“Simply the best!”

Now with pictures by Susie Mallett, 18th January 2009

THIRD PICTURELESS PICTURE

Susie Mallett, 21st January 2008

I had thought that writing this posting was going to be easy, with just a little bit of history and then a report about a good night had by all. Things turned out a bit differently.

My night out has turned out to be yet another wonderful conductive upbringing story that could take a bit longer than I expected and will unfortunately begin its life without pictures. I have several pictures that will fit the bill so perhaps interested readers will return when the technical features are fixed!

Where to start? Let us begin with…

“Something Special”

I have built up a rather special relationship with my 18-year-old painter (and now Wii) client and his family over the past eleven years. When we met he was a very hard-working seven-year-old boy who was full of fun and often up to mischief. He had also recently learnt to walk independently for a short distance.

This young lad had attended many different therapy centres in his short life, sometimes having to take long car journeys with his Mum and Dad. It was on these journeys that he learnt to love rock music. Not just any old rock. Both he and his father were and are passionate about Tina Turner.

This lovely little boy was delighted when he met me, having persuaded his parents to let me work with him at home (he had refused to travel to any more other “therapies”, as he wanted to remain home with his siblings). Why this delight? He discovered very quickly that I too am as passionate a Tina Turner fan as he is. What is more I had seen her in concert twice and had a collection of CDs and DVDs that he could borrow.

For the next eleven years we rocked to Tina T in the walking, standing, lying, sitting, tramping-the-hills and conductive-cooking programmes! You name it we have sung it: Nutbush, River Deep Mountain High, Something Special , Simply the Best! We know all the words in English, which, my client being an athetoid with a tongue thrust that impairs his speech, is quite an achievement.

In more recent years we have also painted and rocked to Tina, and my client has even created pictures of her in concert, perched either on a stool or on her very high red-soled stilettos!

“In your Wildest Dreams”

As young as seven years of age he shared a dream with his Dad of just once seeing his favourite rocker live in concert. I also had a dream of actually being there with him, to see the delight on his face.

You can imagine his sorrow when several years ago Tina Turner announced her final tour, with no gigs nearby and therefore no live performance. I was so disappointed, not for me as I had seen the lovely lady twice, but for this young teenager whose dream was shattered.

We carried on nevertheless, rocking and working and marching to our CDs, making paintings from our DVDs, and enjoying what we had.

“On Silent Wings”

In summer 2008 I should have been working with my client when he celebrated his 18th birthday and leaving school. Instead I was in England with my terminally ill Mum. Several days after my Mum died I got a phone call from this very special family. Not only were they thinking of me at this very sad time but they also dared to phone. By doing so offering me a very special helping hand back to my life in Germany.

On this sad day in June they told me that Tina Turner was doing a tour of Germany, with two concerts in Cologne. Would I like to accompany Steffen and his dad, who were both receiving tickets for their birthdays, which actually sandwiched mine in the same week?

“Why must we wait until tonight”

I had no need to stop to think. I accepted the offer without delay and I have been looking forward to the concert for exactly seven months to the day.

I was in the north of Germany this weekend playing on a Wii with my client and his brothers and sisters (see my previous posting) but that wasn’t the main reason for my visit. Tonight was the night, the night, my client had told his Auntie, that he had been waiting for since he was about so big, indicating with his hand the size of a seven year old!

As our excitement mounted we sat at the computer, after a lovely relaxed family breakfast and a practice on Wii, searching for information on the concert, a glimpse of the Cologne Arena and any recent pictures of Tina Turner that we could find. We wanted to know whether she still looked so wonderful: did "something beautiful remain" after being in “retirement” for so long?
We could hardly wait, but wait we must, for the minibus to fill up with family and friends and then make the three-hour journey, with a few of our CDs playing old favourites to get us in the mood.

“Tonight”

This "history" took a long time. Now we are in the present. Here we were, three passionate Tina Turner fans, just about to step inside the Köln Arena and make a dream come true for this lovely young man. His first-ever rock concert too. He was wide-eyed and surprisingly very quiet, lost for words for a change.

