Stopping, Looking and Seeing

Today I start with a quote from the opening paragraph of art historian John Berger's, 'The Art of Seeing' – something I wish I had written as it expresses beautifully, something fundamental, not just about the work that I do, but about life and what it is to be in the world.

 'Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak. But there is also another sense in which seeing comes before words. It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo that we are surrounded by it. The relation between what we see and what we know is never settled.'

This quote resonates with me so much, because when I am working I often make a distinction between looking and seeing, listen and hearing, feeling and touching, and for that matter feeling and being touched. Of these, I place the most emphasis on vision, as when we begin to allow ourselves to stop look and see, our relationship with all our senses changes, improves. We experience the world differently, we see the world differently, we hear the world differently and we can touch and be touched by it differently.

Use in effecting function, as Alexander noted affects ourselves, how we see our possibilities, whether we have can have hope. Hope in our darkest hours is a light that can lead us onwards, finding a way to a new future. We do not have to ‘paint ourselves into a corner’ as George Kelly observed and to free ourselves we need not just words but the ability to see a situation differently, to see the alternatives. Only then do we have a choice where we can weigh up the implications before committing ourselves to action.

Stopping which I blogged about last week, involves a commitment to look at a situation, to see it, to become focussed. The experience of which, is a coherence not just towards the situation but within ourselves, as it includes us, as we release, lengthen and widen, breathe, prepare. This reflects the fact that most of our experience is both pre and non verbal – words giving the handles that allow for patterns and sequences to be identified, thought about, and communicated to others.

Stopping also allows us to look at others, be with them, be alongside them and I will be blogging more about this aspect of my work in coming weeks. For the use of the eyes and the facial muscles involves our earliest habits, habits that link us to others in an inter-personal world, an inter-personal world that is sometimes hidden, but always there. This world, the world of love and attachments is the source of our deepest anguish, profoundest sadness, as well as moments of immense joy, happiness. It is a world to be understood, that in our being with others, we can take a conscious stance towards.

Which brings me back as always to the Primary Control its importance in organising not just ourselves but our experience of the world, whether we want to better understand others, perform better or simply free ourselves from aches and pains that interfere with everyday living. The Primary Control is the means through which conscious control can become established and constructive – it is what makes Alexander’s work unique and it is freely available to anybody who knows how to stop, look, listen, become aware of themselves and allow themselves to begin to see and hear the rhythms and patterns of their lives, their worlds.

Stopping

This week has been a reminder of the need to stop. Stop or stopping carries a very particular meaning in Alexander Technique, one beyond its normal connotation, that to those that who have not applied the technique for themselves, may well be misunderstood. The importance of stop or inhibition is something one returns to, not just in daily life for oneself but with pupils. Who when they come in with a particular complaint have often forgotten the need to stop. 

Stopping in Alexander terms does not mean collapsing or slumping on the sofa to watch TV. It is an active pause, active in the sense that one chooses not do certain things, not go about things in a particular manner or way. Alexander talked about ‘stopping doing the wrong thing and letting the right thing do itself’. 

Of course to stop doing the wrong things, you have to know what you do not want and in Alexander terms this is very easy to specify. You need to stop doing anything that fixes or interferes with your breathing. You need to become aware of the micro-acts, preparations and attitudes that leave you holding your breath, shortening in stature, tightening in the neck. Becoming aware can be a difficult process. It helps if you have developed a physical skill in the past but you still need to know what to become aware of and avoid looking for it. 

Looking for it is where most pupils go wrong when they start lessons, they start to attend to themselves directly rather than looking and seeing what’s around them or looking to see where they want to go or what they need to focus on. Indeed if they start to concentrate, and you can try this at home by concentrating on something in the room, they fix and hold their breath. Focus is different from concentration, it involves maintaining a balance between foveal and peripheral vision and not a narrowing of attention to a particular point. Focus involves attention that is directed away from the self and allows for consciousness of the self to emerge. This is a pre-requisite of conscious control. 

Focus is a solution for mind-wandering, it is also a solution for anxiety providing one knows how to get there and getting there involves stop. In this respect it is somewhat like meditation or the mindfulness techniques that are becoming popular, it is also somewhat different in that Alexander Technique highlights what Alexander called the Primary Control, which is the relationship between the head, the neck and the torso. If we get this relationship right, our breathing will ease and deepen, we will relax without collapsing, we will lengthen and gain an improvement in our posture. Most of all we will be at our most resourceful for action, as we feel energised and light. 

All this comes from stopping shortening and tightening into action, from knowing that we do not want to tighten our necks, pull our heads back, pull our heads down, shorten our spine and various other simple things. In Alexander though when we think of stopping these things we turn what we do not want into something positive. So we think of our necks being free, our heads going forward and up, our backs lengthening. In the first place all these guiding order or directions as Alexander talked about are inhibitory, they are about stopping something and as you do, the right thing does begin to happen, your neck does free, your head does go forward and up, you do lengthen and you can begin to see and focus on what needs to happen, on what you need to do, on what you want to occur. Stopping is the beginning of action, as well as the end. Stopping is the way we begin again, when life assails us and we need to find freedom, freedom in thought, freedom in action. 

Freedom For Living

A New Year and a new beginning, and the New Year resolution for this blog is to find video clips of people, other than Fred Astaire, who have what, Alexander would have called good use. So expect clips of various actor’s and sports people who have had Alexander Lessons such as Judi Dench, William Hurt, Helena Bonham Carter, Sebastian Coe, Greg Chappell and Mathew Pinsent. Today, there is a clip great Don Bradman, someone who never had Alexander lessons but whose use, Alexander very much admired. He like Astaire, in his chosen field exemplifies good use through his own technique.

Good use, or if you like, good co-ordination in physical activities, is always founded on the principles of poise and balance, which no particular method, technique or activity has a patent on. Alexander himself worked out the principles in his chosen field of using his voice as an actor. What makes him different from people who have worked out the principles with regard to dance, rowing, horse riding, fencing or martial arts, was his realisation that it was possible to be aware of his use in everything he did and to gain a conscious control of himself.

Alexander writings about conscious control are somewhat inaccessible to a modern audience for example, when he writes about conscious control as being ‘Man’s Supreme Inheritance’ – the title of his first book. Yet, in his last book ‘The Universal Constant in Living’, another somewhat inaccessible title, Alexander writes about his work as a practical method for changing behaviour and concludes about the importance of having ‘freedom in thought and action.’

‘Freedom in thought and action’ implies poise, balance and true relaxation, not the state of collapse that people often mistake for relaxation. ‘Freedom in thought and action’ also implies the ability to choose how we go about doing things, the attitudes we take to situations, events, others and ourselves. These are all deeply important if conscious control is to be achieved in its fullest sense. The freedom each person seeks for the most part depends on what is important to them and their individual life histories. For people who seek mastery of a particular activity like the sportsmen and actors named above, it is about both a freedom that helps prevent injury and improves performance.

For my pupils this week, it has been the ability to put one’s own coat on, or to run for the bus without pain injury, simple things yes, but simple things that if you cannot do, leave you with a reducing quality of life and often a narrowing sphere of activity and enjoyment. With other pupils and clients it is a freedom from past behaviours and habits formed in their earliest years, that stop them from being free to be themselves with others. Freedom is always important. The freedom to be, is what makes life worth living and allows people to transcend the most difficult of situations and circumstances – Alexander Technique and PCP are both different ways for seeking the same path and end of a better life, squarely and fairly faced.