Review written by Katie Knipp
“The body is our instrument for fulfilling our purpose on earth.”
In Body Learning, Michael Gelb breaks down the principles of the Alexander Technique to a contemporary audience. Gelb creates a clear picture of what the technique is, and how using it can better one’s life. I found many connections between Alexander Technique and Lucid Body, and I also discovered new ways to articulate Lucid Body principles.
Gelb introduces Alexander technique by breaking down each of the seven principles of the technique. They are:
· Use and Functioning
· The Whole Person
· Primary Control
· Unreliable Sensory Appreciation
· Inhibition
· Direction
· Means Whereby
“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.”
Use
“Use” was Alexander’s first major discovery of his body and the way it works, and he concluded that his “manner of doing” did indeed affect his functioning. For example, he realized that the way he was holding his neck affected his ability to project his voice without strain. When we use ourselves incorrectly, some body parts do too much work, while others do too little resulting in unbalanced coordination. He called the choices we make about what to do with ourselves, “Use.” This is a subtle observation, and one that is largely overlooked among most people because bad Use does not have immediate or obvious serious consequences. (However, Gelb states that actors and performers flock to this sort of awareness, because their quality of Use “directly affects their ability to make a living.”) People have habitual tensions from performing a certain action repeatedly—whether it be typing at a computer, or holding heavy bags–and over time those habitual tensions are maintained even when the person is not involved in the action. While these habits may be overlooked for a long time—eventually it can lead to severe disease and pain.
In this analysis, Alexander realized he had much more potential than he had been using at the time. By applying the Alexander Technique, one can reverse unhealthy Use, and replace bad habits with more efficient ones. As I read about Use, and how the Alexander Technique works to make change, I saw connections to Lucid Body principles. Gelb explains, “it helps to become aware of the ‘repertoire’ of posture and habit associated with emotional patterns. What do I do with myself when I’m depressed, afraid, nervous, insincere, happy, or attentive?” He also discussed muscle memory, which is a huge Lucid Body focus. “We tend to hold the ‘memory’ of a traumatic experience in a particular part of the body. This muscular memory in time becomes part of the total pattern and is incorporated into an individual’s Use of himself.” Lucid Body focuses on similar physical and emotional awareness. Lucid Body then works toward finding new avenues in expressing those emotions—through acting out the unfamiliar, or unknown parts of self. I believe this also helps to change those bad habits and improve a person’s overall Use. Gelb suggests that the Use-change process is slow and subtle, and that changes happen, but over a gradual period of time. I think Lucid Body is a little more aggressive in bringing up transformation in the student. However, I think that for both techniques, once the change occurs, the new habits formed are “flexible and can themselves be changed.” And not just physical flexibility, but “even in opinion and philosophy.”
“Real opposition is not between reason and habit, but between routine unintelligent habit and intelligent habit or art.”
The Whole Person
Alexander Technique’s next principle is the concept of the “Whole Person.” In other words, the technique believes that all the elements of a human being; the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, energetic, are all connected and affect one another. Gelb states, “we often behave as though we were not one whole system but a compilation of different little personalities.” This results in an “uneconomical use of energy- emotions doing work of intellect, shoulders doing work of the back.” In trying to improve one part of ourselves, we inevitably produce “a compensatory maladjustment somewhere else.” Looking at the human as a whole, will then allow for more effective diagnosis of what should be changed and how to make the change. This is the same eastern medicinal concept upon which Lucid Body was formed.
“The patterns of misuse are not simply physical. They involve the whole of the body and mind.”
Primary Control
The first place to analyze and then make changes is at the “Primary Control,” which Gelb explains is the “dynamic relationship of the head, neck, and torso, and is the primary factor in organizing human movement.” He uses an example of what he calls a “Startle Pattern.” This is a stereotyped response to sudden noise. For almost every person, the Startle Pattern begins with a “disturbance of the head-neck-torso relationship, followed by a raising of the shoulders and a tensing of the chest and knees.” He then states that the majority of people spend much of their time in a “modified form of the startle pattern [and] in many elderly people it [has] become a fixed way of being.” Changing the habits of the Primary Control area of the body will inevitably trickle down to changing habits throughout the rest of the body. This helps me to better understand the importance of Fay’s lesson about the head and where it should sit on the spine (yes yes yes with the top of the head.)
