DeepThinking - Natural Selection Applied To Professional Development of Alexander's Discovery

Anyone could copy what I have done in Japan. Why doesn't anyone do that? Because it is too dam hard. Right now, I am planning on building a new biz in Japan and I constantly go into overwhelm: How will I do it? Who do I ask for help? How do I convince people about my idea? These are all questions that seek answers, and while in the midst of asking these questions, I easily become emotionally frightened and panicked. Our nervous system is designed to be self referentially stable, yet this is a fiction. Nothing is stable, secure or ever stays the same. However we continue to believe in stability. Our nervous system is designed to be resistant to any unwarranted change. Any idea we cherish will ruthlessly defend itself even in the face of irrefutable facts - it is a wonder of human ingenuity that we are so creative in attempting to stay the same. We fight for what we already know. We fear and shun anything that threatens the spurious stability we yearn for. That's why no-one challenges BodyChance. That's why so few people copy it. Eventually people will, in small ways it has already begun. However, the challenge BodyChance faces, indeed the challenge our profession faces, can be explained by Darwin's process of Natural Selection. Darwin's Natural Selection As It Relates To Our Professional Development Darwin's idea revolves around three primary premises: Generalities give way to differentiation. Differentiation becomes the new generality. Development depends on co-development. A corollary to these is that the environment, not the species, determines survivability. 1. Generalities give way to differentiation. Looking at the development of Alexander's Discovery over the last century, the differentiation of it's delivery and form is shockingly almost non-existent. Teachers are still getting people in and out of chairs, teachers are still working mostly alone, they are generally using the same language and following the same methods outlined in books whose copyright has already expired. What is surprising is that this particular species of Alexander Technique teacher has survived as long as it has. BodyChance abandoned the individual lesson. We roll out Alexander's Discovery in groups, we adopt a different language - a language that resonates with our market. We abandoned the idea that the work is a generality, and started developing a niche approach. We are in an active process of differentiation, and the market is responding positively. For example, in our teacher training program, BodyChance abandoned the idea of a three year, 1600 hour school which was first instigated in 1929 (!) and has barely changed since. This concept of a three year, 1600 hour school has even been enshrined in the constitution of some of the "affiliated societies". OMG. Compared to this, Universities - not exactly renowned as flexible institutions - have demonstrated astronomical differentiation in the years since 1929. 2. Differentiation becomes the new generality. In over a century, there has been scant differentiation in the Alexander community. One outstanding exception is Steven Shaw's "The Art of Swimming" or "The Shaw Method". Steven is a new species that has become a new generality in his chosen field. Talk to Steven and you will hear a CEO who is constantly adapting his organisation to his environment (market). BodyChance Music is a new division of BodyChance Japan - it has it's own studio, logo, full-time staff, students, teacher training school, language and national identity. There are now 7 books targeted specifically to different sectors of this market by niche leader Basil Kritzer. In Darwinian terms, BodyChance Music is a new species i.e. it has become a new generality within the world of classical music. 3. Development depends on co-development. The teaching technology that gave rise to BodyChance was developed by Marjorie Barstow, a towering genius in our community, whose work still sparks controversy. The absence of any of today's leading teacher-training students (myself included) who trained directly with Marj as "Continuing Education Teachers" at the 2015 Limerick International Congress seems natural to me. Marj has spawned a new species of teacher - a differentiation from the generality that Alexander spawned - who carries the potential to render the old species extinct. It is natural to fear this predator. BodyChance already dominates Japan - the chair and table model will be made virtually extinct here, time is the only limiter of that inevitability. In 15 years BodyChance has captured 25% of the total revenue generated by Alexander's Discovery internationally, and it continues to achieve a growth rate of almost 20% annually. Where will our profession be in 30 years? Natural selection is competitive, savage and unrelenting. Alexander Technique teachers may think they are able to control their destiny by creating Societies and making up endless arcane rules to restrict the behaviour of their members, but Natural Selection does not care. Darwin showed that the environment controls the results, not the species. Substitute "environment" for "market" and you have it. BodyChance bows to the market, not ideological niceties, because our survival depends upon it. Darwin showed that species evolved by increasing the variety of methods used to adapt to the environment. The greater the number of variations produced, the better chance one variation would lead to a magnitude of order breakthrough. Luck certainly plays a part. I think this is coming to our profession. I predict that within my own life frame we will witness a convulsion within our profession that will render it extinct, ushering in a new species, a species nimbler and better able to thrive off today's market. It may be horrible to live through: breaking friendships, destroying dreams, making ideas extinct. Evolution is not always pretty. How Do You Achieve Radical Breakthroughs? You change. You create varieties. You spawn new experimental services again and again and again. Most do not survive, but the greater the number produced, the more likely one will. Right now, BodyChance is orchestrating another radical redesign of our education model, based on the market's demand for service, flexibility and utility. I understand that by constantly leading BodyChance in a process of adaptation and change, I increase the likelihood that another lucky happenstance will occur leading to a breakthrough to a new generality. This is the underlying growth engine of BodyChance, and it involves a constant movement from the known to the unknown. This is the work. It seems ironic to me that a discovery, that is by design a blue print to change, should have spawned a Profession so subject to rules and constitutions, that it can no longer adapt to a market that changes at an order of magnitude faster that it does. But no worry, the market rules. It will decide, not you. Adapt.