Category: Writing

How do I decide which training course to attend?

Posted on by dod

These are just some of the ways an intending trainee might approach the tricky question of training to become an Alexander teacher.

“How do I decide which training course to attend?”

 

 

I started training as an Alexander teacher in 1986. At that time, there were far fewer schools, and most of them had long waiting lists. They also had what I considered stringent conditions for joining those lists, including a lengthy period of lessons with the course directors.

 

I had had relatively few lessons, and I had no particular preference for one training school over another. I was vaguely familiar with the different approaches – Carrington, MacDonald, Barlow – from my reading of the available literature; and I suppose, if asked, I would have veered towards a Barlow based school, simply because I found Wilfred Barlow�s explanation of the Technique more illuminating and thoughtful than any other.

 

My eventual choice of school was entirely due to chance. I happened to have a lesson with a teacher who had heard of a new training course about to open. I visited it, met and got on with the directors, who had, as it happened, been Barlow trained, and joined shortly afterwards. I was one of nine, most of whom had gone through a similar process to me. Perhaps because of this, we shared a refreshing – I thought – non allegiance to any particular approach.

 

If I was planning to train now, I would be far clearer about where I would want to go. Not having the benefit of hindsight, I would suggest any intending trainee, having established a short list of financially and logistically viable schools, discover as much as possible about each before even thinking of visiting any of them. This is because an Alexander training school can seem a strange and sometimes intimidating environment. Visiting one isn�t necessarily the best way to obtain information.

 

Useful questions to ponder might be:

 

How structured is a course? Is that structure decided by the directors or the senior students? How rigidly is it adhered to? Would you consider such rigidity a good or bad thing? How much say, if any, might junior students have? Is there any provision for individual students to �take over� the occasional running of the course? Personally, I found I preferred a fluid structure; and I particularly liked it when students ran the course, temporarily. However, I loathed it when all structure became temporarily lost.

 

When does a student begin to use their hands? This can differ widely, from almost immediately to not before the third year. It might seem difficult to know as an intending trainee which is preferable. I, personally, would have liked to use my hands immediately, and not have had a special or precious thing made of it. Others might disagree.

 

How much hands on work is there, overall? An intending trainee might not know how much they would like there to be. Perhaps, if their experience of lessons had been that the more a teacher used their hands the better, they would prefer that sort of ratio to continue during training. For me, the opposite was the case, and I would have positively welcomed a more hands off approach.

 

There�s also the issue of how the hands are used. This is a subtle matter, and obviously requires time spent at the school itself. Some teachers can seem alarmingly heavy handed, or disconcertingly light fingered. My personal bias errs towards the latter.

 

How much time is set aside for �work on the self�? In truth, all Alexander work is work on the self, and a better question might be to ask �how�, precisely, such work is done. Any answer to this question from a course director outside a brief reference to inhibition and direction could prove very illuminating. Merely attempting to answer the question, in detail, would be a plus, in my view.

 

How much if any reading is done in class; and what books are read? If Alexander�s books are considered de trop or too difficult in any way, this might be a telling point. If someone is after an academic approach, it might be worth asking about any follow up to �reading�. One of my fellow trainees was disappointed we didn�t discuss in class, and later write about, what we had read, as he had done, in depth, with texts at university. For my part, I found reading in class of most interest not because of what we read but how we read it, out aloud.

 

Anatomy and physiology is a tricky question. How much formal study goes on? How much is necessary? If it is included, is an equivalent portion of psychology taught? Personally, apart from learning about the way the head sat on the atlas, and the atlas turned on the axis, the relative position of the hip joints and the striking mobility of the ribcage, I found most of this superfluous. Of far more interest, to me, was the mechanism of thought. For others, though, the exact opposite might be the case.

 

How soon do trainees put hands on other students, other teachers or � most importantly � visitors? I would simply say, the earlier the better, even with members of the public, so long as they are not paying. I don�t think this is common practice.

 

How many visiting teachers are there in a typical term or year? And, even more crucially, how many of them are from alternative strands of the teaching web? This is probably the most important question of all. Visiting teachers cost money, and if the school is a small one, the directors would obviously prefer to do as much work as possible themselves. What I clearly recall, though, is the massive advantage we all gained from visits from teachers whose approach we were not familiar with. Insights abounded, and blockages cleared, like magic. The key word here is familiarity. Having the same visitor, constantly, becomes less and less illuminating.�

 

What lineage are the directors from? Is this the same as the visiting teachers, the same as the trainees, before they joined the course? How important is this? Some schools may have a reputation for not only believing their understanding of the Technique is the only valid one, but expecting their students to believe it too. To further that end, any visiting teachers, as well as senior trainees, will probably teach along similar lines to the directors. This might, or might not, seem attractive.

 

Are there any extracurricular activities? By this, I mean anything that isn�t either straightforward Alexander work or directly relevant to its application. A trainee may, or may not, have strong feelings about this. In moderation, I didn�t, and don�t.

 

Is any time devoted to easing the passage from training into professional life? Some schools will treat this far more seriously than others. Again, much depends on how a person views becoming a professional.

 

Various ways to establish the above information might range from phoning or emailing the course director, checking the school website, if it has one, or asking for contact details of previous students. I would recommend the last approach. I�m sure that recently qualified trainees would be happier to answer questions in detail than course directors. They might be more honest, too. I�ve found, in other areas of life, if I want to learn about something I�m considering paying for, asking advice from those who have already paid for it is a great help.

 

Finally, there are the obvious questions that can only be resolved by a personal visit to a school.

 

Do you get on well with the course director(s)?

Do you like the place?

How do you find the other students?

 

These three are all gut level decisions. You either feel good about the place and the people or you don�t. We had several visitors on our course. I remember one, an Israeli, who came with his father, said nothing the whole day, and refused to be worked on. We never saw him again. Others couldn�t stop talking, or else never left the safety of the couch. Some came often but failed to become trainees; others made a single visit, and then joined the course a year later.

 

Only one person ever left our course, unqualified; and she completed her training elsewhere. This was a clear case of the school not suiting the personality. However, that doesn�t mean that everyone else was ideally suited where they were. Given a choice, it�s far easier to select the ideal place at the outset than move to it later.�����

 

To reiterate. For me, the most important issues, besides the obvious practicalities of locality, finance and rubbing along with everyone, would be how much emphasis was placed on work on the self, rather than work on others; how much hands off work was done; how early hands on work was introduced; how soon students got to work in real life situations; how frequently visiting teachers came; and how open to alternative strands of teaching a school was.

 

The one issue that would probably tip the balance for me today would be the amount of time spent teaching trainees to work with other people without using their hands. In other words, time spent investigating our thought processes, and how they affect our physical use, in action, in depth. I�m unaware of any training course offering this as a speciality.

 

Although I taught on a training school for many years, as a visiting teacher, I don�t run one. So my advice to potential trainees is strictly from the point of view of a teacher who remembers how it was to train and how he might have preferred it to be.

 

Good luck!

What to expect during an Alexander lesson

Posted on by dod

Some ideas I thought might be helpful for anyone thinking of have an Alexander lesson but unsure where to start.

What to expect during an Alexander lesson?

 

My idea of what to expect when I went for my first Alexander lesson was largely based on the books I had so far read, prominent amongst which was Dr Barlow’s The Alexander Principle. I imagined the main instruction would be mental, with some physical �measurement� and �movement� thrown in. The lesson was nothing like that. I found I couldn�t easily categorise it; and as I didn�t have another for over a year, I was hardly any wiser when I began a full �course� of lessons with a teacher whose name I picked randomly from the phone directory.

 

Over the succeeding months, I received what I later came to understand as fairly typical, middle of the road Alexander lessons, each one increasingly revealing of me, if slightly less interesting and more routine than its predecessor. Early on, I found myself thinking that when we had �done� the sitting and standing business, we would no doubt get on to other activities. As for the lying down turns: I moved from mystification as to what was actually being taught, through a vague sense of disappointment that all I was expected to do was lie still, to resignation that this relatively static procedure seemed to be an integral part of every lesson.

 

I remember being mesmerised by the way my teacher, swooping over me like a bird of prey, would take hold of some part of my body, and then look soulfully into mid distance, before making a minor adjustment or movement. It wasn�t until much later that I realised this pause represented �inhibition� and its associated glance encapsulated the mysterious process of �direction�.

 

I had very much wanted to learn about ‘inhibition and direction’, which, from my reading of Dr Barlow’s book, seemed a fairly simple, if rather mechanical, procedure, crucial to any understanding of the Alexander Technique. However, I found I wasn’t being taught this, at least not as a precise form of action or words. It was more a case of my teacher alluding occasionally to a vague, unformulated desire to ‘lengthen and widen’.

 

One day, in desperation, I asked if we could do something different. I typed a lot at the time and I thought it might be useful to have a lesson in front of the typewriter. This was something of a failure, as I can well understand, now. I sat while my teacher made tiny adjustments, by the end of which I felt stiff and set.

 

I asked my teacher if I should have a lesson with someone else, just to see what it was like. He suggested not to, but I did, anyway. It was, in fact, not that different. I began then to realise the structure and tone of a typical Alexander lesson was solidly built around the chair and the table. Usually, twenty minutes or so was spent with each. That meant an essentially passive period in semi supine; and an only slightly more active period of sitting and standing.

 

I decided it must then be up to me to ‘translate’ what I learned during lessons into the rest of my life. This resulted in me sitting and moving rigidly most of the time, while ‘thinking up’ religiously. Once my �course� of lessons was over, I felt vaguely dissatisfied, as if I had not been taught so much as led, by the nose, and was now left to fend for myself in unfamiliar territory.

 

Since that time, I have trained to be a teacher; and although my experience of teachers across the board is still not extensive, I have run into many, many different teaching styles.

 

My own teaching is fairly traditional. I don’t always teach semi supine, though I am far more appreciative of the process, as a learning tool, than I was. In fact, I believe there is a case for only teaching this way. If a student is lengthened, or encouraged to lengthen, or taught to lengthen, exclusively while lying recumbent on a couch or the floor, there is little if any cause, incentive or temptation for him or her to try to ‘feel out’ the lesson experience afterwards. The reason for this is the absence of any kinesthetic memory of being upright in a ‘lengthened’ state, to use (or misuse) as a template of correctness, when ‘applying the Technique’ to life.

 

However, I use the chair a lot; and my main excuse for this – because I think an excuse, or at least a reason, is necessary – is that the movement from sitting to standing, and from standing to sitting, is one that we repeat on countless occasions every day; it is a movement that brings out the worst in us, in terms of ‘interfering with the right employment of the Primary Control’; it is easy for a teacher to keep their hands on a student during it; and it is essentially active and much more fun, I find, than working in semi supine.

 

I have tried working with more varied activities and I have to admit to not finding it particularly fruitful. However, I am aware of the existence, though unfamiliar with the practicalities, of what is commonly known as the �application approach�. This appears, to me, simple common sense; and I am full of admiration for those who teach it; but I find it difficult to venture an opinion on its usefulness. I mention it because they are many teachers around the world who do not teach traditionally, and they might be just the teacher an aspiring student needs.

 

However, I do spend a lot of time and effort in teaching a student how to apply what they learn to their lives. In my view, this is the most important aspect of every lesson. I use my hands a fair amount; but the less I need to use them, I find, the better the lesson works. If I fall – as I do, repeatedly – into the trap of trying to give a student a good experience through the prolonged, unexplained use of my hands, although I am (usually) as gratified as they are by the result, I consider this poor teaching.

