A questionnaire I devised

I got very few responses to this!

QUESTIONNAIRE

It might be best to read through all the questions before starting, since some overlap. It would also help if you could avoid using Alexander jargon in your replies; otherwise any conclusion drawn will be couched in the phrases we are all familiar and comfortable with but nevertheless interpret in very different ways. Since the purpose of this questionnaire is to uncover those differences, please use your own words, and be as specific as possible. If appropriate, answer later questions with reference to details already given.

1. Do you "work on yourself" at all?

2. How would you define the work you do?

3. Do you differentiate between "formal" and "informal" ways of working? If so, how?

4. Do you set aside specific periods of time for working on yourself? If so, how regularly and for how long?

5. Do you work on yourself during everyday activities? If so, how frequently, and are there certain times when this is impossible?

6. Do you use mirrors to facilitate working on yourself? If so, how?

7. Have you any more to say about how, specifically, you work on yourself?

8. How do you "inhibit"? What happens?

9. If the way you inhibit depends on what you are doing, can you explain how the procedure might differ?

10. How do you "direct"? What happens?

11. If you differentiate between "directing" and "ordering", how do you order? What happens?

12. Alexander said: "I wish it to be understood that throughout my writings I use the term conscious guidance and control to indicate primarily a plane to be reached rather than a method of reaching it". When you work on yourself, where do you consider you are in relation to this "plane"?

13. Which school of teaching – ie, Carrington, Barlow, Macdonald, Barstow, etc – has most influenced you?

14. What book, magazine or article about the Technique, apart from Alexander’s own writings, has most influenced you?

15. As a teacher, do you encourage pupils or students to work on themselves? If so, how do you expect them to do this; and how much importance do you attach to it?

16. As a student, were you taught to work on yourself? If so, how; and if you are a teacher, is this the way you work on yourself now?

17. As a pupil, were you advised to work on yourself? If so, what form did this advice take, and do you still follow it?

18. Overall, how important do you think working on yourself is?

19. If a pupil, or student, didn’t know how to work on themselves after a course of lessons, or training, would you take that as a sign of inadequate teaching?

20. What would you say the main practical difficulty is in working on yourself?

21. How do you think it is most easy to go wrong, or have a false impression of progress, when working on yourself?

22. In what ways do you think it is possible to advance more readily through working on yourself than through having lessons?

23. How important do you think the objective viewpoint normally provided by a teacher, and in Alexander’s case, provided by mirrors, is in enabling you to go from "the known to the unknown"?

24. Is any such objective viewpoint available to you when you work on yourself?

25. Without an objective viewpoint, how realistic do you think it is to change existing habits?

25. Would you say such change is the main purpose of working on yourself? If not, what do you think is?

If you feel I’ve missed out some vital question, or you haven’t enough room for your answers, or there is anything else you want to add, use the space below, or a seperate sheet.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *