Creativity Archives - Page 3 of 4

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

Feeling right, or having success… Which will you choose?

I have been having a real battle in my tennis lessons lately. My struggle is with my backhand. My teacher has given me very clear instructions on the technique of how to hit a good backhand stroke. When I follow her instructions, I have success.

But do I always follow her instructions?

Nup.

Because, you see, sometimes I decide that I know better. The technique that she has taught me works… but it doesn’t feel right. It feels, well, odd, and new, and… Wrong, frankly. And because it doesn’t feel right, more often than not I decide to go my own way, and do what feels right to me.

And the resulting shot stinks.

But it isn’t just me that has this experience. One of my students recently had a very clear choice between walking in the way that she had decided was most efficient and anatomically correct (but which made her feel like she was sticking her rear end out like a duck), or walking in her usual way and putting up with her lower back aching.

According to FM Alexander, it all comes down to a simple choice.* When I play tennis, I can either go about things in my old usual way and get the same crummy results that I always have, or I can actually listen to my teacher and wholeheartedly follow her instructions. My student can walk in the old achey way, or put her trust in the new way she has decided is best for her purpose.

Even when it feels odd, or wrong.
Even when it feels uncomfortable.
Even when I think I probably look like an idiot.
Even if she feels like a duck.

So last week I challenged you to pick an activity and think about what you would actually need to do to complete the activity. This week my challenge to you is to keep refining your plan in odd moments through the day, but to go one step further. Every so often, maybe once a day, put your plan into action. It may feel great. It may feel odd. It might not feel of anything at all. Just give it a go, and let me know how you get on.

* FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, IRDEAT complete edition, p.299f.
Image by Tina Phillips www.FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Be disruptive: challenge the status quo like FM Alexander

Do you find you just accept things as they are, or are you a person who questions the status quo?

This week I have been reading Michael Bloch’s biography of FM Alexander. I was fascinated by Bloch’s description of FM as a child – an “attention-seeking” boy who was ‘excused’ from regular lessons at the tiny village school in rural Tasmania.

Why?

He was disruptive. He asked too many questions.

In 1946 Walter Carrington wrote down his recollections of FM talking about his schooldays:

”

F.M. said that they could never make anything of him at school. He used to dispute every statement that was held up for his belief. If they then referred him to a book, he would ask how the writer of the book knew it to be true. They used to send him up for thrashings but he still came back for more.”*

In a school child, this was a disruptive and precocious trait. FM was extremely lucky to have a school master who was prepared to spend time teaching him one-to-one outside of normal school hours.

And we are lucky too, because it meant that FM’s innate questioning nature was not crushed. It was, in fact, exactly that predisposition not to let anything rest that characterised his explorations to create the work we call the Alexander Technique. He didn’t just blindly accept what the doctors said. He didn’t cave in and find a new job when it seemed as though his acting career was finished. And when his investigations into the causes of his vocal troubles were going badly, did FM give up? No!

We should learn from this. Too often we allow the easy answer to stop us from thinking. We accept the status quo. We label something as a ‘habit’ or ‘just the way things are’ and then assume that they are unchanging and unchangeable.

But we don’t know that – not until we ask. Not until we test our beliefs and our ideas.

What assumptions are there in your life? What can you question today?

* Walter Carrington quoted in Bloch, M., FM: The Life of Frederick Matthias Alexander, Hachette, 2004, p.18 in the Kindle edition.

Image by criminalatt from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“I can’t sing!” – the difference between CAN’T and DON’T, and why it matters

I recently had this exchange with a young student.

Student: I can’t sing.
Me: Really? Who told you that?
Student: Well, no one. But I can’t sing.
Me: What evidence do you have for that?
Student: I’ve heard myself.
Me: What, on a recording?
Student: [scornfully] No!
Me: So how have you heard yourself?
Student: As I’m singing.

At this point I took a little time to explain that this doesn’t really count, as you can’t hear yourself the way an audience hears you. All you can hear of yourself is a combination of internal resonance and whatever bounces back off the walls of wherever you are singing. Back to the dialogue.

Me: So have you heard yourself sing?
Student: No.
Me: So how do you know that you can’t?
Student: I guess I don’t.
Me: Do you sing at all?
Student: As little as possible.
Me: In that case, all we can say is that you don’t sing. Until you sing, we have no evidence that you can’t.

It sounds like I’m splitting hairs. But I’m not. It is a very common thing for me to have students say “I can’t” do something, when what they mean is that they tried it once and weren’t very good. So they decide not to try it ever again.

But this isn’t sufficient evidence to decide. It’s a bit like me picking up a tennis racquet for the first time and expecting to be able to play like Roger Federer. It’s possible, but the likelihood of it happening is vanishingly small. If I want to decide if I’m any good at tennis, I will need to spend some time learning the game and practising.

