Some months ago, I realised that I didn't really know much of Alexander as a person, apart from the "actor-who-lost-his-voice" story, so I purchased F.M. - the life of Frederick Matthias Alexander, a biography put together by a student of Walter Carrington. What an extraordinary story.

And what an extraordinary, puzzling and contradictory man. I think that, as with all great teachings, it is hard not to let some of the teaching rub off on the teacher. It's very tempting to assume that a teacher will be the ultimate example of his own teachings. Alexander wasn't. Or was he? Apparently, people who met him were struck with his lightness in movement, his clearness of mind and his overall presence, even when he grew older. So, in that way, AT worked for him. But how come that I'm left with the impression of Alexander as someone who's so afraid? Afraid of attachment, afraid of people stealing his ideas (because without them, what would he be?), afraid of being wrong, afraid of people who had more status or more education than he did, afraid of being caught, afraid that people might find out who he really was andnot love him for it? It strikes me as sad that someone who has taught others how to make most out of life seems to have been in survival mode most of his own time. I hope that others can contradict me, but he doesn't seem to have had many moments of relative hapiness or peace. Losing his voice almost seems like the smallest of his problems.

Also, I hadn't realised the era in which Alexander lived. Of course, I already knew that Alexander lived quite a long time ago. But it really hit me when I read that he left from Australia for London on 19 April 1904 on the Afric of the White Star Line. That's the same company that eight years later launched Titanic. It's only ten years after the Lumiere brothers scared the hell out of an audience by showing a short film of a train arriving at a station. Film was still such a novelty that people's mental schema's did not yet cater for the notion that something on screen is not real, and they thought they were going to be run over. Against this background, Alexander's discoveries stand out even more. But it also makes me wonder how much validity one should contribute to his quotes about yoga being bad for you etc. I've never put too much importance on those sayings to begin with (it's the process that matters, as always), but I think that yoga now, compared to yoga 100 years ago, is quite different both in concept and content, so taking his words literally doesn't make much sense to me.



The state library of Tasmania offers online access to historical archives; I found some pictures of Wynyard, Alexander's birthplace. There's more where that came from, although I found very little on Tasmania in relation to the Alexanders.

Fascinating stuff indeed. It's interesting to see how Alexander was a man of his time; if you look at how he writes, the words he uses, the concepts and the ideas, he's very much an industrial revolutionist, raised in an age of large technological inventions which, even more than today I think, changed men's perception of life. This must have caused such a sense of confusion and exhilaration at the same time; on the one hand everything was possible. But on the other, everything was possible. Oh dear. And to discover that it's really not about that, that what other people see as advancement is actually deterioration, as one of the few people of your time. That's impressive.

A while ago, a beginning AT student posted some questions to the AT list. He had had lessons for about six months and was wondering about how you notice progress, how you know you're doing things the way they are supposed to be done, and whether it was normal that he experienced headaches after lessons. Nick Mellor posted a reply that clearly and concisely captures some prominent issues that a beginning AT student can encounter, especially during that initial phase where AT principles just don't make sense yet. Nick, thanks for letting me post it here!

"Ask your teacher what skills she is teaching you. Since she’s an Alexander Technique teacher, the basic skills are inhibiting and directing your primary control (head-neck-back relationship.) Ask her to demonstrate, explain and focus on each term, and ask her to tell you when you’re inhibiting and directing well. We can only explain here, but it’s not enough, since in lessons they are defined mainly through experience, experimentation and feedback. Ask her to give you specific things to do during the week that help to foster these skills.

Ask your teacher to explain why “feelings of relaxation” can’t be trusted. It’s called “faulty sensory appreciation” or “debauched kinaesthesia” (ask your teacher to explain and demonstrate.) Your stiff back is not necessarily a “bad” response to a lesson-—it could be showing you how stiff your back was *before* the lesson AND (here’s the rub) it was so stiff that you couldn’t feel how stiff it was until it had let go a little. The reason we are in a mess is often that what we feel is not giving us accurate feedback. This is an absolutely central concept in the Alexander Technique, and one of the reasons why having a teacher is a big advantage over trying to learn the basics on your own. Your inaccurate sensations can send you down many blind alleys.

