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Discovering the
Moment of Choice
[This talk was given as part of a Workshop at the sixth
International Congress of the F.M. Alexander Technique in
Freiburg, Germany in
August 1999.]
Preamble
Alexander, as we now know, experimented with various vocal,
respiratory and physical education methods, and was at one time advertising
himself as a teacher of the Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression. Although
Alexander's work contains many resonances of Delsarte's pioneering ideas,
these, and other physical and energetic techniques, were nevertheless not able
to give him the means of freeing himself from the grip of "habit". It was not
until that critical discovery - so well described in "The Use of the Self" - in
which he found the moment of choice; the possibility to "...then and there make
a fresh decision" that he was "...at last on the right track". In this workshop
we will explore Alexander's "evolution of a technique" from sensory based
energetic, relaxation and postural methods to the realisation of the need to
re-assess mental activity; inhibition, choice, decision, volition, intention,
and his successful attempt to realise within himself the relationship between
these aspects of human functioning.
My intention with this
workshop is to encourage discussion and experimentation as we go along, so
please feel free to comment or contribute. As I have a particular theme,
however, I would ask that you allow me to, so to speak, "steer" the discussion
in the direction of that theme. Let's see what happens.
What I wish us
to discuss and try out is not complicated. In fact, it is very simple. It is we
who are complicated. We complicate everything.
Looking back to the
early days of Alexander's search, we know from the excellent research of
Rosslyn McLeod (and for those of you who have not read "Up from Down Under" I
would certainly recommend it), that Alexander experimented with various vocal
and respiratory techniques. In fact he was, at one time, advertising himself as
a teacher of the Delsarte System of Dramatic Expression, which is, in many
ways, what we might nowadays call a Mind/Body discipline.
Let us start
by considering some aspects of Delsarte's work, because I think it is very
interesting that Alexander was not, as perhaps may have previously been
thought, a "blank sheet of paper" (but then if one thought about it how could
he - or anybody - have been).
Well, here we already face a strange
coincidence in connection with Alexander and a difficulty with regard to source
material. It is perhaps best expressed in the words of the Abbé
Delaumosne, as quoted by Genevieve Stebbins in her book "Delsarte System of
Expression" in which she describes the Abbé as "...the compiler of
Delsarte's system of dramatic art.
"François Delsarte was born Nov. 11, 1811 at
Solesme, France. His father, a physician, died leaving his family poor. The
young Delsarte was sent to Paris, in 1822, to study with a painter on china,
but his tastes carried him into other channels. He became, in 1825, a pupil of
the conservatory, a government institution for instruction in dramatic art,
music and the ballet. Here, for the want of proper guidance, he lost his voice.
Finding himself thus incapacitated for the stage, he resigned that career for
that of a teacher of singing and the dramatic art. Realising that he had been
shipwrecked for want of a compass and a pilot, he determined to save others
from his fate by seeking and formulating the laws of an art hitherto left to
the caprice of mediocrity, or the inspiration of genius. After years of
unremitting labour and study - study which took him by turns to hospitals,
morgues, asylums, prisons, art galleries etc., patiently unearthing the secrets
and methods of past genius - study which kept him enchained by the hour
watching children at play in the great public gardens, weighing humanity
everywhere and everyhow, he succeeded in discovering and formulating the laws
of aesthetic science. Thanks to him, that science has now the same precision as
that of mathematics. He died, without arranging his life-work for publication,
July 20, 1871."1
(A brilliant and eloquent
summary. I wish someone could write one as concise and poetic about Alexander).
Well, the coincidence of the loss of voice is remarkable, and, if that
fact was known to Alexander, would certainly have drawn him to discover more.
Given his pertinacity, it is likely that he would have attempted to go into it
in some depth, but as Delsarte did not publish his work, it is not known to
what extent the "Delsarte System" has been accurately transmitted.
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to look at some aspects. Much of
it, with the benefit of hind-sight, could be deemed "beastly exercises" but it
is exercise requiring a certain precision and, indeed, kinaesthetic awareness.
