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Dear
Sir,
As
a teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique (qualified by Patrick
J. Macdonald and Peter Scott - who ran the Alexander Foundation
after Alexander - in August 1964), I am always interested in
what is going on in "Alexander Technique's world".
One of my pupils brought me a copy of your newspaper from Monday,
September 22nd, 1980, where I found the article "Bye bye
backache". I read it with great interest. And, if I understand
the article in your newspaper properly it seems to me that those
teachers who are responsible for the above article have a different
understanding of and a different approach to the F.M. Alexander
Technique. And as I am looking for a comnon denominator between
the teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique, I wonder who is
the real and genuine follower of F.M. Alexander's work; who adheres
to Alexander's Principles - the result of his experiments, experience,
discoveries, conclusions and consequences.
Observing
the work of many teachers of the Alexander Technique from different
training courses, working with them, reading what they wrote,
hearing what they say concerning the Alexander Technique, brought
me to the sad conclusion that the teaching of the Alexander Technique,
has become more and more some kind of "gymnastics guided
by manipulation". And as far as I understand it, this is
not what Alexander meant in his teaching. To explain what I mean
I would like to begin with a selection of "Notes of Instruction"
- things Alexander said while teaching. One can find them in
the book "The Resurrection of the Body" - according
to my understanding of the Alexander Technique it should be "The
Resurrection of the Self" - pages 3 to 12. I will bring
those I chose in the order found in the book.
l)
They may have an intellectual conception of what they want, and
they may write down what they want to bring about, but how are
they going to do it? They are not doing THE thing that alters
the rest.
2)
Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of
life.
3)
When you are asked not to do something, instead of making the
decision not to do it, you try to prevent yourself from doing
it. But this only means that you decide to do it, and then use
muscle tension to prevent yourself from doing it.
4)
It's not getting in and out of chairs even under the best of
conditions that is of any value; that is simply physical culture
- it is what you have been doing in preparation that counts when
it comes to making movements.
5)
There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such
a thing as a right direction.
6)
You can't do something you don't know, if you keep on doing what
you do know.
7)
You are not making decisions; you are doing kinesthetically what
you feel to be right.
8)
Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still
doing the thing we shouldn't do.
9)
The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you
have something, give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what
you want.
10)
Any fool can do the thing he wants to feel - there is no trouble
about that. The difficulty is to make him feel he does not want
to feel.
ll)
If your neck feels stiff, that is not to say your neck "is"
stiff.
12)
They won't try and get out of the chair unless they feel they
have that something that will get them out of the chair: that
something is their habit.
13)
Prevent the thing you have been doing and you are half way home.
14)
You can't know a thing by an instrument that's wrong.
15)
The point is that "intellectuality" as we understand
it, means it can only be used when we are wrong within us.
l6)
He gets what he feels is the right position, but that only means
that he's getting the position which fits in with his defective
coordination.
17)
They prevent the very ideals in which they say they believe from
materializing by the principles on which they work.
18)
I can do the best I can for you, and if you don't know it and
don't understand it, you will react to me as if I were your enerny.
19)
No one could be satisfied to go on every day getting no result
unless he saw the way.
20)
You all believe that you must know whether you are right or wrong
if you are to make progress.
2l)
You are not here to do exercises, or to learn to do something
right, but to get able to meet a stimulus that always puts you
wrong and to learn to deal with it.
22)
You come to learn to inhibit and to direct your activity. You
learn, first, to inhibit the habitual reaction to certain classes
of stimuli, and, second, to direct yourself consciously in such
a way as to affect certain muscular pulls, which process brings
about a new reaction to these stimuli. Boiled down, it all comes
to inhibiting a particular reaction to a given stimulus. But
no one will see it that way. They will all see it as getting
in and out of a chair the right way. It is nothing of the kind.
It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to
do. They may teach you anatomy and physiology till they are black
in the face - you will still have this to face, sticking to a
decision against your habit of life.
23)
You all want to know if you are right. When you get further on,
you will be right, but you won't know it and won't want to know
if you're right.
24)
You want to feel whether you are right or not. I am giving you
a conception to eradicate that. I don't want you to care a damn
if you're right or not. Directly you don't care if you're right
or not, the impeding obstacle is gone.
25)
The old idea of trying to be right has remained with us, in spite
of the fact that conditions have changed and our right is wrong.
26)
Don't come to me unless, when I tell you you are wrong, you make
up your mind to smile and be pleased.
27)
When people are wrong, the thing that is right is bound to be
wrong for them.
28)
To know when we are wrong is all that we shall ever know in this
world.
29)
Don't you see that if you "get" perfection today, you
will be farther away from perfection that you have ever been?
