel in my family when we were little. The parcel would be wrapped in many layers of wrapping paper, sometimes with chocolates between the layers. When the … More Unwrapping yourself
Your internal monologue is part of your interoception: the sensations, emotions, and sounds make up the internal processes of your mind&body. Many people have an internal monologue, but interestingly some don’t. Russell Hurlburt discovered that we have inner speech for an average of 20% of the time. For some that’s up to 75% of the … More What’s your self talk like?
Straight after an intense week in Brussles, representing the UK Guild at the International Feldenkrais Federation, this week I’ve been teaching teachers on the London Professional Training Programme! It’s great to be back in a learning environment, seeing the learning process, now for the third time around. We were lucky to have the wonderful Mara … More Perception and Feldenkrais
Our past experience creates the thoughts that we have. It is hard to get rid of limitations of thinking and moving created by our experience. But, whilst our bodies and minds may have limitations, our imagination doesn’t. If we can create freer experiences in our imagination, we can create concrete experiences to follow. To the degree we … More Musicians and Imagination
Last week I was back at school teaching children the violin after the holidays. There’s such a range of personalities, and quirkiness in the children. Some who barely say anything, and those who love to talk. Some who complain, and those who say yes to most things I ask them for. And nearly all of … More Beginners’ mind.
Life is sometimes stressful. Nobody, no matter how successful, lives in a vacuum of pure happiness, where nothing bad happens. That idea just doesn’t exist in reality. It’s a myth, of happiness, that we should sail through life without downs as well as ups. … More The happiness myth
On Friday I had a shocking email. My Paypal account was being closed. No reason given. I couldn’t pay out, or receive income. And the sum of money that built up over the last few months had been frozen up for up to 180 days. Four whole months.The email came in the early evening, just … More Staying calm under pressure
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