Resolve to write in 2017

Just as no two snowflakes are exactly alike, so it is that everyone’s handwriting is unique.  The differences may be subtle, yet they are there in between the lines, in the fine-tuned curves and angles, in a dozen different nuances.  

Cursive writing joins letters within words as the ink and our thoughts flow easily onto the page.  When we write we are actually making an imprint of ourself onto the writing surface.  When we journal attentively, the impulses from hand to brain communicate as well, and we subliminally affirm and reaffirm habitual thinking patterns.  

The Letters of the Vimala Handwriting System™ were created to reflect our most innovative thinking skills and enhance positive, forward-thinking attitudes.  That said, it is meaningless unless we pick up our pens and write them.  I invite you to do just that this year and experience for yourself.

I encourage you to adopt the first initial of your first name (the one that is on your birth certificate — not a nickname) for 2017, and write three lines of that Letter, uppercase and lowercase.  Next write a few lines of words that have your initial as the first letter, the last letter, and a word with it  somewhere in the middle.  This only takes a few minutes, and the reward is so worthwhile.  “What will happen,” you ask.  I don’t know, but this I know for certain — something will happen!  And it will turn your head and your thinking around.  Try it and see what happens.  I would welcome your feedback, please do write and let me know what unexpected and wonderful things ensue.  susan@alphabetpenandink.com

Alphabetical blessings,

Susan

susan@alphabetpenandink.com

www.alphabetpenandink.com

                            ©Susan Govorko - alphabetpenandink.blogspot.com - All rights reserved

Learn from Vimala herself with the new ABCdraw app:

http://www.iihs.com/abcdraw.html

All NEW ABCdraw!

ABCdraw has created an app that merges The Vimala Alphabet into an interactive learning program--a fun learning tool with tablet and stylus! Vimala guides you both verbally and with alphabetical examples on the computer screen, on how to form each letter, and encourages you to use a stylus to follow her suggestions as you write each letter on your tablet. The program is easily implemented by anyone who is learning to write, including those gifted with learning disabilities. As you implement ABCdraw in your classroom or at home, watch attitudes improve! 

Write a letter!

Dear Parents, Teachers, Caregivers,

    Disney is offering a wonderful opportunity for your child to practice cursive writing!  It doesn’t state it has to be in cursive, however such an opportunity to reward the effort shouldn’t be missed!  

    Write a letter to the address below, and receive an autographed 8X10 picture of your favorite Disney Character — don’t forget to mention which one is your favorite and maybe why!

Walt Disney World Communications

P.O. Box 10040

  Lake Buena Vista, FL  32830-0040

December Greetings

December greetings, 

The why or the how of holiday celebrations are not so important as the core essence of what we do and say and believe.  This year, let’s take the opportunity to acknowledge the people in our lives who mean so much.  Let’s embrace the gifts of the Season of Light and share our gratitude with those around us.

Gratitude is a Gg word, one of its greatest gifts.  Thankfulness is an attitude that precipitates happiness.  When we reflect on the things in our lives that truly fulfill us, we become acutely aware of the people whose presence make our life meaningful.  We remember the greatest gifts are really time spent with family and friends.

Amid the busy holiday schedule, take time to reflect; pick up your pen and write a few g’s — the graceful figure-8 Vimala g’s.  

Best wishes for a Holiday Season filled with friends, family, laughter, and always love.

Alphabetical blessings, Susan

alphabetpenadink.com 

©Susan Govorko - alphabetpenandink.blogspot.com - All rights reserved

The Blank Page

The Blank Page

Sitting down to write, we pen our thoughts onto a blank page.   The paper represents our personal world, where we live.  Ruled paper is very conforming, whereas clean, unlined paper offers us the opportunity to set our own parameters.  How we fill the page is comparable to how we fill our life.  

I often say to clients, ‘breathe into your writing’ meaning allow space on your page — space to breathe, to think, to make time for the really important people and things in your life.  Sitting down to write, take three or more deep breaths into your tummy:  placing a hand on your lower abdomen, breathe so that you can feel it expand.  Breathe deeply, beyond the chest.  These are cleansing, calming breaths.  You will feel a difference.