About trying to relax in between lessons. Relaxing your neck or your shoulders is subject to faulty sensory appreciation, and you are very likely to end-gain in the attempt. In the worst case, you could relax your neck at the expense of further discoordinating yourself, causing more problems than you solve. Instead of “relaxing”, learn about, and use, inhibition and direction, and don’t try to change individual symptoms without reference to your primary control (head-neck-back.)

Ask your teacher if there is work you can do outside of the classroom. You cannot learn the Alexander Technique by spending half an hour a week with a teacher, and then doing no more than lying down regularly, although the lying down is a start. You need to work on yourself between lessons, and to do that, you have to have a clear idea what “working on yourself” really means. That’s what your teacher’s there for—- not just for the relaxed feeling you get after a lesson.

Don’t confuse “feeling helpless” and “being accepting”. Some of the responses you’ve had sound like ‘whatever the frustrations of your learning experience, you should just hang in there.’ Well, Yes and No. It is your right to expect simple, straightforward guidance on how to apply the Alexander Technique in daily life. If you’re not getting that, it may be that your teacher needs to be told what’s missing from your experience of lessons. It is (of course!) important to learn to be more accepting of yourself and the way external things are, but this is very, very different from feeling helpless.

Learning self-direction is about as different from helplessness as it’s possible to be. It’s an active, humorous, bright-eyed, patient, alert, self-admiring, self-accepting, kind, strong-willed determination that can take time to discover in yourself. In many ways good self-direction is highly focussed on getting things done, and seeing things change-- just as FM Alexander was highly focussed on getting his voice back so he could go on acting. Acting was the love of his life, and it really mattered to him that he succeeded. His genius was not to end-gain in seeking this end."

Found some snippets in my 'Draft' folder.

Inhibition comes from latin 'in-habeo' or 'inhibere' and means to keep in, to hold against, and also, to row backwards or to stop rowing. It may also mean to use, to apply or to practise.

When I try to tell people about AT, I sometimes feel like a Tellsell presenter: "Wow Mike, this is an amazing discovery! Alexander Technique clears your skin, improves your relationships, makes you a better photographer and decreases your dress size, and this all without artificial colourings! And if we all do it, we get world peace!"
Now why don't people believe me?

One of the things I was told last lesson, was not to help. It's funny, this has happened to me a million times before, but that moment, it struck me that helping is quite a complex concept. It's something that we all perceive as good; helpfulness is something that is appreciated and stimulated in our society. But when you come to think of it, helping someone is not always the virtue it seems to be.
My helping was the result of a number of misconceptions, like:

• I think I know what my teacher's intentions are (whereas, in reality, I don't. Even more, I shouldn't care about whether he lets me land up side down on my head, as long as I stick with my part- maintaining an unhindered upflow);


• I think these intentions are more easily reached when I do something (the opposite of which is true- by obstructing a free flow up along my spine, I am not helping but impeding things);


• I think my teacher expects me to do something;


• On a deeper level, I'm afraid that the lack of visible action equals a lack of interest, care or concern from my side.

"When you stop doing the wrong thing, the right thing will do itself" does not equal "When you stop doing the wrong thing, the nice thing will do itself".

On the AT list, some very thought provoking discussion is going on. One of the posts contained a quote from Macdonald, saying that AT is "like unto a treasure hid in a field, the which, when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath and buyeth that field."

This quote is from a part of Matthew that I've always found quite bewildering. At first sight, the meaning of this parable seems perfectly clear: in order to gain a full understanding of the Kingdom of God (the original subject of this metaphor), to fully experience faith, you give up everything else. Good old straighforward Christianity: give up everything you've got, and with a bit of luck, you'll end up with the good guys.

But why 'for joy'? And why 'selleth'? These words don't really fit into a picture of someone sacrificing everything he's got. Rather, they give the impression of someone who stumbled over an unexpected treasure in a field, someone who can't believe his luck, and is more than happy to sell all the things he has, which are all of a sudden not that important anyway, because he's able to buy something much greater. It's about someone who acts out of self-interest, not because he thinks the act of giving up itself is a virtuous thing to do. Perhaps it's not so much about giving up, but about letting go. Joyfully, without remorse or grief. And that's a comforting thought.

Pilots that fly in low visibility conditions, at high altitudes or at night may fall subject to spatial disorientation. This means that the pilot cannot determine his position in relation to the earth, because there are no visible objects in the immediate vicinity of the plane that serve as cues.

