Alexander Technique Career Success

Our friends all suffer from our personality disorders, yet we rarely see or understand them ourselves - although these days I am coming to notice my own more clearly. To me it is perplexing - why is that a problem for other people? How can I possibly change this aspect of myself? Is it my problem or theirs? Finding answers only comes when the information about the disorder is clear. And there's the rub - the flip side of our disorder is often the very thing that creates our success. In my own case, I have a talent to plan, to imagine, to create an endless cascade of ideas and possibilities that mostly overwhelms and discourages people closest around me. When I go into flight, people either feel that it is too fast and noisy and they simply can't (and don't want to) catch up, or that I fill the space around me so thoroughly with myself, that there is no space left for them to simply be. To those who know me - I am aware of it. And it costs me, in small and significant ways. ...

In the morning at 2am - yes, sometimes I start the day early - I was searching my email database for something, and came across an email from a teacher about chairwork. No need to mention who here, but I was taken by how lightly the idea of working outside of chairwork was treated, almost as though one only did that if one didn't have sufficient abilities to do chairwork. All said in a nice way, but still overtones of... So, I got a little carried away and wrote a passionate and challenging response, which later the writer (gently) pointed out that I had I read more of the actual email, rather than read into the email more that he in fact said, I might have had a more balanced response, and I am sure he is right. Anyway, here's what I wrote (lightly edited): *** Early in my training school, many students - aware of what is happening in other Alexander circles - started clamouring for me to do "chairwork" and "hands on" - neither of which are part of my train...

So, I did make it after all. Last night I began teaching another of my slightly "out there" experiments in teaching: the Success Vision Course - using Alexander's discoveries to generate temporal awareness so that we can, moment by moment, make the choices that guide us towards the successful vision we generate of our future. This is a uniquely human capacity. I wonder if Betsy the cow begins every morning with a highly developed temporally conceived plan for the day? "Oh, first I'll go down to the bottom meadow and get some of that tall grass before bloody Alfred eats it all, then I'll head off to the creek for a chat with Phyllis (unless she's overslept again the wretched old cow) and… oh yes! Now I remember: I have an appointment with Mad Fred at the North side gate at lunch-time.." I wonder. I can't get inside a cow's mind, but I doubt this kind of "plan" is driving Betsy's choices moment to moment. Yet it is possible for us...

"I will never try to know you, I will forever try to see you." Writing now after witnessing the final workshop of Tommy Thompson in Japan, and hugely impressed by the way Tommy has given a voice to Alexander's discoveries in a way that totally accords with the Buddhist view of Self – the lack of anything inherently existing from it's own side. In my comments below, I may be misrepresenting Tommy's viewpoint, so please hold the idea that these are my impressions of Tommy's ideas. Tommy's view is that there is no "number one" as Marj often cajoled us: " 'Who is the most important person here?' The student? No. The Teacher? Yes." For Tommy, there is no number one person – there is a relationship, an interdependency between you and I which creates us from moment to moment in the "ongoing, forever moving present, which is the only place where change can happen." Tommy uses his hands to "disperse your commitment to who ...

Monday, March 9th PERSONAL Purification and Determination - two things that usually occupy my every Monday morning. The purification part starts with cleaning my office and, while I do that, thinking about things I regret and would like to do differently. From impatience with my two little girls, to one too many days sipping wine. I'm by no means a slosh, having only 3 to 4 glasses of the red on average in a week, but still I grabbed for a bottle last Tuesday much to the disdain of my 6 year old: "Daddy - what are you doing? This isn't Daddy day or anything!" Don't you love 'em? No beating around the bush. 6 years old and full of wisdom. So that gives me pause, I wonder. Hmmm - maybe getting tooooo carried away here? Nothing to be alarmed about, but Monday's the day to catch things before they get to crisis stage. To look at my life again and ask: am I still going in the direction I want to be going? And then comes the determination - setting goals, both v...

I am in the process of radically re-engineering my Alexander training in Japan. I am sure to have my critics, but I thought it worthwhile to start jotting down some of the ideas that are driving this change - not the needs to meet the market that I have commented on previously, more the meaning of the work as it is for me today. I am developing two courses in tandem, the Body Thinking course to be launched next year - the one most resembling what people call "Body Mapping" these days - and the Thinking Body course, which will launch in 2009 with an identical structure, but different content. I thought now I would elucidate my thoughts on the root foundation of the course I am assembling together. This may make it clearer than I am making a hybrid marriage between simply informational/experiential body mapping, and the deeper aspects of AT work. Remember that my program is actually designed to be the first stepping stone towards the final outcome of being an AT teacher - it is...

