This will be a highly technical post about the Alexander Technique, not about eyes. I've just had yet another great lesson with Mark and wanted to start sharing some insights. A significant background in Alexander Technique or something similar is recommended for reading it. Also note: Mark Josefsberg is my Alexander Technique teacher (his website).
I am sitting on a chair. Mark points out that my spine looks a little bit compressed. We are discussing what would be "the Alexander way" of dealing with it. Of course, "just sitting up straight" is out of question, since "just doing" is not what we are after, and trying to sit up straight has undesirable consequences. Stretching the arms up could work to decompress the spine, but again, this is not "the Alexander way". I tried just applying directions to free my neck, etc., and it made sitting there a little bit more comfortable, but I still stayed in this mini-slump.
So I contemplate the problem: I want to lengthen my spine without "just doing it", by following "the Alexander way". It suddenly occurs to me that I want to lengthen my spine a bit too much, and that an Alexander way would be to give up trying to lengthen my spine altogether. Mark agrees. He says: "You could choose to lengthen your spine, or you could make a choice to keep your spine compressed."
I: I make a choice to keep your spine compressed.
Mark: Fine, since you've just made that choice, you can stay where you are.
I keep sitting. The awareness that I am in a slight slump comes back, and feel that I don't really want to stay there, that I am just doing it in the spirit of contradiction, because I'd been trying to inhibit. Thus, I feel that this was not a "real" choice, to stay in the slump, and I don't want to be responsible for the consequences (perhaps slight, fleeting stiffness in the back, as a result). I explain this to Mark, and he suggests that I find a way to actually come out of the slight slump, but still following the principles, instead of abandoning my plan altogether.
Then I suddenly remember something that I read, that change happens in the movement. I immediately propose this theory to Mark: that it is much easier to lengthen my spine if I were moving around, doing something else, while applying the Alexander directions, instead of just sitting there in a stiff, fixed position, trying to free my neck and lengthen my spine. He agrees; so I stand up, do something, and sit back down; of course, it helps. However, Mark then asks me to go deeper and to find a way to lengthen my spine without actually standing up.
This really puzzled me. Even though I have surely done similar things before, here I was sitting there, trying to come out of the slump, but finding no good way other than "just doing it" or "standing up and moving around, while applying the directions". The Alexander directions themselves were too weak to completely take me out of the slump; I'd say, they only helped about 5%. However, I recalled this example that Mark always gives. He had a student in the past, a bright, intelligent guy, let's call him Jeff. So Jeff would be sitting in a slump and "just thinking the directions without doing them", and nothing would happen. According to Mark, Jeff misinterpreted the "just thinking part", as "just thinking" doesn't mean that nothing actually happens; just the opposite. In fact, Jeff didn't allow himself to come out of the slump, probably because he subconsciously misinterpreted the word "just" in "just thinking".
So I once again recalled this example and started looking for a way to apply the directions to actually come up. At that moment Mark reminded me that the so that part in the primary directions was so important: free my neck SO THAT my head would move forward and up... I was not doing the "so that" part: I was freeing my neck, but not allowing any movement to happen. Suddenly I found it! I first applied the directions a little bit, to easy up the slump, and then... then I found some other direction (*), perhaps some other neural pathway, in which I could get from weakly issuing directions to actually lifting my self out of the slump, without actually actively telling myself to do it. Instead of starting down the path of taking myself out of the slump, I start down the path of just letting go a bit and applying the directions, and then was able to continue this path to taking myself out of the slump in some other way.
As soon as I did it, I immediately realized that I had done it in the past, yet just a few minutes ago this "some other direction" still seemed impossible. However, it was not clear if Mark noticed all the change that has just happened or how he interpreted it. He pointed out that I allowed to come out of the slump. This was weird. After all, I still had to do something to come out of the slump. I am not referring to the physical things that I had to do, but I had to play with my nervous system to make it issue a certain signal to come out of the slump in a particular, peculiar, nonhabitual way. Yet here he was, talking about "allowing".
