Little things with big impact

Every environment you visit on a regular basis becomes co-creator of habits. Even before I started learning Alexander Technique, I had developed a kind of sense for the new (and some of the typical) ways of interaction in serendipitous situations.

Going to school certainly fosters new habits, and usually you will encounter a schedule or timetables as frame to attach various new behaviour patterns to. Luckily, David's school for Alexander Studies prevents 'over-habitualisation' by inviting one or two 'master teachers' per term, interrupting the routine and offering fresh perspectives.

Cathy Madden visits our school at the moment, for the third time while I study there. I still remember some of her observation from prior visits. She reminded me to use my clavicles when I move my arm, she encouraged me to investigate my speech patterns by switching between German and English, and besides that provided a great example of applying AT when she worked with our group.

I felt quite elated and 'ready for action' after both days of Cathy's weekend workshop, although I didn't seem to have advanced much. However, just by attending the workshop I surrounded myself by a nurturing, positive environment with the opportunity to learn more about a different approach to teach the technique.

Cathy knows well the typical Alexander lingo, yet she doesn't bring up such terms unless requested to. Her language keeps simple, and with questions gentler than a lot of AT teachers hand she elicits useful information from the student.

She picked up on my habit of stating a lot of things in directly and indirectly negative ways, by noticing a shortening when airing bits of negativity. I had a great learning moment when I observed this pattern in another student, and Cathy's elegant way to reframe the students desire in positive terms. Even without Cathy's explicit reminder my understanding of this pattern grew, and confirmed the usefulness of simply observing a good teacher in action.

I missed the opportunity to ask her to help me teaching until today, and still needed to convince myself that I wanted to get up and do it. I had a positive intent how to approach the situation, but noticed that I lost my coordination pretty fast. More precisely, when I wanted to speak more activity than needed happened. Cathy stopped me and put her hands on, while I had my next go in talking to my student.

I could not figure out what I did in this critical moment, and Cathy went on to explain bits about the mechanics of voice production. She noticed that I pulled my tongue back to produce sounds, so she simply asked me first to hum, and then to speak trusting that I don't need to do this.

I guess I must have looked quite surprised when I played around with a new pathway to make some noise. All of a sudden, the tiny movement my tongue made stood out sufficiently to allow me to let go of it, to reorganise myself so that I have a new plan I can follow when I want to speak.

I wonder what else I do with my tongue, yet it seems blindingly obvious that additional tension in my tongue affects my neck, and therefore my entire coordination. Playing around with speaking still feels odd. Allowing my tongue to do less seems to reactivate saliva production, and sometimes I get the impression that my speech gets a bit slurry.

The tiny bit of information about me pulling my tongue back to 'prepare' for sound production took an entire mountain off my chest. At some point of my journey of learning the technique I came across the fact that I did something extra to speak. Not knowing what but noticing that 'I did it again' became a relatively steady source of frustration, and contributed to the diffuse perception of my social awkwardness.

Besides observance, guidance with our hands, verbal explanations we teach AT by applying its principles, using subconscious mechanisms to model freedom in activity. My concern about dis-coordinating myself while speaking slowly dissolves, and I look forward using my voice in a new way.

Wholeness

Cathy did a bit of quick-ease to start today's session, and then demonstrated her way to give an introduction, in this case directed towards IT workers. I really enjoyed watching her in action, as she definately walks her talk. She stressed the importance to relate to her audience, choosing examples that are easy to follow along. Also, she didn't use her hands until the participants started experimenting themselves.

Using a simple movement to demonstrate the difference between a deliberately distorted head-neck relationsship involves the participants, gives the teacher plenty of opportunity to observe pattern, and gives the participants the experience of choosing 'the easier way' themselves, without anything else but a change in thinking.

The getting involved part continued. Split up in groups we had the task to solve a puzzle, putting a spine together. Again, Cathy could observe our use while we did this, but we could enjoy 'playing' with essential knowledge, in this case the structure and curvature of the spine.

After the break I had the pleasure of improving my CJing with Cathy's help. I clearly remembered the observation about my immobile clavicles, and they still don't move too much. I learned CJ with some strong habits, as my shoulder girdle gets freeer I need to clarify my intent. It's a good chance to observe how much time I still waste with feeling/checking it out.

Her answer to Jim's question that reaffirmed the body-mind split stunned me: Whole. Pause. This part of the job seems really tricky, guiding a student's language and thinking towards wholeness, without disregarding their inquiries. A lot of my questions during the process of learning the work evaporated into meaninglessness with the trust in wholeness, yet this paradigm seems quite foreign to many.

Group work

My turn with Duncan turned out a bit confrontational. I felt like reducing the amount of stimuli by doing table work, yet he went down a different road. I went into the typical twist - wanting to answer his questions (probably with tensed neck and shoulders), while having to life with him stopping me from doing so.

I feel pretty much drained at the end of my first term, though I look forward to the residential, without knowing how this total immersion will work out. Although I like the idea of "quickening the mind" (in FM's words), I fail to see this happening to a larger extend with my fellow students.

I had some lengthy conversation with Bo, trying to tie AT principles into the chat about the use of digital cameras. The communicative aspect of the work appears much easier at the moment to me than observation and hands-on, although it challenges me a lot (especially to keep my directions while doing so).

Libby's group work really made my day. We played with resistance, assistance and neutral while doing chair work. Even though I didn't manage to sense the level of connectedness with Jane and Jen, the I distinguished the quality of movement in the different modes. Especially availability feels very distinct from resistance and assistance.

Working with Gen and Cal felt easy, probably as they direct themselves already very good. I realised that thinking directions helps connecting, yet moving people involves an activity. I need to find the fine line between directing while moving and pushing. I enjoyed the partner work with Cal a lot - she gives very precise feedback, and directs herself very good, which makes it easy for me to stay in my body while working with her.

Ann had her group of year 2 students preparing some group work, which we tried with everyone. I couldn't resist to play devil's advocate, yet I realised that not everyone takes criticism as feedback. Kaz, having his doubts about AT at the moment, provided the most fun way to do group work, using the snap gard came to demonstrate the principle of inhibition.

Undoing oneself doesn't come easy, and the perception of one's identity, or ego, stands mostly in the way. On a mental level, the ego prevents most people from changing their habits of thinking, and working on this opens a difficult battlefield.