Be Here Now!

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maya

This little bird helps the people of Pala to be in the moment.

In his final novel, Island, Aldous Huxley wrote about the adventures of a shipwrecked Englishman on Pala, an imaginary island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The society on this island had evolved to the point where there was universal economic and social well-being and a high level of respect for individual rights and freedoms. Moreover, individuals were given every opportunity to develop emotionally and spiritually.

One of the many unusual features of Pala are specially trained birds – mynah birds – whose sole function is to loudly screech out “Here and now! Here and now!” at random intervals.

Huxley had studied many systems of personal development during his life, including the Alexander Technique. He met F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique in London in the mid-1930’s. He was already an established author, best known for his 1930 novel, Brave New World.

But his poor physical state threatened to end his writing career. Huxley was very tall and awkward and subject to fatigue, insomnia and a weak stomach. He was deathly afraid to speak in public. By the time he met Alexander, he was virtually bed-ridden, reduced to writing lying down with his typewriter resting on his chest.

The lessons he had from Alexander enabled him to resume his normal activities and live in good health for another quarter century. He was so impressed with Alexander’s work that he referred to it several times in his later writings and even made Alexander a character in one of his novels.

After having lessons with Alexander, Huxley wrote: “The Alexander Technique gives us all things we have been looking for in a system of physical education: relief from strain due to maladjustment, and constant improvement in physical and mental health. We cannot ask for more from any system; nor, if we seriously desire to alter human beings in a desirable direction, can we ask any less.”

I believe the mynah birds of Island were inspired by his work with the Alexander Technique. Alexander teachers help people recognize and change harmful tension habits. This requires being present – not mentally wandering off into the past or the future. For an Alexander Teacher, helping students be consciously aware of themselves in the moment is a crucially important first step in their learning process.

And not always an easy one. We are bombarded with external tasks and distractions that draw our attention away from our own mental and physical state. More often than not, our work requires an outward focusing of attention on specific tasks, projects and co-workers. Our leisure time, too, is frequently spent on activities like driving, shopping, and texting – all of which tend to pull our attention away from ourselves.

As Nicholas Brockbank, a British Alexander Technique teacher, puts it: “Most peoples’ attention most of the time is anywhere but on what they’re doing. Or if it is on what they’re doing, they tend to overdo it. In an average day, filled with average tasks, there is only a small portion that requires the mind to be fully engaged; the rest of the time we are free to think about the past or the future – anything but the present! When we are “present”, it’s usually in an obsessive, almost trance like way.”

On Pala, the mynah birds are whimsical devices to help bring people back to the present moment – which is really the only place we can make constructive changes in our lives.

Many spiritual teachers have stressed the importance of self-awareness – Ram Dass even titled one of his books Be Here Now! – a title I’ve appropriated for this blog.

The Alexander Technique is a very powerful and practical method to learn to be present in yourself, even while engaged in your daily activities. Indeed, the primary focus of the Technique is the way one carries out the ordinary activities of life.

In a sense, Alexander Technique teaching supplies you with your own personal “mynah bird”, bringing you gently back in touch with yourself.

Image credit: cowboy54 / 123RF Stock Photo

To Outsource or to Insource, That is the Question – Part 3

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text

Two of today’s Alexander Technique teachers, Terry Fitzgerald, from Sydney Australia and Pamela Blanc, from Los Angeles, standing behind a sculpture of F. M. Alexander at the Wynyard Historical Society. Wynyard, in Tasmania, is where Alexander was born.

In my previous blog, To Outsource or to Insource, That is the Question – Part 2, I wrote about the unique self-investigation process F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, went through to solve his voice problem.  Outsourcing his problem to vocal coaches and doctors hadn’t worked. But his decision to take matters into his own hands – to insource, as it were – was fraught with challenges he had no way of anticipating.

Today, a person in his situation, well-connected in the theater world, might well go to a teacher of the Alexander Technique for help!  And it’s quite likely he would have learned how to solve his voice problem in a few weeks or so, perhaps even more quickly.

