Review: Park: The Art of Chaning

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Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual

Directed Activities

Explaining the Alexander Technique

Freedom to Change

F. Matthias Alexander – The Man and His Work

Man's Supreme Inheritance

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The Philosopher's Stone

The Universal Constant in Living

Conscious Control Journal

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1. Review by Nicholas Brockbank (www.dodman.org)

First published in The Alexander Journal, no. 10, 1989.

Glen Park calls the first part of her book “Fundamentals”, and begins it by emphasising the central role of self-awareness in learning how to change. She goes on to consider the paradoxical nature of our kinaesthetic sense in relation to the Alexander Technique. She explains in lucid terms what muscle is, and what it does, and introduces us to the concept that thought, independent of action, can affect its condition. We are given a cogent description of “the primary control”. “Inhibition” is explained. “Directions” are discussed. “End-gaining” and the “means-whereby” are clearly defined. Pitfalls in the learning process, such as “fixing” and “doing the directions”, are warned against.

The second part of her book, entitled “Developments”, is devoted to a personal exploration of what Alexander may have meant when he said of his work that he had “only scratched the surface of the egg”. Glen Park looks at the application of “inhibition” to our emotional reactions, and considers the intimate link between emotional repression and muscle tension. She postulates an “emotional unreliability”. She implies that forms of therapy designed to release trapped emotions are essential adjuncts to Alexander lessons. The nature of creative thought is investigated, particularly the similarity between affirmations and “directions”. “Inhibition” is reconsidered in the light of both F. M. Alexander and Freud. Exercises are proposed through which a student may discover, on an increasingly profound level, how they think or feel about themselves and their world.

The relevance of this wider approach to applying the Alexander Technique is clearly for those who wish to take it beyond the superficially remedial in order to unearth more and more of their existing physical, emotional and mental habit patterns. At some point in this search, Glen Park suggests that a spiritual dimension to life is likely to become apparent. This is probably true, though the implication that students, whatever their personal and cultural conditioning, will want to interpret this experience as she does, and follow her recipes for such things as “auric awareness” and “chakra cleansing”, might alienate those whose interest in the Technique is precisely because it seems so rooted in the demonstrable and mundane.

Throughout her book, Glen Park quotes liberally from Alexander’s writings, using his words to link together her own diverse themes. If, as she claims, the Technique is an established part of the “growth” movement as it exists today, it must be hoped that Alexander’s belief in evolutionary progress is being foreshadowed by this same burgeoning cultural manifestation.

2. Review by Diane McCollough Young

First published in ACAT News, Summer 1990.

The Art of Changing is an exceptional book on the Alexander Technique. Glen Park is sincere, articulate, and methodical in her exposition of the principles inherent in our work. This is not an easy accomplishment, as we all know. Just think for a moment of what thoughts come into the mind when someone asks innoncently, “So what is the Alexander Technique?” The ability to elegantly respond to that question is still the major challenge to me as an Alexander teacher. In this book, the way Park describes the Alexander method is useful both for a new student and for the teahcer looking for fresh ways to re-think the work. Such basic principles as the primary control of our functioning, the inherent balance and co-ordination we achieve when we inhibit wrong doing, how to recognize faulty sensory experience; all of these are clearly defined, often with simple diagrams, and in such a way as to excite interest and further thought in the reader. So often the book is not the real experience, and what is alive in the lesson becomes boring and dry in the reading of it. Park is able to draw the reader to the life in the ideas.

The second half of the book continues in a slightly different direction. Park’s interest are of the whole person, living well in their wholeness. Certainly F. M. Alexander would not have introduced “energy bodies” as part of his work. The author makes mention of this, reminding us of Alexander’s comments on hypnosis, for instance, but she recognizes this broader area of study to be an integral part of the Alexander experience, thus she calls this book A New Approach to the Alexander Technique. Thirty-five years have passed since Alexander’s death. We are exposed to, and have the choice to integrate, many secondary concepts into our work as teachers, as long as we are also sticking to the principles. Park’s interest lies very much in the sphere of what she calls the energy systems, or chakras, or our psycho-physical makeup. She discusses both our emotional and our psychical well-being and uses the tools of the Alexander method to help us come fully into our balance. I feel that Park deals with all of this material in a sensitive and intelligent manner. She left me wondering how comfortable I am receiving other kinds of information from my students in the lesson, particularly, whether the Alexander Technique provdes tools for disclosure of our emotional health, our psychic balance of energy systems, and our ability to use awareness, inhibition, and direction as the means.

Park asks us to extend the boundaries now, of our capacity for change. She challenges us to think of our wholeness continually. This book comes highly recommended. Read the first part for refreshing ways to present material, the second part to continue releasing forward and up!