Comments on "THOUGHTS ON PAT'S LECTURE"

"Be careful of the printed matter:
you may not read it as it is written down."
F.M.Alexander

Among some literature I have about the F.M. Alexander Technique I found a paper "Thoughts on Pat's Lecture". These thoughts are related to the lecture that was gi ven by Patrick Macdonald "On sending directions, doing and non-doing" - at the annual meeting of the STAT on the 12th of November 1963.

It is not clear to me who the teacher was that expressed his thoughts in this paper, but his approach does not appeal to me at all. The approach shows a clear tendency not to adhere to all the principles of the F.M. Alexander Technique. There is a recommendation in it to compromise and to adjust the Technique to other "techniques", "methods" etc. It seems to me that this approach shows a total misunderstanding of the issue we call the F.M. Alexander Technique, which is based on Alexander's primary insight that he misused himself while reciting; this led him to his experiments with the mirror. And his sharp and unique sense of observation combined with his common sense allowed him to make some discoveries followed by certain conclusions. They were the fruit and the consequences of his experiments. Thus the F.H. Alexander Technique was born and shaped. One can read about this in the first chapter of his book "The Use of the Self", or in E. Maisel's book "The Resurrection of the Body" in the chapter "The Australian Story".

It is very clear to those who follow F.M. Alexander fully without compromise and without trying to "make life easy" that Alexander saw "all in one". He always saw and aimed at "the whole", even in dealing with details he did not lose the "whole" out of sight. As he expresses it in the first chapter of "The Use of the Self": "All together, one after the other". First and continuously all together, and while continuously "all together" - while we are always in constant contact with the "whole" - details can be dealt with.

Alexander was not a compromiser. He did not allow himself to neglect the principle of wholeness. But I am afraid he was not a good educator and not the best of pedagogues. I am afraid he did not pay enough attention to the students in his teachers training course. He did not inspect them sufficiently. He did not guide them and support them, as much as this was really necessary in their struggle "To find the course in the desert". Too much he relied on and trusted the common sense of the students and the ability to find "the way" with the amount of directions he gave them. He left them alone too often. The fact is that as a result of his lack of guidance and control in the course, and the lack of fruitful cooperation between the students, there is practically no common denominator between the teachers of the Technique. One of the senior teachers of the Alexander Technique, who runs a teachers training course - and I suspect he is the one who wrote the above "Thoughts" - one day declared to me personally: "I disagree with the way Macdonald teaches the Alexander Technique". He added, in a compromising spirit and with a smile: "You do it your way, I do it my way". And the teaching as well as the practical approach to the F.M. Alexander Technique are quite different in the different schools of the Technique. So for God's sake "who is not wrong?". This is the source of the chaos and deterioration in the field of the Alexander Technique. Now you can learn the Alexander Technique from books such as "Alexander Technique - you can do it yourself" style, following "All Alexander Technique exercises". You will find in these books that it is so easy to do it, that you will feel light and move lightly, that you improve in no time - like magic.' You change without confusion, without a struggle! So why take the conventional Alexander Technique when you can adapt some of its principles and combine them with other "more advanced and progressive" techniques, methods, systems; out of which results an even more highly devcloped and sophisticated product than the original one?!

"THOUGHTS": "It seems to me we have to choose between two alternatives. Either we conceive of Alexander's work and technique as something so distinct from work in other fields that it requires (and deserves) a special terminology and a special attitude of mind, or we regard it as having made links with (for example) education, medicine and psychology, and instead of needing to be surrounded by a tripwire of special words and phrases, needs rather to be correlated with other techniques and methods. If we choose the second alternative, we shall have to look for points of resemblance rather than of differences from these other diseiplines and should be content if some of Alexander's ideas infiltrate into them, and not be too proud and self satisfied to receive some back. At present our tendency is to be a bit precious and esoteric, so that our publications appeal mostly to the converted. I suggest our aim should be to present the technique so that it seems obvious common sense and not an esoteric mystery."

It is not a matter of choice between two alternatives. The F.M. Alexander Technique is based on certain principles that only work when all of them are present simultaneously, then the whole F.M. Alexander Technique is in process. "All together, one after the other" all together continuously. We don't deal with separate pieces of the whole apart from the frame of the whole.

There is a special terminology indeed, as it exists in any other field of activity, in any profession. Those who practise and experience the F.M. Alexander Technique in their daily lives and activities have their own "language". This practical "language" is understood only among those who make decisions and give consent to "inhibit" their "habitual use", which is guided by our "faulty sensory appreciation". And while inhibiting they project the "directions". These "directions" will produce an expansion of the whole body. The "directions" will bring about a process, a so-called physical one that works simultaneously on all parts of the whole - of "letting the neck be free", and as a result the head go "forward and up" - in relation to the spine - and as a result the back can "lengthen and widen" (i.e. spread). The activities of our daily life are based on this.

This language is understood fully - and not merely intellectually - only by those who have a special attitude of mind. Only those who adapt this special attitude of mind can set out on "the way of Alexander". Only then can your mind agree to "saying goodbye" to your "habitual use". There is no compromise! no "fifty-fifty"! Only with this special attitude of mind can we fully "recognize that our habitual use is wrong", that it should be stopped, prevented - "inhibited". Only in this state of mind can we realize that the source of the wrong use is our "faulty sensory appreciation" - the guide, the judge, the criterion of our habitual use and the reactions to the stimuli of our daily life. Only in this specific state of mind can we activate our "conscious control", our awareness, and can we send the "directions" can we have a practical, realistic understanding of "non-doing" and "doing". Only with such a state of mind the F.M. Alexander Technique stops being a theory that might satisfy the intellect but not more. With this required attitude of mind you can fully understand what Alexander meant when he said: "You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension". And you understand that many of those who teach the F.M. Alexander Technique really teach no more than "physical exercises guided by manipulation". Being "end-gainers" (another term fom the "special language"), they look for visible results and try to "do the right thing" as Alexandcr expressed it: "You are not making decisions, you are doing kinaesthetically what you feel to be right".

So there is no question whether we can link the F.M. Alexander Technique to other fields of human activity, or how to adjust ourselves to any technique or method. Thc F.M. Alcxander Technique is not a "technical technique". It is beyond any "technique", "method" or "system". The experience one gets through practising the "Alexander's way" cannot be compared to any other discipline pretending to improve the use of the self. Using the F.M. Alexander Technique in the fields mentioned by the author of the "Thoughts" can take place only after the F.M. Alexander Technique has been accepted and practiced fully, as a whole, and not in pieces, and not in theory alone by practitioners in these fields, as the basis of their activities.

There is no reason to look for similarities with other disciplines and there is no peason to be content if some of Alexander's ideas have infiltrated into them. Some aspects might be similar to some of Alexander's principles, but the rest is missing, and so the "whole" is missing. These disciplines cannot be right, they deal with symptoms, with parts, they miss the unity of the human being. Any resemblance is only by degrees and theoretical.

"THOUGHTS": "Need there be any difficulty about "directions"? What are they for? F.M. Alexander hit on the idea of projecting directions as a means of preventing himself from falling back into his faulty speech habits. Their primary function was in fact preventative. If he ordered his head forward and up it would at any rate be prevented from going back and down. Similarly with the rest of the formula. He could equally well have said "I will not speak except on condition that I don't pull my head back and down", etc. This would have contained in it the idea of directing perfectly clearly, and there would have been no need to mention directions at all, with all the mystification that this has entailed. But the term "directions" is used by most teachers in a more positive way too. If a pupil is in a slump his teacher will carefully refrain from telling him to sit up (because that would be doing) but instead will make him "give the directions" and at the same time manually guide him "to lengthen and widen". But what happens when there are no teacher's hands to help him? Does he remain slumped, or does he do something to sit up?"

It is unfortunate that Alexander left behind him some rather confused followers as far as the practical essence and concept of the "directions" were concerned. This is the reason why the different teachers training courses produce quite diffe rent "directions" and lack a common denominator in practice. Most of the teachers do not look for the inner flow of energies, the openness, but for the "right" visible movements. They ignore the mental factor of the "whole" and deal with the physical-muscular side of the whole. The teacher who wrote the "Thoughts" has a clear conception of the "directions". He sees the "directions" as a means of preventing oneself from falling back into one's faulty habit of use (for Alexander, at the beginning, it was in speech). It seems that F.M. Alexander had a different conception of prevention and directions when he said: "Prevent the thing you have been doing and you are half way home". You are half way home. It means that you have to add something else, that you have to produce active decisions, that will bring about some reactions, not the habitual muscular activity, that will encourage the head to go forward and up, in relation to the spine, and the back to lengthen and widen (spread). "Directions" are active and lively and not passive. Something is happening when we direct expansion, release of tensions, release of pressures. Alexander says: "The person who prays to have help in getting rid of something will never make the effort to get rid of it". "Directions", according to the teacher of the "Thoughts", remain no more than some kind of "inhibition". It is "half-way home". So it is necessary, indeed, to project and send and use the "directions" in a "more positive way"! - if we really want something else rather than the "habitual" will happen. There is nothing mysterious about the "directions" - there is no problem of proving their existence and the nature of their activity.

So when the pupil is slumped down the teacher will, first, stimulate and increase his own "directions" for himself, and through his hands he will convey his "directions" to the pupil's body, giving him the practical experience of "directions". At the same time he will encourage and stimulate the pupil to cooperate with him consciously. The pupil has to give mental consent to the process to take place, and to increase and stimulate the process. The teacher does not manually guide the pupil "to lengthen and widen". The hands are the contact point, or area, between the teacher and the pupil. The guidance flows through the hands of the teacher from his own improved "primary control" to the pupil's. At the same time the hands of the teacher "read" the pupil and his reactions. These is a constant feedback process through the teacher's hands, with a "direct-line" to the "conscious control".

And then, in time, when there are no teacher's hands to help him, the pupil who has repeatedly experienced the "directions" through the teacher's hands has got a practical understanding of the "inhibition" and the "conscious control" (awareness) and now has a chance of noticing more and more when he is wrong, when he misuses himself. Only then will he decide to project the "directions" and his body will react properly to his decisions and "directions". He will no longer remain slurnped! In any case, the "directions" are activated whether the person is aware of the wrong or not. Active "directions" produce and maintain and nourish the conditions of the improved use of the self.

"THOUGHTS": "I remember a pupil who had a lot of lessons before he came to the Isobel Cripps Centre, as it then was. Charles Neil was teaching him and trying in the normal Alexander manner to get him out of a slump. As he had had a lot of lessons already, Charles was not giving him any manual help, but was just making him give directions. Nothing whatever happened. He remained as slumped as before. So Charles suddenly changed his tactics and barked out: "Sit up!" Though slightly shocked at this crude direct attack, the pupil responded perfectly and sat up without any undue tension. It can of course be said that he hadn't been giving directions properly etc. But if he hadn't why wasn't he? He was an intelligent man and had had plenty of lessons under a qualified teacher. Obviously he had misunderstood somewhere."

It is very strange that Charles Neil did not find it necessary to use his hands in order to direct the pupil, though the pupil had had a lot of lessons already under a qualified teacher. On what did he rely while teaching this pupil if not on the contact through his hands? How could he judge whether the pupil was capable of producing the "directions" in sufficient intensity and vitality? He saw that the pupil was slumped down, and this means that he could not yet direct himself in his daily activities. In such a case it is obvious that he needed, yet, the help of the teacher's directions, through the contaet of his hands. It is not enough to "make him give directions" by simply telling him what to do. A reliable and responsible teacher of the Alexander Technique would not do that. And by the way - is it not the "normal Alexander manner" of giving a lesson by using one's hands on the pupil? How could the teacher who observed that lesson judge whether the pupil "responded perfectly" to Neil's "bark"? How could he judge whether the pupil sat up "without any undue tension" when he did not get a feedback from the pupil's body through his hands? Maybe the pupil sat upright holding himself in a "position" not too fixed and rigid, so that it looked all right.

The pupil had not been giving directions properly. And the answer to the question why he was not giving directions properly is not complicated at all: his former teacher failed to give him the practical experience of the proper "directions" through his hands. The reason for the teacher's failure was his own inability to produce the proper "directions" in himself. Therefore he could not stimulate the pupil's body and teach the body through his hands the repeating experience of the "directions". So any conscious decision by the pupil to give "directions" could not produce any reaction that would bring about the continuous process of "neck free, head forward and up (in relation to the spine), back lengthen and widen (spread)". I am afraid that it was not the pupil who had misunderstood something somewhere.

