Control and freedom

“Constructive conscious control” (Alexander, 1923) does not imply a mechanistic, manipulative control of oneself. Movements are not improved through controlling them directly, as this results in an unnatural, contrived quality, which is the exact opposite of that which the Alexander Technique aims for (De Alcantara, 1997: 35). “For your movements to become truly natural, you must give up whatever control you have of them. The very idea of controlling is a hindrance to changing your use” (De Alcantara, 1997: 35). Control is not a plane to be reached through increased effort, but is obtained as a result of eliminating specific faults and interferences (De Alcantara, 1997: 35).

72 De Alcantara, 1997: 73:

People often feel that failure comes from not trying hard enough, and follow failure with a greater determination to succeed and a corresponding increase in their misuse…‘Try again, this time with less tension’ is a directive we all hear and give freely. If the intention and the desire behind an unsuccessful gesture remains the same, the gesture itself will remain unsuccessful, regardless of the amount of tension involved. A better directive, then, is ‘don’t try again; do something else altogether’.

De Alcantara (1997: 72) gives four separate but interrelated factors that are required in order to achieve truly free actions: “giving up trying, giving up judging, ridding yourself of hesitation and eagerness, and timing your actions precisely.” The tendencies of trying to be right and judging one’s efforts, reinforce end-gaining behaviour and lead to either eagerness or hesitation, which is a characteristic of inefficient behaviour (De Alcantara, 1997: 75). In order to eliminate hesitation and over-eagerness, the onset of one’s actions has to be timed very accurately, their outcome not anticipated, and judgements of right and wrong suspended in order to gain true objectivity (De Alcantara, 1997: 77).

Inhibition should not be confused with hesitation: while the main purpose of inhibition is to give one an opportunity to make a choice as to how to act, once the decision to act has been taken, one should act immediately without regard to the end- result (De Alcantara, 1997: 77). This encourages involuntary reactions to take place, bypassing habitual patterns of behaviour and allowing the reflex systems of the body to operate without interference.

De Alcantara, 1996: 77:

‘Conscious guidance and control’, in Alexander’s expression, does not entail your wilfully controlling every aspect of your every action. Good use and self- awareness are not the result of all that you do, but rather of all that you stop

doing. Rather than controlling action, think of allowing it to happen. Undo the

misuses of your head, neck, and back, and much that is right, easy, and thoroughly enjoyable will follow of its own accord.

73 3.4 Other considerations

The following section considers aspects of the Technique that were not covered specifically in the foregoing account of the main principles of the Alexander Technique, but that are relevant to the objectives of the research.

3.4.1 Teaching

Alexander would not allow the students on his teacher-training course to graduate and teach the Technique to others until their own use had reached a satisfactory standard (Jones, 1976: 50), which they would be able to maintain under the demands of teaching. Teachers can only impart sensory information regarding good use to the same degree that they themselves possess, and “have to obey their own educational demands if they are to influence their pupils” (Barlow, 1973: 203) in any constructive way. By reliably applying the principles of the Technique to themselves, Alexander teachers “have a quality of muscle tone in their body that allows them to transmit the same possibilities to the muscles of the student” (Stevens, 1996: 52).

Jones, 1976: 153:

You can’t teach someone else an improved use of himself until your own manner of use has improved. The technique deals with change and development. Before he can impart what he knows to others, a teacher must have experienced in himself enough change to understand the process operationally.

An Alexander Technique lesson is an individual, one-to-one interaction (Barlow, 1973: 189), requiring detailed attention and awareness from both the teacher and the pupil. “A detached form of teaching which relies on a pedagogic, professorial, didactic attitude, is simply not possible” (Barlow, 1973: 203). The teacher forms a partnership with the pupil, with the aim of guiding the pupil to self-discovery (Jones, 1976: 153). An authoritarian approach, in which a teacher attempts to use his or her knowledge to obtain power over a pupil, would undermine the pupil’s capacity to observe and trust his or her own perceptions, thereby negating the purpose of the lesson, which is to increase sensory awareness.

