birds flying and gathering in tree in Regents Park

Trigger Ramble

My mother, who in addition to being a mum to 5 children and starting an antiquarian book business with my dad, wrote many poems, some were published, before she devoted all her time to family and business. She continued to write poems and sometimes self published. One of her slim anthologies which she printed a few years ago was called 'Triggerpoints'. And I wondered why. Had she noticed things that triggered anger in her hubby or in others? From what I remember on reading it through some years ago there didn't seem to be obvious clues in the poems within. How aware was she of how much 'trigger' is used in the modern sense, where trigger points - buttons you press that unbalance someone - are seen as points of psychological weakness that 'trigger' predictable unbalanced behaviour eg the much seen clip scientologists exploiting the anger they triggered in the BBC reporter investigating them.
Maybe 'trigger points', particular to each person, are our personality- get rid of them and become a supposedly 'perfect human being' ... but maybe becoming a bland rational machine is the thing to be aimed for. (Therapists aim to eliminate trigger points. Maybe they are in secret league with computer designers). In the future all people will aspire to become computers- in a world where computers are as intelligent and more so than humans maybe some humans will be able to pass as computers. Computers will construct some kind of test for humans - the reverse of the Turing test. Look! The first human computer! No, nothing wrong with them no quirks! Completely normal! No personality!

After the March

This is from my diary but its all about the march. It has taken  my attention the last few days

Jan 21
Went down to join the march but couldn't get in to Grosvenor square, where the American Embassy was. It was huge it snaked my way through Mayfair and joined March near St James Square. Trafalgar Square was full, cut through National Gallery from Sainsbury wing, After a time of feeling with the march, my physical condition was getting the better of me -my legs were getting tired, I was losing balance and moving slowly. I had not run into anyone I know to bouy my energy and wanted to get out of the crowd so I cut through Gallery, Leicester sq, Soho and walked home. I stopped off at the cafe on Baker St had a brief chat with the waitress ' How are you?' She asked 'tired' I said 'I've just been on a march in the centre of town' ' but it's cold' she said 'What was it for? ' ' against Trump US president'  I said . ' But it's cold' she repeated as if to say, 'and you went out in the cold for that? Why?' Ooh the microclimates and filters in this big city. But the seat, the rest and the coffee was oh so welcome.


Jan 22
Looking at twitter feed, news and FB in aftermath of Women's March and Inauguration is making me ill -It takes my attention into a realm that I really can't do anything about- the Trump side is really going for mainstream media refuting accurate news, accusing them of bias. And I have chosen not to be involved in the world. Words are being devalued, images are being devalued - photos of huge empty spaces at the inauguration 'have been photoshopped and manipulated' to propagate the lie that 'the biggest ever crowd saw Trump being sworn in'.
John Pilger, on New Matilda website writes that "they've got it all wrong, Obama not Trump is the problem". Weird to see Pilger ( a crusading outsider journalist, but always until now, definitely an outsider) becoming an apologist for Trump and establishment- I think he's wrong -Trump, and the people behind him is who we have to deal with, Obama is gone.
I watched the new  Press Secretary Spicer telling the press that it was the biggest crowd ever for an inaugaration and then telling them they were biased against poor li'l ol' Donald.
Wow there is alot of fear spreading and false info. Argument seems to polarise, discussion brings together-drawing attention to onto possible common ground. Its drawing attention towards peace.
It really does make me sick plugging into all this trump biz and it's all a distraction from doing accounts which really shouldn't be hard. And I have £100 until I start living off my credit card and I have to check my HB is being paid and reclaim health costs, see that parents are OK and I want to go Laurie s memorial next week, raise money to do website and its Nicola's 60th birthday tomorrow she retires this week and I am going blithely on as if nothing is urgent but the world is changing and every country is more than its government.

