On the Necessity of Knowing, Experiencing, and Practicing Our Wholeness in Our Quest to Fundamentally Change Our Behavior Through the Use of Our Selves

For many centuries, we humans have known that the pursuit of our wholeness is necessary for the education, healing, and strengthening of the whole person.

Alexander taught us that the real significance of his Technique lies with the fact that humans function as a whole and can only be fundamentally changed as a whole.

For me, the primary purpose of the Alexander Technique is to help educate, heal, and strengthen the whole person in our striving for our wholeness in our lives. Alexander called this the use of the self.

Walter Carrington describes Alexander’s concept of wholeness in relation to Alexander’s use of the self in the book entitled Explaining the Alexander Technique, The Writings of F. Mathias Alexander, In Conversation with Walter Carrington and Sean Carey. There, Carrington states:

One of the greatest handicaps in getting an understanding of the Technique is that people instinctively chop up and separate an issue, whereas FM’s approach was completely the opposite. For instance he loved words that you or I might consider imprecise but that he would consider comprehensive. He thought that a virtue. He makes this clear when he decides to talk of the ‘use of the self’ because the ‘self’ was the comprehensive term that included not only mind, body, spirit, soul and anything else you like, but all the things you haven’t thought of as well.

Since our wholeness includes aspects of our self that are unknown and unseen by us, as they are part of the mystery of life, words alone are not sufficient to fully describe the concept of wholeness. However, Carrington’s words give us vital knowledge of Alexander’s description of self—particularly with his inclusion of “anything else you like” and “all the things you haven’t thought of as well.”

Carrington was stating that our wholeness—known and unknown—is the meaning of Alexander’s concept of the self; that Alexander’s concept of the self is whole and not fragmented into parts. Carrington was stating that Alexander rejected partial descriptions of the self.

In Alexander’s 1945 preface to the 1946 reprint of Man’s Supreme Inheritance, he expressed his concern about the “horrible” state of the world at the time. He asked a question: How could “we and all the other good people in the world” have allowed this “dreadful mess” to happen?3 He then asked what was, to him, a more critical question—one he states that humans have been asking themselves during every crisis since time began. When the horror stops, where must we begin to make a change to prevent a recurrence? Alexander concluded that the answers given to this question have always failed to solve the problem. He states, however, that “there is an answer, a magnificently simple and effective answer… It is what man does that brings the wrong thing about, first within himself and then in his activities in the outside world, and it is only by preventing this doing that he can ever begin to make any real change.” 4

Alexander states that “before man can make the changes necessary in the outside world, he must learn to know the kind of doing he should prevent in himself and the HOW of preventing it. Change must begin in his own behavior.” 5

Alexander wrote that the theme of all his books is this “how” of change in human behavior. Here, he quotes John Dewey’s statement concerning how to change human behavior. Dewey wrote that Alexander has “demonstrated a new scientific principle with respect to the control of human behavior as important as any principle that has ever been discovered in the domain of external nature.”

Alexander’s quote of Dewey is from Dewey’s Introduction to Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. There, Dewey explains his statement, as follows: “Through modern science we have mastered to a wonderful extent the use of things as tools for accomplishing results upon and through other things. The result is all but a universal state of confusion, discontent, and strife. The one factor which is the primary tool in the use of all these other tools – namely, ourselves – in other words, our own psycho-physical disposition, as the basic condition of our employment of all agencies and energies, has not even been studied as the central instrumentality. Is it not highly probable that this failure gives the explanation of why it is that in mastering physical forces we have ourselves been so largely mastered by them, until we find ourselves incompetent to direct the history and destiny of man?

Never before I think, has there been such an acute consciousness of the failure of all remedies and forces external to the individual man. It is, however, one thing to teach the need of a return to the individual man as the ultimate agency in whatever mankind and society collectively can accomplish, to point out the necessity of straightening out this ultimate condition of whatever humanity in mass can attain. It is another thing to discover the concrete procedure by which this greatest of all tasks can be executed. And this indispensable thing is exactly what Mr. Alexander has accomplished.” 6

Alexander writes that the answer to the problem of human behavior lies with “the fact…. that a human being functions as a whole and can only be fundamentally changed as a whole . It is in the light of this fact that the technique described in this book has real significance.” 7

In The Universal Constant in Living, Alexander stresses the importance of gaining the knowledge and experience required for putting the concept of wholeness into practice consistently. He writes that this knowledge and experience is essential if the acceptance of the concept of wholeness is not to remain only an intellectual belief. He states that writers and speakers in the world of education and medicine have advocated the concept of wholeness as the one upon which sound methods in all fields of activity should be based. Alexander concludes, however, that few of these authorities have offered the knowledge of the means of translating the concept into experience or give a technique for applying the principle into practice.8

In The Resurrection of the Body, Alexander acknowledged that his work was not finished, that there was more to discover, and that his work needed to evolve and grow. He stated, “[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.”9 Thus, he encouraged explorers and pioneers to carry on that evolution and growth, a challenge that we, as teachers of his work today, have before us.

Some conclusions gathered from the above writings of Alexander and Carrington

I believe the above writings of Alexander and Carrington exemplify Alexander’s universal vision of his Technique and conclude that Alexander believed that this universal vision requires us to know, understand, and experience the following:

We need to practice and teach his Technique from and within our evolving knowledge, experience, and practice of our wholeness.

