Friday, April 6, 2012

The Vexed Question of Winning



The Alexander Technique helps us to work and play without damaging ourselves. It brings a new ease and confidence into our lives. We can use it to work at the computer, sing better, dance better, play a better game of golf, tennis, cricket…

Can it help us win?

Ah, there we enter a different sphere altogether.

Of course, this is a very legitimate question, because a lot of the people who come for lessons are into competitive sport, or face keen competition in their fields. So it is crucial for them to have an answer to this question. And a lot of the time, they’re looking not just for something that will help repair the damage that has happened, but also something that will help them come out on top. Absolutely understandable.

But as Alexander teachers, we need to be very sure of what our answer is going to be.

This was brought home to me very forcibly when I conducted a workshop for sportspeople. One of the activities was to get a ball into a basket that was placed on the floor some distance away. The idea was that the first time they’d just do it, and fail miserably; then they inhibit and direct, and voila! Success!

The first time, one person from the group got the ball into the basket. Then we had the second round where they tried again with inhibition and direction.

This time no one got it in.

Oops.

Serves me right. I hadn’t thought through what I wanted to communicate.

Establishing a new habit also means unlearning an old one, and that can lead to a period of intense confusion and a temporary slide into incompetence.

So of course, in my workshop, when we tried the game differently, they got worse, not better!

This was good for me because it made me sit down and think. Did I want to tell people that AT will help them to win at competitive sport? Would it help them to win at competitive sport? Did I want to teach something that would just help them win i.e. help them get better than the rest of the group?

Did I agree with the viewpoint that anything is allowed if the end result is victory?

The answer was – No, not necessarily, NO and NO, I didn’t.

So what do I tell people who ask me this question – Will the Alexander Technique help me to win?

I tell them, I don’t know, and I don’t care.

I tell them, the Alexander Technique gives you the skills you need to do all the things you want to do. If you are into competitive sport, or competitive anything, you will acquire the skills you need to push yourself to the limit to win, if you want to do that.

At some point in the race you might want to just push for the win, and throw use out of the window.

That’s up to you. But after you’ve done it, you also have the ability to go right back to good use.

The Alexander Technique gives you the option. You make the choice.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

More on Sitting up Straight



I read this blog post just now - on sitting up straight, and why it can be a bad idea - and I really liked it.
I've posted entries before on sitting straight -Stand up Straight? It's Not That Simple ...and I probably will in future, because this is a question that comes up again and again when we think about posture, what good posture is, and how to get it.
This post makes some very pertinent points, worth thinking about.
1. Slouching, or bad posture, is hard work. You have to do it, and sooner or later, there are consequences.
2. Sitting up straight - our usual response to the admonition - is only bad posture in the reverse direction. You are still doing it, it is still hard work, and there will still be consequences, supposing you are able to keep it up, which in most cases you're not.
3. The way to deal with this is not to do more, but to do less.
4. Do as little as you can; in fact, stop and think. Use your mind rather than your muscle. But here's the link; read it for yourself -
Why "Sit up straight" is Bad Advice

Oh yes, and an Alexander teacher can help you with this counter intuitive process. But if you can't find an Alexander Technique teacher near where you are, you can still experiment with this new way of using yourself.
You have nothing to lose but your slouch.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

In the Place of Not Knowing



Most people, after an introductory lesson, say they feel taller, or have an increased sense of lightness and well being. A fair number sign up for more lessons because they want more of that. It seems really unfair then that a couple of lessons on, they begin to feel tired, or feel a soreness in the shoulders or back, or just feel strange in a way that they are unable to put words to.

They are in the place of not knowing.

When your Alexander teacher puts her hand on your neck, she immediately alters your balance. Throughout the lesson, as you follow her instructions, you are challenging and temporarily setting aside deep seated habits of moving and being. Easy enough to set something aside - the problem is, how do you find something else to put in its place?
The result is confusion, a sense that you don't know how to walk, or get up from a chair, or lift your arm.

I've experienced this myself - I spent the early weeks of my training miserably convinced that everyone on the street was laughing at my strange way of walking - and seen it in AT students. When we start chair work, it's quite usual for the person to just sit in the chair when it's time for them to get up, saying,'But I'm not quite sure how to do this!'
There's also an inexplicable sense of strangeness; we're aware that something is different, we're not sure what, and we're not even sure if this difference is good or bad. We can't make out because it feels... well, different!
The best way to deal with this disorientation is to welcome it, to remind ourselves that it's all part of the process, and to take an attitude of,'Well now, isn't that interesting! Let's see what happens next!'
A lot of our discomfort is cultural - we've been conditioned to value confidence and security, even in our classrooms, and of course, these two are the first casualties when real learning happens.
Once we're able to let go of the need to be comfortable and right all the time, we can relax, and enjoy the process that we have set in motion. We stop worrying about when the bad back is going to get better, or when we can work at the computer without getting pain in the wrists.
We forget to worry because the discoveries we're making everyday are so fascinating.