Jan23
After the march,  I received many favourable responses but there were two questioning responses, one from a man one from a woman, from different sides of the gender divide; she: 'that must have been so hard for you'  he: 'I feel sorry for you, being taken advantage of by misandrists'.  Different sides, but my  reality of being in the march was so  different from what they thought it was going to be.  The gender issue did not seem  important to me - there were a lot of blokes on March (mostly partners or looking after kids, mostly 'attached' in someway. Not many loners like myself but I did not feel out of place. I felt more invisible than unwelcome. There was a shared sense of purpose amongst the crowd.  Other marches in different places may have had a more exclude-males agenda but I did not feel it here. Yes there were a lot of angry women, but loud aggressive polarisers were a small minority, it felt most of the anger  was anti-Trump rather than anti-male. I know that I was moved to take part because of Trump the way the US is going and myt friends there. Yes the march was instigated by women and that threatens many men and pushes them back on an older male stance. But argument polarises;  pushes men to trad positions, pushes women into misandry, men into misogyny; dialogue moves forward.

Before the March

Why I am going on the anti-Trump women's March today?
I watched aghast at the nightmare of Trumps inauguration. I know it seems irrelevant to many here but  I feel deeply affected and wonder why. For many in this country, anything that happens in the US is not interesting or surprising, many here can't be bothered with American stuff. Hmm but  that angry primeval self righteous  all-American energy trump has harnessed is only a small part of what is there; Somehow that has swept him to power. It is  deeply hurtful to  the many wonderful people in US, incinceivable where he has got,
My time living in NYC many years ago transformed me, taking me out of this small country;  making me realise how small minded, bigoted and class ridden this country was. For many who had not travelled, England was still the centre of the universe.  They say moving away from your parents is a rite of passage but then so is living outside your culture and country. Maybe it was the quality of the work that took me there (yes! I like to think so), maybe being English privileged male helped  but undoubtedly being in NYC, living in downtown performance scene where straight white males were practically non existent, being in love, mixing with an African American crowd, being taken seriously as an artist.
I remember one day in I think 1991 walking past the then newly built Trump Tower in midtown NY and thinking 'How tacky how garish' (oh lawdy, it offended ma delicate Inglish soul!)How inconceivable that that man, could become president.
And now he is president
That is why I am shocked and hurt by what is happening in the US.
That is why I will go to Grosvenor Square and join the march

Moving on, shape shifting

In theatre and dance training the non-holding, going with the flow 'softer' qualities of movement and the listening and responding through the senses, were seen as 'feminine' qualities rather than attributes that belonged exclusively to women. 
Sense of self in both men & women was seen as a combination of both masculine and feminine energies. Back then, it felt like this sensibility would spread, it was just a slightly more intelligent take on male female roles. 
That kind of listening and responding certainly enabled Barnaby and I to look more objectively at politicians behaviour and our own patterns and gameswhen we were making our performance piece the Summit. It seemed to speak to people wherever it went -25 countries  and survived for over 20 years (1985-2006). In 1989 the Berlin Wall  and many barriers came tumbling down and it felt like the world was changing. 
That attitude of listening and being receptive and adapting to the situation is something that women have traditionally been much better at than men and something they have had to learn to do, to just survive in a world where men carried on unquestioningly just being men. Maybe fed up with this ignorance and intransigence,  women have had to be more confrontational but now it's seems more polarised and cruder than ever- women own the feminine and men the masculine. Both are entrenched and rarely do they meet. 
Maybe its inevitable with the passing of the optimism  and idealism of the late 20th century  and the current disillusion  at how little has changed, but recently I  heard someone say ' feminism had won' ???? Won what?  In this gender war, often it is the more empathetic men who are the acceptable collateral damage that any war involves. Whilst not denying the re emergence of redundant species like Nigelopods, Vladiraptors  and Donosaurs, it is not a conflict between men and women-  it is a conflict against old ways of doing things, and the newer, more fluid energy, will  erode the old.

A BAD DREAM LAST NIGHT

 Jan 16th
'You dream about what's worrying you'.  Often dreams in their bizarre, imagistic and surreal way can give a different perspective of a waking situation. Well last night I had a dream that wasn't surreal or bizarre, nothing happened in it that might not happen in real waking life.  A very believable down to earth dream. It was definitely related to what is worrying me- I need paid work badly now, I don't know why, but income, for whatever reason, ain't flowing.
I dreamt of being asked by a leading director (a real person, I won't name them- it was a dream) invited me for some exploratory work with some others but when I asked about being paid for my time I was told I wouldn't be paid. It acted as a trigger and I got furious. I remember feeling flattered that I was asked; the offer the interest in me and my work was genuine and heartfelt, I felt I had something to offer and that was recognised and wanted, but  the assumption was made that I would do this for nothing. Was I  supposed to be grateful? Why do some people think they can get away with it? I know this was only a dream but its a script  that too often happens in real life.