We found our seats and soaked up the atmosphere, we watched the seats filling up and ordered a beer, and then the screaming began and with it my double pleasure. I was thrilled to be seeing Tina again but I was spending just as much time watching my young client as he rocked beside me. It was very much like when people take their first steps with bare feet on sand,or see snow for the first time as an adult. All very special experiences to witness.

“Whatever you need”

Tears came to my eyes as my client looked around and saw that the whole audience was getting to their feet as the atmosphere rose to a climax during “Nutbush". He grabbed my hand and stood up too. How could I resist? How many 51-year-old conductors can say they that have facilitated an 18-year-old client rocking to Tina Turner? Clapping, using both our sets of hands to keep the rhythm, my finger on his elbow so that he could wave his stretched arms in the air for longer, and the really conductive facilitation of holding tight on the back of his jeans so that he could rock as wildly as he liked without fear of toppling down the several rows of seats falling steeply in front of us.

We shouted the words of each song as loudly as we could and smiled for three hours. A sixty-nine-year-old womanly woman (see side panel of my blog) dancing for a rocking crowd for 150 minutes. She actually took a well-earned a thirty-minute break, during which I went off in search of a glossy programme for my client to peruse at his leisure at home tomorrow.

Tina Turner wore at least five outfits. How could I have lost count? She had the most amazing shoes, the ones with the red soles as always, and many more in every shade of glitter possible. She could still perform her characteristic strutting dance, which when we tried to imitate it while walking to the car park looked more like a line of waddling ducks! To top it all, Tina T, in her amazing stilettos, took a ride to the top of a tower and did an encore riding high above the audience, then running, yes running, up and down a very narrow runway. All this time she was singing too. Absolutely and quite simply “The Best”.

“Two People”

Both Tina Turner and my client are examples to us all on how to get the best out of life.

Thank you, conductive family in Northern Germany. I have had the time of my life, a special night that I will always remember, mainly because of a seven-year-old's dream coming true, but I can’t deny that seeing Tina T and her amazing shoes was also a treat!

Notes

My subtitles in this posting are songs sung by Tina Turner on her All the Best album -

“Simply the best!”
“Something Special”
“In your Wildest Dreams”
“On Silent Wings”
“Why must we wait until tonight”
“Tonight”
“Whatever you need”
“Two People”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_the_Best_(Tina_Turner_album)

Red soled shoes - by Christian Louboutin,
http://www.christianlouboutin.fr/

Tina Turner at Cologne arena -

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/music/live_reviews/article5531820.ece

Yet another string to my conductive bow

Movement by Susie Mallett, May 2002

Second no picture picture

by Susie Mallett, 19th January 2009

My Nintendo Wii project gets slowly under way

I have been trying to get this going now for several months. In September I recommended Wii to a family with whom I have been working for eleven years, as an ideal Christmas present for their four teenagers, one of whom is disabled.

On Friday I had a meeting with staff at the centre where I work in Nürnberg, where I presented my ideas for asking a local firm to sponser a Wii that we could use in evening activities with the young and not-so-young, disabled adults. The meeting went well, someone with a bit more technical know-how that myself will lend a hand and hopefully by the spring we will all be boxing, playing tennis, bowling and more besides.

Today I am visiting the family with the four teenagers who, surprise, surprise, did get a Wii for Christmas! I am not here specifically to play with the Wii, we have other much more exciting plans for this evening that will be the subject of another blog posting, but I have had a go on Wii and tried out the boxing, driving, bowling and playing tennis.

I think that I will need to practise quite a lot myself to work out precisely which sports and activities will suit which clients. This "participative research" will be important so that the clients can feel a degree of success even if they loose a match, and so that they do not feel frustrated at not being able to carry out required movements.

I am looking forward to adding yet another string to my conductive bow. Watch this spot, hopefully with pictures next time that I report on this project.

Note

http://us.wii.com/

First-ever no-pictures posting

A NO-PICTURES PICTURE

by Susie Mallett, 17th January 2009

Due to technical reasons my postings will be appearing pictureless for a few days unless I can get access to another machine. Once I'm fully back on line then I shall probably fill in the blanks!

