Impatient about results? Tips for a great year from Alexander and Caesari.

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This week I’m continuing my mini-series inspired by the singing teacher Caesari’s warnings to singing students. Last week I talked about the dangers of unbridled enthusiasm. This week, we look at the second of Caesari’s warnings, that of being impatient about results:

Let the student beware, however, of three prominent evils:

  • Unbridled enthusiasm which leads to precipitancy and excesses;
  • Impatient expectation of rapid measurable results;
  • Discouragement in face of temporary or occasional failure.*

 

We’ll look first at why we want measurable results fast, then at why this is unrealistic. Finally, I’ll leave us with a couple of ideas to help counter our thirst for results.

 

Impatient about results: I want improvement, and I want it NOW!

On any new activity or goal we’re working on, or even if we’re working to improve something we’re already doing, the one thing we’re looking for is improvement.

If I take singing lessons, I want my singing to get better.

If I go to French classes, I want to come out after a few lessons with at least a smattering of French.

If I go running, I want to start feeling fitter.

But we don’t just want improvement. We don’t just want results. We want those results to be measurable, and we want that measurable improvement quickly. We suffer, to use Caesari’s words, impatient expectation of rapid measurable results.

And life often just doesn’t work that way.

 

Why results (often) don’t come quickly.

Even if we are learning a whole new skill (as I did last year with tennis), we still are likely to have preconceptions about what the activity involves, how it is meant to be done, how successful we are likely to be, and what body parts we are going to have to use to do it. We are full of preconceptions.**

Part of learning anything is learning to give up what you think you know in order to take on board the ideas that you could never have dreamed of. And this is sometimes a hard task. We are almost preconditioned to hold on to the things we know – they are ours, we thought of them, and we like them. Letting go can be difficult. And yet this is what we must do.

Sometimes it will be fast. We will make terrific process.

Sometimes it is slow. It feels like it is taking forever. Sometimes I feel like I would rather chew my own foot off than have to wait any longer for improvement in the areas that I’m working on! But change comes. In its own time. And it probably won’t look anything like what you thought it would.

At this point, it is practically irresistible to begin feeling impatient about results, get frustrated, ‘chuck a wobbly’, ‘throw your toys out of the pram’. But let’s not, just for a moment, because it’s usually at this point that I remember my all-time favourite quote from FM Alexander.

…where the “means-whereby” are right for the purpose, desired ends will come. They are inevitable. Why then be concerned as to the manner or speed of their coming? We should reserve all thought, energy and concern for the means whereby we may command the manner of their coming.***

I love this quote because it reminds me that if I’m following a well-designed process, if I’m keeping my enthusiasm in check and using my head, then I cannot fail to have success. I just don’t know how long it will take.

 

How to avoid impatient expectation of rapid results

These are my tips:

  • Keep a list (either mental or on paper) of things that have improved. My own favourite example is playing musical passages that I used to find too difficult, but that I can now play easily. Look at the list whenever you start to feel impatient, and remind yourself of how frustrated you used to feel about the thing that is now simple for you.
  • If you feel frustrated, take a break. Go for a walk or a run. Put on some music and dance around the house. If you release some of the mental energy, you may well find that you’ve solved the issue blocking your progress without having to ‘think’ about it.
  • Remember that frustration and impatience are also signs of growth. When you think about it, this makes sense. If we always stay within what is comfortable and easy, then we don’t ever reach the limits of what is possible for us.

Impatience and frustration, of themselves, are not detrimental. What is truly destructive is allowing impatience and frustration to be the excuse to quit. Why not dance instead?

 

* E. Herbert-Caesari, The Alchemy of Voice, Robert Hale, London, 1965, p.22.
** See FM Alexander’s wonderful chapter ‘Incorrect Conception’ in Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual for a fuller description of this.
*** FM Alexander, The Universal Constant in Living in the IRDEAT complete edition, p.587.

Unbridled enthusiasm – tips for a great New Year from Alexander and Caesari

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Are you filled with enthusiasm for the coming year?

How are you going with your New Year’s Resolutions?

Or have you worked out your goals for 2014? Are you sticking to your plans so far?

If you’re anything like me, you experience a heady mix of emotions at the beginning of the year as you make plans for how you want to best use your time and energies. And it can be tricky navigating a path through the mix of excitement, puzzlement, enthusiasm, fear and confusion.

