Pain, pace and perspective
Being a student or teacher of the Alexander Technique does not guarantee avoidance of limitations in the condition of self. We age, injure ourselves, have accidents, develop unexpected health conditions, no matter how fabulous our use of self. Life keeps providing material for a new response. Our Alexander skills provide tools to meet the ongoing demands of living with curiosity.
Pain
Several autoimmune conditions diagnosed in recent years affect my formerly easy mobility. Walking has long been a source of delight as well as my primary mode of transport. What was previously reliably joyous is now, to varying degrees, laborious and painful.
Focusing on pain does not help me, as I then pull down, narrow my attention, and thus restrict respiratory support, clear thinking and connection to the world. If I choose instead to include pain in my overall experience, and kindly refuse to attempt to change pain directly, my experience shifts. Pain continues but no longer dominates. I can’t change disease activity, but I can choose my response to it. Then I welcome the world more, worry less, move along in the moment. Autonomy and acceptance are restored. Less energy is wasted in fighting conditions over which I have no control.
Pace
When pain is moderate to high, my pace changes. I am unable to walk at my preferred swift pace without limping or lurching, even more so if my attention is narrowed to pain. If I instead prioritize an elastic use of my entire self, getting there is less important than how I am getting there. I can allow best pace for current conditions of self, respect the limits of pain, and even enjoy and welcome a slower walk. Time passes in its usual manner, but I experience it differently. Frustration reduces as urgency quiets. And, sometimes, I can walk more quickly!
Perspective
Presetting posture, shape or some idealized perfection of “good use” typically reduces elasticity and the potential of a fluid response. There is no effective formula to prepare for the unexpected. If I brace for the worst pain, I may not recognize and celebrate new ease.
I want to keep walking, so I walk.
The essential pause: wait to worry
Our current times include concerns on a scale from personal to global and back again. Since life brings unexpected challenges and ongoing demands, there are ample opportunities to form a worry habit. Like any habit, the more we react to stimuli in a contracted manner, the more the habitual reaction becomes a default setting of sorts. Worry (or anger, irritation, impatience) begins to weave into who we are and how we move through life. We are using the instrument of self in the same way over and over again, bracing for uncertainty. This does not help us remain effective in response to the surprises of life.
Alexander tools of intention and attention can potentially improve our emotional regulation and reduce the seeming helplessness of habit.
We all think, move, feel and sense with our entire instrument of self. No mode (thought, sensation, movement, emotion) can be plucked out of the context of our integrated self. We have choice in response, but only if we allow the time and quiet to seek means of indirection.
With any worry, irritation, or impatience, I only recognize and name the emotion because of physical and mental cues: my facial muscles harden and narrow, I fix my shoulders, my attention shrinks. Heart rate increases, respiration becomes more shallow. Mental chatter gets noisier, looping unhelpfully. I am less aware of the space around me. Where can I begin to shift this experience?
Attempting to change an emotion directly (by repressing, ignoring or exploring) generally proves counter productive, and may even deepen worry mode. Directly changing a muscular response disrupts the entire balance of tone and is likely to produce undesirable results. You can’t change a part of the system without affecting the entire support system.
Asking for overall quiet begins to shift the gears. Allowing time and seeing/hearing outside myself shifts the rhythm of the gears. Less chatter, more connection and curiosity.
Change comes in increments. Allowing time is not a freeze but a chosen, momentary pause. Overall quiet is not a deadening but a broader curiosity: what might happen if I allow a moment before bracing? Can I allow my Alexander teacher to sit or stand me without worrying about getting it right? Noticing where my attention is and making a choice in that regard reduces the helplessness of habit. I can wait to worry, even for a heartbeat.
I have time to let the bus arrive, wait for lab results, board a plane according to rows. If I need to quiet, I can take a break from the news. While I allow time and quiet, new experiences might happen. The bus is late, but I hear seasonal bird songs. I don’t read the news and rush less to get ready for work. I can wait for information instead of bracing in advance, and remain effective in response.
