Jeeves! Whatever Has Become of My Carriage?

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the queen

The Queen can always find her carriage.

Jeeves: Why Sir, I believe it’s stored in the garage, behind your new motorcar.

Sir: No, no Jeeves, my own carriage!

Jeeves: But Sir, it is your carriage.  And quite a handsome one at that. I confess I sometimes miss seeing seeing you in it, pulled by the wonderful team of horses we used to have.

Sir: Jeeves, I’m asking about my personal carriage – my bearing, the way I carry myself.  What’s become of it?

Jeeves: Oh that carriage Sir.  Well it does seem to be a bit amiss, if I may dare to say so…

Sir: Amiss!  If I were stooped any further forward my nose would be sniffing my navel.

Jeeves: Surely Sir it hasn’t come to that.

Sir: Perhaps not, but still it’s still quite worrisome.  What on earth should I do about it? I spoke with the doctor in the village but he’s of no use at all.  Wanted me to start lifting barbells!  Can you imagine that?

Jeeves: I must confess I cannot Sir.  What you need to do is see that Alexander chap in London.  I’m sure he can sort you out. He helped Lady Susan with her dowager hump.

Sir: Ah, Lady Susan! Now that you mention it Jeeves, she does seem quite fetching these days.  Perhaps I should have her over for tea…  But to get back to my own carriage, is this Alexander some sort of fancy Harley Street doctor?  A carriage doctor as it were?

Jeeves: No Sir, he’s not a doctor at all. I believe he’s self taught. An autodidact, as it were. From Australia they say.

Sir: Australia!  Is he a bloody convict?

Jeeves: I believe not Sir.  He’s all the rage with London society right now.  And very popular with the thespian crowd. Sir Henry Irving used to see him regularly before he passed away. They all say their posture and speech have been greatly improved by their sessions with him. I believe his work has sometimes been called the “Alexander Technique.”

Sir: Sir Irving! Well well.  Perhaps I should go up to London for a consultation. Can you arrange that for me Jeeves?

Jeeves: Certainly sir.  I’ll attend to it at once.

Sir: Thank you Jeeves.  Now I must send a note to Lady Susan to arrange a visit.  To discuss this Mr. Alexander, of course.

Jeeves: Very good Sir.

***

Carriage is a word that has all but disappeared from our language. When cars first came on the scene, the term “horseless carriage” was used for awhile, but that quickly gave way to “automobile” and now “car.” Mercifully, we still have a few baby carriages!

Carriage’s other meaning – a synonym for bearing or poise – has largely been forgotten. I think that’s  a shame because it very nicely conveys an idea that is at the heart of the Alexander Technique.

Alexander tended to use the word “use” (rhymes with loose) to describe how we manage our body as we go through life.  It’s a term he got from the language of horse trainers and continues to be used in that field to this day.

Alexander also used the word “carriage” five times in his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance.  For example, in a chapter titled “Habits of Thought and Movement,” he writes:

The false poise and carriage of the body, the incorrect and laboured habits of breathing that are the cause of many troubles…

He never used the word again in his own writing, although in The Universal Constant in Living he included a 1937 Report of the British Medical Association about his work that uses the term “carriage” twice.

I’ll leave the last word to one of Alexander’s favorite writers, William Shakespeare, who provides a wonderful example of carriage’s much earlier use in his play Henry IV, Part 1:

A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful
look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage. – Act 2, Scene 2

 Carriage image courtesy of joesive47 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Alexander Technique Prescription for Taking the Exercise Pill

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ID-10054350I just read an excellent article in Slate, The Exercise Cure – How can we motivate people to take a free, safe, magic pill?.  It’s by Jordon Metzl, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, and is a particularly good example of the growing recognition by physicians of just how important exercise is for all aspects of our health.

As Dr Metzl says:

Exercise has benefits for every body system; it is effective both as a treatment and for prevention of disease. It can improve memory and concentration, lessen sleep disorders, aid heart disease by lowering cholesterol and reducing blood pressure, help sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, and raise low libido. Exercise does it all. Even with cancer, particularly colon and recurrent breast cancer, the data show clearly that exercise is a deterrent. Newer studies on a glycoprotein called Interleukin 6 suggests that general body inflammation, a factor in almost every chronic disease, is reduced by regular exercise.