We need to practice Alexander’s Technique from and within our wholeness in order to allow ourselves to fundamentally change our behavior.

We need to change as a whole person to be capable of changing our behavior fundamentally, both within ourselves and in our activities in the world.

It is necessary for us to fundamentally change our behavior to be capable of undoing the misuse we engage in within ourselves and in our activities in the world.

Our knowledge, experience, and practice of our wholeness and its role in our practice and teaching of Alexander’s Technique must continue to evolve.

From F.M. Alexander and Walter Carrington we know that our wholeness is the foundation for educating, healing, and strengthening the whole person through the practice of the Alexander Technique.

John Dewey, Aldous Huxley, Patrick McDonald, and others recognized and understood this truth.

John Dewey also wrote: “The technique of Mr. Alexander gives to the educator a standard of psycho-physical health—in what we call morality is included. It supplies the ‘means whereby’ this standard may be progressively and endlessly achieved, becoming a conscious possession of the one educated…. It bears the same relation to education that education itself bears to all other human activities.10 In the 1946 edition of Alexander’s Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Aldous Huxley states: It is now possible to conceive of a totally new type of education affecting the entire range of human activity….an education which, by teaching them the proper use of the self, would preserve children and adults from most of the diseases and evil habits that now afflict them…….I heartily recommend this latest and, in many ways, most enlightening of Mr. Alexander’s books. In The Universal Constant in Living they will find, along with a mass of interesting facts, the ripest wisdom of a man who, setting out fifty years ago to discover a method for restoring his lost voice, has come, by the oldest of indirect roads, to be a quite uniquely important, because uniquely practical, philosopher, educator, and physiologist 11

In the essay titled “The Education of an Amphibian,” Aldous Huxley sets forth a detailed description of the benefits offered to us—physical, psychological, spiritual, essence, the transcendent within each of us, etc.—by Alexander’s work. 12

Patrick McDonald stated: “Good health is priceless and this technique lays the best possible foundation for good health. If one is mis-using oneself it must be an advantage to be able to correct this misuse.” 13 McDonald wrote that many of the passages in Zen in The Art of Archery (by Eugene Herigal) might have been written by Alexander himself. 14 He wrote that Alexander’s work “…provides a spiritual calm and confidence that makes living a pleasure and not an existence.” 15

The knowledge, experience, and practice of wholeness in Alexander’s Technique today

Frank Ottiwell, in giving the first Alexander Memorial Lecture in 1993 at the NASTAT (predecessor to AmSAT) annual meeting, said that he now saw that Alexander’s universal vision was right and that he, and perhaps others, “had been underselling Alexander by narrowing his vision to make it somehow more acceptable.” Frank then said: “I have to ask: Acceptable to whom?” 16

For more than 40 years, I have witnessed the silence of our international Alexander community in the presentation and communication of Alexander’s work to the world regarding the concept of wholeness as the foundation of Alexander’s Technique - the very concept Alexander emphatically stated establishes the real significance of his Technique for changing human behavior: A human being functions as a whole and can only be fundamentally changed as a whole.

I am defining “our international Alexander community” as all Alexander organizations, schools, and teachers engaged in the profession of presenting and communicating Alexander’s Technique to the people of the world.

I am not speaking of nor raising questions about the teaching of Alexander’s work by any individual teachers of Alexander’s Technique to their students. I am speaking solely of our international Alexander community.

It is my observation and experience that the concepts and curricula of Alexander’s Technique communicated by our international community to the world do not include the idea of wholeness, much less wholeness as the foundation of Alexander’s Technique. Consequently, its foundation is not acknowledged nor communicated to the world by our community.

Instead, our community has encouraged the people of the world to focus on the material/physical aspects of ourselves in Alexander’s Technique. Thus, our community asks the world to consider only fragments of our wholeness in the study of Alexander’s Technique. For example, our wholeness is far more than our mind, our body, and our emotions. Alexander knew this. Carrington, Dewey, Huxley and McDonald knew this. Many others knew this.

All of the above raises questions for me. I invite discussion and answers to these questions.

With Frank Ottiwell’s insight as my guide, I ask:

Given that Alexander stated that our knowledge, experience, and practice of our wholeness is necessary to fundamentally change our behavior and use of our selves; and

Given that Alexander taught us that his Technique offers a means whereby we can gain the knowledge and experience needed to consistently put into practice our wholeness within ourselves and our activities in the world,

Why has our international Alexander community historically acknowledged only fragments of our wholeness in our presentation and communication of Alexander’s Technique to the world?

Why has our international Alexander community expressly encouraged us to know, experience, and practice Alexander’s Technique using only fragments of our wholeness in our efforts to fundamentally change our behavior and our use of ourselves?

Our international Alexander community and we individual teachers

Our international Alexander community has power and authority; we hope for good. The danger of the power and authority of our international Alexander community, like any other, is the undue influence it can have on teachers, students, and the world. That influence, if ill-used, can stifle the evolution and creativity of Alexander’s Technique.

We individual teachers do not have such power and authority. Better than such power and authority, however, is the fact that we have earned the right to envision and understand Alexander’s work as we choose, so long as we do so with honesty and integrity. Alexander himself expressly encouraged us to do so. 17 In this way, we individual teachers participate in maintaining the inherent freedom within Alexander’s work.