Of course, I know that "allow" in this context often just means "soften", "don't end-gain too much", etc. Yet at this moment I took it literally, and it just seemed wrong. It's not like I was trying to come out of the slump and, at the same time, not allowing it to happen. It was more like I was trying to come out of the slump and, at the same time, at first was not able to make it happen in the desirable way. However, when I tried to reproduce the experience a couple of times, I started to notice the "not allowing". I would slightly slump, issue the directions "weakly', reproduce the experience of being unable to come out of the slump without just actually doing it (but not use "some other direction" (*) described above); and then I would observe, what prevented me from actually coming up. Suddenly I started to "see" inside myself this very my own "not allowing". It had a flavor of this idea that you should inhibit, you shouldn't just do things the direct way. By targeting this "not allowing" directly I was able to come out of the slump in yet another, subtly different way (**, different from "the other direction" described above). As I kept working on this one, after a few dozen seconds I started to come out of the slump really, really quickly, almost instantly, as soon as I deactivated this "not allowing". I immediately recalled what I read, I think, in Walter Carrington's lectures: "The right thing does itself, the right things does itself, the right thing does itself!"
It was peculiar that this "not allowing" felt very much like the classical "Alexandrian inhibition". After all, the former is supposed to be bad, whereas the latter is supposed to be good. I conjectured for a minute that the two were, in some sense, the same: inhibition = "not allowing". However, they still felt subtly different: the "not allowing" felt like a black net spread over something; inhibition doesn't feel like that at all. Yet they shared the same pause with nothing happening.
After a quick discussion with Mark I became clear on this one. Inhibition, in the Alexander Technique, is consciously preventing something that would otherwise (habitually) happen. Allowing, in the Alexander Technique, is consciously making something happen that would otherwise (habitually) not happen. They are very much the same thing; the key is conscious control.
Now that I think about it, though, I see that there are two different ways to allow things, but only one way to inhibit. When I sense the stimulus inside myself that is going to lead to some action, I can weaken it (or "let it pass"), and this is inhibition. (I am not sure if there is a difference between weakening and ignoring.) However, if I feel a stimulus that is too weak, such as the stimulus to come out of the slump, I can either strengthen it to allow (allow=make it possible) it to happen. This is what I described above as "some other direction" (*). I can also notice what other stimulus is inhibiting the desirable stimulus, what I described above as "the black net", and inhibit the inhibiting stimulus to eventually allow the desirable stimulus to happen. This is what I described above as "yet another, subtly different way" (**) to come out of the slump. (There are lots of other ways to come out of the slump without "actually doing it", such as using imagery or somewhat related approaches of "using the breath".)
I am sitting on a chair. Mark points out that my spine looks a little bit compressed. We are discussing what would be "the Alexander way" of dealing with it. Of course, "just sitting up straight" is out of question, since "just doing" is not what we are after, and trying to sit up straight has undesirable consequences. Stretching the arms up could work to decompress the spine, but again, this is not "the Alexander way". I tried just applying directions to free my neck, etc., and it made sitting there a little bit more comfortable, but I still stayed in this mini-slump.
So I contemplate the problem: I want to lengthen my spine without "just doing it", by following "the Alexander way". It suddenly occurs to me that I want to lengthen my spine a bit too much, and that an Alexander way would be to give up trying to lengthen my spine altogether. Mark agrees. He says: "You could choose to lengthen your spine, or you could make a choice to keep your spine compressed."
I: I make a choice to keep your spine compressed.
Mark: Fine, since you've just made that choice, you can stay where you are.
I keep sitting. The awareness that I am in a slight slump comes back, and feel that I don't really want to stay there, that I am just doing it in the spirit of contradiction, because I'd been trying to inhibit. Thus, I feel that this was not a "real" choice, to stay in the slump, and I don't want to be responsible for the consequences (perhaps slight, fleeting stiffness in the back, as a result). I explain this to Mark, and he suggests that I find a way to actually come out of the slight slump, but still following the principles, instead of abandoning my plan altogether.
Then I suddenly remember something that I read, that change happens in the movement. I immediately propose this theory to Mark: that it is much easier to lengthen my spine if I were moving around, doing something else, while applying the Alexander directions, instead of just sitting there in a stiff, fixed position, trying to free my neck and lengthen my spine. He agrees; so I stand up, do something, and sit back down; of course, it helps. However, Mark then asks me to go deeper and to find a way to lengthen my spine without actually standing up.