Dr. Metzi, and the many other physicians, who prescribe the “exercise pill” to their patients are on the right track.  But I think they are leaving out an important qualifier.

It’s not just being more physically active that enhances your well-being  – it’s also how those physical activities are carried out.

If you have developed a forward protruding head and neck pattern from long hours at the computer, you’ll probably take that extra tension with you into walking or running.

Your couch potato slump is almost certain to join you on your bike ride.

And your overly arched lower back doesn’t just disappear when you go for a vigorous swim.

In fact, if all you do is ramp up your level of exercise, you’re quite likely to actually exaggerate your worst habits of everyday posture and movement.

So by all means get moving if you’ve been living a sedentary lifestyle.  But be sure to give some thought about the manner in which you move if you want that extra activity to be safe and healthy.

One of the best ways to do that is to explore the Alexander Technique.  The Technique, which has been around for over a century, has a long history of helping people improve the way they sit, stand and move and is well-known by performers of all kinds as a way to enhance their professional skills.

It also has a long history of helping people alleviate pain.  A recent British Medical Study clearly showed it’s effectiveness in alleviating chronic back pain. Primary care physicians in the UK are now urged to “prescribe” Alexander Technique lessons to patients with this kind of pain.

The Alexander Technique is all about how you do whatever you do by helping you to identify and lose the harmful habits you have built up over a lifetime of stress so you move more freely and with less likelihood of injury.

Get moving.  Take the “exercise pill”.

But don’t forget the Alexander Technique “prescription” if you want to exercise safely and effectively.

—–

Here’s a short video produced by the British Medical Journal about the Alexander Technique back pain study:

And here’s an Alexander Technique Podcast interview with Dr. Paul Little, the Lead Investigator for the BMJ study:

Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Hundred and Forty Five Candles

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Happy Birthday Mr. Alexander! Sorry we couldn't fit the other 138 candles on top of your cake!

Happy, Happy Birthday FM! Sorry  the other 137 candles couldn’t fit on top of your cake!

Frederick Mathias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, was born on this day back in 1869.  Let’s use this occasion to celebrate his discoveries, and his achievements in making them available to us today.

Alexander (often called “FM”) grew up in very humble circumstances in Tasmania, an island off the south coast of of Australia. It was the last part of Australia to be settled by the British, who used it as a dumping ground for convicts.

Virtually all the Tasmanian Aborigines were killed – either by disease or outright slaughter – by the time Alexander was born, just a half century after the first whites arrived. The few who remained were herded into squalid concentration camps.

Visitors to Tasmania at the time wrote about an air of death and destruction that hung over the island. It was definitely not the trendy vacation destination it has become today.

And yet, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Alexander made groundbreaking discoveries about human functioning – and how to improve it – that have far-reaching implications for us all.

fm2

With the Australian pluck that transformed a penal colony into the Land of Oz, Alexander managed to bring his discoveries to the very center of the British Empire and on to the famous and not so famous around the world.

His is definitely a life worth celebrating.

In honor of his birthday, I’d like to share one of my favorite Alexander quotes:

After working for a lifetime in this new field I am conscious that the knowledge gained is but a beginning…my experience may one day be recognized as a signpost directing the explorer to a country hitherto ‘undiscovered,’ and one which offers unlimited opportunity for fruitful research to the patient and observant pioneer.

I believe Alexander would be excited about many of the new developments in Alexander Technique teaching that have occurred since his death in 1955: group teaching, scientific and medical studies about his work, improved versions of his directions, spin-offs of the Alexander process, the use of the web to promote his work, the role of Face Book and other social media to connect Alexander teachers and students, Skype teaching…the list goes on and on.

What is your favorite FM quote? What do you think Alexander would make of today’s Alexander Technique world?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And today let’s celebrate!

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near

Plaque near Alexander’s Ancestral Home

 

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A New Year’s Eve Conversation with Mr. Alexander

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F. Matthias Alexander – deeply worried about the future of our planet

I was totally caught off guard when I received a phone call yesterday asking if I’d like to do a short interview with F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique!

