I’ve recently enjoying a return to creative cooking. It started with a recent trip abroad, and a reminder of how good it is to eat freshly cooked, unprocessed food that has real flavor. I was keenly aware of how much better the food tasted for all the additives that were not in it. We bought small quantities of real, fresh food that didn’t have expiration dates a month out. We shopped often and lightly, and ate well.

Not surprisingly, all my teaching metaphors lately have been food-related. For instance, I work with a number of musicians; many of them are in pain from too much muscular tension in their minds and bodies as they play.

It suddenly came to me that making music is a lot like cooking soup. There’s a certain amount of muscular effort necessary to play, and a certain amount of salt necessary for good taste. I prefer adding salt to the soup till it's right, rather than using too much and throwing in potatoes to soak up the excess.

How well does it work for you?

Rather than starting off tense and frantically trying to let go of excess effort, can you start playing with a sense of quiet and ease and only add as much muscular activity as is absolutely necessary? Sometimes the weight of a finger is all that’s needed.

One of the difficulties in doing this is that we are wired up to do things by associating the ability to do an activity with a particular sensation of muscular effort or tension. Sometimes when it feels too easy, we're subject to “deer in the headlights syndrome” and feel like we can’t play at all.

Another problem is how to come to that starting place of neutral energy – balanced ease – and effortless movement.

Many musicians have too much salt in their soup and are in pain. That may be why the Alexander Technique is so widely known in the world of music, and required study at The Juilliard School of Music. Alexander Technique a skill that helps you become aware of patterns of tension, and able to release them. It empowers you to move with fluid lightness and ease.

Care to find out more? Try a taste of the Alexander Technique and play with ease.

Live lightly,

Dana

Hello Friends,

Are you on Twitter? Do you have fun with it or do you use it with a sense of purpose and seriousness, for marketing a business?

One of my colleagues in Holland, Maaike Aarts, wondered about making her tweets about the Alexander Technique more lighthearted and funny.

I think she’s right on target. I have more fun reading Tweets that have humor, are inspirational, or both. Whatever the subject matter, I tend to remember the Tweet and seek out the Tweeter.

I think the same holds true for learning something; we tend to remember the times we have fun without any effort. Doesn't it make sense to be easy and light in our words as well as our bodies?

Happy Tweeting!
Dana

One of my Twitter friends posted this today. I am practicing the phrase until it flows with my breath.

A Hawaiian friend explained "aloha" to me once. It refers to love and also, to breath as spirit. I think of this as love being the breath that is within us - which is life itself - so love brings life and breath within us and it flows outward to all.

Isn't language loveliest when it IS what it means? Wouldn't that be nice if saying Chocolate would create the experience of eating it? That's what the word, Aloha, does. The breath itself - the love that is breath that is also the word - is the gift you are giving and receiving when you say, "Aloha."

I'm sure my Hawaiian friends could add much greater depth of meaning. Please give me a call and fill me in!

Ua ola loko i ke aloha, my friends.

Aloha,

Dana

It's so nice when you stop by and visit. Perhaps we can chat about nothing again. Isn't that how Seinfeld got started? It's a show about nothing....

Sometimes when you take a lesson, the best thing to do is just go along with whatever is happening. It's better not to think too much and let yourself experience a different way of moving. Have you ever gotten intense from trying too hard? If we play with the word, we have "in" and "tense." Put them together and maybe it's tension going inward, or inner tension. Either way, that's too much work.

I like to call my studio, the "no work, no pain school."

Sometimes it is Just Fine and in fact, preferable to lay on the table and go into the Zone. The body has a wisdom of its own. So many times what we really need is to renew the experience of letting it happen.

Sometimes, a mind is a terrible thing to use.

The other day I came across is a list of “8 Rules to Produce Happiness.” It was posted on Twitter and I really liked it. I re-tweeted it and said, “Attitude matters!”

It does….it is the strongest tool we have for dealing with the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” that Life throws our way. The whole world seems topsy-turvy lately and sometimes it gets to me. Sound familiar?

This morning, I was really down. This afternoon I am perfectly content to chip away at the long To Do list in front of me, happy as a clam. What the heck happened?

It was my attitude. I only noticed that it had shifted when the noise from leaf blower in the neighborhood failed to annoy me. It was just soothing background noise.

I don’t recall the moment when it shifted, but I do remember noticing that I was down and figuring that I’d better do something about it.

What do you do? Please share an idea; I’d love to learn something new.

Here’s the list, with thanks to my Twitter friend, Amanya Jacobs, for posting it.

8 Rules to Produce Happiness

1. Keep your mind stored with constructive thoughts.
2. Look for the beautiful and pleasant things in life.
3. Adjust yourself to whatever happens in life so as to make the best of it.
4. Have no regrets — live in the present instead of the past.
5. Give every man a square deal, whether he be prince or pauper.
6. Do your job, no matter how humble it may be, with the best efforts you can give.
7. Do something for someone every day.
8. Have faith in yourself, your fellows and God.

-unknown