The Personality of Posture

“Talk about a man’s individuality and character: it’s the way he uses himself.”
F.M. Alexander, Teaching Aphorism.

***

For those unfamiliar with the emerging neuroscientific view of Alexander’s discoveries – here it is in a nutshell….

FM discovered a vast unconscious network of neuro-muscular control operating interdependently with voluntary movements. (You better read that again)

When you decide to move an arm or jump over a puddle, an enormous amount of processing power is (unconsciously) deployed to calibrate your whole self so that your specific voluntary (conscious) action happens smoothly. Sir Charles Sherrington – the father of neuroscience – put it another way:

“The human being in the act of standing is constantly at the edge of catastrophe.”

This system is how we avoid catastrophe. 

For want of a better name, I call this alternate system your Postural Support (PS) system - it coordinates your conscious wish with 500 million years of evolutionary development. However, you can’t read about it in any neuroscience books. 

YET.

But you sure can feel it when you take lessons with a genuine Alexander Teacher.*

A teacher will touch you lightly with their hands, and from this special touch, you experience subtle - often miraculous - changes that seem to appear from nowhere. This is because Postural Support is not under your direct cognitive control – it’s more like temperature or blood pressure control. It happens without you even knowing it is happening. Alexander teachers help you identify this system within.

The consistent hallmark of this experience is happier, lighter and freer.

As an actor – or performer of any kind – it is essential that you identify and start harmonising this binary system of postural and voluntary movements to express your artistic intentions. However, you are shaped by the time you reach early adulthood.

And there’s the rub.

Because we are unconscious of this postural system – we are also unconscious of how we express our personality through movement. Others can see of course, but most often, we can not. So the actor always looks the same, is limited in range and may even experience vocal and physical problems due to poorly coordinated postural and voluntary movements.

My “Alexander Character Work” classes aim to identify the personality of posture, which opens up an awareness of your personality’s physicality. It also helps therapists identify the kind of client they are dealing with.

The tool for opening up personality is the remarkable Enneatyping personality system I wrote about yesterday. [KHOA – PUT LINK UNDER TO YESTERDAY’S BLOG THEN DELETE THIS!] In each class, I will direct you to play one of the nine types, and in each class, we will notice a new person being brilliant playing a character – because they are so close to that type!

More details and a video from me here:

https://workshop.upsnews.co.jp/?p=9229&post_type=events&preview=1&_ppp=8d194cfda5

* In Japan, the 140 teachers who trained at my BodyChance school spent an average of 5-7 years completing their training. Lots of people can talk the talk, but only a properly trained teacher can use their touch in the unique “Alexander” way to wake you up into a wondrous universe you never knew existed.