"THOUGHTS": "I know it is only too easy to pick on the inadequacies of individual pupils and criticise the teacher or the technique on that account. I should hate my teaching to be made to stand or fall on the evidence of some of my pupils, but this is not an isolated case of this kind of misapplication of the technique but a likely and probable result of an accepted way of teaching. There must be a great many of such pupils who, through being told to "direct" and not "do", have got less from their lessons than they might have done, or taken unduly long to get what they got eventually."

Here the writer of the "Thoughts" is right - the above pupil is not an isolated case, but one of misapplication of the Technique. The likely and provable result of a common way of teaching the F.M. Alexander Technique. There must be a great number of such pupils who were told to "direct" and not to "do", and so have got less from their lessons than they might have got. I am afraid they did not get anything of "Alexander's way" if they were merely told without any directing contact of thc teacher's hands. There is a good chance that a "teacher" of the F.M. Alexander Technique who does not find it necessary to convey the "directions" to the pupil through his hands failed to produce the "directions" in himself. And in addition he could be called lazy, as he only knows and does not learn constantly while teaching.

"THOUCHTS": "I wonder in fact whether we need the term "directions" to describe what in effect (as Pat said) is a wild forrn of doing, and whether we need bother about "non-doing" at all. On the other hand there is plenty of need to emphasize undoing, and it would have been preferable perhaps if Charles had told this pupil to undo his abdominal contractions and "let his whole body grow to its full height". This would have been better than the direct command of "Sit up", as undoubtedly such commands do tend to cause over-doing and over-correcting. This tendency to over-correct was of course the reason why F.M. (being a great over- doer himself) began telling his pupils on no account to do anything. This has led to the confusion about non-doing and directing, and Pat seems to me to have only partially cleared it up - though I admit I am writing without a verbatim record."

What is "non-doing"? Is it not stopping the habitual "doing", stopping the wrong, preventing the misuse, "inhibiting"? This "non-doing" is a very active process in a way. This "non-doing" means stopping the wrong, neutralizing the misuse and as there is no room for vacuum it "opens the gates" for the right to take place. Then comes the activity to intensify the right. These activities are not the habitual muscular activity and can work only when the state of "non-doing", i.e. not activating the habitual doing, exists. The stimulus that activates the whole process is a product of the mental activity - decision. "Undoing" is another story. You can "undo" contractions, holdings, stiffness, by "letting it go" or "allowing to go" and not by trying to undo - and again, it is a mental activity which is active through "non- doing". How to undo the conditions of a slumped pupil? By undoing the slump? Or may be by encouraging the expansion in the pupil's body by intensive directive hands of the teacher?

And how will the poor pupil "undo" his abdominal contractions and "let his body grow to its full height" (what does "full height" mean? Where is the limit, where does it end?). How will he manage without the directing hands of a teacher who "works" on himself, and does not just guide by manipulation? The best chances are that the pupil will try (employing his habitual use that is guided by his faulty sensory appreciation) to do his best - to "do the right" thing and to "undo" his abdominal contractions. While doing so he will "concentrate" on this "undoing" and try to feel what is going on. There is very little chance that he will have the time and the awareness to deal with the "let my body grow to its full height" at the same time. And even if he learnt Alexander's writings by heart, registering somewhere in his brain "all together, one after the other", he will lose the "all together" and will get lost in details. In any case, over-doing and over-correcting are no more than normal, habitual activities based on the misuse of the self - probably more intense ones.

I wonder what he means when he says that F.H. Alexander was a great over-doer him- self? If F.M. Alexander applied, in his daily life and his teaching, what he discovered and experienced during the period of exploration and experimentation, if he "inhibited", if he "directed", if he used his "conscious-control", if he was not an "end-gainer" any more - how could he be an "over-doer"? Once, shortly after I was qualified, I visited the teachers training course of W. Carrington. I worked there on one of the students. After a few days I was told that this student was feeling a pain in her back and that W. Carrington had stated that I had "over-lengthened" her.

I wonder what he meant by "over-lengthening"? If the teacher directs properly he will stimulate the proper conditions for the "Primary Control", the pupil's back will be lengthening (and widening). There is no "over"-lengthening.

