Lessons Archives - Activate You

Big questions: how hard will I have to work between Alexander Technique lessons?

This is my audio download album image - a great way to guide your work between Alexander Technique lessons.

Today I’m once more returning to my occasional series on the Big Questions that beginning students very often ask me. Last time I addressed the issue of exercises. We learned that if you come to me for lessons (either in person or by Skype), I won’t necessarily give you exercises to do between lessons in the way that we normally think of them. I do, however, give people things to do. So what constitutes work between Alexander Technique lessons, and how hard will it be?

Work between Alexander Technique lessons is physical AND mental

Last time I wrote that:

Alexander Technique, because it is about the mental as well as the physical, is really not going to be a best-fit with ‘move some limbs around while checking social media’ types of movement. Some mental focus is likely to be needed![1]

We always need to remember that the Alexander Technique is a psycho-physical process. As FM Alexander wrote in 1923,

We all think and act (except when forced to do otherwise) in accordance with the peculiarities of our particular psycho-physical make-up.[2]

This means that if we want to make a change to what we are doing physically, it is a good idea to work on improving the mental as well as the physical aspects of the activity. Indeed, we are unable to change the physical without changing the mental! This being so, working on what and how we think is a vital part of the way we improve.

This means that even the more apparently physical things that I give my students to do between lessons are actually not purely physical – you have to put in (a little bit of) mental focus. However, because I also know that a little bit of focus goes a long way, I always say to my beginning students that I’m only asking for a maximum of two minutes a day – and they don’t even need to be sequential!

Examples of work between Alexander lessons: what do my students do?

The following are examples of some of the things that I may give my students to work on between lessons. Some of them are games. Some are experiments. One or two are designed to be done regularly and may surprise people who think of me as a very non-traditional Alexander Technique teacher. Everything that I give a student to do, however, is given because it is relevant to that student’s present situation and their learning goals. All experiments, games, practices and homework are tailored to the individual.

With that idea in mind, here are some of the favourites:

The 50% less game

Can you do a particular activity with half the effort? One that works well with pens, shopping trolleys, buggies and toothbrushes (no death grip, please!). It is to be used with caution in the kitchen, and with extreme caution when behind the wheel of the car.

Movements to play with

I will often run through the different types of motion possible in certain joints. I then encourage my student to work on isolating each movement. This not only helps with disciplining thinking – it can be surprising tricky to move just one joint in one particular plane – but also gives practice for when students go into activity. For example, a violin student who has worked on the difference between their acromio-clavicular joint and their gleno-humeral joint is going to find it far easier to raise their violin to a playing position.

Giving directions without attempting to do them

I will often suggest that my students follow Alexander’s example, and try giving directions without attempting to do them. This mental practice gives you a more thorough knowledge of the protocol you’ve designed, so that it will be easier to take into activity.

Constructive Rest

This one might surprise some people. I do sometimes recommend a version of the traditional AT semi-supine, in which you lie on your back, with your knees in the air and your feet flat on the floor. I don’t recommend it for the rest – although I’m sure all of us feel like we could do with a rest occasionally – so much as for the thinking you can do while you’re there. Many of my students find it’s a great place to experiment with their shoulder muscles or their breathing.

Ideas and notions

A vague title for the collection of concepts and little things that come up that I suggest students might want to think about between lessons. This might be anything from ‘put the instrument down mentally as well as physically if you’re not playing it’ through to, ‘jaws go flappy-flappy’ (and yes, that is a direct quote from a recent class!).

As you can see, my students are not left without something to do after a lesson! But I always try to make the work between Alexander Technique lessons fun. After all, if something is fun, we’re more likely to want to do it.

Tools to help – my audio download series

If you’re between lessons or working on your own and you feel like you’d benefit from a little more guidance as you work, you could try out my audio download collection. It’s a series of tracks that talk you through some basic movements, such as going from sitting to standing, walking, and using a keyboard/mouse. It’s available from Bandcamp.

[1] https://activateyou.com/2020/02/alexander-technique-exercises/

[2] Alexander, F.M., Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, NY, Irdeat, 1997, p.304.

Big questions: Will I ever be able to do Alexander Technique without a teacher?

when will I be able to do Alexander Technique can feel like 'how long is a piece of string' - but the variables are more defined! Picture of string.