Without these cues to hold on to, pilots can get so disoriented that they end up flying upside down without realising. Even though the instruments at the dash clearly indicate that the aircraft is upside down. A typical first reaction of any pilot in this situation is disbelief and inability to accept the true sitation as stated by the instruments. Not unwillingness, but literal inability. “This cannot be". The lucky few that survive only manage to do so by refraining from acting on their instincts, ordering themselves to trust their instruments, not their senses.

"This cannot be". It's what I thought at my first AT lesson. It's what I thought when I found out that something else had changed inside, yet again. Like getting a new pair of eyes and looking at things for the first time. No, not looking at things, but seeing things for what they really are for the first time. Could things really be this simple, and hard at the same time?

"This cannot be". It's what I think now when I look at how things are evolving today. It's like being flipped back upright after having been flying upside down for thirty years. My first reaction would be to give my plane another flip back, and keep on flying the old way. It's so much easier, at least you know where everyone stands. Except that you don't.

We just got a visit from the ARBO-man. Dutch readers probably know what I'm talking about; for the rest: an ARBO-man is a guy who is responsible for office-related health issues within a company. The existance of such a function is, of course, a good thing. I mean, all my colleagues have some kind of pain or complaint. I do, too. Actually, I don't know anybody who doesn't. So it's nice that there's someone who cares about us office workers.

But what really, really annoys me, is that the ARBO-man has only one solution: change the chair.

Repetetive strain injury? Change the chair. Lower back pain? Change the chair. Stiff shoulders? Change the chair mevrouwtje. And no, I cannot get you a stool, or take the armrests off. That's very bad for you mevrouwtje, because these armrests are there for a reason. The latetst NEN-standard prescribes the use of armrests for all office workers, you see? And from today on mevrouwtje, we only supply chairs with a nice bend in the backrest, so that you get to relax more. You don't want a backrest? Well, that's against the standard, and besides, it's bad for you. I mean, mevrouwtje, look at the way you're sitting. That's completely wrong to begin with, and so is the posture of your colleagues, so no wonder you've got complaints.

*teeth-grinding mode on*

I hate it when people call me mevrouwtje. And that's only the smallest problem I have with ARBO-mannen.

Due to a move from American to Dutch servers, my log has been temporarily unavailable. I hope everything is solved now.

On the positive side: from tomorrow on, my website will be a lot faster, and the new servers are located just a bike ride away, instead of an 8-hour flight. OK, I know this last reason is nonsense, but it nevertheless gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to have my bits and bytes this close.

I don't know whether it's the crazy weather- 20C in October is so weird that only nature can think of it, just like those ridiculously pink and orange skies. If I were an art teacher, I'd probably tell off any pupil that would use such kitschy colours.

Anyhow, I have this spring cleaning feeling. You know, out with the old, in with the new. Only this time it's happening on the inside, and with a speed that I've never achieved in good old-fashioned householding. Over the last few days, quite some old memories, habits and other pandora-like boxes have presented themselves, and, I don't know why or how, but all of a sudden, I'm able to deal with them. Really deal with them: look at them objectively, scrutinizing them, and deciding whether they're still relevant or important for me. Most of the time, they're not.

And really, most of them are not that big anyway. It's not that I'm meeting major trauma or anything dramatic- my life is much too normal for that kind of stuff. But what does surprise me is how much I have been formed, and are still influenced by beliefs and convictions that I don't really want or need any longer.

I spent some time transferring this blog to a new content management system, and it looks like everything is working well. From now on, I'm no longer dependent on any third party providers, which means that I won't lose comments any longer, and that I can manage everything from my own domain.

Other improvements: posts have been categorized for easy reference and you can now search through this blog. I've also included the basics of a new layout; I went for something more colorful as you can see :-) In the coming weeks, I still want to do some final tweaking on the fonts and graphic design.

I spent some time thinking on a logo, and came up with the standard exit-sign. Considerations for doing so:
- even though, superficially, the symbol looks like 'up', it's really a representation of 'out', in every sense of the word (as you may recall, this is something I recently discovered- for about the zillionth time).
- the arrow could be anything: thought, direction, but also head. It's nice that it doesn't touch the surrounding structure anywhere, which conveys a sense of freedom.
- symbols don't need words.
- I write manuals for a living, so symbols kind of suit me. They can be a very powerful means of communication, once you get the picture.

