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... gives the reader an inside view of the thinking process behind the Alexander Technique. A must read for anyone seriously interested in exploring this educational method.
About the Book . Excerpt . The Author
The Act of Living: Talks on The Alexander Technique
Excerpt
From the essay Change without changing.
“In life there's a great deal that
people would prefer to ignore and not be conscious of.
People really don't very much want to be conscious a lot
of the time. We talk these days quite a lot about changes
of consciousness and how by drugs and narcotics and various
things of one sort or another you can change consciousness.
But the fundamental problem is that the majority of people
are not all that keen on being conscious, fully conscious,
all the time. Consciousness can definitely seem to be
too painful.
I remember an old pupil of mine who was in quite a high
position in an insurance company. He was known for being
very conservative, very, very staid, very conventional.
I was giving him a lesson one day and he said, "You
know, a groove is a very comfortable thing." And
he was expressing, quite obviously, a deep feeling that
he was having. He realized that in the work I was doing
I was trying to winkle him out of his groove, and he didn't
want to be winkled out of that. He wanted to be able to
pursue his course of life as before. He didn't want to
change.
And on the whole, people don't want to change. They're very, very, very reluctant to change. They come, of course, for lessons on the understanding that this method is going to open up a way for them to change, but the change that they want is a change in which everything can remain the same. They want to change without changing. They haven't got the actual experience of what change is like. When they actually get the experience of it, most people are rather frightened of it, and certainly they don't like it. And so they adopt all sorts of defenses and affectations and evasions and so on that as a teacher you've got to battle with and work your way round if you're going to keep the impetus to change. And I'm speaking of change now in the wider and general sense of consciousness and conscious awareness.
In all of these attempts at change, it is essential to keep in mind that the challenge for change is with the physical aspect of your self-it is your breathing and your circulation and your digestion. It's the habits attached to your postural mechanism, to your muscular habits. And then, even more important than muscular habits are your neurological habits, because all the nerve pathways and all the inter-connections whereby energy flows from one nerve center to another are very largely habitual. The energy flows along habitual lines. It's like water running in an irrigation system in fields. It runs along habitual lines because those lines have become so familiar. That is how the energy flows.
Now, we are seeking to change people's manner of use of themselves. We are seeking to bring about changes not merely in their thought and their feelings on the larger scale-their habits, their social habits, and all that side of it, all the side I was referring to with the man from the insurance company-but also the absolutely personal habits insofar as it affects the use of the self and the whole working of the neuromuscular system. And to change all that, to begin to change it, to begin to make any change, any impression on it, is really quite an undertaking. It's a pretty daunting task as you can see when you see how much there is to be changed.
But imagine if somebody doesn't want to change, if they are really against change, afraid of it. You've got a hard task on your hands. It is a hard task. But to have any chance at success, you have to look at how people use themselves. You are not going to be able to make a significant change in yourself or in others until you address the whole problem of how people use themselves. That is really the crux of this whole business.”