Feelings. Whoah, Whoah, Whoah, Feeeeelings!

I have been wanting to write about kinesthetic perception since I started this journal but it is such a big subject and so central to understanding how to apply Alexander's discoveries that I didn't know where to begin. This morning I realized that wherever I start will be the beginning and the rest will take care of itself. Here are some things that Alexander said about feeling.

You are not making decisions: you are doing kinesthetically what you feel to be right.

Any fool can do the thing he wants to feel—there is no trouble about that. The difficulty is to make him feel he does not want to feel.

If your neck feels stiff, that is not to say that your neck “is” stiff.

They won’t try and get out of the chair unless they feel they have something that will get them out of the chair: that something is their habit.

You can’t know a thing by an instrument that is wrong.

He gets what he feels is the right position, but that only means that he’s getting the position which fits in with his defective coordination.

You want to feel out whether you are right or not. I am giving you a conception to eradicate that. I don’t want you to care a damn if you’re right or not. Directly you don’t care if you’re right or not, the impeding obstacle is gone.

You all want to know if you’re right. When you get further along you will be right, but you won’t know it and won’t want to know it.

The right thing to do would be the last thing we should do, left to ourselves, because it would be the last thing we should think it would be the right thing to do.

He gets what he feels is the right position, but when he has imperfect coordination he is only getting a position which fits his defective coordination.

You won’t energize to put your head forward and up, unless you feel the condition which you associate with the idea of forward and up, which is, unfortunately, stiffening and shortening, the very opposite of forward and up.

Sensory appreciation conditions conception—you can’t know a thing by an instrument that is wrong.

It doesn’t alter a fact because you can’t feel it.

When the time comes that you can trust your feeling, you won’t want to use it.Bounce these guys around your brain for a while and see what you make of them. Later I'll give you my interpretation of some of them.

Noticing and End-Gaining

Alexander coined the term “end-gaining” to describe our tendency to focus on the results of an action while ignoring,what he called, the “means-whereby” i.e., the process. The danger of “end-gaining” is that our preoccupation with outcomes can lead to our interfering with the very mechanisms responsible for the quality of those outcomes.

The Alexander Technique is a way of expanding your frame of reference so that both the result and the process can be seen simultaneously and therefore, in relation to each other. With both process and result in the same frame, a much more dynamic and useful experimentation can take place. We are able to try out different approaches and observe how the activity changes as well as seeing how doing the activity changes us.

Noticing is a useful tool in this regard. By beginning with Noticing, we are taking a look at ourselves first, before we engage in the activity. Then, as we start the activity, instead of evaluating our performance primarily by the results , we can gauge how we're doing by observing whether or not the activity has interfered with our ability to Notice.

If our Noticing has not been disrupted we have done well. If we have stopped Noticing in order to do the activity we could do better. By using this standard, we can experiment with different approaches to the activity until we find a way to get the results we want from the activity without sacrificing the integrity of our use of ourselves.

Knowledge of Self

"After working for a lifetime in this new field, I am conscious that the knowledge gained is but a beginning, but I think I may confidently predict that those who are sufficiently interested in the findings I have recorded, and who will be guided by them in any further research, will find their outlook and understanding towards the question of control of human reaction{behavior} so completely changed that they will see that knowledge of the self is fundamental to all other."

F.M. Alexander

The Only Thing That You Can Do is Right Now

The only time you ever have to Notice is right now. You don't have to make a commitment to Notice "from now on" or to Notice whenever you are driving to work etc. None of that. Also, it doesn't matter how long it's been since the last time you Noticed; a minute, a week, a year...Truly, they're all the same. The one and only thing you ever have to do is take this precise moment to simply ask yourself:"Am I Noticing right now?" Then, if you know how to Notice, the question starts a chain-reaction in you that leads to all the amazing benefits that Mr. Alexander discovered.

Remembering this will make your Alexander life a lot easier because it takes all the pressure off, not to mention removing the guilt. There is no pressure to Notice all the time, all you have to do is Notice now. It doesn't matter that you completely forgot to Notice when you did your audition yesterday, All you have to do is Notice right now.

Doing this eliminates all the "shoulds" and "should haves". This is true even in the case where one second after you start Noticing you stop Noticing without realizing it. The moment you do realize it, even if it's a day, a week or a month later, all you have to do is take a second to ask yourself: "Am I noticing right now?" Then, if you can do that, you're as good as gold because just asking the question gets you to Noticing again. And anytime you're Noticing neither the Future nor the Past can put the squeeze on you. It is the freedom to change; instant forgiveness.

Noticing

The usefulness of Noticing is based upon three premises:

1.
that the body will adapt appropriately to the changing demands of an activity if not interfered with.

2.
by Noticing before beginning an activity, your habitual interference is temporarily suspended and,

3.
by observing whether or not you are Noticing in the present moment, you continue to prevent your habitual interference and can monitor the quality of your efforts without having to reference the results of the activity or how it "feels."

The Small Smile Circle

When I was a kid I used to hate it whenever someone, seeing a sour expression on my face said: "You know, it takes 50 muscles to frown but only 17 to smile." Back then, I would frown even harder and explain that I was frowning because I needed the exercise.

The fact is that smiling is easier than frowning and does release tension. The interesting thing is that it doesn't even have to be a "real" smile. Try this little experiment:
1. Notice
2. Think of something funny or else make your face smile mechanically
3. Notice again and let the smile rise like heat to your eyes
4. Notice again and let the smile seep like water down to your heart area
5. Go back to step 1

Do a couple of rounds of the circle and see what happens. Do it slowly at first so that each time you Notice you do it simply and clearly. Have fun.