The King is Dead, Long Live the King

Alexander died on October 10th, 1955, but did he really? He still lives in the minds and hearts of many of his followers. It's a blessing and a curse. Twirling around the air at my school in Japan, you can often catch the phrase… "Is that really the Alexander Technique?" My answer these days: the only person who can definitively say is dead. Yet our imagined answer - pulling in FM's full authority - is brandied about like a gun at anyone who dares to stray from the fold. I know, because I have been scorned only recently: a favoured technique is to quote scripture from the four gospels books as evidence of skylarking ways. It's an intention of BodyChance education to challenge every student on that point. Every now and again in class I ask: "Hands up those people who have seen some teaching at BodyChance which they feel is not the Alexander Technique?" And a room full of hands shoot up. Good, I think, I am doing my job right. There is no Alexander Technique that exists outside of your idea of it, and a purpose of BodyChance Education is to stimulate you to figure this out for your self. It's a luxury I can afford, quite literally, through the economics of my college. I taught the Continuing Education classes at the first Lugano conference, along with another 22 teachers picked for the honourable job, and I was delighted to note that 6 of those 23 were annual visitors to BodyChance. Wow, I thought, my students really do experience the cream of our community. The very best. When you get teachers at that level, they know who they are. They know what "their" Alexander Technique is all about, and the differences between them are outstanding. My students spend their first year in almost total confusion - will the real Alexander Technique please stand up? Eventually they come to understand that it is not my job to explain that to them - it is their job to figure it out on their own. So they start sorting through the various models presented to them, and over the four years find themselves slowly arriving at their own version of Alexander Technique. In next month's online workshop, this is one area we will be exploring together: how your idea of the work is impinging on your ability to be creative, experimental and pushing the envelope of your own beliefs? What is the Real Alexander Technique (for you)? Guilt was the primary emotion that dominated my efforts to re-engineer my teaching in light of the stupendous innovations I started experiencing through Marjorie Barstow's version of Alexander Technique. (In fact, Marj avoided saying Alexander Technique, and instead talked about "Alexander's Discoveries." I prefer that, but unfortunately Google's search algorithm does not.) So to-day, let's look at the prising open the envelope of our limiting definitions…

My guilt was all about the moment of taking off my hands and asking questions. I remember one student, who was a high echelon executive with Sony, coming because of panic attacks, who would use her lesson time asking incredibly deep questions that occupied most of lesson. I'd get agitated inside thinking "I can't do all this talking. I've got to get my hands on her." My primary Alexander Technique definition position being "If I don't touch them, I am not teaching." Today I value touch as a teaching tool very highly, but it does not bother me if I give a lesson without touching (although that rarely happens). It's more in the lesson - engaging my students thinking, asking them questions, getting them to define "What is Alexander Technique?" Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to ask a few of your students - or ask your Self - what you think this work is about? Which is asking: what do you understand is the process you use when you are on your own? If you really listen, you will be amazed by their answers, and it will inform how you teach them as you move on.