Stroke group - taking things into their own hands

Painting together

At our last session before Christmas one of my stroke-group clients asked me whether he could bring his birthday present along to the next block in the New Year. The present was a painting class by artist Bob Ross with all the materials. My client asked me whether I could buy some canvases, one for each of the group members.

I readily agreed and had the canvases ready for the next sessions. I also dug out the lovely easels that I had bought with a donation for art materials received a few years ago and I also reached deep into the arty cupboard for the best paint brushes.

This was not the first time that I had helped a group of people paint along to Bob Ross whose painting techniques and art classes on television were very popular in the 1990s. It is over fifteen years ago that my colleagues and I and a few adult clients propped the plinths up on end, tied our canvases to them and spent a wonderful evening painting along to a Bob Ross video. I am sure that I could uncover the very similar but at the same time quite different set of paintings that we produced.

When my stroke group arrived for the first sessions of 2015 there was my client with his case of paints, video, brushes and all the paraphernalia needed for painting and to his and my delight the whole group was raring to go. I was surprised because we had two new clients, but they too were up to the challenge!

This project was a huge step forward from the painting projects that I did with the stroke groups when I was training at the Pető Institute. This was what the clients called ‘real art’.

They were all incredibly proud of the results that turned out much more varied than my previous attempts at Bob Ross classes many years ago. Most of the present stroke group have artistic leanings, sew and paint and create at home, and I think they found it difficult to follow exactly what Bob Ross told us to do, they wanted to put a bit of themselves into the paintings, which they certainly did.

This was everyone's favourite

It is lovely to see that the clients in the stroke group are beginning to bring their own projects into the group, to try out with their fellow group members, in the same way that the school children in the afternoon group do. The children have just organized a Star Wars fan-club visit, they cook together, have make-up sessions together and we are creating a garden. Each project is motivated by a special interest of one or two individuals.

 

The InBestForm inclusive disabled/non-disabled group for elderly clients was designed so that it could carry on in a similar way to the projects that I have described above: self-motivated and planned projects that the clients themselves can organise. 

As you can probably guess it was not only the adults who wanted to paint along with Bob Ross, once the school children got a hint of what was going on (the canvases where standing on their easels drying when they arrived) they wanted to have a go too.

This was the result of a few hours work by our 9-year-old boy with muscular dystrophy, it is my favourite -

Notes

Bob Ross -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3RYOawNITs

Oh what fun it is to paint!

 

End of day one!

What a find!

A long time ago I was in the German equivalent of a pound-shop. I went there with the hope that I would find some canvases going cheap. I was lucky and I soon had my bike laden with a score of them in all shapes and sizes. Oh, how I wished I had had my trailer with me, I could have bought even more.

While I was walking down the aisles in the shop I suddenly realised what an amazing selection of brushes and mops there was available, in all shapes and sizes to and all for just a few cents each. Most of them were meant to be used for cleaning, washing and cooking, none of them for painting, but nevertheless I soon had a collection on my bike too. I had also found a roller that I think was originally meant for collecting fluff from dark-coloured clothing. You can see from our photographs that it is now used for orange paint!

Summer’s coming

It is almost the summer holidays and our after school group will only be with us for another two weeks before the children all venture off on their various holidays and we, the conductors, will be enjoying all sorts of different work.

We had two hot muggy afternoons this week and we knew that the children would arrive exhausted, especially those who had sport’s day at school on one morning.

It was time to get out the paints

We have a wonderful cleaning lady and another wonderful lady working in the office, who had both given me stacks of old white tablecloths. One of the mums had recently arrived with arms full of pots of coloured emulsion and, put together with my array of weird and wonderful brushes, we had the beginnings of an amazing work of art!

It all took just five minutes to prepare.

I was especially grateful that we had not thrown out the packaging for our second big blue mat when it arrived a few months ago. This huge piece of plastic helped to protect the floor just a little bit, but with Little Princess going at it like a maniac with a shower sponge on the end of a long plastic stick I was still at work long after the children were at home, scrubbing the floors at least five metres away from the painting!