Unreliable Sensory Appreciation
As Alexander was discovering his own bad Use of his Primary Control and indeed his Whole Person, he came up against an overwhelming force of habit. Gelb states, “the stimulus to misuse himself, was much stronger than his abilities to change.” He discovered that what felt “right” to him was actually “wrong.” This is Unreliable Sensory Appreciation. Gelb goes into detail explaining the science behind this. The synapses in our brain actually re-wire themselves once we create bad habits. The brain expects to receive certain feedback from the nerves and muscles, and when the actual feedback does not match, the brain sends messages for corrective action. However, lifelong misuse can make the entire system go wrong. The brain stops sending these corrective messages, and instead “reports that ‘all is correct’ when in fact all is very wrong.”
However, Gelb assures the reader through training, it is possible to make the feelings trustworthy again. “Soon intuition begins to be a more valuable tool, and it becomes more difficult to fool ourselves.”
Inhibition
The first method Alexander suggests in which to change Unreliable Sensory Appreciation is “Inhibition,” which is the ability to stop and delay our response until we are adequately prepared to make it—with better Use. Inhibition does NOT sound like a useful acting term, but the more I read about it, the more I realized its extreme importance. Gelb clarifies, “this ‘stopping off’ process does not involve ‘freezing’ in place or suppressing spontaneity. Rather, it is a matter of consciously refusing to respond in a stereotyped manner so that true spontaneity can manifest itself.”
“We must choose those elements of our environment that are worth responding to.”
Direction
After Inhibition, “Direction” is the logical next step. However, Direction in Alexander Technique is not about “doing” more, because that inevitably creates overcompensation, which results in an equal or greater misuse in the opposite direction. For instance, most people—when needing to pay attention—“either have their minds wander, or have over-fixated concentration.” In Alexander’s own process he realized he had to give up any attempt to ‘do’ anything, and would instead consciously think through a pattern described in words such as, “allow the neck to be free to let the head go forward and up so that the back may lengthen and widen.” Gelb explains that Direction is simply a matter of thinking: ‘up, ’which energizes the anti-gravity mechanism (Primary Control) that effortlessly supports the body. This provides an invaluable experience with the example of paying attention. Attention in the Alexandrian sense involves a balanced awareness of oneself and one’s surroundings with an “easy emphasis on whatever is particularly relevant at the moment.”
“Attention can become something we give rather than something we have to pay.”
Gelb discussed the importance of teachers during the Inhibition and Direction chapters of the book. One of the first exercises in an Alexander Technique class is to allow the teacher to move the student’s arm without the student interfering. “Almost invariably the student responds by interfering with the movement, often at a surprisingly gross level.” However, he explains that once this process of interference has been pointed out, the student can begin to “use the powers of attention to prevent the unnecessary response.” It is the teacher who points out this interference in the student, and then discusses how the powers of attention can make the change. This is an important duty; one that Gelb feels should be very carefully and specifically approached. “The discussion is not a diagnosis, rather the teacher uses words in such a way as to enable the pupil to understand for herself the manifestations of her habitual interference. A pupil develops the ability to stop responding in her habitual way, when she so chooses, first through her own motivations, insight, and powers of attention and, second, with the help of manual guidance. The teacher’s hands serve not only to prevent interference with the Primary Control but also to convey a quieting, calming influence.”