There are certain questions I get asked a lot as an Alexander Technique teacher. This one is a variation on the ‘how long does it take to learn Alexander Technique’ question, or the ‘when will I get better’ question. But it has a slightly different flavour, because the others seem to assume that there’s an end point – a point at which the skill has been totally learned and the problem that caused the student to come to lessons is completely better.

I could write a whole article on the logical fallacy behind that particular notion (and probably will), but today I want to focus on the follow-on question: when will I be able to do Alexander Technique without a teacher?

It’s a follow-on question because it has an extra degree of sophistication to it – it puts Alexander Technique into the same bracket as music or singing lessons. We are mostly quite comfortable with the idea that a musical instrument is a skill that is likely to benefit from professional input regularly for quite a while, and that even people who are very skilled still consider lessons important to their development. Being skilled at something doesn’t mean that you might not benefit from some guidance, at least occasionally!

But what does a student mean when they ask how long it will take to do Alexander Technique without a teacher? If we take the Alexander Technique as a toolkit of principles and strategies for changing the way you move and think, then doing it yourself would involve being able to access the toolkit and pick the right tool for each circumstance or activity.

Can a student learn to do this? Absolutely, yes.

Doing it for yourself

Being able to ‘do Alexander Technique’ for yourself without the aid of a teacher was in fact Alexander’s greatest goal:

“I wish to do away with such teachers as I am myself. My place in the present economy is due to a misunderstanding of the causes of our present physical disability, and when this disability is finally eliminated the specialized practitioner will have no place, no uses.” [1]

Alexander wanted us to be able to use our reasoning intelligence for our own benefit. He wanted us to be able to reason our way through any situation or activity we might find ourselves in, so that we can acquit ourselves with efficiency and grace.

Doing it for yourself – in action!

And this is completely possible. The other day I went out for a run with my teenage son. Midway through the run he commented that he’d realised that he lifts his shoulders up to his ears when he runs, and that he was thinking about letting them hang. I didn’t even get the chance to ask how that was working; he carried on to say that it felt really weird and he wanted to lift them back up again, but that running was suddenly a lot easier. He then cheekily commented that he doesn’t need an Alexander teacher, and sprinted off!

Of course, my son has spent all of his life living around Alexander Technique ideas, so it is hardly surprising that he would need very few formal lessons, but equally, he has clearly reached a stage where is is quite capable of ‘doing the Alexander Technique’ for himself! But what does it take, if you’re not living 24/7 with me?

Preparedness to work. You need to be ready to do a bit of thinking.
Willingness to fail. Not every bit of reasoning you do is going to be perfect first time around! The essence of creativity is getting stuff wrong and learning from it.
Practice. You’ll need to do some.
Learning the tools. This is the key bit. You can do this by reading Alexander’s books, or books by others, or by watching stuff on YouTube. You could download my audio series that talks you through some of the basic ideas; you could have lessons. You could do a mixture of all of these.

And the final thing?

Time. Take time over it. Just as my son didn’t learn to play complex Tarrega pieces on his guitar in a day or a month, so too learning the complexities behind the principles of the Alexander Technique might take a little time. You’ll have enough in a very short while to get you started; everything else is refining your skills. And that’s where the fun starts.

[1] FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Irdeat 1997, p. 5

Photo by JJ Harrison (jjharrison89@facebook.com) [GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

Does internet-based learning work?

Can you learn effectively from a teacher who isn’t in the room with you?

I’ve been wondering a lot recently about internet-based learning, and decided to investigate it further. Two recent events motivated me.

Internet-based learning – singing.

My son likes surfing YouTube looking for interesting music types to follow. One of the people he found was Boyinaband, who is famous for his song Don’t Stay in School. Boyinaband decided to try learning how to sing over a 30 day period, and used apps and YouTube videos as his primary means of instruction.

Watching the video he made detailing his adventures in singing, I fell to wondering: what would it be like trying to learn a new skill from the internet? What would it be like not having a teacher in the room with me?

Internet-based learning – Alexander Technique

I, like many Alexander Technique teachers, offer lessons via Skype. I am convinced that this is a viable and valuable learning pathway for many students. I was, however, uncomfortable that I hadn’t tried some form of practical skill-based internet learning myself, and thought that I should be consistent with my beliefs and give internet-based learning a try. (I’ve done lots of more academic courses on the internet-based Coursera platform, and found them excellent.)

Added to this, I know that my students watch Alexander Technique-related videos that are available on YouTube, and that like all things available on that platform, these can be variable in quality! Is it possible to learn, not just via an electronic platform from a teacher who isn’t in the room with you, but also from instructional videos where the teacher can’t even see you?

