4 Comments
User's avatar
Radically accessible poems's avatar

I love this! My first big experience of Self 2, was (of course) pregnancy. I was pregnant and 21, and quite the intellectual. Realizing that Self 1 was actually constructing a human body totally without input from what I thought of as ME, was a revelation. I'm certainly ordering this book right away.

Expand full comment
Ben Dolnick's avatar

Pregnancy is the *perfect* example! I think you'll love the book.

Expand full comment
Patricia Jaeger's avatar

Fascinating. I had a little bit of this when my daughter took Suzuki guitar lessons, which meant that I too had Suzuki guitar lessons. I couldn't read music and I had never learned to play an instrument but I had taken dance (ballet, en pointe, tap and jazz) lessons. But when dancing, all body parts are pretty much on the same page and the arms support what the legs are doing and don't do anything complicated. I was skeptical that each of my hands could do something different, at the same time, and I had never learned about muscle memory. I had to trust the teacher and stop trying to analyze what I was doing and just do it. I did learn a lot and I certainly enjoyed it.

Expand full comment
Ben Dolnick's avatar

That's amazing! I have almost never danced in my life, except under duress, but I can see how it would be -- at its best -- entirely a self 2 phenomenon. (And there's actually an Inner Game of Music sequel, but not by Gallwey, and not very necessary-feeling, based on my skim.)

Expand full comment