The Alexander Technique E-Book

Pedro de Alcantara

• Herausgeber: The Crowood Press
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 284

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

To live is to face problems and to find solutions for them. We do so consciously or unconsciously, using intuition, reason, imagination and many other faculties. We notice a situation, we draw conclusions from what we see, hear and feel, and we act on our conclusions in a constant process of observation, analysis and remedy. 'My shoulders are tight, because I am under a lot of stress, I need a good massage.' We observe a problem (tight shoulders), analyse the cause (stress) and seek a remedy for it (the massage). But what if we have misunderstood the problem? What if our description of the problem is based on false perceptions, or our analysis on false assumptions? What if the solution aggravates the problem? This book is about our suppositions, habits and behaviours. It is about posture and attitude, tension and relaxation, movement and rest. It is about interpersonal relationships, sports and performing arts. Above all, it is about embodied emotions and the body that thinks and feels. In this fully revised new edition, Pedro de Alcantara invites you to redefine the meaning of health and wellbeing, using the insights and tools developed by a man of genius: F.M Alexander.

Leseprobe

First published in 1999 byThe Crowood Press LtdRamsbury, MarlboroughWiltshire SN8 2HR

[email protected]

www.crowood.com

Revised edition 2021

This e-book first published in 2021

© Pedro de Alcantara 1999 and 2021

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 839 9

Cover design by Sergey Tsvetkov

CONTENTS

Preface to the New Edition

Illustration Credits

Introduction

1First Principles

2The Use of the Self

3Non-Doing and Direction

4The Learning Experience

5Emotions

6Health and Wellbeing

7Sports and Exercise

8The Performing Arts

9A Teacher Speaks

Conclusion

Endnotes

Index

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

Books have a surprising life of their own. Behind the backs of readers and writers alike, books change, grow and mature, unnoticed.

In 1994, I was a young and inexperienced teacher of the Alexander Technique living in Paris. Thanks to a friendly recommendation from my colleague Annie Moteï, I received an invitation from a French publisher to write a book for the general public. Despite my then shaky command of the French language, I accepted the challenge and pulled together a modest volume entitled La Technique Alexander: Principes et Pratiques. It was published by Editions Dangle in 1997. To my surprise and delight, it’s still in print.

I then rewrote the book in English, tweaking its language and softening some of its edges. The Crowood Press generously took an interest in the book, and published it in 1999 as The Alexander Technique: A Skill for Life. Again to my surprise and delight, it has stayed in print for twenty years, having won some fans and friends among my Alexander Technique peers and their students.

Ten years later, a Japanese colleague wanted to see A Skill for Life published in Japanese. I decided to look at it again, and before the translator did his work I revised it, further tweaking its language and softening some of its edges. (As I said, I was young and inexperienced when I first wrote the book!) The Japanese version came out in 2011, thanks to the handiwork of Hitomi Ono, Fumiko Katagiri and Yoshi Kazami.

Soon after, my colleagues in Estonia used the revised English text to publish Alexanderi Tehnika: Oskus Kogu Eluks. It came out in 2012, and I owe this pleasure to Conrad Brown, Karen Brown and Kristel Kaljund.

And in early 2020, The Crowood Press invited me to revisit the original A Skill for Life, which you’ll recall was born more than twenty years ago. And here we are! In my estimation, it’s the fourth version of the book. I still consider myself young and inexperienced. Things are always relative, and I’m certainly younger and less experienced today than I will be in twenty years from now. With any luck, we’ll all meet again in 2040, and we’ll enjoy reading the fifth, or the sixth, or the twelfth edition of this little book. Let’s hope that, by then, its edges won’t be so rough any more.

Pedro de AlcantaraParis, February 2021

ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

Drawings © Alexis Niki, by permission.

Photographs of F.M. Alexander © 2020 The Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique.

Caroline (p.22): Courtesy of Catherine de Chevilly.

Iolane Luahine (p.22): © Topgalant Publishing Co., with thanks to Sandra Kwock-Silve.

Little girl on bench (p.27): © Lindsay Newitter.

Boy and dog (p.87): © Soldeandalucia | Dreamstime.

Bridge structure (p.30): © Kim Newberg.

