The teachers Alexander trained were issued with a certificate stating that they were now qualified to teach the Technique as outlined in his four books. The writings of Alexander form our profession’s "official manuals", as yet unequalled. His writings provide a rich source of insights and instructions which are logical, consistent and objectively verifiable, in short, the essence of scientific method. Their only handicap is their age. It is of course no fault of Alexander that the tremendous advances in science make his books appear embarrassingly out of date, nor could he possible foresee that their Victorian grandiose style might put the modern reader off. Furthermore, we can only read a text in the light of our own experiences and understanding. The question then is how to read about something which lies outside our experiences and how to translate it into practice?
Walter Carrington and Sean Carey address these difficulties, among others, by explaining and demystifing difficult passages & teaching procedures. The book is not an interview but a series of conversations, an exchange of information much like a lesson. Sean Carey steers the discussions with questions and succint summaries, Walter Carrington providing a wealth of information on almost all aspects of teaching and learning. The book is concise without loosing a stimulating inquisitiveness or the natural flow of a conversation which makes it very readable. Explaining the Alexander Technique - yes, but not for beginners. The book assumes the reader is well versed in the practice and theory of the Technique.
Although the book is subtitled The Writings of F. Matthias Alexander this is not the "expurgated Alexander" nor a dissertation where Alexander’s writings are academically analysed into meaningless pieces of which a jigsaw puzzle can be made. Instead, the authors take Alexander's writings as a springboard for a discussion of the Technique and Alexander’s own teaching methods; from his traditional way of teaching inhibition and direction in a lesson to the more unorthodox ways, for example when he threw a book at a pupil’s head because the pupil pulled his head back after a lesson(!).
In teaching Alexander’s technique it is useful to look closely at what we do and what Alexander did, and there is an underlying comparison between the two running throughout the book. It is a cornucopia of recollections about Alexander: his opinions, his personality (e.g. his short temper and impatience) and, above all, his pragmatic and rigorous means-whereby approach. (This included resisting proposals for publicising the Technique more.)
Each of Alexander’s books is discussed separately but the discussions are broad and touch upon many relevant teaching topics like "hands on the back of a chair", coming up on the toes, "antagonistic actions", the "whispered ah" and the importance of breathing which, by the way, Walter Carrington implies is unrecognised among many teachers today. I found many explanations, e.g. the role of feelings and emotions in the Technique, very succinct and refreshingly unambiguous. Some descriptions, like that of the primary control, only leave me knowing that I don’t know. Knowing that I don’t know, however, is infinitely better than believing that I know.
Relevant scientific facts are introduced where they may enlighten practical aspects of the Technique. The sciences, however, as practised today, are so specialised that no single scientific discipline can as yet cover more than one or perhaps two aspects of the Technique. Scientific or Cartesian reductionism, or more generally, our innate tendency to over-simplify by reducing life’s complexities into orderly building blocks (which often consist of only the most impressionable experiences, i.e. feelings, we have), is not something of which we as teachers are innocent. Hence the small sprouts of fashionable ideas about Alexander and his technique which set out either to fault or to promote one aspect of the Technique at the expense of all other aspects, ignoring its multi-dimensional nature. The less facts are available and considered, the easier it is to speculate and to breed myths. This book’s broad and far-reaching dicussions are a refreshing antidote to many biased generalisations and conjectures. Carrington is at his most outspoken here: different teaching styles and approaches are given a broadside in his down-to-earth, no-nonsense style. In this, the authors are following Alexander's pragmatic agnosticism: not knowing is not a licence to indulge in unsubstantiated speculation; instead, we need to find out how we can know, and until then not knowing must remain "the unknown".
This approach is reflected by the authors’ conversational style which allows them to follow interesting topics, and relate anecdotes as they occur. This emphasizes the fact that this is not a textbook, but a mutual exploration. Carrington is categorical as to what approaches and descriptions he has experienced not to be useful but, avoiding didactic proclamations, he only points to avenues which he suggests might be fruitful to examine more closely. The explanations are open-ended which is revealing of the present state of the Technique, if not of its very nature. Since the limitation of words means that any view of the Technique will be somewhat partial, the conversational style is perhaps the most apt way of dealing with a life-large and sophisticated subject like the Technique .
One of the drawbacks of the conversational form, however, is a sometimes informal and scant treatment. Occasionally the reader would be well served with some more background information. For example, how qualified is Carrington to pass judgements on the value of psycho-analysis, meditation and Zen as compared with the Technique? At least he doesn’t pretend that he speaks from anything but personal experience but it stills begs the question of the variety and background of the experiences he bases his opinions upon.
Similary, a few more references would be helpful to follow up on interesting subjects; e.g. when stating that the spine is not to be straightened out indiscriminately because "the curves of the spine are vital and necessary in the whole arrangement of support, shock absorption and weight-bearing" (p. 89), it would be nice to know something of the research or the facts behind it. Again, when stating that "simple mechanical principles" reveal that lying or sleeping on the stomach is bad for the back (p. 86) the authors would do well not to take the reader’s knowledge of this "simplicity" for granted.
There are a couple of petty mistakes in the book so let’s get them out of the way: CCC was published in 1923, not 1924,* William James died in 1910, not 1890, Ron Brown died in 1955, not 1954, and Alexander hadn’t been working on the Technique for "nearly fifty years" in 1931, only about forty years. The available evidence suggests that Alexander started developing the Technique in 1892. This book - published 1992 - is a most fitting centenary celebration of the birth of the Alexander Technique.
*2004 P.S: CCC was published in 1923 in USA (and in 1924 in the UK). I apologise for this mistake.