 

Since there are as many different approaches as there are practicing teachers, I would suggest mine is simply a reflection of what I would like were I to have a lesson. Other teachers will act according to their own preferences.

 

Nevertheless, I imagine the vast majority of students will experience during their first lesson a variant of the standard chair/table scenario. Regardless of which is more dominant, the question then becomes how the lesson is conducted. My experience is of there being three main strands:

 

1.Relatively silent.

2.Resolutely chatty.

3.Informative.

 

The silent lesson seems to me to operate in a way that encourages change to take place not so much through conscious choice as conscious acceptance. The student is persuaded, both in the chair and on the table, to �not interfere� or to �interfere less’, through the use of the teacher’s hands; and – presumably – it is hoped that this experience, by repetition, will result in a lower and lower level of habitual interference in their daily life. Little or no explanation is given of inhibition or direction. Essentially, this sort of lesson is conscious, in that a student allows certain things to happen, as well as unconscious, in that the teacher’s hands elicit responses the student is unaware of. Outside of lessons, any lasting effect is likely to be ‘by osmosis’ only.

 

The resolutely chatty approach follows much the same format, with the body of the student being encouraged to respond differently, through the hands of the teacher, while their mind is at least partly engaged on other matters. The thinking behind this, evidently, is that it is a closer approximation of �real life� than silence; although the same premise is shared that the repetition of being moved more easily during the lesson will automatically result (in other words, without much thought) in more ease outside lessons.

 

The informative lesson is one where a student will be encouraged to actively take part in the process of moving differently, with attention being given by both parties to inhibition and direction. The idea behind this sort of lesson is the belief that inhibition and direction are processes central to the production of all new experiences and that they can be best explained through explicit verbalisation.

 

However, as anyone who has had lessons with a number of teachers will know, there are more ways than one of teaching inhibition and direction. In fact, this subject is so varied, it deserves a book to itself. For an appraisal of how the subject might be taught, I recommend the writings of Joe Armstrong.

 

Generally, the less that is said, or the less that is said that is germane to the lesson, the more time a teacher is likely to spend with their hands on a student. The touch of a teacher’s hands can vary enormously. I remember one teacher telling me how he had been taught to ‘slap it on like a wet fish’! And, once ‘on’, what those hands do, and the way they do it, varies, too.

 

I’ve experienced many different forms of touch from Alexander teachers, and although there’s a lot to be said for firm decisiveness, an uncompromising hold, etc, my own predilection is for the lightest possible contact, one that is barely discernible. This doesn’t necessarily produce the profoundest effect, in terms of experience, but what it does permit is an appreciation of who, exactly, in the student/teacher relationship, is doing what.

 

I like the sort of touch that impels me into a different type of movement, but that might almost as easily not have been there, leaving the impression that the movement was my responsibility alone. I prefer this over the neck-lock model often seen in photos, where one hand moulds itself beneath the back of the head, with the other supporting the bottom of the jaw. As a student is hoisted (which is what it often feels like) into the air, or lowered precariously downward, the overriding impression is of being ‘sat’ or ‘stood’ like a ventriloquist’s dummy. I’m sure this has its advocates, along with a rationale of its own, but it’s not my preference.

 

The touch of a hand is a very personal thing; and every student will know what he or she best responds to. I do think, though, particularly with chairwork, that less is more. Working with someone in semi supine is slightly different. Occasionally, parts of the body are lifted and held for some time. Weight is often shifted, against gravity. This requires a firm rather than a slight hold.

 

A teacher’s proximity can sometimes be an issue. Obviously, to use their hands, they cannot be further away than arm’s length, but some teachers have a different perception of what is appropriate than others. For me, increased freedom and ease is not made more likely by a large part of me wanting to take a step away from what seems a major encroachment on my personal space.

 

At the other extreme, which I have not experienced as a student, though I would certainly like to, is the teacher who hardly uses their hands at all. I imagine them standing or sitting some way away from their student, guiding them through words alone. I’ve tried this myself, as a teacher, and find it very rewarding, as well as revealing. To a student, this may seem only a step or two away from learning from a book; but the key element in the teacher’s physical presence is their perception of what their student is doing. Reliable feedback lies at the heart of making changes through the Technique. Such feedback is difficult alone.

 

To sum up, the main questions for a new student who would like to have Alexander lessons but knows no teachers personally, and also knows nobody who might be able to recommend a teacher, but who doesn’t want to try ‘pot luck’, is firstly recognising what sort of teacher they want, and secondly, understanding how to distinguish between them.

 

Personally, I would look for a teacher who used their hands minimally, who was informative rather than silent, and whose main aim was not to give me new experiences, but to teach me how to make new experiences for myself. Knowing what I do now, I still don’t think I could easily evaluate whether or not a given teacher met these criteria, simply by speaking to them on the phone. Correspondence by email might elicit the necessary information, though. Certainly, even for a beginning student, one lesson should be enough to know where a teacher�s bias lay.

 

A student�s expectations might be quite the opposite of mine. They might desire their teacher to work silently, with minimal input from them (the student). They might relish a fairly constant use of the hands. They might prefer a firm, decisive touch rather than a light, wavering one. They might like the feeling of being ‘pulled and put into shape’, and be more than happy with the repeated effect of this rubbing off on them, with no requirement on their part to think or act ‘constructively’, during or after lessons.

 

My advice to any student would simply be to play it by ear. Try, if possible, to find a teacher who gives introductory lessons for free. Have one. Then go away and think about it. Hopefully, a student will already have some idea about the sort of teaching they are hoping for. If not, it pays to consider what the main motivation is for having lessons. Is it to get sorted out; or to sort themselves out?

 

Of course, if there are very few teachers in a locality, who to have lessons with is not a matter of choice. Unless that teacher really rubs a student up the wrong way, it is probably best to persevere with what’s available. If, however, an initial experience is bad, or unfavourable, and there are other teachers around, I would unhesitantly suggest moving on.

 

There remains the possibility that the sort of teacher a student hopes for is not, in fact, the sort of teacher they need. Thinking about this, it’s undeniable that one of the best lessons I ever had ‘taught’ me nothing (as a student) but gave me an ineffable experience and was massively influential in the way I went on to teach. This is exactly the opposite of what I would have said at the time that I wanted.

 

I’ve always been ambivalent about the ‘full twenty five lesson course’ business. This is fine, if a student and their teacher develops their relationship so that each fresh lesson seems like a step forward. However, too often, I suspect, lessons become routine, to the point of merely filling in time. I would heartily recommend a student having lessons with as many teachers as possible; and not worrying about having more than one with any of them, let alone twenty five, until they find someone who truly suits them.

 

Some teachers may not like this approach; but it’s as well to remember, the student is paying rather than the other way around. The only downside to this sort of attitude is if a student never stays for more than a few lessons with any teacher, thereby missing out on the depth of experience gained through prolonged, detailed application.

 

Overall, if a student’s desire is to learn to apply the Technique for themselves, they should be seeking out someone who says they will teach them to do this. If, on the other hand, they prefer to pay to be provided with repeated experiences of good use, but little guidance as to how those experiences were achieved, they should be looking for someone different.

 

The best way to find out how a teacher teaches is to ask; and then to have an experimental lesson.

 

From the outset, it is as well not to make the mistake of thinking the first lesson – or any lesson – represents the definitive Alexander Technique. It doesn’t. There isn’t such a thing. The Technique is taught in so many ways, there is almost certain to be a teacher out there who would suit – or alienate – any intending student.

 

One last thought concerns the question of teachers adapting to the requirements of their students. I don’t mean this in the general way we all adapt to those we come in contact with. I mean it more particularly. It would be agreeable to think most teachers recognise that certain students require a different approach, and change accordingly; but I’m not sure that’s being realistic.

 

As in all areas of life, we assume far too often that what we believe someone else wants is exactly what we’re giving them; so we never bother confirming this, let alone changing what we’re doing. Often, our perception and reality can be wildly at odds. If a student has researched the Alexander Technique and is interested in learning and has a clear idea of how they would like to be taught, there’s no reason for them not to articulate this, from the outset, in the hope they may have found an accommodating teacher.

 

Good luck!

More than one thing at a time

Posted on by dod

This formed part of a discussion on inhibition and whether it was realistic to believe we could think of more than one thing at a time.

I suppose I write about the Technique to explain it to myself as much as others. Having said that, it’s nice to have people read what I’ve written. Thanks, J, and anyone else.

The conclusion I’ve reached is that life is not made up of ‘discrete’ activities, and that in anything other than artificial conditions, we have little choice when to apply the Technique – now!

So, although I agree with J’s points, 1 through 5, where I differ is in believing that the inhibition of interference (2) is equally well, possibly much better, and certainly more readily, learned after – or, as J pointed out, during – rather than before reacting. In fact, I would say if it isn’t, it won’t be learned at all, or only with enormous difficulty, because we’d always be waiting for the next opportunity.

J also poses the question of how we can know at any one time what is and what is not an appropriate degree of tension. The answer is, we can’t, other than by relying on our kinesthetic sense; but this is the case, with varying degrees of accuracy, whether we’ve had one lesson or a hundred. The fact of acting consciously is what makes the difference.

J suggests this:

"…means applying what you learned through the Technique, it is not really the Technique itself."

For me, though, the Technique is indistinguishable from its application; which is what I believe Alexander meant when he said:

"I wish it to be clearly 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.’

Consideration of this plane – how we reach it and what happens on it – is important because it is where ‘thinking in activity’ takes place. One particularly tricky aspect of this was expressed in a question from F back in January:

"It has been said that AT is about "thinking in activity". But how can you do that when your main activity is to think? I am a university lecturer. Every time I start working on a paper or preparing a lecture I try to be aware and send directions etc. However as soon as I get "concentrated" I completely forget about all that. I am only reminded about that again when my back hurts and/or I get tired and stop thinking clearly about the subject. Does anyone have practical tips on how apply the AT to intellectual work?"

This is a good question since ‘intellectual work’ is even less of a discrete activity than the prolonged ‘chair sitting’ that ordinarily accompanies it. C replied at some length at the time. Her explanation of thinking in activity, as a description of what most of us are probably trying to do, with varying degrees of success or failure, as often as we can, was spot on. It exemplified for me being ‘on’ the plane Alexander talked of. However, in the same post she’ implied we should be able to remain there while simultaneously carrying out one or more relatively complex tasks. I wasn’t so comfortable with this, since the sort of concentration (by which I mean the narrowing and focusing of attention) that Alexander so deplored because it denies us the possibility of attending to the means-whereby does seem to be a necessity for much creative work, including, I would have thought, preparing a lecture.

Clearly, a distinction can be made between the easy to fulfil, previously learned aspects of life like getting dressed, walking, eating, cleaning teeth, etc., during which it is easy for the mind to wander and, therefore, easy to rein it in for Alexandrian purposes; and those, like reading a book, sifting through ideas, or writing a note such as this on a computer, that seem to require all our available attention.

I should have thought preparing a lecture (though not necessarily giving one) was wholly incompatible with any other consciously mental activity taking place (including thinking in activity); and my suggestion to F would have been to spend as much of his time as he could manage that was not essentially intellectual – in other words, when he does all the things he already knows how to do so well that his mind is able to take a holiday – paying attention to his use, simply letting himself run on automatic when he’s got his nose to the wheel.

