Brief intro, and re: vision and Bates

[BlackDot]

Hi People,

I maintain the seeing.org website, and I noticed a number of site referrals coming from this BB - I got curious and came along to check it out - I must say it's been a good read!

Anyway, I'm a Bates Teacher, and I noticed various people referring to Bates (nice to see the informative and positive posts from Mr Magoo, dk-DP and Darren) and asking some questions - I'm very happy to answer what I can, if there's any misunderstandings or things unclear.

cheers,

Kevin aka BlackDot

[El Cid]

Hi Kevin,
Started Bates lessons a month ago and had great success since then.I have improved my astigmatism by 0.5D and whilst some people may say that this would have happened anyhow,I prefer to believe that it was the method which caused it to happen(this allied to the fact that during the last 5 years my prescription has only worsened and this is the first time it has improved).I wanted to ask you about the technique known as "flashing".I have been experiencing flashes of what I can only describe as perfect vision,but only briefly.When it happens my eyes tend to sting and water and it only lasts until I blink again.Would you be able to tell me what is happening please?
Thanks a lot,
El Cid

[747newguy]

Blackdot--What are "Bates Lessons" and what kind of vision do they improve? Thanks.

[BlackDot]

El Cid -

Flashes of clear vision are not so much a technique, but more a sign of momentary relaxation - it can come on gradually bringing clearer and clearer vision with every passing second, or it can flick into focus almost as if a camera shutter had suddenly clicked, and you have perfect clarity.

It may seem odd and worrying that you experience pain or stinging at these moments, but it’s not uncommon and not a cause for anxiety. The logical expectation when one is ‘relaxing’ would be for the eyes and sight to just feel better and better, however this is not taking into account that there is _already_ a great deal of strain present, and all that is happening is that as the strain starts to shift, to release, you become aware of the amount of actual pain that is already there.

There’s a quote from Bates’s original book about this:

"Eccentric fixation, even in its lesser degrees, is so unnatural that great discomfort, or even pain, can be produced in a few seconds by trying to see every part of an area three or four inches in extent at twenty feet, or even less, or an area of an inch or less at the near-point, equally well at one time, while at the same time the retinoscope will demonstrate that an error of refraction has been produced. This strain, when it is habitual, leads to all sorts of abnormal conditions and is, in fact, at the bottom of most eye troubles, both functional and organic. The discomfort and pain may be absent, however, in the chronic condition, and it is an encouraging symptom when the patient begins to experience them."

- The Cure of Imperfect Sight without Glasses by Wm. H Bates pp. 116 - 117

I also believe that it’s possible for you to experience the stinging at the moment your vision starts to pull back into your habit of seeing ‘badly’. Sudden or gradual clarity is very distracting, and the person experiencing it will often forget all about what they were doing to produce it in the first place, and start thinking “Hey, I can see clearly” - a highly unnatural thought, if not an unnatural condition! Unfortunately it's usually long enough for the old habits to reassert themselves, and the experience of stinging shows you what it is that you do unconsciously most of the time.

To sum up, there’s just one cause for the stinging, and that is a _change of the strain in the eyes_ - either a release toward clarity, or back to the familiar vision habits.

My suggestion is to stick with the notion ‘who cares’ and let your vision’s increasing acuity remain as a symptom of healthy vision habits. Look where you’re looking, and if it’s in focus do your best to ignore the clarity as anything exciting, and just remain interested in the colour, the shape - in other words, engage with your world.

Who’s your teacher?

BD

[BlackDot]

747newguy wrote:
<<
Blackdot--What are "Bates Lessons" and what kind of vision do they improve? Thanks
>>

The Bates Method for Better Eyesight without Glasses - in a nutshell, Bates lessons involve going to a teacher of the method to learn at first hand how to approach the principles of better eyesight as outlined by Dr Bates, an ophthalmologist who was around in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

As for the kinds of vision the method improves, well it’s been known to be of benefit for almost any condition - all it does is teach the ‘patient’ how to better look after his or her own eyes, how to use them well and according to their natural design, and how to prevent him or herself from continuing or increasing the problem through strain - as such the eyes have a much better chance of healing to their greatest potential. The actual improvement varies from person to person, and depends on a variety of individual factors - what the condition is, the person’s dedication, and willingness to learn etc. Ultimately the only way of finding out how well someone will do with it is to get them to try it out.