If the tcacher manipulates the pupil and "lengthens" mechanically by pulling him up and stretching him, there is habitual "doing" and not active directing based on "non-doing", on "let it happen". So there is no "over-doing" and "over-lengthening" when the teacher "reads" and "directs" the pupil. If the teacher is "doing" anything, it is already "over-doing", and wrong. F.M. Alexander told his pupils on no account to do anything in order to stop them from trying to produce the "right" when reacting to a given stimulus. He did not ask them to do the opposite of the "wrong", but just to stop the wrong, to stop doing the wrong, yet not to paralyse themselves, not to resist the activity of "let it happen". And the confusion and lack of clarity were the by- product of his lack of guidance when it came to showing how to use the hands on the pupil. Because Alexander did not let the students put their hands on him and did not instruct them through reading them what their hands really conveyed while directing.

"THOUGHTS": "It seems clear that the only valid rational of giving directions in this way depends on the constant repetition of the verbal formula becoming (in conjunction with the teacher's hands) an effective stimulus to a conditional reflex. I have already commented on this form of direction in another paper and will here only summarize my criticisms of it.

1. A verbal formula can easily become a meaningless incantation, and, as in the example above, achieve nothing.
2. To condition a reflex in this way is a lengthy proceeding. However, periodic renewal is necessary to keep conditioned reflexes working.
3. It does not tend towards an increase in body-awareness and is more akin to auto-hypnosis than to learning and unlearning. Instead of kinaesthetic re- education it amounts to kinaesthetic conditioning.
4. It leads to over-stereotyped, over-formalized muscular behaviour.
5. Conditioning procedures are boring both for the conditioned and the conditioner."

    

It is not the repetition of the verbal formula that is required from the pupil. At the beginning it is more or less a verbal formula for the beginner, but the teacher should emphasize again and again that in time the "neck free, to let the head go forward and up in relation to the spine, to let the back lengthen and widen" and the "inhibition" will become "one" and timeless. It happens simultaneously, there is no gap, no thinking in words, making decisions is not based on words - it is something beyond words, that comes with the repeated experience the pupil gets through the teacher's hands.

There is no doubt that a verbal formula can easily become a meaningless incanta tion and achieve practically nothing. It is like a record playing on the same groove. If the pupil adheres to the verbal formula and does not simultaneously have a matching experience of "directions" through the teacher's hands, there is no chance that he will make the required fundamental changes in the use of the self, no more than if he follows the verbal orders given by Charles Neil. Alexander said: "You can't tell a person what to do, because the thing you have to do is a sensation".

What is "body-awareness"? What is required to get this "body-awareness" - concentration, reliance on the sensory appreciation? What is "kinaesthetics"? How can we be in touch with this "kinaesthetics" (or "kinaesthesia" ?) - through concentration, through the sensory appreciation - what are the "means whereby" that are being recommended by the author of the "Thoughts" to be used for "gaining the end" of "body awareness" and kinaesthetic re-education"? What does all this have to do with thg F.M. Alexander Technique?

In what sense does it lead to over-stereotyped, over-formalized muscular behaviour? What has all this to do with the "Alexander way". And what about all this talk concerning muscles? Does the Alexander Technique deal only with muscles? What about the nerves without which the muscles are no more than "meat". How do the muscles function and react if not as a response to stirnuli coming and going through the nerves. Use and functioning are not limited and confined to the muscular system. The muscles are "directed" through the nerves. The "sensory appreciation" is based on the nervous system and the mind, the Whole mental activity takes place in the brain.

The communication lines within the "whole" - including the muscular system - are the nerves. "All in one" - so it should be. It is not enough to concentrate on a part – in this case the muscular system; it is the business of physical education to deal with the parts, but it is not the "Alexander way".

What is the F.M. Alexandex Technique if not a conditioning procedure and process? So if conditioning procedures are boring both for the conditioned and the conditioner - as the writer of the "Thoughts" states - teaching and learning the F.M. Alexander Technique should be extremely boring (until the above author can show us a better way and then we shall adapt it happily).