I would have said this because my conviction has always been that the sort of concentrated abstract thought that makes us human is what lies at the heart of misuse; but that we can no more do without it than we can cars or shopping trolleys; and that the answer is not to try and inhibit and direct while concentrating, but to stop thinking in the way that leads to a narrowing of attention as often as we can at all other times.

I suspect Alexander was either over optimistic or else deluded in believing the creative work of society, by which I mean the ratiocination that drives civilisation on, could take place other than by a narrowing of attention -‘ the concentration he abhorred. His ideal of the ever widening attention span was – and is – a wonderful ploy for living, if you haven’t got to get anything much done.

I realise this means that Alexander himself, in writing his books – in merely putting himself into the frame of mind necessary to hold onto the convoluted meaning of some of his sentences – cannot have been ‘thinking in activity’ at the same time. I don’t believe it would have been possible for anyone to travel as far inside themselves mentally as seems to me necessary to have written what Alexander did other than through an intense narrowing of attention.

Obviously, that’s mere speculation, and the fact that something’s hard doesn’t mean it’s impossible. To this end, C proposed her novel exercise of writing one thing down while listening to and understanding something else being spoken out loud. I haven’t attempted this; but as many times as I’ve been to dinner parties (or other similar gatherings) I’ve found myself trying and failing to properly pay attention to two people at once. What usually happens is I strike up conversation with someone but then find my mind latching onto another, far more interesting conversation taking place across the room.

I find it impossible to attend to both conversations simultaneously. Either I have to be scrupulously polite, and ignore what is more interesting, or intolerably rude, and pay full attention to it, leaving my original companion in the lurch. The alternative of fluctuating between two conversations doesn’t seem to be an option for me as I invariably come to ground missing the crucial bit of one or giving the wrong response at the wrong time to the other.

I have similar problems listening to in-car audio tapes (stories rather than songs) when the slightest requirement for conscious brain activity due to road conditions finds me reaching for the pause button lest I miss a crucial passage. Having repeatedly tried and failed in these real life situations, I’m dubious about the benefits (or as well as having an aversion to the practice) of Caroline’s suggested exercise. Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. Robert Monroe, an indefatigable out-of-the-body traveller (now deceased but apparently still reporting in from the next world!) claimed to be able to hold several conversations simultaneously – but only while out of his body.

To me, it does seem like a knack that would require our consciousness to be somewhat more spread out than the constraints of our physical condition allow. To use Frank Pierce Jones’ analogy of a spotlight whose intensity becomes greater or lesser depending on how concentrated its beam is, the more things we are attending to, the more diffuse the light would be on any one of them. That is to say, although F’s use might improve, as he sits at his desk searching for the right words, would his lecture be any good if he couldn’t find those words for the distraction of attending to his use?

Alexander men and women

Posted on by dod

I wrote this in 2001. I still feel much the same.

It was suggested there might:


"… be a fundamental difference between those who view the AT as a way of restoring "natural" use and functioning and those who believe the AT can take people on to the "next step" – producing (though not necessarily stated this explicitly) ‘Alexander men and women’."


A friend of mine went to a mutual appreciation meeting made up of roughly equal proportions of Feldenkries and Alexander teachers. As she entered the room, mildly apprehensive since she knew no one there, she found two groups sitting in opposite corners; one looked, as she put it, like any other collection of people; the other sat in a rather stiff, regimented fashion. Sadly, as she reported, she had no doubts where her allegiance lay.


It is a major quandary for Alexander students to know how to acquire better use without making an unnecessary and often counterproductive effort to do so. I’ve thought for some time that the main cause of this, and the main reason behind the widely held perception of our being somewhat two dimensional, is the use of the hands in teaching.


In an Alexander ‘chair lesson’, as soon as a teacher uses their hands, a student makes him or her self available to be moulded; and however subtle the touch, a sense of having been placed in a position is what will stay with them; and the feeling of it is what they will search out afterwards. Hence the stiffness. Whether such ‘modelling’ is overt or covert, it can feel like being cacooned in a state of implied perfection, from which it is difficult to emerge. Having emerged, it is equally difficult to know how to satisfactorily replicate the conditions that led to it.


I believe this use of the hands, whether in the form of direct manipulation, indirect guidance or barely perceptible suggestion, fosters a far from ideal learning environment that supports the development of contrived "Alexander men and women" at the expense of the restoration of their "natural use and functioning".


Far less is ostensibly taught, or learned, during an Alexander ‘couch session’; but, paradoxically, natural use and functioning are more likely to benefit because of this. Given the relative passivity of the situation, and the emphasis on direction rather than position, a teacher’s hands will be working on a level most students are unlikely to be able to conceive of, let alone attempt to emulate in their day to day behaviour.


Many teachers currently utilise both approaches, some favouring one over the other; but neither conveys the principles of the Technique particularly well. Giving students new kinesthetic experiences in movement is an irresistible invitation for them to copy those movements later, with unfortunate consequences; having muscular change elicited on your behalf, while remaining studiously recumbent, teaches little in the way of conscious control.


If Alexander work continues developing, it will presumably suffer (or enjoy) a series of splits. The predominant strand, currently accommodating those who teach primarily with their hands and already divided along factional lines, is likely to further separate into increasingly disparate active and passive threads. Meanwhile, it is certain the numbers who teach the Technique other than by touch will grow apace.


What constitutes the "real" Alexander Technique is difficult to say. It may be it is a subtle mixture of hands on and off; but such equipoise is rare in practice. STATs recent claiming of the supposed middle ground is an understandable attempt to establish their dominant position, especially in Britain, where an open letter has gone out to all concerned from a separate organisation calling itself the Professional Association of Alexander Teachers, championing a centrally co-ordinated, closely monitored, formulaic hands-on discipline. At the other extreme, David Gorman, whose LearningMethods is resolutely hands-off, and makes no reference to any notion of a Primary Control, has disassociated himself from the practice of the Technique altogether.


Having long believed that extremes in understanding and teaching the principle handed down to us by Alexander would become more and more varied the further in time we got from that source, and that this would inevitably spawn numerous definitions, conflicting claims, considerable misrepresentation, huge variations in teaching skills, and much confusion for potential students, but also wonderful insights in the field of control and reaction, I think we should welcome these developments.


We only have to take a look at what has grown out of Freud’s initial work (regardless of his current standing) to realise where such things lead. Alexander Lowen’s Bioenergetics and David Burns’ Cognitive Therapy may seem world’s apart and yet they address similar problems and have undeniable common ground and could be said to have the same origins in Vienna. In between these two extremes there probably lie as many approaches to psychological well being as there are current Alexander teachers.


Anyone experiencing such problems today may feel they have too many options when it comes to where to go for help; but I would rather that than be restricted, as in the case of ‘use’, to one or two orthodoxy’s. I equate the traditional Alexander course of many lessons – the more the better – with traditional psychoanalysis. It never seems to end. Although Freud’s insights weren’t necessarily wrong, his method left much to be desired, not least in terms of time and expense. I think we could say the same about Alexander.


It is worth remembering, that just as changes can occur, when learning the Technique, in areas not appearing to have anything to do with use, so use itself can change without ever needing to be considered an issue, and certainly without reference to the Technique.


During the first term of the second year of my training course, our common tendency as students – straining to become longer and wider – was particularly evident in one of us because of his angular physique and the greater amount of effort he was putting into getting the most he could out of the course. Working with him was like rearranging differently shaped and sized pieces of immaculately hinged, rigidly controlled body mass. It would have been funny had we not all secretly known we were much the same.


When this student told us he was going to do a weekend workshop with a group called "Life Training", which lasted a day and a half and had the theme of "sexuality", we rather superciliously brushed it off, knowing he was going through a tricky period with his girlfriend and hoping it would help him in that respect.


The following Monday morning, when he entered the room, the mien of intensity he usually carried about him had vanished, to be replaced by a soft, compassionate glow. He looked so wonderful, I was stricken with envy; but I consoled myself with the knowledge that this must be a superficial change.


As the morning progressed, it became clear that he had undergone a transformation, not simply in his inner state, but in everything affected by it. For most of us, this was a withering realisation. Here we were, a year and a bit into an intensive learning process purporting to show us not only how to use ourselves for the best but to teach others to do the same; and we were more tied up in knots of confusion than we had been at the outset. Now, one of our number, who three days earlier had been who we all looked to as the frozen warning of an extreme we mustn’t, under any circumstances, become, had changed into the most entrancing example of balance, suppleness, and ease. Sitting or standing, he remained effortlessly poised. He was effervescent; he sparkled with conviviality; and what was most irritating, he was clearly making no conscious effort to be any of these things.


Putting our hands on him on that and subsequent mornings seemed utterly pointless. We said as much, openly. I remember our raised arms dropping back to our sides. His use had, over the course of a single weekend and without the slightest reference on either his or the workshop participants’ part that it should do so, become faultless. We, by comparison, looked like tailor’s dummies; we acted charmlessly; we moved, sounded and came across almost as a separate species.


Needless to say, the effect didn’t last; but it lasted long enough – months rather than weeks – for us not really to notice how it was gradually fading; until, one day, probably in the third term of our second year, we started referring wistfully to "the way he had been", not meaning when he had first come on the course, but when he had first come back after that weekend experience.


We all consoled ourselves at the time with the knowledge that what we were gaining was an understanding of a more lasting nature; and because we believed we were becoming conscious of how we were bringing changes in ourselves about, that seemed undeniably more valuable than any sudden transformations.


Now, more than ten years later, I have little doubt this relatively short lived metamorphosis was that of a "natural" man coming into his own; and that the rest of us, whose ranks he rejoined shortly afterwards, were "new Alexander men and women" in the making; and that the wisdom of our choosing rationality over whatever it was that had brought the transformation about remains distinctly questionable.


Strangely enough, years before this, my mother had gone through a similarly radical change. Almost overnight, her entire demeanour became that of an altogether different person to the one I had grown up with. I was sixteen when this happened and unaware of the concept of use; but what was unmistakable was the sudden disappearance of the stiffness that had dogged her physically, and an absence of the distance and reserve that had always seemed integral parts of her character.


Although the "natural" woman who emerged was in many ways extremely attractive – my father kept talking about his second honeymoon – she was initially difficult for everyone in our family to cope with. We all hoped and expected the phenomena would quickly pass. In fact, it continued for more than two years, and my mother never fully returned to ‘normal’. Instead, as we grew used to her in her ‘new’ guise, so the ‘old’ person partially resurfaced, until, eventually, the two became one, and a happy compromise resulted, for which we were all grateful.


I mention this because my mother neither went to a Life Training workshop nor had Alexander lessons, nor ever thought she needed to change. She simply visited Africa on holiday, was bitten by a mosquito, and got malaria.

Self help dialogue

Posted on by dod

This is a series of questions and answers that occurred a while back. Hopefully, it will show that progress can be made, in a matter of days, or weeks, without a teacher; and how important self exploration is.

Self Help Dialogue

 

First Email:   �I’ve been looking at some websites and am interested in learning the Alexander technique on my own. I understand that you’re interested in hearing from people trying learn it on their own – any advice would be appreciated!�

First Reply:   I’m not sure if you read what I’ve written at www.positivehealth.com Check out the Jan 2001 issue. Or at www.dodman.org, under Alexander. If you go through the procedures I suggest in that article you could then come back to me with any questions you might have.