So, for longsight (hypermetropia), shortsight, astigmatism, squint, amblyopia, presbyopia etc. - yes. Did you have a specific condition you were wondering about?

Also, check out some of the posts on this BB from Mr Magoo, dk-DP, Darren Moore, et al.
http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum52/HTML/000091.html
http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum52/HTML/000073.html
http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum52/HTML/000066.html
http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum52/HTML/000059.html
http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/Forum52/HTML/000035.html

BD

[El Cid]

Thanks for the info Blackdot.My teachers is Wendy Finch and I found her through your website.
El Cid

[Jetset Willy]

Hi Blackdot. A quick question... Does the Bates method work as well for long sightedness as short? I have only seen references to people using it who are short-sighted.

Many Thanks
Jetset

[This message has been edited by Jetset Willy (edited 24 July 2000).]

[BlackDot]

El Cid - Ah yes, I know Wendy. I think she's a good teacher.

Jetset - Yes it works just as well for longsight

BD

[batu]

Hı blackdot
What ıs your homepage address!!!
BATU

[BlackDot]

www.seeing.org (http://www.seeing.org)

BD

[BlackDot]

And by the way BATU - did you manage to find any Bates teachers in the Netherlands?

BD

[amirfl]

I've been doing eye exercises for a few months now and I wear a 40/20 subscription.
in the past few days i've seen a significant improvement with my vision, so now i Know this stuff really works.
my question is when should I make a new set of 40/20 glasses? should i wait till I can see 20/20 with the current set?

[Global_Express]

It would be great if I could have a contact for Bates teaching in Canada. Any suggestions?

GM

[BlackDot]

Amirfl - re: 20/40 glasses

Generally I would recommend getting a weaker presccription when you find yourself with no room for improvement, and/or you find yourself at a standstill. Sometimes your eyes can be aching to see better but your current prescription gives you no elbow room.

Have you got someone to guide you through this? The main avoidable pitfall with weaker prescriptions is that people can end up straining to try and see through the slight blur. It's very tempting.

Glad you're having a positive experience with the method. Remember the goal is always to release strain - conscious and unconscious, and as such, the exercises are aids to help you bring any strain to your awareness.

BD

[BlackDot]

For teachers in Canada, there's a couple of links and email addresses here:
http://www.seeing.org/bave2/internat.htm#Canada

One of them may be able to find someone who is close to you.

BD

[amirfl]

thanks for the tip!

[batu]

He blackdot
Sorry for the late replay.
I couldnt find a bates teacher but im still searching. If I found one i will informe you all.
Bye Batu
PS: have a nice holiday all of you

[BlackDot]

Batu - you could try:

Hans van den Brink 43A De Wijk, Amsterdam NL7957. Tel: 31 522 44 2023.

Peter Ruiter Opsterland 146, Utrecht, NL 3524 CJ Tel: Home 030 288 1696,
Office 030 248 7326.

[MOSFET1]

Hello Blackdot,

Can you reccomend a top 3 reading list for Bates method practice please.

Thankyou.

------------------
MOSFET1

[BlackDot]

Mosfet1 wote:
>>a top 3 reading list for Bates method practice please<<

Bates: Better Eysight Without Glasses
Peter Mansfield: The Bates Method
Aldous Huxley: The Art of Seeing

This is sometimes a difficult question, and a lot depends on what sort of person you are - if you check out the customer reviews on Amazon.com, you'll find that Bates' "Better Eyesight Without Glasses" gets either five stars and is praised without stint or one star and is trashed completely!