The idea of reincarnation for me at the moment is more based on faith, rather than being a belief based on logic - but with the advances of Cognitive Science, that could change. The door began to open after listening to an amazing talk by Lama Zopa Rinpoche (LZR) where the walls seem to flutter and everything melt around me. This talk was on emptiness, but touched on reincarnation. He described the Buddhist logic that, according to the law of cause and effect (which says the result must be of the same nature of the cause - an oak tree will not grow from the seed of a cedar tree for example) our consciousness can not arise from matter, as consciousness is not in the nature of matter. Consciousness is formless, it is immaterial. It is defined as that which is clear (formless) and knowing. Therefore the first moment of consciousness in our life needed a previous moment to come into existence. It would be impossble for it to arise from matter, or from nothing, in the same way it would be i...

As an Alexander teacher, I am always dealing with a person's mental conception. This sits at the core of all movements. I think it is misleading to think of AT as "bodywork". If we must use terms like that, then it would be better to call it "mindwork" where the practitioner also touches your body to support the new conception of movement that you are being guided towards. So I am always interested in finding new information about the mind. However, the 5 ever-present factors of mind is not new information. This was first formulated by a Buddhist philosopher known as Asunga, and it constitutes an aspect of the Buddhist epistimology of how our mind aquires knowledge. There are 54 mental factors (or is it 51?) and the factors that must be present for any mind to function are: 1. Intention: what are you wanting to do right now? 2. Contact: what is the object you are contacting? 3. Attention: not passing by quickly, but maintaining attention on the object (which can...

Just finished Golden Week Residential with Rachel Zahn as the visitor. She has an amazing message for the Alexander community. What's happening in Cognitive Science is totally Alexander. What is Congnitive Science? It's a generic description that cobbles together of a number of different disciplines which all seem to be converging towards the same interests and questions: robotics, artificial intellingence, psychology, philosophy, linguistics and neuroscience. They don't know about us, but the description of what they are looking for matches Tibeten Buddhist mind training (which they DO know about, and are are starting to explore) and Alexander. Which they don't know about - but hey, how do you think they will react when they find that the some of the seminal scientific thinkers who have recently re-gained popularity as laying the foundations of modern Cognitive Science ALL had connections with Alexander: Sir Charles Sherrington (the father of neuroscience who wrote fav...

THE SEQUENCE OF COMING TO KNOW AN OBJECT Buddhist Epistemology Applied to Learning the Alexander Technique In this essay I will take the Buddhist epistemological 5-fold division of coming to know an object and explore its relation to coming to know the object of natural human co-ordination. The process of discovering this object was the work of F. M. Alexander. It stands in my mind as one of the outstanding discoveries of the 20th century, yet remains largely unrecognized precisely because the knowledge can only be understood in its full impact by a process of direct perception. So I think it is quite interesting to explore how Buddhist epistemology can be understood in an Alexander context. In this essay I will explore my own knowledge and experience, from my first lesson in 1969, to my experience today as a trainer of Alexander teachers in Japan. The Epistemological 5-fold division is as follows: 1. Wrong View 2. Doubt: towards wrong view, equivocal, towards correct view 3. Correctly...

Now I am beginning to think about a talk to offer at the next 2008 Congress: Building An Alexander Teaching Corporation - what is meant by "corporate'?: working with colleagues within a financially unified legal entity that carries the "identity" of the group and is run corporate style - history of corporate AT: Ashley Place, ACAT, ATA London, SATA, Bloomsbury Centre, Walter's CTC, other examples - Alexander family tree useuful here. - consumer and non-consumer/Professional market: historically, AT mostly sold to non-consumer, professional market; very little thought to consumer market. - use of brand names: e.g. 1. Art of Swimming  2. EyeBody 3. BodyChance - 1. & 2. above are brands based on tangents of AT; 3. example of one centered on AT, but marketing a distinctive style of teaching - pedagogical and marketing issues: style of teaching matches lesson/group; matching teaching method to the market you are aiming - demographic of audience: using market resea...