FM Alexander said that the centre and backbone of his work was that the conscious mind (the reasoning mind) must be quickened (made alive).* And one of the ways that we can do that is to be careful not to confuse ourselves with our language. If we say ‘can’t’ when we really mean ‘don’t’ or ‘haven’t tried’, we cut ourselves off from the possibility of experimenting and discovering whole new areas of skill and delight in our lives.

Where have you said “I can’t” where you really should be saying “I don’t yet” or “I haven’t tried”, and what would happen if you changed the way you spoke and thought?

* FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the IRDEAT Complete Edition, p.39.
Image by graur codrin from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Losing “I can’t” – the importance of mental attitude in performance

When I teach Alexander Technique, I typically encourage students to come in with a activity they’d like to work on. It could be anything from sitting, to running, to juggling, or to using the pedal on a sewing machine. When I ask them why they want to look at their activity in class, they typically use one of the phrases:

I’m having trouble with x.[insert activity here]
I can’t play this passage.
It could have been better.
I’m okay up to this point, but then it all goes wrong.
I don’t breathe properly.
I always run out of air before the end.
I can’t hit that note.
I’m not doing as well as I’d like.

And when my students say their variation on these phrases, a line or two by FM Alexander runs through my mind: “when…we are seeking to give a patient conscious control, the consideration of mental attitude must precede the performance of the act prescribed … He often finds an enormous difficulty in altering some trifling habit of thought that stands between him and the benefit he clearly expects.” *

FM is pointing us towards an important truth. So often, the way we think about a problem is not only a part of the problem, but actually stands between us and the change of attitude and perspective necessary to find a solution. Or, to quote Stephen Covey, the way we see the problem is the problem.”

So next time you find yourself saying a variant on the above statements, try to find a new and more positive way of articulating the same thing:

I want to achieve x, but haven’t yet worked out how to do it.
I don’t yet play this passage the way I envisage it.
It hasn’t reached my highest standard, but there was improvement.
I haven’t managed to continue my thinking into this part [of the piece/action] yet.
I’m not sure how the breathing mechanism works.
There’s a reason why I run out of air, but I haven’t worked it out yet.
I don’t know why that note doesn’t come out right yet.
My current standard of performance hasn’t yet achieved the high standard I’ve set myself.

Can you see how these are more open? They either acknowledge the progress already made, or provide openings that will help us to question why things aren’t working out yet.

And the key word is YET. Alter those trifling habits of thought, follow the process of questioning and exploring, and good things will happen.

Let me know how you are going to restate your difficulties in the comments. Or if you’re adept at doing this already, let me know what benefits you’ve experienced. The more evidence that it works, the more people will want to give it a go!

*FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance in the Irdeat edition, p.52.
Photo by Gordon Plant.

Simple Steps to Successful Music Practice with Alexander Technique

This post is about why, as a musician, I have had trouble with the concept of practice; about wise words on the subject from FM Alexander and a sports psychologist, and some steps I’m trialling to improve my practice technique.

I started playing recorder when I was six. I loved it right from the start, but I was very inconsistent in my practice regime. To be blunt, I didn’t have one. I got by on a bit of natural talent (a very little bit), luck, and the odd guilt-provoked practice binge session. It was not a great way to get by!

The discipline of practice has been fascinating to me ever since. How do other people do it? What are they actually doing? Do long hours in front of the music stand really make a difference in and of themselves? It was, therefore, with some excitement that I read an article by a sports/music psychologist Dr Noa Kageyama entitled ‘How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice?’ What fascinated me was that Dr Kageyama took some pains to tease out exactly what it is that we are doing when we practice.

You will probably laugh when I tell you that it was a major realisation to me the day I realised that practice is actually a skill. It is something that needs to be done systematically and with a degree of reasoning and planning to be successful.

This is revelatory because I wasn’t taught that way. As a child learning how to play, I was told to practice, but wasn’t taught how to do it. It was just something that you did (or in my case, did as little as I could get away with!) Therefore I did it ineffectually.

In The Use of the Self, FM Alexander says that ‘willing to do’ something is all very well, but if you are directing your energy in the wrong direction, applying exertion and willpower will only speed you further along the wrong path.*

This was certainly the case with me. Because I didn’t know how to practice, I made fundamental errors, like going back to the beginning of a piece every time I made a mistake. The result was that I knew the beginnings of my music really well, but not the endings! Playing also became a stressful activity, because the playing of the music would get harder and harder and more stressful as I went along. It is very stressful beginning a piece of music when you don’t know if you are going to be able to make it through to the end.

If you practice poorly or with little strategy, you are likely to store up problems for yourself in the long run.

The solution? Teach people how to practice.

This certainly wasn’t done when I was a kid. Based on my experiences of my son’s music lessons, I am not convinced the situation has changed much. I don’t have any information, sadly, on the current state of pedagogy for childhood music education, and what it has to say about the issue of practice. (If you know anything, PLEASE contact me!) But from my reading so far, I can give these tips for the adults. They’re things that I’m experimenting with at the moment.

