Berlin Hates Me - Is it True?

I have a fanciful idea - rather arrogant as it turns out - that my ego is in check, and I don’t suffer from narcissistic tendencies.

Well, life delivered me a sharp rebuke that I do.

Escaping the devastation of this rebuke has occupied many of my waking hours since. And for that work, the key tool I had was my ability to gather new information to consider how I could construct an alternate reality from the one I was drowning in. In Alexander’s work, we call this thoughtful intelligence Conscious Constructive Control of the Individual or CCCI for short.

Let me digress into that a little…

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To reveal Alexander’s Discovery - rather like realising Einstein’s Theory of Relativity - we use this tool of CCCI. In my previous cheeky email (read the URL)…

https://atsuccess.com/blog/2022/08/why-alexander-technique-silly-name-our-profession-part-ii.html

…I suggested that our Profession sometimes seems to live in the misguided notion that Alexander’s Discovery is all about CCCI. Of course, CCCI is integral to our work! But the notion that this “tool” of living is somehow exclusive to us is arrogant in the extreme. 

We don’t have a patent on CCCI. 

Buddha nabbed that one first 2,500 years ago.

Instead, Alexander revealed to others how CCCI is inextricably necessary for restoring your Postural Support System. PSS for short. That PSS exists - and that it can be “restored” to optimal functioning through CCCI - is the critical insight or discovery of Mr F. M. Alexander.

What do you think he was doing in front of his mirror for successive days and weeks and sometimes even months? He was developing his “thinking in activity” abilities by streaming out a sequence of directions to…

Streaming directions to what?

To his PSS, that’s what.

FM identified his Postural Support System (PSS) as his “Conditions of Use” - as opposed to his “Manner of Use”, which I’ll get to in a bit.

Now for those unfamiliar with the model proposed by three Alexander Scientists (Tim Caccicatore, Patrick Johnson and Rajal Cohen) - in 2020, they published a paper in Kinesiology Review* that proposed that we have TWO parallel systems of motor control. (Apologies to them for dumbing it down). However, there is little that scientifically refutes this model together with a mass of anecdotal evidence that supports it. So far.

The most obvious and familiar of these two motor control systems is your Voluntary Movement System. VMS for short. Most postural improvement systems on this planet - from the sophisticated and detailed Pilates system through to the archaic “shoulder back, spine straight” variety - all rely on VMS. 

And there’s the rub! - to burrow from Hamlet.

Because the fundamental determinator for the quality of your coordination is not VMS, but PSS, an unconsciously guided motor control system originating more deeply from our reptilian brains. It’s why toddlers move so well. But, on the other hand, VMS is conscious and all about “manner of use”, i.e. how you swing the golf club, play the clarinet or walk down the street. 

PSS holds it all together while VMS guides what you do.

PSS is an unconscious system that CAN NOT be controlled directly, any more than you can raise or lower your temperature at will. Just willing a change in your posture is futile, indeed more than futile - it is positively damaging. It takes years of dedicated application to establish a viable link in your biopsychosocial Self between CCCI and this subliminal motor control system. 

We call those all those years an “Alexander Technique training”.

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So getting back to my personal story - PSS is where my ego materially holds on to itself. 

When I heard from the beautiful Rossella that two of my Congress workshops had only 3 enrollments - and another two were in single digits - my PSS went into shutdown. I collapsed to put it more colloquially. I cratered. I wondered why I was here, why I had put so much time and effort into crafting my work. I was bereft and defeated…

CCCI to the rescue !

But how was CCCI to rescue me? 

Frankly, Byron Katie’s work was the most useful in healing my deflated ego and guiding my Self back into a serene and happy universe. And in Katie’s work, the 4th Question - “Who would you without the thought?” - was enriched and optimised through my mastery of Alexander’s Discovery.

Because imagining a world different from the one my ego would have me believe - which is the purpose of the 4th Question - was amplified by my Alexandrian ability to use CCCI to move my head and whole Self (PSS) out of the black hole of my despair.

Your Postural Support System (PSS) is the reservoir of your identity.

Now I am delighted to have such small groups - much less demanding, an opportunity to know them personally and a possibility of making a real difference in their lives. And I also know - with all their myriad choices - that they deliberately chose to be with me.

And that makes me happy. And cry.

Ego be blessed.

*Potential mechanisms of the Alexander Technique: Toward a comprehensive neurophysiological model Kinesiology Review 2020; 9:199–213 Timothy W Cacciatore, Patrick M Johnson, Rajal G Cohen