For more than 40 years, I have taken Alexander’s advice about the future of his work. I have attempted to be an explorer and pioneer of the work he began: to listen, observe, discover, and remember the unlimited knowledge, understanding, and experience his work offers. There are many other teachers who have been exploring and pioneering as well.

The element that stands out most to me from my experience with the classical approach to Alexander’s work is the primary importance of sticking to principle. Alexander taught us that the foundation of the principle of his Technique lies within our wholeness. My own evolving understanding of my wholeness includes my life energies (divine, universal, psychic, instinctual, physical, and others unknown to me), heart, soul, spirit, sacred body, feeling, psyche, human values (e.g. morality, ethics, character), oneness with others (Thou Art That), nature, and God. (I use the word “God” because it satisfies me. Other symbols for the unknowable mystery of life include Atman, the Great Spirit, Tao, the Invisible. There are many from many different cultures.) And there is much more of my wholeness that remains unknown to me.

My understanding of my wholeness grows and deepens as I live and evolve. We each develop our understanding of our wholeness during our lives.

John Dewey wrote, in Experience and Nature*, that “the visible is set in the invisible; and in the end what is unseen decides what happens in the seen; The tangible rests precariously upon the untouched and un-grasped.” 18

Many aspects of my wholeness are invisible, unseen, untouched, and un-grasped by me. Yet, my wholeness has created and sustained me—a visible and seen creature living on our Earth, touching and grasping, who mingles freely with every living entity.

My conscious knowledge, experience, and practice of my wholeness is the foundation of my Alexander work. This has enabled me to know and experience the deeper meaning and universal vision of Alexander’s work for the greater good of myself and our world.

When my wholeness is not consciously included in my moments of awareness, choice, action, and movement, I am left with only my material, rational self. In those moments, I may no longer see myself as a unique creature of life. Instead, I may see myself as just an example of a human physical body with nerves, bones, brain, connectors, etc.

However, when I honor and express my gifts as this unique creature, I am free to consciously choose to progressively and endlessly experience one of the greatest gifts offered by life itself—the choice of living as a whole person.

Through Alexander’s work I have found that “country hitherto undiscovered” and the opportunity for a greater understanding of the gifts the Alexander Technique offers and much more.

Alexander’s work has helped me live a more wondrous, joyful, and healthy life. This has led to a vast improvement and understanding of myself and my responsibility for others and our Earth.

Today, more than ever, our international Alexander community can significantly help many people in the world through the education, healing, and strengthening of the whole person.

In our dehumanizing and mechanical culture (scientific materialism, separation from nature and God, over-reliance on technology, rejection of heart, soul, and spirit in our public discourse and policies, etc.), many people are experiencing trauma and despair from the harm to their hearts, souls, and spirits suffered while living within our culture. In response, people are seeking help in dealing with the myriad problems caused by living in this culture.

The deeper and more profound experiences of Alexander’s work gained from the knowledge, experience, and practice of our wholeness offer the help many people are seeking while living in today’s culture.

When our wholeness is expressly communicated through our touch, words, and presence during our lessons with students, the creative experience received from Alexander’s work is deepened immeasurably. Through this help, people are offered an original pathway to receiving the education, healing, and strengthening they are seeking. However, having chosen to present and communicate only the material/physical aspects of our Alexander work to the world, the deeper vision and understanding of Alexander’s work continues to be little known. And because people do not know that Alexander’s work offers these experiences, people are not looking to the Alexander Technique for this help.

What choices do we as individual teachers have today in dealing with this state of affairs?

In this essay I am advocating that we each, as individual members of our international Alexander community, begin to consciously and expressly include our wholeness in our presentation and teaching of Alexander’s work to others—our students, our peers, and the people of the world. This would require that we consciously and expressly include our wholeness in our own exploration, study, practice, and teaching of Alexander’s work.

I believe this is precisely the work that Alexander was teaching us to carry out if we are to be successful in fundamentally changing our behavior and our use of our selves.

Notes

1. Walter Carrington & Sean Carey, Explaining the Alexander Technique: The Writings of F. Mathias Alexander, In Conversation with Walter Carrington and Sean Carey, (London, The Sheldrake Press, 1992), 110-111.
2. Carrington, Explaining the Alexander Technique, 110-111.
3. F. Matthias Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, (Bexley, Kent: Integral Press, 1946), v.
4. Alexander, Inheritance, v.
5. Alexander,Inheritance<, v.
6. Alexander, Inheritance, vi; F. Mathias Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, (London, S.W.1: Re-Educational Publications Limited), xxvii, xxviii.
7. Alexander, Inheritance, vi.
8. F. Mathias Alexander, The Universal Constant in Living, (Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press, 1986), xxxvii-xxxviii.
9. F. Mathias Alexander, The Resurrection of the Body, ed. Edward Maisel, (New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc. 1978), front page before Preface.
10. F. Mathias Alexander, The Use of the Self, (Weybridge, UK: Re-Educational Publications, Ltd., 1955), xxi.
11. Alexander, Inheritance, page preceding “Preface to the New Edition”.
12. Aldous Huxley, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, (The New American Library, 1964), 9-31.
13. Patrick McDonald, The Alexander Technique As I See It, (Brighton: Rahula Books, 1989), xiii.
14. McDonald, As I See It, 85.
15. McDonald, As I See It, xiii.
16. AmSAT Journal 9 (Spring 2016): 21.
17. Alexander, Resurrection, front page before Preface.
18. John Dewey, Experience and Nature (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1958), 43-44.

