Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE

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The Power of a Pause

Do you go around filling every moment, or feeling that you should fill every moment of your day by doing something? It certainly is one of my tendencies with so many hobbies and interests, and being an Alexander Technique teacher, where one of the main cornerstones of the technique is called 'Inhibition' the process of giving ourselves time to think of how we're doing things, I still feel that I could be a lot better! By pausing we give ourselves time to think, to make choices how and what we do, but if we blindly rush ahead without thought, we always do things according to our habitual pattern, so reinforcing the habits, making our tendencies stronger, and if they are unhealthy ones, then we're undermining our health and performance in the long term. Basically it's good to stop....to pause and give our self time.

Giving time to things is important in almost any aspect of life. We can choose how we do things and even whether to do so, or not. Giving time to create space between things is important. this gives space for choice and to also emphasise the actions. Is a piano keyboard white with black keys, or black keys with white? If we didn't have night following day, we wouldn't have day......it would just ......be.

Is the Yin Yang simbol at the top, black shapes on white or vica versa? Without one, we don't have the other.

As a photographer in my spare time, I work with light, but in reality I can only do this because there is also darkness. It's the combination, or rather the contrast between light and dark that makes form, shape and shadow, without which we there would be blandness....an evenness of tone that would not distinguish one thing from another.

Arthur Rubenstein once said "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes—ah, that is where the art resides."

When an orchestral conductor raises his baton to prepare the orchestra there is a silence. There is an anticipation in the air....it's electric. This pause and silence is almost deafening to the point we are aching for the music to begin.

Top comedians are renown for their timing. If they didn't have such an acute sense of rhythm, space before the punch line, anticipation of the audience reaction, then they wouldn't be half as funny. When a golfer makes his stroke, it's the timing that counts.....it's the avoidance of rushing, to give space, rhythm, smoothness and pace to the stroke. Slowness is the absence of speed. Or is it the other way round?

When I have a violin lesson, my teacher frequently reminds me not to rush or snatch at the next note. When I'm a little anxious about performing the next passage, I tend to rather rush into it. But as Vivien Mackie, one of my AT colleagues and master of the cello who trained with Cassals, says in her book 'Just Play Naturally', the next note does not arrive until the end of the existing or current note. Each note has its duration and should be allowed it's full life. Composers make notes a certain length for a reason.....as well as the rests or pauses.

Letters of the alphabet and words on a page don't exist without the space around. Space gives meaning. The space can have meaning itself. Does the picture opposite say Me or You?

If you are making a presentation at work or a speech at a wedding, do you tend to rush to quickly? Do you allow enough time between your messages to let them sink in, to let them have gravitas and weight?

So getting back to our daily lives.....are there enough spaces and gaps between our activities? You might say that there isn't enough time for gaps when there are already more than enough things to get done. But supposing the spaces are just as important as the actual tasks? They may be important for different reasons, but just as important to help us perform well, to think, consider, to choose not to do things, to reconsider, to decide definately to do something, to prioritise, to re-prioritise,to give emphasis to our actions, even to rest so we can perform well later.

Recently I have been espousing the benefits of a short nap during lunchtime to revive energy levels and productivity for the afternoon. To this end I set up the UK's first National Siesta Day. Our body's own 'biological clock' determines that we have rest at certain times to ensure health and well-being.

Do you ever sit down and choose to do nothing? I don't mean when you're idling and not got much to do, but during a normal busy day. Do you ever stop and give yourself one minute....or five? The pause gives time to see our situation from the outside, to reconsider, for the troops to regroup, for the dust to settle and see just where we are. The pause is as important as the action, for harmony in our life, for our actions to have meaning, for our words to have impact.

It takes courage and a great deal of self-will to sit down for a moment or two and choose to do absolutely nothing when there are twenty things pending and not enough time. Maybe we can re-prioritise what we do, chuck a few tasks in the bin.

It's good to stop and breathe, to pause and look beyond the desk. When walking outside, rather than looking at the pavement just in front, to raise our eye level to the horizon. Look at the end of the street, down a mile away....and the first floor windows and roofs. Lift your vision and see the scope for your life to make changes, to reinforce what you are already doing, to know that you are going along the right path or to choose to reconsider.

Giving space to our lives makes what we do more impactful. Pausing before action gives time for thought, re-thought, to galvanise our resources and make sure the next task is done just absolutely brilliantly, as well as we possibly can. As the saying goes, "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing...... " So pause and think about this a little....if you can just make this choice for yourself.

Stopping creates new beginnings....

:-)

Posted by Noël on July 25, 2006 8:39 AM | Permalink