Review: Bouchard: Kinesthetic Ventures

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Alexander Technique Review 8.12.12

Reviews

Ed Bouchard* & Ben Wright + Michael Protzel* (ed.)

Kinesthetic Ventures
- Informed by the Work of F. M. Alexander, Stanislavski, Peirce and Freud

1997 pb, 175+xii pages, illustrated, 158 x 228 mm, index, USA, MESA Press. 09419380610.

1. Review by Jean M. O. Fischer

2. Review by Frances Oxford

1. Review by Jean M. O. Fischer

First published in The Alexander Journal no. 16, 1999.

This book deals with a very exciting subject; it views the work of Alexander, Stanislavski and Freud in the light of (mainly) Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic analysis of knowledge and action. It relates the ten levels of Peirce’s semiotics to the learning of the Technique, but it operates on many other levels which may equate with or parallel each other. At one level it is a detailed analysis of how the Technique is communicated in a lesson, verbally and manually.

Analysis, however, does mean breaking into stages something which was previously whole. For example, experience is divided into firstness, secondness and thirdness. Consciousness is divided into simple (perception), dual (association) and plural (inference), and there are three modes of consciousness: left, right and back (roughly representing left and right brain hemisphere activity with “back” representing the cerebellum and basal ganglia which co-ordinate balance and motion). There are ten stages of learning: five mainly preconscious (alpha to epsilon) and five conscious (E to A). Building on this, a ten-stage, three-way (among teacher, pupil and “AT science”) communications model is proposed. Although the approach is very “left” (to use the authors’ phraseology), meaning analytical, schematic and linear, it does suggest a realistic working model which, among other things, may illustrate breakdowns in communication between teacher and pupil.

However, the book’s strength in combining science and philosophy is also its weakness; the book stresses the importance of being scientific, but it mixes facts and theory in rapid succession and is far from rigorous in its use of terminology. Many pronouncements and terms need clarification. For example, the semiotics of kinaesthetic knowing will “offer hope for a public science of AT” (p. 33). What is meant by public? What is non-public science? Are they saying the Technique is generally inaccessible to the general public? Similarly: “If the contributions of the Alexander Technique remain buried in an Alexander religion, they will never become knowledge. AT will remain a cult.” (p. xii). As the Technique does not fit the definitions of religion or cult (which require superstitious belief and/or worship), and no explanation is offered for this allegation, the reader is again left to guess what is meant. The authors talk of Alexander’s story of his loss of voice as a “myth” without clarifying what is meant by this. Are they saying the story may not be true? Do they mean it is taking on myth-like qualities? Similar clarification is needed of statements such as: “Postural improvement during psychoanalysis is a cerebellar response.” What significance does it have? How has this been measured anyway? There are self-made terms which are confusing. The use of the terms “left” and “right” is meant to correspond to left and right brain hemisphere activity, but it cannot be relied upon. For example the statement that “there is no time or space” in the “right” system (p. 6) contradicts with the fact that the right hemisphere is more specialised in the control of spatial activities than the left.

Unfortunately, the terminological confusion includes the Technique. Their definitions of “AT” are inconsistent with each other and – to add to the confusion – AT is not (always) the Technique. On p. 1 “AT” is defined as an abbreviation for the Alexander Technique. On p. 2, however, “AT” is defined as something “more” than the Alexander Technique: “AT stands for regulation of muscle activity, manifest in innate reflex and learned reaction. Muscle activity affects and is part of our breathing, posture, sensations, emotions and thinking. AT is the ongoing process which co-ordinates balance, action and attitude. . . Although subconscious, AT is accessible and malleable.” “AT” defined in this way can be conscious or not whereas the Alexander Technique is by definition conscious. Throughout the book “AT” sometimes means the co-ordinating mechanism of “balance, action and attitude” (i.e. conscious or not) and sometimes it means the Technique.

One is better off ignoring the author’s aspirations for this book to offer a science of the Technique. It is not a finished and mature synthesis but a work in progress. It reads more like a notebook: full of fascinating and stimulating material which has yet to be organised and developed. Interspersed with the text are Ben Wright’s poems which exemplifies the creativity which comes with practice of the Technique. The book is vibrant with the authors’ genuine enjoyment and their dedicated intellectual exploration. To draw similarities between the process of inhibition and Freud’s “free association” and “negation” is also highly original. Despite many shortcomings Kinesthetic Ventures is a valuable contribution towards a philosophy of the workings of the Technique.

2. Review by Frances Oxford

First published in STATNews, vol. 5, no. 4, May 1999.

Kinesthetic Ventures is a complex and exciting book. It attempts to articulate a new understanding of the subjective experience and leaming process of the Alexander Technique, using the languages of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. It proposes a theory of the nature of human consciousness and demonstrates, within the parameters of this theory, how the Alexander Technique works to produce profound changes in the individual.