Woman hailing taxi (p.44): © auremar | shutterstock.com.

Boy sitting (p.49): © Sviatlana Yankowskaya | shutterstock.com

Surfer (p.56): © Andrew Schmidt.

Baby boy squatting (p.57): with thanks to Michelle and Bernard.

Gardener squatting (p.58): © Lindsay Newitter.

Woman vacuuming (p.59): © Lindsay Newitter.

Little girl lunging (p.59): courtesy of Brigitte Cavadias.

Film stills from Min Agl Hobbi and Risalat Gharam (p.75): © Institut du Monde Arabe, by permission of Films Regent.

Boy squatting at the beach (p.83): courtesy of Joelle Schneider.

Soccer player (p.101): © mooinblack | shutterstock.com.

Boy playing hockey (p.114): © Jody Dingle | shutterstock.com.

Girl with computer (p.35): © nata lunata | shutterstock.com.

Maasai woman (p.27): © Dennis Donohue | shutterstock.com.

Artur Rubinstein (p.120): © Lotte Meitner-Graf, courtesy of the Rubinstein family.

Annie, aged six (p.121): courtesy of Richard Beavitt and Annie Robinson.

Horn player (p.122): © Lindsay Newitter.

Boy playing soccer (p.116), and boy with arms lifted (p.141): courtesy of Jörg Schnass.

Photos © Pedro de Alcantara: branches and leaves (p.2); juggling balls (p.30); ‘love’ written on a wall (p.81); singer-guitarist at a bistro (p.125); a troupe of actors at play (p.130); intertwined hands (p.137).

The author has made every effort to contact all copyright owners and would be happy to amend these acknowledgements in later editions of the book.

INTRODUCTION

‘My back is hurting me, I think my bed is too soft.’

‘My son is very stubborn. He never obeys me.’

‘You breathe badly, you should do some breathing exercises. Go on, take a deep breath.’

‘That man is irritating.’

‘My shoulders are tight.’

‘I have scoliosis.’

‘Grandma is getting older, it’s natural for her back to become a bit round.’

‘Life in a big city is stressful. I wish I could move to the countryside.’

‘I hate my body.’ ‘I love my body.’

‘That’s just the way I am. There’s nothing I can do about it.’

‘He’s so intelligent, what a shame that he beats his wife.’

‘Relax.’ ‘Sit straight.’

‘Swimming is the best exercise.’

‘My mother-in-law is horribly unpleasant. I detest her.’

‘I try my hardest, but I lack willpower.’

‘Stop crying, for heaven’s sake!’

You have undoubtedly said similar phrases, and heard them said – by a friend, in school, at the gym, at a doctor’s office.These phrases describe a situation, a person’s character, or an attitude. Many of the phrases evoke a problem; some of them point to a solution as well. In certain phrases the problem is explicit, the solution implicit; sometimes it’s the other way around.

It’s true – life in the countryside is easier than in a big city. It’s true – old people are naturally round-backed. It’s true – a soft bed causes back trouble. It’s true – everybody should sit straight. It’s true – deep breathing is good for you.

Our observations, our thoughts, our words and our actions are intimately connected. We observe this or that fact: a reality, a truth. We draw conclusions from our observations: this causes that. And we act upon our conclusions.

‘My mother-in-law is mean. Everybody knows that. Well, I have to defend myself, and the only way to deal with her is to be as mean as she is.’

‘My back is hurting me. It’s obvious that my bed is too soft, so I am going to buy a firm mattress. The firmer, the better!’

‘My shoulders are tight. I’m under a lot of stress at work. I need a good massage.’

Let’s consider this last example. The diagnosis includes a description of symptoms (tight shoulders), an analysis of their cause (stress) and a proposed remedy (a massage). Now let’s draw a general principle. To each problem there corresponds a description, an analysis and a solution. To live is to face problems, to analyse and understand them, and to find solutions for them. We may do so consciously or unconsciously. In the process we employ intuition, reason, imagination, intellect and other faculties still. Regardless of how we do it, we do so unceasingly.

What if we misunderstand a problem?

What if our description of the problem is based on false perceptions, and our analysis on flawed assumptions?

