The Feather Swing Involve your whole body when doing the Feather Swing. Purpose: To increase saccadic motion. To gain the benefits of a vision game incorporating whole body movement. To assist the visual system in receiving and processing colours. The Feather Swing is the most important movement game for hyperopes. Benefits: The whole body and the state of various muscles and organs affect eyesight. By bringing the whole body into the game we are helping to reinforce balanced unity between the eyes and the rest of the body. The Magic Pencil helps to restore saccadic movement by moving the whole head, leaving the eyes free to make the tiny saccadic jumps. The Feather Swing expands on this principle - when the whole body is moved, including the head; the eyes are even freer to make fast saccadic vibrations. The brain is able to integrate the principle and activity more when the right brain is involved through whole body movement. When you involve your whole body, concentrating on breathing and simple movement (especially with music), it is easier to achieve a right brain, timeless state of relaxation that is ideal for maximum benefit during vision games. 111
The whole body feeling of movement together with the perception of movement (the visual world swinging past) strongly encourages faster saccadic motion. The swinging movement helps to bring flexibility and relaxation to the body; this then extends to the eyes. This kind of movement helps to pump lymphatic fluid around the body, keeping your cells clean and happy. When this particular activity is done barefoot, a point at the centre of the ball of your foot is stimulated. (Look at the bottom of your foot and scrunch up your toes. The point of deepest indentation is the spot we looking for.) This is a primary kidney point and its activation is helpful to energy levels and the visual system. Kidney point appears when foot is scrunched. The Feather Swing movement stimulate the kidney point between the large pads of the feet. How? Stand up straight, feet slightly more than hip width apart, arms loosely at your sides. Take a moment to feel yourself standing, become as relaxed and balanced as you can. Loose neck and shoulders, straight spine, deeply breathing. First we will focus on the body movement. Lift your left heel. Allow this movement to rotate your whole body to the right, with your weight shared 112
between the ball of your left foot and your whole right foot. Your body turns, your nose staying in line with your belly button. Now rotate back to the centre, your left heel coming back down. Then lift your right heel, rotating your body to the left. Your arms swing loosely by your sides as you move. Use a relaxed swing back and forth. Practice this movement for a little while, getting the feeling of a relaxed, smooth swing all the way in each direction. The movement is continuous, back and forth. Swing slowly in these early stages; especially if you feel any kind of discomfort with the motion. Once you are comfortable with what your body is doing, we will bring in the eyes. Attach your Magic Nose Feather to the end of your nose (this behaves basically the same as your Magic Nose Pencil). As you move your body, notice how the Feather moves across and strokes everything in front of you. Tickle the world with your feather as you swing back and forth. Notice how the world swings past you as you move. The eyes stay with the tip of the Feather as they did with the tip of the Pencil. We don t want your eyes getting ahead of your Feather tip, or vice versa. 113
Myopes can begin in their comfort zone starting out tickling things up close, the walls of a room or the veranda railing, then expanding out into the distance until they are tickling the hills. Hyperopes do the opposite, starting out in the distance and then coming in closer. Presbyopes will usually be most comfortable doing the same as Hyperopes. After a few moments, close your eyes and visualize. Your body still moves, however now the images are in your mind. Imagine (remember) what you were looking at as much as you can, including colours and textures, imagining how the view slides past you. After swinging for some moments with eyes shut, gently blink them open and continue swinging with eyes open. Remember to breathe. Now is when you might notice colours are brighter and details clearer, especially after a couple of rounds. Once you are comfortable with the basic Feather Swing, bring in the coloured feathers. Close your eyes and imagine your feather is crimson red. Establish the red as firmly as you can by imagining other things which are this colour; apples, cherries, a candy-apple red Porsche, stop- lights, parrot feathers etc. Once you have the brightest red feather you can imagine, open your eyes and swing with that feather on your nose. As you swing you will find all things red popping out at you from the landscape. Sometimes things you had never previously noticed were there! When you ve had enough red, close your eyes again. Now imagine orange. Vividly imagine oranges, pumpkins, the colour of a brilliant sunrise, and any other things that help you get the colour. Fill your feather with orange then open your eyes and swing. 114
Continue through all the rainbow colours. Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet Please colour me in. On a particular day you may choose to spend longer with just one or two colours. Feather Swing with colours can create some amazing results for myopes as small flowers or other items in the distance can really pop out for them. When and How Long? For Hyperopes, the Feather Swing is important for you as it helps to satisfy your need for whole body movement and brings in relaxed saccadic movement. For you I suggest fitting in some practice everyday for 5 10 minutes (more if you want!), but also bring in some small bursts through the day if you are feeling confined in your routine tasks. For Myopes, practice the Feather Swing for 5 to 10 minutes in addition to your other games on any day when you have the time to do a long (40 to 50 minutes) vision session. If you cannot fit it in during the week, then be sure to do some on the weekend. While the Near Far Swing is your primary swinging game, and should be done the most, you can do the Feather Swing instead whenever you would like some variation in your programme. 115
For Presbyopes, While Tromboning is your primary swinging game, and should be done the most, you can do the Feather Swing instead whenever you would like some variation in your programme. Colours will jump out at you from surprising distances when doing the Feather Swing with coloured feathers. 116