point of view

Hi everybody, if you like what you read feel free to comment, if you're confused or disagree with anything you read here, please feel free to comment as well. Through contructive dialogue we can flush out some of these ideas further...

Anyway, today i wanted to fill everybody in on an experiment that I'm starting. This is a non scientific experiment, there will be no null hypothesis, no control group, no sugar pills. It's just going to be me and there may be a whole lot of experimentor error. What I'm trying to do is explore the boundary between what is fixed, structural and what is mutable, function. So often when dealing with western science, we come across things that seem permanent unchangeable, broken.

for example, the way we look at posture and aging. Contemporary thoughts on aging suggest that as we age, our bodies go through a predictable rate of decline and start falling apart. We cannot stop this, all we can do is slow it down. In that way, aging becomes a structural element, fixed.
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On the other hand, through Hanna Somatic Education, I've learned that in fact, we have the ability to control the way that our body ages and at any point can be learning better and more efficient ways or moving through the world.

I've seen 70 year olds successfully reverse decades of constant back pain, I've seen scoliotic curves change and the discomfort disappear, and I've seen arms that hadn't straightened in years, "magically" straighten. All this suggests that problems once seen as structural are not, rather they are a symptom of function.

So we get to me and my experiment. If you've known me after the age of five, you've probably seen me either with glasses or contact lenses. I've had awefull vision my whole life and I'm tired of it. Don't get me wrong, I'm quite thankful that I've been able to "correct" my vision through the use of lenses, but I also sense that these lenses serve as a crutch and that as my eyes adjust to the lenses, they shift and become weaker. And so, my prescription has become worse and worse and worse. For what it's worth, currently my left eye is a +5.75 and my right eye is a +6.00. I also have astygmatisms, meaning my eyes are lumpy. Whatever.

I've decided to put Hanna Somatic theories to work and try to "fix" my vision.

Here's what I intend to do.

For the next 4 weeks, I will, once a day without glasses do the following exercises to help my eyes learn to focus without the aid of lenses.

-tracing: picking a line on the wall, horizontal and then vertical, I will follow the line visually without moving any part of my body other than the eyes. I will then follow the line keeping my eyes still and just tipping my head. Lastly, I will fix my eyes on one point and move my neck back and forth.

-focusing: To get my eyes used to focusing more quickly, I will pick a point that is relatively far away, a point that is close up, and a point in between. I will then alternate, focusing on one point until it becomes clear, holding my focus there for a few seconds, and then moving to the next point.

Feel free to follow along at home without me and then when I go back to the optometrist, I will let you know if there has been any shift in my vision.