What if the remedy aggravates the problem?

‘My shoulders are tight.’ This isn’t exactly true. It’d be more accurate – and ultimately more useful – to say, ‘I am tightening my shoulders.’ Similarly about your painful back: the back isn’t hurting you as much as you are hurting your back.

‘My work is a lot of stress.’ Put four people in a stressful situation, and you’ll witness four different, if not opposing, reactions. At a typical office, the boss announces a new project. Peter becomes mute, Jean worries, Anna sets to work, Michael rings his best friend to gossip and laugh for a minute.

The stress isn’t in the stimulus itself, but in your reaction to it. The office workers of our example demonstrate how individual and how subjective our reactions are. What you find stressful, I might find stimulating – and vice versa.

‘I need a good massage.’ At the end of an hour under the masseur’s hands, you feel deliciously relaxed. Next morning you go back to work to find out that your boss hasn’t dropped dead after all, and despite your best efforts your shoulders become tight again.

Short-term relief is very valuable to all of us, and sometimes it’s urgently needed. Relief, though, isn’t the same thing as a solution. A massage is great, but it won’t change your boss – and, more importantly, your perception of your boss.

‘Sit straight. Just do it.’ This simple command hints at a world of assumptions. There exists a good position that you must hold – and this position is, of course, straight. It implies a certain interaction between the body and mental power. If you have a physical problem, take care of it by doing something and applying your will to it.

We used to think of the body as a car, and the mind as its driver. Today we compare the body with a computer, and the mind with its software. But in human beings the thing controlled, the force that controls it, and the control itself are one. The mind can’t really be the master of the body: the mind is the body and the body is the mind. At the very least you can’t separate your body from your thoughts and feelings about your body. Your neck is what you think and feel about your neck.

In theory, willpower seems like a wonderful capability. But it tends to be difficult to put into practice, and often enough the effort of the will actually causes the problem in question.

Instead of sitting straight – something that you do – it might be better for you to quit slumping (something that you then stop doing). Stop what is wrong, and the right thing will do itself. Source of great wonders and equally great difficulties, this non-doing principle will change everything in your life, from posture and movement to personal relationships and goal-setting, from emotions and convictions to reactions and behaviours.

The fundamental unity of every human being; our habits, suppositions and judgments; posture, attitude, movement, tension and relaxation, ergonomics and physiotherapy; the difference between ‘normal’ and ‘natural’; social and professional relationships, sports and exercise, music, theatre and dance – in sum, health and wellbeing – all these are the objects of this study. My aim is to convince you that your problems aren’t what you think they are, and to propose intelligent and efficient solutions that bear witness to the genius of a great man: Frederick Matthias Alexander.

F.M. Alexander with a friend.

1

FIRST PRINCIPLES

THE WHOLE PERSON

To understand the principles of the Alexander Technique, it’s useful to look back at what F.M. Alexander set out to do. He described his journey in detail in the first chapter of The Use of the Self, the third of his four books. The ethologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, winner of the 1973 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, dedicated part of his Nobel oration to Alexander and his work. Alexander’s story, Tinbergen wrote, ‘of perceptiveness, of intelligence, and of persistence, shown by a man without medical training, is one of the true epics of medical research and practice.’1

Alexander was born in 1869 in Tasmania, an island south of Australia. A young man of promise, he hoped to pursue a career as a professional actor. His great passion was Shakespeare, which he declaimed in dramatic recitals popular at the time. Despite his talent, his early theatrical success was threatened by a recurring vocal problem. On stage, Alexander tended to become hoarse, sometimes to the point of losing his voice. He sought medical advice and was told to rest his voice. While this remedy protected his voice as long as he refrained from using it, it didn’t stop the hoarseness from returning once he started reciting on stage again. Alexander was then advised to undergo surgery. The diagnosis he received was that his uvula was too long, but the surgeon wouldn’t guarantee that the operation would solve his vocal problems.

Resting the voice is sensible if one uses it too much. An operation is equally sensible if there’s a structural problem somewhere in the vocal mechanism. Alexander, however, suspected that his vocal problems were due neither to his overusing his voice, nor to a defect of the vocal mechanism itself. He conjectured that the source of his difficulties was the way in which he actually used his voice.