Alexander Technique teachers today vary enormously in how we teach the Technique. However, we have in common a desire to wake our students up to the power of looking within for solutions to their problems, whether they be performers, or people with chronic pain, or those who want to improve their posture.

We make it clear to their students that we are teachers, not therapists, and that the real work of change has to come from the students themselves.  Students cannot outsource their problems to an Alexander teacher – they need to learn how rely on their own resources, just as Alexander did, but with the huge advantage of being able to draw upon all the discoveries Alexander made, and the many, many refinements of those discoveries made in the nearly sixty years since his death.

Consider, for example, a key element in Alexander Technique teaching: “Directions.”

Directions are essentially useful thoughts designed to improve the way we function as we go through life.  A modern version of a classic Alexander direction is “My neck is free.*”

When I introduce this direction to a student, usually in their first lesson, I go to great lengths to show them simple experiments they can do on their own to verify this is in fact a useful direction.  And I emphasize that there is absolutely nothing they need to do to make it happen.

They don’t need to concentrate on the direction, or try not to forget it.

Nor do they need to understand what it means!

Their job is to very lightly – and totally forgiving of forgetting – think “My neck is free.”

That’s it.

I also point out that while the process is extremely simple, that does not mean it is always easy.  There are all sorts of classic “traps” that can get in the way of successful implementation of Alexander Technique directions.  To cite but one example, it is all too easy to get caught up in the positive results of a direction and loose track of the direction that brought them about.

I tell my students they are a little like the general of a huge army he has arrayed to invade the enemy’s territory and who, when the moment is ready, turns to his second in command and says, “OK, begin the invasion now.” General Eisenhower’s crucial decision of precisely when to invade Normandy in World War II is a classic example.

The general’s job is to make the big decisions – in this case the timing of an invasion – and to insource the details to the officers and men below him.  He certainly doesn’t want to deal with a personnel problem in Company D, for example.  That’s someone else’s job – someone far, far down in the army’s hierarchy.

Just as with Alexander Technique directing, this seems like a fairly simple process.  But in practice, once the invasion has begun, the general is likely to be getting all sorts of conflicting streams of information and advice that can easily distract him from the big decisions he has to make.

We humans have a brain whose job, among other things, is to convey big picture intentions and leave their implementation to the “lower level” systems in our body/mind.  These “lower level” systems are able to do that far more effectively than our our conscious brain can.

Especially if we stay out of their way, leaving the messy details to them.

So, by all means outsource whatever you can.  But there are some tasks that just cannot be outsourced, such as commanding an army.

Or taking command of our patterns of thinking and moving.

* Earlier – and less effective – versions of this Alexander Technique direction are “Neck to be free”, “I am freeing my neck,” and “I am letting my neck be free.” The newer Negative Direction version is “I am not tensing (tightening, squeezing, fixing etc) my neck” is, in essence, the same as “My neck is free,” which is shorter and does away with some students’ concern about the word “negative.”

To Outsource or to Insource, That is the Question – Part 2

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vvv

F. Matthias Alexander, in front of his portrait, perhaps reading about his discoveries in one of his books.

In my previous post, To Outsource or to Insource, That is the Question – Part 1, I wrote about the moment when F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique* came to the realization that outsourcing the solution to his vocal problem was not going to work.  Instead, he needed to insource, to draw on his own skills.

The last doctor he had seen advised total vocal rest for two weeks and, like the everything else he had tried, it failed miserably.

It was during a conversation with the doctor the next day, that Alexander made the decision to take matters into his own hand.

At the risk or repetition, I think it’s worth once again citing the passage in Alexander’s third book, The Use of the Self, that describes that conversation, and what might be called the initial conception of the Alexander Technique:

I saw my doctor next day and we talked the matter over, and at the end of the talk I asked him what he thought we had better do about it. “We must go on with the treatment,” he said. I told him I could not do that, and when he asked me why, I pointed out to him that although I had faithfully carried out his instruction not to use my voice in public during his treatment, the old condition of hoarseness had returned with- in an hour after I started to use my voice again on the night of my recital. ” Is it not fair, then,” I asked him, “to conclude that it was something I was doing that evening in using my voice that was the cause of the trouble?” He thought a moment and said, “Yes, that must be so.” ” Can you tell me, then,” I asked him, “what it was that I did that caused the trouble?” He frankly admitted that he could not. “Very well,” I replied,” if that is so, I must try to find out for myself.” (Chapter 1, “Evolution of a Technique”)

There was of course a period of time before Alexander’s conception led to the birth his Technique.  There is some question of just how long the gestation period was.  Two or three years seems to be a reasonable estimate.

Alexander himself provides a description of the process he went through in the remaining part of “Evolution of a Technique”.  That description, along with a recapitulation of his self-experiments in Chapter 2 of his fourth and final book, The Universal Constant in Living, give us some idea of the challenges he faced, and the ingenious ways he overcame them.

In some very surprising ways, his situation was a little like that of the modern physicist who wants to study the behavior of sub-atomic particles. For these physicists, traditional ideas about the “scientific method” fly out the window – including the detached observation process usually seen as a requirement for serious scientific investigation.  It turns out that when a scientist observes the behavior of of sub-atomic particles, the very act of his or her observation affects their behavior.

Mere observation influences what is being observed.

Just imagine the difficulties that presents!

Alexander was up against an equally vexing problem: he needed to observe himself in as accurate a way possible in order to judge the effects of his self-experiments. Unlike the physicist with his sub-atomic particles, whose very presence influenced their behavior, Alexander faced the problem that he was the very entity he was observing.

In other words, the experimenter was the subject of his own experiments.

Just imagine the difficulties that presented!

In Alexander’s case, he was initially dealing with two variables: his mental intent about what he was doing, and what it felt like he was doing.

It didn’t take him long to realize that his feelings about what he was doing were not accurate.  He needed a way judge what was actually going on that was independent of them.

Eventually, he came up with idea of using a mirror, and then several mirrors, to see what he was doing – a method that enabled him to by-pass his faulty sensory information.  The mirrors gave him relatively accurate information that he was unable to get through his feeling senses.

It’s not possible here to give a full account of all the strategies Alexander brought to bear on his problem. It’s well worth reading, and thinking about, the descriptions Alexander provides in The Use of the Self and The Universal Constant.

The late Marjorie Barstow used to say that in her view, the most important sentence in the first chapter of The Use of the Self was: “It is impossible to describe here in detail my various experiences during this long period.”

Clearly Alexander went up many blind alleys before he eventually came up with a method of self-direction that would bring about useful change, and not just the illusion of useful change.

All of which is to say that he had to insource in ways he had never been trained to do. Indeed that nobody had ever done before as far as he knew. Out of this odyssey of self-examination and self-discovery was born the Alexander Technique.

In my next blog, I’ll explore a simple and practical, insourcing method that lies at the core of the Alexander Technique – and that makes the Technique such a powerful means of self-transformation.

Stay tuned!

*It’s worth noting that Alexander never used the term “Alexander Technique”, instead referring to it as “the work”.

 

 

 

To Outsource or to Insource, That is the Question – Part 1

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Outsourcing dinner.

Dinner has been successfully outsourced!

Outsourcing has a bad reputation these days, conjuring up images of low wages and dangerous sweatshops in distant, impoverished lands, while our own laid-off workers end up on welfare

But on an individual level, we’re all outsourcers – often in ways that are beneficial to both parties.  When my car has to be repaired, I take it to my mechanic.  When the roof gutters have to be cleaned, I call the gutter guy. When I need a haircut, I go to my hair stylist.

And, like so many other Americans, when I’m hungry I’ll often microwave a frozen entree, outsourcing food preparation to unseen people halfway across the country. Or perhaps call for home delivery, keeping my outsourcing closer to home.

