How kinesthesia sets you up for learning success
Last week I had the pleasure of leading an introduction to the Alexander Technique for a group of high school music teachers and students.
It’s rare to get a group of students and teachers together like that. I wanted to teach them the core principles of the Alexander Technique right away, because in my experience these principles are more important than the body mapping and anatomy that I love so much. I never got to that part, in fact!
I’m still happy with how the workshop went, because if you are stiff and trying hard, learning anatomy is of no use. Trying hard is the first thing folks will do when learning something new, and that’s what I’m trying to change.
Here are the three principles that set you up for learning success; Kinesthesia is implied in the very first one.
- Awareness: the ongoing experience of awareness, separate from judgement or assessment.
- Inhibition: the ability to “not do” a particular action, or to withhold consent from reaction to stimuli.
- Direction: the flow of attention through one’s body in relationship to gravity and space.
Direction, the third part, is not really separate from inhibition, the second part. If you inhibit stiffening, your body will ease and expand. That’s “direction.” So if you can get to the second part, the third part is pretty much already happening.
Kinesthesia came to my rescue, as it has done so many times before.
Kinesthesia implies a state of sensory receptivity, having to do with joint position and spatial location of parts of your body. Note that this implies simply feeling what has already happened, after the fact by between 20 – 60 milliseconds on average.
It registers the moment that just passed. If you really want to get into the details of exactly what kinesthesia is (proprioception includes kinesthesia for example), go HERE.
Now, when we are busy moving and doing things, there’s a lot to receive and it can be complicated what to focus on. We tend to let kinesthesia drops into the background even though it’s still there.
If you cultivate sense receptivity when in a quieter state, however, you can stay with it when things get more demanding.
Multitasking usually erases our kinesthetic sense completely. It just scrambles our sense of self. That’s what teachers experience all day long, every day!
If you over-ride sensory experience and you aren’t “feeling” anymore, you’ll notice a kind of disorganization and instability that is not optimal for teaching and learning. In addition to that, art and music teachers are dealing with many different age groups in one day. Each age group has a different vibe, different needs, and makes different demands on the teachers skills. That too scrambles the body-brain.
What can we do?
Transitional moments are a great place to tap into your kinesthetic super powers.
Teachers have just a few minutes between classes to re-center themselves before they have to switch gears. That’s true for many of us, really. There are so many things you could spend that 5 minute break on!
Look at your phone to make sure your kids haven’t texted you. Clean the room up. Look at your class plan. Answer the questions 3 kids are asking you after class.
You have to consciously choose to use that break to center and calm, or it will never happen.
In our post-workshop discussion, it became clear that if teachers are going to take this time, they will have to ask for help from everyone. And maybe, just maybe, it will help the students make that transition time more centering as well. They too get scrambled and jumbled and stressed.
Time is the one element that we need to enlist on our own behalf. It takes time to tap into your kinesthetic sense, not effort. I find that “the 5 minute break” is short enough that it doesn’t freak everyone out, and yet it’s long enough that you can access and benefit from that powerful first step of the AT process: awareness.
I chose three simple steps for waking up your kinesthetic sense:
- Close your eyes
This gives your visual cortex a break and tends to enhance your felt sense of your body.
- Gently moving a specific part of your body to generate a pleasant sensory experience (in the video, I guide you through a series of particular parts.)
Small movement is a surprisingly rich source of sensation. It wakes up your kinesthetic sense without overwhelming you.
- Between moving each part, rest your motor mind and stop moving. I call it “coming to quiet” as did a few first generation Alexander teachers. Simply witness the sensation that is still going on in you, without you having to “generating it” with movement.
By actively stopping motor activity while staying open to sensation, you enhance your ability to “inhibit” or “not do” something, thus experiencing the second part of the AT process.
This is the simplest way I know to “center” myself.
It is very very difficult to “do nothing” for 5 minutes. You do need some kind of focus and structure. Kinesthesia in itself tends to quite your thoughts and slow down cognitive activity so your poor brain can get a break, and that’s why I made this video.
These tiny changes can be so radical! In a public school, every minute is structured and used. You have to “keep up”! But all that keeping up is making people fall way behind because they are so stressed out.
I hope I gave them a little wedge to change that – I’ll let you know how it goes. They do want me to come back!