But when I told this dream to a friend she said " that's not a dream! it proves the continuum hypothesis.
Well dream or not I don't like the assumption that your ideas  and energy should be given for free.and for better or worse, I take that anxiety to bed with me

Facedances - AUTHENTIC? WOT DAT?

For some time, between 2005 and 2014 I collected Facedances - short video portraits of poeple listening to their favourit music I filmed about a thousand of them, They are stored on a variety of formats -mini DV tape, sd cards, hard disc. I filmed in this country, France, Spain Germany Ireland and the Netherlands. Facedances are short video portraits of people, non-performers, of all ages, listening and dancing with their face to a piece of music they know and love.  They chose their own music. Each video shows the face, the head and shoulders. I gave minimum direction i told them dance with your face to your favourite music. They could interpret that how they liked.

Often when I have shown Facedances, people say things like such and such a person is not being real, when all they are being is a bit self conscious at being filmed by a camera and person very near them- Authentically self conscious . Some people attempt to disguise their self consciousness by performing to the camera, sometimes extrovert people become shy- you cannot tell how people will be. That is great- they are authentically trying to hide their shyness by performing, or vice versa. Its unpredictable. Some people think thats  phony, for me, a self conscious face is as real as a performing face is as real as someone just listening to the music is as real as someone who is does nothing and just looks at the camera.

I don't know what people mean by authentic/ inauthentic, real/false. 

The viewer can choose to judge the Facedancer or simply engage with  what is there- There is no such thing as a dishonest Facedance. If some one chooses in their Facedance to avoid contact with the camera, we, the viewer can see it- we can read that, they are still lovable, we don't know the battles they have had to fight in their life, their braveries, their loves, their laughs, but we can empathise, but we can imagine their stories, their life. Whether they choose to perform for the camera, to have fun, be shy... to try to put on a front is  as much a sign of authenticity as those who choose to just listen to their music and want 'to be natural'.

WAFER THIN

there is a wafer thin line

between the expert and the fraud;

 between knowing and not knowing,

between being sure and unsure,

between having confidence and having none,

between the strong and the broken, 

between the letters after your name and the dole,

between the brassplate and the outstretched begging hand,

between having it all and having nothing; 

Nonsense of direction

Jan 14
Technology steers people away from their own commonsense and instincts. It disorients people's natural heuristic decision making. Science has proved  that our personal judgement, intuition, common sense is flawed, but the way it has steered us towards becoming tech dependant is  a bit much. Lets say a common sense, rule of thumb, based on experience, common knowledge decision is 90% right but sometimes wrong, and a piece of technology or an app is 95% right, isn't it best to adopt that? yes but what if the use of it overrides the user own decision making apparatus, disables  and disorientates the user, disempowering them and taking away any sense that they can  have effective agency in the situation. For example take sense of direction; I was in a cafe this morning, and gave directions j to a young woman  and I think her parents (I think they were airb'n'bing it.  ] She had an address in Cato St, scribbled on a piece of paper she wanted to go to. She had probably been told that it was near Baker Street, but London is a big city.    I explained how to get there-it's about ten minutes walk and involved turning left and right about 4 times- not obvious but very possible. She listened closely gave me every impression she understood, and thanked me. Now, 10 minutes later, she was still in the cafe looking confused. Was I just  assuming that a sense of direction and ability to absorb directions is innate? - she looked confused and disorientated and stared helplessly into her mobile phone as if' they' the unseen ones that she was trying to connect with should help her. It was more important that she gave me the right response, appearing to understand was more important to her than actually understanding.
'You're still here' I said as I was leaving
'Yes' she said helplessly, and looked outside it was raining. was she waiting for it to stop before walking to Cato Street, or using it as an excuse?