Larry is a teaching member of AmSAT. He graduated from the Alexander Training Institute of San Francisco in 1979. In those years the directors were Frank Ottiwell and Giora Pinkus. Larry was one of the teachers assisting Frank Ottiwell at the school from 1981 until its closure in 2004.  He also studied with Patrick McDonald and Walter and Dilys Carrington during their periodic workshops given at the San Francisco school. For 10 years he studied extensively with Marjorie Barstow in San Francisco and Lincoln, Nebraska. Marjorie and Frank are his mentors. He has been exploring, studying/writing and practicing Alexander's work since 1976 and has been teaching since 1979.

Larry has certifications in Reiki I and II (2007-2008) and a certification in Shamanic Healing Practices (2014). Additionally, he has been a serious student of the psychology of Carl Jung since 1976. Since the beginning of his Alexander studies he has sought to understand his Jungian work as it interplays with his Alexander work and vice-versa. He is currently preparing to teach a class on the interplay of Jung's psychology and Alexander's technique at the C.G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.
For 44 years Larry has been a serious track runner. His track running has been a major means of his working with his wholeness and Alexander's technique.
Concurrent with his Alexander teaching, from 1981 to 2014 Larry practiced law as a civil rights litigator in private practice in San Francisco in the field of employment discrimination and harassment, representing employees. At the time he retired from law in 2014, he had been elected a "Super Lawyer" (top 5%) in his field by his peers in San Francisco and the Bay area for 10 straight years. 

His Bachelor of Arts degree is from the University of California at Berkeley (1969). His Juris Doctor degree is from U.C. Berkeley’s School of Law (1974).  In 1974-75 he worked as a Vista Volunteer lawyer (Vista was the U.S. domestic version of the Peace Corp) in the Mission District of San Francisco for the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation.
Larry is married to Monica Norcia, also a teacher of Alexander's technique. They live and teach in San Rafael, California.

Pain's Groundhog Day

by Jeremy Korer

The jigsaw puzzle of pain in the United States has a whopping piece missing. This piece impacts millions of adults and kids, contributes to costs greater than cancer, heart disease and diabetes combined and has repercussions for every future generation. Now lost, the part was actually in our hands a century ago.

Artwork from Prof. Osgood's 1930 report.

Of American men rejected for military service by the end of the First World War in 1918, some 40 percent were for reasons associated with poor posture. An alarmed President Hoover turned to Harvard Medical School's distinguished Professor of Orthopedic Surgery, Robert Osgood. Osgood’s resulting report to the 1930 White House Conference on Child Health advised that every child in the United States undertake postural education and correction in grades 1 through 7. In order to achieve this ambitious goal, Osgood wanted all physicians, nurses and physical education teachers to have a basic understanding of posture incorporated as a mandatory part of their training.

Bancroft: "Erect carriage in stair climbing."

Osgood's recommendations were built on the work of Jessie Bancroft. Bancroft's 1913 book The Posture of School Children resulted in the establishment of The American Posture League. In schools across the United States, this organization implemented detailed standards for postural education.

Meanwhile, in London around the same time, another remarkable person of a similar vintage had come to parallel conclusions about the relationship between habitual posture and health. F.M. Alexander discovered that how we sit, stand, and move throughout our day and throughout our life often causes or worsens bone, muscle, and joint pain. His ingenious response was to devise a safe, easy-to-learn, and practical method, the Alexander Technique, which stops pain by changing our postural habits.

Few physicians and nurses understand that poor habitual posture fosters back, neck, and shoulder problems, migraines as well as hip and knee pain and repetitive strain injuries. To add insult to injury, these health professionals are often ineffectively equipped to respond when they do see the connection. This is not their fault. The blame lies with their training, our myopic obsession with drugs and elective surgery, and the breathtaking sterility of the nation’s health protection agency, the CDC.

The pharmaceutical industry’s blindness to the import of habitual posture should surprise no-one. What is astonishing is that US insurance companies do not value the economics of postural pain prevention, in contrast to some European counterparts. These US insurers would do well to follow the money. Lost productivity and medical care from pain is costing corporate America up to $635 billion annually; more than the yearly costs of cancer, heart disease and diabetes combined. If US business only knew that supremely cost-effective ways exist to get people back to work pain-free and more productive than ever.

A hundred years after Bancroft's work there is no universal postural education of children in American schools. Adults in pain are routinely prescribed fatally addictive opioid medications. Sufferers with eminently treatable and preventable conditions are almost never guided to safe and effective postural health solutions. This scenario is a personal tragedy for many of those 50 million American adults suffering with acute and chronic pain. For our slouched and screen-preoccupied children and grandchildren, it is a catastrophe in the making.

"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it", Winston Churchill remarked. People like Bancroft, Osgood and Alexander had a profound understanding of the relationship between posture and health. They appreciated the balance between therapy and education, between prevention and cure and between mind and body. When it comes to the effective treatment of pain in the United States, it is beyond high-time that the jigsaw piece of posture is rediscovered and placed in its rightful position.

We do not have another century to waste.

©2018 Jeremy Korer. All rights reserved

Wholeness In Teaching the Alexander Technique

by Laura Klein

I respectfully disagree with Larry Ball’s statement "the Alexander Technique has suffered great harm for decades because of the rejection by our Alexander community of the value of our wholeness in our Alexander work".