Alexander has been dead for over 50 years and while I have no trouble accepting the possibility of re-incarnation, I’ve always assumed the dead generally prefer not to communicate with the living. However further discussion – including some close questioning – convinced me that it was indeed Alexander on the line, and that he had two important ideas he wanted to convey to the Alexander Technique community, and to the larger world.

I detected a sense of urgency in his voice as we began the interview:

Me: It’s a great, and unexpected, honor to talk with you Mr. Alexander. You are one of my great heroes. Is it all right if I call you FM?

FM: Yes you certainly may. That’s what everyone called me.

Me: I understand there are two topics you particularly want to touch on today.

FM: Yes, first I would like to say a few words about the current state of teaching of my work. I am deeply gratified that it is going strong in your country, England, Japan, Israel, Australia and in many other countries around the world. I am proud of the teachers I trained, and many of their successors. However I do wish it were better known and understood by the general public.

Me: Do you think part of the problem is the term “Alexander Technique”?

FM: That is no doubt one problem, although I suspect it is now far too late to change it. As I am sure you know, it was never something I used myself. Also I have to say some of my own terminology has not served the cause well. For example I would not have used the word “inhibition” if I had been able to anticipate Freud’s use of it. But my concerns have more to do with the failure of teachers of the (sigh) “Alexander Technique” to make the work better known.

Me: There does seem to be a reluctance to promote the work by many teachers – a reluctance, I might add, that you never had!

FM: Right you are Robert! I wish today’s teachers would let go of that reluctance and to “popularize” the work – it needs to be popularized! Particularly today. And that leads me to the second point I want to make.

The many problems facing Earth cry out for the kind of personal insight my work can help bring about. The changes necessary for the planet’s continued existence depend on individuals coming to their reason. And that, in turn, requires them to truly know themselves.

You are facing a series of crises unlike anything before.  And, of course, just as in the human organism, these crises are all deeply interconnected. One cannot really separate the economic, military, political, ecological etc into unrelated categories.

I hope I don’t sound arrogant, but my work is truly of the utmost importance now. Your current situation is dire – your very survival is at stake.  That is why I arranged for special permission to do this interview.

Me: I will publish your thoughts in my blog and I hope that will serve to spread your message. I see that our interview time is running short. Do you have any specific recommendations you would like to share?

FM: My friend and student, the American philosopher John Dewey said wrote this many years ago, before Word War II erupted :

In the present state of the world, it is evident that the control we have gained of physical energies, heat, light, electricity, etc., without having first secured control of our use of ourselves is a perilous affair. Without the control of our use of ourselves, our use of other things is blind; it may lead to anything.

People need to develop control of themselves if there is to be any real solution to the today’s problems. I urge teachers and students of my work to think deeply and seriously about this. It is my belief, and my hope, they will do so.

Me: Thank you for this wake up call FM. Is there anything you’d like to add?

FM: It may seem strange, but I would appreciate it if you would include the short video of the gathering of students on my first training course. It was a beautiful summer day and one of the happiest of my life. It may not seem to be appropriate, or serious enough, for the topic at hand, but for me it represents a joyful moment of the sort I hope and pray you will see many more of in the coming years.

Here is the video FM asked me to include:

At Alexander’s request, I am posting this interview on New Year’s Day, 2014.

Mr. Alexander uses his own Technique: Moving Up while Falling Down

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F. Matthias Alexander – a quick thinker in an emergency!

It can be interesting to ask Alexander Technique teachers how they use the Technique in their own lives.

Imagine how much more interesting would it be to learn just how F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique, used it in an unexpected emergency.

As it happens, a very nice description of just this situation can be found on pages 184 and 185 of Louise Morgan’s 1954 book, Inside Yourself – The New Way to Health Based on the Alexander Technique*. Morgan writes an account of one of Alexander’s students, a Miss G. R., who one day arrived for a lesson and noticed that Alexander had a bruise on his forehead, and commented on it.

“Oh, that!” he said gaily, as if it were of small consequence, “I fell down the cellar steps last evening with a bottle of 1938 burgundy in one hand and a half-bottle of champagne in the other.  I threw away the burgundy on the way down, and was just picking myself up when my dinner guest appeared at the top of the steps.  His only comment was “That was the last bottle of ’38!”  I thought that rather hard, especially in view of the fact that I had saved the champagne.”