Welcome to the place of not knowing.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Walking Away to Get There



I think I'll go and meet her', said Alice, for though the flowers were interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have a talk with a real Queen.
"You can't possibly do that," said the Rose: "I should advise you to walk the other way."
This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a moment, and found herself walking in at the front door again.
A little provoked, she drew back, and, after looking everywhere for the Queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction.
It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the hill she had been so long aiming at.



A lot of the time, when people land up for lessons, they're desperate to get better. They've tried a lot of other things, nothing has worked, and the doctor's just told them,'Improve your posture,', or 'Take lots of rest,', or 'Don't strain yourself'...
All comments that are useless in practical terms.
So by the time they think of Alexander lessons, they have a single point agenda - make the pain go away. Often, they don't even listen too closely to what I'm telling them; at some level, their minds are still busy with the thought, 'Is there something else that I can try that will make me better faster?'
One young woman who was a brilliant IT professional and was terrified at the thought of losing her job told me that what she'd really like was if she could just have surgery and make it all go away.
Fortunately, or unfortunately for her, the doctor she consulted wasn't a big fan of surgery, and had told her to get physiotherapy done. But I could see she wasn't happy about it, and even had the vague suspicion that he was being difficult on purpose.
It's very difficult to convince such people that what they really need to do is to look at the way they do everything - not just working at the computer, or singing, or dancing or whatever. That they way they sit, and stand, and read the news paper, or brush their teeth, is the way they sing, or dance, or play the piano, or work at the computer. Only they do it with much more tension in these specialised activities because those call for a greater degree of skill, and therefore impose a greater degree of stress on them.
In a stressful situation, what do you fall back on to help you? Why, what you're most familiar with, of course!
Only in this case, that's exactly what's causing the problem.
It takes real determination - in a very gentle sort of way - to deliberately step back from the thing that's uppermost on your mind, and look at something apparently totally unrelated. To have the courage, the imagination and the trust to turn around and walk in the opposite direction.
Surprisingly, though, when you're able to do that, sometimes the thing you want seems to come up and meet you.

To get what you want, you sometimes need to stop grabbing for it.













Thursday, March 1, 2012

Everyday Alexander



More and more I'm beginning to appreciate the fact that the way to optimise the use of Alexander Technique skills is to use them in the most ordinary actions in our lives. This is not to say that it has no relevance in specialised fields; it certainly does, and often can make the difference between being able to continue in work, and being forced out of it.
But even for people who are looking for help in specialised fields, the best way to get it is to use it outside of the area of expertise.
That really makes sense - it's the same habits that we use in daily life, that we take into computer work, music, dance, theatre, riding or anything else. Only we would use them a lot more strongly in the area of expertise because the stakes are higher there.
It's also easier to start this way - the old habits are so deeply integrated into our expertise that just thinking of it would be enough to start them functioning. Ordinary acts are not linked in our minds with such high stakes, and so we're better off challenging ourselves there.
Two AT teachers have written about how we can misuse ourselves in the routine actions of our lives ... the ones we do with our minds on other things.
Don't Fight with Carrots - We wouldn't think chopping veggies in the kitchen for a nourishing stew would give us RSI, surely? Yes, it certainly could. The thing is that it gets worse when we take the same habits into working at the computer. Ease up at the kitchen counter, and we'd probably be able to do ease up at the work desk.
The kitchen is 'the perfect place to practice the Alexander Technique', - Alexander Technique in the Kitchen - because it's usually not a very high stimulus environment. However, we still tend to use too much force to wash, cut or grip, or to reach for things. Staying gently aware of the way we're doing our kitchen chores is a perfect Alexander opportunity to release, lengthen and widen.
Integrating these skills into our daily routine gives our Alexander practice a sound base in reality. From there we're then free to expand into the areas of our choice.








Monday, February 27, 2012

The Alphabet of use



















It's very difficult sometimes to talk about the Alexander Technique to someone new to it.
They ask - "Who's it for?"
and you answer - "Well, everybody."
And they ask - "What can you use it for?"
and you answer - "Um... for everything?

Which, for most people, is so general as to be almost completely meaningless.

So it's useful to think about it as a kind of alphabet that you learn.
An alphabet of use, that you can then employ in as simple, or as complex a way as you like.

Just like when you learn the abc, you can use it to read a notice on the wall, a newspaper, or Shakespeare.
It's entirely up to you.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

The Alexander Technique - Energising or Exhausting?






I found some very interesting blog posts as I was doing the rounds of my favourite AT blogs a couple of days back. A couple of them dealt with something I've experienced when I was training; I've had comments about this from my pupils as well.
It has to do with the issue of the deep fatigue that often hits students of the Alexander Technique shortly after they start lessons. This is all the more galling because in most accounts of the Alexander Technique, a lot is said about how using less tension in our actions actually makes us more energetic - we're able to do more, we feel full of life even at the end of the day, and so on.
Then we start lessons, and find we have barely enough energy to drag ourselves to bed each night.
I wrote about this in my post Releasing Into Tightening where I described how disheartening it can be when we suddenly plunge into fatigue from the initial euphoria of habitually tight muscles releasing.
Alexander teacher Jennifer Mackerras in her blog post "You Let the Tiredness Out" - Fatigue and Alexander Technique describes the same thing, and gives what she believes could be the reason behind this debilitating exhaustion felt by so many AT students. The fatigue is short term, and part of the total process of letting go of what we actually don't need.