If you're intellectually or analytically minded you'll find his book pretty interesting, if sometimes confusing. It's worth having, but for a perhaps clearer explanation there's the more recent "The Bates Method" by Peter Mansfield

Many of the other books on vision take on various extra aspects from other disciplines - diet, psychology et al - this can also be useful, although at times the actual nature of the original Bates work - the principle of learning to not strain and to use the eyes in accordance with their design - can become diluted.

Of these books perhaps one of the best psych ones is Aldous Huxley's 'The Art of Seeing', which is also pretty thorough and accurate in it's descriptions of what Bates was on about.

Of the other books there's a few more that I personaly like:

Meir Schneider's book, 'My Life and Vision' is an incredible story of a man who was born with congenital cataracts - he was operated on unsuccesfully several times, and was legally declared blind in his teens. He worked at the Bates method apparently for 13 hours every day, and within 18 months he was able to read fine print, and a couple of years later was able to obtain an unrestricted driver's license! That's for cars, not planes though :)

For a well presented 'new age' approach, I really liked Jacob Liberman's "Take off your glasses and see" - Liberman was an optometrist that did just that; his book is quite inspiring.

Many other fine books have been written, but I have only heard reports - authors like Kaplan, Goodrich etc. have been around a while. Kaplan was another optometrist, while Goodrich's approach also takes in other disciplines.

The following page has most of them listed and with cover illustrations:
http://www.seeing.org/advert/batesbks/us/bookads.htm

If you're over on the UK side of the pond, then:
http://www.seeing.org/advert/batesbks/uk/bookads.htm

- you can get Huxley's book from that page.

Finally, it's really important to note that as we're talking about strain according to Bates, people tend to understand things according to their own strain pattern. I read Bates' book three times before I had lessons, and after the sixth lesson I thought "Hey! None of this was in the Bates book!" I then re-read it, and was astonished to find that it was *all* in there, I just hadn't 'seen' it.

This is quite a common experience.

BD

[loz]

Hello Blackdot;
i'm looking for a bates teacher either in belgium or in france;i'm searching but there is no positive result. can u help me???
thanks for cooperation

[MOSFET1]

Thankyou for the comprehensive responsive Blackdot.

------------------
MOSFET1

[Buffy Summers]

Blimey, was I the only one who thought this was Jetblast and the topic was a slightly different MasterBates and vision...
I have been here on pprune too long......

[batu]

Thanks blackdot
I wıll call them when I am back ın Holland
BYE
BATU

[BlackDot]

Ioz -

Mme Brigitte Cavadias
94 04 79 18
‘Bringelone’
les Eissulettes Orientales, 83570 Cotignac FRANCE

Nina Fintoni-Hutchings
+33 44 25 01 07 0 (voice)
+33 44 29 23 93 1 (fax)
Hameau de Tournefort
13840 Rognes
France

These two are Bates teachers, if they are far from you they may be able to help you find someone nearer.

BD

[loz]

thank u very much for ur help; blackdot
loz

[747newguy]

Thanks, BD for the good info (sorry for the late reply, been off-line a bit). I was just curious if the method would help "aging eyes" where one looses the ability to focus in close.

[BlackDot]

Can presbyopia - "old age sight" - be helped with the Bates Method?

<the short answer is yes>

BD

_________________________________________
The long answer:


When you consider the general opthalmological view:

‘Presbyopia is an unexplained evolutionary blunder, an irreversible catastrophe . . .’ (David D Michaels)

.. it would seem unlikely that anything could be done.

It's interesting to note that Dr Bates was originally a presbyope - he needed a veritable arsenal of glasses for each nearpoint focal distance - so he would have a pair of glasses for seeing clearly at 13 inches, and another pair for seeing clearly at 14 inches, another for 12, and so on.

Over a period of nine months he managed to improve his vision so that he became able to accommodate and read fine print clearly without glasses for distances from 4 inches to eighteeen inches. It was his success with this that led him to develop his teaching methods so that he could pass on what he had learned to others.

Presbyopia can be one of the easiest conditions to reverse when using the Bates Method, particularly if the person concerned has not yet started wearing glasses.