What part of the Alexander community is Larry referring to?  I think that most Alexander teachers I know would agree that while teaching, we do our best to address the whole "psychophysical" person: not just how they sit, stand, and move; but their emotional reactions as well - is this person anxious and fearful? Are they shy? Are they breathing freely? Are they very self-critical? What is their primary learning style - visual, kinesthetic, or aural? Are they analytical or intuitive? That, to me, is wholeness in teaching.

I don’t know any Alexander teachers who reject this type of approach.

Spiritual and religious beliefs are a personal matter and will vary from teacher to teacher. Whether an Alexander teacher does Buddhist meditation, believes in God, or is a complete atheist, shouldn’t matter. It’s interesting to chat with a student about these matters if they come up, but they have no bearing upon “wholeness in teaching” as F.M. Alexander meant it.

On The Value of Allowing Our Wholeness To Be Consciously Included In Our Exploration, Study, Practice, and Teaching of Alexander's Work

by Larry Ball

For me, the primary purpose of the Alexander Technique is to help educate, support, and heal the whole individual.

Today we know that our wholeness is a necessary element in the education, support, and healing of the whole individual.

I join with John Dewey’s belief in the profound value of Alexander’s work:  “The technique of Mr. Alexander gives to the educator a standard of psycho-physical health – in which what we call morality is included.  It supplies the ‘means whereby’ this standard may be progressively and endlessly achieved, becoming a conscious possession of the one educated…. It bears the same relation to education that education itself bears to all other human activities.” (emphasis added.) [1]

The element that stands out most to me from within the classical approach to Alexander’s work is the primary importance of sticking to principle.  It is very important to me to keep alive the importance of sticking to principle in my Alexander work and in my life. 

John Dewey’s description of the foundational value of Alexander’s work recognizes that Alexander’s work includes our wholeness – our hearts, souls, spirits, sacred bodies, feeling, psyche, oneness with others (Thou Art That), nature, and God. (This describes my understanding of my wholeness. We each may have our own understanding.)

Frank Ottiwell, in giving the first Alexander Memorial Lecture in 1993 at the NASTAT (predecessor to AmSAT) annual meeting, said that he now saw that Alexander’s universal vision was right and that he, and perhaps others, “had been underselling Alexander by narrowing his vision to make it somehow more acceptable.” Frank then said: “I have to ask: Acceptable to whom?” [2]

The conscious inclusion of our wholeness in Alexander’s work enables each of us to experience the deeper philosophical understanding and universal vision of his work for the greater good of each of us and our Earth.  It is by consciously including our wholeness that Alexander’s work can once again be recognized as a fundamental source of education, support, and healing in our world.

The Alexander Technique has suffered great harm for decades because of the rejection by our Alexander community of the value of our wholeness in our Alexander work

With Frank Ottiwell’s insight as my guide, I ask: Why have we as a community - as distinct from individual teachers - ignored the help of our wholeness in our presentation and teaching of Alexander’s work?

For many decades the presentation of Alexander’s work by our Alexander community to the world has been silent on and has implicitly rejected the value of allowing our wholeness to help people better explore, study, and practice Alexander’s work. Instead, our community has encouraged us to focus on the material aspects of our Selves in our Alexander work.

Because of this rejection of our wholeness in our Alexander work and the consequent focus on only our material selves, the deeper vision and potential of Alexander’s work continues to be little known in our Alexander community and our culture. Because of this rejection, Alexander’s work is being discarded and led toward irrelevance in our culture. 

When my wholeness is not consciously included in my moments of awareness, choice, action, and movement, I am left with only my material, rational self. In those moments I may no longer see myself as a unique creature of nature and God. Instead, I may become just an example of a human physical body with nerves, bones, brain, connectors, etc.  But when I honor and express my individual gifts as this unique creature, I allow myself a place on our Earth to live with my Wholeness. Here, I am free to consciously choose to progressively and endlessly experience the joy of life itself – the choice of living rather than non-living.

Exploring Alexander’s work

Alexander stated: “[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.” [3] Alexander saw himself as a signpost; not a destination.

For over 40 years I have taken Alexander’s advice about the future of his work. I have attempted to be an explorer and pioneer of the work he began: to listen, observe, discover, and remember the unlimited knowledge and understanding his work offers. There are many other teachers who have been doing the same.

There are countless writers and teachers available to us to study and learn from in our exploration, study, practice, and teaching of Alexander’s work.

A substantial number of these have helped me create my vision and understanding of Alexander’s work. They include F.M. Alexander, John Dewey, Marjorie Barstow, Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung, David Bohm, Frank Ottiwell, Doris Lessing, William Blake, Kathleen Raine, William James, Lao Tzu, Martha Nussbaum, Aldous Huxley, Krishnamurti, Loren Eisley, June Singer, Ram Dass, James Hillman, Henry Thoreau, Thomas Merton, Jacob Needleman, Frances G. Wickes, Albert Einstein, Alan Watts, Abraham Lincoln, and many others. 

Early on in my studies I came to believe that the source of the energy element of Alexander's definition of direction is Life Itself and that nature and God are the “conductors” of Life Itself – not my ego mind.

 During these years I have consciously asked for and allowed my wholeness to participate as full partner with Life Itself to help me explore, study, practice and teach Alexander’s work.

