A journey
of discovery
F.M. Alexander discovered that it is possible to employ one's powers
of conscious choice to great advantage. Deciding what we will
or will not consent to do gives us the freedom to respond appropriately
to the stimulus of the environment. In our capacity for conscious
choice we find our essential autonomy and humanity. This is the
greatest benefit the Alexander Technique offers. Releasing more
of our potential carries the human race forward and boosts our
wellbeing. On the other hand, when we are bound by habit which
curtails further development, we get intellectually, emotionally
and physically stuck. That is why we cannot demand wellbeing as
a right. We have to create it. Most people who endorse the Alexander
Technique will verify that it produces unanticipated improvements
which are not confined to the body. It makes life more fun.
Not treatment or therapy, but re-education
Specific complaints and problems are not the direct concern of the
Alexander Teacher. You should not see yourself as the patient of
an Alexander Teacher. You do not go to an Alexander Teacher for treatment,
but to be a pupil, learning how to re-organize the way you are using
your whole Self [sic]. You will go through the same process of psycho-physical
transformation that Alexander did. The difference is that in the
hands of a skilled teacher, making the necessary changes takes only
a fraction of the time it originally took Alexander. This is a complex
learning process which addresses the psycho-physical whole: mind,
feelings and body, which Alexander insisted comprise an indivisible
unity.
The implications of indivisible unity
When Alexander first tried to show his colleagues what he had discovered,
he tried instructing them verbally, explaining what he wanted them
to do. He soon discovered that this did not work. They could not
apply his instruction the way he intended them to because their habit
of use got in the way. Because we are indivisible psycho-physical
unities we cannot have a habit of body-use without that same habit
being encoded in the rest of us. Our flesh and bones embody the habit
that dominates our thinking and feeling. When we are down in spirit
we become down in body...and vice versa.
The people Alexander was trying to help had little choice but to
translate his instructions via the medium of their habitual thinking
and the faulty sensory appreciation which accompanied it. For example,
when Alexander told them to stay still, they clenched their muscles.
When he told them not to try hard, they slumped. Whatever he asked
them to do, they endeavoured to enact their idea of it and this enactment
manifested as an instant muscular configuration. Alexander recognized
that preconceptions are not simply mental activities but are embedded
in the fabric of our neuro-muscular systems. He realized that a broadened
field of attention was needed to monitor these preconceptions and
their influence. He saw that this field of attention must include
an awareness of how our musculature is responding to our idea of
performing an intended act. We need encompassing physical and mental
awareness in order to change our habitual way of doing things.
Alexander saw that he would need to provide the kineasthetic experience
his subjects did not yet have: that he needed to give them an experience
of performing their actions in a new way. Instead of using words,
he decided to make contact with his hands.
Non-doing
From
that moment, his work took a new turn. He discovered that when
he put his hands
on people he could transmit the experience of his
own improved psycho-physical use to them directly. Their bodies,
unhindered by interfering thought, responded spontaneously to the
contact. Alexander realized then that the vicious cycle imposed on
the organism by habit could be broken by approaching the body directly
- as if the body already knows how to organize itself, if we would
only allow it to do so. What is required is that we learn to think
differently. The psycho-physical re-education facilitated in Alexander
lessons is centred not in learning how to do the ‘right’ thing,
but in learning not to do the ‘wrong’ thing. As Alexander
put it, “when you prevent the wrong thing, the right thing
happens by itself.” Learning to prevent the wrong thing requires
objective feedback and this is why the Technique cannot be learned
from a book.
The Alexander Teacher
Your
Alexander Teacher will have spent three years on an approved training
course undergoing
an intense psycho-physical re-education.
He/she will need to achieve a high standard of use in order to be
able to impart the principles of Alexander’s Technique. Central
to the training is the use of the hands in receiving information
from a pupil’s body, transmitting a certain quality of experience
and facilitating muscular release. A skilled teacher’s hands
are light and inviting and do not force or manipulate. After a lesson
people feel ‘put together’, lighter, freer, more poised
and spatially aware.