Alexander work is all about self discovery. Nothing I can say will help you half as much as whatever you discover for yourself. The key is to uncover something you weren’t previously aware of.

Try what I suggest in that article. It doesn’t matter if nothing unexpected appears to happen; but look closely, because I’d be surprised if nothing did!

Let me know how you get on.

Second Email:   �Thanks for replying. I’ve had a look at that article you mentioned and tried out what you suggested – and there was definitely some kind of effect which is hard to explain – I guess the best way of describing it is a feeling of ‘lightness’! But now that I’ve tried that, I want to know other things that I could try. It feels like I’ve made a start, but want to do more, I’m just not sure what! I know I should probably relax and not push it, but it’s just good to feel that there’s hope for me at last..!

Is it really possible to learn on my own, how much difference would it make having a teacher?

Thanks again for your help!�

Second Reply:   �Learning the Alexander Technique is a slow process. It can be very frustrating because so often little appears to be happening. It would undoubtedly be faster with a teacher.

Learning on your own is not impossible but it can be a painstaking business. It’s not easy with a teacher, either. I’m happy to dialogue with anyone who want to pursue the process; but all I can really do is act as a foil and an explainer of that person’s experiences. To do that effectively means I have to ask them what their experiences are.

To return to my original suggestions in the article you read: did you do the one with the palm of your hand placed on the back of your neck? What was your experience of that? Did you, for example, feel your neck tighten at any point? This is probably the most important question I can ask you. Try the experiment again, if you like. It should only take a minute or so.

Also, which procedure was it that produced the ‘light’ feeling?

Third email:   Thank you for your response. Going back to the suggestions in your article, I did try putting my hand on my neck whilst standing up and I was surprised at how much it tightened. But when I moved my hand away and stood up again, I couldn’t perceive any sort of tightening at all. I’ve tried it several times since but I’m still struggling to really feel what my neck is actually doing.

I felt that ‘light’ feeling when following your directions of using my hands to rotate and move my head and then letting go, but moving as if my hands were still there. As soon as I moved my hands away and started moving my head again, it felt completely different to how I feel normally, it was comfortable, but more than that, movement felt light and easy, as if my head had suddenly become weightless.

Something else I’ve found helpful is an article I read elsewhere, I haven’t been able to find it again, but I’ve an idea it might have even been you who wrote it. It was basically describing someone’s experience when asked to imagine they were holding a heavy bucket of water in each hand. I could relate a lot to what the writer described. When I tried the suggestion, and realised that I normally hold my shoulders pulled high up, and back. Just allowing my shoulders to relax and fall down has made a great difference and made something as simple as just walking a lot more comfortable. It still feels strange to relax that way, and I can’t from the feeling that I’m leaning forward, but when I look in the mirror, I can see that I’m not and that I actually look more balanced and ‘upright’ than I ever do normally.

Although I feel like I’ve made a good start with the things I’ve learned already, I know there are a lot of other things I need to realise about myself and that it will take time. I get backache a lot and standing for any length of time is extremely uncomfortable, almost painful. And at 25, I really don’t think I ought to be feeling this way, so I’m determined that I’m going to learn the Alexander Technique, even if progress is slow.

Anyway, thank you for listening. I appreciate that the help you can give me now is limited but any sort of suggestions or feedback or links to articles or books I could read would be greatly welcomed!

Third Reply:   I’ve had a fair bit of correspondance concerning the self help article I wrote; but of all the feedback I’ve had so far, none has been so spot on – textbook, really – as your last email!

Seriously, what you said is absolutely fantastic for me because it proves (unless you’ve been having lessons on the side) that the two key learning processes involved in the Technique can be experienced by someone on their own, relatively easily.

Now, if you were to rest on your laurels, nothing much else would be likely to occur; and you might think little had been learned. Conversely, if you were to begin having – and paying – for a series (minimum 25, no maximum) of 30-45 minute lessons with a teacher, you would probably find the two key things you’ve already learned blossoming into a clearer and clearer
understanding of how you use yourself in everyday life.

The third choice is devoting some time to learning more on your own; and the difficulty here is genuinely giving yourself at least as many dedicated minutes where you are paying scrupulous attention to what you are doing as would be the case if you were visiting a teacher.

Unfortunately, as I’m sure you can imagine, this isn’t so easy! However, if you find it too difficult to devote the necessary time, I hope at least you will recognise the failing is not necessarily in the self help method.

The two key processes I mentioned are, first and foremost, the experience you had of your head pulling backwards and down (in relation to the spine) that you could feel with the hand placed on your neck but that you could not feel in your neck. The immediate task before you is simple: first of all, you need to keep repeating this procedure, until you can feel what you’re doing with your neck IN your neck. There’s no short cut here, I’m afraid. It will take as long as it takes; and it won’t all come at once, so you have to keep refreshing yourself as to how extreme the pulling backward and down is.

Secondly, once you recognise yourself (from within the neck) doing this (pulling your head backwards and down) you need to learn to stop doing it, whenever you can. You can assume that what you do with your neck and head when you sit and stand you will also do pretty much whatever the activity, albeit on a lesser scale.

Those two things are probably more than enough for one lifetime.

The other key process you’ve had a glimpse of concerns freeing the neck in a more subtle way. What I wanted to convey in the slightly convoluted procedure I described was that we could free our heads in such a way that they could be moved by an external force (our own or our teacher’s hands); but that we could also free our heads this way when they weren’t going to be moved at all, because that freedom would influence our neck and head region (and the rest of us) beneficially – just as our habitual lack of freedom influences us malignly.

Does this make sense? Is it what you think happened when you experienced that ‘light’ feeling? Perhaps most importantly, would you be able to recreate, not the feeling (trying to do that is usually fatal) but the thought of freeing the head in other circumstances?

That’s the other task: to think of freeing your head (so that it could, if necessary, be rotated or tilted on its axis) while engaging in as many of your ordinary occupations as possible.

How’s that sound?

Concerning the heavy buckets article: yes, that was me. I’m not sure where you read it; but if you go to www.dodman.org and then click on Alexander, then Correspondence, and then Before and After, you should find what I originally wrote somewhere in the second half.

The most staggering thing for me is that when this happened I was maybe in my mid thirties and I had been told for years by my wife and mother about my shoulder deformity but I had neither recognised this kinesthetically nor visually. It was as if, because I felt kinesthetically okay, I believed I didn’t look anything but okay, too. As I mention in the article, it took only one Alexander lesson (which had little to do with the principles of the Technique) to open my eyes to the reality. The rest was up to me; and a year of pain followed as I ‘let go’.

One other thing: you’ve touched on a crucial issue with your experience of standing differently, feeling ‘wrong’, but verifying in the mirror that you are in fact ‘right’. This is the meat and drink of lessons: being guided through movements that ‘feel’ wrong, having the assurance of your teacher they are in fact right.

Last of all: although you’re right not to want too much backache at 25, I think backache can have as much to do with a person’s mode of life as the way they use themselves; but use is certainly relevant. I had serious backache earlier in life; and I did eventually have a eureka experience with
it, much as I had with my shoulders; but I have to admit that came after an awful lot of lessons. I wouldn’t recommend anybody to have heaps of lessons.

I do have a couple of back related procedures; but I’ll save them for another time. Don’t feel you have to keep this correspondence going at any particular rate, or at all. Contact me again as and when you feel inclined. For my part, it’s a pleasure to put into words what I think.

In fact, with your permission (and leaving out your name) I would like one day to add this correspondence to the end of the ‘self help’ article, which is actually on the same dodman website.

Fourth Email:   Hi, it’s me again!

Well..it’s been a while since I last wrote. I’d like to be able to say that I’ve made some progress with your suggestion of repeating the procedure to feel what I’m doing in my neck. I have spent some time trying but it’s surprisingly difficult. I thought once I consciously realised what I was doing in my neck, that I would soon be able to feel it, but it’s proving harder than I thought. I was feeling optimistic after reading your last message too, I felt like I’d been successful with the procedures in your article so I’d be able to do more!

Having said that, I have made some useful obvservations just by paying attention to myself and looking in the mirror at how I stand, walk etc. I’ve also been thinking about what you were saying about freeing the head and I do think that is what I felt when I experience the light feeling. I’ve been trying to think of my head as ‘free’ and ‘light’ in the hope that it might go some way to decreasing the tension in my neck, even though I can’t feel it, and sometimes it does seem to help and I do feel more relaxed and comfortable but it doesn’t last.

I have a very bad posture, people were telling me that even before I was even in my teens and it just seems to have got worse. It’s very visible to me, particularly when I catch sight of myself in a shop window, but even face on, I can see it. I’ve desperately tried to ‘stand up straight’ but got frustrated because even when I put in a huge effort, I still didn’t look properly ‘upright’. That’s why reading about the alexander technique was so interesting to me – I’d already discovered for myself that attempting to stand up straight was painful and uncomfortable and basically, completely unsuccessful so it was great to find that there might be another way. The way I hold myself is all wrong, which I’ve realised for a long time, I just didn’t know in what way it was ‘wrong’. As I said, looking at myself in the mirror has helped, but it’s also raised some concerns. I’m worried about my lower back. It’s difficult to exlain, but basically, it doesn’t seem to curve. When I bend to touch my toes (which I can’t!), the length of my spine is almost entirely straight, with the curve (it’s quite an exagerated curve too) beginning at around my shoulder blades. But nothing I do seems to curve that lower part of my spine. I can arch it back with no problem but that the only way it seems to move which is a bit worrying to me. I’m hoping that it’s simply as a result of a bad posture.

Anyway, you’re welcome to use this correspondence on your site, without my name. I will persevere learning on my own and I will hopefully make more progress.

Bye for now,

Fourth reply:   I wouldn’t feel too disappointed, if I were you. It might seem like an age, but after three weeks of Alexander lessons I knew nothing about what was going on in my neck. It took me ages to pick anything up; and that was with specialist attention.

90% of what lessons do is force you to pay attention to what’s going on during them, that’s all. I’m sure, if you could pay attention alone as much as you would if you were with a teacher, you’d progress almost as rapidly.

Persevere. There’s a lovely expression Alexander’s brother is supposed to have used: something like – stick to principle and it will all open out like a giant cauliflower. I don’t suppose you’ve grown many cauliflowers; but the way they change, from looking like just another empty cabbage plant for months on end, to a huge white flower head in the blink of an eye, is amazing.

Concerning your posture. Could you try a couple of experiments? Stand with your heels a half inch from the skirting board of a flat area of wall. Slowly come back to lean against it and notice which part of you touches first – usually either bottom or shoulder. Whichever it is, deliberately
allow the part that hasn’t yet made contact to do so, so both your bottom and shoulders are lightly pressing against the wall together.

Reach a hand around and verify you can slide it into the gap between your lower back or waist and the wall. Reach up and hopefully you will find there’s a considerable space (two or three inches) between the back of your head and the wall, too. Tell me if this isn’t the case.

Now, let yourself come away from the wall the smallest amount you can, so you’re free-standing again. Notice what it feels like. It’s probably as near as you’ll get to ever knowing what ‘upright’ is, without having somebody tell you or without seeing yourself in a mirror or on video. As a rule of thumb, the degree to which this new way of standing ‘feels’ wrong will be the degree to which ‘feeling right’ when standing in your normal way is likely to ‘be’ wrong!

