Books with author William Bates

A Sense of Direction represents a life s work at the art and craft of directing. Founder and long-time general director of the acclaimed American Conservatory Theatre, Bill Ball engages his audience in a wide-ranging discussion of the director s process from first reading through opening night. Speaking as a director s director, Ball offers a candid, personal account of his method of working including the choice of a play s essential elements, preproduction homework, casting, and rehearsal techniques. Throughout, his discovering and insights guide the director in building the world of the play and bringing it to life.

This book is the Kindle text version of Perfect Sight Without Glasses. Contains only Dr. Bates' book, Better Eyesight Magazine, extra training, pictures to learn the method quickly and eyecharts. Training video included. (available only on some devices. See Amazon's directions under book title.) A 480 page version of this book, scans of the original antique pages, with additional magazines, training, many pictures by a Bates Method teacher is available in paperback, Kindle; https://www.amazon.com/William-H.-Bates/e/B004H9DOBC Dr. W. H. Bates started his career as an orthodox ophthalmologist following the old, long time rules of the practice; prescribing eyeglasses... During his practice, working with different patients, eye conditions, he realized that unclear close, distant vision, astigmatism and other conditions often cured itself, reversed back to clear vision, especially when his patients stopped wearing their eyeglasses and relaxed. He noticed that wearing glasses 'tensed' the eyes, eye muscles, lowered the vision and resulted in stronger and stronger eyeglass lens prescriptions being needed in order to see clear through the glasses. He began his own studies on the eye and its function. This led him to discover that many of the old ophthalmology, optometry 'supposed facts' about the eye, lens and its function and cause of unclear vision... are incorrect. Dr. Bates began teaching his patients to stop wearing their glasses. He taught them natural methods, including relaxation, correct use of the eyes/vision (shifting...) to produce clear vision. Dr. Bates cured his own eyesight, close vision, presbyopia. Distant vision also clear. He wrote an article in his book, magazine describing how he did it with Memory, Imagination, Relaxation. 'He controlled, changed the focus of light rays in his eyes with his mind.' Dr. Bates performed experiments on the eyes of animals, and observed the function of animal, patient's eyes under different conditions. He used the retinoscope to see the refraction of light rays in the eye under various conditions. He proved that the refraction, clarity of vision changes often. And when the eyes are left alone, eyeglasses avoided; the refraction, clarity returns to normal-clear vision. He proved that the state of the mind, thoughts, emotions, body change the refraction of the eye, clarity of vision. Example: when the mind, body is relaxed, positive, happy thoughts, emotions; the refraction is normal and vision is clear. When the mind, body is under stress, strain; the refraction is abnormal and vision is unclear.Dr. Bates discovered that the main cause of unclear vision and other eye problems is; Wearing Eyeglasses, Mental Strain, Mental, Visual Effort to See, Poor Vision Habits-incorrect use of the eyes/vision; squinting, staring, not shifting-lack of normal, relaxed eye movements, lack of central-fixation, poor memory and imagination...Perfect Sight occurs with Perfect Relaxation (deep or active/dynamic relaxation). Relaxation occurs first, and then the eyesight becomes clear. Practicing normal, relaxed eye/vision function induces relaxation of the mind, eyes and perfect clarity. Dr. Bates’ experiments on the outer eye muscles proved that tension in these muscles (mainly caused by eyeglasses, strain in the mind, incorrect vision habits) disrupts their function, the eyes movement, accommodation, convergence, un-accommodation, divergence, causes pressure, tension, pulling on/in the eye, alters the eyes’ shape, (and lens, retina...), disrupts refraction, focus of light rays in the eye, on the retina and the clarity of vision.When the mind is strained, tense, the brain and retina do not communicate/function together at optimum level. Function of the retina is lowered. Relaxing the mind, returning normal eye movement relaxes the outer, inner eye muscles, returns the eyes, lens, retina... to normal shape with clear vision.

A popular and creative method for teaching guitar to young children. From the beginning, this method integrates chord playing with note reading. The student begins with simplified single-finger chord forms and strums as accompaniment to numerous well-known songs. Note reading is then methodically and carefully introduced. Written in standard notation. Includes access to online play-along recording and a full-length video.

Younger students will enjoy this creative approach to playing simple guitar chords. Chords are taught with exercises that build upon each other and eventually lead the student to playing logical and common chord progressions. These progressions include I-iii-vi-ii-V-I and twelve bar blues in many different keys. Chords are shown in chord diagram form with detailed illustrations showing finger positions in relationship to the fretboard. Open chords for folk music as well as power chords for rock music are presented clearly and easily in this text. A complete easy chord chart and capo chart is provided at the end of the book for easy reference. Examples and exercises are presented in strum bar notation. This book comes with an online 52-minute video tutorial.

Thirteen-year-old Tom Knight, the only child of two loving parents, is dealing with typical teenage challenges such as a bully who lives across the street and balancing video game time with school time when his parents suddenly vanish from his home. Following instructions left by a shape shifting blob of Jell-O on the kitchen counter, Tom enters a nondescript doorway on the side of an antique store that miraculously transports him 26.2 light years away to the planet Chosroes. There a petulant and bored Prince holds Tom’s parents captive in a large cage, the eventual victims of an extremely slow moving, but carnivorous maggoricus—picture an elephant sized slug with big teeth—that shares the cage with them. The Prince explains to Tom that it will take a week for the beast to reach his parents and in that time, Tom must steal a vital piece of equipment, a hypertime stone, from the Prince’s enemies on the neighboring planet of Chatrang. Feeling overwhelmed, ill-equipped and terrified, Tom enlists the help of his two best friends, his math teacher and even the bully across the street to help him on his quest to steal the hypertime stone and save his parents. Pawns is a fun—and at times funny—read, but also addresses serious issues such as bullying, the impact of war on civilians and the importance of friendship. The story uses chess as its overarching theme with character and place names taken from the chess board and from historical figures who were known to be associated with the game.

In this multi-layered psychological mystery, photographer Jason Poe is transfixed by a disturbing set of murals he encounters in the attic of an abandoned house, and resolves to uncover the secret behind them."The murals hit me hard. First came terror, then awe. It was only after I’d taken them in that I began to feel their immense power."Jason Poe, a former war photographer, has been breaking into abandoned houses for an art project to document what previous tenants have left behind. One night he finds more than expected when he ascends to an attic and is confronted by a haunting set of murals.The murals cover all four walls of the cramped space and hypnotise Jason. Convinced there’s an important story behind them, he embarks upon a quest to identify their creator and uncover their meaning. To do so Jason recruits several friends, including Joan Nguyen, a reporter for Calista Times-Dispatch. As the team delve deeper they uncover a mystery involving accusations of satanism, police corruption, a scandal involving a wealthy Calista family, a series of contemporary arson attacks . . . and an enigmatic patient in a Swiss psychiatric clinic.

A popular and creative method for teaching guitar to young children. This approach to learning integrates, from the very beginning, chord playing with note reading. The students start with easy one finger chord forms and strum accompaniments to numerous songs. Note reading is then methodically and carefully introduced. Two subsequent volumes complete this course. The method features Ron Wheeler's colorful cartoon artwork. Written in standard notation.