Curiosity Recaptured

A few years ago, before blogging became prominent,  Mornum Time Press published a book of short essays centred on people's experience of the Alexander Technique -AT. I am not sure whether Jerry Sontag, who edited the book, came up with the title or someone else did, but whoever it was, in choosing 'Curiosity Recaptured', they chose well. For 'Curiosity Recaptured' says something about an attitude to life and to others ,that we can consciously choose, whatever life throws at us. It allows us not just to be curious but to wonder.

I was reminded of the book today, during a conversation with an senior psychotherapist about how they see their work. They described their work with couples, as helping people to make the most conscious adult choices possible, through being curious about the other. It was a nice simple explanation of where dialogue begins, where what Kelly called sociality starts.

Sociality is something that distinguished personal construct psychology back in the 50's. Now psychologists and other psychotherapists are catching up, as they talk about theory of mind and mentalization. Their contributions are all illuminating and helpful but lack something of the clarity of Kelly was getting at. Namely, that in order to play a role with regard to somebody, it is helpful to be able to predict them by being able to 'stand in their shoes' so to speak. The extent to which we can do this helps determines the type of role that we can play.

At a very simple level, this occurs every day while driving or walking along the pavement. Sometimes it goes wrong, as today when I encountered someone walking towards me. We both did that dance that sometimes occurs, with each person trying to step one way and then the other. In this case, our anticipations went astray, we both went the same way and collided. Thankfully this is rare, particularly when driving!

In work and at home we play more complex roles and have to navigate not just relationships with one other, but amongst groups. We need to make sense not just of the individual people involved but of the multiple relationships that exist between people, as well as the relationships horizontal and vertical that exist between the group and the outside world.

Personal Construct Psychology - PCP has some lovely ways of working with these that have been developed by Harry Proctor in the form of Perceiver Element Grids, PEG’s for short. I have used them with both therapy clients and pupils to help them think about the various relationships in their families and most importantly, help them suspend, a PCP word, or inhibit an AT word, old constructs, a PCP word, or conceptions, an AT word.

Whichever words one chooses, whatever theory one starts with, both refer to the same ability of stopping, looking and beginning to see the situation a fresh - as I blogged about last week. It is always a matter of finding our sense of wonder, our sense of curiosity, possibility, no matter what assails, no matter how troublesome a situation or a relationship is. As it is the freshness of being present, that presents the future with new horizons, new vistas, ways forward, whether together or apart.

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.

Merry Christmas Everybody

This is the last blog for three weeks, as I take a well earned rest and it is a short one. below are three clips embodying different types ways of celebrating the season. The first, as I was forced to admit recently, I remember from first time round in 1973 and it everybody is having fun - they are also pulling down, interfering with their poise and balance. From an Alexander point of view this is not the way to go about things but I remember it as fun at the time.

Fun is important, but how you embody it well that can carry a cost or it can be joyful and uplifting, as with the following two clips. The first involves Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers and is here just to prove that you can have fun, joy, poise and balance at the same time. The second is there, to illustrate a different way of being, one that is also poised and balanced.

So, finally the third clip, it is there because it is Christmas, it features my favourite painting and most of all it remind's me of my mum, who died just over three years ago. She always used to listen to the Kings College carol service on the radio and the opening verse always sends shivers up my spine, stills me and tells me Christmas has started, even though she is no longer here.  

What ever you have planned for Christmas and the New Year, have fun and if you can, be poised and balanced whether your are dancing your socks off or singing your heart out with some carols or hymns. Many of which invite you to open your eyes, lift up your heads and open your hearts and the questions is as always, how to do this. Merry Christmas Everybody and a Happy New Year to all when it comes. 

Going Up Stairs 2 - The Steps

How to go up stairs – which of course need to be laid out as step 1, step 2 .....

Step 1: Is to stop at the bottom of the stairs and give yourself a few moments.

Step 2: Is to notice how you probably want to lean forward into the stairs you go up and push off your leading leg. The leaning forward is really a pulling forward that starts with the neck.

Step 3: Keeping your neck free here means not pulling forward, it is an act of inhibition, that if carried out successfully interrupts all previous patterns, it is part of what makes the use of the neck and the head in relation to the torso the primary control. Carried out successfully you will probably feel your weight shift to your heels; do not try to shift your weight directly.

Step 4: Allow your eyes to focus on where you want to go. This is really important, most people go wrong here either by attending directly to themselves, or by concentrating which really just involves holding your breath.

Step 5: Make sure you are carrying out steps 3 and 4 while carrying out any subsequent steps.

Step 6: It is useful to imagine a horizontal plane, one that will move upwards with each step. It is useful here to remember what the old Scottish shepherds used to say about going up hills, which is not lean in to them, but just imagine you are walking on the flat. The horizontal plane is one that you want your forehead to move into. Now rehearse the idea of your forehead moving into the horizontal plane, all the time taking care to make sure that you maintain the step 2 and 3 of not pulling forward with the neck and being focussed, as well as not actually moving the forehead forward. Experientially if you get this right then it usually seems like it is impossible to move without tightening your neck by pulling forward.

Step 7: Now it is time to just allow yourself to go up the stairs and it is important that you accept, that as you move off at the beginning, you will probably pull forward a little bit. That is not only alright but helpful and necessary, as it allows you to build up your awareness of what you need to inhibit and you can improve it next time, until going up stairs becomes easy. You will be using yourself better anyway if you have stopped and thought through the steps outlined above.

Finally, remember as I said last week if you lack Alexander experience then this is something that can generally be quickly and easily taught – just get in touch and we can arrange something. Most of all remember not to take this too seriously, play with it and have fun.

Going Up Stairs

I ran into an old pupil this week, someone I had taught a few years ago. Although he recognised me, he could not immediately place me, what had remained with him was what I had taught him, he had it as an ingrained habit when it came to getting out of a chair or going up stairs. His appreciation of being able to go up stairs easily, echoed a conversation with  a web designer who I had been talking to a couple of days before. They too had, had lessons, although not from me and had found it most useful for going up stairs. Something that Edinburghians can  get a great deal of practice with  in tenements and the various sets of steps that exist across the city. If you add in Edinburgh's various hills, it is a useful place to know, how to easily go up.

In order to change how you go up stairs, to move from it being effortful to easy, you have to change your conception or understanding of the 'how' of your use, and the act. This is constructive conscious control in action, and involves a movement between the understanding or conception and the ability to enact a co-ordinated use of the self.

When it comes to going up stairs, this is what Alexander would have called a physical act and the standard of functioning achieved for him would depend on both the conception of the act to be performed and the ability to then carry it out with a co-ordinated use of the self. Or much more simply and what I tell pupils is that before we act, we need to prepare, and then we need to act. Action, has two stages and the first determines the qualities and standard of the second.

That first stage is when we can start to re-educate ourselves into a different use or co-ordination of ourselves. It is where we need to first, stop or pause, to exercise conscious control for our process of conceiving of what not to do, as much as of what to do. Conceiving  though depends on how we are at the time in ourselves, in other words, on our use and co-ordination, which in turn depends on our conception. We are a ‘strange loop’ moving between phases that we think of as mental and physical, with each always dependent on the other. We are as Alexander said ‘pyscho-physical’, we are as cognitive scientists are saying embodied.

Next week as, I'll give detailed instructions as to the practical steps to going upstairs, which will be easy to follow, if you have some Alexander experience here and can easily and quickly be taught if not.