My own 30 day internet learning challenge

Twitter friends and colleagues had been learning yoga using YouTube videos made by Adriene Mishler of Yoga with Adriene and saying good things about it. I’d never tried yoga before and wanted to work on strength for the running events I’ve entered this season – it seemed like the perfect opportunity. So I embarked on Adriene’s series 30 Days of Yoga. It was a remarkable experience.

What I learned

Yoga looks easy and gentle and flowing. It isn’t easy. Sometimes you are working so hard you shake with exertion. It’s also incredibly good fun.
It’s really hard to know if you’re doing the exercise or the pose correctly. You think you’re doing okay, but if you’re a beginner it can be really hard to know if you’re really bending in the right spots. Sometimes it can also feel like it’s going faster than your brain can reason out. Mind you, I know students who have had exactly that experience in face-to-face yoga classes…
You form an emotional bond with the teacher. You begin to regard the teacher as a friend and ally, even though intellectually you know that they have never met you and don’t actually know you exist! It got to the point where, if Adriene gave some praise, I felt like it was genuinely directed at me.

Recommendations

If you’re going to learn something by YouTube, check around and get recommendations from friends and colleagues. I was really lucky to find a yoga teacher as good as Adriene. Boyinaband, by contrast, viewed videos from teachers who gave advice that I thought was potentially unsound.

Good teachers will know and predict the errors their unseen students will make. Adriene is really good at this. She gives plenty of advice about how to position oneself in each pose, and sometimes it felt like she had predicted my mistakes. She did this by having a long background in teaching face-to-face classes – she has first-hand knowledge of what mistakes students are likely to make. So making sure your online teacher has a good background in face-to-face teaching might be a really good idea.

Personality is key. Adriene has a lovely open personality and rather engagingly does not edit out her mistakes. By the end of the 30 days I felt like she was my genuine teacher who genuinely saw me, rather than just a person on a screen. It is no accident that Adriene has developed a massive online yoga community. An engaging personality may also be a danger, though. Just because someone is engaging doesn’t mean they know their stuff. You have to do your due diligence and make sure the teacher is well-qualified.

Try to photograph or video yourself. You’ll soon learn if you’re doing things the way the teacher intends – you may even be pleasantly surprised! One of the delights of Boyinaband’s account of his singing challenge is the ‘before’ and ‘after’ snippets. I don’t have any such pictures, alas, that I can share (I’m too shy). However, one of my Twitter friends did video herself doing yoga, and was able to use it to improve her form very effectively.

Alexander Technique is a great pre-requisite for other forms of internet-based learning. I found that I was able to follow Adriene’s instructions pretty clearly, and I think that my AT knowledge played a huge part in that. I know where the muscles and joints are, and what the normal ranges of motion should be. I also am fairly good at designing a process for how I’m going to move, and then carrying out my process with accuracy. I can well imagine that someone without that background of understanding may well fall into patterns of poor use that could impede the learning process.

And all of those points are relevant for learning Alexander Technique by distance learning, too. Go by recommendations. Check out the teacher’s background. Make sure that you feel comfortable with them. If you do these things (and make sure that your technology set-up is up to the task), you’ll have a really good internet-based learning experience.

Correcting unshakeable belief: what if your teacher was actually right?

Correcting Unshakeable Belief…

I’ve been working with a trumpet student recently. He likes to play his trumpet standing, and as he does so he juts his pelvis forwards and pulls his upper thoracic spine backwards – a bit like the shop dummies at many UK clothing stores! I’ve worked with him; explained how the extension through his thoracic spine prevents movement in his ribs and interferes with his breathing; done hands-on work and given him the experience of the improvement of tone and breath control when he stops the ‘H&M pelvic thrust’.

So has he changed it? Nope.

You see, he is convinced it helps him reach the high notes. Even though he knows that change in pitch happens via valves and embouchure, on some level he believes that the extension in his spine is essential for high notes, and that he won’t reach them if he doesn’t do it. He has an apparently unshakeable belief in the necessity of jutting his pelvis forwards.

I’m sure that most of us, if pushed, could think of a similar experience. I can clearly remember having a very similar interaction with my tennis teacher.

So why didn’t I do what my tennis teacher told me? Why doesn’t my trumpet student do what I suggest, especially when he has had a clear demonstration of the improvement he could experience? After all, if we’re paying a teacher to help us, why don’t we follow their advice?