I am a big fan of outsourcing.  When there’s a job to be done, my first reaction is usually “Where can I find somebody to do it.”

But there is quite a different kind of sourcing – I think of it as “insourcing” – and it lies at the very heart of what I teach, the Alexander Technique.

fm

F. Matthias Alexander

The Technique’s developer, F. Matthias Alexander, faced a serious vocal issue that threatened to end his acting and reciting career.  At first, he opted for a traditional outsourcing approach to solve his problem, going to doctors, vocal coaches and the like.

The last doctor he saw prescribed complete vocal rest for a couple of weeks and, like the previous regimens, that too failed miserably.

But all was not lost.

Alexander visited the doctor the day after his performance to talk things over.

Here’s how Alexander described that conversation in his third book, The Use of the Self:

I saw my doctor next day and we talked the matter over, and at the end of the talk I asked him what he thought we had better do about it. “We must go on with the treatment,” he said. I told him I could not do that, and when he asked me why, I pointed out to him that although I had faithfully carried out his instruction not to use my voice in public during his treatment, the old condition of hoarseness had returned with- in an hour after I started to use my voice again on the night of my recital. “Is it not fair, then,” I asked him, “to conclude that it was something I was doing that evening in using my voice that was the cause of the trouble?” He thought a moment and said, “Yes, that must be so.” ” Can you tell me, then,” I asked him, “what it was that I did that caused the trouble?” He frankly admitted that he could not. “Very well,” I replied,” if that is so, I must try to find out for myself.” (Chapter 1, “Evolution of a Technique”)

This conversation, with an unknown Australian doctor in the late 19th Century, was truly the beginning – the conception as it were – of the Alexander Technique.

The Technique’s actual birth would take a few more years.  That’s the topic of my next blog.

Stay tuned!

Pizza image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

Jeeves! Whatever Has Become of My Carriage?

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the queen

The Queen can always find her carriage.

Jeeves: Why Sir, I believe it’s stored in the garage, behind your new motorcar.

Sir: No, no Jeeves, my own carriage!

Jeeves: But Sir, it is your carriage.  And quite a handsome one at that. I confess I sometimes miss seeing seeing you in it, pulled by the wonderful team of horses we used to have.

Sir: Jeeves, I’m asking about my personal carriage – my bearing, the way I carry myself.  What’s become of it?

Jeeves: Oh that carriage Sir.  Well it does seem to be a bit amiss, if I may dare to say so…

Sir: Amiss!  If I were stooped any further forward my nose would be sniffing my navel.

Jeeves: Surely Sir it hasn’t come to that.

Sir: Perhaps not, but still it’s still quite worrisome.  What on earth should I do about it? I spoke with the doctor in the village but he’s of no use at all.  Wanted me to start lifting barbells!  Can you imagine that?

Jeeves: I must confess I cannot Sir.  What you need to do is see that Alexander chap in London.  I’m sure he can sort you out. He helped Lady Susan with her dowager hump.

Sir: Ah, Lady Susan! Now that you mention it Jeeves, she does seem quite fetching these days.  Perhaps I should have her over for tea…  But to get back to my own carriage, is this Alexander some sort of fancy Harley Street doctor?  A carriage doctor as it were?

Jeeves: No Sir, he’s not a doctor at all. I believe he’s self taught. An autodidact, as it were. From Australia they say.

Sir: Australia!  Is he a bloody convict?

Jeeves: I believe not Sir.  He’s all the rage with London society right now.  And very popular with the thespian crowd. Sir Henry Irving used to see him regularly before he passed away. They all say their posture and speech have been greatly improved by their sessions with him. I believe his work has sometimes been called the “Alexander Technique.”

Sir: Sir Irving! Well well.  Perhaps I should go up to London for a consultation. Can you arrange that for me Jeeves?

Jeeves: Certainly sir.  I’ll attend to it at once.