It was a pleasant surprise, then, as I started one of my holiday reading books, to come across a reminder of some of the most important lessons that FM Alexander teaches us about navigating the process of change and development.

My holiday reading was called The Alchemy of Voice, written by singing teacher E. Herbert-Caesari. In the opening chapter, the author exhorts singing students to strive, experiment and practise daily – all good things, I’m sure you’ll agree! But then he issues this warning:

 

Let the student beware, however, of three prominent evils:

  • Unbridled enthusiasm which leads to precipitancy and excesses;
  • Impatient expectation of rapid measurable results;
  • Discouragement in face of temporary or occasional failure.*

What a list! It’s such a powerful selection of principles that I’m going to spend this blog post just talking about the first of Caesari’s three points: the dangers of unbridled enthusiasm.

 

Unbridled enthusiasm – too much of a good thing.

When my son made chapattis recently, he decided not to follow the written recipe instructions. Measuring ingredients seemed slow and tedious. Instead, he decided to put two large double handfuls of flour in his bowl, sprinkle in a bit of salt, and then slosh in some water.

The mix was a little dry, so he added more water.

The mix was still too dry, so he added a little more water.

The mix was STILL too dry, so he added… a lot more water. A whole lot. His chapatti mix looked a little like soup. It needed a lot more flour, and some adult help, to bring it back to being the right consistency.

Caesari’s point at the beginning of his book is that singers are a little like my son. He decided that he knew what chapatti dough looked like, so he didn’t need to measure ingredients. He knew what he was doing. Similarly, Caesari suggests that singers very often think they know what sort of sound they want to achieve, and don’t necessarily follow a reasoned process to get there.

But it isn’t just singers who are like that, and it isn’t just my son. I suspect everyone has this experience. We are convinced we know what our end product should be, so in our enthusiasm to get to the end, we skip some of the slow, boring, tedious, necessary steps that will get us there.

FM Alexander certainly had this experience. In 1910 he wrote:

One day I hope to write an account of how I arrived at the practical elucidation of my principles of conscious control, and when I do, I shall show very plainly how one of the greatest, if not the greatest danger against which I had to fight was my own enthusiasm. It is as vivid and keen today as it was over twenty years ago, but I should never have worked out my principles, if I had allowed it to dominate my reason.**

Enthusiasm and reason

Notice that Alexander doesn’t say that enthusiasm is bad. Neither does Caesari. They both say that unbridled enthusiasm is bad. Unbridled enthusiasm blinds us; it stops us from assuming that we know everything, and causes us to miss out vital steps. It stops us from using our heads.

So this is what we must do:

  • Be enthusiastic. Enthusiasm is good. It keeps us going through the inevitable failures and disappointments along the path to our goals;
  • Remember that we don’t know it all! Humility will keep us remembering that we need to watch out for our hidden assumptions and blind spots;
  • Keep using our heads and following all the steps. It’s hard to be a good musician if you don’t practise. It’s hard to keep fit if you don’t exercise. It’s hard to be a writer if you don’t write! Keep showing up, and keep doing the steps.

If we follow these pointers, then together we can all make a true difference to ourselves, to our families, and to our communities this year. Wouldn’t that be a great thing?

 

* E. Herbert-Caesari, The Alchemy of Voice, Robert Hale, London, 1965, p.22.
** FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the IRDEAT complete edition, p.90. And he did write that account of how he arrived at his principles of conscious control – it’s the first chapter of his book The Use of the Self.
Image by supakitmod from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Decision making and FOMO: what FM would say…

decision-making

Are you good at decision making, or are you plagued by those modern evils, Fear of Commitment and Fear of Missing Out? This post is about why decision making is a fundamental skill within Alexander Technique, and how you can do it better.

Decision making fail – leaning on the fence

A week or so ago I had the great pleasure of taking my family along to the ExCeL conference centre in London to see the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Celebration. It was a massive exhibition – tons of displays of costumes and props, lots of stalls selling things, and lots of demonstrations and theatre shows in a number of small spaces.

Many of these small spaces were defined within the large exhibition space by little fences. Inside each fence there were chairs and a stage. The fence was small, and though you could easily see over the top, staying outside to watch the demonstrations wasn’t exactly comfortable. The fence was rickety and wobbled every time it was touched, and the crowds bustled past constantly.