Please be patient and try to visualise an art-work at the top of each posting.

Commisson your own

This gives me an idea.

Why not tell me about the images that you have visualised and I will see whether I can produce something to fit the description, then post it later. All inspirations will be gratefully acknowledged.

We could start now!

Requests please, either posted as a comment here on this blog or by email to

small66711@apl.com

Questioning angels

Dan's Marching Dinos by Dan aged 8, December 2008

This afternoon I was talking to a friend, who also happens to be one of my NICE angels, about my wonderful time in Norway. She had been reading my December postings and had really got the right idea. She realised that I had been having a whale of a time (more precisely a “dino” of a time).

Nice work if you can get it

She asked me to explain to her why it had been so good, what had made Norway so exciting for me. I described my fascination for the darkness and the amazing lights, the lovely, singing language and the fact that I could speak English to most people! Then I went on to the real reason that I had had a “Dino of a time"… the work was so good! Why, she eagerly wanted to know? In the end I told her: “Because it was just like working with you!”

My Norwegian NICE angels, Lill and Marthe, are just as much fun to work with as is Raphaela. It isn’t just the fun though, it is how they work and think that all makes for a wonderful working atmosphere, with lots of stimulating experiences for the children.

I must add that it is not only stimulating for the children when I work with these NICE-trained conductors, it is stimulating for us all, especially me. They all ask so many questions and I try to answer these to the best of my ability.

When Raphaela was still a student she came to work with me twice, and then later for a few more years as a newly qualified conductor. The flow of questions was never-ending, starting on the way to work and finishing on the way home. Even now we use up at least half of our very long phone calls on conductive questioning and problem-solving. In Norway my experience was just the same, often the Norwegians and I would sit together for a couple of hours after work deep in discussion about all things conductive. It was very beneficial for us all, not least for the children.

"You are not ready for that yet!"

Why am I writing this, why my excitement about the questioning attitude of these young NICE- trained conductors? Because while I was talking to friend Raphaela on the phone this afternoon I was reminded of just one of my own experiences as a second-year student at the Petö Institute, which encouraged exactly the opposite attitude.

I and fellow British students had been observing a group as part of our conductive pedagogy lectures and had gathered together with two senior conductor/lecturers for a short round of questions and answers about what we had seen. I and other students were asking questions relating to the theme of how we could begin to plan individual programmes for some of these children.

We all were given the same answer: “You are not yet ready to understand the answer to that question, you will learn about that next year! "

In those days I was too timid to reply with the response that was bursting to get out of my mouth: “Surely, if I know the question I am more than ready to hear and understand the answer”. This would more likely have been lost on the lecturers and we did not pursue it, we simply took our questions to our group leaders who were always more than willing to provide answers.

I sincerely do hope that students there are taught a bit differently now.

Note

NICE - National Institute for Conductive Education
http://www.conductive-education.org.uk/

Those "in between” hair days!

"My in-between hair", January 7th 2009

Hair

I am growing my hair and it has just got past the "in-between" stage.

I managed the "in-between” hair stage quite well.

Firstly for the first time in my life, because I went regularly to the hair-dressers, which is a bit of a contradiction but it worked!

And secondly because over the past six months I have not had much work where I have to crawl on the floor after small children. Working on the floor is not easy with in-between hair as it hangs in the face and simply gets in the way.

Conductors and hair

In my experience most conductors either have very long hair that they can tie back or arrange in interesting styles, or it is short, often very short, just as mine has been for most of the time that I have been a conductor. Up until now I have spent most of my time in the conductor brigade with short hair. I rarely went to the hairdresser, there was usually an arty friend or a fellow conductor who was willing to have a chop at it and save me time and money.

I expect that many conductors would say that they keep their hair short because it is so much easier that way, it takes less time to wash and dry and care for it. I would have said the same six months ago but now I really enjoy the extra minutes relaxing in front of the mirror while I dry my hair. I am lucky that my hair is very thick, so it gives me quite a few extra minutes of relaxation.