William Blake wrote: “Energy is eternal delight.”[4]

Krishnamurti stated that unless our energies are being used in the search for truth, reality and/or God, they are being used destructively.[5]

Walter Carrington, in his talk entitled “At our Mother’s Knee," discussed Alexander’s words on direction and use contained in footnote 1 at page 13 in Alexander’s Use of the Self. [6] Carrington said, in part:

“The process of conducting the energy, that is what use is all about.  It is a process that neither theoretically nor practically do we understand extremely well, but it is such an essential process that we really do need to study it and understand it better.” [7]

Today in my own practice and teaching, my clearest evidence and experience of the depth and profoundness of Alexander's work arise from my asking for and receiving Life Itself into my wholeness, humanity and Self in my daily exploration of Alexander’s work.

My own direct experience of primary movement is clearest and strongest when I ask Life Itself - rather than my ego mind - for help. I surrender to nature and God. My path unfolds with each step taken. I contemplate and listen to everything that comes to me, as well as I am able. I choose, act, and move from my wholeness. For me, this is the creative act that Alexander’s work engenders in each moment I choose to be conscious and free.

Within this realm of non-doing I heal, become healthy, more fully experience and enjoy living, allow my natural creativity to flourish, allow the evolution of my Self, and choose, act, and move with deeper vitality, attention, understanding, strength, balance, and ease.

In my Alexander practice and teaching, the primary inhibition is to refuse to allow my ego mind to continue to have control of my wholeness and my humanity. This primary inhibition allows my wholeness and my humanity to be free to fully participate in my exploration and practice of Alexander’s work -  and in living my life. This primary inhibition also gives me much greater ability and strength to inhibit the insidious habits of our modern, technology-driven, and overwhelmingly materialistic culture.

Through Alexander’s principles I have found that “country hitherto undiscovered” and the opportunity for a greater understanding of the gifts the Alexander Technique offers and much more.  Alexander’s work has helped me live a more wondrous, joyful, and healthy life. This has led to a vast improvement and understanding of myself and my responsibility for others and for our Earth. 

The need to educate, support and heal the whole individual and not just some of our parts

Because our Alexander community does not include our wholeness as a necessary element in educating, supporting, and healing the whole individual, Alexander’s work continues to be discarded and led toward irrelevance within our culture.  

In our dehumanizing and mechanical culture (scientific materialism, separation from nature and God, over-reliance on technology, rejection of heart, soul, and spirit as part of our public discourse and policies, etc.) many people are experiencing trauma and despair from the harm to their hearts, souls, and spirits suffered while living within our culture. In response, people are seeking help in dealing with the myriad problems caused by living in this culture.

The deeper and more profound experiences of Alexander’s work gained by including our wholeness in our Alexander work offer the help many people are seeking while living in today’s culture. These experiences are invaluable. However, in rejecting the value of our wholeness in our Alexander work, our community is not presenting the possibility of these experiences to the public. And because people do not know that Alexander’s work offers them these experiences, people are not looking to the Alexander Technique for this help.

When our wholeness is openly and directly communicated through our touch, words, and presence during our lessons with students, the creative experience received from Alexander’s work is deepened immeasurably.  Through this help students are offered an original pathway to receiving the education, support and healing they are seeking.

F.M. Alexander did not openly teach the value of our wholeness to his students in learning his Technique.  Alexander did not write of the growth in knowledge and understanding of our consciousness, energy, psychology, philosophy, mythology, physics, and other disciplines in his time. Alexander did not write about the ancient knowledge, traditions, and understandings of our deeper worlds that have come to us from the sages and explorers throughout human existence.

I would not have expected him to do so.  He was a Western human, raised and educated in the materialistic culture of his time with all its limitations. Nevertheless, Alexander knew he had discovered from within himself and his culture a number of fundamental and extremely valuable truths about we humans living together on our earth. 

In the essay entitled “The Education of an Amphibian”, Aldous Huxley sets forth a detailed description of the benefits offered to us – physical, psychological, spiritual, essence, the transcendent within each of us, etc. – by Alexander’s work. [8]

Of the Alexander Technique, Patrick McDonald wrote: “Good health is priceless and this technique lays the best possible foundation for good health. If one is mis-using oneself it must be an advantage to be able to correct this misuse.” He wrote that many of the passages in Zen in The Art of Archery (by Eugene Herigal) might have been written by Alexander himself.  He wrote that Alexander’s work “…provides a spiritual calm and confidence that makes living a pleasure and not an existence.”[9]

I have already related John Dewey’s beliefs about Alexander’s work, at the beginning of this article. 

Alexander planted the seeds for becoming conscious of Life Itself and our Wholeness within his work.  Dewey, McDonald, Huxley, and others realized this. And Alexander acknowledged that his work was not finished, that there was more to discover, that his work needed to evolve and grow. He encouraged explorers and pioneers to carry on that evolution and growth. This is the challenge that we, as teachers of his work, have before us today.

­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Alexander’s work provides primary help for us with the use and functioning of our Selves.  Today – as distinct from 1890, 1920 or 1955 – we know that our Selves include our Wholeness. The Use of the Self does not mean Use of part of the Self.  It is not logical nor reasonable for our community to ignore our Wholeness in our Alexander work.