When you do this, check you haven’t reverted to your ‘old’ way by allowing yourself to sway back to the wall again and verify what touches first. Ideally, bottom and shoulder should touch together.

While you’re at the wall, you could try slowly sliding down it, letting your knees bend while remaining in contact with both bottom and shoulders. Notice whether, by the time you reach your limit (this is usually defined by the knees and ankles not being able to bend further without the heels lifting off the ground) your lower back has come against the wall, too. Check by
sliding your hand into the gap as before. Ideally, there should be less of a gap, if any at all.

Another interesting experiment is to take a kitchen chair, place it back to front against a wall, and sit astride it, with your entire back � including bottom and shoulders and lower back – nestled against the wall. Notice how this feels; and notice how it feels when you slide forward on the chair so you’re away from the wall an inch or so.

Now, return to leaning against the wall again, bottom, shoulders and waist well back. ‘Hinge’ forward from the hips, so your back leaves the wall. Then lean back again, and see if your entire back returns into contact with the wall. Let me know how this goes.

Are you able to squat easily with your heels remaining on the floor? If so, it’s a great position for the back. If not, it’s a habit worth cultivating. One of the best ways is taking hold of both sides of a (strong) door knob, and lowering yourself down using that as support.

Squatting is something all children and most adults can do easily: it’s actually considered a position of repose. I remember teaching a class of adolescents once who were bored stiff by what I was saying, until I got them all to try squatting, which none of them could do without falling over. They were only just out of childhood themselves. I blame school and an over reliance on chairs.

Concerning your non pliable lower back. If you’re really worried I would recommend getting hold of some Feldenkries exercise audio tapes; they should help you loosen up a bit. Fedenkries work is extraordinary: I find it stultifyingly boring to do, most of the time, but it’s completely effortless in terms of blood, sweat and tears, yet it has an amazing effect.

One useful Alexander procedure, if you can dedicate yourself to doing it, is lying in semi-supine. To save me the sweat of describing this, check out:  http://www.thetechnique.co.uk/semi.htm  or:  http://www.chiropractor.demon.co.uk/html/Lyingdown.html

You might do all the above and identify some problem areas and end up wondering how on earth you will ever get anything right; so it’s important to emphasise that the Technique is about stopping doing the wrong rather than doing the right.

For instance, once you recognise you’re tightening your neck and pulling your head backwards and down, the solution isn’t to ‘put’ it forwards and up but to stop tightening the neck, whereupon it will go forwards and up of its own accord. It’s the same with every area of the body. The bad posture you recognise in yourself will be the result of things you are doing, that are below the level of your senses. The more you pay attention to what you’re doing – without trying to change it – the more likely the things you need to stop doing will come to the fore.

Stopping doing those things while still ‘not trying to change is the big challenge!

Let me know how you get on – particularly, how you ‘feel’ when you come away from the wall fractionally and stand unsupported. Remember – don’t try too hard. Ideally, nobody who’s learned the Alexander Technique should look as though they’re putting it into practice. There’s an
expression, epitomised by a stiff, set, zombielike look, in the profession – ‘Alexandroid’. To be avoided at all costs!

Fifth email:   I’ve been trying the experiments you mentioned. When I tried leaning against the wall in the way you suggested, it was actually my shoulder that touched first. This surprised me because I alway feel that I ‘slouch’ so I thought my shoulders would be further forwards. There was about 3 inches between my head and the wall, but I thought that would be a bad thing as I thought the head was supposed to be in the same ‘line’ as the shoulders and bottom? There was a smaller gap between my lower back and the wall, but it was still about 2 inches. When I moved away from the wall, it did feel strange, it felt like I was leaning forward. But I did find it very difficult to stay like that as whenever I leant back on the wall again, my shoulders were touching first. However, when I ‘hinged’ forward from the hips and leant back again, my bottom and hips tended to touch the wall at the same time, but my no other part of my back came any closer to the wall.

As for sliding down the wall, I tried this, but I’m a bit confused about what you said about reaching the limit which is usually when the heels lift off the ground. I can barely slide down at all without the heels lifting, but if I lift them, I am able to slide all the way down, until I’m sitting on my heels, with my bottom and shoulders touching the wall. But the gap between my lower back and the wall never reduces.

When I used the kitchen chair, my lower back was closer to the wall, but not touching. When I ‘slouched’ a bit though, my entire back rested flat against the wall. When I gently moved away, it did actually feel quite comfortable but I also felt like I was leaning forward too much.

Squatting with my heels remaining on the floor sounded like it would be fairly easy and I didn’t think it would be a problem. So I was surprised to find that I can’t even get close. Even using something for support as I lowered myself down was difficult and if I let go I’d fall over!

I’ve read about lying semi-supine before, but I was put off because I’d find it difficult to lay that way for so long. But if it could be beneficial then I will try and put some time aside to do it. I just hope I can stay still for that long!

I’d never heard of Feldenkries before, but I had a look at a couple of websites and it sounds like it could be useful to me. To be honest, at the moment I feel like I need all the help I can get!

It is a bit difficult to restrain myself from ‘trying’ to stand up straight all the time, even though I know I shouldn’t do it. Especially as I’m coming to realise that my idea of ‘standing up straight’ probably isn’t quite as ‘straight’ as I imagine. As for stopping what I’m doing wrong, I’m not completely sure of exactly what I’m doing that’s wrong. I’ve always thought I had a very ‘lazy’ posture and that was the reason for it being so bad. So it’s hard to grasp the idea that ‘stopping’ doing something is going to do anything other than make matters worse – it’s not easy to come to terms with the idea that I’m actually ‘doing’ something to make my posture that way.

Anyway, thank you again for your help and support with this – I’ll continue with the things I’ve learnt. I’m going to try the ‘wall’ experiment a bit more, and hopefully it will start to feel a little more ‘normal’ to stand that way.

Fifth reply:   Just a short note. There definitely should be a gap of an inch or two (or three) between the back of your head (unless you have an unusually elongated back of the skull – which some people do) and the back of your back; so if you’re leaning against the wall, as I suggested, the head shouldn’t be touching.
That’s why, in semi supine, books are traditionally put under the head, to prevent it pulling or lolling back.

If you lean against the wall, shoulders and bottom touching, with a hollow in the small of your back, your legs should be more or less straight. As you slide down the wall, you’ll probably only ‘travel’ six inches or so, but during this time your knees will bend and go out over your toes until there’s a fair degree of angle there. The resistance to further movement seems to centre around the ankle area.

If, after sliding six inches, you find the hollow in the small of your back is still there, that’s
okay; but have a go at ‘easing’ it back – ‘push’ it back if you have to. It might feel like you have to tighten your stomach to do this: that’s okay. Try sliding back up the wall and having the hollow return; then sliding down again and losing the hollow. It’s important this happens by degrees rather than all at once. In other words, if you only slid half the distance you could, the small of your back would be somewhere between the two extremes.

This relates very much to what you do with your back when you sit.

By the way, I’m afraid I did mean the soles of the feet remain flat on the floor at all times!

If all this is difficult – and especially if straightforward squatting is, too – reflect on the fact that your body has probably spent a number of years not moving in an ideal fashion and various muscles will have shortened. I recommend squatting as something you could do – or try and do � regularly. Watch you don’t pull the back of your head down, though.

Concerning the notion of you needing to stop doing something you’re already doing rather than needing to ‘do’ something else. It’s difficult to say with any certainty, but generally excess muscle tension is the problem. Sometimes, though, especially with slumping, there is a lack of muscle tension. It sounds to me, from what you say about feeling as though you were slumping when you allowed your lower back to go back to the wall (added to how you ‘always feel as though you slouch’) you were ‘doing’ too much in your attempt to sit ‘up’. However, how you sit ordinarily – at work, while eating, watching TV – I have no idea.

I find semi supine exasperatingly boring; but if I were you – in pain, concerned about your posture, etc – I would do it religiously; but I would probably try and tie it in with something else, like listening to an improving tape or even reading. Someone somewhere devised a reading aid for lying on the floor with. you could use a sheet of glass supported on books if your arms got tired. Or just use the time to meditate.

Part of what semi supine is designed to do is enable you to stop both physically and mentally.

Keep the questions coming.

Best of luck.

Sixth email:   Hi,  I’ve tried what you said about sliding down the wall, and if I do tighten my stomach, I can push my back right up against the wall – it isn’t easy though! Is this something I should try to do regularly?

I had another look at your website too, I hadn’t paid much attention to your photo on the home page before, but now I’ve noticed that you’re actually squatting in the way that I’ve been finding impossible! You make it look so natural & easy – relaxing even. It’s just hard to believe that you can make something I’m finding immensely difficult, look like the easiest thing in the world! I have been trying though, I’m just not exactly sure what the best way is to try. So far I’ve been using something for support to lower myself down, and then just trying to ease my grip with my hands and trying to suport myself on my own. There is no way I could let go at the moment because I’d just fall over.

I’ve also had several sessions of lying semi-supine. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to stay still for so long, but I’ve actually found the main problem is staying awake – which I didn’t expect as normally I can’t get to sleep lying on my back at all. I had thought it would be a good idea to try and use the time more constructively than just lying there, but wasn’t sure how. I might try and find a way of reading comfortably. It would keep me awake as well as making the prospect a bit more appealing. As for the results so far, well, the first time I tried it, I did notice quite a difference when I stood up and walked around. My back and general posture just felt different. I actually went and stood against the wall, just to see if I could tell what I was doing differently, and I found to my surprise that both shoulders and bottom touched together. Even more surprising, it was still the same when I did it again a few minutes later after I’d walked around a bit more. The first time I’d tried that, I couldn’t even hold the posture for more than a couple of second after I’d moved away from the wall, but this time, I just seemed to be doing it effortlessly.

I’ve been tyring some Feldenkries exercises too, just some that I found on the internet which concentrated on the lower back. The first time I did them, it was slightly alarming the number of popping and cracking sounds that were coming from my spine, but it didn’t feel at all uncomfortable, more the opposite really, I felt a kind of relief. And when I got up afterwards, my lower back felt really good, so relaxed. It was kind of like not noticing the sound of the air conditioning until it goes off and everything goes very quiet. There had been so much tension and discomfort in my back, but I only became aware of it when I realised it had gone. It was what I’d felt after lying semi-supine, only to a greater extent. But I’m definitley going to continue with both as I really feel the benefit aftwerwards.

It’s hard for me to say whether I have an excess, or a lack of muscle tension. Although, I suspect that when I’m standing or walking, there is too much, because I feel so self-conscious about people seeing me ‘slouching’ that I try to stand up straight. But I’m not sure about when I’m just sitting watching tv or whatever. Except that I find it uncomfortable to sit ‘normally’, with my feet on the floor. I usually sit on my feet, or with my legs crossed under me, people have commented on my always having to sit in ‘weird’ positions, but I’m not sure what my posture would be like, or whether I really am slouching, or if there is a lot of muscle tension. On the subject of muscle tension though, there have been a couple of occasions when I’ve felt some tension in my neck. It’s usually when I’ve been doing something when there’d presumably be more tension than normal, like when I’m leaning over the sink brushing my teeth. But it’s still something I wasn’t able to feel before. I’m just hoping that I’ll start noticing things like that more and more. I do think my neck and head are really the main problems with my posture, or at least, they are the most visible. Because I walk my my head pushed forward and down. Almost like someone looking at the floor, except that I hold my head the same way when I’m looking straight ahead. I do have a tendancy to look at the floor when I walk though.