Hair influences

I love my longer thick hair especially in the minus temperatures which are still hanging on here in Germany. When I am on my bike (which has not been as often as it should be during this very cold spell) my new hair has the feel of an extra scarf around my neck.

I am also enjoying my new hair because it frames my skinny face, making it look more rounded, and that in turn makes me look more like the yellow “smiley face", all of which I am sure has a positive influence on my work!

Notes

Hair - Aquarius
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k820TcYkrNo

Catching up with the times

"Joyland", Gt Yarmouth by Susie Mallett, May 1976

As I don’t have a television and rarely read the papers, and as I have consciously been avoiding the gloom and doom of the media for weeks I thought it was time to catch up with The Times Online. I do this every now and again, usually late at night. This time I was prompted to do so as I had nearly missed the gushings of Kate and Co. at the Golden Globe awards. I thought that I should perhaps keep a bit more up to date so not to miss more such important news items as this!

One of the few interesting things that I found last night, while still avoiding the gloom and doom of the UK and foreign news pages and instead combing the women's pages, was an article by Tim Rushby-Smith. I thought that this was worth sharing.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5503516.ece

There are so many things to think about when working with children and adults with disability as I reported yesterday in my flat-hunting experience. The paragraph below, taken from Tim Rushby-Smith’s article, illustrates yet another situation that I can certainly learn from.

“But again we are learning together, with Rosalie's risk assessment based on what she knows I am capable of. There is often another parent in the playground happy to help, but I usually decline unless it is absolutely necessary as it is important that Rosalie learns to stay within my capabilities in case we are alone.”

I particularly liked the list of dos and don’ts at the end of the article.

Tim Rushby-Smith’s book will probably be added to my library of volumes by authors who themselves are disabled. As I have said before, it is from these that I learn more than from any text book.

Notes

Times Online

http://www.timesonline.co/

Tim Rushby-Smith
http://www.timrushby-smith.com/looking_up/

Looking Up: A Humorous and Unflinching Account of Learning to Live Again with Sudden Disability (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0753513862?ie=UTF8&tag=timrussmithco-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0753513862

Amazon’s customer reviews -http://www.amazon.co.uk/review/product/0753513862/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/277-1666626-3032662?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Yet another role for a conductor.

A House, by Susie Mallett, 1962

Flat hunting

I have had a very interesting day. It felt a little bit like I had a new job, although I am unsure of what my new job was. It could have been estate agent, interior designer, advisor, or perhaps it was just another ordinary day for a conductor. Whatever it was I enjoyed it.

I was viewing a flat but all the time with the image of a completely different flat in my mind’s eye, creating and constantly changing the picture in my head as I thought of all the different aspects of life in a wheelchair.

The charity that I often work for have steadily been buying up flats in the city centre, most of them actually in the property where they have their head office. The flats are gradually converted so to be suitable for wheelchair-users, and are offered to people who wish to remain as independent as they can be for as long as they can, but with the option of being able to pick up the phone to ask for help whenever they may need it. Whether the help is needed to carry in a crate of beer, shop for a new wardrobe, or assist in getting to an appointment with a doctor, there is always someone there to lend a hand.

Today I was looking at a flat on behalf of one of my MS clients who lives alone and wishes to move into this more secure, less isolating community.

Visualisation

I was actually surprised at how while walking from room to room I immediately began to imagine myself in my client's wheelchair. I began to consider now it would be trying to negotiate all the narrow doorways and in between spaces and I started redesigning it, open plan!
My client is over two metres tall so his wheelchair is slightly bigger and longer than most! He needs more space than he can actually afford, so we need to use every centimetre available to us.

I can visualise the converted flat and I assume that the architect can too, but I am not going to rely on this assumption. In the morning I will pick up the phone and suggest that the architect sits himself in the wheelchair made for the two-metre-tall man, and take a drives around the flat. By doing so he may also be able to visualise better where a centimetre here and there can be gained, hopefully without taking too many chunks out of the skirting board.