30)
When anything is pointed out, our only idea is to go from wrong
to right in spite of the fact that it has taken us years to get
wrong: we try to get right in a moment.
31)
Like a good fellow, stop the things that are wrong first.
32)
The minute you change it, the thing that isn't a strain feels
a strain.
33)
Everyone wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their
idea of right is right.
34)
There is so much to be seen when one reaches the point of being
able to see, and the experience makes the meat it feeds on.
35)
He gets what he feels is the right position, but when he has
an imperfect co-ordination he is only getting a position which
fits with his defective coordination.
36)
Sensory appreciation conditions conception - you can't know a
thing by an instrument that is wrong.
37)
When the time comes that you can trust your feeling you won't
want to use it.
38)
It doesn't alter a fact because you can't feel it.
39)
What you gain in one way you 1ose in anotheF. Therefore you rhust
not try for specific results.
40)
Specific prevention is permissible only under conditions of non-doing,
not in doing.
41)
The whole organism is responsible for specific trouble. Proof
of this is, that we eradicate specific defects in process.
Starting
from the above selection of Alexander's sayings I would like
to express my views of the article published in your newspaper.
"...
TO COORDINATE MOVENENT AND "UNDO" THE CAUSE".
I
wonder what "undo" the cause means? As far as I know,
in teaching the F.M. A1exander Technique we deal with the "cause"
- the general misuse and the malfunctioning of the whole self
(and I will deal with it later) and not with symptoms. Concerning
"coordination of movement" we are "end-gainers".
The coordination of the "visible movement" is a by-product
of the right relationship between head and spine (in Alexander's
terms "The Primary Control". I call it "The Basic
Relationship"). The everlasting process of synchronizing
and adjusting the balance between the head and the spine dictates
the functioning of our body in our daily activities. If this
balance is right - it means that the process is of letting the
NECK to be FREE; thus the HEAD can flow FORWARD and UP in relation
to the spine; thus the back can LENGTHEN and WIDEN (in short
- SPREAD) - then we have within us the right conditions for the
use of ourselves we are balanced and coordinated in our functioning;
there is a chance for a free flow of energies in ourselves (mind-body
as an integral and interbalanced entity). We may call this flow
of energies "invisible motion". When this "invisible
motion" is not blocked, then there is a chance for the "visible
movements" to be properly coordinated
"...
NOT TO LOCK YOUR HEAD AND NECK MUSCLES..."
A
teacher of the F.M. Alexander Technique is not concerned with
the muscles or with any other specific part of the body. We deal
with the "whole", the self. When the neck is not free
(not for a moment, but more or less constantly as a result of
misuse of the self) we direct-stimulate the pupil to free the
neck as a neck and not as a bundle of muscles. The neck should
be free - as a constant process - and the teacher helps the process
by adding the directions-stimuli that he sends from his own "Primary
Control" through his hands to the pupils body simultaneously
with the decision of the pupil to free his neck. After some time
the practical experience the pupil receives through the hands
of the teacher integrates with his awareness (conscious control
in Alexander's terms) and his deciding process, and he can produce
himself the same direction in himself.
"...
- A SPECIFIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE HEAD AND THE NECK..."
There
is a relationship between the head and the WHOLE SPINE, and not
only the neck; the neck is a part of the whole spine. It is a
key part in the spine, but in the relationship of the head to
the spine the neck is (as it is) anyway a part of the whole spine.
- The "Primary Control" exists in us whether our use
of it is right or wrong. This is a fact of Nature. If there is
misuse, the Primary Control is wrong and our functioning in daily
life is wrong. When the use is right the Primary Control is right
(or the right use is a by-product of the Primary Control). Then
the functioning is right. Proper Primary Control results in the
process of a "FREE NECK which enables the HEAD to float
FORWARD AND UP ("up" means away from the spine.- not
towards the sky), to enable the BACK to LENGTHEN AND WIDEN (to
spread).
"A
KEY GOAL IS TO "AIM UP" TO SENSE THE ENERGY FLOW FROM
THE BASE OF SPINE, THROUGH THE NECK OUT THE TOP OF THE HEAD."
Why
not vice-versa? One of the most important discoveries of Alexander
was that our sensory-appreciation is not reliable any more, that
we cannot trust our senses and be guided by them. We feel right
in performing our daily activities. It feels normal. But if everything
with our sensory appreciation is so right, why is there so much
wrong and negative in our human society and in the world?