The answer is that, on some level, we believe that we know better. We have an (apparently) unshakeable belief. And correcting unshakeable belief seems like a very big thing to accomplish.

A question of belief

Everything we do and every action that we make is, ultimately, a result of the constellation of ideas and beliefs that we hold to be true, and that constitute what FM Alexander called our psycho-physical make-up.

We all think and act (except when forced to do otherwise) in accordance with the peculiarities of our particular psycho-physical make-up. [1]

When we carry out an action it is because, whether we are aware of it or not, it conforms to our image of ourselves and our place in the world. My student, for example, just his pelvis forwards when he changes pitch because on some level he believes he has to. It conforms to his beliefs about himself and trumpet playing. When I come along and demonstrate to him that he doesn’t need to make the jutting movement with his pelvis, I create for the student a dilemma. Do he believe me, or do he trust in his own untested beliefs?

This is the challenge faced by a student in pretty much any Alexander Technique lesson. If the demonstration is sufficiently strong or the previous belief not strongly held, then the student will change what they are doing quickly and easily. But if the teacher’s demonstration challenges a movement behaviour that keys into a core belief about what the student needs to do to exist in the world, then they are likely to cling to the old behaviour.

But the dilemma won’t go away. It will sit in the student’s mind and irritate, a bit like having a stone in your shoe. Sooner or later, my student is going to have to think about his jutting pelvis!

So how do you deal with this situation?

As a teacher, you just have to accept that sometimes (often?) the student thinks they know better than you. Your job is to, in Alexander’s words, “the placing of facts, for and against, before the [student], in such a way as to appeal to his reasoning faculties, and to his latent powers of originality.” [2] You can’t take any responsibility for a student’s understanding, only your presentation of material before them!

As a student, you have to approach each lesson mindful of the fact that you come bearing beliefs and assumptions that probably aren’t helping you. If your teacher suggests a change to what you are doing, you need to inhibit your instinctive response (to disagree!) and then as open-mindedly as possible, try what your teacher suggests.

Correcting unshakeable belief is a matter of playing the long game. Just keep presenting the facts (if you’re the teacher), and keep trying to have an open mind (if you’re the student). Sooner or later, something has to give.

[1] FM Alexander, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, IRDEAT complete ed., p.304.

[2] FM Alexander, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, IRDEAT complete ed., p.88.

Big questions: are Alexander Technique lessons expensive? Why not?

I noticed a conversation on Twitter recently where two friends were discussing Alexander Technique lessons. One had just been for a lesson and enjoyed it, but was not likely to go back. They both agreed that it was ‘too expensive’.

This got me thinking: are Alexander Technique lessons expensive, and if so, why? And are they really ‘too expensive’? I’ve got three reasons why lessons cost money, and I’ve got a challenge to your thinking. Are you ready?! Read on…

Alexander Technique teachers are professionals

Good Alexander Technique teachers are professionals who have worked very hard to be qualified, and who continue to work hard to improve their skills.

I trained for four years part time. Others from different training schools train for three years part time, but under a different scheduling structure. That’s a lot of time. I learned FM Alexander’s books inside out. I gained a good grounding in basic anatomy and psychology. I learned hands-on techniques and many other vital teaching skills. I had to pass a slew of exams, including a practical exam, and log a large number of training lessons.

I hold public liability insurance and professional indemnity insurance. I am the member of a professional teachers’ association, and I have registered under the voluntary regulator the Complementary and Natural Healthcare Council (CNHC), because this ensures that my students know that I keep to high publicly-available standards. I am also a member of a union (Equity) and am a registered practitioner with the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM). I am required by both my professional association and CNHC (voluntary regulator) to do Continuing Professional Development every year.

Most teachers charge much the same rate per hour as a music teacher. I admit to charging a little more, but I have a fair few years of teaching experience behind me, as well as professional theatre training and music training. When it comes to working with performers or dealing with performance nerves, I really know what I’m talking about.

Most wouldn’t think twice about paying the same to a chiropractor, a massage therapist or an osteopath. When FM Alexander moved to England from Australia in 1904, he charged the same as a Harley Street professional, because he wanted his clients to take his lessons seriously. Some people pay significantly more on a regular basis to have their hair cut or their nails done! When you consider the training and expertise that you recruit when you come to a teacher, Alexander Technique lessons start to look like pretty good value for money.