I don't propose today to spend too much time on this, let those who are
interested take it further, but the index to Stebbins' book (printed in the
1880's and possibly, unless he came across some itinerant French thespian who
taught him, Alexander's source) makes interesting reading in itself. It
includes: Decomposing Exercises, Harmonic Poise of Bearing, Principle of
Trinity, The Legs, The Walk, The Hand, The Arm, The Torso, The Head, The Lips
and Jaw, The Voice.
One of the principles is the "Law of Opposition":
"Simultaneous movement must be made in opposition".2
There is a "Law of Evolution":
"Example - Lift your arm, vital force in upper arm,
forearm and hand decomposed. Then unbend elbow, vital force flowing into
forearm. Then expand hand, vital force flowing into fingers, - all this being a
gradual unrolling or evolution of vital force through the various
articulations."3
The idea behind
"deconstruction" is a kind of relaxation seen in terms of the withdrawal of
energy from parts of the body:
"I withdraw my will-power from fingers, then hand. Touch
it. Do not shudder. Do you feel as if a dead thing had struck your living palm?
Now I will show you the same phenomenon with forearm, entire arm, waist, spine,
hips, knees, ankles, toes, jaw, eye-lids. Now I fall. Give me your hand and
help me to rise. I did not mean to startle you so. I have not even bruised
myself. I simply withdrew my vital force into the reservoir at the base of the
brain.
The first great thing to be acquired is flexibility of the
joints. These exercises free the channels of expression, and the current of
nervous force can thus rush through them as a stream of water rushes through a
channel, unclogged by obstacles."4
There
are some very interesting ideas here when we think about "direction" as a flow
of force.
So returning to Alexander, who was teaching this method in
some form or other, what is interesting is that his fist attempts to solve his
own problem were "physical"; he tried to maintain a certain posture of his head
in relation to his torso, but was unable to do so in the face of a stimulus.
Despite all the subtlety of Delsarte's system (and the other methods he
investigated), Alexander was not able to stop a reaction to a stimulus. He had
to look elsewhere.
Well, we all know the story, but once he had
realised that his "thinking" was involved, it may well be the case that he took
a look at what was known about "thinking" at that time. The work of William
James (and I am indebted to Professor Murray for drawing attention to this in
his NASTAT lecture some years ago) may or may not have been know to Alexander,
but there is certainly some material there which would seem to have a bearing
on Alexander's discovery. If we look at some of the chapter headings from his
most popular work, "Psychology: the Briefer Course", we will find: Habit, The
Self, Attention, Reasoning, Consciousness and Movement, Instinct, Will. From
the chapter on habit we find such gems as, "Habits are due to pathways through
the nerve-centres" and "...habit diminishes the conscious attention with which
our acts are performed."
The Chapter on "Will" has some very
interesting material on Volition, Inhibition and Consent.
Did this
work, first published in 1892, have some influence on the young Alexander
seeking to understand something about the relationship between his thoughts,
muscles, habits? Perhaps we will never know.
What then was Alexander's
contribution over and above that of Delsarte and James? Was he just a
synthesiser? Indeed not. His contribution was to find a vital link between the
mental and the physical; to realise that they are part of a whole, and to
devise a methodology for practical work on self in the all important area of
stimulus and response. Let's look at what James said:
"The whole neural organism, it will be remembered, is,
physiologically considered, but a machine for converting stimuli into
reactions; and the intellectual part of our life is knit up with but the middle
or "central" part of the machine's operation.......
Every impression
which impinges on the incoming nerves produces some discharge down the outgoing
ones, whether we be aware of it or not. Using sweeping terms and ignoring
exceptions, we might say that every possible feeling produces a movement,
and that the movement is a movement of the entire organism, and of each and all
its parts"(italics sic).5
Is there,
then, the possibility of interposing "something" in between stimulus and
response? If so, then the consequences (in the light of James's mechanistic
view as quoted above) are enormous. Here lies the possibility of some "input"
which is not part of the chain of stimulus and response. A "window of
opportunity". Where are we to look for this "window"?
