Holland (Amsterdam and Bussum)

February 19-23, 2011

Tommy Thompson
workshops and private lessons – February 2011
“Being comes before experience and produces it”

A compassionate approach to habit, primary control and
supporting the potentiality of the self

Primary control, when working well, brings about a greater sense of ease, and a more integrative experience of who you are relative to what you’re doing. Tommy Thompson’s approach to teaching over the past 30 years has been to place the potentiality of the self as core focus, believing that the experience of one’s interconnected self gives us more authentic freedom to fulfill our potential.

Tommy says “I am always aware of working with the person’s potentiality, rather than working with their “habit of use” in any negative sense. No matter how deeply rooted the habitual patterns of behavior are in a person, there is always more to them than their habits reflect; perhaps even who they truly are, or certainly wish to be. I see habit in this context of a person’s identity becoming fixed by tensional patterns of behavior that interfere with the natural functioning of primary control.

In my lessons with Frank Pierce Jones, he stressed that according to Alexander primary control was “as much a state of mind as it also described a physical mechanism” and that the use of the self depends on the level of interconnectedness that the individual is able to maintain in response to life. Primary control is then very much about the experience of being interrelated to all that is, even while we are engaged in activity.

My attention and my pupil’s attention to the inhibitive moment involves withholding definition of who we habitually are, to allow in new information that informs the experience we are having of us, rather than us always informing and managing our own experience based on past perceptions. I use my hands to disperse the patterns that limit the person being who they really are and can be now. The process of helping someone let go of what was once quite useful, important and perhaps necessary to them as they forged their sense of self-worth calls for compassion on our part as teachers. Our recognition of habitual “use” in these terms is a positive opening to a vast world of possibility. For me it is a truly wonderful approach to communicating with a student.”

This is the third year Tommy comes to Holland. The 2009 workshop focused on inhibition as direct experience of being more present and connected – opening oneself to new information to create a natural “stopping” optimal for an “inhibitive” state of being. We also worked with directing awareness, differentiating between forms of attention and intention. In February 2010 Tommy gave 3 short workshops for small groups, with more opportunity for hands-on work. The focus was on connecting with the person rather than their habits and connecting the person into an activity. Activities varied from static to highly active, including tango and salsa dancing, letter writing and playing instruments. We experimented with what was different about directing attention to primary control at a deeper, more fundamental level than just the mechanical/neuromuscular, and we explored the experience of (re)connection to the self that this could give.

In 2011 Tommy will give two one day hands-on workshops (max 12 participants on each day). We will go from working with a person in an activity to working with a person’s involvement in being while doing. We will further explore primary control as interconnectedness of the self and the process of compassionately supporting an individual’s potential for more authentic freedom and ease. In response to high demand for private lessons in previous years, Tommy will also be available for 3 days after the workshops.

Practical Information

One day Workshops (open to teachers)

  • You can choose between Saturday 19th or Sunday 20th February 2011
  • Both days run from 10 am to 4 pm and are in Bussum @ De Praktijk, Roemer Visscherlaan 4. It is 20-25 mins by train from Amsterdam plus 5 min walk from Naarden Bussum station.
  • Cost – 90 euros early booking fee (before 19th January) 100 euros for later bookings. Please note bookings will also be open to teachers from other countries after this date.

Private lessons (open to teachers, trainees, pupils and family/friends)

  • Monday 21st to Wednesday 23rd February (Wednesday in Amsterdam, other days in Bussum)
  • Cost – 60 euros for 45 minutes (trainees can also chose to book half an hour lesson for 40 euros)

Booking

To book please contact Rebecca Gwynn-Jones (rgj@online.nl /0641915075).

Your booking is confirmed when payment (for workshop and/or lesson) is received by internet transfer to NeVLAT’s account.

Cancellations – you can get half the fee back if you cancel up to one week before, or the full fee back if someone else takes your place.