The changes which occur can be profound and can lead to discomfort
temporarily as the musculature reorganizes itself. This reorganizing
process is sometimes experienced as a mild and diffuse ache in various
places where the redistribution of muscle tonus is most keenly felt
such as between the shoulder blades or along the tops of the shoulders.
There may also be shifts in kinaesthetic sensitivity which can be
mildly disorientating. If this does occur, there is nothing to be
concerned about. These are simply the affects of the body’s
response to change and are to be welcomed. They will soon pass.
Primary Control
During this process the gentle physical contact your teacher uses
imparts a stimulus which supports you while your own anti-gravity
responses are not working optimally. This also enables the teacher
to facilitate release where it is needed. At the same time, you will
be receiving feedback from the contact which will give you a better
sense of yourself as a whole.
Attention will be given to increasing your awareness of your head/neck
relationship. Freedom in the positioning and movement of your head
on the top of your spine is essential for the overall co-ordination
of your body. Often we hold subtle chronic tension in the muscles
of our necks and at the base of our skulls which interferes with
the natural poise of our heads. Excessive tension in the head-neck
region causes malcoordination of the rest of the body, producing
the experience of disconnection among its parts. In time you will
be able to keep your neck muscles free and this will promote a change
in the total pattern. Keeping your head/neck balance free is essential
for restoring reliable sensory appreciation in movement.
Inhibition
As you may
already have realised, the teacher will also be doing more than getting
your body working more efficiently. That cannot
actually happen until your habitual patterns are addressed. These
patterns have become encoded in your neuro-muscular network so they
are also encoded at the level of mind and emotion. What we believe,
the internal imaging we make, our idea of ourselves, is transduced
into muscle tension and determines the quality of our actions and
experience.
One of the really liberating
aspects of Alexander lessons is learning to use consciousness to
gain command over our thoughts and emotions.
This comes with the increasing ability to inhibit: to be able to
suspend our reactions to stimuli from the environment until we choose
in our own time, calmly and collectedly, how we want to respond – rather
than being slaves to the telephone, the clock, the television, the
traffic lights, the boss, the kids, the angst ... This is possible
once our bodies are no longer bound by patterned responses.
Direction
Your teacher will help you to identify your habitual responses so
you can inhibit them. Once this is achieved you can decide consciously
to perform your actions with a minimum of exertion. Your teacher
will give you a fresh experience of performing everyday acts in such
a way that you can prevent wear and tear while achieving your goals.
The ability to direct your energy efficiently will become second
nature to you and you may notice that it becomes easier to apply
yourself to difficult tasks in general.
Once these positive changes
replace the old patterns, muscle tissue that was previously over-tense
resumes its optimal length. Tension
is redistributed so that joints are no longer subjected to strain.
Instead come buoyancy, ease in movement and an improvement in co-ordination.
Complaints associated with misuse – such as aching joints,
back pain and anxiety will diminish in intensity or disappear altogether
as the pattern which produced them is reorganized.
A practical approach
The Alexander Technique is a practical method of re-education and
your teacher will suggest simple procedures for you to practise at
home to reinforce the benefit of your lessons. You will find you
want to put the Technique into practice in your daily life. Many
people experience increased vitality as their use improves because
energy that was being expended in strain becomes available for their
enjoyment.
Who benefits from Alexander Lessons?
The
Alexander Technique is for everybody. It first became known amongst
musicians, actors,
dancers and athletes because of the improvement
it brought to their professional skills. Nobel Prize Laureate Professor
Nikolaas Tinbergen thought so much of Alexander’s Technique
that when he addressed the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique
in London, he said that it was the key to an evolutionary step for
mankind. He thought, quite simply, that everybody should take Alexander
lessons and that if they did, many of our most pressing issues would
be resolved. But that is up to us. Whether you decide to try the
Technique because you have aches and pains, or want to refine a skill,
or to change your posture, or calm down, or just for the sheer pleasure
of it, you will soon discover the benefits for yourself.