Alexander
discovered and realized that he could not rely on his habitual
reaction that was guided by the sensory appreciation. So he came
to the conclusion that this habitual reaction should be inhibited
(neutralized). Only when you stop the wrong can the right take
place. To use the senses as a guide means to continue using the
wrong instrument, the wrong means. It cannot lead us in the right
direction. We do not stop to feel - we cannot stop – but
we do not TRY to feel, we do not concentrate on what we sense
and do not adapt the sensation as a guide, as a criterion, as
a judge for what is right or wrong.
We
are not after a "key goal" or any other goal. We are
after a way, a process that does not end and goes with us as
long as we live. When we are after a "goal" it means
that we are, as Alexander expressed it, "end-gainers".
What does it mean (according to the article) "to reach the
goal"? When we reach it, what comes next?
And
what does it mean to "aim up"? Is it to extend the
body toward the ceiling, the sky, the sun? When we, teachers
of the Alexander Technique, use the word "up" in teaching,
we include in this word "neck free, head forward and up,
back lengthen and widen"; it includes the directions and
the decision to spread, to open in all directions; to unlock;
to stop contractions; to stop "going in", to stop "shrinking"
– all over, not away from the center of the globe towards
the outer space.
"ONCE
AN INSTRUCTOR PHYSICALLY HELPS YOU BALANCE YOUR SKULL PROPERLY
ON THE SMALL NECK MUSCLES (AVOIDING THE COMMONLY MISUSED THICKER
SHOULDER ONES), MUSCLES IN SHOULDERS, BACK, ARMS AND LEGS UNLOCK
AUTONATICALLY..."
But
in practical teaching the teacher may have to direct-stimulate
not just the neck specifically. The neck is a key part of the
Primary Control, but not a specific one to deal with it in teaching.
It is not a "magic, point" to press on and "all
doors will be opened". We employ the "directions"
all over the body. But these "directions" always concern
and reach the Primary Control. We do not concentrate on a specific
and limited part of the "whole". As Alexander expresses
it in "The Use of the Self" "All together, one
after the other". First and always, and continuously "all
together". And when we are aware of the "all together"
we can see the specific details, that remain always part of the
whole when we relate to them "one after the other",
in the whole as whole.
"...
AND LENGTHENING OF YOUR SPINE..."
Alexander
describes in his book "The Use of the Self", in the
first chapter "Evolution of a Technique" (in "The
Resurrection of the Body" you can find it under the title
"The Australian Story") the process of the creation
and development of his technique. He described there very clearly
that, when he tried to lengthen his back he found that while
lengthening his back, he tended to narrow it. Therefore his conclusion
was that he has to lengthen and WIDEN the back at the same time.
It means to SPREAD the back, all over. It is not a mechanical
extension of the spine, used in the conventional ways of dealing
with the body as a "physical body". "Directions"
in Alexander's sense are so-called physical reactions. But their
source and origin is not the habitual stimulus-reaction activity
that takes place in the habitual way we use ourselves in our
daily activities. In the process of acquiring the new and improved
use we have to say "bye bye" not to symptoms, as backache
etc. We have to say bye bye to our habitual use. The backache
is a by-product of this misuse. Me have to employ our "inhibition"
- neutralizing the wrong, the false. The "inhibition"
we employ when we become aware of the wrong, when we use our
"Conscious Control".
"...
BODY WORK. SINCE ALEXANDER IS A PHYSICAL DISCIPLINE,... "
It
seems that this sentence shows a fatal misunderstanding of the
Alexander Technique by the one who thought it necessary to say
something about the Alexander Technique (as it is written above).
It is completely clear in Alexander's writings and to those who
practice the Alexander Technique that any division between body
and mind, any separation of the psycho-physical wholeness in
dealing with living creatures - not to speak about human beings
- is wrong and against all natural processes. Among the principles
that underly the Alexander Technique one only is no more than
a mechanical-physical-motorical fact, that does not necessarily
have any relation to the fact that our reactions to stimuli are
influenced by our state of mind: The "Primary Control"
(or Basic Relationship), the relationship between the head and
the spine, dictates the way we function in all our daily activities.
Not only we, human beings, but all creatures whose body is based
on a skeleton.
Now,
in the use of the self (and in "use" and "self"
the mind is a component part of the whole entity, it is not separated
from the body, the matter) is included our reacting activity
to stimuli of life and we are not able to react to these stimuli
properly. As we misuse ourseives and this is expressed and mirrored
in our functioning, and because this misuse is an accumulating
one and became habitual, thus we interfere with and distort our
Primary Control and thus our functioning becomes wrong.
So,
the mind is part and parcel of the whole, and without the mind
- the "Conscious Control" - the awareness - without
the recognition of the force of habit, without the recognition
of our faulty sensory appreciation, without the inhibition of
the wrong reactions to stimuli, without sending "directions"
for a new and improved use of the self - what does one with the
body alone?!
