“Why won’t you just tell me what to do?!”
In early lessons, students very often want me to tell them how to sit/stand/walk/whatever in the ‘right’ way. This is entirely understandable. They’ve come to me because whatever they’re doing at the moment has caused them trouble, and they want to fix it so the trouble goes away.
But there’s a logical fallacy at work, and a misunderstanding about what education is about. There’s also often a degree of self criticism. These are big topics and I want to take time to talk about them, so this week I will deal just with the logical fallacy. Next time I’ll talk about how our concept of education holds us back. Finally, I’ll talk about the issue of self criticism.
Onwards…
The logical fallacy of the One Right Way
Statement: I want to sit the right way
Logical (and emotional) consequences of statement:
- There is a right way and (at least one) wrong way of sitting
- I am doing it the wrong way.
- (Bad me)
Let’s look at the idea that there’s a right way of, say, sitting, and at least one wrong way. It sounds like life would be very simple if there were just One Right Way of sitting on a chair. We could just learn it, use it, and not have to think about it again. But it really wouldn’t be simple at all, for this reason:
If this was true, we would first have to decide if there was only one right way, or if we would allow One Right Way for each circumstance (eg dining chair, office chair, car seat). At the very least, we’d end up with a list of Right Ways to suit our usual set of furniture and circumstances.
But what if the circumstances subtly alter – like having to get into the car with the seat a little further forward than usual? We would either have to suffer Doing Something Not Right, or make sure we constructed a set of Right Ways to deal with all conceivable changes of circumstance.
And then we’d end up with a big list of Right Ways. And we’d have to memorise them all.
That sounds like a lot of work to me. I’d much rather learn the principles behind constructing a Best Way (for now) for any circumstance as it arose, and then learn how to think and apply it moment by moment. In the end, it’s just so much easier.
And that’s what Alexander Technique lessons are: learning how to construct a Best Way (for now) for the moment that you’re in. Don’t be fooled by the apparent unthinking simplicity of the One Right Way. It leads to lists, prohibitions (mustn’t do the wrong thing!), and complexity. Go for gold, and learn how to reason out the Best Way (for now) instead.