Alexander’s Mysterious 2nd Discovery

Regular readers of Chancer’s Daily know I write about “Alexander’s Discovery” in the singular form.

But there’s more. There’s a 2nd (even a 3rd) Alexander Discovery.

That’s a pleasant surprise waiting for those who decide to take lessons. For the next few days, I am going to try to describe FM’s second discovery…

FM’s first discovery was understanding how our head/spinal coordination influences everything we do, from breathing & digestion to playing a musical instrument. Once you understand that, the question arises -  how do you restore that mechanism once it starts dysfunctioning?

This question leads you to Alexander’s 2nd discovery.

Alexander 2nd discovery is about the role of conscious, intentional thinking in bringing about Postural change.

Generally, people thoroughly misunderstand and abuse this ability, with severe consequences, both in the arts and in general health.

For example, perhaps they are watching some poor fellow on YouTube who is trying to teach you “a power walk”, and he instructs you to do all sorts of things you’re your spine, arms and legs, even your face. People listen and try to follow the YouTuber’s instructions, innocently believing this will somehow improve upon what they have.

This behaviour is the norm for our Society: the direct approach. Moving your body into a position you think it needs to be in.

For example: when you were young at school you were told to “sit up” and “pull the shoulders back” and lots of other deliberate, doable instructions about breathing and running and playing sports. 

And like good little boys and girls, most of us did what we were told, leading to a modern-day mess where the vast majority of people are suffering from some kind of posturally-related ailment.

The problem with this apparently reasonable approach is (and read several times very carefully):

You cannot tell a person what to do, because the thing they need to do is outside of any concept or experience they currently have.

And this is where it gets tricky - and why I usually avoid trying to write about it until I have you in my Studio. There, I can use my touch to communicate and circumnavigate your prejudicial ideas…

Alexander put it this way:

***

“The right thing to do would be the last thing we should do left to ourselves, because it would be the last thing we should think would be the right thing to do.”

“自然に任せておけば、我々が正しいことをするのは最後になるだろう。なぜなら、我々が
何をするのが正しいかということを考えるのは最後だろうから。”

***

When you try to change your Posture directly, you are using a defective idea of right and wrong to do it. This idea itself is the thing that needs to change, and that is an altogether different process.

Changing your idea means changing your thinking.

How to think for managing your Postural coordination is Alexander’s 2nd discovery. 

Sometimes it drives trainees at BodyChance nuts. 

Because what do you think about? 

In Alexander’s heyday, they talked about “giving directions” which turned out to be an inexact science that leads to a lot of, frankly, weird ideas. Our habit of thinking is not something we have ever given much time to consider – FM talked a lot about that in his first book, MSI.

What’s critical is to appreciate the difference between feeling and thinking deeply.

It begins with amassing accurate information – and you can see how this works by watching Greg Holdaway teach over three nights in Osaka in his “Super-Sized BodyThinking Course” videos.

These videos are part of a Super-Sized package that also includes:

- BodyChance’s BodyThinking Online course. A comprehensive fact-bursting series of 66 videos that help expose delusional ideas you might currently have about movement, and more factually based clear ways to think about “giving directions” – both primary and secondary, for those familiar with FM’s books.

- Jeremy Chance’s 1-Day BodyThinking workshop: talks, activities and games that explore the BodyThinking Online course information playfully.

- 5 recordings of BT coaching sessions which cover a wide range of Alexander-related topics. 

- And, another big prize, all the videos from BodyChance recent Symposium on “How to Teach Online (by example)” with Cathy Madden, Lucia Walker, Greg Holdaway and Malcolm Balk.

Although individual parts of this offer previously sold for a total of $1,879, it’s available at the moment for $140 as a first payment, then four more times.

Read more about the offer and BodyThinking here
:
https://bodychance.mykajabi.com/store/oTZvjLye