newsletter #9, The Art of Noticing
#9, FEBRUARY 2026
Welcome Back
After quite a pause, my touch newsletter returns. A hectic end to last year was filled with gratitude for opportunities in 2025: teaching at festivals, leading bodywork trainings, serving tea in a prison, and maintaining a full schedule. Being surrounded by golden human beings is what has made any of it feel worthwhile.
2026 has begun America-based, planning my next three-day training course, which I am once again reconstructing almost from scratch. I like to make things complicated - I mean interesting - by continually restructuring and adding new insights from my journeys in touch.
In this newsletter I want to focus on something rarely treated as a primary skill in bodywork: careful observance.
ON THE SUBTLE ART OF NOTICING
“It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive.”
– C.W. Leadbeater
Indeed, CW. It is astounding how much there is to notice. Even the more perceptive among us can reliably sharpen our seeing.
I often say my preferred definition of conscious touch is “deep listening and appropriate responding.” It sounds unexciting. It becomes less so the more we unpack it (and I promise I can do that at book-length - just dare me). For now, let’s focus on one aspect of that phrase: the art of observing.
Present, caring touch is not the result of a series of practiced, even expert moves. Let observation take the lead, and whatever techniques you use can come into service of that attuned presence.
We are largely unconscious creatures - despite how active, creative, and productive we can be. It is built into our physiology that we filter out most sensory input. It is a matter of survival. We would not last long if we were aware of every sight, sound, and sensation all at once. Nature’s grace includes the ability not to pay attention. To filter. To not notice.
That is why this skill may be the main one we need to strengthen. In my trainings I include exercises in noticing that are not touch-based at all, because deep listening is more a way of being than a technique.
Life grows richer the more we notice the small miracles hiding inside details. For me, details have always been portals into the mystery we swim in.
In bodywork, my lifelong obsession with detail (thank the Virgo stars) stepped onto another level once I increased the intentionality of my observation during sessions - watching how my touch was met by the other person’s nervous system.
WISE WORDS
“Teach the children…
…Attention is the beginning of devotion.”
– Mary Oliver
In bodywork, my lifelong obsession with detail (thank the Virgo stars!) stepped onto another level entirely once I ramped up on the intentionality of my observance during sessions to see how my touch was being met by the other person’s nervous system.
There is, however, a small complication. The more refined our observing becomes, the more it reveals another presence in the room: the “I” who wants to interpret, improve, diagnose, be useful. And that “I,” for all its good intentions, can block the very door it is trying to open.
Here’s a short Sufi poem about what can happen when there’s too much ‘I’:
A man knocked on the door of his beloved.
A voice from inside asked, “Who is there?”
“It is I,” he said.
The door remained closed.
He went away, and after a year of longing and refinement, he returned and knocked again.
“Who is there?”
“It is you.”
The door opened.
- Rumi
In bodywork, keeping the analytical ‘I’ at a safe distance - close enough to hear its useful suggestions but far enough that it doesn’t block seeing things as they truly are - is an essential component of noticing. When an insistence of ‘I’(in the form of plans, opinions…) is softened, then a door can open.
Clients will also have a ‘I need to fix this’ attitude about themselves too, it’s normal, we all do, we want ‘bad’ things to go away. Most of us fear that there is something ‘wrong’ with us and hope that somehow it gets remedied.
Attuned and careful listening touch can soften this.
A few practical things to notice…
As a bodyworker, I want the dial of Observance set fairly high - not on maximum, which can slip into hypervigilance, but higher than I might be with a close friend (though even there it can enrich an encounter).
With a soft gaze I notice eye flickers, finger twitches, how receptive the limbs seem, subtle changes in respiration, overall symmetry, signs of jaw tension, shifts in skin tone, the pliability of each foot, musculoskeletal releases, and an overall sense of their nervous system state.
I have come to the point where I minimally see someone’s personality or story in front of me. I take them into account, but mostly as reference points. I increasingly see the person before me as a nervous system in a particular state.
My main task is to support conditions in which harmony can re-emerge.
(Bodyworkers: let that last line sink in…)
All these bodily clues are information about their current state - not proof that something needs fixing. My favorites are finger positions and twitches; I now dedicate a whole section of my training to recognising them.
If you are not a professional bodyworker but want to deepen touch with your beloved, there is no need to vigilantly observe every twitch and exhale. You might instead rest in a wider sense of their overall state, noticing without analysis how their body responds to different kinds of touch.
So What I'm Actually Looking For
Here is the kind of information I’m tracking during a session (super condensed version):
Finger curls inward slightly, effortlessly → nervous system beginning to let go of vigilance
Finger twitches → often indicate reorganisation, downshifting toward parasympathetic
Eyelids flutter without opening → processing or integration
Sudden deeper exhale → release, permission to let go
Jaw softens then re-tightens → meeting an edge, backing away from vulnerability
Instead of / Try These Reframes
Sometimes slight mental shifts are all it takes to bring a different level of presence to touch:
Instead of: "This muscle is so tight, I need to release it"
Try: "I'm curious what this tissue wants to tell me"
Instead of: "They're not relaxing; I am doing something wrong. I am failing."
Try: "Their system is showing its current capacity for receiving. Can I accept this?"
Instead of always scanning for tightness, asymmetry, or what seems problematic…
Try finding something to admire. A Wow detail. Let devotion increase and analysis soften (not disappear).
We have all received plenty of scolding about how we should be different. If we can communicate real acceptance and listening as a baseline to those we touch - that is a genuine Wow experience.
In the next newsletter…
On discovering different ways of being intimate with life… and more…
MUSICAL CORNER
My Best Of 2025 Playlist (a blend of all genres):
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5gOnVWtYjDlE1QGI6CBahg?si=22bd9c5d4c634fd8
Apple Music:
https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/2025-best-of-top-50-x-steve-kokker/pl.u-e98lM2msdzoeGa
UP NEXT
Beyond Touch 3-Day Training Course, Belgium, March 2026. Sold out. Info: https://www.teaandtouch.com/events/beyond-touch-3-day-bodywork-training-course-amsterdam-msrrk
Tantric Joy Festival, Netherlands, June 2026. What an absolute joy. If you were contemplating a festival of this kind for this summer, I highly recommend it: https://www.tantricjoyfestivalamsterdam.com/