This is certainly so in my experience - as an example, a woman of about 42 came to me who had just started having trouble with her reading distance - she was an actress and in the course of the first lesson she mentioned to me that she was also having trouble with her memory work - and that this was causing her a great deal of anxiety as her livelihood (not to mention her love of acting) depended on it.

Now it's worth pointing out that Bates went to great lengths to illustrate the link between memory and vision, and in fact has a whole chapter in his book about the subject as well as mentioning memory many times in other parts of the book. In my other field of endeavour (music) I had already found the implications of this connection interesting.

For myself I became able to experience the completely new sensation of using my memory with complete relaxation - I felt for myself the correct hypothesis of Bates... and it didn't take me more than a few seconds to realise that this new student would likely benefit from some specific memory work alongside her vision work.

She learned the Bates techniques with a great deal of ease and enthusiasm - as I mentioned she had only just started noticing problems, and that is always a easier place to start than even two months down the road of wearing glasses.

For the memory work I suggested we experiment with a passage of text which she already knew by heart - She decided upon the famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy from Hamlet.

She rattled off about a hundred words of it, when I stopped her and asked her to go slower. Each time she started I again stopped her and asked her to go slower. In the end I took her down to a speed of about ten words per half an hour, and it was at that point that she was able to stop pushing (straining) her memory and to relax with it. It's important to realise that the deep release that comes when a person truly engages with their relaxed 'natural' memory, is one of such peace that it can scarcely be portrayed in words.

She was perfectly at ease with working at that slow pace, especially as it became evident to her that what she was learning was not 'how to memorize or recall the next group of words in the shortest possible time', but more how to make a choice about her state of mind as she engaged with her memory. We are usually encouraged to strain to achieve our goals - here, the goal was to be at peace *no matter what*.

The speed can subsequently and automatically increase as soon as this state of mind has been learned and integrated.

She did very well. Within three weeks she was able to memorise a page of text in half an hour (faster than she had ever done before) and still maintain that level of release - and also, by this time her vision had completely gone back to normal.

Curiously enough she returned to see me about two and a half years later - I gave her one lesson all on her vision, and was able to bring back to her attention a few things she'd managed to lose - her exclamation throughout the lesson was "Oh, I completely forgot!"

As she was leaving she said with assurance "I won't be back again". I'm so glad it was because she was satisfied! That was three years ago.

Many presbyopes come to Bates lessons - for some they have been wearing glasses for years (e.g. the woman who had me visit her as she felt she was going blind, who then one day experienced her eyes focusing with perfect clarity at the nearpoint - it was such a shock to her that she obliterated the experience from her memory) while others come because there's a part of them that just really wants to reject the idea that two perfectly good eyes that have been working well for years should suddenly start malfunctioning.

Sometimes there is a fair amount of resistance to changing the visual habits and it is difficult to help someone. Impatience is a common mindset in presbyopia - 'I want it in focus, NOW!' - and the eye tends to rebel when it is pushed like this. Slowing a person down enough in this condition can require considerable insistence and ingenuity on the part of the teacher and considerable trust on the part of the student.

BlackDot

[747newguy]

BD, Great--Thanks for the info. Next question is, where does one go in Northern California to get Bates lessons (or can you train yourself by reading Dr Bates books?)?
Thanks again.

[BlackDot]

Northern California - Meir Schneider and Tom Quackenbush both work around the SF area, although I heard rumours that TQ was heading off to Oregon or somewhere.

Meir Schneider I've mentioned before - he's the guy that was clinically blind, and now has an unrestricted California drivers license
http://www.self-healing.org

Tom Quackenbush:
http://www.nvcsf.com/

If you're not in that area I'm sure one of those two will be able to tell you if there is a teacher near to you. You could also try Jerrian Taber

[email protected]

who maintains a list of Bates Teachers in the US

Another source for teachers - http://www.visioneducators.org

BD



[This message has been edited by BlackDot (edited 18 August 2000).]