I don’t know if what everything I’m doing will improve my posture, which was my main aim, but even if it doesn’t, I’m enjoying the things that I’ve been learning and I’m really pleased I started with all this.

Sixth reply:   I’ve been – and will continue to be – coming and going a lot these days; so, again, only time for a short note.

First – the photo. That wasn’t chosen for me squatting, particularly. It was just a still from some video footage my son took: we were on top of the South Downs, resting after a steep climb. So, it genuinely represents me ‘resting’ rather than me doing anything strenuous that might look good!

I’m lucky in that I’ve always found squatting both comfortable and relatively easy. I think in your case it’s important you persavere until it becomes at least possible and maybe eventually a pleasure. It’s such a ‘natural’ position for a human, everyone in possession of full control over
their limbs should be able to do it.

Concerning you wondering if you should ‘push’ your lower back to the wall – no, not really, but so much depends on how bent your knees are. Can I ask you if, when you are lying on the floor in semi supine, your lower back contacts the floor, or whether there’s a gap there? If there’s a gap, it
suggests the msucles in that area are extremely tight and that you will have to be patient and wait for them to ‘let go’. However, if there is no discernible gap (it’s sometimes worth hugging your knees to your chest and lifting your pelvis off the floor to ‘iron’ out any kinks present) then you
could probably conclude that if, when you are sliding down the wall and you get as far, position wise, as you were in semi supine (in other words, if you and the wall suddenly became horizontal instread of vertical you would look as though you were in semi supine) any gap between your lower back and the wall is the result of an effort you are inadvertently making.

That’s a bit of a complicated sentence. I hope it makes sense. What it means to imply is that rather than making an effort to ‘push’ your lower back back you could instead think of ‘releasing’ it back, just as if you were doing the same while lying in semi supine, which you will be doing if there is no gap then.

One interesting point: you mention spending a lot of your time when walking around looking down at the ground. I would suspect that when you do this you will be thinking in an associative way about something far removed from the present.

Try this: next time you catch yourself looking down at the ground, focus on it: the paving slabs, grass, whatever; then, maintaining your focus on whatever your eyes settle on, slowly look up until you are looking out at eye level. Avoid staring at any one thing; but avoid glazing over, too. I believe that as long as you stay focused on your surroundings, you will find it difficult if not impossible to ‘think’ about anything very much; and you won’t look down. However, as soon as you start ‘thinking’, don’t be surprised if you find yourself looking down again.

I don’t know how much of a ‘thinker’ you are; but I believe one of the major causes of poor use (and posture) is what I call absence from the present; ie, thinking about the past or future, while the body runs on autopilot.

Having said that, a certain sort of ‘thinking’ is required to put the Alexander Technique into practice. Try focussing first, though.

Seventh email:   Hello again, Well, I’m still trying the squatting, but it still isn’t easy. It’s starting to feel slightly less ‘unfamilar’ though, if that makes sense – as though I might have a chance of being able to do it at some point. I wouldn’t say that it feels at all ‘natural’ yet though, it’s hard to imagine actually being able to do it comfortably.

When I’m lying semi-supine, there is a bit of a gap between my lower back and the floor, it’s not very big though, it’s narrower than my fingers, so it isn’t far from touching the floor. Sliding down the wall to a position as if I were lying semi-supine, there’s still a bit gap between lower back and wall. I can push it back, as I mentioned before, but it’s hard to get it back without making an effort. I did try to just ‘release’ it, and it did go back a little way, but still no where near touching the wall. Are you saying that I’m making an effort (conscious or not) to keep my back ‘arched’ in that way? It’s an interesting thought – I would say that I’m not because I don’t feel like I’m doing anything, but when I think about the situation with my neck and how I wasn’t aware of that tension either, it’s hard to say one way or the other.

I was interested to read about your comments about thinking while the body is running on autopilot. I probably do that quite a lot, especially whilst walking. I don’t walk anywhere without listening to my discman because walking (particularly to and from work)is so dull. And I do tend to ‘daydream’ quite a bit and think about all sorts of things rather than focusing on the present. But I will try out your suggestion of trying to focus on my surroundings and see if it makes a difference to my habit of looking at the floor.

Seventh reply:   To answer your question: yes, I would say you probably are pulling in your lower back without realising it; but, as I mentioned before, the ideal answer is not to ‘push’ it back (which would only set up two antagonistic forces) but to stop pulling it in. The only way to do that, really, is to
become aware of the effort you are making; and I’m afraid the only way to become aware is to pay attention as much and as often as you can to what you are doing.

I would particularly suggest paying attention whenever you sit and stand because those are the times when this tensing activity is most prevalent. You could try placing the back of one hand against your lower back so you can feel manually what happens there when you move from sitting to standing and vice versa.

I know what you mean when you say walking is dull; but it’s useful sometimes to get into the sort of frame of mind that a prisoner might be in who walks out of a dank, dark prison into what is for him or her would be a relatively exciting world: it’s a matter of familiarity that makes you or me relatively indifferent to our surroundings while someone who has been starved of them finds them supremely exciting!

Something that might be helpful is to look at the world in 3D. Truly focus on what you’re walking amongst. I used to think, well, of course we see in 3D; but a teacher once had me stand at a window (which was in a house on a hill) and look out over the South Downs; and as he explained what he meant I suddenly, and for the first time for many, many years, saw depth in what I was looking at.

It was an awesome moment; and perhaps the most awesome fact of all was that I could switch it on or off at will. The knack was rather like the knack of seeing those magic eye pictures, only far easier. What it did require, however, was an effort of will to chose to do it. This possibility is
open to us every moment of every day; and while I can’t speak for anyone else, I can confidently say I spend most of my time looking at the world in anything but 3D.

It has been my experience that seeing the world in 3D alters the way I think and act. I suspect perception may affect conception as profoundly as conception does use. Anyway, it’s food for thought.

The dialogue ended here.

Self-help Alexander

Posted on by dod

This is an article I originally wrote for Positive Health magazine. I am always glad to hear from people interested in taking the subject further, either via the Forum or by email (click on fourth or fifth horseman).

Alexander Self-Help.

Although the Alexander Technique has traditionally been passed on through the medium of touch, with the hands of the teacher guiding the student, the originator of the technique, FM Alexander, was entirely self taught. 

            Yet, anyone becoming involved in Alexander work soon discovers why it is so difficult to learn alone. The problem revolves around our perceived sense of ourselves. Most of us would say we know when we are in a balanced state, and it is often a shock to be encouraged by our Alexander teacher to move in ways counter to this.

            With the aid of mirrors, Alexander discovered that what he saw did not  correspond with what he sensed himself doing. After much experimentation, he concluded it was necessary for him to feel wrong while knowing he was right, until he was sufficiently accustomed to the new sensation for it to no longer seem strange. 

            This is a simplification of the processes involved; but essentially, having a faulty sense of ourselves makes beneficial change difficult. This is especially the case when the bulk of our kinesthetic perception takes place beneath the level of awareness. Hence, the need for teachers, who satisfy the dual function of drawing attention to what we are doing while guiding us to do it differently.

            The average individual is likely to have neither the inclination nor the perseverance (despite the availability of video), to emulate Alexander’s painstaking work, as outlined in The Use of the Self; but there are alternative avenues of exploration open to those wanting to change their habitual way of reacting to stimuli.

            The first step is to become fully engaged not only in what we are doing but the way we are doing it. This may not seem a tall order; until we realise how often our mind is either wholly taken up with the task at hand, or is anticipating the future or reminiscing over the past, while our body operates on autopilot.

            The second step is recognising – accurately – what we are doing, and from that, recognising what we are doing wrong. In Alexander’s view, we tighten our necks, and pull our heads backwards and down; which, in turn, leads to a shortening of the spine, through over exaggeration of its curves, and a narrowing of the trunk, causing a general contraction of the body. His ideal was a free neck, with the head going forward and up, followed by a lengthening spine and a widening back.

            To have an idea what he meant, it can be useful to sit somewhere, place the palm of one hand on the back of your neck (let it rest there like a poultice) and then decide to stand, while keeping your hand in place. You might stand quickly or slowly, in one movement or in stages; but pay close attention to what your hand is telling you is happening with your neck muscles.

            Unless you’re markedly different from most, there’ll be a palpable degree of activity in your neck out of all proportion to what needs to be going on to keep the head supported, and way more than you would normally be aware of. You may also perceive that this neck activity pulls your head backwards and down.

            Try this going from standing to sitting. Then repeat what you’ve just done, but rather than using your hand to measure the muscular activity in your neck, use your internal kinesthetic sense. Sit or stand normally, while paying attention to your neck. You’ll probably notice nothing, or else very little, going on there.

            That in itself should be enough to clarify for most of us the enormous gulf between what we are actually doing (pulling our heads backwards and down) and what we think we are doing (nothing untoward). If we run through this procedure often enough, we’ll come to recognise unnecessary activity in our necks without needing verification from our hands. It will be going on most of the time, although it will be when sitting or standing that it is most noticeable.

            All that is then required is for us to stop doing this. Stopping pulling our heads backwards and down – which is the sole criteria for it to go forwards and up – isn’t a discipline that comes about overnight; but there’s no reason for progress to be any slower than in other areas of learning.

            For a more subtle, supplementary approach, you could try placing one hand on the back of your head, and the other on your forehead, and gently rotating your head half way to where you would be able to look along the line of one shoulder, and then turning it back (switching hands if need be), so you’re doing the same on the other side.

            As you do this, it is best to think of your head rotating from a spot more or less midway between your ears, which is where the skull sits and turns on the two topmost vertebra. It also ‘rocks’ from this point; so, again using your hands, gently incline or nod your head an inch or two forwards (as if you were checking your shirt front) and then tilt it the same amount backwards (that first step to looking up at the stars).

            Turn your head slowly back and forth, then nod and tilt it, a few times, paying as much attention as you can to allowing your hands rather than neck muscles to initiate the movement. Obviously, your neck muscles play their part, but you want the impression they are following rather than leading. Keep remembering that point between your ears.

            Finally, return your head to its starting place, only this time, as you begin to apply gentle pressure with your hands to rotate towards the right or left, or to tilt forwards or backwards, use your neck muscles to resist the movement.

            Don’t let this become a tug of war. A gentle inclination with the hands can be met by an equally gentle resistance. Maintain the pressure of your hands; then allow your head to be turned, or tilted, taking particular notice of what you ‘do’ to allow the movement that previously you had disallowed to now take place. That is the key moment, so pay attention to it.

            Play around with this for a while, stopping and starting, noticing the difference between what you do muscularly to resist the urging of your hands and what you do – or rather, don’t do – to go along with it.

            Now take your hands off your head, but pretend they are still there, trying to turn or tilt it. Initially, deny them the possibility. Let’s call that fixidity. Then, do whatever you did before that allowed your hands to turn or tilt your head, but this time without them being there and without you turning or tilting it yourself. Call that poise. For as long as you choose poise – which is simply the absence of fixidity – you can be reasonably confident your head will be balanced rather than pressing down on the top of your spine. Whatever it may feel like – and it may feel no different to the way it usually does – this will affect you beneficially.