Miss G. R. was appalled by his light heartedness. “How can you joke about it!” she protested.  “Falling downstairs at your great age!  Why anything could have happened!”

“It might indeed,” he agreed.  “It would undoubtedly have been a grave matter, as Shakespeare would have said, to the average person of my age.  But I know how to deal with emergencies.  I had fetched the bottles to the top of the steps as was trying to push the door to behind me, but it swung further open and hence as I moved back  instead of meeting the door I met the wide open spaces and down I went backwards.

“But in that split-second of time I was able to plan my fall in such a way that I would take the impact on my shoulder on one of the steps and get only a few bruises.  And so it happened.”

*You can locate a copy of the book by Googling the title.

***

Alexander was never bashful at showing off his highly-evolved flexibility and coordination – as can be seen on a few YouTube videos in which he appears.  Here’s one of my favorites; he’s partying with some of his training course students some 20 years before his staircase fall. He is only in his 60s here:

***

Have you ever had occasion to use the Alexander Technique in an emergency situation?  I would love to learn about your experience.

The Thief and the Technique

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thief

Could Alexander Technique lessons help him do a better job?

Can the Alexander Technique make a thief a better thief?

It seems logical that it could.  Alexander Technique lessons have helped musicians play better. It’s helped office workers sit at desks and use their computer with less harmful tension.  it’s helped actors take on roles requiring bizarre postural affectations without harming themselves.

A British Medical Journal study shows it can help all sorts of people work and play without suffering the kind of debilitating back pain that puts their career in jeopardy.

So is there any reason why a pickpocket, who needs all the dexterity he can muster, would not become more effective at his craft?

Or a second-story man, for whom balance and coordination are required to avoid falls from a window ledge that would cut his career short?

The answer should be obvious…

And yet Alexander Technique teachers are often uncomfortable with a question like this.  The idea of the Technique facilitating evil acts is not one we like to contemplate.

Interestingly F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique, seems to have thought deeply about thieves – and, as he later says, criminals of all sorts, as well as addicts.*

In his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Alexander devotes several pages to the question of thieves, their mental state, and his insights on thieves’ state of mind.  Most of what he said can be found in Chapter Five, “Applied Conscious Control”.

Alexander has some very interesting insights and it’s well worthwhile reading this chapter – perhaps more than once, given Alexander’s roundabout style of writing – but here is what I took from it:

First, lots of people who are not called thieves are, in fact, engaging in more subtle forms of thievery, for example misleading others in business arrangements. Indeed professional thieves, in Alexander’s view, may in some ways hold to a higher standard of behavior – as the expression “honor among thieves” suggests.

Second, a thief – or criminal of any kind – can often be be addicted to his lifestyle.  Later in the chapter Alexander extends his analysis to addictions of all sorts.  (My favorite is the Englishman who goes to China, takes up opium smoking and does fine with that, but then becomes seriously addicted to tea! Will we ever understand the Brits?)

Third, the problem with somehow getting a thief to stop stealing – or the addict to give up his addiction – is that it will take away the only means he has of applying his often considerable intelligence and skill. The usual ideas about punishment and rehabilitation are therefore not likely to work.  The mental changes a thief needs to make, if he is to successfully drop the thieving habit, must “…be made gradually and slowly” because they place huge demands of “…re-adjustment in the psycho-physical self…”

Indeed, Alexander says, this period of re-adjustment “…may bring about such disorganization as may cause a serious crisis. During an experience of this kind, the person would for a period be in greater danger than ever”.

At this point Alexander refers to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 11, verses 24-26:

When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest.  If it can’t find one, it says to itself, ‘I will go back to my house’. So it goes back and finds the house clean and tidy.  Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there.  So when it is all over, that person is in a worse state than he was at the beginning.

What’s needed, in Alexander’s view, is an understanding of the nature of habit, and the necessity of helping the thief shift himself away from his dependence on what Alexander calls “subconscious guidance and control” towards “conscious guidance and control”.

He doesn’t say so explicitly, but I imagine Alexander would argue that his method provides a practical and effective way of making that shift.**

So, to get back to my original question, “Can the Alexander Technique make a thief a better thief?” the answer still might be “Yes”.

But might also be “Yes, although it could also increase the possibility that he will someday be motivated and able to switch to a more desirable profession”.

***

*Alexander’s interest in thieves could well be related to his early life in Tasmania, a dumping ground for British convicts during the 19th Century. Many were sent there for crimes of theft, including both his grandmothers and one of his grandfathers.

**Here’s an Alexander Technique Podcast interview with Becca Ferguson about how the Technique can help with addiction:

***

I’d love to hear you thoughts on all of this – not just as it relates to thieves, but to criminals, and to addicts of all sorts.

Image courtesy Weiss | Dreamstime.com

 

 

Freeing Alexander’s Dream from the Cage of his Technique

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sss

Photo of F. M. Alexander, taken towards the end of his life.

In my previous blog, Alexander’s Dream, I wrote that while F. M. Alexander began his career with huge hopes about the future of his work, things were looking bleak at the time of his death in 1955.

Since then, however, the number of Alexander Technique teachers, and Alexander teacher training courses, has expanded dramatically. In part this was due to popular books by Dr. Wilfred Barlow, Frank Pierce Jones and Michael Gelb.  But a good deal of the credit for this expansion also lies with the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT), which Alexander may or may not have endorsed before his death (the history is murky), and with the other Alexander Technique organizations that have sprung up over the years.

One of the self-assumed roles of most of these organizations has been to “safeguard”, as it were, the central ideas of the Alexander Technique, particularly a view of how it ought to be taught.

But organizations often have a tendency towards rigidity, and that’s certainly been true in the Alexander Technique world.  Thirty years ago, for example, there was serious opposition from within STAT about the validity of group teaching, “application” work and residential courses for reasons that would sound strange to most of us today.

I was actually present, as a trainee, at one of the key debates, held in Dr. and Marjory Barlow’s teaching area. It was an amazing spectacle to witness, but it came and went without a lot of notice in the greater Alexander world. (The “pro-group” faction ultimately won.)

What’s different now about attempts to restrict teaching methodology can be summed up in one phrase: The Web.

The web has changed forever the power of organizations in all sorts of fields, not least in ours.  In the past, for example, if you wanted to find a teacher, you pretty much had to go through the one professional organization in your country. Today there are often a couple of organizations to choose from and, in a sense, a professional organization is just one of many websites as far as potential students are concerned.

Even more significant is that the web is now the primary medium of exchange of ideas between teachers, students and potential students.  All you need do to confirm this is check out the discussions taking place on the various Alexander Technique Facebook pages and groups.

There have also been dramatic developments in what might be called “Alexander Technique teaching technology”. This started with Alexander Technique spin-offs such as Body Mapping, Posture Release Imagery and Up With Gravity – all of which are easily accessible to members of the general public and which are to a large extent web-based in terms of how people discover and use them.

More recently, several new methods of Alexander Technique directing have emerged, starting with Negative (sometimes called Inhibitory) Directions, which have gained a significant following among Alexander Teachers.  In the past few months, Freedom Directions have emerged as a likely successor to Negative Directions – one that is simpler to use, often a bit more effective, and above all, one that students can easily share with others.  They can used by pretty much anybody with an interest in learning them. (You can learn about all these and other new developments in Alexander Technique directing at the Alexander Technique Podcast page: New Directions in Alexander Technique Directing.)

As if all that weren’t enough, the web has also provided a new medium for teaching the Technique at a distance: Skype.  Of course there is at present no hands-on teaching with Skype, although this seems certain to change as existing new technologies become cheaper and more widely available.  Many teachers have successfully used Skype to teach students who would otherwise have no access to a teacher.  The new teaching developments mentioned above are fairly easy to convey via Skype.

What this all means is that the “cage” provided by professional Alexander Technique organizations – one that may well have been necessary half a century ago – has now opened wide, allowing new ideas to be quickly and easily tested and propagated throughout the Alexander world without any official involvement or control.  Alexander organizations still have important roles, but controlling innovation in Alexander Technique teaching is, in my opinion, no longer one of them.