But that didn’t stop people. Every time I walked past one of these little theatre spaces, only about a third of the chairs inside was filled, but the fence was lined entirely by people leaning uncertainly against the rickety barrier and watching from the outside.

They didn’t want to commit. If you went inside you got a (more or less) comfy seat, but it also made it harder to leave if you didn’t like the show. And who was to say that there might not be a better show starting in the next space in just a few minutes?

So most people decided to hedge their bets, and spend an entire 40 minute show jammed against a wobbly barrier while the crowds brushed past.

Decision making and reasoning

Now, I admit that I’m not the world’s best decision maker. But I do know that standing around in a crowded passageway for 40 minutes just to ‘keep my options open’ is what FM Alexander would disparagingly call ‘unreasoned’. It stems from a fear of making the wrong choice, and a lingering worry that we might be missing out on something ‘better’. But really, does it really matter if there’s a better show than the one we’re watching, especially if it will take use half of the show time to push through the crowds to get to it?

If FM Alexander had worried about making the wrong choice about what experiments to make while he was trying to find the solution to his vocal troubles, we wouldn’t have the Alexander Technique today. FM made tons of mistakes. He went up conceptual blind alleys, tried wrong things, and even realised at one point that “all my efforts up till now to improve the use of myself in reciting had been misdirected.” (p.419)

But he never let his errors stop him. Indeed, more than once in Evolution of a Technique (the chapter in which he describes the creation of the work we now call the Alexander Technique), he says clearly that he profited from the experiences he had from his mistakenness – the experience helped him to form new ideas and new experiments to try. (see p.418, p.424)

 Decision making – which side of the fence are you on?

Ultimately, there are very few decisions where the outcome is really that crucial. Most things can be changed, or improved upon. Most decisions will not be completely bad or wrong – we can learn from most things.

Therefore, don’t sit (or lean) on the fence.

Try that new restaurant or cafe.

Try that new watercolour brush technique.

Try playing that phrase with a different fingering pattern.

Try a different route home.

In the vast majority of circumstances, even if the choice turns out to be less than optimal, it won’t matter that much. You might end up with a lesser cup of coffee, or it might take you five minutes longer to get home. But if you don’t try, you might end up missing the best cup of coffee you ever tasted.

If you lean on the fence for too long, you’ll just end up with sore feet.

 

Conquer stage fright by changing point of view

alchemist2

Can you conquer stage fright by changing point of view? Or are the physical sensations of nervousness always going to get to you in the end? This is my story of how I came to realise that between physical sensations and thought patterns, thought patterns are the more destructive agent when it comes to performance anxiety.

When I was young, everyone was certain I was going to be a musician. I played flute and recorder. Recorder was my true love of the two instruments (and still is). I played in the school recorder ensembles and bands. I was always off to some rehearsal or another. I was pretty good – in spite of the fact that I never learned how to practice effectively – and was keen to go to a music school in the Netherlands to further my recorder career.*

So why didn’t I go? How did I end up where I am today?

I couldn’t cope with the nerves. Particularly before solos, my heart would race, my hands and knees would shake, my blood would pump so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear. But worse than that were the fears of getting things wrong, of disappointing people. I spent much of my time before every performance in the grip of a forecast of doom. I was convinced that my performance had to be note perfect, and that anything less was a failure.

I quit. There’s only so long that anyone can take that sort of pressure. At that time, in that place, I couldn’t conquer stage fright. It conquered me.

When I say I quit, I need to be more precise. I quit music. I didn’t quit performing. When I went to university, in addition to all the sensible courses, I enrolled in Theatre Studies for a bit of fun. It became my passion.

I loved the academic approach to theatre, but if I’m honest, I loved the acting and directing the most. And I never suffered stage fright. In fact, I didn’t really experience negative nervousness at all. Not once.

Did I feel my heart go faster before I went onstage? Yup. If anything, it went even faster. I can remember waiting backstage before one performance and wondering what the fastest heartrate recorded might be, as I thought mine at that moment probably rivalled it!

Did my hands and my knees shake? Yes. Definitely yes. When I was in Samuel Beckett’s Play, in which the three actors are encased in urns, mine could be seen vibrating!

But it never bothered me. I was having too much fun.

Now I look back and I can see that, logically, there is little difference between standing in front of an audience wearing a fake beard and carrying a sword, to standing in front of an audience with a recorder mouthpiece between my lips. But at the time, the rules and stories I told myself about each activity were very different.

Music = getting it right, being perfect, being in control, trying to block out the audience (who were ‘against’ me and judging me), getting things wrong and beating myself up for failing

Theatre = experimenting, having fun, having a sort of conversation/interplay with the audience, getting stuff wrong and trying to find a nifty way out of trouble

 

Some of the ideas within these categories may have been picked up from other people and places, but I was the one who held them together and believed them. I created paradigms that made one activity (music) a kind of living hell, and the other (theatre) a paradise of playtime. If FM Alexander had been around to see me, he would have said that he had “no hesitation in stating that the pupil’s fixed ideas and conceptions are a major part of [her] difficulties.” **

One of the unexpected joys of studying the Alexander Technique for me was that the “mental rigidity” (FM’s words) that had fossilised my ideas about music was broken up, and my fear of playing or singing in front of audiences conquered.***

So if you want to conquer stage fright, have you considered whether your ideas and attitudes about the activity of performing might be a significant part of your difficulties? Is there a similar activity that causes you no problems at all? What is the rule that makes the difference?

And it isn’t just stage fright that can be helped by looking at hidden rules and preconceptions. Go hunting, and you may be surprised what ideas you have that rule the way you operate/behave in everyday activities.

Yes, we can conquer stage fright. And sometimes looking at how we think is the first step on the path.

* The Netherlands is one of the major centres of recorder teaching, and early music in general.
** FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual in the IRDEAT complete edition, p.294.
*** FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the IRDEAT edition, p.123.
Photo of Jen in a fake beard as Face in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, 1993. Photo by Rex Bunn.

Conquer stage fright by… changing point of view

alchemist2

Can you conquer stage fright by changing point of view? Or are the physical sensations of nervousness always going to get to you in the end? This is my story of how I came to realise that between physical sensations and thought patterns, thought patterns are the more destructive agent when it comes to performance anxiety.

When I was young, everyone was certain I was going to be a musician. I played flute and recorder. Recorder was my true love of the two instruments (and still is). I played in the school recorder ensembles and bands. I was always off to some rehearsal or another. I was pretty good – in spite of the fact that I never learned how to practice effectively – and was keen to go to a music school in the Netherlands to further my recorder career.*

So why didn’t I go? How did I end up where I am today?

I couldn’t cope with the nerves. Particularly before solos, my heart would race, my hands and knees would shake, my blood would pump so loudly in my ears that I could barely hear. But worse than that were the fears of getting things wrong, of disappointing people. I spent much of my time before every performance in the grip of a forecast of doom. I was convinced that my performance had to be note perfect, and that anything less was a failure.

I quit. There’s only so long that anyone can take that sort of pressure. At that time, in that place, I couldn’t conquer stage fright. It conquered me.

When I say I quit, I need to be more precise. I quit music. I didn’t quit performing. When I went to university, in addition to all the sensible courses, I enrolled in Theatre Studies for a bit of fun. It became my passion.

I loved the academic approach to theatre, but if I’m honest, I loved the acting and directing the most. And I never suffered stage fright. In fact, I didn’t really experience negative nervousness at all. Not once.

Did I feel my heart go faster before I went onstage? Yup. If anything, it went even faster. I can remember waiting backstage before one performance and wondering what the fastest heartrate recorded might be, as I thought mine at that moment probably rivalled it!

Did my hands and my knees shake? Yes. Definitely yes. When I was in Samuel Beckett’s Play, in which the three actors are encased in urns, mine could be seen vibrating!

But it never bothered me. I was having too much fun.

Now I look back and I can see that, logically, there is little difference between standing in front of an audience wearing a fake beard and carrying a sword, to standing in front of an audience with a recorder mouthpiece between my lips. But at the time, the rules and stories I told myself about each activity were very different.

Music = getting it right, being perfect, being in control, trying to block out the audience (who were ‘against’ me and judging me), getting things wrong and beating myself up for failing

Theatre = experimenting, having fun, having a sort of conversation/interplay with the audience, getting stuff wrong and trying to find a nifty way out of trouble

 

Some of the ideas within these categories may have been picked up from other people and places, but I was the one who held them together and believed them. I created paradigms that made one activity (music) a kind of living hell, and the other (theatre) a paradise of playtime. If FM Alexander had been around to see me, he would have said that he had “no hesitation in stating that the pupil’s fixed ideas and conceptions are a major part of [her] difficulties.” **

One of the unexpected joys of studying the Alexander Technique for me was that the “mental rigidity” (FM’s words) that had fossilised my ideas about music was broken up, and my fear of playing or singing in front of audiences conquered.***

So if you want to conquer stage fright, have you considered whether your ideas and attitudes about the activity of performing might be a significant part of your difficulties? Is there a similar activity that causes you no problems at all? What is the rule that makes the difference?

And it isn’t just stage fright that can be helped by looking at hidden rules and preconceptions. Go hunting, and you may be surprised what ideas you have that rule the way you operate/behave in everyday activities.

Yes, we can conquer stage fright. And sometimes looking at how we think is the first step on the path.

* The Netherlands is one of the major centres of recorder teaching, and early music in general.
** FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual in the IRDEAT complete edition, p.294.
*** FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the IRDEAT edition, p.123.
Photo of Jen in a fake beard as Face in Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist, 1993. Photo by Rex Bunn.

Practice the little things! Hunt for hidden assumptions when leaving the comfort zone.

This is the fourth part of a short series on how to go about pushing your comfort zone and trying new stuff. Week 1 was about why it’s a good idea to leave your comfort zone. In week 2 we explored how our fear of getting it wrong can hold us back, and how to move past it. Last week was all about starting from where you are instead of waiting for perfect timing or conditions. This week is about finding hidden assumptions and practicing all the elements that will make up your activity.

 

This time I have for you a cautionary tale about the dangers of hidden assumptions, and the vital importance of remembering to practice the little things.

bottle

This is a water bottle. It is, in fact, the bottle that I received at the end of the Bristol 10k. Like all the other runners, I received a similar one during the race, about halfway through.

Some of them poured the water over their heads.

Most of them drank from the bottle.

I didn’t do either of those things. I did something far sillier.

You see, when I was training for the run, I never ran for very long. The longest time period was about an hour. And because I was training in my local park very close to my house, I never bothered to take a water bottle out with me. If I got thirsty on a longer run, I would just detour back home and grab a glass from the cupboard and pour myself some water.

But during the race, I wasn’t close to home. And I couldn’t detour for a nice, civilised glass. When I got the water bottle, I very quickly realised something.

I hadn’t practiced drinking while running.

Oops.

The water went over my cheeks. It went down my chin. It went down my front. It went pretty much anywhere except my mouth.

I looked like an idiot.

It had simply never occurred to me to practice drinking while running. But during the race it became clear that it was part of the race plan that I hadn’t thought about at all. I discovered that I had hidden assumptions about my ability to drink on the run. And I was wrong.

And it’s the little things that get you. When I was coaching a student recently for some practical exams, the student had thought about everything… Except for the order in which he was going to speak to the participants in the test, and how he was going to order his time in the simpler stations that formed part of the test procedure. It seems like a small thing, but it could be vitally important.

It is really tempting to concentrate on the big things, like the training runs. And they need attention. But the little things need attention too. Why?

1. Little things are part of a whole. Part of the way we handle big new experiences is to break them up into easier-to-handle pieces. Each piece is important. If we haven’t prepared all the small pieces, we haven’t fully prepared the whole. In fact, if we’ve neglected a little thing, it frequently indicates that we have hidden assumptions lurking, and they might have large consequences.

2. Little things can throw us off course. Especially if we’re doing something new, or trying to react to a difficult situation in a new way, we have enough to think about already just putting our newly formed plans into action. We don’t need surprises. And FM Alexander would suggest that if we leave an opening for ourselves to be caught off guard, we are more likely to depart from our reasoned plans and fall back to more instinctive unreasoned patterns of behaviour.*

So, more than a month after the race, I keep the water bottle. It is a reminder to me of how little things really do matter.

What little things do you need to take account of today?

 

* FM Alexander, The Use of the Self, IRDEAT edition, p.417; p.433.

Start where you are! Why waiting for perfect conditions or timing can keep you stuck

This is the third part of a short series on how to go about pushing your comfort zone and trying new stuff. Week 1 was about why it’s a good idea to leave your comfort zone. Last week we explored how our fear of getting it wrong can hold us back, and how to move past it. This week is all about starting from where you are instead of waiting for perfect conditions.

Jen's kitchen timer

This is my kitchen timer. It has a magnet on the back, and lives on my fridge. It’s the timer I use when I make cakes or muffins so that I don’t walk away and burn the house down. It makes very loud beepy noises.

It’s also an essential part of my running training kit.

When I downloaded my training plan from the runbristol website, I very quickly noticed that it didn’t really expect me to do just  long runs. The designers of the plan had cleverly included interval training, too. This, most weeks I was expected to do 10 minutes or so easy running, then 5 or more repetitions of, for example, 4 minutes fast running and 90 seconds recovery.*

There was no way I was going to be able to keep track of that with my wristwatch. But because I believed for so long that I was No Good at Sport, I didn’t own a stopwatch, and I didn’t have the spare cash to buy one. So how was I going to manage it?

The plan expected ownership of a stopwatch, but I didn’t live in that world. I did not have the perfect conditions. What was I going to do? What would you do?

I could have given up altogether: “This is just too hard. I was wrong to think I could run.”

I could have ignored the plan and not done the interval training. “I’ll be fine with just the long runs. I hope.”

But both these options are a kind of defeat. It would be allowing a lack of the perfect conditions to determine my actions. But conditions are so rarely perfect. Timing is so rarely perfect. Sometimes we just have to begin with what we have.

Hence the kitchen timer.

I would go out for my interval training with my little kitchen timer in my hand. It made very loud beepy noises. People did occasionally stare. But it worked for me, and I was content with that.

So often we hear ourselves or others using a lack of perfect timing or perfect conditions as a reason for not trying something new, or as an excuse to not follow through on a dream we have. We find ourselves stymied by the ‘received wisdom’ on the ‘right’ path to take to achieve a goal – if we don’t fit neatly on that one true path, we feel tempted to give up.** But with a little imagination we can so often find a way to overcome such obstacles.

There is no perfect time.

There are no perfect conditions.

There is only now.

So find your equivalent of my kitchen timer, and start inventing your route to your goals.

 

* This is seriously good for your fitness levels, by the way.
** FM Alexander believed that we are taught from childhood to believe in rigid rules and ‘correct’ mental outlooks, and that it was a major cause of later mental and physical difficulties. See Man’s Supreme Inheritance, IRDEAT complete edition, p.74.

Water is not water: a swimmer’s view of staying in the present

swimming

When you swim, do you assume the water is always the same? Or when performing, is the audience just another audience?

Today might be the day you begin to re-evaluate!

I’ve just finished reading one of my Christmas presents – the autobiography of Australian swimming legend Ian Thorpe. He’s famous for his world record swims from the age of 14, his very large feet, and his decision to quit competitive swimming at age 24, at the height of his career.

The opening paragraphs of the book were a revelation to me, a non-swimmer who had never thought about water before. Here’s what Thorpe says:

“When I first dive into the pool I try to work out how the water wants to hold me. If I let it, the water will naturally guide me into a position; a place for my body to settle… This is the starting point for me, not just floating but lying flat on top of the water. Then I begin to initiate movement…”*

For Thorpe, water isn’t just Water, and a pool isn’t just A Pool. They aren’t constants. The water changes, and is different day by day. His first act when diving in isn’t to thrust forward and begin his swimming stroke. Rather, he waits for feedback from the water. He waits to find out what this water is like, today. How can he best swim in this water, on this day?

I was really struck by this because it reminded me of FM Alexander’s emphasis on analysing the conditions present as part of the development of what we now call the Alexander Technique. Alexander wanted us to take notice of what was happening around us, and then design a custom-built response. An off-the-shelf once size fits all solution wouldn’t be good enough, because Alexander said that in modern life “conditions change so constantly that they cannot be adequately met by any external standard or fixed code as to what is right or wrong.”**

So external conditions change. Water isn’t a constant, according to Ian Thorpe. At this point I began to think about other objects and places I or my students sometimes treat as unchanging constants. The thing is, the more I think about it, the fewer constants I can find.

An audience isn’t the same day to day.
A road isn’t the same day to day.
A musical instrument isn’t the same day to day.
A person isn’t the same day to day.

My challenge to you this week is a simple one: take a look at your daily activities. Are there any places/objects/people that you treat as being unchanging? Would it benefit you to try considering them changeable, and alter the way you react based on how they appear each day?

Oh, and if you want to read a wonderfully poetic musician’s take on the challenge of staying with present circumstances, read Patrick Smith’s blog.

