Response to living
In Alexander lessons, we learn to respond to increasing demands with reduced interference, a lively quiet, and greater elasticity. This ongoing exploration informs the entire integrated, inseparable system of self. We refine our tools of attention and intention during ordinary activities (sitting and standing) so that we can bring our refined tools to further adventures.
We potentially learn, via Alexander lessons, to, for example, easily rise from a chair, use our voices, walk up stairs, play a musical instrument, problem solve. We become skilled in dynamic non-interference. We can refine our instruments of self by means that are constantly new. We relinquish the notion of a right answer. Learning becomes much less predictable and far more interesting. Increasing demands seem intriguing. We can respond to the inevitable challenges of life with confidence in our means, rather than anxiety about results. We have become more elastic, and can respond to life more resiliently.
Life, of course, includes surprise demands and sudden challenges. Illness, accidents, mortality, glitches, quandaries and questions can halt us in our habitual tracks or become opportunities to learn further elastic and dynamic responses. Through the experience of Alexander lessons, we can relinquish guaranteed outcomes, refuse to even define the activity, and explore the means of response. The means are learned, deepened and extended by experience. We strengthen our means by using our means in increasingly demanding activities.
The outcome is not our concern. Who cares if you stand from the chair? The means are valuable because they apply to everything.