But the fact is that if the conditioning procedure is based on F.M. Alexander's principles and the proper relations between the teacher and the pupil, this conditioning procedure is not boring at all - it is full of activity (full of "non- doing"), full of experiences and discoveries. Only if a teacher does not have the right understanding of the F.M. Alexander Technique, then his lessons will be based on mechanical-technical procedures - they will be no more than physical education, some kind of gymnastics guided by manipulation. Then of course his lessons will be boring and useless.

"THOUCHTS": "If we use "directions" in my sense, all we need is to switch our awareness to our body (or key-points of it) in situations or activities in which our old faults are liable to recur so that, by becoming more conscious, we can prevent the fault. This is more in the nature of a quick kinaesthetic check-up and is quite opposed to the other sort of directing which is more like a telling of beads or turning of a prayer-wheel. How often one should check oneself up depends, obviously, on one's liability to faults and is an individual thing. But I think Pat's answer about Cassius Clay (that he would not get much more from the technique than a greater awareness of himself which might help to prevent his going wrong in the future) was very reasonable. A corollary to it is that if a good muscular pattern is present, constant self-checking and directing is unnecessary. For a significant degree of misuse is likely to make some impact on the consciousness of anyone with good awareness of their bodily state and an alarm signal will therefore be sensed. The re-educated person will certainly have the advantage over someone who is just naturally well-coordinated because the former will have a conscious standard of what constitutes good use, while the latter will not. But constant directing I take to be obsessive, if not hypochondrical. Surely incessant preoccupation with one's use (as with one's health) is in fact a form of misuse. Can we not be content with laying down good norms of muscular activity and not be greatly concerned with the occasional deviation from it? That way lies pedantry."

And again - what does it mean "to switch our awareness to our body"? And in which situations and activities will our old faults not be liable to recur? What is a kinaesthetic check-up?.What is the guiding instrument of these "body-awareness" and "kinaesthetic check-up"? Is it not our faulty sensory appreciation? And what are the "key points of the body"? In any case to switch to "key points" in the body means habitually to deal with "parts" and to lose the "whole". This is not Alexander Technique, this is the habitual way to deal with the issue.

The rest of the article again shows a fatal and complete misunderstanding of the F.M. Alexander Technique. So can one speak about "muscle-pattern", as if the Technique dealt specifically with the muscles; or about "bodily state", as if the body were separate from the mind and not the "mirror of the mental state". The "all together, one after the other" is completely ignored. The teacher who wrote the "Thoughts" must be lazy and a compromiser. He is looking for an easy life. Everything is easy and nice, there is no need to make any kind of effort. Alexander struggled and suffered for us. We just have to gather the fruits.

"THOUGHTS": "How far does this view of' "giving directions" and "doing and non-doing" simplify the technique? I should have thought considerably. Directions become acts of attention (to kcy-points mostly). Instead of rehearsing orders, one asks oneself questions: "Is my neck stiff? Yes- All right, undo it." If rnuscles are too slack and toneless to be doing their job properly any formula which implies minimal effort is useful. Hence these instructions wiil, as Pat said, ussually start with "let". If one says "Let the body grow to its full height" there can be no confusion about doing and non-doing. Obvoiusly some small positive doing is called for."

"Directions" do not become acts of attention to the key-points mostly. "Directions" are sent simultaneously to the "ehole". In addition the parts can be considered, but by no means without losing or ignoring the "whole", at the same time or at any time.

The "attention" should not be the product of concentration, but of awareness, a general awareness, choiceless awareness, not a body-awareness; or the fixed awareness - even for a short time - on specific parts, without the whole being present.

The author of the "Thoughts" suggests you to ask yourself the question: "Is my neck stiff?" The answer is: "Yes" and the conclusion: "All right, undo it". This has nothing to do with the F.M. Alexander Technique. It seems to have to do with the kind of disciplines of Moshe Feldenkrais, the Eutony of Gerda Alexander, the Bioenergetics etc.

How can the person who asks himself this question check if his neck is free? By means of his "sensory appreciation"? But the sensory appreciation is faulty and unreliable! Alexander said: "If your neck feels stiff, that does not say your neck "is" stiff." So what will the questioner do - or undo - if he comes, through his "body awareness" to the conclusion that the neck is free? What will be the consequences then? What will be the steps to take?