* Ian Thorpe and Robert Wainwright, This is Me, Simon and Schuster, 2012, p. xi.
** FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the IRDEAT complete edition, p. 472.
Image by Salvatore Vuono from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Be Persistent! Stickability, Creativity and the Alexander Technique

This is the fifth and final post in a short series on what FM Alexander can teach us about steps to creativity. The first post was called Make Mistakes! The second post was called Make Decisions! The third post was called Make Allowances! The fourth post was called Be Methodical!

heifetz.jpg.scaled500

En route to South Korea (and ultimately Australia), I found a wonderful documentary on the airline entertainment system last night. It was about Jascha Heifetz, the great violinist. According to the documentary, after living and touring in America for a few years, the young Heifetz began to enjoy the trappings of fame – cameras, cars, parties – and moved away from the highly regimented practice regime that he had previously followed. But after a particularly poor review by a journalist called Henderson, in which the reporter suggested that The performer was short-changing his audience, Heifetz was so shocked that he made massive changes in his lifestyle almost overnight. He became, once more, the consummate professional and utterly brilliant virtuoso.

The story fascinated me because it reminded me of another key characteristic of the great creative minds: persistence.

Heifetz didn’t quit. He didn’t ignore the criticism. He took the setback in his stride, accepted the criticism, and acted upon it.

In a similar way, FM Alexander faced difficulties in his efforts to find a solution to his vocal problems. He had spent months observing and experimenting. But after he had tried putting his head forward and up but still found that he could not prevent his habitual misuse of himself, he wrote this line:

“I now had proof of one thing at least, that all my efforts up till now to improve the use of myself in reciting had been misdirected.”

This sounds like a setback to me! But Alexander, like Heifetz, didn’t give up. He keep thinking, reasoning, observing and experimenting. He went right back to the beginning and started again. He worked really hard.

Setbacks are normal, no matter what our field of expertise. But our creativity demands that we overcome whatever seems to block our path. In fact, as with Heifetz and Alexander, the setbacks can often become a spur to even greater accomplishment. The key is not to give up.

What obstacles are challenging your creativity? And how are you going to spur yourself on?

 

Be Methodical! Planning, Creativity and Alexander Technique

This is the fourth post in a short series on what FM Alexander can teach us about steps to creativity. The first post was called Make Mistakes! The second post was called Make Decisions! Last week’s post was called Make Allowances!

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I’ve been having an argument with some of my teenage students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama lately. I have been trying to teach them about the usefulness of planning, how it has a central place in Alexander’s work, and how it can help them achieve their creative goals. They don’t like the idea of planning. They think it will stifle their creativity. “But it will destroy our spontaneity!” they insist.

So… What’s the relationship between planning and creativity? Does being methodical bring results? Or does it ruin your spontaneity?

FM and the mirror

Being methodical and going about things in a stepwise manner is at the very root of the work we call the Alexander Technique. When FM Alexander decided to find out the cause of his vocal problems and first stood in front of his mirror, he went about things in a stepwise manner. He decided to watch himself first in ordinary speaking. He knew that he was suffering when he tried to recite, so he looked at his way of going about ordinary speaking first, so he had something to compare to. He saw nothing unusual. Then he watched himself while reciting, and saw that he did things with the relationship of his head with his body that didn’t seem helpful.

But did he stop there? No! He watched himself in ordinary speaking again. And he saw the same changes with his head-body relationship, but smaller.

Now, this is a classic example of a methodical thinker. FM wasn’t satisfied when he found the difference between ordinary speaking mk.1 and reciting. He tried ordinary speaking again – just to be certain.

And FM’s creation of his work is full of this sort of methodical thinking. He would do some observations, gathering as much information as he could. Then he would have a good think. And then he would try an experiment, and give himself time to really work on it. Then he would go back to the mirror, to check what was going on.

 

Being methodical didn’t destroy Alexander’s creativity. It gave it a framework. Because he was so methodical in his observations, he ws able to make reasoned, targeted experiments. Because he had a framework, his creativity had a direction and a purpose. It wsn’t trial and error. There was room for spontaneity precisely because he ‘knew the territory’ so well.

The framework

Do you have a framework built around your creative experimentation? If not, then try Alexander’s:

  1. Observe. Cover all the bases.
  2. Have a good think.
  3. Experiment!
  4. Observe again

Try using this framework. You may find, like my young actors who gave it a go to try to prove me wrong, that it really does help you to be not just more organised, but more effectively spontaneous too.

Let me know what you think in the comments!

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