            I suggest you work on the assumption that when you’re not consciously engaged in choosing poise you’ll almost certainly be subconsciously ensuring its opposite; that fixidity is your default mode for most of the hours of the day; and that when you’re doing anything remotely stressful you’ll be hard pressed to undo this. That way you won’t be too disappointed.

            Another ploy utilises the procedure Alexander devised for encouraging new messages to be sent from the brain to the muscles without relying on the kinesthetic sense. To understand how this works, it is important to differentiate between actual and imagined movement. Raising an arm and moving it about in space before letting it hang by your side again is not the same as imagining yourself doing this, without moving your arm at all. 

            If we consider the key Alexander concept of wanting to free the neck for the head to go forward and up, there is a crucial point to bear in mind, which is that you cannot carry these instructions out directly, since the only way for the head to go forward and up is for the neck to stop pulling it backwards and down. To the extent you know you are doing this – assuming you have been paying attention – you will already have stopped.

            However, imagining your head going forward and up (which is done in exactly the same way you might imagine moving an arm in space) is an acceptable alternative, circumventing any desire you may have to make it happen, at the same time as acting, through the process of placing your intention on the area in question, as a counter influence on your hidden desire to carry on pulling it backwards and down. If you are in any doubt what forward and up means, you could try tightening your neck, verifying that the result is your head being pulled backwards and down, and then letting it go again.

            These simple steps – becoming aware, stopping pulling your head backwards and down, choosing poise rather than fixidity, imagining your head going forward and up – can have a powerful effect. Not least of their power, though, comes from the concurrent need to remain in, and pay attention to, the present moment. It sounds cliched, but probably the most profoundly beneficial self-help procedure any of us could undertake is simply to be where we are.

            Once there, I suspect our minds and bodies would naturally gravitate towards that point of balance it is the main purpose of the Alexander Technique to reintroduce to our lives.

Looking for proof

Posted on by dod

This is a copy of an newspaper article by Jonathan Petre about Near Death Experiences.

Soul-searching doctors find life after death

The first scientific study of “near-death” experiences has found new evidence to suggest that consciousness or the “soul” can continue to exist after the brain has ceased to function.

The findings by two eminent doctors, based on a year-long study of heart attack survivors, could provoke fresh controversy over that most profound of questions: is there life after death?

Reports of “near-death” experiences, in which people close to death have vivid encounters with bright lights and heavenly beings, date back centuries, but the phenomenon has been treated with scepticism by most academics.

The new study concludes, however, that a number of people have almost certainly had these experiences after they were pronounced clinically dead. This would suggest that the mind or consciousness can survive the death of the brain – a conclusion that was hailed by clerics last night as supporting religious faith.

Bishop Stephen Sykes, the professor of theology at Durham University and chairman of the Church of England’s Doctrine Commission, said the findings were “absolutely fascinating”. He added: “I do not find them surprising, however, as I believe life is much more mysterious than we usually think it is. For theologians, the soul is far more than consciousness or the mind. But these findings challenge the crude idea that when a person’s brain dies, that, as far as the person’s existence is concerned, is that.”

The Bishop of Basingstoke, the Rt Rev Geoffrey Rowell, another commission member, said: “These near-death experiences counter the materialist view that we are nothing more than computers made of meat.”

Based on interviews with survivors of heart attacks at Southampton General Hospital’s cardiac unit, the new study is to be published in the respected medical journal Resuscitation next year.

The study’s authors, Dr Peter Fenwick, a consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, and Dr Sam Parnia, a clinical research fellow and registrar at Southampton hospital, stress that more research is needed.

Dr Parnia said: “These people were having these experiences when we wouldn’t expect them to happen, when the brain shouldn’t be able to sustain lucid processes or allow them to form memories that would last. So it might hold an answer to the question of whether mind or consciousness is actually produced by the brain or whether the brain is a kind of intermediary for the mind, which exists independently.”

Dr Fenwick said: “If the mind and brain can be independent, then that raises questions about the continuation of consciousness after death. It also raises the question about a spiritual component to humans and about a meaningful universe with a purpose rather than a random universe.”

During the study period, 63 cardiac arrest patients survived and were interviewed within a week. Of those, 56 had no recollection of their period of unconsciousness, a result that might have been expected in all cases.

Seven survivors, however, had memories, although only four passed the Grayson scale, the strict medical criteria for assessing near-death experiences.

These four recounted feelings of peace and joy, time speeded up, heightened senses, lost awareness of body, seeing a bright light, entering another world, encountering a mystical being and coming to a “point of no return”. Three of them described themselves as non-practising Anglicans while the fourth was a lapsed Roman Catholic.

By examining medical records, the researchers said the contention of many critics that near-death experiences were the result of a collapse of brain functions caused by lack of oxygen were highly unlikely. None of those who underwent the experiences had low levels of oxygen.

Researchers were also able to rule out claims that unusual combinations of drugs were to blame because the resuscitation procedure in the hospital unit was the same in every case.

Dr Parnia, who was trained at the Guys and St Thomas’ medical school, University of London, said: “I started off as a sceptic but, having weighed up all the evidence, I now think that there is something going on. Essentially, it comes back to the question of whether the mind or consciousness is produced from the brain. If we can prove that the mind is produced by the brain, I don’t think there is anything after we die because essentially we are conscious beings.

“If, on the contrary, the brain is like an intermediary which manifests the mind, like a television will act as an intermediary to manifest waves in the air into a picture or a sound, we can show that the mind is still there after the brain is dead. And that is what I think these near-death experiences indicate.”

Christopher French, a reader in psychology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, said he had not seen the new study but remained sceptical. “Near-death experiences could be pointing towards the soul or the mind leaving the body, but they could just be the brain trying to make sense of what is a very unusual event,” he said.

John Cale concert at St Luke’s 26 Nov 2003

Posted on by dod

This was a live concert recorded by BBC4 at an atmospheric church in Islington.

I went to this show with my brother and our respective wives. We were both very familiar with all of Cale’s stuff except Hobosapiens which neither of us had heard. The ladies ‘knew’ Hallelujah and that was about it.

The setting was small, intimate, theatre sized, in a converted church. Cale dressed in white the first half, black the second. He played a lot of new songs, which sounded like they were first class, strongly melodic, arresting lyrically; but I found it hard to properly appreciate what I was hearing for the first time. His versions of familiar songs were either good (Andulacia, Fear, Cable Hogue), great (Hallulujah, Chinese Envoy, E is missing, Ship of Fools, Thoughtless Kind), or poor (Paris 1919). There were probably others I’ve forgotten. The best by far for me was Chinese Envoy. Haunting. I would have travelled twice the distance (70 miles) just to hear him sing that.

The ladies were awed by Cale’s sheer stage presence and were amazed he was in his sixties. So was I, frankly. As they admitted, if I had said he was 35 they would have had no difficulty believing me. My wife felt he had a ‘hard’ face; not someone to meet on a dark night; but I thought I saw his vulnerable side.

Personally, I preferred it when Cale played acoustic guitar, alone; or the band was muted; as in the two encores. There were some truly great moments; but there was a bit too much ‘rock’ for me. Having said that, I’m aware Cale’s been touring alone for years with just a guitar and piano so he has every reason for wanting to branch out.

Having never seen him live before (my brother saw him at Oxford, during his masked, ‘punk’ days) I’m planning to catch him again at Brighton in December. I’ll make sure I’ve heard Hobosapiens about a hundred times first, though.

Obviously, I can’t compare this to other Cale concerts; so I would be interested to hear what those who can thought of it. For me, it was a great performance, full of energy, with some lovely touches, from someone who is a true original. There’s simply no one remotely like John Cale. I’m sure when I hear him again in a couple of months I’ll appreciate that even more.

Work alone

Posted on by dod

This was a response I made to an enquirer on the AlexTech forum asking if it was possible to learn the Technique without the aid of a teacher. It has many of the same ideas as, and formed the basis of, the Self-help article.

Hello,

I’ve lived and taught (briefly) on an Indian Ocean island and I can well imagine how cut off you must feel. Still, there are compensations. As to what you can do by way of learning the Technique on your own, my advice is not to read too much on the subject, at least for the time being. You already have Alexander’s most concise book, and I would unhesitatingly recommend Frank Pierce Jones’Freedom to Change; but my early experience was that the more knowledgeable I became about the Technique (and I read all the books I could get my hands on), the less adroit I grew at applying it; and I had the – presumably – inestimable advantage of being able to take as many lessons as I chose.

The difficulty lay in my being clearly told by my teachers and in most of the literature that although the key to the Technique was not to stiffen my neck in response to stimuli, I mustn’t try and feel myself doing this; which led to much confusion and lack of progress. I no longer believe that was what Alexander meant by his repeated injunction to avoid ‘feeling’ things out; but I failed to appreciate at the time the essential difference between stopping doing what had begun to feel wrong and trying to do what felt right.

The only way for us to stop stiffening our necks in response to stimuli is to stop sending the relevant messages from our brains to our muscles; and the most expedient way, at least initially, for us to learn how to do that is to become kinesthetically aware of the consequences of those messages. In other words, until we feel what it is we are doing wrong, we will have little choice but to continue doing it.

Without an awareness of their kinesthetic effect any messages to stiffen our necks might just as well be being sent by another person for all the effect not wanting to send them will have on our behaviour. ‘Saying no’ while subconsciously declaiming yes is not going to get us anywhere.

So, C, I suggest you do the following. It’s just for starters, it may seem facile but it’s an interesting learning procedure, and it will provide something for you to work with. Sit somewhere, place the palm of one of your hands on the back of your neck (let it rest there like a poultice) and then decide to stand, while keeping your hand in place. You might stand quickly or slowly, in one movement or in stages; but pay close attention to what your hand is telling you is happening with your neck muscles.

Unless you’re markedly different from most I’ve run through this procedure with, there’ll be a palpable degree of activity in your neck out of all proportion to what needs to be going on to keep the head supported, and way more than you would normally be aware of. (Incidentally, you may perceive that this neck activity pulls your head backwards and down.)

Try this going from standing to sitting. Then repeat what you’ve just done, but rather than using your hand to measure the muscular activity in your neck, use your internal kinesthetic sense. Sit or stand normally, while paying attention to your neck. You’ll probably notice nothing, or else very little, going on there.

That in itself should be enough to clarify for you the enormous gulf between what you’re actually doing (pulling your head backwards and down) and what you think you’re doing (nothing untoward). If you run through this procedure often enough, you’ll gradually come to recognise unnecessary activity in your neck without needing verification from your hand. It will be going on most of the time, although it will be when sitting or standing that it is most noticeable.

All that is then required is for you to stop doing this. Stopping pulling your head backwards and down, which is the major prerequisite for it to go forwards and up, isn’t a discipline that comes about overnight; but there’s no reason for progress to be any slower than in other areas of learning.

There are loads of variations you can play around with on this same theme. You could move from sitting to standing, or standing to sitting, in stages, with a hand in place on the back of your neck, noticing at what point in the movement unnecessary tension starts to creep in. You could notice, too, whether this coincides with a tendency to lose your balance, or to stop breathing, or, indeed, to raise your shoulders and hollow your back, tightening in the stomach, groin and thighs, all of which are so common as to be almost endemic. However, learning to stand or sit – or do anything requiring a measure of effort – without tightening the neck unduly is the meat and drink of Alexander work.

