Making a Note of It

Keeping a record of lessons and of the process of your learning can be invaluable; I recommend it to everyone who comes for lessons.

It can seem a bit of a drag, keeping notes after a lesson, and every once in a while, but once you're used to it, it becomes an integral part of your learning.

One very important benefit, I think, is that it sharpens your observation skills. I remember when I started training, every now and then, and usually when I wasn't thinking Alexander, there would be a fleeting sense of release. Just a slight shift, so small that I couldn't be sure whether I felt it at all, or it was just wishful thinking on my part. It was a bit like glimpsing someone out of the corner of your eye - a flash, and gone. But I soon learned to accept that as a release that I had indeed picked up, and I found that it became easier to notice when these releases happened again. Record keeping helps you to capture these little will o' the wisps as they flit past. Sit down at the end of a lesson and jot down anything that occurs to you; even if nothing does, the very fact that you took the time to think about it makes it easier for you to observe things the next time round.

The other thing that record keeping helps with is when you are on your own, after a series of lessons, trying to apply Alexander in your life. You remember a couple of things that were done during your lessons, and you work conscientiously at them; but as time goes by, and you don't work at anything else, mainly because you don't remember all the other stuff that was done, the chances are high that you'll get bored, and gradually let things slip completely. If you have a record of the various activities that you worked on, you have a number of alternatives that you can go on to explore.
Another very useful result of record keeping is that you start to have a picture of an ongoing process. That really comes in handy when, as happens sometimes, your body adjusts to the changes that are happening, and you forget that there was an earlier and more unhappy time when you were troubled by sundry aches and pains. You think you were always as you are now, and you may start wondering whether the Alexander Technique did anything for you at all. One look at your record will tell you exactly what, and how much, it did.

I've also found that as I make notes on a particular session, things that happened a long time ago suddenly start making sense. I'm able to make connections between my observations now, and events earlier in my life; in fact, I've found that it links up past and present in a way that I hadn't anticipated at all.

The View at the End of Your Nose

Back from my visit to Hyderabad and Delhi, but deciding to stay put in Bangalore to set up my studio here properly. No sense in running around madly distributing pieces of myself in half a dozen places!

One evening I had a visitor who'd just dropped in on some other errand, and we got talking. She was going through a spell of bad back pain, and having to watch every move she made, and I told her how the Alexander Technique could help.

"Oh, I know the Alexander Technique!" she exclaimed. "We had a teacher come in to the office to help us with better posture - but it was so boring!!"



That did gave me a start, because I've never had someone describe AT to me as boring - strange, bizarre, inexplicable, even disturbing... but never boring!

So I questioned her a little more, and it turned out that many years ago, when she was working abroad, their company had an Alexander Technique teacher come in to help people with their working posture, and apparently what she did was to go around making adjustments to the way people sat. At least, that's what this lady remembered it as. It didn't work at all for her because she was already suffering from her back pain, and all she wanted to do was lie down - which of course the teacher was not in a position to offer her, not in that setting, anyway!

I thought that teacher must have had an uphill job - table work is such an important part of the work for me that if I couldn't offer it, I'd feel I wasn't giving my pupils all the help possible in re-educating themselves for a better quality of life.

Also, I guess she must have been under tremendous pressure to produce results quickly to justify her employment by the company. In that situation, one's focus can shift from what is actually best for people to what looks most effective - only it might not be.

I've faced that dilemma with people who come with pronounced back pain or some such problem - how to not just make a difference, but to be seen making a difference, and quickly too. So far, I've been able to stay back from jumping straight into addressing the problem, and luckily for me, within a few lessons, they've been able to get a sense of what's happening and take it on for themselves.

I've been lucky, I should say - will I continue to stay lucky... well, I certainly hope so!

And my visitor - I didn't have the time to give her a lesson as I'd have liked to, but I did take her through semi-supine and explain how she could use it for helping her back - so I hope that helps!

Walking Skywards

This is a lovely phrase that one of my pupils used as we were applying Alexander ideas to walking and movement.

It struck me then that life would be so different if we could access that state of ease and harmony as a matter of course, and if that elusive quality could be something we take for granted rather than something that we view as a delightful aberration.

That's what most of us do - we like the changes that we observe in ourselves after a lesson, but we don't really expect to have it permanently. We've already bought into the view that this is something that we can have only when we're thinking exclusively about it, or when we're in a lesson. The idea,'This is the way I can be all the time', doesn't figure as a serious scenario - and in a way that's understandable.

Lots of things working here - one is of course the strength of habit, which keeps us expecting to go back into the old familiar state, sooner or later. The other is the thought that it's all too good to be true - is it really possible that we can rid themselves of our problems so easily? It seems to much to expect.