A PICTURE OF MY FATHER

'Choice? It's always been perfectly obvious what the next thing to do is. I just get on with it I have never made a choice in my life'
The idea that we have a choice, so accepted now, is a modern idea. For Ralph, and I suspect most of his generation, it was always just doing the next thing, I always knew there was turmoil in his past but he always has been scornful of dwelling on the past, navel gazing - that was never his style, he has always preferred to do the next thing
I understood his pomposity, it was a bit military, but I knew he was more than that stereotype, even if my friends didn't. When I and my friends  we were teenagers cynical about everything, would take the piss out of him, his pomposity, his Englishness- so although the rebellious teen in me found it funny  when my friends imitated him it would hurt a little. It was too simplistic. Although a maverick and outsider he is still a  product of his age. We never knew about his father,  he was brought up by his mother yet he has spent his life being the husband and father he never knew. A different very warm funny and caring spirit but quick to anger and difficult to help, there is something of the angry young child about him, eager to prove that he can do it all by himself. That and a very traditional male persona. His story and his life has come to me in fragments  I want to tell his story, whether writing it or making a performance out of it.  A man who does not know what or who he is... and doesn't really care because there are more important things to be getting on with ...like keeping his home together, his wife and family warm and fed and remembering to lock the car

Entropy

Entropy - without maintenance, all trousers fall down eventually

I have never understood

Jan 12
Ah probably blindingly obvious to most people, but never having put down roots, I have never  truly understood what a capitalist is - someone who accrues capital and possessions, (whatever their outward politics) - a home  a car etc but  doesn't often touch it, meanwhile usually compound interest works away in the background replenishing reserves. It's probably extremely naive of me.  I have never 'owned' a property or a car yet have travelled and worked in 30 countries, stayed in hotels more than most but now feel like a beggar
That bit of advice -  'living off capital- never do it' - I have never understood it because I have never had capital to live off- at least I've never felt that way - it's always been a question of how I stay in food for next week, how I do not get too far into rent arrears and sometimes I have been  able to relax for a couple of months. For people who have capital it is so 'obvious' that that is the way to go
Iif you don't  accrue then you are non-person, you don't grow- its as if you don't count -what are you? You have nothing therefore you are nothing. How strange

Grasping restricts play, copyrighting things you don't own, wall building

Years ago, when learning dance improvisation with a partner you were taught not to hold, not to grip- because it was fear driven - fear of falling, fear of momentum, fear of communication and gripping expressed nervousness, desire to control, to own; whenever there was  flow, gripping stopped it. We were taught to follow the point of contact, to not hold on, to stay relaxed, to let go of thought of where to go next and be flexible to what is happening. 

I hear stories of people wanting to  copyright things, unownable things like kinds of movement therapy, ways of making music or traditions of training from Tai'Chi to voice work and see how the trying to own processes and traditions they have no right to own, prevents flow and prevents creativity. You can't own a rhythm or the harmonic series. This  seems to inflate the copyright owner into becoming the 'discoverer' untouchable expert of what they pretend to own. Of course if you have made something up, written something invented something,  its yours and hopefully it will provide you with royalties that enable you to live, I am only against assuming ownership of what's not yours to own- whether it be the rhythms, movements, the harmonic series or seeds.
This world assumes that you need a suspicious possessive mind to survive in a  world out to exploit you,  and you have to protect yourself  or the world will not acknowledge your inventiveness, your wits, your nous.

But maybe having a possessive grasping spirit  inhibits play, discovery and invention?

A suspicious untrusting copyrighting mind which seems the same as the tense gripping controlling body which stops movement and play, the tense gripping controlling body wants to stop movement and build walls

