My current state of Re/Progress

[cezar]

Hello everyone, I’ve been trying for last 2 months to do something with my eyes – which means “practicing” what I thought I understood from Bates method. During week I was actually reading his book which I read two times and some chapters more than 3,4 times. I also read his magazine, by the way I think that they are far more than complementary, they provide more details concerning methods of treatment. But it may be like with martial arts book – you really need sparing to get essence. I was trying to practice shifting, variable swing, long swing and short swing, fine print, astigmatism wheel, sunning and palming as well as some imagination techniques but still with eyes closed, not able to do it with eyes open. I had some flashes like during running, or driving a car as a passenger. And also one which was great -> after practicing swing and astigmatism wheel I went out to eat sth and then suddenly I saw that I see faces of people in mid distance with some halo around them, things started to look clear, it was breathtaking experience for me, I had tears in my eyes, I cannot describe how it feels, how joy comes to your life and how much I started to be aware I need it in mine.
I planned my vacation in October for two weeks where I could practice not disturbed and lay on the beach and get sun as well. You can look directly at the sun with one eye open the second closed with myopia, you cannot do it with both, but I do not know how, you can look directly with one eye. But that was stupid I wanted to be cured like people in Bates’ clinic in two weeks time. Then I noticed that I see sometimes yellow spot directly in the center. So start sunning with eyes closed like Bates said, there was a reason for that. I also must admit the more sun, the easier it is to see. I thought that if I concentrate on those techniques some result should come. But I do not get any temporarly permanent improvement, I do not even mean getting better eyesight next day, I mean that when I am short swinging, the letters start to get clearer, but often double, and when they get really clear they start to move slightly from left to right and down for one second and then get blurry again, also when I blink the clearness disappears. What was nice was the fact that I first saw halo effect on letters and then read about it in Bates article, but I read about black spot, part of letter - > I still cannot see that. That is what frightens me most that I do those exercises but do not feel I got the mechanism of doing them right. I remember during research that I read about the method – like palming tried for 5 minutes and boom I see for a second clear, that variable swing boom see clear, but the best effect was with fine print flashing in terms of distance. The problem was that I could not obtain those results that easily with palming and fine print. I cannot do it now with palming and I get it with fine print once per 10 attempts.
And now when I came back I’ve got a feeling that my vision deteriorated and this is not the outcome I expected. On the other hand I remember those magic moments when it turned out the pretty every technique can help you as I saw change in my vision (for a fraction of second however). That is why I am sure that Bates method works, I just do not know correct mechanism, I get it I keep on going on myself. Give me fishing rod I can catch a fish myself and spread the word. If someone does have knowledge of how to do them correctly – was doing them and got results like David,Nancy for instance - please let me know where I make mistakes in my exercises, because I got more and more lost, I read more and more and get more and more desperate. When I read that juggling helps I learned how to juggle, but even during this I feel sometimes strain in my eyes. But really do not know how.
Variable swing the problem is that it (as I described it in earlier post) caused pain quite often in weaker eye – I do not know why, because I just moved my head with eyes centered moving across the Snellen test chart, it probably strained my eyes, but do not know how. I turn left right, my eyes go exactly the same way the head is going the speed is quite moderate, the distance is from one letter to entire line. And I feel some kind of pain/tension/discomfort in my eye. I cannot describe that it is strain, because when your muscles are tensed after physical fatique when you relax them you also feel pain… but they are relaxed not tensed. No idea about this, just hopeless and angry.
Shifting – I simply move quite quickly in jumps from one end of line to the other, I do not get reasonable results in 5-15 minutes. Head not moving only eyes.
Fine print – I can read 3,5-5 size from close distance, but moving it slightly further like a nanometer it gets blurry and I do not know how to “relax my eyes” or “see and not try to see”. (There is also sth strange with reading now, as I was told to “jump from separate letters in words” but even this I believe causes some kind of tension, I try to see focus on part of letter with my attention in one word and the quickly go to the other, I believe it is quick, but why is there tension I do not know.
Optical Swing – I do not know how to obtain it, I can imagine it with eyes closed but not open – the most difficult thing for me now. I tried with long swing but I guess it is not for that.

What can I say, please help me, because I am alone in dark room and I cannot find thing I am trying to find. I know that you have this feeling those questions were asked before, maybe even you are right, but if you do give a fuck to sacrifice 5 minutes and tell me how you do those techniques with details like speed of movement, angle, direction it could help. And I would not feel all by myself. I do want to pracitce, I do want to work with this, just do not know how. Please provide me with your contact number if you do not want to write and I will simply call you when convenient.

[jiminos]

first of all... i am no expert, so take what i write with a grain of salt.

having read all that you do, i notice one thing is missing.... relaxing. you talk about all your hard work. you talk about your effort. what you don't mention is how much you are relaxing.

in reading Dr. Bates' works, what struck me when i had finished was this.... except in cases of physiological eye problems, for most of us perfect vision is right there in front of us waiting to be realized. we have all seen this in moments when we somehow manage to briefly remove all the tension from our eyes and we see like we have not seen since we were children! we are overjoyed. we blink.... and then we lose that clarity.... the tension has returned. but, the next time we manage to get rid of the tension we have clarity again.

this tells me that, as Dr. Bates has stated so many times in so many ways, the "secret" to perfect vision is the elimination of tension in the eyes.

from your post, i gather you are interested in martial arts. so, tell me... which reacts quicker.... a tense hand or a relaxed hand? a tense leg or a relaxed leg? if i remember correctly from my early days in the dojo.... a relaxed tiger is a greater danger than a tensed tiger. the relaxed hand is much quicker, because it doesn't have to be relaxed before moving, it is already relaxed. in the same way, the eye that has no tension sees better. it does not have to relax before seeing, it is already relaxed.

when you swing back and forth.... do it slowly. in a relaxed flow from one side to the other. let the universal swing show itself to you. don't force it.
when you palm... don't try to see anything, not even "perfect black." don't "try" to see anything. to "try" is to use effort. to use effort is to force, or induce, tension.
when you sun.... if you have to force your eyes to the sun, you are doing it wrong, it must be done in a relaxed manner. if you must force your eyes to go someplace, you are causing tension.

perhaps this will help. perhaps it will not. it helps me.

be well,

jim

[cezar]

Hi there,
you are right about those things, especially with the relaxation as this is quite hard for me to master. Master is quite a gross exaggeration I would say , just cannot even handle grabbing it for a while . It is not relaxation that creates punch, it is speed and movement of whole body reinforcing the movement, but you cannot obtain extreme speed, reflexes without relaxation – at least that is what I think.
Actually it would appear that it was not that wrong, I recently returned to Warsaw and having in visual field my everyday points of reference - concerning the eyesight I could even say there was some very slight improvement. But it varies and I cannot reach this feeling of relaxation in my eyes, actually they seem to hurt even during the variable swing with one, two letters on Snellen chart I get strong "needle in my eye" pain very soon, but the sight does improve. On the other hand when I perform the long swing I can relax and not pay attention to what I see, the problem is everything gets extremely blurry, I guess this is what they call spacing out – I read about it recently. But I do not feel the pain. There is probably slight line between pain and what they call attention. So I am still hopeless. But thanks for the tip anyway.