We are in the business of improvement.

We’re not in the business of making people feel good. We also aren’t concerned with dealing with the structural after-effects of injury or trauma. I can’t necessarily speak for others, but as an AT teacher I help people to learn how to use themselves more effectively. I help them be more efficient so that their minds and bodies are better integrated, their movement easier, and their wellbeing greater. In short, I help people stop pulling themselves around in all the little ways that don’t cause any pain or harm in themselves, but when added together and done consistently over time can lead to a whole bunch of trouble.

I just don’t know of any other discipline that can help you learn to use your body more efficiently no matter what situation you find yourself in. It might be tempting to spend the money on a new pair of high heels; it’s a professional like me who can help you to walk in heels so that you look stunningly elegant.

We want you to be independent.

And I do this in a series of lessons. If you have clear goals and apply yourself between lessons, you can learn quickly and the number of lessons you need will likely be few. It’s part of my job to get you to be able to reason your own way through any situation you find yourself in, so that you can succeed with style and panache. Some of my students come, learn what they need, and then go away and apply it. Others come more regularly, or over a longer period, because they find value in continued self improvement. As with any other service, you take what you need.

My challenge to you.

In short, I’m a professional, trained and under (voluntary) regulation. I work hard to help my students prevent the poor physical use that leads to strain injuries and other related nastiness. I help them succeed and feel free to be more creative, whether on a stage or at their office desk. And I help them feel more in control of themselves and their lives. Some of my students have 1:1 Alexander Technique lessons; some come to groups; some learn via Skype. All of them improve and grow.

But only you can decide if you value your wellbeing, your daily activities, and your beloved pastimes enough to bear the expense.

It’s up to you.

The ‘me’ problem – why people start Alexander Technique

Last week I told you how the beginnings of the Alexander Technique were to be found in threatened passion. FM had a passion for acting and reciting, and when he was threatened with the loss of the career that he loved, he decided to take the bold step of solving his problems for himself.

I was pretty similar to FM, in that the thing that got me started on my Alexander Technique journey was threatened passion.

I was 22, newly married, starting a postgrad degree in a new country, discovering cooking and new groups of recorder enthusiasts to play with, and finding a whole new world of knitting yarns and patterns. I was also a long way from home and everything that had been familiar and supportive, and trying to make the best of the tremendous career opportunities I had been given. Life was both incredibly exciting and astonishingly stressful.

When my arms and wrists started hurting when I used the computer or knitted, at first I ignored it. But when the discomfort increased, I went to the doctor for help. That was the beginning of my journey to doctors, specialists, physiotherapists, osteopaths and goodness knows how many other health practitioners. None of them solved the issue. Sometimes I got some temporary relief, but then I’d do more research on the computer, or play another concert, and it would be back worse than ever.

I stopped playing recorder. It hurt too much. Then I stopped knitting. Same reason. Then I got told to rest my arms completely for six weeks. No computer (while writing a thesis!) and no cooking. Not even tying shoelaces was allowed.

My life was getting smaller and smaller. And somehow I knew that the reason why medical solutions weren’t helping me was because I didn’t have a medical problem. I had a Me problem. There was something about the way I was doing the things I was doing that was causing my problems.

And that was where FM Alexander began. He asked exactly that question of his doctor:

‘Is it not fair, then,’ I asked him, ‘to conclude that it was something I was doing that evening in using my voice that was the cause of the trouble?’ *

FM suspected that there was something about the way he was using his voice that was problematic. I suspected there was something about the way I was using my arms that was problematic. He studied himself in a mirror to work out what he was doing and how to stop it. I found an Alexander Technique teacher and started having lessons.

Is there something about the way that you are going about the activities you love that is causing you problems? What one step can you take today to begin change?

* FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.412.
Image by Steve Ford

The final straw – Why have Alexander Technique lessons?

Last week I wrote about how we could all learn from FM Alexander’s childhood trait of being incorrigibly inquisitive. One thing I mentioned was that the trait that got him excused from school for being disruptive in class, was in adult life the key to him doing the work that led to his creation of what we now call the Alexander Technique.

But why did FM develop his work? What was it that caused him to use that questioning nature?

Most people, if they have heard of FM at all, will probably know that he was an actor, and that he suffered from vocal troubles so severe that they threatened his career. When conventional treatment didn’t work, he began exploring and experimenting to try to solve the problems for himself.

So far, so good. We have the facts. But there is something missing.