New York in 1990

IN this past year of many people dying, one more death just after Christmas  this year has affected me I think I felt it more than many deaths this year. Laurie Carlos. I imagine her looking at me with  disbelieving  but friendly eyes I hear her saying ' use your time well.' and a good use of time is to make sense of that time I spent living in New York many years ago.
I have been very low over the past couple of years, have felt I am a million miles from my past life as a performer and maker. There is no-one I could speak to here in London no-one to whom I could turn.  maybe the past as not been so important I have had other more pressing things- declining parents, my daughter, nothing taking off economically for me etc etc ...My 3intense years living in NYC was way back there, a different life, but there were things, things I felt then that I have left hanging unresolved and I want ti make sense of. I arrived into NYC on a wave of success. I was fortunate I was  in the right place at the right time;  but I was not aware that fortune played its part;  I didn't feel lucky; I felt I had earned it. I was riding a wave- - the Summit with my brother Barnaby and then with Swedish actor Lars Goran Persson had been a big success -it had sold out we were asked back the NYT reviews were extraordinary the piece won us a Bessy. Success in NY meant more to me than success elsewhere. I felt that in NY having reworked the Summit with LarsGoran we had converted the Summit from a wacky comedic thing with two brothers into an objectively good solid  piece of performance with its own methodology and groundbreaking methods. And on a trip to Jacob's Pillow I had fallen in love with Grisha and wanted be with her I wanted to be away from London. New York seemed a warm place to be. I had just shot an advert in Sweden for the Swedish Milk Marketing Board, who had the immortal strapline( which they'd had since the 1940s- MJOLK GEBT STARKE BENE( 'Milk gives you strong legs', always flashing up on screen, when they froze the image in the middle of the protagonist jumping ) We followed Carl Lewis as the 'celebrities'  in the advert. After I returned to London several thousand pounds richer, I wondered whether to buy a canal boat in London or move to New York. I walked along the towpath of the canal between Little Venice and Notting Hill and got talking to a woman who lived on  a canalboat with her husband and a dog
 'yes its lovely, life on the canal, the pace of life its slow. We love it here, we went to Uxbridge last week'
I thought 'I am going to New York'.
  So I  escaped to New York, I wrote down ideas for Dinner, a piece with 6 performers from 6 different countries speaking six different languages, sharing songs and dances around a  dinner meeting.The idea around Dinner and forming a cross cultural company  was bang on the zeitgeist . I talked to producers. They loved the idea and made it happen - it was a coproduction between Jacob's Pilow, the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis, Spoleto Festival in South Carolina and Glasgow 1990, then the European Cultural Capital. I didn't stop, I was very confident, I felt that any idea, thought, feeling I had was inevitably part of the zeitgeist what everyone was feeling. I was happy to be there -Downtown performance and NY minimalism  which I worshipped  and thought was the coolest place to be.  But I also recognised that it was squeaky clean white and that minimalism often squeezed the life, joy, duende, spirit out of things. Everything was ironic and cool, it assumed the audience had exactly the same agenda as the performers  an audience friendly to the performers but increasingly white and confused and beleaguered. It's focus was individual purity seriousness. I liked that meditative calm but also loved the  humour, heat and unpredictability of live entertainment. Maybe other downtown performers had rebelled against that purity and wanted something rougher and grungier but felt jealous of me or that I was taking funding from them- I don't know but despite feeling some resentment and suspicion I carried on regardless. I had the freedom to criticise, being an outsider, and the confidence that success brings, to make my ideas happen.

MINNEAPOLIS

MINNEAPOLIS 

Strange how a faraway place lies dormant in your mind for many years, then pops up again in so many seemingly unrelated contexts.  I haven’t been there since 1990 and hadn’t really thought of the midwest- it seems so remote from my London life now. 6000 miles and 26 years  

Most of the midwest is a fairly bland and acts like the rest of the world doesn't exist, but Minnesota, tucked up near the Canadian border with hot summers and cold winters attracts people from East and West coasts, New Yorkers and Californian. It has its own sensibility that is somethng of its own and amixture of both coasts, It is interested in the world, mixed, vibrant and sensible and outward looking, The City of Lakes, many people of Germanic and Scandinavian descent settled there. If the city had ghettoes I didn't see them.

Prince was from Minneapolis. His album Lovesexy was on a virtually all the time we were there. We borrowed his big warehouse to rehearse ‘the Human Accordion’ a huge piece with lots of Minneapolis performers (about 50?). We need a big space to rehearse. When I heard of Prince's passing it triggered remembrance of being in his club First Avenue and and seeing the English group Wire. I didn't realise the importance of the place until this year I saw the film of the first performance and recording of Purple Rain.  