We can see that the above approach to "directions" does not match the original way of F.M. Alexander's "directions". In the "Alexander way" the person has to produce, project and send the directions in the right sequence in all conditions, without exception, without asking questions like "am I right or wrong'?". In fact, there is quite a chance that we will be more or less wrong, because of our deep rooted habitual use. As life is a flow and a constant process we never reach a final goal, we never complete and we are never perfect. Somewhere we are never fully right. So we have to balance ourselves constantly for the ever-changing conditions and flow. Therefore it is not wrong to follow the advice given to me once by Patrick Macdonald, when I still was a student and quite confused and unhappy, at that moment: "What ever happens - up!" Never give up directing. Do not ask questions in what state you are - direct, inhibit, act, use your conscious control, your awareness "all together and while all together one after the other". The more you are in it, the less you will be wrong. And Alexander said: "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."

"THOUGHTS": "Can we not confine the term "directions" (if we need it at all) to a "directing of attention"? Pupils need to know and feel that their necks are stiff otherwise little progress will be made in the process of their kinaesthetic re- education. Unless they switch their attention on to the salient points, how will they ever grow more sensitive? Then, having become more aware of over-tension (or under-tension) they are in a position to undo (or tone it up). Admittedly by such means one may not arrive at where Herrigel reached in his 'Zen in the Art of Archery'. But this is non-end-gaining carried to the nth degree. Pat was sympathetic about not expecting poor old Gubbins to imitate F.M. in looking at himself in the mirror for years on end. I hope he does not expect the same old Gubbins to emulate Herrigel? After all, his aim was different. He was not interested in archery as such, but only as an application of Zen principles."

As we have said, it is wrong to assume that the pupils should really need to know and feel that their necks are stitf. Drawing attention in this case means concentration, and further fixation. It means further stiffness. There will not only be no progress in the process of the re-education of the self but no beginning at all. What can happen is a change from one wrong pattern of use to another.

The pupil becomes more sensitive through full acceptance and application of the procedure of the proper teaching of the F.M. Alexander Technique, based on all the principlescomposing the "way" not parts and bits of the whole. His awareness will grow and through it his attention, wide and open attention, seeing "all in one". Concerning the full acceptance of his teaching Alexander said: "Don't come to me unless, when I tell you you are wrong, you make up your mind to smile and be pleased". There is no compromise, no trying to satisfy, no desire for results. Take it all or nothing.

"THOUGHTS": "There is no equivalent body of religious and philosophical beliefs attached to the Alexander Technique. It has therefore no equivalent dynamic. Let us not therefore set our sights too high, or we shall find ourselves attracting not the realistic, the hard-headed, the down to earth, but the more credulous, unstable people who are on the look out for a new religion. They have their rights, but let us not, to suit them, overinflate the technique with pretentious language and spurious mystique. It is most effective and least vulnerable if left plain."

And the author finished his "Thoughts" concerning Patrick Macdonald's lecture in his tendency to compromise. He seems afraid of finding himself among the minority. He is afraid he will not attract those who are not really ready to accept the real and profound changes: those who are causing the human world to be what it is and as it is. Those he calls the realistic, the hard-headed (indeed! N.R.), the down- to-earth (who drag us down - N.R.), the stable (? - N.R.) ones. "Thoughts"-man you are a "Yes"-man. You lack a mental back-bone, you lack "primary control" of any sort.

"THOUGHTS": "This lecture left me admiring the lucidity of exposition of a complicated theme and at the same time querying whether anything valuable need be lost by presenting the technique more simply. What future can it have if its most experienced exponents continue after all these years to disagree, even though the points may be small? What hope for the uninitiated? And should we really expect the aim of our pupils to be akin to that of the folloners of Zen?"

This is the opening paragraph of the "Thoughts". The F.M. Alexander Technique is very simple indeed, if we accept it simply and do not try to accept it simply or to simplify it. It cannot be conveyed through or by words. You may try to explain in words, in theory till you are black in the face - you did not teach anything, and nobody learnt a thing. The most you can achieve will be that you satisfied somebody's intellect and this person is sure that he is "in it". You just helped people to nourish their speculating minds, particularly the realistic, the hard- headed, etc. What happens in the teachers training courses when more time is spent on theory, on words - written and spoken - than on practical Alexander work?