Passion.

When FM wrote in 1932 about the creation of his work some 40 years previously, he began:

“From my early youth I took a delight in poetry and it was one of my chief pleasures to study the plays of Shakespeare, reading them aloud and endeavouring to interpret the characters.” *

For FM, acting and reciting wasn’t just a job. In fact, he gave up a well-paid and promising clerking career to tread the boards. Acting was his love.

And when his vocal troubles became severe, how did FM feel?

“My disappointment was greater than I can express, for it now seemed … that I should thus be forced to give up a career in which I had become deeply interested and believed I could be successful.” **

FM had a passion for acting, and his passion was threatened. That’s why he worked so hard, I think, to find a solution to his problems.

And it should strike a chord with us, because so often this is the reason why we become interested in Alexander’s work. I was prepared to put up with pain in my wrists, until I couldn’t knit or cook any more. One of my students put up with her difficulties – until it stopped her swimming.

Typically, we will put up with discomfort and things that block us from performing at our best, we will keep going in the face of limitation, we will soldier on… until our passion is threatened.

What is the one thing that you are not prepared to give up? At what point will you stop accepting limitations, and decide to begin the process of change and renewal?

* FM Alexander, The Use of the Self in the Irdeat Complete Edition, p.411.
** ibid., p.412.
Image by dan from FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Alexander Technique and Singing: Process, not Product

This is the story of my most recent singing lesson, where I learned once again the vital importance of the Alexander Technique’s emphasis on process, not product. It mirrors very neatly the experience of a delightful colleague of mine, Bill Plake, playing his saxophone. When you finish my article, swing on by and read his.

I have been having singing lessons for a few years now. I am lucky that my teacher, Gerald, has had Alexander Technique lessons, and knows the books of FM Alexander fairly well.

At my most recent lesson, we began, as always, with some exercises. Gerald played the notes that he wished me to sing. I sang them. We did this, going up the scale a little way. Then Gerald paused, and thought for a moment. He didn’t tell me that what I had done was wrong. Gerald almost never does this. Rather, he asked me to do the exercise again, but with one vital difference. He asked me to sing the notes with my fingers in my ears.

At first, I didn’t want to do it. A stubborn streak in me resisted, whether from vanity or a deep-seated suspicion of trickery. But I trust Gerald, so I sighed, put my fingers in my ears as requested, listened hard to hear the notes from the piano, and then sang.

It was weird.

The sound I could hear inside my head was bizarre. I could barely hear the piano. I couldn’t hear anything else at all – none of the sound of my own voice that I was used to hearing bouncing off the walls of Gerald’s teaching room. I had no idea at all if it sounded good, bad, indifferent, or downright awful. I didn’t even have feedback as to whether I was hitting the right notes. So I just sang.

The experience was completely discombobulating and yet strangely clarifying all at the same time. The sound feedback I was getting from inside my own head was thoroughly unfamiliar and it was tempting to be carried away by the shock of it.

At the same time, though, I realised that the removal of all my usual markers for how I was singing was freeing me. There was nothing pretty to listen to. So all I could do was think about the process of what I was trying to do. I was thinking just about the note, the vowel, and the breath. It was astonishingly, daringly simple. It couldn’t possibly sound any good. Could it?

Then I looked at Gerald. He was smiling. This is a good sign.

I still don’t really know how it actually sounded. Gerald was pleased, though, and that’s good enough for me. But that isn’t the point.

The point of the story: complete commitment, total detachment

What I learned last singing lesson was a practical demonstration of what I talked about in my blog Banishing Stage Fright with the Jazzmen, part 2. I learned about the primary importance of process over product.

You can’t directly control product. It just doesn’t work. Product is of its very nature the outcome of some sort of process. So if you want to make the product as good as possible, the only real choice you’ve got is to work on the process.

FM Alexander put it this way: “where the ‘means-whereby’ are right for the purpose, desired ends will come. They are inevitable… We should reserve all thought, energy and concern for the means whereby we may command the manner of their coming.”*

What FM Alexander asks for is no less than this: complete commitment to the process, and total detachment from the outcome.

Of course, it is easy to say this in theory. But it quite another to experience it in practice.

So I have a challenge for you: can you find one situation this week where you can make an attempt at complete commitment to process, and total detachment from the outcome? Tell me what it is in the comments!

FM Alexander, The Universal Constant in Living, in the IRDEAT edition, p.587.