Review: Nicholls: The Alexander Technique

James Thurber once wrote: “It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.” Questions are often difficult to formulate, especially in our work. People would like to discuss their experiences but they don't know quite where to begin. John Nicholls and Sean carey have responded to this difficulty in a most stimulating and effective way. Theirs is a personal and individual response and not everyone may agree with everything that they say. But the Technique is individual, and comprehensive formulations cannot be expected to satisfy everyone. This discussion should stimulate us all to calrify our thinking and to sharpen our critical perceptions. It has already been so well received that the 62-page booklet’s first printing has been sold out, and I can warmly recommend it, not only to all teachers and students, but to everyone who is seeking a clearer understanding of the problems of a better use of themselves.

2. Review by Mark Tolson

First published in The Alexander Journal, no. 12, 1992.

This is a new edition which has been extended to include material on the historical background of Alexander’s discovery, a definition of good use and a discussion on the nature of a lesson, and the transcript of the 1986 Memorial Lecture given by John Nicholls. The material is presented in the form of a dialogue led by Sean Carey who puts questions that appear deceptively straightforward but which encourage an enquiry to be opened and sustained. John Nicholls, in his responses deals articulately with subjects which do not lend themselves to verbal expression. He is reluctant to give answers in black- and-white terms. When asked to comment on whether a certain teacher “Pulled down” he replies in terms of “how much” and “how often”. In his own words, “We tend to be brainwashed by absolute concepts - right/wrong, success /failure.”

Reading this book as an Alexander teacher, I found it helped me to question my own teaching procedures and attitudes. I welcome the emphasis on the use of the hands, which is fundamental but I think he underestimates the potential for re- education within group work. I have been surprised when running groups just how far the students can explore their habits by observing each other if the non-doing aspect of the work is stressed. These discoveries have the added advantage that there is less dependency on the teacher’s hands. Where I do agree is that any in-depth understanding of the Technique comes through one-to-one work.

One of the refreshing aspects of John Nicholls’s approach is that it is not stereotyped. He stresses the importance of producing an explanation that is appropriate to the student. He refers to inhibition as a quietening of the neuromuscular system and a quality of stillness rather than the exercising of will-power to control one’s habitual reactions. He has a nice quote from Alexander passed on to him by Margaret Goldie: “Choose to be quiet throughout your whole body, with particular attention to the neck and head.” He also refuses to regard direction and inhibition as totally separate activities: “If one is inhibiting any interference with the primary control, then the direction side of things is implied by the fact that if someone inhibits all the wrong things, the right thing will do itself.”

I found helpful his views on direction: “Directing is having the wish, the intention, the aspiration to be going in those directions that are expansive rather than contractive, but the wish must be expressed through muscular release rather than tension and effort. We should also be careful to emphasise to students to release and direct in a particular order - neck, head, back and limbs. This process works like a combination lock.”

He is very much a pragmatist, “There’s one thing a teacher can rely on - if it works it’s okay.” So he is open to visualisation although he stresses that “seeing pictures in one’s head runs the risk of simply using the visual mechanisms of the brain and not the sensory-motor connections to the whole body.”

His thinking on the importance of chair work not only demonstrates its relevance in terms of movement, balance and reflex development but also stresses that we are not simply teaching people how to sit and stand but rather it is about learning conscious good use, and chair work is a good point from which to start.

Carey and Nicholls touch on power relationships and the connection of this to the needs of the teacher’s ego and I feel this is an area that could be explored further. The importance of this book is that it not only covers basic concepts and procedures in a clear articulate way but it also expands an understanding of good use into a broader version which is of significance for all teachers and students of the Technique. It opens doors rather than simply trying to provide final answers.

3. Review by Ron Colyer

First published in STATNews, vol. 4, no. 2, January 1992.

In the rapidly growing catalogue of books on the Alexander Technique most titles are of an introductory nature. They fulfil impoitant needs but they do not (and are presumably not intended to) contribute to dialogue and constructive development of the work among those who have extended experience of it.

Increasingly, the responsibility for this dialogue falls to the Second Generation of teachers. The recent sad loss of two of our senior teachers brings that into sharper focus than ever. As far as the printed word is concerned, the dialogue can best, be fostered by those who can distil their mature experience into a new and thoroughly contemporary language. Nicholls and Carey’s book is a major contribution in this respect.

John Nicholls, in his teaching and now in his writing, adheres firmly to the core principles and procedures, but communicates verbally in a language which is very much his own: immediate, fresh, precise and consistent.

The text is in the form of questions and answers. The questioner is Sean Carey, who has published another work in conversation style: Walter Carrington on the Alexander Technique [later re-issued as Personally Speaking]. He has done us a great service in nudging Carrington and Nicholls into print and in drawing them out on a wide range of important issues.

This latest publication is a revised and expanded version of an earlier pamphlet under the same title, with which some readers will be familiar. The additions are substantial. As well as fuller discussion of questions already raised in the first version, there are new questions, a whole new introductory chapter to help the book “make some sense to someone who has not had lessons” and at the end, a transcript of Nicholls’ 1986 STAT Annual Memorial Lecture, “The Alexander Technique in a Larger Context”.

The theme of this “larger Context” permeates the whole book. The introductory chapter (one of the best introductions to the work I have read) skilfully gives the reader a sense of the place of the work in the plethora of twentieth century approaches to awareness, personal responsibility, well-being etc. Here and throughout the book, Nicholls avoids the black and white view. “The technique cannot, claim a monopoly of wisdom and it should not attempt to. That type of exclusiveness only creates opposing camps.” Repeatedly he goes beyond the binary, all-or-nothing approach and gives sound, realistic advice far more useful to the student than the counsel of perfection which is more likely to encourage him to try to “do” it.