I tend to get caught up in that mindset too, and I've to be constantly on guard to make sure I don't unwittingly transmit that to someone working with me.

'Walking skywards' is something that we're all made for - age, race, sex, profession no bar. But we do need to accept that it's possible.

The Alexander Technique in Delhi

It's beautiful weather in Delhi now; a little chill in the air, but blue skies and warm sunshine, and it's still possible to walk to places you want to get to.
I'm working in a studio in an old building on the fourth floor; it's in Shahpurjat, in South Delhi. The rest of South Delhi, except maybe Hauz Khas nearby, seems to be wide roads and greenery, but Shahpurjat is a tangle of narrow twisting lanes with houses overhanging them - or so it seems as I make my way through these lanes morning and night - on my way in to work, and on the way home. Invariably there are occasions when I have to stop for cars winding through these crooked streets in apparent defiance of all the odds of meeting another vehicle coming head on. Sometimes there is indeed another one coming head on, and then I can seize the chance to make some quick progress while the two vehicles negotiate ways of inching past each other - starting with the tricky question of who is to back up first! Since they effectively block the road for anything else, I'm assured of some easy walking for a bit - that is, as easy as a choppy and uneven surface can get.
But I'm enjoying working here on the fourth floor - the studio is large and airy, there is a little kitchenette so I can bring a packed lunch and warm it up when I'm ready to eat. The shady-sunny terrace allows me to sun myself between lessons and gives a slow leisurely quality to the days, so I'm not really worrying about what the follow up to this week of lessons here in Delhi should be. It seems as it everything will work itself out as it should.

Warning - Use is Highly Contagious

I guess I had always known this - if I was in a highly charged situation, I tensed up myself.
If it was a family quarrel, for example, or an argument between friends, I would find myself getting tense even if I wasn't directly involved in what was going on.
All along, I'd equated it with my relationship with the people in the situation - i.e. both sides in the quarrel are dear to me - therefore I tense up.
This was in the Dark Ages before I got involved with the Alexander Technique.
After I started training I noticed that I didn't have to be involved with the people concerned - a fight between two strangers at a bus stop left me with a tight neck, too.
If I was looking at somebody going through emotional trauma, I tightened in sympathy.
Then I noticed that there didn't even have to be an open altercation - someone standing tensely next to me communicated that tension to me.
Are we then going through life communicating tight necks and tensions to each other? What a waste of time!
If we are able to transmit things at this subtle level, why on earth don't we transmit peace and good will?

Releasing a Cold

Two days ago, I brought my mother back from the hospital, where she'd been admitted for investigation into a fever which wasn't responding to anything -
She's better, but a friendly bug must have latched on to me there, because I've been sniffling dismally through my days, and feeling a marked disinclination for any effort, even the mental kind.
Of course, Alexander junkie that I am, I felt that this was a situation that called for even more determined directing than usual. After all, if it can't be used when I am uncomfortable or ill, then what good is it?
So there I was, heroically directing away, with the ache and tickle in my throat refusing to go away, but me refusing to give up, saying to myself - 'Release, release! Go on, release!'
It must have been sheer exhaustion which made me stop for a bit - and which gave me the space for a uniquely physical realisation that my throat was really tight and that was why it was hurting so much. With that realisation I was suddenly able to let go, and immediately I felt a sense of rushing warmth and comfort which came as an immense relief.
I'd like to be able to say that that also got rid of my sniffles, but it didn't. However, it is allowing me to enjoy my frequent doses of milky tea laced with honey, cardamom, crushed pepper and dried ginger which is my favourite medicine for a cold and sore throat. And I don't want, quite so much, to curl up in a corner and die. My head still feels heavy, and I am conscious that I have a throat, but the over-riding misery is gone.
I can do things - witness this post. And that's good enough for me.

Fitting Into Your Skin

I remember reading about how people often had to remake their clothes after having Alexander lessons because their bodies had changed - become straighter, more poised - and their clothes no longer fit in the old way.

But I have realised another thing - I am beginning to fit better into my own skin after lessons. I realise how cramped and contracted I'd been, as if I had been shrinking into myself, not expanding to take up all the space I had available in myself. And I didn't even regard me as particularly lacking in confidence!

Joanna Field, in her book A Life of One's Own, describes how she allowed her awareness to expand so that it filled all of herself. She called this 'that fat feeling', and found that if she used this when she was feeling tired, in a very short while, she felt refreshed with a new sense of energy.

I'm also reminded of Marjorie Barlow's statement in her Alexander Memorial Lecture - 'It is as if each of us is trying to take up the least possible amount of room in the Universe.' (Marjorie Barlow incidentally, was Alexander's niece, pupil and then assistant teacher for a number of years.)