Alexander laid out what he saw as the Big Picture of his work at the start of the first chapter of his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance (MSI) in 1910.  I quoted from that chapter in my previous blog and I think it’s worth repeating here:

…whatever name we give to the Great Origin of the Universe, in the words of a friend of mine ” we can all of us agree . . . that we mean the same thing, namely, that high power within the soul of man which enables him to will or to act or to speak, not loosely or wildly, but in subjection to an all-wise and invisible Authority.” The name that we give to that Authority will in no way affect the principles which I am about to state. In subscribing to them the mechanist may still retain his belief in a theory of chemical reactions no less than the Christian his faith in a Great Redeemer.

But, interestingly enough, at the end of his Preface of that same book, coming just before Chapter I, he also wrote:

I wish to do away with such teachers as I am myself. My place in the present economy is due to a misunderstanding of the causes of our present physical disability, and when this disability is finally eliminated the specialised practitioner will have no place, no uses. This may be a dream of the future, but in its beginnings it is now capable of realisation.

The ultimate elimination of any need for specialized Alexander Technique teachers was an integral part of Alexander’s dream.  I emphasize the word “specialized” because I think that what Alexander hoped for was a world in which there would be huge numbers of “non-specialized” teachers who would be quite capable of effectively teaching most of their friends, family and neighbors.  Perhaps a music teacher, a kindergarten teacher, a massage therapist – or just someone in the neighborhood, or someone halfway around the world using Skype – who has experimented with Alexander’s discoveries, and the many effective methods available to help others use those discoveries.

Freedom Directions are already being easily and effectively shared by Alexander students with their friends and families. Clearly we’re edging ever closer to the realization of this important aspect of Alexander’s Dream. If this trend continues, and I see no reason why it won’t, it will present some interesting new challenges for teachers and organizations.

I’m certain that the net effect will be a huge increase in opportunities for Alexander Technique teachers who are able to adapt to the new reality.  But as Kowalski, the country music loving astronaut in the movie Gravity is fond of saying, “It’s going to be a hell of a ride.”

And one filled with absolutely amazing and wonderful new opportunities to test our freedom to change.

***

I realize this is extremely controversial terrain I’m covering and I welcome you comments – favorable and unfavorable – below.

Alexander’s Dream

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F M Alexander in 1910, the year MSI was published

In my previous blog, Mr. Alexander in his Own Write: On Reading his Four Books, I wrote about the valuable legacy of Alexander’s writings.  Although deeply flawed in many ways, they are filled with useful information, and insights into the ideas that underlie what today is today called the Alexander Technique.

One thing is obvious right at the start: Alexander has some very, very big ideas that he wants to put forth.  Almost the first thing he writes at the start of Man’s Supreme Inheritence (MSI), his first book, gives us some idea of the importance he attaches to his work:

…whatever name we give to the Great Origin of the Universe, in the words of a friend of mine “we can all of us agree . . . that we mean the same thing, namely, that high power within the soul of man which enables him to will or to act or to speak, not loosely or wildly, but in subjection to an all-wise and invisible Authority.” The name that we give to that Authority will in no way affect the principles which I am about to state. In subscribing to them the mechanist may still retain his belief in a theory of chemical reactions no less than the Christian his faith in a Great Redeemer.*

Clearly he has a lot more on his mind than just helping people improve their posture, coordination and performance skills – although they are certainly a part of the much bigger project he has in mind.

Alexander’s dream was to help all of us to live in harmony with the word in which we find ourselves.  He wants to show us how to use all the features of our world to make the most of our lives.

These include, of course, our physical structure. He has a lot to say about our head-neck-torso relationship and how it can help or harm us, depending on how we manage it.  These ideas are often seen to be at the core of today’s Alexander Technique teaching.

fm2But I believe he also had in mind the fact that we are surrounded by a nourishing atmosphere that exerts a constant gentle pressure on us and that we live on the surface of a planet whose mass is inconceivably greater than ours and which exerts a steady force on us – in effect providing us with a free source of energy – that can be our best friend or, if we misuse it, our worst enemy.

And of course there are other people, animals, plants and so on which can help us or harm us, again depending on how we react to them.

This is Very Big Stuff indeed and one has to ask just how Alexander was going to take on such a huge task.

His approach seems to have been to put his ideas out there as best he could, to train a few others to teach what he had learned and eventually – at age 62! – to start a formal training course to increase the supply of teachers a bit more.

