| First published in STATNews, vol. 5, no. 5, September 1999. |
I know and like Michele Mac Donnell, so when I spotted her beautifully produced and reasonably priced little book Alexander Technique, on the STAT Bookstall at the AGM, I snapped up a copy and asked her to sign it for me. As I read the introduction, however, my heart began to sink.
Although she states that “this book does not set out to be used as a substitute for lessons”, it make impossible demands on the lay reader. These vary from an example on the first page of the Introduction where the lay reader is invited to “observe how the model is respecting the relationship between her head, neck and back”, to information that’s just plain wrong: “If we interfere with the sophisticated and subtle relationship between these three regions, it can become distorted and strained. When this happens the system as a whole becomes affected and misuse follows”. On page 18, the purpose of lying down in semi-supine, is described as “a way of alleviating unnecessary tensions in the muscles and joints” and a position that “gives time to yourself’ but there is no mention of the importance of the underlying thought processes.
Some of the annotations to the pictures must sound ridiculous to the lay reader - “the model’s arm must remain well-connected to her shoulderblades”. In the section on lifting, the model isn’t even following the textual instructions.
Despite quoting Alexander on page 18, “The question is not of correct position but of correct co-ordination”, she repeatedly describes ergonomically correct positionings, giving the lay reader the idea that positioning is what matters. She says that Alexander teachers believe in the indivisibility of mind and body but then goes on inconsistently to say “the whole person is affected both in mind and body”, thereby perpetuating the mind-body split. She puts words like “misuse” and “means whereby” in inverted commas, indicating that they are jargon, but fails adequately to explain them. For example, “Inhibition in its physiological (sic!) sense means a healthy and natural control of inappropriate reactions”. This describes the result of inhibiting and not inhibiting itself.
Put simply, it’s mostly a book about good posture with only minimal mention of inhibiting and directing, giving the impression that the procedures could easily be understood and applied just by reading the words “think of allowing the neck to be free etc.”
Nowhere does it say that ‘hands-on’ lessons are essential. Nowhere does it say that this book could be useful (as indeed it could) to a person who had already had a number of lessons and who had already had the concepts of inhibiting, directing and faulty sensory appreciation adequately explained to them.
I am not a fan of “how to” books at the best of times, but this one is overwhelmingly (in the ratio of 45 pages to 10) a book about procedures, giving detailed instructions of the ergonomically sound manoeuvres to be performed in everyday activities.
Diluting of the Technique, even if justified in the name of “making the AT accessible” is to be avoided at all costs. For example (page 34): “In everyday situations, it is important to pause before reacting to enable yourself to be positioned in such a way as not to misuse yourself”.
This is a good book if you need advice about posture but, in my view, some other books are more successful as an introduction to the Alexander Technique.
© Miriam Wohl. Reproduced with permission.
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This edition © Mouritz 2005. All rights reserved. |