Next turn to your blank page.  

Setting up our blank page, we give our writing margins, spaces between the letters, spaces between words, spaces between sentences, and spaces between the lines.  Margins frame our page.

•  Margins are usually about an inch from the edge of the page, although 

  the right margin may be slightly less because that’s where our lines end, 

  and the words cannot line up exactly.

•  Our top margin is an expression of respect, giving space to the reader.

•  Spaces between letters allow our handwriting to breathe.  Spaces       

    between the letters are about the width of half of a lowercase cursive a. 

•  Spaces between the words indicate how much ‘elbow room’ we give to

  others who share our life.  Spaces between words are ideally about the 

  full width of a cursive a.     

•  It’s important not to tangle our handwritten lines.  Sometimes the upper

  loops or stems of letters like d, h, l, f, or t touch the letters in the 

  line above.  

  Sometimes the lower loops or stem of letters like g, q, p, y, j, or z

  touch the letters in the line below.  It’s important to allow enough space 

  so that each line is clear and doesn’t invade the line above or below.

•  Moving our pen, we work our way across the page from the left margin to 

  the right side.  We move steadily, evenly across each line making our 

  baseline level across the page.  

The blank page represents our world, the environment we live in.  How we fill the page is illustrative of how we fill our world, our life.  Is there enough time and space in it to enjoy all the things we want to do?  Are we crowding too much into every hour?  How present do we feel?  What does your page say to you?  

Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

        -Arthur Schopenhauer

©Susan Govorko - alphabetpenandink.blogspot.com - All rights reserved

Movement on the page

   Give a toddler a crayon and some paper, and she will begin making marks this way and that.  She will move the crayon around the paper; or she might move it back and forth or up and down.  The first experience any of us have with drawing or ‘writing’ is movement!  What fun to move the crayon and see the new images appear on the blank page.  It isn’t just scribbling — it’s thoughts on paper!

   In handwriting, there is movement of thought on paper.  Thought moves through the hand and the pen and onto the paper.  Direction is a fun element to play with and, in cursive, direction is meaningful.

   In our Roman Alphabet, our words read from left to right.  When we write any letter, it’s important to always end it on the right.  The left is where we are coming from; the right is our next moment, where we are headed.  The pen point is our present moment, and the direction we move our pen represents which direction our thoughts tend to move.  

   Ending letters and lines to the left keeps our thoughts mulling over what’s happened in the past.  Ending letters and lines to the right puts our minds looking forward to what’s happening next.  While there’s nothing wrong with remembering good things from a long time ago, it’s not how we want to live all the time.  