On a heartening note, Maaike Aarts describes the positive changes that have come into her life since she learnt the Alexander Technique. The pleasure she finds in all the actions of her life, especially the small, supposedly minor ones - standing in line at the supermarket, washing the dishes, little things that we normally don't deem worthy of our attention. "The Alexander Technique is something you put into practice while doing everyday things..." - something which I can never tell my pupils often enough.

I often remember the story of a man who went to a very famous hermit to find a cure for his ailments. The hermit listened to him patiently, and finally said, "I can help you. But first you need to decide whether you want to be healed, or just relieved of pain."

When we start lessons, we usually have very powerful muscular habits, the result of years of accumulated tensions, to deal with. We really shouldn't be surprised if, along the way, they show up as an increased sense of tightness, discomfort, or fatigue.

Friday, February 10, 2012

The Space Between the Spaces




One of the most common assumptions that people who come for lessons make is that the Alexander Technique is meant to be practised in peace and quiet.
If only we were so lucky as to have peace and quiet to practise the Alexander Technique, or anything else we put our minds to!
The sad truth is that for a lot of us, life is a series of actions - of duty, pleasure, social obligation, leisure, professional obligation ... the list could go on for ever.
We step into our day in the morning, and are instantly sucked into this round of work and leisure.

The proportions of each could vary for different people, but the elements remain the same. Even the leisure isn't leisurely - it's scheduled, and limited to a certain time and duration in the day.
When we want to get that sense of large and leisurely expanses of time, we go away on holiday to get it. If we're lucky.
So people come for lessons and go away thinking that the skills that they have learnt in the lesson are something to be used when they have an idle moment.
Since most of them don't have many idle moments, they end up not thinking about what they've learnt until the time comes round for the next lesson.
So it's a good idea to start our Alexander practice with the thought that this is going to become an integral part of life - personal, social and professional. We don't need to immediately start applying it to everything we do, all the time, but we have to have the intention.
That is important because that's what's going to set the tone of Alexander work in our lives.

We keep the intention of using Alexander skills during meetings, or performances, or presentations; we don't divide our day into

'Times I can use Alexander'
(when I'm sitting quietly/drinking a cup of tea/reading the newspaper/doing nothing in particular)

and

'Times When I Simply Can't Think About It, Ever'.
(when I'm about to leave for work/when I'm running for the bus/when I'm in a meeting/when I'm talking to my boss/doing the important things in my life)


We can start by using the relatively quieter moments of the day to think about release. When we're waiting for the bus, for instance. Or browsing in a shop. Waiting in line for tickets. TheAlexander Moments .
These are the little pockets of quiet that we miss out on, because we're so caught up in the general busy-ness all around us.

But well used, they could help us when we have to go in to face an angry boss, or tackle a difficult presentation, or finish a hundred different things before running to catch the bus to work.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Boil the Frog Slowly




The title of this post is to do with an account that I heard as a child about how you can kill a frog by putting it in a pot of water and then gently increasing the temperature of the water to boiling. Because the temperature is increasing slowly, the frog keeps adjusting to it until it's too late.
I never liked it - I couldn't imagine why anyone would take all the trouble to work out this particularly cruel way of killing a poor frog.
But reading this post today - Your Back Pain is Killing Me! suddenly reminded me of this story.
We're very frog like in this respect - we adjust to slowly increasing levels of pain until it reaches unbearable levels, and by then the injury that the pain was signalling has probably reached a critical stage.
Funnily enough, the opposite also applies.
We adjust to slowly decreasing levels of pain until it's all gone, and then we forget that the pain was ever there.
As an Alexander teacher, I've always found this fascinating -
how people would come in for lessons with fairly acute wrist or shoulder pain and then a few lessons on, the pain or discomfort would have gradually lessened... to the extent that I've had some of them look blankly at me when I asked them, 'How's your wrist/shoulder now?'
This is fantastic, if we can remember not to go back to doing the things that brought on the pain in the first place!



Tuesday, January 31, 2012



This is a video of Professor Nikolas Tinbergen's Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Professor Tinbergen shared the 1973 Nobel prize with Konrad Lorenz and Karl von Frisch for their work on the organisation and elicitation of individual and social behaviour patterns. He was, with Konrad Lorenz, a pioneer in the field of ethology, which is the study of animal behaviour with emphasis on the patterns that occur in natural settings.
This clip belongs here because he devoted about 10 minutes of his acceptance speech to describing the Alexander Technique and the effect it had on himself and his family.
He also talks about the manner in which Alexander came to develop the Technique, calling it '...one of the true epics of medical research.'
Listening to Tinbergen, it is difficult not to marvel at the intelligence and tenacity of this man who, without a degree in science, medical or otherwise, and without any background in scientific research, set out to solve a problem which his doctors could not address.
What's more, he did it too.