I can choose my attention, allow intention to inform me, and see what happens next.
Happy curiosity works best.
Continued learning
The use of the self includes far more than posture, shape, movement quality and coordination. Use is an entire expression and response to the changes, shifts, demands and delights of life.
Students and teachers of the Alexander Technique refine the entire integrated instrument by which they learn. This refinement requires attention, intention and time, but not in a furrowed brow, “get it right” manner. Instead, we allow new solutions, beginning with simple activities (rising from a chair with surprising ease, for instance). We begin to more accurately see our habitually fixed responses so we can unfix, undo, allow a new mode. We seek dynamic non-interference, and welcome overall quieting. This is an incremental learning, as so much unlearning has to be dared. Use becomes an attitude, a way of living, as we take this shifting instrument of self into all of our activities. We become curious instead of critical, less fixed and perhaps more forgiving.
Due to a diagnosis requiring immediate pharmaceutical intervention, I was prescribed a high dose of steroidal medication. This class of drugs has many potential side effects, most notable being increased irritability and impatience. Now, I am by no means suggesting that Alexander skills have medical effects, or to make any health claims whatsoever, but I have found I can use these less than ideal conditions to continue to learn with Alexander principles as my guideline.
Since the medication amplifies emotional reactivity, I decided to see this as “good news”, which helped me allow curiosity. I have enhanced perception rather than enhanced reaction. Indeed, there are no “new” irritabilities; I am irritable and impatient about the same stuff, just more dramatically and noticeably! I have increased cues so I can allow a pause, welcome support from the ground, notice the movement of breath, and see the world outside of myself. I can notice more clearly how impatience is indicated by muscular fixing (face tightens, rhythm of breath changes). I don’t want to tighten and fix, and I can’t remain irritable if I don’t tighten and fix. There is my area of choice.
I ask for overall undoing. I forgive my many flaws. I welcome the data so I can continue learning how to learn.
Onward with the adventure.
The rhythm of time
Months have passed, all a blur. Much has happened and nothing is predictable. We swim in a soup of uncertainty, treading water far from visible shores.
Perhaps we can mark time differently, detached from travel plans, daily transport, without performance schedules or rehearsals, in free fall from time expectations, bereft of our roles and how we costumed those roles. The world has changed, and our place in the world changes in response.
From an Alexander perspective, our choice is in dynamic non-interference, in getting out of the way so the entire self can respond to the conditions at hand. This is incredibly active. We refuse to make something happen so we can be effective participants in what does happen. We don’t impose a result, but insist upon new means. We want what we don’t know rather than what we believe we already know.
We stand in front of a chair, intending to sit. We can hurry to the sitting, freeze in getting this “right”, or allow a broader and unexpected experience, a new rhythm and pace of perception.
Allowing new experience anywhere allows new experience everywhere. We are connected, integrated systems, continuums of thought/sensation/emotion/movement. We unfix to welcome, we welcome to unfix.
Curiosity is more interesting than control. Receptivity works better than defense. The times in which we live demand all of our elasticity and requires our ease.
We rise from the chair as one elastic system, a unified response. We welcome these times with curiosity. We acknowledge unfathomable loss, and count on our endurance.
We welcome the rhythm of time.
Unfixing for the long haul
As demands rise and needs for endurance increase, our habits of fixing into positions, reactions and patterns may amplify. This is our opportunity to notice our own individual bracing styles, and to request a more curious condition of self, not because our bracing style is “wrong”, but because habitual fixing may limit new experience, new solutions and new skills. Our best means may be un-fixing, de-positioning and active welcoming.
We can bring our best response to the increasingly complex demands of living if we brace less and allow overall elasticity and enlivening more. All of our instrument of self responds to everything. Collecting data and making decisions from data gives us a means to proceed most effectively. We can notice and decide, yet remain unfixed.
What happens to all of me when I request a more curious, connected and elastic self? If I notice data in a welcoming, non-critical manner, I can also decide not to change any of the data directly. I want a condition of self that is curious, connected and elastic, not a condition of self that narrows my attention to a specific outcome, even with what I notice. I get out of the way as best I can. A new experience is what interests me, given that conditions have changed, and only a new experience is possible.