The evidence doesn’t suggest that he had an idea of how to implement his vision beyond those steps, although towards the end of his life he did reluctantly agree to endorse some sort of organization to continue his work.  It seems as though he hoped that the legacy of his writings and the teachers he had trained would eventually lead to the fulfillment of his project.

Let’s fast forward from the first edition of MSI in 1910 to Alexander’s death in 1955.

It’s not looking good.

Yes, there are a number of teachers of his method, mostly in the UK, there has been some good press about his work and, perhaps most important, some powerful endorsements from well-known intellectuals like Aldous Huxley and John Dewey.  Dewey, in particular, seems to have understood the broader scope of Alexander’s work:

It (the technique of Mr. Alexander) bears the same relation to education that education itself bears to all other human activities he wrote in his introduction to Alexander’s third book, Use of the Self

But there were also nasty and serious splits among key teachers, not to mention a lawsuit about the very ownership of the term “Alexander Technique”!

So perhaps on balance it was a good thing that an organization – the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT) – was established to both safeguard and promote the Technique. And that in subsequent years other organizations emerged with the same goals in mind.

This basic system remained in place for most of the next half-century. And while I think we owe a great deal to it, there were drawbacks as well.  During the past few years, particularly with the rise of the internet, these drawbacks have become more apparent, and more serious.

There are still a great many extremely important things Alexander Technique organizations can do, but I believe we need to take a fresh look at what their role in “safeguarding” of Alexander’s discoveries should now be.

I’ll consider this question in my next blog, Freeing Alexander’s Dream from the Cage of his Technique.

*A special thanks to Jennifer Roig-Francolli, who reminded me of these opening words of Alexander.

***

Clearly I am treading on some very sensitive ground here.  Please feel free to share your own perspectives.

Mr. Alexander in his Own Write: On Reading his Four Books

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F. Matthias Alexander, posing in front of his portrait, perhaps contemplating the wisdom to be found in one of his books

Within days of my first Alexander Technique lesson, I was experiencing so many dramatic changes in my body – most spectacularly a gain in height of almost an inch – that I just knew this strange new process was something I was going to pursue as deeply as I possibly could.  I scheduled regular lessons and immediately set out to read everything I could find on the topic.

I managed to get a couple of F. Matthias Alexander’s books from the library and prepared to plunge right in.  And almost immediately fell soundly asleep!

This happened every time I started reading one of the books.

There was something about Alexander’s writing style and my inability to grasp his ideas that pretty much soured me on his books.

This continued into my 3-year Alexander Technique teacher training course in London.  Whenever it was time to discuss “The Books” I’d discretely slip out for a nice cup of tea at a nearby cafe.

After I had been teaching for a few years, I finally read them – aloud to myself, cover to cover, as part of a voice project inspired by my work with the Tomatis listening therapy Method.  That turned out to be a valuable exercise on many levels, particularly the discovery of so many gems of wisdom tucked away in unexpected locations.

Still, it didn’t occur to me to recommend the books to my students.

It’s now some 30 odd years later and twice in the past week I’ve been forced to reconsider my position.

First, Jane Avery, a student of the Technique in Nova Scotia, posted a wonderful account of her experiences with Alexander’s work on Face Book, including reading Alexander’s second book, Constructive Conscious Control (CCC) early in her lessons.

Here’s the start of what she wrote:

I remember when I first began my lessons six years ago and, later, embarked on exploring AT literature. Of F.M.’s books, I started with ‘CCC’. Alexander’s words filled me with a new kind of anxiety; not the dreadful variety I’d been used to living with and which had driven me to AT in the first place, but the sort that awakened excitement and possibility. I knew at last, after decades of seeking anchor in superficial pursuits, practices and useless or harmful ‘cures’, that I’d finally found my fit. This was IT for me. It clicked. F.M. and I were kindred spirits, although he was, of course (and remains), so obviously a genius unparalleled. (You can read her entire posting here.)

A day or so after reading this, I did a podcast interview with my friend and colleague John Macy who had recently read through all of Alexander’s books, including two he took with him and read every day while on vacation in Europe.  John is definitely a good time kind of guy!