As usual I am begeistert by my work

Notes

Begeistert – enthusiastic, ardent, zealous, rapt, excited, thrilled, glowing, avid, zesty, wowed

http://www.leo.org/

http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/04/begeistert-by-my-work.html

My very own Golden Globe

Today I received my very own “Golden Globe” award and I too made a gushing acceptance speech, but I actually managed to string my words together a bit better than Kate did and I also remembered the names of my friends!

These friends are two conductive souls whom I have known since 1992. They are not only conductive souls, these are your everyday real-life souls, people who care and understand.

My own Golden Globe is three inches tall. It is getting more and more golden as it sits in my hand and develops its own patina from my touch. Most importantly, it is formed in the shape of an angel!

Yes I am the one who calls my conductor colleagues my angels, writes about Dr András Petö and his angels and has a few other friends whom I consider to be my angels, and I have actually received my own angel! I was thrilled and what luck that I didn’t have to trip up the stairs in a long dress and embarrass myself with a daft speech to receive it. I accepted it graciously with a huge smile and a warm soul.

My Golden Angel came in a lovely silky black bag with the word "pilgrim" printed all around the top. This is quite apt as one definition of the word pilgrim is “one who journeys in foreign lands", something that I have the tendency to do!

This small bronze angel was created by the sculptor Christoph Fischbach and produced in the workshops of the Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach. It came with a small booklet telling me that angels were in themselves never something to believe in but messengers, the bringers of tidings from somewhere/someone else., implying to me that this angels is sent to rest a hand on my shoulder and watch out that I do not stumble on my foreign journeys.

The friends who presented me with my mini-award I have known since 1992. I first met them in Budapest when they were living there while their daughter attended the Petö Institute. The support that they gave me in my final weeks while I was taking exams was invaluable. It really did feel as if I had my own personal angels bringing me messages from a higher level, encouraging me and showing me that I could do it! Which of course I could and I did.

András Petö I think was right when he said that in each of us is an angel (see blog references below) and I believe that we find many ways to dispatch these angels as our own messengers. I am very happy, as over the moon as Kate was with her two Golden Globes, to have my very own angel in my pocket, not dispatched to me surrounded by the glitter of hollywood stars, but in my own cosy kitchen and by two valued friends.

Notes

Golden Globes

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0MDhTcTImjQ

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/4221181/Golden-Globes-Kate-Winslet-makes-gushing-speech-but-forgets-Angelina-Jolies-name.html

Pilgrim

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pilgrim

Patina -

A surface appearance of something grown beautiful, especially with age or use
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patina

Benedictine Abbey of Maria Laach -
http://www.bonn-region.de/english/sightseeing/ahr-valley/benediktinerabtei-maria-laach-benedictine-abbey-maria-laach.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abtei_Maria_Laach
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abtei_Maria_Laach

András Petö’s angel
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKlRJDMY_V2laGhTXgJsbVbcwJ5UUf7MIZCWHGzSj3gO_P__ZgYU5uQx0koCQV-8EIK8q-y1_UN40RnmckX1NmLXsB1h6_nYFU8qNOFj6ZbPof8q7_5bgIw65yKnT2-fsTPLG_TrDibiSK/s1600-h/IMGP0112angel.jpg
http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/angels-and-souls-to-me-its-one-and-same.html
http://www.conductive-world.info/2008/11/we-all-have-angel-within-us-andrs-pet.html

Two bits from András Petö on angels

"If an illness comes into the realms of God’s influence, the Ens Dei of Paracelus, we enter the area of mercy, grace and favour and of healing through belief and prayer. The saints of the holy sites of pilgrimage, such as Lourdes, belong to this category as do theologists who believe in and speak about the work of the angels, together with that of the saints, in their sermons. Many people pray for the healing properties of these angels and saints."

Karl Otto Bärnklau, Unfug der Krankheit – Triumph der Heilkunst Verlag, Karl Schustek, Hanau/Main, 1965

"There is always a voice saying to do this and to do that and you must not close your mind to the idea that an angel is speaking from within you”.

Reportedly said in a conversation between Peter Popper and András Petö

Sex and the city

"Partners" by Susie Mallett July 2005

Sex on the menu

Don’t be shocked or disappointed at the title of this posting. It is only the name given to one of the many breakfasts on offer on the menu at what is becoming my “local”, the Café Fatal.