We learn how to learn by actually learning, not by fixing into solutions from past experience. Everything is new now. Everything is pretty much always new. We can bring our fully lit up elastic selves to the party of ongoing newness.
Entire expression
If we view the instrument of self as an inseparable and integrated whole, then a change in any aspect changes the entire self. We unfix overall to allow new solutions, means and experiences instead of directly addressing a part.
The entirety of our selves is shifted by face masks and coverings. We wear masks to care for our communities, and yet now we are partially hidden from one another. Perception and response modes change. We are in new social territory, with new cues, stresses and uncertainties.
Conditions have dramatically changed, and our dynamic response is essential so that we can remain calm, effective and creative. We gather data, relinquish being right, and allow the dynamic pause to notice how we do what we do.
If I smile or scowl, with or without a mask, all of me changes. When I smile, I widen and connect to the ground. I am typically seeing the world outside myself when I am smiling. When I scowl, I narrow and pull myself up from my neck/shoulders. My own chatter is primary while scowling. I can notice what happens when I smile or scowl and decide which experience I prefer. No judgement, no criticism, no moral compass. There is nothing inherently wrong about scowling or right about smiling, but both change the entirety of self.
Humans, crows, dogs may not be able to read my facial expression when I wear a mask, but I trust they can read an entire expression. I hope to learn to read everyone’s entire expression as these masked times continue. In times of tremendous change, we learn new skills, rise to increased demands, and continue to refine the instrument of self.
It’s not what you do, it’s how you undo
An essential and continuous skill of the Alexander Technique is the willing exploration of undoing to doing (without doing too much).
Undoing is a dynamic request to interfere less, reduce tension and amplify tone. Since we are integrated creatures with inseparable systems of thought/movement/sensation/emotion, we can request overall undoing through all aspects of self. All of me responds to a request to undo. All of me responds to everything.
Tone is necessary for engagement in the activities of living. Tone is also typically invisible. Tension is always obvious, whether tension is noted as mental, physical or emotional. Tension is not balanced by “relaxation”, which connotes deadening and withdrawal. Tension reduces as tonal balance and support increases. Undoing requires active de-positioning, un-placement, unpreparation and a cheerfully open curiosity, even in times of great uncertainty. We embrace not knowing everything in advance so we can allow a new knowing now.
Our globally shared era of uncertainty offers endless opportunities for dynamic undoing on a scale and depth previously unimaginable. All we have is our own instruments of self. If we tighten, collapse, reduce ourselves we are unlikely to respond well to shifting circumstances. Undoing as a basis may give us a chance. We won’t change the tumultuous times, but we may find means of contribution. We can begin with undoing, listening and dynamic non-interference, then proceed into doing, and refuse to interfere by doing too much.
Life happens, curiosity continues
Ongoing refinement of the instrument of self does not require conditions that we might consider “ideal”. The quiet oasis of an Alexander studio provides an environment in which to build skills in dynamic non-interference, spatial thinking, and prioritizing means over achieving ends. Life outside the studio brings challenges and demands: injuries, losses, anxieties, neighborly noise and pandemics, for instance. We have nearly endless opportunities for application of our Alexander skills in life. In the studio, we learn to rise from a chair with a balance of tone. In life, we can rise to demands with a unified response. So much more than postural support and increased respiratory freedom is potentially enhanced by bringing our Alexander skills to the activities of life. We learn how to learn in lessons, and then to broaden our attention in life.
In these surreal times, demands have risen considerably. The oasis of an Alexander studio has shifted to the often overstimulating screen. The teacher can only direct via words and visual demonstration. The responsibilities on student and teacher shift and increase. Both learn to constructively engage whole self thinking, without the amplified field of attention that the skilled hands of an Alexander teacher provides.