Sir: Thank you Jeeves.  Now I must send a note to Lady Susan to arrange a visit.  To discuss this Mr. Alexander, of course.

Jeeves: Very good Sir.

***

Carriage is a word that has all but disappeared from our language. When cars first came on the scene, the term “horseless carriage” was used for awhile, but that quickly gave way to “automobile” and now “car.” Mercifully, we still have a few baby carriages!

Carriage’s other meaning – a synonym for bearing or poise – has largely been forgotten. I think that’s  a shame because it very nicely conveys an idea that is at the heart of the Alexander Technique.

Alexander tended to use the word “use” (rhymes with loose) to describe how we manage our body as we go through life.  It’s a term he got from the language of horse trainers and continues to be used in that field to this day.

Alexander also used the word “carriage” five times in his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance.  For example, in a chapter titled “Habits of Thought and Movement,” he writes:

The false poise and carriage of the body, the incorrect and laboured habits of breathing that are the cause of many troubles…

He never used the word again in his own writing, although in The Universal Constant in Living he included a 1937 Report of the British Medical Association about his work that uses the term “carriage” twice.

I’ll leave the last word to one of Alexander’s favorite writers, William Shakespeare, who provides a wonderful example of carriage’s much earlier use in his play Henry IV, Part 1:

A goodly portly man, i’faith, and a corpulent, of a cheerful
look, a pleasing eye, and a most noble carriage. – Act 2, Scene 2

 Carriage image courtesy of joesive47 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The Alexander Technique Prescription for Taking the Exercise Pill

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ID-10054350I just read an excellent article in Slate, The Exercise Cure – How can we motivate people to take a free, safe, magic pill?.  It’s by Jordon Metzl, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, and is a particularly good example of the growing recognition by physicians of just how important exercise is for all aspects of our health.

As Dr Metzl says:

Exercise has benefits for every body system; it is effective both as a treatment and for prevention of disease. It can improve memory and concentration, lessen sleep disorders, aid heart disease by lowering cholesterol and reducing blood pressure, help sexual problems such as erectile dysfunction, and raise low libido. Exercise does it all. Even with cancer, particularly colon and recurrent breast cancer, the data show clearly that exercise is a deterrent. Newer studies on a glycoprotein called Interleukin 6 suggests that general body inflammation, a factor in almost every chronic disease, is reduced by regular exercise.

Dr. Metzi, and the many other physicians, who prescribe the “exercise pill” to their patients are on the right track.  But I think they are leaving out an important qualifier.

It’s not just being more physically active that enhances your well-being  – it’s also how those physical activities are carried out.

If you have developed a forward protruding head and neck pattern from long hours at the computer, you’ll probably take that extra tension with you into walking or running.

Your couch potato slump is almost certain to join you on your bike ride.

And your overly arched lower back doesn’t just disappear when you go for a vigorous swim.

In fact, if all you do is ramp up your level of exercise, you’re quite likely to actually exaggerate your worst habits of everyday posture and movement.

So by all means get moving if you’ve been living a sedentary lifestyle.  But be sure to give some thought about the manner in which you move if you want that extra activity to be safe and healthy.

One of the best ways to do that is to explore the Alexander Technique.  The Technique, which has been around for over a century, has a long history of helping people improve the way they sit, stand and move and is well-known by performers of all kinds as a way to enhance their professional skills.

It also has a long history of helping people alleviate pain.  A recent British Medical Study clearly showed it’s effectiveness in alleviating chronic back pain. Primary care physicians in the UK are now urged to “prescribe” Alexander Technique lessons to patients with this kind of pain.

The Alexander Technique is all about how you do whatever you do by helping you to identify and lose the harmful habits you have built up over a lifetime of stress so you move more freely and with less likelihood of injury.

Get moving.  Take the “exercise pill”.

But don’t forget the Alexander Technique “prescription” if you want to exercise safely and effectively.