I was recently asked why I always go to this particular café when I now live in the city and the world could be my oyster. My answer is that it is almost like an extension to my living room, at just 188 paces away (see my blog 26th December 2008) on the corner of the next street. I counted the paces again tonight as I was quite sure that there would be more. The temperature is down to as much as twenty below zero at night and the few hours of sunshine during the day are not enough for the weak rays to have any affect on the compacted snow and ice. My footsteps were therefore somewhat tentative and, I assumed, shorter than usual as I avoided slipping over. I was sure that I would take more steps but I was wrong, 188 it remains.

Another advantage of this extension to my flat is that the nearness makes it unnecessary to don the many layers of clothes that I would need to venture further afield, to another very nice café at least ten minutes’ walk away. The route to the Café Fatal is not long enough to get cold but just far enough to feel the tingliness of the bitter night air on my face. It is near enough that at nine in the evening I can decide to grab just my long winter coat and scarf and go for a drink or even a meal and see a bit of the world.

New bits in between

It is a entirely new experience for me to go out alone to a café or a restaurant to eat a meal. During my days in Budapest I got quite used to café life, to sitting on the street with a newspaper or a sketch-book, with a coffee or a hot chocolate, but to go to a restaurant to eat, even with company, has never been one of my favourite “bits in between”. Since living in the city this has changed and I gave it a go for the third time this evening.

There is always a real mixture of characters in the restaurant, which I really enjoy as it means that I have some interesting faces to draw. There are young, old and middle-aged, and I suppose that last one is the group to which I now belong! There are groups of friends, there are couples and there are several people like me, alone with a glass of wine and a book. This evening I had actually got Barnklau’s Unfug on the table beside my notes and sketch-book and I was about to search for some more interesting snippets for “Conductive Upbringing Part Two” but, as often happens, my attention was caught by something else, this time the menu.

There is more to life than marmite on toast!

“Sex and the City” caught my eye about half way down the list of breakfasts, which also included, Tatort (scene of the crime), Golden Girls, Our Little Farmyard, Verliebt in Berlin (In love in Berlin) and Lindenstrasse (the German equivalent of the English soap Coronation Street).

All of these breakfasts combined meats, cheeses, eggs, juices, fresh fruits and bread rolls, teas and coffees, to suit the given name.

The cheapest, at 3.50 euros and by far the least healthy was “Scene of the Crime”, offering an expresso, with a dash of schnapps, and a cigarette that one now has to go outside to smoke!

For such a small café the menu has a wide choice of dishes and I ordered Winterlichen Blattsalate mit geb. Camenbert und Preiselbieren (winter leaf salad with baked Camenbert and cranberries) from the Wochenkarte (menu for the week).

One of my favourites, Käsespätzle, a Bavarian dish of a special egg noodles baked with a covering of two different sorts of strong mountain cheese, was also on the menu, plus more comfort food of pancakes with fromage frais, sultanas and ice cream.

Searching the menu again for the coffees, I found some much more interesting drinks on offer, such as hot white chocolate with slices of orange and a nip of espresso, Assam special with rum, and again for comfort, hot milk with honey.

I just about managed a cheese cake and coffee for “afters” while enjoying the music and general atmosphere. Sometimes the music can be loud and slightly overpowering, more often it is discrete. It is nearly always unusual and this evening it was French and jazzy.

As well as packing in all the activity described above I also read a couple of chapters of Unfug, sketched several faces from the crowd room and wrote this. Not bad for two hours of bits in between, more than I had managed all day!

Sex and Conductive Education

Now this title may surprise or shock the reader as it isn’t something from the menu at the Cafè Fatal, it is a bit more serious than that. Writing about the café and its menu did set my mind off and I got to thinking about something which has been a recurring theme over the years. This is a subject that is rarely broached, although it comes up regularly in my work: sexuality and disability, sexuality and conductive pedagogy/upbringing.

It is there and I deal with it.

It starts with the giggling girls in my teenage group who get their ten minutes to discuss boys before the programme begins. It continues in the holiday groups where we make time for lunchtime discussions. Themes chosen have included “My mum and dad fight and fall out because of me”, “Why can’t I find a non-disabled boy/girlfriend?” and “What will a partner think of my dis-formed figure?”

We discuss sexuality as openly as we can and we actually encourage the discussions, we try to plan time for them in our programmes.

In my evening group for young adults such themes are also discussed although young adults with cerebral palsy are not prepared to discuss sexuality quite as openly as the teenagers. They do, though, mention their concerns about their relationships with the opposite sex and talk about their wishes of finding a partner at some time in their lives.

I also have adult groups for people with multiple sclerosis and stroke, who certainly have concerns about their sexuality too. Who do they speak to, it very rarely comes up in our groups. It seems to have become a taboo subject.

I have been working as a conductor for over fifteen years now and with disabled people for twenty-five. I have clients who I have known since their childhood and it is with these, now young adults, that the most open discussion takes place. Sometimes I am bombarded with questions about their bodies and body-image, relating to their sexuality, and I sometimes do art projects drawing around their bodies and painting and decorating them, making them beautiful.

They ask me how can they be attractive despite their deformities or strange movements, there are even questions about communicating with the opposite sex when they have a disability which also affects their ability to speak clearly. Often I have parents contacting me for literature to help them deal with problems arising with their adolescent children and their new found sexuality.

All of this is important and must be dealt with within my work but this touches just the tip of the problem as many people do not have anyone to talk to.

Most of them, I have known for many years and it still isn’t easy for these young adults to broach the subject of their sexuality with me, although I suspect it is easier than speaking openly with their parents or peers. Fortunately, when they do pluck up the courage or are encouraged to join in discussion I am prepared to listen, we can be open with each other and do a bit of problem-solving together.

Sex and training

I am however prepared for this only because of my twenty-five years of experience and not because of my training as a conductor at the Petö Institute.

Does any other conductor who trained at the Petö Institute remember sexuality and disability being covered in their lectures? It certainly didn’t get mentioned in my own training days. We were taught that we were working in “a holistic manner”, “treating the person as a whole”, but this part of the whole person, developing sexuality, never once got mentioned in my training. I have learnt to deal with these situations as they arise, sometimes adequately, sometimes I fear not offering enough. I work together with parents when necessary, finding other professionals to step in when we feel that we need more help and advice.

What about you conductors who trained at NICE, or the conductor/teachers who trained in the USA? Was this a subject covered in your training?

If it was it would be interesting to know to what depth and who taught it.

In my own twenty-five years working with disabled teenagers and adults it was only last year that for the first time I heard someone at a Conductive Education conference openly discussing the issues of sexuality and people with physical disabilities. This was at the congress in Munich and it was the only presentation that I heard there that I often call to mind to help me in my work.

After this congress I asked a director of a fairly big German organisation working with people with disabilities what kind of provision there is for the adults living in its sheltered housing and care centres for discussing their sexuality and/or receive advice and counselling. She was unsure of the answer but she was pretty certain there is none.

Who then do people turn to?

And who or where can we as conductors turn to in order to educate ourselves to deal with the problems that are bound to arise, more adequately and with more confidence?

Sex and Petö

I don’t think that there is anything on sexuality in the Unfug but when I was in the Mária Hári Memorial Library last year I read a play that he had written in German, set in a suburban brothel. I do not think that András Petö was coy about sex!

Also last year in Budapest I met a lovely old Hungarian lady, now more than 80 years, who has cerebral palsy and was treated by András Petö when she was young. She told me the following little story.

She told me about asking Petö how she could enjoy love-making with her new boyfriend. András Petö went to the conductor leading the "workers’ evening group" and told her to insert certain tasks for relaxing the hips into the lying programme for the next three months. This was done and Bob’s your uncle, the nene (auntie) said, she was soon having as much fun as I do!

I don’t think that anything of András Petö’s was ever thrown away and so this programme is probably still there in the Library collection. András Petö is not the only one who can write a programme and since I was told this story I have discretely put a few tasks into my evening group's programme what I hope may be of help to at least some of them.

