I’ve often wondered how to distinguish between ‘feeling things out’, an activity that bedevils Alexander enthusiasts, making them look, and probably feel, stiff and awkward, and ‘feeling the way to a better place’ which , I believe, represents the best available way of learning the Technique.

The danger is of confusing misguided attempts to recreate a kinesthetic experience directly with attempts to recreate the kinesthetic conditions which led to it. Both involve a kinesthetic appraisal of our current state, and both are motivated by the desire to change our use for the better; but whereas one tries to do this by emphasising the ‘good’, the other does it by