My own experience of Alexander’s work

In all these 40 plus years it has never been scientific theories nor education theories nor other intellectual information that have created and nurtured my love of Alexander’s work.  Rather, it has been the evolving direct experiences of a much deeper realm of being and consciousness than I ever imagined existed within myself and others. These are experiences of vitality, of joy, of love, of transcendence, of poetry, of essence, of nature, of imagination, of intuition, of my sacred body, of inspiration, of heavenly play – of Life Itself.

These deeper experiences have come to me through the help of Life Itself and my wholeness in my exploration, study, and practice of the principles of Alexander’s work in my everyday life. 

Nature and God are always with me.  When I stand in front of a tree (the older the wiser) and allow myself to feel and sense the life of that tree from my Wholeness, and communicate with that tree from my Wholeness, I learn more about the use of myself than from any intellectual source. Trees share our life on Earth and have much to teach us.  All experiences of consciously being with nature offer us these gifts. 

Since my deeper experiences come from my wholeness, I attempt to be conscious of my wholeness every day, moment by moment. This continued attempt is extremely helpful in my Alexander work.

Because we all have within us essentially the same gifts from nature and God, I believe these direct deeper experiences of being and consciousness are examples of the same phenomena that our sages and explorers through ancient times to today speak of with awe, joy and gratitude.

The source of these phenomena does not lie within my brain nor my musculature nor my nervous system nor my bones, nor my chemistry.

The source of these phenomena lies within the existence of our individual and community wholeness as humans on our Earth – humans that are expressions of Life Itself.  It is paramount for me to seek these deeper experiences from their source.

Alexander’s work has shown me a way in which I am able – if I make that choice – to consciously allow my wholeness into each moment of my life. I am not claiming to be hugely successful with this opportunity. It is a life-long work in progress. However, I do perceive a way and assiduously continue the attempt. And wonderfully, the discipline of the attempt brings me immense joy and peace in living here on our Earth.

As it happens, it is only we humans who even have the choice of denying our Wholeness by refusing to be conscious of Its’ presence in all of existence.  Despite that denial, and the consequent reluctance to be one with Life, Life is always here to grant us grace and help, if we but ask for and choose to receive it.

[1] F. Matthias Alexander, The Use of the Self  (Weybridge Surrey: Re-Educational Publications, Ltd., 1955), xxi.

[2] AmSAT Journal, Issue No. 9, Spring 2016, 21.

[3] F. Matthias Alexander (ed. Edward Maisel), The Resurrection of the Body, (New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1978), front page before Preface.

[4] June K. Singer, The Unholy Bible, (Harper Colophon, 1973), p. 61 and Plate 4.

[5] J. Krishnamurti, ed. D. Rajagopal, Think on These Things, (New York: Perennial Library, 1970), 225.

[6] F. Matthias Alexander, The Use of the Self, (Weybridge Surrey: Re-Educational Publications, Ltd., 1955), 13.

[7] Walter Carrington ed. Jerry Sontag, Thinking Aloud, (San Francisco: Mornum Time Press, 1997, 23.

[8] Aldous Huxley, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, (The New American Library, 1964), 9-31.

[9] Patrick McDonald, The Alexander Technique As I See It (Brighton: Rahula Books, 1989), xiii, 85.

Citations:

John Dewey: The Use of the Self by F. Matthias Alexander, Introduction by John Dewey, page xxi (Re-Educational Publications, Ltd. Reprinted 1955)

Frank Ottiwell: AmSAT Journal, Issue No. 9, Spring 2016, p. 21

F.M. Alexander: The Use of the Self by F. Matthias Alexander, Introduction by John Dewey, page 13, ft. 1 (Re-Educational Publications, Ltd. Reprinted 1955)

McDonald: The Alexander Technique As I See It by Patrick MacDonald, page xiii, page 85 (Rahula Books l989)

William Blake: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Voice of the Devil, Plate 4 (from The Unholy Body – A Psychological Interpretation of William Blake by June K. Singer, p.61 (Harper Colophon edition 1973)

Krishnamurti: Think on These Things by J. Krishnamurti (ed. By D. Rajagopal), 24. The Energy of Life, Page 225 (published 1970  by Perennial Library Harper & Row)

Aldous Huxley: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and other essays by Aldous Huxley, The Education of an Amphibian pages 9-31 (published by The New American Library 1964)

Walter Carrington: Thinking Aloud by Walter Carrington, At Our Mother’s Knee, p.23 (published

Editorial: A Hands-On Approach

by George I. Lister and John Baron

For more than 100 years and since FM Alexander began his trials of communicating his work to others, lessons, teaching, and training have focused on a hands-on approach. Alexander discovered that to properly communicate his principles of good use, he needed to combine vocal communication with touch and direction through the use of his hands placed on the recipient. From our earliest days of taking lessons, training and teaching, this has been the bedrock of the study of the Alexander Technique.

Recently, some have experimented with teaching using contemporary non hands-on means of interacting with their students. These teachers, some who are calling their work the Alexander Technique, some who are saying it is based on the Alexander Technique, seem to believe their studies are equally effective whether hands-on with the teacher and student in close proximity, or through using electronic means such as Skype. Their contention is that many more people may be exposed to the Technique if there is no necessity to study hands-on in the intimate setting of an Alexander lesson.