For a number of reasons (one being that my current comment tool actually eats your comments and refuses to spit them out again), I'm moving my blog to a new blogtool this weekend. I don't expect major trouble, but you never know.

Received via the Alextech-list:

August 10, 2005

Walter Carrington
May 4, 1915 - August 7, 2005
Exponent of the Alexander technique who inspired generations of teachers


WALTER CARRINGTON was a leading figure in the teaching and development in Britain of the Alexander technique, the system evolved by the Australian actor Frederick Matthias Alexander (1869-1955) to promote wellbeing through awareness of balance, posture and physical co-ordination.

Alexander reasoned that this awareness allowed individuals to adjust unconscious bodily habits into new patterns which offered a number of physical and mental benefits. For more than 60 years Carrington made an immense contribution to the preservation and development of the teaching of the technique.

Walter Hadrian Marshall Carrington was born in Selby, Yorkshire, in 1915, the only child of the Rev Walter Marshall Carrington. In 1917 the family moved to London where he spent the rest of his life. He attended St Paul’s School.

He had intended to join the Society of Jesus but he was so impressed by the lessons which his mother had taken in the Alexander technique that he started taking lessons himself. In 1936, he joined Alexander’s teacher training course and he qualified in 1939.

He married Dilys Jones in 1940 and, the following year, qualified as an RAF pilot, serving in the Pathfinders. He and his crew survived being shot down over Hungary in 1944, but were taken prisoner. Carrington had broken several bones, including his pelvis, and was sent to a military hospital from which, however, he eventually escaped.

On demobilisation with the rank of flight lieutenant in 1946 he rejoined Alexander’s practice in London where he gave lessons and taught on Alexander’s teacher training course. Fifty years later he published A Time to Remember: A Personal Diary of Teaching the F. M. Alexander Technique in 1946, which provides insights into Alexander’s methods and personality as well as conveying the atmosphere of the time.

In those early days Carrington also taught regularly in Cardiff, Guernsey, Oxford and Nottingham. After Alexander’s death in 1955 Carrington and three other teachers carried on the training course according to Alexander’s methods.

In 1960 the course moved to Holland Park, London, where it remains, and was renamed the Constructive Teaching Centre,with Carrington and his wife as its directors. The training course grew with the upsurge of interest in the technique in the 1970s and it became the largest operation of its kind in the world, with up to 45 students each year from the 1980s onwards. Around 300 Alexander teachers have qualified from the centre.

The problem facing teachers who carried on courses or started new ones after Alexander’s death was how to provide training in the absence of the founder of the technique. Carrington refused to become a “master” whose words would be taken as absolute; instead, he developed a training programme which respected the autonomy of each student and which encouraged questions and explorations.

The process of teaching was adapted to the needs of individual students who were treated as equals. Instead of adopting a pre-existing teaching approach (as in, for example, the traditional classroom model), the Carringtons evolved a way of teaching and training in accord with the principles of the Alexander technique itself. Their methods have been taken up by training courses throughout the world.

Carrington was an inspirational teacher because he embodied the principles of the technique in his own life. His dedication to the technique helped him to overcome many difficulties. Because of his war injuries he suffered periods of severe pain during the 1970s. Despite this he retained an optimistic outlook, and the pain eventually disappeared after three operations.

Carrington taught from 9am to 6pm, five days a week, until he was 80, at which age he reduced his hours. Horsemanship, including dressage, was among his lifelong interests. He continued to ride until the age of 87 and was still teaching until shortly before his death.

Though without a formal scientific training, Carrington took a keen interest in scientific developments of relevance to the Alexander technique: he kept his students informed about papers on posture, balance, human and animal movement, and related subjects, whenever he thought they made a valuable contribution to the practice and theory of the technique.

In keeping himself up to date with Alexander technique literature, Carrington amassed what is thought to be the largest collection of books, papers and articles on the technique in the world today. His phenomenal memory of the history of the technique, and his readiness to grant others access to his library, were tremendously important for researchers — two recent biographies of Alexander owe much to him.

