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!

Alexander's Teaching Aphorisms

These 122 quotes from F.M.Alexander's lessons were written down by Ethel Webb, who worked as his secretary in the 1920s and 1930s, sitting in a small office outside Alexander's teaching room at Ashley Place. Dr Barlow later published them in The Alexander Journal (no.7,1972, pp.41-48). They were reprinted in "Articles & Lectures", and a selection appears in E.Maisel's book on the Alexander Technique.

They are at the same time philosophical and practical, general and specific.
For me they are like zen "koans", a source of inspiration, a guide.

Getting in and out of a chair

From a purely mechanical point of view, standing up (i.e. getting out of a chair) is the reverse from sitting down, although as M.Feldenkrais observed, only when the movement is right (i.e. fluid) can this reversibility be attained.
Pushing oneself out of the chair and its opposite, collapsing into the chair, destroys this fludity.

Getting into the chair should be just that: "getting into". Not "falling into", which is what actually happens when one collapses.

On lengthening

The directions "... to let the back to lengthen and widen" are better thought of as implying "un-shortening" instead of "lenghtening", undoing instead of doing.

"Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn't do"
F.M.Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms

Noam Renen

A great Alexander Technique teacher, I learnt a lot with him.

In this picture Noam is teaching me, using a variation of the "getting in-out of a chair" exercise. (Although exercise isn't a proper term for it, I don't like procedure or evolution either)


He often says to me: "Remember this, never compromise!"







There is information on his teaching available online at
http://members.fortunecity.com/noamrenen

Why do we tense our necks?

Referred to Michael Protzel's article, available online at
http://ateducationresearch.com/Why_Do_We_Tense_Our_Necks.pdf

I had the oportunity of meeting Michael once on my short visit to NY last Feb 9th, during which he kindly explained and illustrated his ideas.

While posture is about positions either being good or bad, M.Protzel's "weight commitement" (which resemble F.M.Alexander's "directions"), is concerned with what goes on inside a certain position. But F.M.Alexander's directions are valid in general, either on a static position or in motion.

Moreover, M. Potzel is too fixed on vertical alignment as the only right posture - right position, and that doesn't appeal to me.

I guess this results from Michael's "steering" the body weight downwards, instead of F.M.Alexander's letting the neck to be free, which in a certain way it is "steering" the body's no-weight upwards.

Directing and Moving

"Your work is a repeated combination of preparation, followed by separation. The continuous process of 'all together' is missing."
Noam Renen, Use your brain

Do not "direct" in preparation, to lengthen and widen at your current position, before making some movement.

To give consent

"Doing" is our habitual way of reacting.
To give consent, is to "allow it to happen", or as Alexander said "to let it do itself".

"You ask me to lift that chair. If I give consent that is all I can do"
F.M.Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms

Right and Wrong

"Everyone wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right"
F.M.Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms

The "idea of right" means, what are we going to judge?
Our habitual "idea of right" is according to results, end-gaining, getting something in return, etc.

A much more sensible "idea of right" is according to our thinking, i.e. our attitude, our intentions.

Overdoing

While end-gaining:

"Thinking" is doing,
"Doing" is overcoming,
and "Non-doing" is to colapse.

"Inhibition" is repressing,
and "Directing" is to move, without thinking.

End-gaining is overdoing, overdoing, overdoing.

Gravity?

Some people, including A.T. teachers, believe that gravity, or in other words, fear of falling is our main conditioning.

Then why we hold a pen with undue tension?

Conscious Control

With subconscious control we do without knowing,
and when we are end-gaining, we do what we know.

Good "use" of ourselves is, when we know what we are doing.

The rounder we go ...

Referred to D.Gorman's article:
( available online at http://www.learningmethods.com/circular.htm)

"The way out of the circle was simply to meet the moment of the symptom which I habitually feel as wrong and not take the next step of reacting to it. As I stop being divided by making one part of me wrong and trying to change it, I become whole"

A symptom is an effect, the problem is the cause. Although they are related, they are nevertheless two different things. Dealing with the symptoms instead of the causes it is why "it does not take long before the symptoms are back".

"When I allow myself to exist in any moment as it is without reaction—in other words, to open more fully to the experience and events of the present no matter whether I like it or not—these tensions and contractions disappear and I become free and whole"

To inhibit the end-gaining reaction is not the same as not reacting. End-gaining is the minimum-effort-path, therefore to take the other one, a conscious decission must be made.

F. M. Alexander says "inhibition and volition are two sides of the same coin".

The Intellect

"Intelligence is the whole, and intellect is the whore of intelligence – the computer, the fitting game: If this is so, then this is so – all this figuring out by which many people replace seeing and hearing what’s going on. Because if you are busy with your computer, your energy goes into your thinking, and you don’t see and hear any more"
Frederick S. Perls, Gestalt Therapy Verbatim

Ergonomics

"I am continually being asked, both by friends and unknown correspondents, for my opinion concerning the correct type of chair, stool, desk or table to be used in order to prevent the bad habits which these pieces of furniture are supposed to have caused in schools. In my replies I have tried to demonstrate that the problem is being attacked from the wrong standpoint.
Suppose, for example, that there is an ideal chair, some wonderful arrangement of perfect angles, hollows and supports that will almost magically rectify or prevent every fault in the child's physical mechanism ... how is it possible for this ideal chair to be miraculously adaptable to every age and type of child?
No, what we need to do is not to educate our school furniture, but to educate our children. Give a child the ability to adapt himself within reasonable limits to his environment, and he will not suffer discomfort, nor develop bad physical habits, whatever chair or form you give him to sit upon"
F.M.Alexander, Man's Supreme Inheritance, Ed.Mouritz pg 93

Actually the "ideal chair" has already been invented, it is the stool. But what they are actually looking for, without recognising it, is a chair to collapse comfortably.

"When people are wrong, the thing which is right is bound to be wrong to them"
F.M.Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms.