To me there are three quotations that direct my work with the Alexander Technique ...
“If you stop doing the wrong thing the right thing will do itself.”
FM Alexander
“You translate everything, whether physical or mental or spiritual, into muscular tension.”
FM Alexander
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.”
Aldous Huxley~ in Texts and Pretexts
… and straightaway I have to say that I try not to use the word “Technique” – this is not applied or done to you – it is as Huxley said - “what a man does with” - i.e. it is for my pupils to hear what I say, feel what I do but more importantly sense for themselves the changes they can bring about.
A correct position or posture indicates a fixed position, similarly mind set indicates fixed ideas and a person held to a fixed position or idea cannot grow, as we understand growth. The correct position or idea today cannot be correct a week later for any person who is advancing in the work of re-education and co-ordination.
Alexander’s practical problems with his voice (body) appeared predominantly in the physical realm ...
... however Alexander found that “the major part of the difficulty” was in his fixed ideas (mind) and that these fixed ideas differed greatly in different people.