Have any of you other conductors working with adults got anything to share on this often taboo subject?

Notes

Bärnklau’s Unfug – Unfug der Krankheit – Triumph der Heilkunst Dr. med. Karl Otto Bärnklau, Verlag- Karl Schustek, Hanau/Main, 1965

my blog 26th December,2008-
http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/11/just-quiet-evening-for-conductor.html

“bits in between” - http://konduktorin.blogspot.com/2008/12/bits-in-between-for-conductors.html

Petö Institute - http://www.peto.hu/

NICE – National Institute for Conductive Education

Congress - Konduktivee Förderung baut Brücken, Okt.24-25, 2008, Jugenliche mit ZP und ihr Umgang mit Sexualität, M Sanna, Munchen.

Learning during the bits in between

Is spring in the air? by Susie Mallett, 2003

At the beginning of the week I was discussing the affects that the festive break has on the mobility of the clients in my Tuesday evening adult cerebral palsy group. We did our utmost in this cold spell to keep mobile and motivated by fitting in four two hour sessions in the two weeks.

Taking a constructive break

Yesterday I visited one of my stroke clients in her home. It was our first session since before I went to Norway at the beginning of December, her first session of any kind for at least three weeks.

This was her own decision. The physio- and occupational therapist had taken only two weeks holiday and I had taken none, she could have carried on with as many sessions with me as she wished all through the Christmas period.

She didn’t wish, she made a conscious decision to have a well=earned break from formal sessions, but not a break from living, which for my client means practising.

Understanding

This is one to ask if you what to know about conductive upbringing/pedagogy, the one I always suggest could give an interview if the local paper turns up. She understands and has made whatever it is she does, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy and every-day life, “conductive”. My client has always tried to incorporate, quite automatically, all that she learns into her daily life. From the start, from when I first met her over ten years ago, she has always seen her work with me as a way to improve her activity in her life and never as a series of exercises.

Pros and cons

I sometimes visit her at home and she also comes to my groups, enjoying both types of sessions, using one to complement the other. During home sessions she can ask more personal questions and work on problems more specific to her needs within her home. In the group she enjoys the motivating colleagues and the exchange of news and ideas. The pace of the group's work is slower than she experiences working alone at home, but because of the space and my colleagues I can offer a slightly different and more varied programme. In each situation, she says, she has time to think and correct her movements, but in different ways.

So what happened today to prompt this posting?

Feeling the movement and improvement

My stroke client and I spent most of our two hour session wondering in amazement at all the improvements that had taken place during her “holiday”. She had consciously chosen not to have any visits from "therapists" of any kind to her house for three weeks, she did this to give a bit of normality to the lives of both her and her family. This is not the first time that she has done this, she feels that she needs the time in order to use what she has learnt and get to know her body, its feeling and movements, more intensely. The interesting phenomena is that this client isn’t actually aware of the huge progress until we start work again after a break. During the more formal task series she tells me she is able to control her movements and she can feel what she can feel and do. Through this she begins to realise why she is finding certain situations in her life easier.

My stroke client is active. She spends every waking moment trying to be as active as possible in her family life, as independent as possible and enjoying as much of the world as she possibly can through whatever means suit her at the moment.

After we had marvelled at even the sometimes invisible improvements my client has made she began telling me of her plans for a holiday in two years time, on a cruise ship to the Norwegian Fjords. On this future occasion the break from all sessions will be filled with some extremely exciting “bits in between”.

Striving for greater independence

There is a difference between my stroke client, who took a break, and the adult cerebral palsy group, which was determined not to, but I am struggling to put into words what this difference is.

Just one of the adults with cerebral palsy lives with her family and is motivated similarly to my stroke client, by her family life and practising what she learns through living. The others live in a home and many of their daily needs are provided for them, they don’t need to cook and clean and do their washing, they are certainly less independent than they could be. For them the source of motivation to be active comes possibly more from the other members in the group than it does from their own need to be active in their daily lives.

It really is time to take a look into how the lives of such young people with cerebral palsy can become more autonomous, how they can increase their independence and become more active in running their own lives.