Posted by & filed under Alexander Technique, torn meniscus.

Let me make this clear: I obfuscate. When I talk about “my teacher” — well “my teacher” is more than one person. “My teacher” is a conglomeration. So…to keep things vague…I will continue, at this moment in time, to obfuscate. One to few; few to one.

But yay! I did have a lesson with my teacher! As you recall, Dr. Z wants me out and about as much as possible, so I figure that the best thing I can do for myself is to go out for lessons.

I did a table turn and and a chair turn. No getting up and down from the chair as yet…but…in the chair I am always more cognizant of lengthening up from my abdomen, so I was thrilled to receive some reminders about this.

Okay my main teachers are mostly of the male persuasion…I admit this fact…so I’m using the pronoun “he” but be forewarned: there actually might be a “she” or two in the mix. Remember in French it is le professeur…no matter what the sex of the teacher might be! So I’m using that particular gender confusion in English.

About monkey: he demonstrated to me the different permutations of monkey that a teacher could use with a student, and positions which would be useful to me right now as I am recovering. We looked at a photo of FM putting a student into a monkey position. This particular photo I had not seen before. But it was similar to the photo I published of FM doing what I called a monkey lunge. It’s all really about the variations of the position of mechanical advantage aka monkey. He gave me some great historical perspective on all this…we talked about of Walter Carrington‘s reminiscences of FM‘s teachings on this matter.

All in all, a fabulous lesson, especially as it came sooner than I had imagined a lesson would happen after my surgery. Eight days after. Pretty good. I am definitely feeling a tad taller right now.

After my lesson I went to the supermarket to pick up a few items…just a few. Good thing, too, because I found to my dismay, when I got back home, that our elevator was not working. I had to hike up to the sixth floor carrying my supermarket bag and my cane. Normally this is no big deal. So I thought “no big deal” and I just took it slowly. Only my second day outside, and the steps are way easier to manage than the day before! It’s a good thing that I didn’t have to walk down the steps. That is more difficult!

Plus a photo of my maternal grandmother!

Some books I can use to put under my head when I do a lie down.

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