"AN
INSTRUCTOR'S OWN BODY MOVENENT ALSO SERVES AS A MODEL FOR PUPILS".
May-be
in gynnastics, or dance, or something similar to those two -
but not in teaching and learning the Alexander Technique. The
visible movement of a teacher cannot be of any help in teaching
the Alexander Technique. One cannot experience the required "directions"
by watching the teacher and trying to imitate what one saw. One
has to experience the "directions" that are produced
and flow from the teacher's use, through his hands and to the
pupils self. We are not after positions. We are after directions,
after conditions.
"BETWEEN
LESSONS, A STUDENT PRACTICES TWO POSITIONS INTEGRAL TO THE TECHNIQUE
- A 'MONKEY' STANCE FOR STOOPING AND BENDING, AND 'REST' POSE
(LYING DOWN MITH A COUPLE OF BOOKS UNDER YOUR HEAD)..."
In
teaching the teacher uses what we call the "monkey position".
Unfortunately, Alexander used here a term that is against his
technique - something fixed, a position - though if one takes
the trouble to read at least his sayings that I brought at the
beginning of my letter, one can read there clearly that Alexander
emphasized again and again that we are after the "directions",
not positions. There are no right positions when the conditions
are wrong. When the directions bring about the right conditions
the stooping and bending will be right; when one manages to nourish
the process of freeing the neck, to let the head go forward and
up, to let the back lengthen and widen while activating the body
- the visible activity will be right. When one lies down on one's
back, it is not the number of books that counts. What counts
is the height - the number of centimeters or inches. The teacher
decides how high it shou1d be.
"IT
SOUNDS COMPLICATED, BUT ITS JUST A MATTER OF MOVING YOUR BODY
WHERE IT WANTS TO GO."
It
sounds complicated because we tend to make things complicated
in our mind. But "to move the body" and call it Alexander
Technique is not what Alexander intended to do, and what he wanted
to teach us.
"ALL
IT TAKES IS CONCENTRATION..."
And
this is exactly what we have to prevent and avoid if we want
to be benefited by the A1exander Technique. To "concentrate",
as we, in our Western civilization understand and practice it,
is to focus and lock our attention on something, to confine,
to close, to go in, to block, to contract. This is exactly what
we try to eradicate through the adaptation of the Alexander Technique.
We want to open, to spread, to be able to accept and digest and
react through openness and freedom what ever comes to us, what
ever we meet in our ever changing and flowing life.
"PEOPLE
WITH MINOR INJURIES DON'T NECESSARILY NEED IT,..."
I
am afraid the person who said so about the Alexander Technique
"did not get the message" and does not understand what
it is all about. We should see the Alexander Technique as a preventive
measure, first. It is much easier and more logical to prevent
the wrong before we let it "speak".
Coming
back to the first, page of the article - "IN APPROXINATELY
30 (THIRTY) LESSONS, THE ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE IS A WAY TO BECOME
AMARE OF YOUR BODY IN MOTION: HOW TO SIT, STAND, WALK, WORK AND
PLAY PAINLESSLY".
It
is unfair to deceive a person who comes for lessons by telling
him how many lessons he will need. No teacher knows the number
of lessons one needs. It is "end-gaining" to count
the number of lessons. The pupil develops expectations and is
looking for result-"end". And when what he expects
does not come, frustration comes, disappointment, embarrassment,
etc. In the first meeting the teacher should make it clear to
the future pupil that he is a PUPIL and not a PATIENT. The teacher
will teach the pupil how to inhibit
his habitual reaction to stimuli, he will stimulate - direct
the pupil through his hands for the new and improved conditions
- directions for the improved use of the self and the functioning
of the whole body as one working-unit by balancing it through
the right Primary Contrpl. The "conscious control",
the awareness is not for the visible motion. It is for the "inhibition",
for the directing process, for noticing what is wrong, not to
DO something right. As a matter of fact a teacher who understands
Alexander's work properly and has the skill to teach it, does
not teach you "how to sit, stand, walk, work and play painlessly".
Stimulating the pupil for some activity, to perform a visible
motion means first of all to teach him to inhibit his habitual
reaction and to refrain from "doing" it.
We
teachers of the F.M. Alexander Technique, are not healers. We
are not here to cure symptoms and to take pains and aches away.
We are here to teach those who are ready to learn and to be taught
something that is new for them and against their life-long habits.
Now,
after this long letter, I would suggest that the reader should
take the trouble of reading Alexander's sayings again, it will
then make more sense to him.
Let
me finish this letter with another of Alexander's sayings "Be
careful of the printed matter: you may not read it as it is written
down."
Sincerely
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