| First published in The Alexander Journal no. 13, 1993. |
Do you agree with the judge in Alexander’s South African legal action that “in Alexander’s books [his] ideas are tangled in a mass of words” or do you subscribe to Mr. Weed’s view that “there is a tendency to discount Alexander’s writings and to place too high an emphasis on experiential work”? These books certainly challenge our views on the place of Alexander’s writings in learning his Technique.
Donald Weed, who studied with Marjorie Barstow and Frank Pierce Jones, teaches groups in the Alexander Technique and has a private practice where he combies “standard chiropractic and massage treatment techniques with Mr. Alexander’s principles of movement and guidance”. The material in his workbook was developed over many years of teaching students at American universities and at the Performance School, Seattle, and is normally taught over four weekends. He bases the material on selections from Edward Maisel’s edited writings of Alexander (including the first chapter of Use of the Self, “Evolution of a Technique”), the entire “Incorrect Conception” chapter from Alexander’s Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual and most of Frank Pierce Jones’s Body Awareness in Action - the commentary on Alexander’s books and his history of the Technique. Weed’s core material contains only a tenth of what Alexander wrote, yet there are nearly a thousand questions to work through. You are recommended to write out verbatim the answers as found in the text to the study questions for each section. Having got the facts straight, you are then faced with essay questions to sort out the ideas and issues. Each selection is rounded off with Weed’s selection of the key points and a self-test.
The selection is fair enough and his conviction that “each Alexander teacher should have a complete and thorough understanding of this material as part of the minimum standards of becoming a teacher” I had some sympathy with; few would now disagree that Alexander’s writings should be an assessed part of any teacher-training curriculum (but how complete should that knowledge be?). However, as I read further and the implications of his approach became clearer, I came to the conclusion that behind an excruciatingly detailed knowledge of Alexander’s books is a denial of the primacy of the experience of individual lessons in learning the Alexander Technique. Do not doubt that Weed says what he means, namely: “this volume contains the blue-print for a quick and effective procedure for learning what is involved in Alexander’s work”, notwithstanding that “one of the best ways to gain practical experience is in a lesson under the guidance and direction of a teacher” (my italics). Should the general public or indeed, teachers, be led to believe that academic analysis of Alexander’s writings in itself can teach the Technique? Did Alexander intend that his books be used in that way? It is quite clear from the introductions to his books that he was interested in promoting his Technique through his writings, but he emphasised that words, while necessary, can only point to the unfamiliar experience of better use which must be conveyed, individually, through the hands of a properly trained teacher.
Weed, in his “introductory”, claims that we argue over Alexander’s ideas because we have not read him properly. He attempts to substantiate that claim over four pages, using as examples the misreading of “introduction” for “introductory” and his experience of misquoting Alexander - although, as he later found out, he had got the gist of it! No examples are given of significant misapprehension of Alexander’s ideas. Are discussions on the minutiae of Alexander’s writings what the Alexander world generally argues about? Or are they a refuge for those with little experience of the proper working of the primary control, driven, therefore, to the almost impossible task of trying to recreate Alexander’s work from his writings? Weed, analysing the core material of his second most important selection - the “Incorrect Conception” chapter of C.C.C. - overlooks in his summing up of the main ideas what are surely the punch-lines: “the mass is made up of individuals and reliable sensory appreciation cannot be given on the mass-teaching principle ... This can only be done by individual teaching and individual work” (last paragraph). Perhaps in second place should be the “Illustration” chapter from C.C.C. (Jones’s discussion on this issue is completely avoided by Weed in his summary); where the procedure of placing the pupil’s hands on a chair is fully described - but then it does give a clear account of some basic Alexander instruction.
After Weed’s volume, you may baulk at his colleague Kettrick’s appraisal of F.M. as one of the “Great Writers of the Western World” and her unexpurgated study guide to all four of Alexander’s books; she manages just 1334 questions. Surprisingly, for an academic tome, no references are given for the quotations prefacing each chapter study section . . . but perhaps you are supposed to search diligently for them.
If you were to do all this spade work suggested, so what? You might win Mastermind, but would you know the wood for the trees? Kettrick offers a “Supplemental Thought Section” at the end of her manual, totalling just seven questions, which are supposed to pull it all together, perhaps even she ran out of steam. This kind of approach to Alexander’s books confirms my impression that the man, genius though he was in his pioneering work on himself, was not a great communicator. Arguably his most gifted student, the late Patrick Macdonald, claimed that he learnt most from Alexander by learning to observe what he was doing. Macdonald pared the work down in his last years to two questions: do you know what you are doing?; and do you know what you intend? Surely the royal road to learning the Alexander Technique does not lie in the pernickety disection of Alexander’s verbosity? “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” 2 Corinthians 3:6.
© Jonathan Drake. Reproduced with permission.
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This edition © Mouritz 2005. All rights reserved. |
