Thursday, July 29, 2021

 Thursday, July 29, 2021

 

I followed my recent pattern; I woke around 4 am and spent the rest of the time in bed dozing and agitating. This internal disturbance is how I lived as a child. Not good. 

I ran into Carol with her dogs, Luke and Max, on my morning walk. We observed a clutch of chickens on Kukuna. I have watched this mother hen raise her young. They were on their way to full grown, and all eight were still alive. Carol said there used to be a flock on Holoholo. Did I know what happened to them? I haven’t walked that way for a while. I realized she was talking about the house on the corner of Hiolani and Holoholo. It has a heavily wooded section filled with chickens. I spoke to the owner once about a year ago. She thought as many as 50 wild chickens were living in her yard. I haven’t walked in that area for about a year. I wonder what is going on.

Joe and I were the only students for driveway yoga this morning. We’re the most consistent students. Yvette would be back on the 30th and start leading the class again.

I had Mama K’s crew at 8:30. I started with Twin A. We worked on letter recall. She did it so easily that I checked that I had the right twin. It was. We also worked on blending initial sounds with the word family-at. I continued avoiding the stopped consonants (b, p, t, d, g, and k+; she has enough problems blending the continuants (f, h, j, l, m, n, r, s, v, and z). 

Twin E did pretty well recognizing or blending all the words in the -at family. With her, I can use both the stopped and the continuant consonants for the initial sound. Rather than have her blend words in the -ap family, I worked on the sight word the. She couldn’t remember what I said from one minute to the next. When I did ask her what the word was, she said that. It was the right time to use the BrainManagementSkills.

She used the correct part of the brain for her visual working memory but used the same part of the brain for auditory processing. That’s up there with using your feet to do what you should use your hands for. Getting dexterity in the feet is possible, but it takes a lot more work to make it happen. I redirected her to use the correct spot in the brain for auditory working memory. I asked her if there was a disruptive movement in that area. Yes. I gave her the six patterns of movement. I always say, “or something else?” when if offer those patterns. She said, “ Something else.” It was a spiral. The illustrations are all spirals, just from different angles. I then asked her if the spinning in her brain sped up or slowed down. It slowed down. Yes, she liked it. I would too. It’s very peaceful. It just interferes with left brain academic activities. I have to learn to do what she does, and she has to learn to do what I do. I told her to let it slow down as much as she liked. She said, “Done!” I have no idea what happened. I’ll follow up tomorrow.

After yoga, I rushed to get my linens in the washing machine. The sky was clear, but I knew it would be overcast by 11 and raining by noon. The machine cycle ended after the morning session with Mana K’s crew at 9 am. I quickly took the linens out to the line and jumped in the shower. As I dried, I took the linens down again. They were just damp. I threw them loosely on top of my bed to finish drying. I had to leave at 9:30 for my 10 am chiropractic appointment.  

I made it to the appointment just in time. I hadn’t seen Kim in over a year until two weeks ago when I saw her, hoping she would have some insight into my foot problem. She did. She did a little work on my back but didn’t have time to do much. Now my foot was much better. Massaging it with a golf ball as I type seems to have done the trick. Now, I wanted more work on my back.  

It was becoming more evident that all the muscles on the left side of my body were very tight. I asked the chiropractor to work there. As she did, it occurred to me that she had done that work before. I’ hadn’t made much progress. She recommended the clamshell exercise; I was supposed to lie on my side with my knees bent and my heels together and raise my top knee into the air as much as possible. The purpose of this exercise is to strengthen my glutes. Interesting. She is the second person to push an exercise involving a hip turn out, particularly in my left hip.  

At 3 pm, I had A. He balked again at my instructions. I confronted him directly on his strategy of avoiding anything that seemed abnormal in his desperate need to be normal. I asked him if he was afraid he was abnormal. “Yes,” I told him there was a good chance he wasn’t. He was just misusing his brain. You can see where I’m going; I’m introducing BrainManagementSkills. He said yes. I pointed out that everyone is concerned about not being normal in some way or another. His problem was just more visible. I told him what I had told most students I worked with. I tell them that if I can’t solve their problem, someone will in their lifetime. Cognitive and neurological approaches are big these days in scientific circles. They have entered the mainstream. People are talking about them even if they don’t know what it means or how to do things differently. I told A that he was either normal and doing things wrong or he was not normal. Avoiding looking at it wasn’t going to make a difference. As I talked about the two options, I had to draw a diagram with normal on one side and abnormal on the other. He finally agreed to do the BrainManagement with me.

I asked him for the color of his blanket, to see it in his mind, and then tell me where he held the image in his head. I can see someone saying, “I don’t know where I do that. How can she expect a young child to do it?” Some can’t, at least not the first time I ask them. Developing brain awareness is part of the job. I tell them, “I don’t know, is a perfectly good answer.” Usually, students can answer the question after one or two sessions. Why? Well, they start asking themselves that question and eventually discover the answer. A pointed to his forehead. Great. In my experience, this is the best place for visual working memory. (I have one student who uses a space further back in the brain. It seems to work.) 

Then I made a sound and asked him to remember the sound and where he held that memory in his brain. He pointed to his forehead. Well, that’s a clue as to why he is having problems. I took two pencils. I used one to point to a spot just to the left of my soft spot and a second to point to my temple. I told him that if I pushed those two pencils into my head, where they would meet is where I should hear sounds. He made the switch, and there was an immediate change.

The first time I saw this child on Zoom, I thought there was something wrong with him. He looked confused like he was dizzy. He exhibited some uncomfortable behaviors, moving his head around in strange ways. When we started this exercise, he exhibited those head movements. When I asked him why he moved his head that way, he said it itched. I have no idea why making movements with his head helped with an itch. However, everything changed when he switched his auditory processing to that spot I indicated. He held his head erect, and he looked clear-eyed. I asked him if it was easier to understand what I was saying, harder, or the same. He said easier. I asked him if his head felt weird. He said yes, Great. That means there was a change, hopefully, a change for the better. I helped him practice using that center for hearing speech sounds first by speaking to him briefly in German and then reading to him without asking him questions about what I said. The initial objective is just to experience speech sounds in that area of the brain, regardless of language or content. 

I watched something on Netflix last night. A documentary on a French woman who was murdered in a small seaside Irish town. I want to watch several programs on the masterpiece channel, but I’m so pissed by the extra charge for the local PBS channel that I’m denying myself the pleasure. I may have to change my tune.

I hadn’t heard from Tommy, my tech, for a few days. I wanted to know if he could salvage the video. The way it was now was unacceptable, unusable. I went back and checked the original videos as posted on Zoom. They were crystal clear, and the sound was in sync with the images. Could he achieve that for the YouTube version? I texted him the question. He sounded annoyed. I can imagine. He already put in work on the video, only still be stuck with it. I suspect he thinks I was not going to pay him for his unacceptable work. He charges much less than much less experienced people, a lot less. He’s experimenting himself. As long as he can get a good quality, I’m happy.  

In my evening walk, I saw Mei in her front yard. She and her son David are back. David has a student visa because he was accepted at the Parker School. Mei was allowed in as his mother because David is a minor. Her husband, Peter, and her daughter, Anna, are stuck in Canada until their visas come. The other day Mei asked me if I knew anyone who would be interested in a job helping her deliver their Turo cars. I asked around and found someone. I told Mei that Steve would call her. She asked me if he was a boy or a girl; "Steve is a boy". She then told me that Peter only wants girls. I wonder why. Either way, a) she didn’t tell me that, and b) I don’t know of any girls. As I think about it, I might be able to find someone interested through the Bikram community.