Report on the 6 days workshop

« Being, Seeing, Moving »
Umbria 2004

Teaching team:
Brigitte Cavadias, Marjory Fern, Rosa-Luisa Rossi, Lucia Walker
Guest Teachers: Elisabeth Walker and Nina Hutchings-Fintoni

Do they laugh at you holding the printed page further from your eyes than people expect? Have you stubbornly refused to go the conventional route and accept glasses? Do you wax lyrical about Bates as the Alexander of the eyes but still not take the necessary steps to learn how to put his ideas into practice? And have you too over recent years received in the mail tempting invitations to attend vision courses that always seem at the wrong place, too far or too expensive? Then we have things in common and my experience may encourage you.

This year the pamphlet I opened jumped out at me : “Being, Seeing, Moving” it said. I read on, warily interested. Early June (mm, good time for a holiday), in Umbria (wow, a genuine excuse to go to Italy), one week (I could surely find cover for that), and the price was correct. May I be honest? I did hesitate as to whether I wanted to spend a whole week with a bunch of Alexander teachers: but something convinced me, I decided to go…

The journey was an adventure, but that I knew in advance and treating it as such was all part of the fun, though it means that I am unable to report on the first evening of the encounter. From drawings strung up with clothes pegs I would guess the newly-met participants were solicited for a little imaginative input. We students were a predominantly female group of about 28, mostly English speaking with a goodly contingent of Swiss, and I would think two-third of us are practising Alexander teachers. We were welcomed by a team of 4 Alexander/vision teachers and 2 guest teachers, one from each discipline, with whom we could sign up for individual sessions.

The venue, I Muri, was a fine stone farmhouse up a long, long track tucked into hillsides where orchids and wild flowers abounded and milking sheep with well-grown lambs choralled us from fields around the gardens. Our Neapolitan hostess, Carmela, was amply capable in every way and served us a delectable meals, catering for vegetarians and other specialist eaters with skill and enthusiasm. By the end of a week of temptation (how do you resist freshly baked bread for breakfast?) my greed cost me several added kilos, but I did not grudge the price! We were lodged in several different houses, in room for two with every comfort, and therefore slept soundly and refreshingly. I believe that every student would concur that the accommodation was ideal, so that the only disappointment might have been the timidity of the sun and some unwelcome grey weather.

Our days were well organised and gently filled. Thanks to an apparently seamless unanimity between members of the teaching team, plus their evident previous experience, we were treated to mornings of instruction in term of fascinating recent information about the physiology of the eye and brain, such that we began to experience these organs in a new light. We experimented widely with movement, with exercises with the sun (or gloom!), with 3D pictures, with our hands, with interpreting lists and “mind-maps”, sometimes all together, sometimes in three groups, or two. Varying the group size was invaluable. And if the mornings contained the more discipline input, the afternoons were for play, structured play to be sure, but it was new to me that throwing a ball (or several) about was actually so beneficial to the eyes! That was just one of the fistful of ideas that I gleaned over the week and am now delightedly recalling: appreciating the support of the ground beneath my feet and the air all about me, appreciating that the eyes do not actually “see” and therefore I need no longer try to make them do so!, “inviting the light” in through them to be distilled into images by the brilliant visual cortex, learning to focus without the effort that cuts me off from my other senses. I noticed that we were never asked to close or open our eyes, but always rather our eyelids –a more accurate instruction which changes everything. We were encouraged to stimulate and use our imagination, to explore our fears, to walk blindfold and experience trusting a sighted companion, to blink more often, to listen while looking, to see widely, and softly. Above all to enjoy ourselves. And we did indeed have fun! Last but not least we were introduced to the wonders of pinhole glasses… and a hilarious last evening’s entertainment of topical sketches and music rounded off the course.

All of this successfully accomplished what I had come seeking. What I had not anticipated was the personal and professional growth that came from being immersed in a group situation were I felt safe and comfortable enough to “puncture” my own protective bubble and dare to “receive” at a deep level. It was obvious that I was not alone in this. As one person observed in her summing up on the last day, we were a bunch of dauntingly strong charactered women! It seemed a challenging prospect to hold us together -that this was achieved bears credit, I think, both to the remarkable teamwork and collective spirit of our teachers and to our unanimous sincerity and willingness to learn, different though our characters each were. Maybe Marjory’s [Fern] comment sums this up: “When a group is willing to allow changes in eyesight, a huge transformation takes place in individuals and in the group”. We experienced this profoundly.

In practice as an Alexander teacher, I have for years encouraged my pupils to look out from the back of the head; I am now thoroughly confirmed in this conviction: the home of my vision and the home of my primary control is the same. The heightened awareness of this brings me more strongly home to myself.

And so refreshed from a real holiday, I returned to my daily life, and being an inveterate end-gainer, I was curious to discover whether back on my own anything would remain or have changed. It was at the piano that I noticed it first: the notes were at last black on white again. Then I read my daughter several chapters of a book in the garden —without glasses. But maybe what I value most is that I am slowly learning to look more “softly” on the world around me, on my loved ones, on my self… and I am deeply grateful.

Cherryl Gardiner Alexander Teacher
July 2004, Caillavet , France