1.Goals. Have a goal for each practice session.

2. Keep it short. Dame Nellie Melba said beginning singers should only spend 10 minutes actually singing at any one time. I think that is really good advice for any musician who is grappling with the concept of how to practice. Even 10 minutes can be a long time to devote one’s whole mind to a task.

3. Practice without the instrument. Look at the music. Listen to other people play it. Clap the rhythms. Write out the words. Say them as poetry. Experiment!

4. Do it regularly. Do some every day. Equally, don’t beat yourself up if there is a day where you can’t. Julia Cameron suggests making a deal with yourself to do a certain number of days out of the week. I try for 5 days out of seven.

Do you have any other tips? Tell me about them!

*FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.440.
Image by nuchylee from freedigitalphotos.net

Steps to conquer stage fright: give yourself time

This is a series about conquering stage fright. First, we talked about the importance of knowing yourself. Then, we talked about the fear factor. Third, we talked about creating positive experiences to help fight the panic. Fourth, we looked at the importance of knowing what you’re doing. Last week, we examined how our general state of wellbeing (use of ourselves) affects our performance.

This week, we’re giving ourselves time.

Today in my singing lesson, I was reminded of what is possibly the greatest luxury any performer can give themselves.

Time.

Time is a slippery customer. It can seem to move so quickly. It can feel as though it is in someone else’s control. When I asked my students at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama what they found hardest about doing auditions, feeling rushed came high on the list. My students felt as though they were not able to give themselves the time and space to give the calibre of performance they were capable of giving.

Note this: they felt as though they couldn’t give themselves time.

No one said they couldn’t. No one told them not to take a second to breathe. It was a choice that they made in reaction to the given circumstances (such as the general atmosphere in the room).

Allowing oneself a moment to stop is a fundamental tool within the Alexander Technique. When FM was trying to solve his vocal hoarseness, he realised that:

“if ever I was to be able to change my habitual use … it would be necessary for me to make the experience of receiving a stimulus to speak and of refusing to do anything immediately in response.”*

FM realised that if he didn’t give himself this pause, he was far more likely to speak using his body in the more habitual way that caused the hoarseness. If he received the stimulus but refused to do anything immediately in response, he gave himself the chance to put his new reasoned process into action.

So give yourself time.

Stand up. Pause. Then begin the speech.

Finish the sentence. Let it be finished. Then start the next.

Finish the musical phrase. Stop the breath. Allow the body to breathe in. Then sing.

If you stop, you give yourself a priceless gift: the chance to choose what happens next. So what will you choose?

*FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p. 424.
Image by Just2shutter 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!

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!

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:

Observe. Cover all the bases.
Have a good think.
Experiment!
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!

Image by nuttakit from FreeDigitalphotos.net

Make Allowances! Patience, Creativity and Alexander Technique

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

A friend of mine sent her 4 year old son for his first day of school. When she picked him up, she asked him how the day had been. “It’s not right, Mummy,” he replied. “They haven’t taught me to read yet!”

It’s a funny story. We laugh because my friend’s child had unreasonably high expectations, both of the teacher and of themselves. But how often are we guilty of just this sort of impatience, this brand of unwillingness to make allowances for ourselves and others?

I subscribe to the newsletter produced by Michael Bungay Stanier, productivity expert and author of Do More Great Work. He told the story this month of how he (briefly) considered writing the year off as a failure after he fell behind schedule with his plans of writing four books this year.

Often my students come for their lessons and complain bitterly about how the thing they most want to improve in themselves hasn’t shifted, or hasn’t shifted fast enough. They wonder why they are so stuck. I look at them and marvel at how fast they are changing.

Wondering why we aren’t fixed yet / finished yet / better yet is really a potent form of cognitive distortion. We are demanding of ourselves perfection, and becoming impatient when we fall short of the mark.

There are two important things to remember about creativity and change.

1. It isn’t a linear, constant progression.

Oddly, most of us seem to expect our progress to be a constant, steady movement forwards over time. This is a fallacy. Progress in the real world so often happens in fits and starts, giant leaps punctuated by long gaps of frustration.

Why?

First of all, we are human beings with lives and families and commitments. There are so many external variables that could go awry.

Second, because we are human, sometimes we get ourselves stuck. FM Alexander likens us to a man standing at a crossroads. We’ve tried one road and know that it doesn’t lead to where we want to go. But sometimes we would rather try that road again and again rather than take the other road. Or as AT teacher Frank Pierce Jones put it, “changes take place when you are ready for them and can permit them to happen.”

2. Success is guaranteed.

Yes, you read that correctly! This is what Alexander wrote:

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

If we are following a good process, if we are following it faithfullyand with a sense of direction and control, we are guaranteed to have a positive outcome. Eventually.

So what is your relationship with perfection? Are you willing to allow yourself the time you need to do the process well, and leave the results to come when they are ready?

Image by Federico Stevanin from FreeDigitalPhotos.net