Tablework, I believe, is predicated on the idea that the person must be 'restored', 're-educated' i.e. their sensory appreciation must be brought up to scratch (means become reliable). Now, while I don't doubt that when this can be affected, there will be a tremendous increase in health & vitality, hence mental condition, I do doubt that this step is essential, that it is the ONLY WAY a person can return to a good condition. The connection between mental health (which for me means a person who is reliably in touch with the realities of this world) and our 'use of self' is undeniable close. But is it a strictly one-way causal relationship in the sense that - improve your use, improve your mind? Alexander's own pedagogy, it seems, is based solely on this assumption. And there is a tremendous amount of evidence that verifies this assumption. Unfortunately, there is also abundant evidence to counter it. There are many examples of people, who we would cla...

I just watch the video produced by Frederick Lacy - he has done a nice job. It is nappy, professionally done, with nice touches of humour and, most suprising for me, full of my friends! Check it out when you can - I don't think it is out, but google the name "The Alexander Technique by Frederick Lacy" will get a hit when it does.

Alexander Technique: FM's MSI 6 Point Sitting Plan Revisited : "http://dialoguers.livejournal.comhttp://franis.blogspot.com" I choose "re-decide" based on Alexander's 5 point plan in UOS Chapter 1 "Evolution of a Technique" where he uses the word "decision" and "reconsider" when describing how he used his plan to overcome his habitual response. I guess "re-decide" comes from combining those two! This is the passage: " (4) while still continuing to project the directions for the new use I would stop and consciously reconsider my first decision, and ask myself "Shall I after all go on to gain the end I have decided upon and speak the sentence? Or shall I not? Or shall I go on to gain some other end altogether?" -- and then and there make a fresh decision..."

FM's 6 Point Plan for Sitting In A Chair (MSI Part 2 Chapter 7) "20. These same rules are equally applicable in principle to the acts of sitting and of rising from a sitting position. Very few people have the right mental conception of the ”means whereby” of these acts or of the correct use of the parts which should be employed in their performance, and this despite the fact that we are performing these acts continually, and with such apparent ease from our own point of view. If you ask any of your friends to sit down, you will notice, if you observe their actions closely, that in nearly all cases there is undue increase of muscular tension in the body and lower limbs; in many cases the arms are actually employed. As a rule, however, the most striking action is the alteration in the position of the head, which is thrown back, whilst the neck is stiffened and shortened. Now I will describe the correct method, but it must be borne in mind that it is useless to give what I here c...

These are some comments I made recently on the Alextech mailing list on the subject of why AT is not faring so well these days. If you want to read other people's comments, please go to this URL - http://groups.google.com/group/alextech 1st Post I do think AT is living in a dinosaur era when it comes to marketing - we get too precious about not giving the wrong message to people, that there is no message getting out at all! Sometimes I think we are writing our marketing messages for each other, not the public. It has to be 'so right' and not 'misrepresent' the work. In Japan I have decided to drop the name "Alexander Technique" and begin marketing it under a new name, currently applying for a trade mark. This is easy to do because this is a foreign culture, nobody ever heard of AT anyway, so why translate a rather difficult name for marketing purposes? Why not just invent a new name that resonates with consumers? Of course we are NOT inventing a new techn...

It says Alexander Technique, but actually I want to talk about my little girl Angelica. She is 6 and passionately interested in running. So she asks me for Alexander lessons "Daddy, can you show me how to run faster?" "Sure darling, let's go". The problem is, no matter what the instruction, her passion is so great she "does" the instruction, resulting in more tension that she had to begin with. I then work on us runing together, my hand on her head/shoulders and guiding her to speeds she had not acheived on her own, and in the process experiencing the loss of effort that her previous wish to go "faster" generated in her system. We just had our second lesson the other day. More to come I hope. Her rival at Kindergaten, Mizuko (we live in Japan), discovered that Angelica was coaching her team for the relay race this week. That's right - Angelica takes the information I give her and "trains" her team to run faster. So Mizuko demand...

To-day is the day Bush just one a second term and I am sad about that, sad and anxious about the further damage to human relations that man might acheive, beyond what he has already caused. In the New York Times Editorial today, it was written: "Right now, we are in the peculiar position of suffering political paralysis, despite the fact that there is a clear consensus on most questions of policy." How true! This Blog is going to be about the Alexander Technique, but to-day this is the single fact affecting the co-ordination of myself!