Presented
by Dorothea Magonet
8th November
By Andy Smith
Anatomy can be a dividing topic among the AT community.
There are some wonderful teachers who rarely (if at all) refer to specific
anatomy during their teachings, while there are some equally wonderful teachers
who use anatomy as the foundation for their lessons. Likewise, some training
courses cover little anatomy while others go into great depth. And of course,
there are some pupils who respond very positively to learning about the body’s
structures while to others find it a turn-off.
So this workshop, run by the very experienced Dorothea
Magonet, promised to offer a fascinating insight into just why those teachers
who refer to anatomy find it so useful.
There can be few people better qualified to cover this topic
than Dorothea. An AT teacher for more than 30 years, she previously worked as a
physiotherapist and is now assistant head of training at the Westminster Alexander Teacher Training Course. She is
also a STAT moderator and has worked with music students at the
Alexander at the Royal Academy of Music, and to top it all off, she will be
presenting continuous learning sessions at the AT Congress in August 2015. So
the group of AT teacher trainees and recent graduates who travelled to Euston
in November were treated to a workshop full of expert knowledge of how an
in-depth understanding of the human body can be applied to both learning and
teaching AT.
Using activities to explore our own bodies, then referring
to diagrams, posters and charts, we began to deepen our appreciation of how
exactly the human body fits together and how it functions. Dorothea compiled a
very comprehensive set of notes from a wide range of sources, of which we all
received a copy, and the attendees took it in turns to read aloud, discuss
topics and ask questions.
Areas covered included:
- The
skeletal system, including the different types of bone according to both
density and shape, and the process of how bone grows from cartilage.
- Our
musculature, including the flexor and extensor systems, and our connective
tissues (cartilage; tendons; ligaments and fascia).
- The
development of the embryonic spine and how our ectoderm (skin, brain and
nervous system), mesoderm (bone, muscle, connective tissue and some
internal organs including heart and kidneys) and endoderm (gut and
internal organs such as lungs and liver) begin to form from just the third
week in utero.
- The
structure and function of our joints (fibrous, cartilaginous, and
synovial).
- The
various types of movement: flexion, extension, abduction,
adduction, circumduction, elevation, supination, pronation.
It was an in-depth morning of learning but Dorothea made it
quite clear that the majority of the information she presented was included for
our benefit as AT teachers, rather than to specifically pass on to pupils.
The idea was that once we had increased our knowledge of
some anatomy fundamentals we would be better able to relate it to movement,
body awareness and the primary control and therefore incorporate some of the
learning into our teaching.
It’s a trap to only think of the skeleton,
Dorothea stressed to us, because the muscles create a more active rhythmic
process in our bodies. And as muscles work in pairs, if
we only contract them then everything tightens. So to maintain balance, we want
to think of one side lengthening as the other side contracts, then allow our
muscles to come back to neutral.
We heard how there’s a constant interplay
between the musculature in the front of the body and the back, and how there
are two layers of deep back musculature that run up and down the spine
like a woven plait to provide strength and support. We
also covered some of the important muscles that go from the back of the body to
the front, including sternoclydomastoid that becomes overactive in startle
pattern, and iliopsoas which links the spine to the pelvis and is engaged into
length when thinking the direction “knees forward and away”.
The intriguing topic of hypermobility also
came up and we learned how we may need to consider hypermobile people
differently in our teaching. Many who have the syndrome compensate for the
extra joint mobility by becoming heavier in their movement and can therefore
experience release in a different way. So more than ever, it is essential to
see them as individuals and work with their movement patterns accordingly.
Over the course of the day, the workshop did
contain of a lot of information and it hit home how important it is to carefully
select which pieces of anatomical knowledge to pass on to our pupils, as it can
be a little daunting to be flooded with information. But Dorothea was on hand
with another piece of sound advice, which I guess is true for all teaching,
whether anatomical or not, and that was to maintain a sense of liveliness.
Non-doing and inhibiting can shut us down if we’re not careful, she said. So
when we pause we should still be alert, calm and ready.
And being alert, calm and ready was a lovely
thought with which to leave a very enjoyable and informative workshop.
Some key things I took away from the workshop
- AT
teachers don’t need to have a vast anatomical knowledge to incorporate
some anatomy into a lesson. Pupils will often benefit from just a simple
understanding of the basics.
- Having
a deeper knowledge can help tailor your teaching to better suit the
individual as it can provide an anatomical understanding of their habits
and potential aches and pains.
- The
growth of the embryonic spine into the human body is fascinating (and far
too intricate to go into here, so Google it if you can).
- For
a series of excellent anatomy videos, visit www.anatomyzone.com