—–

Here’s a short video produced by the British Medical Journal about the Alexander Technique back pain study:

And here’s an Alexander Technique Podcast interview with Dr. Paul Little, the Lead Investigator for the BMJ study:

Image courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

One Hundred and Forty Five Candles

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Happy Birthday Mr. Alexander! Sorry we couldn't fit the other 138 candles on top of your cake!

Happy, Happy Birthday FM! Sorry  the other 137 candles couldn’t fit on top of your cake!

Frederick Mathias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, was born on this day back in 1869.  Let’s use this occasion to celebrate his discoveries, and his achievements in making them available to us today.

Alexander (often called “FM”) grew up in very humble circumstances in Tasmania, an island off the south coast of of Australia. It was the last part of Australia to be settled by the British, who used it as a dumping ground for convicts.

Virtually all the Tasmanian Aborigines were killed – either by disease or outright slaughter – by the time Alexander was born, just a half century after the first whites arrived. The few who remained were herded into squalid concentration camps.

Visitors to Tasmania at the time wrote about an air of death and destruction that hung over the island. It was definitely not the trendy vacation destination it has become today.

And yet, like a phoenix arising from the ashes, Alexander made groundbreaking discoveries about human functioning – and how to improve it – that have far-reaching implications for us all.

fm2

With the Australian pluck that transformed a penal colony into the Land of Oz, Alexander managed to bring his discoveries to the very center of the British Empire and on to the famous and not so famous around the world.

His is definitely a life worth celebrating.

In honor of his birthday, I’d like to share one of my favorite Alexander quotes:

After working for a lifetime in this new field I am conscious that the knowledge gained is but a beginning…my experience may one day be recognized as a signpost directing the explorer to a country hitherto ‘undiscovered,’ and one which offers unlimited opportunity for fruitful research to the patient and observant pioneer.

I believe Alexander would be excited about many of the new developments in Alexander Technique teaching that have occurred since his death in 1955: group teaching, scientific and medical studies about his work, improved versions of his directions, spin-offs of the Alexander process, the use of the web to promote his work, the role of Face Book and other social media to connect Alexander teachers and students, Skype teaching…the list goes on and on.

What is your favorite FM quote? What do you think Alexander would make of today’s Alexander Technique world?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

And today let’s celebrate!

Screen Shot 2014-01-13 at 4.55.47 AM

near

Plaque near Alexander’s Ancestral Home

 

Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A New Year’s Eve Conversation with Mr. Alexander

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alexander

F. Matthias Alexander – deeply worried about the future of our planet

I was totally caught off guard when I received a phone call yesterday asking if I’d like to do a short interview with F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique!

Alexander has been dead for over 50 years and while I have no trouble accepting the possibility of re-incarnation, I’ve always assumed the dead generally prefer not to communicate with the living. However further discussion – including some close questioning – convinced me that it was indeed Alexander on the line, and that he had two important ideas he wanted to convey to the Alexander Technique community, and to the larger world.

I detected a sense of urgency in his voice as we began the interview:

Me: It’s a great, and unexpected, honor to talk with you Mr. Alexander. You are one of my great heroes. Is it all right if I call you FM?

FM: Yes you certainly may. That’s what everyone called me.

Me: I understand there are two topics you particularly want to touch on today.

FM: Yes, first I would like to say a few words about the current state of teaching of my work. I am deeply gratified that it is going strong in your country, England, Japan, Israel, Australia and in many other countries around the world. I am proud of the teachers I trained, and many of their successors. However I do wish it were better known and understood by the general public.

Me: Do you think part of the problem is the term “Alexander Technique”?

FM: That is no doubt one problem, although I suspect it is now far too late to change it. As I am sure you know, it was never something I used myself. Also I have to say some of my own terminology has not served the cause well. For example I would not have used the word “inhibition” if I had been able to anticipate Freud’s use of it. But my concerns have more to do with the failure of teachers of the (sigh) “Alexander Technique” to make the work better known.

Me: There does seem to be a reluctance to promote the work by many teachers – a reluctance, I might add, that you never had!

FM: Right you are Robert! I wish today’s teachers would let go of that reluctance and to “popularize” the work – it needs to be popularized! Particularly today. And that leads me to the second point I want to make.

The many problems facing Earth cry out for the kind of personal insight my work can help bring about. The changes necessary for the planet’s continued existence depend on individuals coming to their reason. And that, in turn, requires them to truly know themselves.

You are facing a series of crises unlike anything before.  And, of course, just as in the human organism, these crises are all deeply interconnected. One cannot really separate the economic, military, political, ecological etc into unrelated categories.

I hope I don’t sound arrogant, but my work is truly of the utmost importance now. Your current situation is dire – your very survival is at stake.  That is why I arranged for special permission to do this interview.

Me: I will publish your thoughts in my blog and I hope that will serve to spread your message. I see that our interview time is running short. Do you have any specific recommendations you would like to share?

FM: My friend and student, the American philosopher John Dewey said wrote this many years ago, before Word War II erupted :

In the present state of the world, it is evident that the control we have gained of physical energies, heat, light, electricity, etc., without having first secured control of our use of ourselves is a perilous affair. Without the control of our use of ourselves, our use of other things is blind; it may lead to anything.

People need to develop control of themselves if there is to be any real solution to the today’s problems. I urge teachers and students of my work to think deeply and seriously about this. It is my belief, and my hope, they will do so.

Me: Thank you for this wake up call FM. Is there anything you’d like to add?

FM: It may seem strange, but I would appreciate it if you would include the short video of the gathering of students on my first training course. It was a beautiful summer day and one of the happiest of my life. It may not seem to be appropriate, or serious enough, for the topic at hand, but for me it represents a joyful moment of the sort I hope and pray you will see many more of in the coming years.

Here is the video FM asked me to include:

At Alexander’s request, I am posting this interview on New Year’s Day, 2014.

Mr. Alexander uses his own Technique: Moving Up while Falling Down

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alexander

F. Matthias Alexander – a quick thinker in an emergency!

It can be interesting to ask Alexander Technique teachers how they use the Technique in their own lives.

Imagine how much more interesting would it be to learn just how F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique, used it in an unexpected emergency.

As it happens, a very nice description of just this situation can be found on pages 184 and 185 of Louise Morgan’s 1954 book, Inside Yourself – The New Way to Health Based on the Alexander Technique*. Morgan writes an account of one of Alexander’s students, a Miss G. R., who one day arrived for a lesson and noticed that Alexander had a bruise on his forehead, and commented on it.

“Oh, that!” he said gaily, as if it were of small consequence, “I fell down the cellar steps last evening with a bottle of 1938 burgundy in one hand and a half-bottle of champagne in the other.  I threw away the burgundy on the way down, and was just picking myself up when my dinner guest appeared at the top of the steps.  His only comment was “That was the last bottle of ’38!”  I thought that rather hard, especially in view of the fact that I had saved the champagne.”

Miss G. R. was appalled by his light heartedness. “How can you joke about it!” she protested.  “Falling downstairs at your great age!  Why anything could have happened!”

“It might indeed,” he agreed.  “It would undoubtedly have been a grave matter, as Shakespeare would have said, to the average person of my age.  But I know how to deal with emergencies.  I had fetched the bottles to the top of the steps as was trying to push the door to behind me, but it swung further open and hence as I moved back  instead of meeting the door I met the wide open spaces and down I went backwards.

“But in that split-second of time I was able to plan my fall in such a way that I would take the impact on my shoulder on one of the steps and get only a few bruises.  And so it happened.”

*You can locate a copy of the book by Googling the title.

***

Alexander was never bashful at showing off his highly-evolved flexibility and coordination – as can be seen on a few YouTube videos in which he appears.  Here’s one of my favorites; he’s partying with some of his training course students some 20 years before his staircase fall. He is only in his 60s here:

***

Have you ever had occasion to use the Alexander Technique in an emergency situation?  I would love to learn about your experience.