Most people would have either persisted with the rest cure or agreed to undergo surgery, without daring to contradict the view of a doctor. Alexander’s rebellious outlook was his first stroke of genius.

It’s as if he said, ‘I have to find out for myself.’

And his second stroke of genius was to intuit that the source of his problem wasn’t his anatomy, but his way of talking and declaiming.

It’s as if he said, ‘Perhaps I’m doing something wrong.’

Mechanical imperfections exist in all of us: an overbite, short-sightedness, a club foot … the list is long. Sometimes it’s possible and necessary to address these imperfections directly – that is, by mechanical means including surgery. Often, though, the real problem lies not with our physical instruments but in what we do with them. To better appreciate Alexander’s understanding of cause and effect in his loss of voice, we turn to his own words:

When I began my investigation, I, in common with most people, conceived of ‘body’ and ‘mind’ as separate parts of the same organism, and consequently believed that human ills, difficulties and shortcomings could be classified as either ‘mental’ or ‘physical’ and dealt with on specifically ‘mental’ or specifically ‘physical’ lines.

Alexander goes on to say that he soon abandoned this point of view, stating that his experiences led him to believe that ‘it is impossible to separate “mental” and “physical” processes in any form of human activity.’2

The starting point of the Alexander Technique is the ever-present connection between body and mind – more than their connection, their very inseparability.

Keenly aware of how words influence our beliefs and behaviours, Alexander avoided using terms such as ‘body mechanics’ or ‘mental complexes’. Instead, he referred to the human psychophysical organism in its entirety as the self. As employed by Alexander, the word is a simple, abbreviated way of referring to the whole person. Alexander spoke about the use of the self, and how the self reacts and functions.

Imagine yourself in a concrete situation: walking down the street, playing tennis, or making love. In any of these, every part of your being is ever-present, whether the part plays a passive role or an active one. The tennis player can’t lift a racket (thereby making a physical gesture) without issuing a command from her brain to the muscles via the nerves (thereby engaging her mind). Body and mind act together, at once, always, whether they do so efficiently or not.

Similarly, when you make love every fibre of your being plays a role. The intense physical pleasure of making love has equally intense psychological, emotional and intellectual counterparts. Becoming aware of the wholeness of the act can only reinforce its beauty and intensity.

The integrity of your being means that your whole body, from head to toe, plays a role in your every activity. Different parts play different roles: some more passive, others more active, some very important, others less so. For the integrated lover, the entire body is erogenous; for the integrated sportsman or musician, the entire body is a living, working instrument.

Deeply rooted, the plant grows ever upwards.

Here’s a practical suggestion. Every time you are tempted to say something about the way you use your body, talk instead about how you use yourself: ‘How best to use my body when I cycle through the city? Ah, apologies – I meant to say, how best to use myself when I cycle through the city?’

Let’s go back to Alexander’s vocal troubles. The cause of his hoarseness on stage wasn’t the way he misused his voice, but the way he used himself as he spoke. In The Use of the Self Alexander recalls that, as he declaimed, he pulled his head back and down, depressed his larynx, shortened his torso, and tensed his legs and feet. In order to eliminate his vocal problem, it wasn’t enough for him to change the use of his voice: he had to change the coordination of his whole being – that is, the way he used himself.

As he learned more and more about how he used and misused himself, Alexander had a big insight that changed everything. It came to him that these apparently physical misuses were the direct result of what he wished to do when he spoke and declaimed – that is, his intentions, his goals, his aesthetics. It wasn’t possible to make physical changes to his coordination without changing, tweaking or abandoning those intentions that triggered the habitual gestures. We’ll look at this soon enough, but for now let’s ponder the relationship between use and functioning.

USE AND FUNCTIONING

The way you use yourself is the way you react, with your entire being, to every stimulation and situation in your life. In some situations you react constructively, with efficiency, intelligence and elegance. In other situations, less so. Whether you react well or badly, your whole being is present in all your reactions. Your body is always inseparable from the thinking that animates it. ‘Talk about a man’s individuality and character,’ Alexander liked saying, ‘it’s the way he uses himself.’3

Every aspect of your life is determined by the way you use yourself: your voice and speech; breathing, digestion and circulation; your reactions to stress; psychomotor skills, interpersonal relationships, emotions, sexuality. Use yourself badly, and all you do is harm your health. Use yourself well, and every one of your activities contributes to your greater wellbeing.

