The Year That Was

Everyone else is doing it, so why not us?

Recently I was told I do bad things and break promises. I am sure I do.

I wrote 39 blogs last year - I’d better rename this my Weekly! It was hard to get the motivation to write early in the year. Interestingly, I had two major flare-ups where I briefly went to writing Daily: during the 5-week Alexander Science course with Tim & Patrick; and around the time of the Berlin Congress.

Huh! I concluded that this “have a purpose” thing really works.

After the Congress, I got stuck into describing the new way I think about the work - and teach it. My essay for the Congress Papers - “The Berlin Exercise” - explains why I started each of my workshops with Alexander thinking and how to teach it to others. More on that as the months pass by.

Motivation is a peculiar beast.

With it, more is achieved. But finding it is problematic.

For example, once my family grew up and the pandemic hit - all my motivation for keeping my business running slowly dissipated until finally, I was screaming inside to get out, just get out. It seemed hopeless.

And then I sold my school to Zen Place.

My revelation was observing the spontaneous boost in motivational energy that arose - how did that work?

I know motivation - at least in me - is tightly woven with ego. Always an actor at heart, could it be a huge new audience of Japanese Pilates/Yoga instructors and their students at Zen Place that is lifting my spirits? Is that the catalyst spurring me on to finally get fluent in Japanese?

Every day now I study reading and speaking Japanese - telling myself that I aim to teach in Japanese within five years. Maybe some readers already assumed I was fluent - I mean, what was I doing for the previous 23 years?! 

Raising a family, building a business.

Now there’s no family to raise and I sold the business. 

My Alexander realisations are bursting through obscurations that have constrained my thinking for decades. This is the most exciting thing - the sense of rediscovering the work. Realising how much more I can discover and share with others.

Finished? 

Never. 

I am embarking on a new five-year plan with these goals:

- fluency in Japanese (reading, writing and speaking)
- the unbridled success of Zen Place BodyChance in Japan
- Empowering the BC ATeachers community in Japan
- branding my Self in the Pilates community
- ATSuccess resurrects (publish the book I wrote!)
- resume international teaching career (starts in Dortmund)
- publishing my Navigator/Compass book
- AT in European Fitness networks…

That last one might be for the next next-five-years - who knows?

For now, I am alive and running - feeling focused, disciplined and (almost) in the best condition ever to continue amplifying Alexander's Discovery as a social force for good in our troubled communities.