Means Whereby
For me, this was maybe the most helpful of the Alexander principles. “Means Whereby” as stated by Gelb, is “giving up all thought of the end (i.e. the goal), and focusing instead on the steps leading to that end.” Alexander calls this the Means Whereby. If we want to make a change, but have the goal so burned into our brains, we will plow through all of our complexities in trying to achieve the goal—he calls this “engaining.” Again, overcompensation is the only result. Gelb states about Alexander himself, “by paying attention to the quality of his action rather than to his specific goal, he began to free himself from his unreasoned control of his organism.” The Means Whereby principle suggests that each step is an end. There is no end except to inhibit the response. Then to think up and expand. Each step is the end, until the next step occurs. Gelb states, “until one takes intermediate acts seriously enough to treat them as ends, one wastes one’s time in any effort to change habits.” Infants can teach us about this. They have a capacity to learn that absolutely dwarfs an adult’s. Infants learn in a way that “their mistakes become part of the experience, and they are totally undaunted by failure, feeling no disgrace or embarrassment, only a renewed desire to go on exploring.”
Means Whereby is another way to articulate the presence of mind that the Lucid Body Non-Judgmental Mind principle seeks to create. Lucid Body teaches that in those moments of non-presence (whether it be judgmental or endgaining thought) one simply gives attention to the breath, the muscles moving, the sensation produced, and then what emotions are being expressed through the movement.
“At ‘peak’ or ‘creative’ moments, I find that the distinction between ends and means disappears…I am left with a feeling of the Eternal Present Moment.”
In the latter portion of the book, Gelb turns the focus to the ways in which Alexander Technique improves one’s ability to learn. He discusses his own relationship with learning, as well as Western methods of education; and he calls Alexander Technique, “psychophysical re-education.” (I think Lucid Body should adopt that phrase.) He says one of the biggest problems with most education is that success and failure are too prioritized. He states, “we destroy [a student’s] capacity [to learn] by making them afraid, afraid of not doing what other people want, or not pleasing, of making mistakes, of failing, of being wrong. Thus, we make them afraid to gamble, afraid to experiment, afraid to try the difficult and unknown.” In his own learning process, Gelb admits that he “generally avoided the new and unfamiliar, concentrating instead on things at which [he] was already good.” During most of his formal education, learning was an unpleasant process, either something that seemed difficult and a possessed a sense of drudgery, or felt like hoops to jump through to receive an award. He states, “I was brought up to believe that the harder I tried, the more I would learn, but in Alexander lessons you can not do anything to improve.” It is more about letting go. Once he started applying his Alexander lessons to other facets of his life, he was able to enjoy learning, and learn many new things including juggling, archery, and how to properly swim and run. “My organism now appears to be capable of much more than I had ever imagined it could be—so long as I do not get in the way.” Alexander Technique teaches that instead of remaining in the extremes of discipline–either being over-focused or lazy–one can acquire an inner freedom that allows the body and mind to work in harmony, and is the true definition of self-discipline.
“The essence of the Alexander Technique is to make ourselves more susceptible to grace.”
Lastly, I found very helpful Gelb’s discussion of teaching the Alexander technique. One of the primary goals for a teacher during an Alexander lesson is to help the students learn about themselves more clearly. This is the same primary goal for a Lucid Body Basics class. Gelb states that the first thing to deal with is the individual’s fear, which inhibits the “ability to respond freely and to function naturally.” He also mentions the importance of Means-Whereby in a classroom, that the students should feel the sense of each step of the journey having its own focus—and not forcing a result. He states that there is a “delicate balance between ends and means, control and spontaneity, doing and non-doing. [This is] the heart of the technique—give up trying too hard, but never [giving] up.”
Gelb speaks to how an Alexander teacher should instruct her students stating, “a teacher of Alexander technique must practice what she preaches. In order to teach properly, a teacher must work on herself continually. For only after a certain standard has been reached can work on others begin. Every time a teacher puts a hand on a pupil she must be working on herself, inhibiting her habitual reactions and consciously directing her Use.” As Gelb states, good teachers in all disciplines strive to embody similar qualities: patience, compassion, humor, creativity and a commitment to bring out the best in [the student].”
“When an investigation comes to be made, it will be found that every single thing we are doing in the work is exactly what is being done in the nature where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously.” ~F.M. Alexander