Let’s imagine a pianist suffering from what appears to be a physical ailment – for example, carpal tunnel syndrome. This is a painful and possibly disabling condition that affects the wrists of musicians, keyboard operators, and people in various occupations and circumstances. When diagnosing carpal tunnel syndrome, doctors speak of overuse of the wrist and prescribe rest. If rest fails, medicine offers the choice of surgery or injections of cortisone. Cortisone acts upon a symptom of the disease: its pain. It offers only temporary relief, and it has dangerous side effects as well. Surgery itself isn’t free from risks, and doesn’t guarantee results.

Feeling excruciating pain and having to curtail her musical activities, the pianist of our example can’t help but think that there’s something wrong with her body, more specifically with a localized part of her body: the carpal tunnel, which is the passageway on the wrist’s palm side, connecting the forearm to the hand. And she can’t help but be tempted by surgery or by the promise of pain relief. But if you watch her play, or if you hear her talk about stage fright, and the difficulty of playing big Romantic pieces full of notes and chords, and the fact that she’s not as good a pianist as so-and-so, and the frustrations of teaching bratty children in a crappy suburban conservatoire – well, you’ll see and hear a whole person in turmoil, misusing herself at the piano and away from it. Our friend the pianist is often agitated, frustrated and angry. She rushes through her notes when she plays the big Romantic pieces, and she bangs at the piano in an attempt to create loud sounds, and she twists her neck when she tries to express the big Romantic emotions in the big Romantic pieces.

Our pianist functions in a certain way. And her functioning is the result of how she uses herself, at the piano and away from it. Her wrists are a very small part of her life, and her carpal tunnel syndrome is a very small part of all her pains, which are physical, emotional and existential. Wrist surgery could perhaps help, but it won’t solve her problems.

Hearing this, our pianist despairs: ‘Are you saying I need to change my whole life? I just want my wrist pain to go away.’ To her, it seems as if I’m telling her to make a hundred difficult decisions, which is an impossible task. But symbolically, I’m telling her to make a single decision: don’t work on your functioning; work on your use instead. This will automatically change your life in a hundred ways.

Use determines function. If you’d like to improve your functioning, your best bet is to improve your use. And if you’d like to improve your use, your best bet is to improve how you react to life. Use is inextricably tied with perceptions, attitudes and beliefs. If you see a spoiled brat who has come your way just to annoy you, you react in a certain way. If you see a struggling child who’d appreciate your loving attention, you react in a different way.

It isn’t easy to change your use, but it’s the one way you can really affect your functioning.

Would our pianist solve all her problems simply by working on herself?

Far from it. Working on herself will solve some problems and will make other problems easier to solve. It’ll give her a sense of what is an actual problem and what is a situation that requires thought, which isn’t the same thing as a problem. Working on herself will give her new ways of approaching specific tasks in specific situations – including very specific and specialized micro-tasks such as playing a loud chord in the second bar of a challenging piece by a big Romantic composer.

Working on herself, she’ll understand when physiotherapy is helpful, and when it’s not. She’ll understand that physical exercises alertly performed are very useful, but physical exercises performed mindlessly only make a painful situation worse. She’ll understand that surgery is sometimes necessary, sometimes optional, and sometimes so harmful as to be medically scandalous. Then she’ll choose whether or not to undergo surgery. In this sense, she’ll be like the young F.M. Alexander, who set out to examine his troubles with two attitudes in mind: ‘I may be doing something wrong. I have to find out for myself.’

Our pianist can, in fact, make a hundred decisions or a thousand decisions; perhaps she must make these decisions. But when she’s alert to her use, these decisions are often easier to make and more constructive in their effects.

