Why Do Alexander People Love Straight Lines? (Part II)

There's this awful, horrible, no-good, dreadful experiment they do with cats.

They remove the cerebrum of a cat. The cerebrum is the upper part of the brain, which is divided into two cerebral hemispheres. In humans, it is the largest part of the brain and is the seat of motor and sensory functions, and the higher mental functions such as consciousness, thought, reason, emotion, and memory.

What is left after doing such a horrible thing?

While decerebrate animals can adapt locomotor behaviours to respond to new environmental conditions, it is only in a very primitive and mechanical way.

Sir Charles Sherrington loved all these things – remember him? 

Today he is referred to as one of the fathers of Neuroscience.

This Nobel-winning scientist was also an advocate of Alexander's discovery. He wrote:

“Mr Alexander has done a service to the subject by insistently treating each act as involving the whole integrated individual, the whole psycho-physical man. To take a step is an affair, not of this or that limb solely, but of the total neuro-muscular activity of the moment — not least of the head and neck.” 

Anyway, back to our poor decerebrates.

They are basically like Zombies in those B-Grade movies you've seen – relentlessly moving forward, glassy-eyed, without any real cognition of what is happening. Able to change direction, but only through the influence of external obstructions.

Why am I saying all this?

Because Alexander students sometimes resemble these Zombies. "Alexandroids" is a common label used amongst Alexscovery teachers to describe students who enter into this straight-walking trance.

It's so common, so universal in all new students. They get this dumbed-down glazed look, and they start moving straight forward as though possessed by something. And they continue walking towards the wall, with no thought of how ridiculous that is until they finally reach it.

We love experiencing our ancient postural mechanism working unencumbered by dislocating beliefs. 

A behaviour typical enough to have its own label suggests the influence of some universal mechanism. Looking historically at the "teaching procedures" our Profession has evolved, they ain't a lot of curves about. Chairwork, monkey, hands-on-back-of-chair, lunge, crawling – all linear in nature. 

Where are the curves?

I have yet to read any convincing explanation for this commonly observed behaviour. So here's mine…

Ancient Postural programming is designed first for forward motion. To avoid being someone's dinner, we need to move fast. (At last faster than the other guy with us.) The 100m sprint is a forward motion act. You don't see Olympic athletes turning head and spine to look at the crowd until AFTER they have passed the finish line. 

Straight, forward motion is how we can reach maximum speed.

That straight, forward motion is an ancient, Postural reference point that can be experienced from a skilled Alexscovery teacher.

That's why Alexander people seem to love straight lines! 

Pure, simple, unencumbered movement. 

An ancient Postural reference point that is profoundly useful in recognizing aberrant behaviour. You can cut through your cognitive labyrinth – this is why the simplicity of Alexander's discovery can still have such powerful transformative potential.

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While many people have approached me about coming to Golden Week, there's still the fact that no-one has put their deposit in yet!

Had you been toying with the idea, it's never too late:

https://atsuccess.com/alexander-discovery-workshop-japan-jeremy-chance.html