The Thief and the Technique

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thief

Could Alexander Technique lessons help him do a better job?

Can the Alexander Technique make a thief a better thief?

It seems logical that it could.  Alexander Technique lessons have helped musicians play better. It’s helped office workers sit at desks and use their computer with less harmful tension.  it’s helped actors take on roles requiring bizarre postural affectations without harming themselves.

A British Medical Journal study shows it can help all sorts of people work and play without suffering the kind of debilitating back pain that puts their career in jeopardy.

So is there any reason why a pickpocket, who needs all the dexterity he can muster, would not become more effective at his craft?

Or a second-story man, for whom balance and coordination are required to avoid falls from a window ledge that would cut his career short?

The answer should be obvious…

And yet Alexander Technique teachers are often uncomfortable with a question like this.  The idea of the Technique facilitating evil acts is not one we like to contemplate.

Interestingly F. Matthias Alexander, the developer of the Technique, seems to have thought deeply about thieves – and, as he later says, criminals of all sorts, as well as addicts.*

In his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Alexander devotes several pages to the question of thieves, their mental state, and his insights on thieves’ state of mind.  Most of what he said can be found in Chapter Five, “Applied Conscious Control”.

Alexander has some very interesting insights and it’s well worthwhile reading this chapter – perhaps more than once, given Alexander’s roundabout style of writing – but here is what I took from it:

First, lots of people who are not called thieves are, in fact, engaging in more subtle forms of thievery, for example misleading others in business arrangements. Indeed professional thieves, in Alexander’s view, may in some ways hold to a higher standard of behavior – as the expression “honor among thieves” suggests.

Second, a thief – or criminal of any kind – can often be be addicted to his lifestyle.  Later in the chapter Alexander extends his analysis to addictions of all sorts.  (My favorite is the Englishman who goes to China, takes up opium smoking and does fine with that, but then becomes seriously addicted to tea! Will we ever understand the Brits?)

Third, the problem with somehow getting a thief to stop stealing – or the addict to give up his addiction – is that it will take away the only means he has of applying his often considerable intelligence and skill. The usual ideas about punishment and rehabilitation are therefore not likely to work.  The mental changes a thief needs to make, if he is to successfully drop the thieving habit, must “…be made gradually and slowly” because they place huge demands of “…re-adjustment in the psycho-physical self…”

Indeed, Alexander says, this period of re-adjustment “…may bring about such disorganization as may cause a serious crisis. During an experience of this kind, the person would for a period be in greater danger than ever”.

At this point Alexander refers to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 11, verses 24-26:

When an evil spirit goes out of a person, it travels over dry country looking for a place to rest.  If it can’t find one, it says to itself, ‘I will go back to my house’. So it goes back and finds the house clean and tidy.  Then it goes out and brings seven other spirits even worse than itself, and they come and live there.  So when it is all over, that person is in a worse state than he was at the beginning.

What’s needed, in Alexander’s view, is an understanding of the nature of habit, and the necessity of helping the thief shift himself away from his dependence on what Alexander calls “subconscious guidance and control” towards “conscious guidance and control”.

He doesn’t say so explicitly, but I imagine Alexander would argue that his method provides a practical and effective way of making that shift.**

So, to get back to my original question, “Can the Alexander Technique make a thief a better thief?” the answer still might be “Yes”.

But might also be “Yes, although it could also increase the possibility that he will someday be motivated and able to switch to a more desirable profession”.

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*Alexander’s interest in thieves could well be related to his early life in Tasmania, a dumping ground for British convicts during the 19th Century. Many were sent there for crimes of theft, including both his grandmothers and one of his grandfathers.

**Here’s an Alexander Technique Podcast interview with Becca Ferguson about how the Technique can help with addiction:

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I’d love to hear you thoughts on all of this – not just as it relates to thieves, but to criminals, and to addicts of all sorts.

Image courtesy Weiss | Dreamstime.com