The book developed out of the relationship between Ed Bouchard, Alexander teacher, and his pupil, Ben Wright, who is a University of Chicago professor of psychology and education. Wright was intrigued by the effect on his psyche of his Alexander Technique lessons, effects which went far beyond solving the problem of his stiff neck, which was his original reason for taking lessons. He felt he needed a language to talk about the Alexander Technique, believing that “AT teachers do not communicate AT outside of a lesson. Alexander’s concepts are not objectified. Phrases in Alexander’s and his followers’ writings contain seeds, strings of reasoning that ring bells, relate to physiology and philosophy. But unfortunately the few physiological tidbits that have been harvested do not add up to an enduring or convincing story.” (p. xii)

The authors’ fundamental questions are: ‘What does the AT do that leads to well-being? Can we say what it is? Can we write about it?”

Right at the beginning of the book, the authors jettison the normal meaning of “Alexander Technique” and instead proposes a term “AT” (always italicised) which is defined thus:

“AT stands for regulation of muscle activity, manifest in innate reflex and learned reaction. Muscle activity affects and is part of our breathing, posture, sensations, emotions and thinking. AT is the ongoing process which co-ordinates balance, action and attitude.” (p. 2)

In the context of his model, introducing a new term, AT, is fair enough, but they go on to say that “Although subconscious, AT is accessible and malleable. AT education is AT management.” This rather muddies the water. Is AT education the same thing as Alexander Technique teaching? The Alexander Technique is not a “subconscious” process. This confusion continues throughout the book. To take an example chosen at random: “The AT Chair lesson is not a formula for correct sitting.” What is an “AT Chair lesson” if not simply working with the chair in an Alexander Technique lesson?

The authors set up a model of consciousness which distinguishes three modes and a “core”, each with a “physical foundation and distinct characteristics”. The three modes are:

“Left-system:
refers to thinker of thoughts the acknowledged source or reason, the known home of the mind (anchored in the left cortex).

Right-system:
refers to the mediator of perception, intuition and feeling (anchored in the right cortex, amygdala and anterior cinglate).

Back-system:
refers to the co-ordinator of body balance and motion (anchored in the cerebellum and basal ganglia).

Under:
refers of the core subsystem beneath right, back and left of which we think little but feel much . . . under is our digestive, reproductive, visceral self, our gut feeling.” (p. 3)

Whilst it is recognised that left, right and back (and under, although under is not much referred to in the book) are interactive and inseparable aspects of the mind that operate all the time, these distinctions form the basis of analysis in the book. The authors argue that skills involved in learning and teaching the Alexander Technique involve more than rational thought, more than “left-cognition”. Inhibition (the decision not to do something) and the understanding that habit distorts sensory appreciation are, they say, left processes, but sensory appreciation itself or “allowing” a teacher’s hands to guide one are not left-cognitive, but right-intuitive skills. The back cerebellar self is the embodied self, putting emotion and thought into action.

Kinesthetic Ventures postulates that bringing back AT process into greater conscious awareness stimulates a more vibrant interplay among right, back and left, and that it is this enhanced interplay that make the Alexander Technique so effective in producing profound changes across a wide range of human endeavours. Freud’s psychoanalysis and Stanislavsky’s acting method are explored in the light of the left, right, back theory and some very interesting comparisons are made with the Alexander Technique.

In addition to the ‘triologue’ theory of consciousness, Kinesthetic Ventures uses Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of semiotics to differentiate categories of experience and to define stages in the process of “knowing” from preconscious experience to analytical theory. Peirce was the founder of Pragmatism and was a major influence on Dewey, who was his student. Semiotics articulates the inseparability of subjective experience and objective reality. Semiotic analysis is applied to the process of learning the Alexander Technique (or should that be AT?) in ways which could be very fruitful for clarifying the teaching-learning process.

The book is lightened by the inclusion of Ben’s “Alexander diary” and poems which he wrote in response to his lessons. The authors relate their theory to specific procedures with which we are familiar (whispered “ah”, taking a step, “monkey” - although this is called “ready”). They quote considerably from Alexander (in a paraphrased version) and many other authors.

This book should generate controversy and discussion within the Alexander Technique world - and perhaps beyond it. One of the authors’ stated claims is to begin to articulate a “public science” of AT. This presumably means a science which is capable of being understood by people not versed in or with experience of the Alexander Technique. (Here again, however, one is confused by the new term AT.) The book is full of ideas and requires careful reading. Much may be open to dispute. But the project is an extremely valuable one and takes writing about the Alexander Technique onto an unfamiliar level of abstraction.