Carrington published two collections of lectures, Thinking Aloud (1994) and The Act of Living (1999), in which he discusses such matters as breathing, the balance of the head, the effects on the body of gravity, habitual behaviour, ethics and many other topics related to the development of physical wellbeing and the consciousness of self. These transcribed impromptu talks, erudite but always accessible and jargon-free, capture the flavour of what one observer described as Carrington’s “gentle, almost hypnotic, quiet rhetoric”. For his students and others, Carrington was also their living link to Alexander himself.

In 1992 he had published Explaining the Alexander Technique: The Writings of F. Matthias Alexander — In Conversation with Walter Carrington and Sean Carey, which elucidated the practical significance of Alexander’s own four books as an aid for students.

Carrington was a stalwart, though a low-profile one, of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (Stat), participating in all events which brought teachers together to share work and experiences. The Holland Park centre’s large teaching room was provided free of charge for many workshops, lectures and meetings over the years.

In the last year of his life Carrington participated in the debate in Stat as to how far the society should regulate its members. He spoke firmly against adopting criteria which would involve some teachers judging other teachers, arguing that the art and expertise of the technique could not be reduced to the level of a conventional examination.

Patient, modest and non-judgemental, Carrington always radiated a powerful benevolence. He declined honorary membership of Stat, observing that it is inappropriate to make distinctions between individuals who are equal members of the same body. Carrington is survived by his wife Dilys and their three sons.



Walter Carrington, teacher of the Alexander technique, was born on May 4, 1915. He died on August 7, 2005, aged 90.

Sad news on the AT list this morning:

Dear All,

Walter Carrington died last night. He had a serious fall two weeks ago, falling and hitting his head, and did not recover. I have a deep respect for Walter's work and life and feel grateful that I could know him.

sadly

Jeremy

There's an interesting discussion about furniture going on on the AT-list. The argument basically runs like this: one group believes that furniture can help or hinder good use, the other group believes that someone with enough AT experience can maintain proper use in any situation, regardless of which kind of furniture is available.

I tend to side with the first group. I mean, if all chairs are equal, why do all Alexander teachers use similar types of simple wooden chairs?

At work, I sit most of the time, and I find that a 'comfortable' chair does not help me very much in a psychological way. It is just to seductive to lean back and slump. Even if I really tell myself "OK Maaike, today, you're really going to watch your use, no matter what", it will only take 10 minutes before I fall back into my old habits.

One major cause (apart from my own lack of discipline or awareness) is that I work with a computer. Computers are nasty things, not only ergonomically, but also psychologically/ energy-wise. They 'suck me in': I can easily spent hours behind the screen and not even notice the time passing, let alone notice my head being pulled into the screen. After such a stretch of computer work, I am completely drained mentally and my back is stiff and contracted.

AT and Chi Gong have started my awareness in this area, but I still feel I need all the help I can get, also furniture-wise. That's why I have a simple wooden stool for computer work back home (which I try to avoid), and have asked my manager for a plain chair and adjusted desk.

My shoulder has been giving me trouble for a couple of weeks already. I cannot really find a specific cause; I haven't been doing strange things, no weird twists or turns, no extreme sports. I have been extremely lazy in self-maintenance though. Working way too hard, doing way too much and letting way too little.

My AT teacher already noted that my right arm was very active, and she worked with the shoulder a couple of times, but it didn't really help. I've been slowing down on the computer work, not using the mouse for two weeks, obeying my 'Beeldschermtachograaf' (a software program that monitors my computer workload and forces me to have loads of annoying-but-necessary breaks) all the time, but I still felt my shoulder.

So last friday, I went to see my chiropractor. The one I used to see once or twice a year didn't work at the practice anymore, but they offered an appointment with another one. It was an interesting experience. Within two seconds, he located my problem: extremely stiff lower back (duh...I've had one for 30 years), and stiff connections between two ribs and the spine. Contrary to my first chiropractor (who literally jumped on my back and gave me a headache for the rest of the week), this one didn't 'crack' anything. Rather, he did some really heavy pushing on my lower back and rib cage, and a rather gentle crack of the head. I feel pretty OK now, only very, very tired.

My back is much more loose now, and it's actually much easier to send directions along my spine. I always see my chiropractor visits as an emptying of my slate, where I promise myself to do more lying down, inhibition and direction. But AT is a bit like flossing your teeth really. It takes such a long time for it to become a habit...