A School for Life

Well, in case you didn't noticed the above is a pun, refering to a well known book title about the Alexander Technique, "A Skill for Life".
I like to think of the Alexander Technique as a school for life, rather than a skill for life. One of Alexander's teaching aphorisms is about this diference: "The experience you want is in the process of getting it. [....] Getting it, not having it, is what you want"
A skill is "having it", whereas a school is "getting it".
That is a diference, that afects also the teaching of the technique. "Getting it", means that the student has to get it, he must make the efort.
The teacher must let the student experiment by himself, make mistakes, develop his own understanding, so that he will not depend forever on someone else who knows.

Note: In the above aphorism, Alexander says "you want", but it would be more acurate to say "you should want": we all want the easy way!).

End-gaining: Brute-force

Alexander considers mainly trial-and-error, but there is another very common aproach which I call "brute-force"
When learning piano, a "brute-force" aproach is repetition: play again and again until getting it right.

Exercises, like those for the "independence of the fingers" are one example of this kind of aproach

The diference with "trial-and-error" is that in "brute-force" it is the endless trial of the same alternative.

About posture

Posture is a means-wheeereby
A bad posture will cause all kind of problems, bad posture will be a handicap for high-demanding activities.
But good posture is only a begining, not the end

Trial and Error

Acording to F.M.Alexander "trial and error" is a form of end-gaining.
"His habit is to work directly for his ends on the "trial-and-error" plan, without giving due consideration to the means whereby those ends should be gained" (F.M.Alexander, The Use of the Self, page 33)
Now the question I would like to consider is, what constitutes a "trial-and-error plan"?
While rereading "The use of the Self" , I asked my self in what way Alexander's experiences described in the first chapter of that book differ from a "trial-and-error plan"?
We may notice that Alexander after each failed attempt, didn't "just" made it differently. No.
He learnt from each failure, he tried to find out what caused him to fail, and devised improved procedures to correct the mistakes he did.

Suggestion and Hypnosis

Hypnosis is all around
Stephen King says that while scientists discuss whether telepathy exists or not, writers have always used it.
What S.King calls telepathy, for me is a kind of hypnosis.

Hypnosis is all around:
- Placebo efect
- Falling in love
- Acupuncture
- Psycho-physical methods (Yoga, Tai-Chi, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais, etc.)
- Psychoanalysis
All of them make use of hypnosis.

But ... that doesn't mean that to me, they are all the same

I remember discussing this subject with my dentist, who refered that hypnosis was used quite efectively as anesthesia in dental surgery

My conclusion is this:
One thing is to use hypnosis to do the extraction of an infected tooth, and another quite diferent is to use hypnosis to "cure" the infection

Sitting down withoug falling down - Noam lesson

The weight must be kept as much as posible on the front of the feet instead of leting that weight go backwards over the heels.

Don't fix the eyes - Noam lesson

Fixing the eyes means the mind is disconnected from the body and from the outside world.

Grow , Back-back - Noam lesson

To grow from within, instead of straightening the back by contraction of the spinal muscles, the antigravitatory support system must be activated.

To do that for example while sitting down, the legs role in supporting the body's weight must be lessened.

Macdonalds achieved this by taking the pupil's upper body backwards from the head, before taking him forwards while at the same time rising him from the chair.

Back-back means not pushing with the chest forwards, so the back stays back of the head.