This really puzzled me. Even though I have surely done similar things before, here I was sitting there, trying to come out of the slump, but finding no good way other than "just doing it" or "standing up and moving around, while applying the directions". The Alexander directions themselves were too weak to completely take me out of the slump; I'd say, they only helped about 5%. However, I recalled this example that Mark always gives. He had a student in the past, a bright, intelligent guy, let's call him Jeff. So Jeff would be sitting in a slump and "just thinking the directions without doing them", and nothing would happen. According to Mark, Jeff misinterpreted the "just thinking part", as "just thinking" doesn't mean that nothing actually happens; just the opposite. In fact, Jeff didn't allow himself to come out of the slump, probably because he subconsciously misinterpreted the word "just" in "just thinking".
So I once again recalled this example and started looking for a way to apply the directions to actually come up. At that moment Mark reminded me that the so that part in the primary directions was so important: free my neck SO THAT my head would move forward and up... I was not doing the "so that" part: I was freeing my neck, but not allowing any movement to happen. Suddenly I found it! I first applied the directions a little bit, to easy up the slump, and then... then I found some other direction (*), perhaps some other neural pathway, in which I could get from weakly issuing directions to actually lifting my self out of the slump, without actually actively telling myself to do it. Instead of starting down the path of taking myself out of the slump, I start down the path of just letting go a bit and applying the directions, and then was able to continue this path to taking myself out of the slump in some other way.
As soon as I did it, I immediately realized that I had done it in the past, yet just a few minutes ago this "some other direction" still seemed impossible. However, it was not clear if Mark noticed all the change that has just happened or how he interpreted it. He pointed out that I allowed to come out of the slump. This was weird. After all, I still had to do something to come out of the slump. I am not referring to the physical things that I had to do, but I had to play with my nervous system to make it issue a certain signal to come out of the slump in a particular, peculiar, nonhabitual way. Yet here he was, talking about "allowing".
Of course, I know that "allow" in this context often just means "soften", "don't end-gain too much", etc. Yet at this moment I took it literally, and it just seemed wrong. It's not like I was trying to come out of the slump and, at the same time, not allowing it to happen. It was more like I was trying to come out of the slump and, at the same time, at first was not able to make it happen in the desirable way. However, when I tried to reproduce the experience a couple of times, I started to notice the "not allowing". I would slightly slump, issue the directions "weakly', reproduce the experience of being unable to come out of the slump without just actually doing it (but not use "some other direction" (*) described above); and then I would observe, what prevented me from actually coming up. Suddenly I started to "see" inside myself this very my own "not allowing". It had a flavor of this idea that you should inhibit, you shouldn't just do things the direct way. By targeting this "not allowing" directly I was able to come out of the slump in yet another, subtly different way (**, different from "the other direction" described above). As I kept working on this one, after a few dozen seconds I started to come out of the slump really, really quickly, almost instantly, as soon as I deactivated this "not allowing". I immediately recalled what I read, I think, in Walter Carrington's lectures: "The right thing does itself, the right things does itself, the right thing does itself!"
It was peculiar that this "not allowing" felt very much like the classical "Alexandrian inhibition". After all, the former is supposed to be bad, whereas the latter is supposed to be good. I conjectured for a minute that the two were, in some sense, the same: inhibition = "not allowing". However, they still felt subtly different: the "not allowing" felt like a black net spread over something; inhibition doesn't feel like that at all. Yet they shared the same pause with nothing happening.
After a quick discussion with Mark I became clear on this one. Inhibition, in the Alexander Technique, is consciously preventing something that would otherwise (habitually) happen. Allowing, in the Alexander Technique, is consciously making something happen that would otherwise (habitually) not happen. They are very much the same thing; the key is conscious control.
Now that I think about it, though, I see that there are two different ways to allow things, but only one way to inhibit. When I sense the stimulus inside myself that is going to lead to some action, I can weaken it (or "let it pass"), and this is inhibition. (I am not sure if there is a difference between weakening and ignoring.) However, if I feel a stimulus that is too weak, such as the stimulus to come out of the slump, I can either strengthen it to allow (allow=make it possible) it to happen. This is what I described above as "some other direction" (*). I can also notice what other stimulus is inhibiting the desirable stimulus, what I described above as "the black net", and inhibit the inhibiting stimulus to eventually allow the desirable stimulus to happen. This is what I described above as "yet another, subtly different way" (**) to come out of the slump. (There are lots of other ways to come out of the slump without "actually doing it", such as using imagery or somewhat related approaches of "using the breath".)
No comments:
Post a Comment