 Another tangent: Recently in London, I was cataloguing books for  Sophie Partridge a woman in her fifties. She had inherited the books from her grandmother-  Her grandmother, Frances was  an extraordinary women - part of the Bloomsbury group and lived to 103. Sophie is related to Virginia Woolf. The books many signed had an incredible heritage and Sophie wanted to sell them before Christmas. All seemed to me very clear- the books were in boxes filling up her spareroom so she was unable to use it. The past -books in  boxes literally clogging up the present. Then at the beginning of December Sophie said 'oh the plans have changed  - I don’t need to sell the books and I’m going to Standing Rock in North Dakota'. I was hoping that the sale of the books would fund my christmas, so it blew that, then I looked at the weather and saw that a winter storm was due to hit Standing Rock when she planned to go. Having had the winter in Minneapolis all those years ago I knew how harsh it can get, so I emailed friends in MN about essential winter clothing and passed info onto Sophie thinking god does this English rich kid in her 50s realise where she is going? Anyway she went and lived with the Lakota Sioux took on the cold and has by all accounts survived and become integral to the struggle. She is still there  - its an incredible story. Her family are protestors and pacifists going back to the suffragettes and world war 1. Anyway I renewed contact with  Marcela and  her one time husband Brant who was good on the winterclothing advice and we bonded over both have elderly mums with dementia. He is communicating with her by drawing

So Minneapolis and Laurie …Laurie Carlos made it her home, culturally rich but without the stress of New York.

Laurie Carlos … I remember her being fabulous in Urban Bushwomen's production of Praise House-  I remember guesting in the chorus of PraiseHouse at Jacobs Pillow and not getting the foot shuffle even though it was simple. 

 I remember Laurie’s searching look, always questioning but never judgemental she had the sensitivity to be nearly hurt but ask anger and strength that could move and inspire this around her

I remember  being on some of that tour with Grisha in Charleston in 1990 when PraiseHouse was on at Spoleto, and  Grisha asking me ' why don't you go out with Laurie instead of me?' I felt the question was sweet but ridiculous- Laurie was 10 years older than I, i was 6 years older than Grisha but I felt the same generation as her and Laurie had made her name earlier. She always felt like Grisha's unofficial mum. 'You take good care of that girl' was in her eyes when she looked at me ( she never did say it but I felt it.) She needn't have worried - I was besotted like I have never been since or before. And I remember later in NYC Laurie singing a thundering version Like a Rolling Stone with me playing guitar and the rest of  Hot Mouth singing at PS122, It brought the house down

And Laurie chose to end her days in Minneapolis. … 

Marcela who was in the Dinner company and now teaches voice and movement at the Guthrie theatre. 

I remember  going to snowy Bemidji for a Chippewa powwow where the kids wore Metallica t-shirts and had toy plastic bows and arrows made in China, and where the Mississippi is a fast flowing stream the you can cross  on a little foot bridge, I remember Miquieas, another member of my Dinner company arriving from Brasilia at a snowy Minneapolis airport seeing snow for the first time,  going with Patrick Scully one snowy cold January morning crossing the railroad track to a lake, Cedar I think, knocking a hole in the ice to dunk himself in the cold water every day as part of staying healthy regime while HIV positive He wouldn't wear a coat in freezing cold unless it got really cold. What's that?' I asked '-10 or below' he answered. 

So different ways from different directions that Minneapolis has reappeared  this year.

The Other

Whenever things get over flowery

too woolly, too  feely, 

I want a bit of ground, a bit of common sense.

But whenever things get overrational
and brows get knitted 

I want some breath, some joke

Juggling, balance, practice, encouragement

Over the past few months I have gone back to practising juggling. Why? because my balance and hand eye co-ordination is not what it used to be. If I feel physically frail then I have no confidence. I don’t want to give into frailty. Juggling in performance tends to be boring - it is just a display of tricks. Yawn Yawn. But the practise of juggling is fantastic training for hand eye co-ordination, balance, so I have incorporated juggling first into my physiotherapy at Harrow Road and since that has finished, into my morning routine at the park, but I used to practice tricks now I just do boring the 3ball straight juggling trying to get it even and symmetrical. I am rubbish  compared to how I used to be, but have more fun with it, and I am getting better.