The young science of ergonomics has brought interesting innovations into many fields, including furniture and machinery design, the organization of offices and homes, and the flow of work routines. For our pianist, ergonomics would affect her choice of a piano stool (high or low? soft or hard?), the lighting set-up in her practice studio, the tuning of her instrument, and many other things. She won’t be able to find a piano stool that makes her carpal tunnel disappear, but she’ll be able to improve her relationship with the material aspects of piano playing. Better aware of her orientation in space, she’ll change her piano stool, and she’ll also change how she places the stool in relation to the piano, and she’ll also change the way she sits, and she’ll also change her perception of the piano keyboard and her perception of her fears and anxieties regarding the piano … and before long she’ll have changed a hundred things. Discovery, exploration, trial and error, creativity, pleasure: she isn’t working on her body any more, but on her use. It’s wonderful to change a hundred things after you make this one change.

END-GAINING

What causes people to misuse themselves, thereby creating so much discomfort in their lives?

We can easily make a long list of triggers: education, civilization, modern life, stress, religion, the lack of religion, family life, the lack of family life … potentially, every last thing can be a trigger of misuse. Talking about his discoveries in The Use of the Self, Alexander explains how he zeroed in on a fundamental trigger. He realized that his vocal troubles and their accompanying physical characteristics came about on account of his intentions and his goals – that is, the ends he had in his mind and heart when he spoke.

He called this phenomenon end-gaining.

Imagine a father and his child. The child is upset and crying. The father has a single wish: for the child to stop crying. Rather than finding out why she’s upset and consoling her, he yells at her to stop crying, which only makes her cry harder. By disregarding the necessary means and going directly to his desired end, the father makes a bad situation worse, both for the child and for himself. We may have a little compassion for the impatient father, but the fact remains that his behaviour takes him away from the actual goal he has in mind – which is for the child to stop crying. The father is end-gaining.

For the sake of simplicity, we’ll say that end-gaining consists in choosing unhealthy goals, or pursuing worthy goals in an unhealthy manner.

End-gaining is so prevalent and insidious that most people don’t realize that they, and others, are end-gaining the whole time. Business, politics, medicine, art, daily life, personal relationships are all subject to the ravages of end-gaining thought and behaviour. Throughout A Skill for Life we’ll look at many examples of end-gaining. Right now, let’s make a short but illustrative list.

The politician really wants to be elected. He makes promises he knows he can’t keep, and he manages to get elected. There’ll be crises, conflicts, disappointments, a budget in disarray, demonstrations, public violence. The politician end-gained, and the results are there for all to see.

Our pianist wants to play loud, very loud, at least as loud as that other pianist of whom she’s jealous. She bangs at the piano, produces harsh, ugly sounds that don’t give anyone any pleasure, and starts suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. She end-gains and misuses herself, on account of an unhealthy goal that she pursues in an unhealthy manner.

I’m irritated and in a bad mood. The highway is clogged with rush-hour traffic, and I just want to get home. I’m going to drive on the hard shoulder and speed past all those stupid drivers. I risk causing an accident that might leave me and other people in hospital for several months. But I’m going ahead. I’m determined to end-gain.

End-gaining isn’t necessarily a matter of life and death. Little things in your daily routine can manifest the end-gaining principle, too. A dropped plate in the kitchen. A fingernail cut too short. A smudge of ink on a card you’re writing offering condolences to a relative. Maybe your goal was simply to get something done – to get the dishes done, to get the nail-trimming done, to get the card done. You end-gained only a tiny bit, but you end-gained for sure.

End-gaining exists in many gradations. One little thing: not too much of a problem. A thousand little things, one after the other: more of a problem. A big thing: a big problem. A thousand big things, one after the other: a gigantic problem.

Goal setting, in itself, isn’t the same thing as end-gaining. To be human is to have goals. To be happy and healthy is to pursue worthy goals in an intelligent manner. But you can only pursue these worthy goals if you stop end-gaining.

We have arrived at another of Alexander’s helpful insights: to change the way you use yourself, the important thing is not what you do, but what you stop doing and what you prevent yourself from doing. This is the cornerstone of the Alexander Technique, and we’ll call it non-doing. End-gaining is the cause of misuse, and non-doing is the solution. I discuss it at length in Chapter 3.

Here’s a modest poem using Alexander’s vocabulary:

End-gaining causes misuse.

Misuse causes poor functioning.

