Fear & Loathing in Kings Cross

Kings Cross is the red light district of Sydney.

Drugs, prostitution and all kinds of violent criminal behaviour are part of a typical day in the Cross. And there I was standing one evening - having locked myself out of my car - trying to escape an overwhelming force of insight that had been frightening the bejesus out of me.

However, I was feeling normal again, and beginning to think I was overestimating my experience. I slowly began to walk home to get my spare keys…

And that is when it happened.

It was as though God put a pair of filtering glasses on my eyes so I could see varying degrees of pain, mistrust and fear in all those I passed on the street.

It was an extraordinary experience that I have never been able to repeat.

Most striking was a lovers couple I passed - to all appearances joking and joyful together. Yet I could see clearly how their laughter disguised insecurities. The girl leaned in close, holding on and looking up into his face as he “the partner” walked tall while looking ahead with a stoic smile, pretending to listen to her whispered entreaties, but off in his own dream world.

Instead of seeing a cacophony of different emotions, I saw only one.

Distrust & fear.

The experience was so striking that I wondered – how do I know this? What am I seeing that makes it so clear that these people are all in fear of each other?

That was when I realised what was common to them all – a downward pressure of the head on spine, dislocating the natural coordination of arms and legs, lending each person a unique “fear-stamped” postural identity.

It was an adventitious identity – not a part of who they were - but burrowed by ignorance and welded down by fear.

At that moment I realised what my future was.

“Alexander discovered a mechanism of fear and love”

I had a job to let others know about it.

Since that time – now nearly 50 years ago – I have used my life to underline that Alexander discovered a postural mechanism wired into our emotional identity. 

As one neuroscientist put it, Alexander identified a neurological mechanism in human beings that you can not find described in any scientific literature. When you experience the regular touch of an Alexscovery teacher – you do not doubt its existence. You can feel it come alive through your teacher’s hand-touching communication.

The results of utilising this mechanism are often miraculous in how they affect pain, performance and identity. But it takes one teacher thousands of hours of practice to reach a sufficient level of professional skill to elicit these kinds of responses.

I understood that night how fundamental Alexander’s Discovery would eventually become to universal human health.