But it is so true that that most of us are continually trying to make ourselves small, to reduce the amount of space we occupy, and the more diffident we are, the smaller we try to make ourselves. Often, in a blind reaction to that, and with a vague feeling that something is wrong, we force ourselves into the opposite - we push aggressively forward, quick to lose our tempers, and insistent on our stand that 'I'll take no nonsense from anyone.' Which actually doesn't fool anybody.

And when we're comfortable in our own skins, we lose that frightened feeling that we need to be protecting ourselves all the time. We can be calm and collected, but we can also have the confidence to be wrong sometimes, to look a bit foolish without feeling that the world has ended.

Taking my blog for a walk

I'm realising that starting a blog is a bit like having a virtual pet - you have to feed it and water it, and take it for walks, or it will languish and die.
Hopefully my spiral monkeys haven't gone so far, or if they have, will revive very soon.
Amazing how quickly time passes - I can't believe my last post was in March, and here we are in the second half of the year - Time doesn't seem to be doing much inhibiting here!
I was away for six weeks in Brighton for a much needed refresher course. Had the time of my life meeting old friends and teachers, working with them and catching up on all that had happened. Walked around noticing changes - favourite shops that had moved or closed down, a couple of lovely old houses that have been demolished to make way for a block of flats...
The work really helped me. I realised that I had spent two years telling people to allow release but had almost forgotten how it works for me! That was a revelation - noticing how subtly I was holding tension in my arms and legs - and a good reminder that I need to be eternally vigilant, not just for my clients, but for myself as well.
Still, the best part is being back and starting work again, with a feeling of having a whole lot of new ideas I can use with people to start them on this fascinating journey of balance and release.
Just got a high today - when my client finished his lesson this morning, he remarked that all along he had thought that the emotions controlled the body and there was nothing he could do about it, but now he was realising that the body too had its own influence on the emotions, and that was an area he could do something about! Great!

Spiral Learning - Or, Don't Worry, It'll Come Round Again

These were some of the most frequent words that I heard my teacher speak.

(and I don't think I say it to my pupils often enough.)

It was really reassuring because we had the comfort of knowing that even if we didn't quite get it this time, we could always tackle it when it came by again.

Welcome to spiral learning, which I personally believe is a more accurate model of how we actually learn. As opposed to straight line or linear learning.

When I was training, we did the same things for three years - simplistically speaking. I think I can quite accurately state that I'd been introduced to all the relevant concepts by end of week 1. So what was I doing the rest of the 2 years and 51 weeks?

Learning the same things differently. In greater depth and subtlety. In different applications. Seeing different aspects of it which I couldn't see the first, second or third time; seeing them this time round because I had changed.

We learnt new things all the time, but they were also part of the things we'd learnt the previous day, or the previous week.

So it didn't worry us too much if we couldn't see the point of some demo straightaway because we knew that we'd get it the next time it was done - or the next.

So yes, I really need to say that a lot more to my pupils!

An Alexander Student's Story - Part IV

Here's what Leela feels the Alexander Technique has done for her. I haven't included her whole list, but I think this will give you an idea -

1.My muscles DO obey instructions from my brain.
2. Practising the AT allows me to do everything I want to do or have to do such as lift buckets and move furniture, but in a way that the body was designed by nature to do. Now every mundane activity is an adventure for me because I am learning to do it in a new and more efficient way.
3. It's all about stopping and "coming back to quiet" before doing anything, taking time to think before I make a conscious choice to react or NOT to react. This has greatly curbed my native impulsiveness and improved my interaction with other people.
4. The AT is an ongoing process. It is not confined within a time frame. It is not like putting in one's sentence in the gym for an hour each day, and then forgetting about fitness till the next day! I have the rest of my life to practise what I have learned and gradually allow my life (and my mind) to evolve and improve instead of looking for immediate results.
As I said, this is just a selection of the ways in which Leela feels the Alexander Technique has helped her. And she ends -
AT has been like giving myself a gift. At long last I am learning to focus on myself in a way that is good and right. After a lifetime of doing everything fast, of racing against against everyone and with myself, I am learning that the sky will not fall down if I stop and think before I act or speak or do ...
"Ask not that your load be lighter; ask rather that your back be stronger," I read recently. To which I'd like to add," Absolutely! But also learn the Alexander Technique!"
I enjoyed reading her account tremendously because it gave me another view, so to speak. Some of the experiences she had are fairly common, but there were others which are uniquely hers, born out of her life, and the kind of person she is. Not to speak of that fascinating dream she had, which seemed to mirror the process she was going through!
That's why I always ask people to start a journal when they start their lessons - it gives a record of their unique journey, and it shows them that things have indeed been changing and developing in them.