   When we write we are drawing patterns of form onto paper, and we are also making patterns of thinking that become our habits.  The process becomes automatic, and it is amazing because everyone’s handwriting is so distinctive — no one else in the whole world thinks or writes exactly like you!  Or me, or anyone else.  Each of us is unique.  

~~~

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language, and next year’s words await another voice. To make an end is to make a beginning.    T.S. Eliot (1888-1965)

©Susan Govorko, October 2016 blogspot 

The Gift of Cursive Handwriting

The Gift of Cursive Handwriting

   My high school English teacher impressed the value of keeping a journal.   I didn’t enjoy it then.  It seemed tedious trying to think up topics to write about on a daily basis.  Forty-five years later, I still have that journal.  And lots of others I have penned over the years. 

   Thirteen years ago I took a course from Vimala Rodgers who taught me how to use handwriting as a tool.  I learned firsthand through daily handwriting practice just how transformational this technology is.  Through taking on two or three Alphabet Letters at a time, writing them daily for forty day cycles, subtle shifts in my approach to life became the corroborating evidence that handwriting truly does reflect the way we think and vice versa.  Where there were problems, I began to see solutions.  Discouragement lost to acknowledging my own personal choices.  I was empowered to find resolve.  What was changing were my attitudes, and that made all the difference.  

   Later I learned from mentoring others and was amazed at the strides they made in their own lives after taking on a couple 40-day cycles with selected letters for their own particular situations.  

   We all view the world through filters.  Our worldview is seen through a lens tinted with our opinions, judgments, values.  And we’ve acquired these “tints” imperceptibly over time.  Little things said when we were a child.  The adopted views of well-meaning parents, teachers, friends.  Our own misunderstandings.  Our own experiences — both positive and negative, play into the field of our unfiltered perceptions.  Seamlessly these opinions about ourselves and about life are woven into the fabric of our thinking.  We tend to approach life with a bias.  Our beliefs lead the way.  What if we could capture the capacity to think in terms of what’s possible?  Replacing ‘can’t’ with ‘how?‘  Rather than ‘won’t work,’ think ‘modify.’  

   The gift of the Vimala Handwriting System™ is that we can utilize cursive handwriting as a transformational tool for personal growth.  We can practice letters that support our thinking patterns and the way we interact in all areas of our life.    This begs the question, “Why aren’t children taught healthy handwriting habits in school?”  It would be such a gift to teach and to learn a handwriting system that promotes innovative thinking and self-esteem from an early age.

   The greatest gift anyone can give a child is to teach him or her how to read and write.  These are two sides of one skill set, integrally woven together.  Together they are foundational, not just to literacy, more importantly to self-worth and self-determination.  

For more information:

http://www.alphabetpenandink.com

Cursive handwriting — the big controversy

Cursive handwriting — the big controversy

   There is much discussion today about the value of learning and practicing cursive handwriting, or, rather, the lack thereof.  In a technological age, it seems we have forgotten the amazing gift writing is!  Small motor skills, the hand-brain connection, literacy and an aid to spelling correctly ... the benefits are immeasurable.  How can anyone consider it passé ?  From notes to myself to shopping lists ... I use handwriting everyday. 

   People argue that it’s tedious, and keyboarding skills replace the usefulness of cursive.  Often the same ones who argue that the calculator replaces the need to do sums by hand, and yet I am always reminded of the times I’ve been turned away from stores whose power outage rendered their computerized cash registers inoperable.  The clerks in these cases could not even figure tax due with their handheld calculators.  Maybe knowing the process is worth the tedium and trouble.  No less for writing cursive.

   Whenever we try something new, there will be some degree of awkwardness or difficulty.  Moreover, anything we don’t do consistently, we tend to lose some degree of our competency in doing easily.  There is a time honored truism, “The only difference between you and a Master is practice.”

   Cursive writing need not be tedious.  It can be both enjoyable and rewarding.  In fact, prior to the 1940-s and 50’s children learned cursive first!  A little practice every day.  Manuscript or print was imposed on children when the powers-that-be decided that because it resembles the fonts used in books and other literature, it would coordinate with children’s reading skills.  There were no studies or research done to prove this was a better way to learn.  It was simply reasoned and imposed.  In hindsight, recent studies now show just the opposite is true, cursive is the most supportive form of writing, enhancing all learning skills.  In fact, many high school kids who have been taught to print cannot read cursive!  Yet, those who learn cursive first have no difficulty reading print or fonts in books and literature.  

   Learning to write is one of the most important skills anyone can master.  It takes patience and practice.  “By the yard it’s hard, but inch by inch, it’s a cinch.”  An adage that says it all when it comes to acquiring new skills.  Handwriting should be fun.  Play music.  Relax.  And, practice.  Practice daily — just ten to fifteen minutes a day for young children.  The idea is not about perfect penmanship, rather it’s training the small motor muscles to direct the pen to form the letter shapes and coordinate the eye with spatial concepts.  Cursive flows with its ovals and curves.  Over, under and up and down strokes that easily join letters that form words (and ideas!).  Manuscript (print writing) is much stiffer with lines and circle shapes that must be made with starts and stops.

   Take the test yourself.  In a quiet space, with full attention, print out a couple sentences.  Next, write out a couple more in cursive.  Handwriting is visceral — you can “feel” a difference.  Printing is much more angular and mechanical.  Cursive flows.  Studies show that it engages the creative centers in our brains.  Be patient.  Get in touch with the flow ... not with your judgment about what it looks like.  Simply put your pen to paper and write a few spontaneous lines.  It isn’t about perfection, it’s about the process.   

   There are many clinical studies that show the benefits of cursive writing.  You can find links to some of them on my website at:

http://www.alphabetpenandink.com