To improve your functioning, stop misusing yourself.

To stop misusing yourself, stop end-gaining.

Learn to ‘do nothing’ before you ‘do anything.’

And here’s another modest poem, saying a similar thing with a different vocabulary:

Your goals and motivations get in the way.

Then you twist yourself into a knot and suffer.

To stop suffering, stop twisting yourself into a knot.

To stop twisting yourself into a knot, clarify your goals and motivations.

Learn to ‘do nothing’ before you ‘do anything.’

THE PRIMARY CONTROL

When Alexander made his series of linked discoveries, he observed that in all human beings – and, as it happens, in all vertebrates – there exists an ever-changing, dynamic relationship between the head, the neck and the back. He called it the primary control. He demonstrated that the better you direct your primary control, the better you coordinate your whole self.

Observe a cat jumping up on to a table: its body leads, its head follows. Imagine a horse running an obstacle course: its whole body is taut with strength and joy, from the head downwards. As it runs and jumps, its head initiates movement, and its body follows. At all times its spine remains fully stretched, its head poised strongly on top of the neck. When a bear forages for food, its head leads, its body follows, even as it becomes occasionally upright. When a seagull glides in the wind, its head leads, its body follows. Its whole spine is stretched and in a state of high tonus, thanks to which it becomes aerodynamic. It would be impossible for a bird to fly or to glide if its spine were over-relaxed.

The primary control isn’t a position, as demonstrated by the cat who puts its head pretty much anywhere. We might say that the primary control is a sort of magnetized direction of your head and neck, alive with intentionality and alertness. In the old times, you’d wear a book on your head to improve your posture and gain a bit of poise and elegance. Depending on how you do this, it could help you magnetize your head and neck. But if you’re literal-minded and think that the-book-on-the-head is the primary control, you’re probably going to make your neck stiff and your brain muddled.

A better model is the woman who carries a heavy weight on her head: a big bucket full of water, for instance, which she fetches at a well far away from her home. The weight on her head is an invitation to organize her thoughts and her energies, because without such an organization she’d collapse under the weight and be crushed by it. With years of training starting in childhood, alert to the environment, alert to her whole self, she distributes needed effort throughout her body. She doesn’t overuse or underuse any muscle or joint or vertebra. She has a sense of purpose and a sense of time and a sense of responsibility. ‘She’s got her head in the right place.’

Watch a very young child learning how to walk. By trial and error, with strong emotions of frustration and joy, she figures out what goes where, when and how. And with every step, she keeps intuitive track of what she’s doing with her head and her neck. Then she gets the hang of it all: the head and neck are now at the service of the back and legs, and the child becomes able to walk. Similarly for the older child who learns how to ice skate or ride a bicycle.

Sooner or later, most children lose their natural, animal-like poise. Imitation, mis-education, and the contagious habits of end-gaining get the better of us all. We become too eager, too keen; too shy, too abrupt; too tense, too floppy; too fast, too slow … ‘We lose our heads,’ physically and symbolically.

When you begin to understand Alexander’s discovery or re-discovery of the primary control, you begin to regain your head, physically and symbolically. Then you share with the toddler not only the poise of the head and neck, but the pleasure of exploration and the joy of being alive, the happiness of wobbling along the path and feeling pretty sure you’re on the right path.

Let’s imagine that you suffer from asthma, or tendonitis, or stage fright. In your mind, you see a specific problem for which you seek a specific solution: something you must do to make the asthma or the tendonitis go away. And let’s imagine you meet Alexander himself and ask him for help.

Our imaginary Alexander would greet you with a twinkle in his eye, and would do his best to talk you out of solving specific problems with specific solutions. He’d distract you, tell you an anecdote or a joke, then create a few psychomotor situations for you to deal with: ‘Sit! Wait, don’t sit yet!’ Alexander would help you reorganize the orientation of your head and neck in space. ‘Don’t even think of sitting. Keep your head and neck going this way here. Now, bend your knees.’ Over the weeks and months, as you and Alexander play together, the asthma and the tendonitis might well disappear without your even noticing it. This indirect approach is highly counterintuitive, and it takes some getting used to. Its merits are many, and I discuss them throughout the book.