We can complain about the difficulties, or we can rise to the demands. We can relinquish “getting it right” and give up replicating a hands on lesson. We can unfix and undo for a new experience. We can bring the quieting spaciousness of lessons to the noise of life.
It’s a tall order, but by increments we learn, adapt, remain curious and rise with ease from the chair.
Worry Mode and Constructive Choice
How do I know I am worried? There’s the mental chatter, of course, and forehead tension, limited respiratory support, narrowed visual reception and a general sense of withdrawal from the world. I am spinning a narrative (so many potential threads these days), reacting to said narrative threads, and narrowing and shortening myself in the resulting spin. Where is my choice in response when so much is worrisome?
A good beginning is choosing levels of stimuli (news/information). Knowing enough news/information to remain effective but not so much as to paralyze response is an ongoing balance of choice. It may be a daily, hourly decision to know what level of news/information input allows conditions for your best response. You can refuse news and information with ease. Making that decision provides a sense of your own constructive choice. Knowing what is too much information for best elastic response is key to making best decisions, thinking with your entire self, and prioritizing the unified field of self over gaining any end. You gather data from your own experience, make choices, proceed and gather more information. Helplessness recedes once you are your own research system. You are no longer at the mercy of media.
The above assumes the essential and complex step of choice in response, which requires noticing the many cues (sensation, emotion, thought, muscle) in the first place. We know we are experiencing an emotion due to physical signals which we define mentally and interpret from belief, prior experience and societal framework. There is no point controlling the emotion we identify, as that is already flooding our entire system of self. But, we do have a choice in response to emotional experience.
- I notice mental chatter that draws me inward. I can decide to quiet chatter and attend to the world outside myself. I can ask for wide, soft eyes, wide receptive ears, connection to the ground. I can ask for quiet in my entirety.
- I have narrowed and shortened into a “startle pattern”: arms and legs pulled inward, jaw tensed, breath restricted. I take a moment to request all four limbs to undo (not relax or deaden, undo) out of my entire lively back, and for best possible elastic throughout myself.
Is any of this perfect or have perfect results? Of course not! We learn by experience, in increments, by loops of sensations, thought and emotions. We can’t control the loops, but we can choose our response to the loops, and thus remain effective in these weird pandemic times
The window of impossibility, with curiosity as means
Dynamic non-interference is a key skill for Alexander teachers and students. Over time, and with guidance, we learn to more accurately notice unnecessary efforts, and to cheerfully request a new response. We ask how much less we can do, fix, or be right as we consider activities, whether those activities be primarily mental, physical or emotional in emphasis. We bring our entire thinking, emoting, moving, sensing instrument to everything we do. The more we request a unified field of self, the more solutions arrive. The less we hold the instrument into a fixed or “right” mode, the more new experience we can allow, the more quietly surprising solutions we can welcome.
Of course, it’s hard work to allow activities to do themselves. We have to actively, skillfully get out of the way. Often, it seems impossible to rise on the toes, teach an online lesson, engage in political discussion or speak through a cloth mask without the tensions associated with those activities. The link between an associated set of muscular/mental/emotional tensions and achieving the activity indicates that the activity is impossible without those tensions. We believe a certain amount of doing is necessary.
And thus, the “window of impossibility” beckons. We have an opportunity to cheerfully refuse (no finger shaking here, this is exploration, not a test) what seems necessary, so that a new solution can arise to our big planetarium brains. The stimulus is to do something. But perhaps I prefer to undo, to allow time (even a micro-second) for a more unified self, and to receive the world outside myself. Being right stiffens the neck. Fixing myself just fragments me into parts and pieces, and rushing to do something deepens the doing/fixing battle and provides no new data. I can go quickly without hurrying and go slowly without freezing if I allow that dynamic interior permission of time. Welcoming curiosity, allowing gravity and the tidal movement of breath as connection to the world shifts brain state, improves postural support and broadens sensory perception.
Happy curiosity becomes a means, and the window of impossibility holds interest and mystery rather than defeat and frustration. We learn by undoing to proceed elastically to doing, without doing too much.