74 Stevens, 1996: 53:

This is a gentle, delicate process involving non-judgemental awareness on the part of both teacher and student, combined with great attention being paid to what is actually happening. This very accurate observation and clear diagnosis, together with positive and practical help in the solution of difficulties, is the hallmark of good teaching.

A teacher’s aim should never be to make a pupil dependent, but rather to enable the pupil to become “his own expert in the use of himself”, through learning to translate observations into kinaesthetic terms and applying this new knowledge to solve particular problems (Jones, 1976: 153). “The principle of inhibition and primary control existed before Alexander discovered it”, and unless a pupil rediscovers it again for him- or herself, lessons ultimately are wasted (Jones, 1976: 154). The process is greatly facilitated by the teacher’s guidance, however, as misconceptions that can slow down progress can be avoided through the teacher’s insight and knowledge, born of his or her own experience of learning the Technique (Jones, 1976: 153).

Procedures that lead to self-consciousness and anxiety in a pupil are counterproductive, slowing down the learning process by interfering with the pupil’s awareness and attention. Making a pupil aware of specific faults is not useful, as the information will not mean anything to him if the specific faults are not perceived kinaesthetically (Jones, 1976: 154). Apart from feeling self-conscious and possibly anxious, a pupil can be tempted to try to correct the fault instead of remaining attentive, thereby reinforcing end-gaining behaviour. Likewise, tests “set the wrong tone by stressing specific ends rather than means” (Jones, 1976: 154).

Alexander (as cited in Jones, 1976: 41) decries end-gaining systems of education, in which failure elicits strong emotional reactions and anxiety: every time a pupil tries unsuccessfully to do something, not only are the old, wrong psychophysical habits (that are associated with his or her misconception of the act) reinforced, but “new emotional experiences of discouragement, worry, fear, and anxiety” are also added.

75 Alexander, as cited in Jones, 1976: 41:

Learning to these students means doing ‘correctly’ whatever the teacher insists on having done. The imperfectly coordinated student, however, cannot do anything ‘correctly’ at the start; he is bound to have failures no matter how hard he tries…If a means-whereby principle were used in teaching…the pupil would not be asked to perform an act until he was in such a state of coordination that he could perform it easily. An occasional failure would not then be charged with any emotion but would merely add to the pupil’s knowledge of his own responses.

Jones (1976: 162) believes that even praise from a teacher can interfere with learning, as the pupil “is apt to attribute praise to something he did rather than what he did not do, so that the wrong aspect of the response is being reinforced”. In the Alexander Technique, the reward is built into the experience itself, as one learns to respond in a new way to stimuli. The Technique is strongly reinforcing and intrinsically rewarding, and promotes self-motivation to change habitual behaviour (Jones, 1976: 162).

3.4.2 Words

Information regarding a pupil’s co-ordination is communicated both verbally and non- verbally, through the use of touch and guided movement (Madden, 2002). Jones (1976: 167) considers the non-verbal instruction in guided movement to be the more important aspect of the Technique, as “any form of strictly verbal communication is imperfect at best”. Words cannot convey sensory information adequately, whereas the redistribution of tension following a guided movement “can frequently be grasped without explanation, as a fact of experience” (Jones, 1976: 167). However, once words have become linked to the pupil’s and teacher’s shared experience, they can be used effectively as a “carefully worked out set of verbal directions” (Jones, 1976: 167) for the pupil to follow, in order to inhibit habitual reactions and obtain improved use.

Students are taught to use their thinking in order to improve their use in everyday- and skilled activity. The thought- and movement patterns inherent in the habitual behaviour, as well as that which is required for improved use, are analysed in order to work out a practical plan to “maximize (the) overall coordination for the chosen activity” (Madden, 2002). The plan is then carried out through a “subtle but powerful coordination of thinking and moving” (Madden, 2002). The choice of words that are

76 used in this process is of the utmost importance, and has a profound effect on co- ordination. Language reveals thinking, as “what we think expresses itself physically in exactly the way we are thinking it” (Madden, 2002).

Words are inevitably interpreted according to each person’s individual perception and experience, and are distorted due to faulty sensory awareness (De Alcantara, 1997: 44). They also have connotations from earlier experiences that may result in a misconception of the required direction (Jones, 1976: 158). As different people interpret language and images differently, it is essential “to continue observing the effects of language and to tailor the language individually when necessary” (Madden, 2002). One’s response to words includes a kinaesthetic component that is observable to someone who has been trained to pay attention to these slight muscle-shifts of tension in the body. Jones (1976: 172) suggests that these stimulus-words can be identified by the disruptive effect they have on the reflex pattern, and even classified according to the amount of reflex disturbance that they create within the body. It is clear that words and language-use can have a profound effect on the optimal functioning of the body, and should be used judiciously.

For instance, the phrase “working hard” is often interpreted literally, especially by young children, resulting in a tightening of the muscles in order to create work. Although they might look as though they are working hard, in reality they aren’t working well: “they tighten unnecessarily, losing both physical balance and clarity of thought” (Madden, 2002). Madden (2002) suggests that the phrase “working appropriately” would be more desirable. Muscular interpretations of requests that are not muscular in nature also lead to misuse, such as when a need for concentration results in the tightening of the eyes and face (Madden, 2002).

Imitating poor models often causes faulty images of anatomy, but inadequate terminology can also create misconceptions as to how muscles and limbs work. In order to obtain better use, it is essential to find terminology that is anatomically more correct, as “anatomical mis-mapping creates interference in the human systems”, leading to excessive work (Madden, 2002). While no one can control how a student might interpret what is said, describing a movement as accurately as possible can minimize misunderstanding (Madden, 2002).

77 Madden, 2002:

If we wish to communicate most clearly in the teaching of coordination, it is worth the effort to be anatomically accurate in our choices of language. If metaphors are used or thought processes asked for, they must be understood as metaphor and thought by the students. Our students work diligently to carry out what we ask them to do; we serve them best by making our requests as accurate as we can.

3.5 Conclusion

The Alexander Technique “reconditions and re-educates the reflex mechanisms and brings their habits into normal relation with the functioning of the organism as a whole” (Coghill, as cited in Stevens, 1976: 16). Motor function is improved through the integration of the voluntary and reflex components of a movement, “in such a way that the voluntary does not interfere with the reflex and the reflex facilitates the voluntary” (Jones, as cited in Thompson, 1988: 41). As one is enabled to move in a non-habitual and easier way, posture inevitably changes, thereby reducing specific faults and registering kinaesthetically as more efficient, pleasant and desirable (Jones, 1976: 191).

All activities are potentially more effective when the relationship between the head and the body is optimal, as motor performance is made more difficult once the head and neck are tightened. Eliminating the interferences in co-ordination that cause unnecessary tightening enables one to improve one’s use, in a “subtle but powerful co-ordination of thinking and moving” (Madden, 2002).

Madden, 2002:

The Alexander Technique is an ideal tool for investigating how to accomplish any activity with efficiency. It assumes that human beings are well made and that interference in our coordination, such as excessive work, causes us to function at less than our optimal ability.

While the Alexander Technique deals with a general and basic use of the body, it has many specific applications, as the procedure of dealing with everyday movements can also be applied to skilled performance (Jones, 1976: 135). Proponents of the Technique are found in a very diverse field of disciplines, ranging from equestrian- and other sport, to dance and drama. According to Jones (1976: 185), musicians have

78 been “unusually quick” to respond to and apply the method, possibly because “musicians as a class are keenly aware of the kinaesthetic side of experience”. In all skilled activity, the self is the instrument through which the performer expresses him- or herself; therefore, “a knowledge of how to direct consciously the use of the psycho- physical mechanisms of the self” (Alexander, 1932: iv) can be very valuable for improving performance in various disciplines.