Margaret
Goldie6 would often point out that if there is a
reaction in the brain, then it is too late. If a message has gone out of the
brain (if neurons have fired, we might say in modern parlance), then there is
no power on earth that can reverse that. Of course, we can send out a
countermanding message to hold something in check, but that is something else,
and usually creates conflict in the nervous system and tension in the body. So
it is clear. The message must not go out. And this is the very interesting area
of research that Alexander arrived at and describes so well in the Use of the
Self.
So we are talking about a different state of mind. I met a very
interesting gentleman some years ago who had been a pupil of Dr. D. T. Suzuki
in Japan soon after World War Two. He told me that Suzuki, who played a large
part in introducing Zen Buddhism to the West, had been very interested in
Alexander's work and wished to meet him. But it was one of those great meetings
of minds which never happened. What this gentleman told me was that Suzuki
tried to teach him to keep his mind in a state of "flux"; to never let it fix
on one thing. He wondered whether or not this related to Alexander's ideas. I
rather like the term "flux", as I think it describes very well the state
necessary in order to prevent the mind from firing off neurons at every
stimulus. The state of "flux" needs a certain amount of attention. It will not
come about without it. We have to "be here".
How, then, is this
experienced? Can one just change one's thinking? We are moving towards a most
enlivening area now. It is called "the unknown".
I was very stuck by
something I heard Sir George Trevelyan7 say some years
ago. He said that he had thought for a long time that, in order to be able to
direct, one had to inhibit. But that in later years he had come to think that
it may be the other way round. That in order to be able to inhibit, one had to
direct. What did he mean by this? My interpretation is that to "inhibit", that
is to say, to prevent an incoming stimulus or impression from affecting the
brain in such a way that it begins to discharge neural energy, is a very highly
evolved function. It is not even possible unless there is already a degree of
organisation and integration within the organism. Sir George was, at the time
he spoke of this, discussing "verticality", and there is something of a mystery
in how that relates, but when one has the experience of an inner organisation
around a vertical axis, there is a sense that, in such a "directed" state there
is more possibility of maintaining, or renewing this state of "flux" in the
mind and not reacting to every internal and external stimulus.
Then
there is a certain "potential" rather than "kinaesthetic" energy available.
"The readiness is all", and unless there is a certain sense of alert readiness,
it is unlikely that one is in this state.
And what then? Well, then
there is "choice". But the "known" still seductively calls one back into the
deep furrows of habit. How to sustain oneself in this more rarefied atmosphere
where significant psychic processes are going on?
Let us now try and
explore some of these ideas in a practical way.
In this practical part of the workshop, my intention is to try,
with some volunteers, to first bring about a certain change of state as a
result of working with their head, neck, back relationship and their attention.
Having established a certain "energetic connection" between head and body, I
then present the volunteer with a simple stimulus and ask him or her to explore
what they experience. This résumé being written before the
presentation is given, it is unknown how the participants may respond, but from
previous experience it is my hope that they will notice how quickly the brain
and body react to a stimulus. We will then try to experiment with "not reacting
to a stimulus", without, so to speak, shutting the whole system down (an all
too often found deadening of one's state which is the antithesis of real
"inhibition", which calls for a "quickening of the conscious mind").
We
will then explore how choice becomes available, how habit tries to intervene,
and how activity can be initiated merely by "giving consent", rather than
"doing" it. As this is essentially experiential, I don't propose to try to
describe such experiences in writing.
1.
Delsarte System of Expression;
Genevieve Stebbins; Werner, New York 1891 (Fourth Edition); pp 4-5
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2. Ibid. pp 172-3
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3. Ibid. p 173
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4. Ibid. p 11
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5.
Psychology: The Briefer Course;
William James; Harper 1961; p 237
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6. Margaret Goldie (1905-1997) was an
early follower of Alexander and a pre-eminent teacher of his ideas.
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7.Sir George
Trevelyan, well known for
his pioneering work with the Wrekin Trust, was also an early follower of
Alexander and one of the people who joined Alexander's first teacher-training
course in 1931.
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