Dynamic non-interference: meaning and means

Posted by Jeanne Barrett on August 13, 2014 in Uncategorized

As Alexander teachers and students, we view our participation in life’s activities through the often indefinable lens of Alexander principles.  We use words to describe a wordless experience.  We wrestle with the gap between  experience and description. We improve the use of ourselves and can’t describe exactly how that happened.

Alexander  Technique skills of intention and attention rely upon, and are deepened by, a refusal to interfere by habitually reacting, changing our shapes directly, relying on past information to assess present conditions, or rushing to outcome without consideration of means. It is a mental/emotional/sensory/physical process all at once, because we, as animals on Earth, are designed to respond totally to the totality.

The essential “pause to allow a new response” (otherwise know as inhibition in Alexander terminology) is not a deadening, freezing or collapse.  It is the active and open state of curiosity that relies upon welcoming a new means of response.  Instead of traveling the same, grooved pathways, we simultaneously  intend both an activity and a new pathway for activation.  This dynamic non-inteference is a continuous process through life that supports and requires curiosity and discovery. We refine the instrument of self by refusing to use it mindlessly and repeatedly in the same mode. This refinement requires dynamic intention and attention, a quietly enlivened state of self that informs all activity.

We each have to climb the mountain ourselves.  With the assistance of an Alexander teacher, we forge your own ways, and with skills we develop from experience, we forge  further onward.  What was previously effortful becomes easier.  Ease becomes the new barometer. A happy curiosity  quiets effort.  This is where the rubber of dynamic non-interference really hits the road.  We learn to welcome experience, so we can learn more about  skills in considered response.  Every activity presents an opportunity to learn.DSC04063