Our feeling is that their contention is not correct. The principles of good use are basic to our work. Some of us spend much of our lives exploring our own freedom and ease, finding available and dynamic ways to remind ourselves to not interfere with poise and stature. That is how we teach. It is not enough to send out a few suggestions in a Zoom session, and hope the student will put them into practice in the way we intend.

We all have our own filters and receive stimuli in the way that makes sense to each of us. It is our job as teachers to guide our students into broadening the perspective and to create a partnership that will allow the student to gain a new and useful understanding. We do not believe this can be accomplished through the use of over the air media.

We are not against developing the use of contemporary facilities to expand awareness and utility of the Alexander Technique. This is the purpose and the mission of the Bay Area Alexander Technique. However, we are clear that conducting lessons over this same media, is an unproven technique and not in the spirit of the foundation of our work. We are not willing to jeopardize the sensitivity of our work, and to dilute its basic principles.

Help - I Have "Laptop Pain"!

by Deborah Lewis, BAAT Member Teacher, M.AmSAT

There you are working at your desk and your back starts to hurt. So you sit up “straight” and after just a few minutes you are in pain and so you hunch over again and that doesn’t work either. This is “computer posture”! This hunched over pattern can become so entrenched that even when you are standing up you might feel and be hunched over. No amount of pulling yourself upwards or collapsing downwards into relaxation offers a SUSTAINABLE solution. So what to do?

Here is one great way to reduce pain:

1. Lie down on the floor (it has to be the floor not the bed) with a book under your head. Bend your knees and place your feet a comfortable distance apart on the floor. Arms should be bent at the elbows with hands resting on the abdomen.

2. Allow the weight of your entire body to surrender and give in to gravity. ALLOW your body to spread. Be content, stay awhile. Lie down often.

3. Do not push the body downward in any place, thinking that by doing so you are helping your body release. Lying down itself lessens the tightness and pain in the body. In fact the very reason the pain diminishes is because the head, neck, and back are allowed to revert to their natural alignment.

Best of all study the Alexander Technique and learn how to work pain free at your laptop!!!

Pain and the Anticipation Trap

by Bill Olson, BAAT Member Teacher, M.AmSAT

When students come to the Alexander Technique to deal with pain they are experiencing, that pain can come from many different sources, i.e. lingering effects of trauma, chronic pain from mis-use or a congenital condition. Oftentimes the student is faced with pain that persists even after steps have been taken to correct misuse or an injury has healed. It is not uncommon that when working with such a student at the chair, the act of sitting can set off the student’s pain.  This pain might be anywhere, the joints of the legs, the back, the neck, even the (seemingly unrelated) shoulders. When the pain occurs, the student reacts to the pain by tightening in protection, as is only natural.

Except that is not usually the order of events. Because the student begins the activity with the knowledge that pain is coming, they preemptively tighten the musculature as a protective measure. While immobilizing an injured joint might be a good thing, particularly in immediate response to trauma (after all, this is why slings and casts exist), this is a very different situation. The student has chosen to move, and tension, the bracing that occurs as a way to protect against pain and discomfort compromises the movement, thus becoming the cause of the pain.

As an example: A student complains of knee pain when sitting. They can be observed to tighten the muscles of the legs when they start to sit, particularly the quadriceps. This is because they don’t want to “lose control” of the knee, or are gingerly “feeling their way” through the movement. But sitting requires that the quadriceps are free and able to lengthen. The protective habit of tension in the quadriceps works directly against the means required to seat oneself.

The result, in this example, is that the knee is not free to bend as the movement requires, therefore:

1) The student enters a state of (one of Alexander’s favorite terms) mal-coordination. The knees are no longer working in harmony with the rest of the joints and the inclination of the torso, as a result . . .

2) The student’s balance is compromised. Sitting works when the joints of the leg and the movement of the torso are free to work together, maintaining a stable balance through free interplay of movement. Once a joint is no longer free, that free interplay is blocked and something else has to happen to maintain balance, at which point . . . 

3) Something Else Happens. This will vary by student, but if they are not in balance, they have to do something to stay on their feet. Something that is otherwise unnecessary, in addition to the inevitable tightening of the neck. It is a pretty easy guess that this will involve more tension and stress on the joints they are trying to protect rather than less.

Each of these factors can result in pain. Tightening puts greater strain on the joint than necessary. Imbalance produces additional sheer forces on the joint. Mal-coordination slows the action, leaving the joint under stress longer than required. Therefore, because the student responds to the pain before it has occurred, the knee hurts. The anticipation of pain creates the pain. This the same general scenario plays out with pain in other areas of the body or other activities.

The Alexander Technique offers the student a chance to return to a state of coordination and balance that reduces the strain on the joints and allows movement to flow. Some students are aware enough that when the anticipatory response is pointed out to them, they can change it.  Simply asking them to “Try not to anticipate pain,” or “Try moving as though you aren’t in pain,” will be enough to change the process of the activity. Other students require a strong reminder that they need to keep the neck free, as the anticipation of pain usually starts with tension in the head/neck/back relationship. For other students, the whispered “ah” can help keep them breathing and short-circuit the habits of tension.  

The fact is, the student’s perception of what is necessary to complete the action is compromised. But getting the student to inhibit and direct affords them the opportunity to flow through the activity in a new way, and be surprised by what the process truly requires. And the best surprise is when pain is no longer part of the activity.

New blog by members of Bay Area Alexander Technique coming soon.