Look out for low-flying paint!

Spontaneity all round

I love doing these huge art projects with the children who come into their element and always show us so spontaneously how much they have learnt over the past months.

One little boy was trying very hard to stay in a knee-stand just long enough to dangle the newspaper-stuffed fingers of a bath-time glove in the middle of the picture. Off course we made sure with lots of encouragement and a little help that he made it.

There was also the thirteen-year-old who said –

‘Susie, do you really think that I am going to paint with a toilet brush?’

'This is fun!'

'Boom coming over!'

'Its that toilet brush again!'

I reassured her that it was clean and that she really should give it a go as the pattern looked like summer flowers in a meadow.

'A meadow with flowers'

I heard my colleague tittering to herself in the background as she worked with some other children, when she heard the same teenager say, just minutes later –

‘Susie, you do have some brilliant ideas.’

Even if I say so myself, yes, this really was one of my better ideas and the children had a very jolly time and made some lovely meadow-flower patterns on the cloth!

'All getting stuck in to some arty-action!'

'Jolly Prof. inventing his own techniques!'

'And no one minded about who painted where'

'Look out! Low-flying paint coming over once more. This time its red!'

Today the children asked me what this huge work of art is going to be. I actually had to admit that I had not thought of it being anymore than an “arty action”, but now of course we will have great discussions about what we will produce with it.

Eventually we will decide whether our creation will be hung on our wall, donated to one of the offices that have greater expanses to cover, cut up to make cushion covers for the group, used as a tablecloth for festive occasions, or made into a big cuddly toy!

The answer, when found, will of course be published here.

Conductive sport for all

 "Last of the summer blooms?" by Susie Mallett, 2011

Here is a comment that I have spent my lunch hour trying unsuccessfully to post on:

http://blog.jordanklausner.org/2011/08/it-isnt-always-painless.html

I am sorry Ralph,  but I could not even leave a small note for you  to say that I have posted this on my blog. Perhaps you will read it here and can then transfer it yourself  to your blog if you so wish.

A picture to head this posting will follow after work!

No, it is not always painless, I agree, probably rarely so, either for the body or the soul!

I think if more conductors or parents got on the plinths or on the mats and did the programme too they would never say that it is easy and that it does not hurt. I discussed this with my client only today, deciding that with both of us the carrying out of any movement to the extreme is going to make something stretch and ache a bit. But it is definately all worthwhile when we achieve something new.

When someone is working at any sport training, a fitness programme, cycling long distances or even doing piano practise and is pushing themselves to improve, then now and then, probably more often than not, something will hurt, there will be bruises, tiredness, someone will fall over and sometimes even break a bone.

Achieving fitness of body and soul is always hard work and we all learn how to do it in a way that is best for us and our life style with as little discomfort to our bodies as possible but still achieve results.

It does not really get easier the more we do because we are always striving to succeed and reach new aims but perhaps we do get used to the hard work, establish a routine, and hopefully the knocks and the pain become more bearable as the achievements gives us pleasure.

I too read something recently on a discussion forum where mothers said that they had heard that CE was painful. I cannot believe that anything that a child or adult with spasticity does to improve movement whether cycling, physiotherapy, riding a horse, CE or one of many other daily activites, does not at some time cause pain. It is part of my job as a conductive educator to teach these parents that it is OK for their children to experience pain, have bruises on their legs and have aching muscles, just like it is OK for us all to experience these, of course always keeping within the limits of what our body and soul can bear at the time.

Ralf, have you written about your experiences at the Petö Institute in one article or in collection in a book? You have occasionally refered to that time here on this blog and you have also shown us photographs, I think it is a very valuable story for us all, it would be good to be able to read it in full.

It is always very interesting to hear about a conductive lifestyle from a client's side. For me it is also especially interesting if I have been involved in the conduction as it so often contains very valuable critical feedback both positive and negative!

We often ask our children and adult clients to describe their experiences to us. It is as important for the future of CE to have these references as it is to have research papers, conference abstracts, etc.