 Is knowledge gained through practising and improving juggling transferable? Experience? Skills? If acumen is transferable, the time spent acquiring acumen in say juggling will have beneficial effects in other fields. Specific physical tasks are not transferable- eg. practicing scales on the piano will not improve your swimming, but principles of learning are transferable-

the process of working at the edge of your abilities, 

the pushing through of barriers

the principle of giving full attention whatever you practice

the principle of repetition

the principle of everyday incremental practice

the principle of getting back on the horse.

Encouragement may give you confidence but it is not enough, parental encouragement is great for giving a child confidence, giving the energy and motivation to take on new  things  and carry on when the going gets hard but without practice it can get delusional and develop arrogance-  maybe a cycle of encouragement and practice is the best way. Practice, total focus and work. I digress- thats parenting!

Throwing the balls higher (now my hands are a bit surer) gives more time and is more relaxed. I still veer towards the left. Sometimes I wish I had become an expert at something; I have skills/knowledge in several areas- music, mental arithmetic, old books, performance but as soon as I have acquired a degree of success/sense of accomplishment in one area I switch.I have always been able to escape. Now I am feeling deflated and my daughter is disappointed in me. she doesn't know what I am, but doesn't really care and just wants to swim, none of this arty stuff that her parents are involved in.

Others have given up hope in me

11th Oct 16. Instead of trying to do my best ever, I tried to improve of the average from last throw e.g. if I have 244 for 4- the average is 61, so >61 is my goal for next throw, then the focus is to improve the average rather than putting all focus on the total, all pressure on the next throw being the best ever- its a  more relaxed picture but more realistic and geared to improvement and learning- improvement by increment rather than a hoped for massive leap

the process finding edge of your abilities of setting yourself realistic goals, brings head and body together. The massive leap may happen but its always a bonus when it does. Slow incremental improvement through practice is a real goal and will not disappoint.

24th Oct 16 WORKING TOWARDS A REALISTIC GOAL , ALIGNING ESTIMATIONS WITH ACTUAL PHYSICAL ABILITY AND IMPROVEMENTS, SETTING ACHIEVABLE GOALS

Over the last 3 days I have made estimates of how much I would juggle without dropping the catches. Each day I have juggled two set of ten juggles and set my self targets so that each day I improve, e.g. 1st day 400 and 800; 2nd day 500 and 800; 3rd day 600 and 900 the targets have always been higher than before, achievable, not delusional; so I am finding the ground that is possible,; each day I have exceeded the estimates I set myself. Staying optimistic staying at extending myself. Apply this process to a different activity now, like clearing all the papers from my table and do the undone things they suggest( file papers, pay bills,  that is my goal for the day; realistic achievable bringing head body and feeling into alignment.

3rd Jan 2017:  Am I getting clumsy? a couple of times I've dropped keys or found it hard to undo shoelaces, and certainly with my feet, they are not fully under conscious control- I often kick things on the floor accidentally even if I've made mental note to avoid them; before that would have sent an automstic signal to my feet to avoid, but I DON'T HAVE THAT AWARENESSof where my feet are any more, and when  a body is younger it does so many things automatically, IT IS SO IMPORTANT NOW THAT I exercise stretch and walk, feel the ground and be proactive. I juggled 3 balls today although I am very off center- I still veer to my left - it does my sense of balance, coordination and confidence good- it keeps me at the edge. It would be so easy to just give in.

I had my diagnosis on 30th March. So that why I'm clumsy

17/5/17
Juggling has become a way of gauging my moods- yesterday was an upsetting day and my balance, co-ordination while juggling was rubbish at first but I found that as always with practice and attention it gets better. I can juggle 3 balls smoothly so it can be a way to calm myself, centre myself, hypnotise myself

June 17

When varying pattern or doing tricks, it is important to.become really decisive- to intend, decide and then do. 

But maybe its detrimentalt o always break each action methodically down into its constituent pieces.

Learn it forget it do it. You cannot unlearn something learnt,its hard to choose to forget ,

but you can put your attention on the action.

So LEARN FORGET DO

15.6

With juggling, at a certain point, ego kicks in and whether one wants to or not, it becomes a show of technique..Attention goes from concentration on the act to 'LOOK AT ME!' M

aybe one can control that.

So LEARN FORGET DO