In the interview, I asked if he ever recommends Alexander’s writings to prospective students and he said, “Yes, Use of the Self.”  He went on to give several compelling reasons which you can listen to in the interview:

So…whether you’re an Alexander Technique student or teacher who hasn’t explored Alexander’s writings – or have never had any experience with the Technique and would like to learn more about his discoveries – consider taking the time to explore at least some of his writings.  Personally, I would recommend starting with Use of the Self.  It’s the shortest and most accessible of his books.

And, should you happen to share my earlier narcoleptic reaction from reading them, you can always use them as a safe alternative to sleeping pills.

I’d love to hear about your experience!

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You can order Alexander’s books from Amazon.com here and from Amazon.co.uk here.  Either way, your orders will help support this and my other Alexander Technique websites.

 

 

Beyond the body with Mr. Alexander

Body Learning Blog Posted on by

http://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photography-psychology-medical-illustration-male-head-image17616257When most people think about the Alexander Technique, and the discoveries of F. Matthias Alexander, they think about topics like posture improvement, pain relief, moving with greater ease, and more efficient breathing.

In other words, how we can learn to improve our physical functioning.

Yes, of course, there is a background understanding in the Alexander word that mind and body are really two aspects of the same thing – that changes in one will always have some in the other.  That, for example, we may well feel better and have a more positive attitude towards life after releasing physical tension.

But the idea of using the Technique to work directly on mental or emotional states is generally not a feature of Alexander lessons.  And this is probably all for the good; we are, after all, teachers – not therapists.

However, since I’ve started emphasizing Alexander Technique negative directions in my teaching, some of my students have taken to using them to work directly on their emotional and psychological states.

Initially I was a little skeptical, but after the good reports continued to pile up I was forced to re-think my position.

Here are a couple of examples:

A student who had initially described himself as a “control freak” came in one day after about six lessons and announced that he had been gently telling himself: “I am not controlling others’ thoughts or actions.” After a few days of this, he found that indeed he had let go of the worst aspects of his controlling behavior at work and, over the next few weeks, it had extended to his wife and children.

Another student, a singer, spontaneously announced during a lesson that she had always been a harsh judge of everything she did – a pattern she felt she had picked up from her hyper-judgmental parents. There was a pause and she said, “I wonder if I could use negative directions to change that pattern.”

I didn’t see her again for a few weeks and when she walked in to my studio she announced: “I am not judging myself or others. That’s what I’ve been using for the past month and it had changed my life!”

Interestingly enough, she also said she had started with “I don’t want to be judging myself or others.” but that didn’t seem to work.  She then remembered how much I had emphasized the importance of “I am not” and  in the moment statements about what you don’t want.  As she said, “I took ‘I am not tensing myself’ which I know works, and changed it to ‘I am not judging myself’ and then letter added “or others.”

There seems to be something about negative directions that makes them generally more amenable to spontaneous experimentation.  But the same general rules apply whether you’re addressing the physical or the mental: It’s best to keep the directional phrase short, start with “I am not”, and choose something you know you can do, but don’t want to, – and say “no” to that.

I’ve been using them myself for some time and I’d like to share my favorite.  It comes out of some of my earlier metaphysical readings and assumes that God (or, if you like, some other force for good) is always showering us with good things and that the only reason they don’t manifest in our lives is that we push them away for one reason or another.

The usual kinds of positive affirmations that go with this might be: “I am allowing God’s good to come into my life.” and “I am freely expressing God’s good in my thoughts, words and actions.”

The problem with these is that one may not be capable of “allowing” or of “freely expressing.” just as in a more traditional Alexander Technique direction: “I am letting my neck be free” we may not be capable of the “letting” and so it’s more useful to use something like “I am not tightening my neck” since we definitely know how to tighten and we know what “no” means.

So, I came up with: “I am not restricting the flow of God’s good into my life.” and “I am not restricting the free expression of God’s good in my thoughts, my words and my actions.”

Have you been experimenting with negative Alexander Technique directions?  Have you ever used them for changing emotional or psychological states?  What has been your experience?

Here’s a podcast about negative directions I did with Alexander Technique teacher Amy Ward Brimmer:

Other podcasts about negative directions can be found here.