In a chapter on “Science and Therapy” Nicholls draws deftly on a wide frame of references; from space research and horse riding to the current state of knowledge in the neuro-physiology of posture, balance and locomotion. This knowledge, he points out, is still in its infancy so it is not surprising that we lack complete scientific explanations of how the technique works.

One area which is increasingly questioned by trainee teachers is that of emotion. In a chapter entitled, “Psychology and Morality”, Nicholls tackles this thorny issue with common sense and clarity, and returns to it in later chapters.

Trainee and newly qualified teachers and many others, will find much value in the chapter concerned directly with teaching. Nicholls has his own remarkably clear and sensible way of explaining what the teacher is trying to achieve and how, what “inhibition” and “direction” are and what the orders mean.

If he takes the broad view in such matters as the place of the Technique in contemporary life, he tackles the practice and theory of the work with razor-like precision and once again demonstrates his ability to put it all into an exact, concise and vivid language.

After a chapter called, “Practicalities and Teaching” comes “In the Lesson” in which he explains comprehensively why he adheres to traditional chair and table work, and reflects on “the pre-movement, or primary movement of the body’s response to gravity, the lengthening upthrust that maintains our upright balance,” Here and elsewhere he probes the meaning and value of the jargonistic statements which we bandy about, often in inappropriate contexts, and often creating confusion for our students. (eg. “The head leads and the body follows.”) There is an extremely clear explanation of “forward and up” and of the importance of “grounding”, and the use of the legs.

“Teaching the Tools of Self Help” contains invaluable advice on the amount of information given in a lesson, on the limitations of visualisation and on the complex inter-relationship between inhibition, direction and primary control. The question of “The Teacher-Student Relationship”, including issues rarely broached elsewhere, such as transference, the limits of professional skills and the dangers of “teacher superiority”.

Finally comes the Memorial Lecture transcript. In it Nicholls shows, the value of seeing the work in the, “Larger Context” and implies that we can learn much from investigating other disciplines, but that this must and can be done without confusing or diluting our practice of the work.

There are many fascinating and unfamiliar quotations, both from FM and many other sources and one or two illustrations. A pair of photographs nicely illustrate the relationship between a small child’s (Alison Nicholls) natural use of monkey supporting herself with her arms and the procedure of “monkey with hands on the table” developed by Walter and Dilys Carrington in their training school. This is an important book and I recommend it unreservedly.

4. Review by Jeanne M. Barrett

First published in NASTAT News, no. 14, Winter 1992.

The Alexander Technique can be described as an eloquent dialogue between teacher and student, hands and back, internal and external perceptions, gravity and our response to gravity. How ideal that John Nicholls and Sean Carey have chosen to present their excellent book in the form of an extended conversation. As they state in the Preface, the book is “an attempt to break new ground and create conditions for dialogue and constructive criticism through which the Alexander Technique may advance”. This reader considers the attempt a brilliant success. I was engaged to think more deeply, widely and specifically, and I was enlivened to view the Technique from fresh perspectives.

The concept of the book was generated during lessons that Sean Carey had with John Nicholls in 1984-85. Their dialogue continued while John was in Australia directing the Alexander Teacher Training School. Much attention has been given to “homogenizing” (John’s term) the written and spoken material so that it reads in the rhythms of actual conversation. But what an intriguing conversation!

Sean Carey’s questions are informed, clear and responsive to the material John Nicholls provides. John’s answers are thought provoking and extraordinarily accessible.

The conversation begins, of course, with “The Foundation of Good Use”. (Next time you are struggling at a dinner party to describe what you do, have notes from this chapter in your palm!) To quote John: “. . . one could say that Alexander work is a technique for enhancing awareness through a very precise mechanism.” Dr. Carey asks him to define good use. John replies: “Good use is good neuro-muscular organization, which occurs when the whole body is able to expand freely.”

A point that is made clear from the outset is that the Alexander Technique “was first presented as a way of improving breathing”. Frequently, I hear or read of the Technique described in terms of joints or ease of movement. John reminds us of FM’s original intent.

John’s thorough knowledge of FM’s writings give the material depth and substance. Many complex issues are tackled, such as the relationship between Alexander and psychology, and how the Technique can affect one’s moral growth. “The Alexander Technique is a tool that can enhance awareness of our present feelings and behaviour and can help us put psychological understanding into “practice by sometimes choosing to behave differently at the moment of reaction.” The sensitive question of emotional release during lessons is handled directly and clearly, with an eye to teachers remaining aware of their own feelings. Also addressed are the more practical issues of communicating direction and inhibition during a lesson. I particularly appreciated John’s response to the query of why we use sitting and standing. “It is an especially useful movement in which to learn inhibition and direction because it involves the co-ordination of the muscles of the neck, the back and the legs. That is, all those muscles that are concerned with, supporting us against gravity.” He continues with a deeper explanation: “It is not so much overt movement that we are concerned with, as the pre-movement, or primary movement of the body’s response to gravity, the lengthening upthrust that maintains our upright balance.”

The book concludes with the text of an address John gave to STAT in 1986 entitled “The Alexander Technique in a Larger Context”. Herein, John takes on the mammoth task of placing Alexander in relation to depth psychology, bodywork, and eastern and esoteric teachings. We see John’s thinking on a very wide scale in which he manages to remain specific about the Technique’s role and possibilities in human development. His precision in viewing the Technique as unique yet related is stimulating and expansive.

My own enthusiasm for this book goes beyond recommending it highly to teachers and trainees. The Alexander Techniquc in Conversation with John Nicholls and Sean Carey would be an excellent consideration for inclusion in training course reading. It is also informative and accessible material for current and prospective students. Most importantly, reading this conversation may stimulate your levels of dialogue with others in the Alexander community.