Intelligence in Action
A First Lesson
by Graeme Lynn, GCFP, CSTAT
'When thought leads to actions, the neurophysiologist is forced to accept that thinking can change the neuronal activity of the brain... Such conversion of thinking and intent into cortical impulse patterns remains, for the time being, far beyond the limits of our understanding.'
Fundamentals of Neurophysiology, revised edition (1988)
More than a century ago while seeking to understand and overcome a terminal limitation in his theatrical skill, the then actor, Frederick Matthias Alexander, discovered what he came to call 'the primary control' of human function. As he learned through extensive self-study and intensive experimentation with himself, this core dynamic exerts a senior organizing (or, as he called it, a primary controlling) influence on all human movement. This primary control forms the foundation of the work that has since come to be called the Alexander Technique.
In learning the Alexander Technique, a person first begins to pay attention to him- or herself inwardly in terms of the physical mechanism, as a sensory-motor process, and then, in time and with practice, tunes in more and more to the core dynamic of that mechanism as perceived within, which is the primary control. The primary control is the dynamics and coordination of the relationship of the head with the neck and of the head-neck relationship with the back and, via the centre, with the rest of the body. When a person becomes attentive to him- or herself inwardly, or of another outwardly, as the bodily self or sensory-motor being, the essential or primary shape, feeling, direction, and motion of the physical self is what in the Alexander Technique we call the primary control.
Let me explain what 'sensory-motor process' means:
We have thirteen senses - as we all know - or fourteen, in fact. I write, 'as we all know', because, just as cavemen knew what gravity was and that it was, long before its so-called discovery by Isaac Newton, each of us knows that there are at least thirteen senses, and not merely five as we are popularized into thinking. In recent years, scientists have discovered a fourteenth sense, which they name 'blind sight'. (Certain blind people, it turns out, can 'visually' sense verticals and horizontals because of a neural pathway undamaged by their blindness, which as it happens we all have, distinct from the optic nerves that carry the impulses related to colours and black and white.) But with the other thirteen senses we are all perfectly familiar. In addition to vision, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling, and the senses of cold and heat, which tell us about the world, there are balance, felt movement, (tissue) tension, (tissue) pressure, (joint) articulation or the shape of the skeleton, and pain, which tell us about ourselves. These latter are the senses by means of which we know our selves as sensory-motor (or sensing and moving) processes. And it is they that are re-discovered, re-educated and refined in the Alexander learning process. And, in that way, we come to back to ourselves.
Alexander found that if, in the course of movement or physical action, one is released and 'directed' upwards from one's support via the axis of the spine, the head freely poised and the body released from the centre outward, any action can be performed with minimum effort and maximum effectiveness. This self-aware, intelligent, and self-responsible practice represents the best use or organization of the primary control and therefore of oneself in action. In fact, upon this organization, whether directed consciously or unconsciously, depends one's essential functional capability.
This right use of the self can be consciously learned or re-learned through self-study and practice under the guidance of a skilled teacher of the Technique. It can be learned on one's own even, only it took Alexander some nine years to master for himself, whereas it can be learned from an experienced teacher in a relatively short series of lessons because, as Alexander discovered and as much scientific research has since validated, people respond powerfully and positively to benign and intelligent touch and handling.
Teachers of the Alexander Technique re-educate a person's use through instruction and with their hands, which hands are uniquely trained to sense subtleties of movement and tension. The teacher's expertise is in his or her ability to best organize or coordinate, through refined and gentle manipulation, the pupil's movement, coordination, and response to gravity via an ongoing address to the pupil's primary control, the core dynamic around which all movement is organized. ('Manipulation' here indicates the strategies of touch and handling and in no way implies brusqueness, force or psychological coercion.) The Alexander teacher guides the person through primarily gentle active movements while always finding and facilitating the easier way, the path of freedom, which facility is rooted in the teacher's deep understanding of and feel for this core dynamic. At the same time, the teacher enlists the individual's innate capability to attend to him- or herself and to become aware of habitual patterning, and, through this gentle guidance, stimulates the person's sensory-motor self-exploration and growing capacity for freedom and self-control of the physical mechanism. The teacher works to ease out chronic action of muscles that are doing too much and coax the appropriate degree of activity from muscles that are under-used. Through thus guided simple activities such as sitting, standing, lying down, bending, reaching, and walking, the pupil learns to free him- or herself from misuse patterns and allow natural poise and balance to re-emerge. In time, the person becomes able to generalize the principles learned so that lightness, ease, and greater freedom of movement become the common ground of everyday experience.
After lessons in the Technique, people generally feel more relaxed, comfortable, open, and free, which is our natural state before we add our habitual patterns. This natural pleasure in embodiment emerges spontaneously in the learning process and is the basis for and beginning of a 'virtuous spiral' of self-improvement. It does not have to be - in fact, it cannot be - held onto. Indeed, letting go, and thereon understanding and mastering oneself in the context of our core dynamic, is the very essence of this pleasure and this freedom.
Moreover, this renewed sense and practice of bodily well-being positively influences one's sense of emotional and psychological well-being. People who learn the Technique and practice what they are learning in their daily lives often report greater calmness, greater alertness, greater ease in relationships, greater effectiveness at work and play, as a growing or regenerative process. Remarkably, this contradicts the cultural bias that ageing is necessarily degenerative, and it is experiential validation for the integrity or holistic nature of the human being.
Together with the value in the Technique placed upon self-awareness, embodiment, learning or self-realization, and transcendence of habit or freedom, the understanding of our inherent wholeness establishes the Alexander Technique as good philosophy and a primary discipline of good health. Although the Technique is a humble exercise in human health, these fundamental principles, which emerged from Alexander's profound and persistent practical self-exploration, put him far ahead of his time. He himself believed that the Work, as he called it, would serve humankind's conscious evolution. Indeed, his principles of right action continue to gain wider and wider acceptance as more and more people take up the Technique and take advantage of its great benefits.
To schedule lessons, please contact Graeme in Toronto, Ontario, at 416-964-7026, or click to email.