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.

On the Chair - Noam lesson

"Don't push with the legs"
By the way, other AT teachers will be pleased with you, because that is what they teach to do.
"The head is the locomotive, and the rest of the back is the train"

Only when making use of the "intention", he would finally aprove and let me gain the end of standing up.

On the knees - Noam Renen lesson

"On the knees" seems to be aimed at (although Noam will probably not agree with this) putting the pupil in a situation of discomfort, of feeling like one is going to fall forwards.

When the leg muscles get tired (quite soon) Noam will say:
"When the back starts working then the legs dont get tired"

From time to time, he will say
"You are holding yourself at the legs, let go"

On the other hand, when I relaxed the leg muscles (also to give my legs a break)
"Now you are falling down"

In the end, its about not holding oneself up, but of getting the standing erect posture through the mechanism that is built-in in ourselves for that.

Life is what happens to you while you are busy doing things

"Life" is what happens to you
If nothing "happens to you", if you don't feel anything about what happens to you, then you are not alive!
Life passes by.

The original quote was John Lennon's:
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans"

The head leads, and the rest of the body follows

I have asked several teachers: Who coined that expression.
Michael Linton:
"Interesting question - Patrick Macdonald used it all the time, but I
don't recall any mention of any origin."

Halvard Heggdal:
"Head leads, body follows" comes from Rudolf Magnus
"It is possible to impress upon the whole body different adapted
attitudes by changing only the position of the head ... the mechanism as a
whole acts in such a way that the head leads and the body follows."


Tim Kjeldsen:
"The phrase 'head leads and the body follows' originates with Rudolph Magnus
(1873-1927) the neurologist who first identified righting reflexes.
Alexander mentions him in UCL and identifies Magnus's discoveries with his
own 'primary control'"

Bruce Marshall:
"The 'head leads, body follows' beyond discovery of Magnus, seems to have taken to be, at least from my experience a framework to which Marj Barstow and coterie of students and teachers emphasized, though unfortunately to a degree of what I considered cliche"

Well, to begin with, it seems that Magnus righting reflexes are somehow controversial. In my opinion they do not exist; this would be funny if it weren't a tragedy.

Back to "the head leads ... " in my view, every attempt (either doing or imagining) of carrying out this instruction is counterproductive.
In the best case, it could be a description of how a well coordinated body is observed moving from the outside. Outside could mean an observer or ourselves when watching our image reflected on a mirror.

So, forget about "the head leads ... " and try instead with this one:
"the body leads and the head follows".

or with this one:
"the head moves with the rest of the body"
The important word here is WITH. Neither lead nor lag behind.

What is Use?

Here are some quotes from F.M. Alexander's "Use of the Self":
"When the golfer starts to make his stroke, he brings to the act the same habitual use of his mechanisms that he brings to ALL HIS ACTIVITIES"

"... his faulty habitual use which, as we have just explained, is the dominating influence in WHATEVER he tries to do."

On Inhibition

First of all, it is important to understand the connection of inhibition with habits.

Thinking about this issue, I remembered Alexander's statement that the habit "feels right".
Like for example in "Use of the Self", pag 34:
"...proves too strong for him and keeps him tied down to the habitual use of himself which feels right"

Alexander doesn't say that it "feels good". Sometimes he says that the habit feels natural, right, etc. I shall return to this later on.


Second, it is important to note the difference between "inhibition" and "repression", an issue about which Alexander says, in CCCI pag 117:
"There has just come to my knowledge an interesting objection to the importance which I attach to the process of inhibition as a primary and fundamental factor in the technique of the scheme I advocate, and the objection is made on the ground that this use of inhibition will cause harmful suppression in the individual concerned ..."

It follows afterwards a long argument, which is quite obscure and misleading.
Finally Alexander says
"The stimulus to inhibit, therefore, in this case comes from within, and the process of inhibition is not forced upon the pupil. This means that the pupil's desire or desires will be
satisfied, not thwarted"

So, the difference is that the stimulus to inhibit comes (or should come) from ourselves, not from outside.

I believe that Alexander didn't give this issue due consideration. About one of the main difficulties in putting the technique into practice in daily life, he would speak of "forgetting to remember (to inhibit)".

But one of the reasons why pupils forget to remember, is precisely because the stimulus to inhibit doesn't come from within their self!

One of the most important things is therefore, to realize the difference between what feels right, and what feels good.
Because when we realize that an habit doesn't feel good, then we are one step closer to making the stimulus to inhibit that habit to come from within the self.

What "self"?

"The use of the self", is one of F.M.Alexander's books on Alexander Technique.
Alexander, had a conception of man as psycho-physical unity, and that is what he meant by "self".

But this psycho-physical unity, cannot be taken for granted. Indeed, if we "were" psycho-physical unities, then there would be no question about mal-coordination.
Coordination is required precisely because we are NOT psycho-physical unities; psycho-physical unity is a condition to be reached.


Many of our activities are mere physiological reflexes, which one could hardly describe as "I did ...", more appropriate would be describing such activities in the passive voice.
Our "habits", which F.M.Alexander dealt with extensively, constitute another kind of reflexes, the ones that Pavlov described as "conditioned".
Both of the above are "subconscious" kinds of behavior; the self, the subject is absent.

Another kind of behaviour is end-gaining: when we succeed everything is fine; but when we fail there arises what F. M. Alexander lucidly termed "a civil war within the self".
In such instances the "I" gets divided into two, one which is felt as "me", and the other as "not-me".

("The inner game of tennis" by Tim Galway, which deals with this issue.)

There is another "I", which as I see it is "the" self that is referred by "The use of the self", and the object of the Alexander Technique.

Use your brain (II)

I have mentioned previously Noam Renen's aphorisms "Use your brain"

"Use your brain" means "Use YOUR brain".

And this is because much end-gaining comes not from being bad or an idiot, just out of being lazy.

Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein

The opposite of wrong is wrong

This opens Noam Renen’s aphorisms on Alexander Technique, "Use your brain".
Our intellect – that part of the brain we identify normally with thinking – thinks in terms of logical opposites: black-white, wrong-right, true-false, or in general either A or not-A.
Not-doing A, is not the same as doing not-A. Which is easy to understand intellectually, but difficult to apply in practice.
For example "not tensing the neck" is not the same as "freeing the neck" (which is also not the same as "relaxing the neck", but that is another story).

Therefore (because we confuse not-doing something with doing not-something), according to the trial-and-error plan (an end-gaining aproach), we go from one wrong to another wrong.

The right, is neither A nor not-A, nor a balance of A and not-A. This ‘third’ option is something new, outside the known or habitual, which has the attributes of both A and not-A at the same time.
Conscious Control, is not the opposite of Subconscious Control.

Why do we tense our necks (II)?

One of the reasons, is simply because we don't care.
We are a lot more interested in doing what we are doing, like getting out of a chair for example, than in the consequences to our own health.

Altogether, one after the other

You start with freeing of the neck, which brings about the rest, "one after the other".
But you must think of it as "one thing": it will come out wrong if you think of doing it "one after the other".
If this sounds contradictory, consider for example that when you walk, you step your legs "one after the other", while you think of it "altogether" as walking.

Use your brain

This is the title of Noam Renen's aphorisms on the Alexander Technique. ( You may find them at http://members.fortunecity.com/noamrenen )
In my experience most teachers, including Alexander Technique teachers, are not ready to accept or even tolerate that his/her students explore by themselves, i.e. use their own brains!