Of course, this is no more than one way (Alexander used mirrors; video would be another option) of bringing home to those who don’t want or aren’t able to have lessons, the weird discrepancy between believing and feeling they’re doing nothing out of the ordinary and discovering they’re actually doing far more than they could have imagined; and hopefully enabling them to lessen that gap a little.

Here’s another trick I like to use in what I think of as more static situations. In other words, when you’re not doing anything much physically – sitting in front of a keyboard, for example – and there is no obvious stimulus you’re reacting to apart from the general flow of life; perhaps when you know you’ve got a stiff neck but you’re not aware of stiffening it.

You have to practice this once or twice to get the drift. Put one hand on the back of your head, as if you were checking out a haircut you’ve just had, and the other on your forehead, as if you were pondering great things. Now, using your hands as prime movers, gently rotate your head half way to where you would be able to look along the line of one shoulder, and then turn it back (switching hands if need be), so you’re doing the same on the other side.

As you do this, it’s good to think of your head rotating from a spot more or less midway between your ears, which is where the skull sits and turns on the two topmost vertebra. It also ‘rocks’ from this point; so, again using your hands, gently incline or nod your head an inch or two forwards (as if you were checking your shirt front for egg stains) and then tilt it the same amount backwards (that first step to looking at the stars).

Turn your head slowly back and forth, then nod and tilt it, a few times, paying as much attention as you can to allowing your hands rather than neck muscles to initiate the movement. Obviously, your neck muscles play their part, but you want the impression they are following rather than leading. Keep remembering that point between your ears.

Finally, return your head to its starting place, only this time, as you begin to apply gentle pressure with your hands to rotate towards the right or left, or to tilt forwards or backwards, use your neck muscles to resist the movement.

Don’t let this become a tug of war. A gentle inclination with the hands can be met by an equally gentle resistance. Maintain the pressure of your hands; then allow your head to be turned, or tilted, taking particular notice of what you ‘do’ to allow the movement that previously you had disallowed to now take place. That is the key moment, so pay attention to it.

Play around with this for a while, stopping and starting, noticing the difference between what you do muscularly to resist the urging of your hands and what you do to go along with it.

Now take your hands off your head, but pretend they are still there, trying to turn or tilt it. Initially, deny them the possibility. Let’s call that fixidity. Then, do whatever you did before that allowed your hands to turn or tilt your head, but this time without them being there and without you turning or tilting it yourself. We’ll call that poise. For as long as you choose poise – which is simply the absence of fixidity – you can be reasonably confident your head will be balanced rather than pressing down on the top of your spine. Whatever it may feel like – and it may feel no different to the way it usually does – this will affect you in more ways than you could imagine.

I suggest you work on the assumption that when you’re not consciously engaged in choosing poise you’ll almost certainly be subconsciously ensuring its opposite; that fixidity is your default mode for most of the hours of the day; and that when you’re doing anything remotely stressful you’ll be hard pressed to undo this. That way you won’t be too disappointed.

Practice this wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, whenever you can; but don’t make the mistake of moving your head to check it out. Apparent freedom of movement is of far less importance than the conditions underlying it. If you experiment, you’ll find it easy enough to simulate poise by moving your head while still resisting that movement; it just requires a bit more effort.

Making unnecessary effort is what most of us are doing, most of the time, without knowing it; and it is precisely the sort of internecine warfare involved when we consciously strive to overcome rather than inhibit subconscious habit (as in ‘trying’ to sit up straight) that the Technique is designed to circumvent.

You could also practice lying in semi-supine. I’m not a devotee of this but I think I might become one if I was in your situation. Essentially, it means lying on a firm surface (i.e., your floor rather than your bed) with the soles of your feet flat on the ground, hip width apart, the heels a foot or so in front of your buttocks, leaving your knees pointing upwards. Rest the palms of your hands on your front. Most importantly, place a goodish sized paperback book beneath your head.

The thickness of this book is important but obviously varies with the shape of a person’s head, how their neck muscles are, etc. One way of working out what to use is to stand with your back to a wall, your heels just away from the edge, your shoulders and bottom lightly touching it. Maintaining that position, reach behind you and gauge the distance between the back of your head and the wall. Add half an inch and use that amount for a very rough estimate of whether you need a slim Penguin classic, a larger James Clavell, or both. If you manage to lie in semi-supine for half an hour every day the results might surprise you.

Having said what I did earlier about not bothering to over read the available literature I should add that I was weaned on the older stuff – Wilfred Barlow, Frank Pierce Jones, Michael Gelb, Chris Stevens – and I have little knowledge of what’s been written since by people like Barbara Conable, Don Weed, Richard Brennon, John Gray, Jeremy Chance, etc. I imagine most modern books would have a helpful section on the intricacies – not that there are many, since the main difficulty is the discipline required to do it – of lying in semi-supine. My overall impression, though, is that beyond a certain point learning about the Technique is distinctly unhelpful when learning how to apply it, especially as most authors will assume your next step is to have a course of lessons.

If what I’ve said seems like gobbledegook to you, or you’re unclear in any way about what I’m suggesting, e-mail me and I’ll have another stab at explaining it.

Good luck.

Thinking

Posted on by dod

Thinking about how we think, generally and during Alexander work.

It was suggested to me that:

“…the function of the mind is to think, think about something.”

This seems a bit hard on animals, who also have minds, but who presumably don’t have the capacity to “think about” matters in the way we do. Nor would I call the ability to string a series of thoughts together an unmitigated blessing.

Most of my time is spent “thinking about” things that have little or nothing to do with what is going on around me. This dulls my appreciation of life to a considerable extent. On those rare occasions when I stop “thinking about” anything, I become more rather than less conscious.

This raises the question of how useful “thinking about” things is in an Alexandrian context. The connection I have always made between the Technique and Eastern approaches like Zen Buddhism was that both emphasised the need to be in the present. The Technique may do so more obliquely; but without this as a prior requirement, inhibition and direction would be impossible.

The problem is that whereas the Eastern ideal requires a stillness of mind that suggests an absence of thought, the writings of Alexander specify we should be thinking in a very specific way.

I was initially confused by this, before coming to the conclusion that the sort of thinking required to apply the principles of the Technique to life had to specifically exclude “thinking about” those principles, or indeed, anything else, at the time of application. Otherwise, we would find ourselves anywhere but the present moment.

“Thinking about” something involves a complex series of imaginative processes that takes us away from where we are; “thinking of” it, by contrast, can include one or more of these same processes, but in conjunction rather than succession, allowing us to remain present. If, for example, we “think of” our front door, an image of it is all we are likely to be aware of; but as soon as we “think about” it, we may remember it lets in draughts, needs painting, squeaks on being opened, and is the entrance to a house we haven’t finished paying for.

This applies in much the same way to thinking “of”, as opposed to “about”, our neck, head and back.

Over the years, I’ve found the discipline involved in applying the Technique to life has as much to do with stopping “thinking about” things in order to be present as remembering, when present, to inhibit and direct. In fact, for a while now, I’ve harboured the suspicion that, by stopping thinking about whatever it is that prevents me paying attention, a form of inhibition and direction will have already taken place.

“Thinking about” things is both villain and saviour: the original cause of poor use, it lies behind all human achievement. Very little gets done by simply “thinking of” things. Unfortunately, Alexander’s belief that we could solve the problems of civilisation by attending to both means and end fails to take into account the difficulty involved when the majority of ends have to be “thought about” (often deeply) in order to be achieved.

The only way out of this impasse would be if we were able to think “of” one thing, at the same time as thinking “about” another, while remaining equally conscious of both. A simple example might be “thinking of” my head going forward and up, while “thinking about” my mortgage repayments. For my part, I can’t do this.

My conclusion is that “thinking about” things is not so much a function as a habit; it is incompatible with the application of the Technique; we over indulge in it at our peril; but that without it civilisation would grind to a halt.

 

I have often wondered about Alexander “attending to the means-whereby” while writing his books; and I assumed that either he didn’t, or else, if he did, he had an ability that few of us share.

Maybe I am being unduly pessimistic. After all, I can only know for sure how I think, which is that when I write anything original that requires a degree of reflective thought, I am unable to attend to my use at the same time.

Years ago, I made a list of activities I believed could be done “with attention to the means-whereby” and those that I thought couldn’t.

Predominantly physical activity – running, for example – whose intricacies had already been learned, tended to be in the first list; with predominantly mental activities – such as reading – which require imagination, in the second. I reckoned half my life was Alexanderable; but that it was probably the half that needed it least.

I imagine that “thinking of” and “thinking about” things are familiar patterns of behaviour to most people. What isn’t familiar is their conjunction; and what wasn’t familiar to me before learning the Technique was the conjunction of “thinking of” what I was doing with “thinking of” the way I was doing it. For me, that was the new, unfamiliar way of thinking Alexander and others described.

“Thinking of” one thing and “thinking about” another, however, I found, and find, impossible. It’s like trying to listen to two conversations at once. To me, thinking about something requires an imaginative shift that takes me away from myself, preventing me thinking of, or about, anything else. Simply put, thinking at more than one remove from reality takes me away from that reality.

So what happens if, to use my original example, I’m thinking of my head going forward and up when the thought of mortgage repayments floats into my mind?

Initially, my attention to the means-whereby needn’t be displaced by this new thought, since I am able to “think of” both ideas at the same time; but as soon as I consider or “think about” the mortgage repayment issue, anticipation and speculation based on remembered facts and figures flood in, and attention to the means-whereby goes out of the window.

As I said, I have heard people imply they thought it was possible for this anticipation and speculation to occur while still managing to attend to the means-whereby. I’d certainly like to know how.

It has also been pointed out that Alexander used his hands while chatting, etc, and that some form of thought would have been required to use the hands well, not to mention the thought required to talk at the same time.

Although special skills are obviously necessary, I don’t think the use of the hands is that different to any other predominantly physical activity. Once learned, it becomes largely subconscious, or hovers at the edge of consciousness, unless we chose to have it at centre stage. Some awareness is required, certainly, in order to think “of” what we are doing; but thinking “about” how the hands are being used, or what they are being used for, is likely to take us away from attending to our own use, and therefore detract from the quality of our hands – not to mention detracting from the line in chat.

Years back, when I taught evening classes, I used to see if I could attend to my use while talking; and the answer was, yes – so long as I didn’t think about what I was saying. That’s not as crazy as it sounds. So long as I talked “off the top of my head”, I was okay. As soon as I delved deeper and started “thinking about” the words I might use, I lost all sense of myself.

To reiterate, “thinking of” the use of the hands and “thinking of” whatever is being talked about can be done concurrently. However, should we need to think “about” the use of the hands, associated chat would be the first casualty. Conversely, should the flow of talk stumble, and the subject matter need to be thought “about”, for a time the hands would have to operate automatically.

The best way of describing what I mean is to use an analogy. Car driving straddles the lists I referred to earlier. It is a complex process that has to be learned consciously and then becomes semi automatic. Generally, if we are driving in easy traffic on known roads to a destination we are familiar with, we can get there while thinking about other things during the journey. There’s neither need to think “about” nor even to think “of” driving. Attending to the means-whereby would be relatively easy.

If, however, the traffic conditions are busy, or we are searching for the right road, or we have only a hazy idea of where we are going, thinking “about” or even “of” anything other than the task at hand is likely to prove impossible. We need to think exclusively of driving and of where we are going; occasionally interspersed with thoughts about how we are going to get there. Attending to the means-whereby is not a realistic option.