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On Belief Systems and Learning
A debate from the Alextech e-mail discussion group on the validity
of the premises of the Alexander Technique.
NOTE: The debate ended as of the last message, at least as far as I was concerned. From this point onwards, all the messages were sent to me privately and I responded privately, but since they were follow-ons from the debate I have included them here.
Part 13
All contributions are copyright by their authors. Note that the e-mail addresses of the participants were valid at the time of the debate but may not be valid any longer.
Section Thirteen
— A new dialogue, some time later...
1. Nicholas Brockbank — Contribution — October 10 /98
2. David Gorman — re: Contribution — October 10 /98
3. Nicholas Brockbank — Contribution — October 11/98
4. David Gorman — re: Contribution from Nicholas Brockbank —
November 2 /98
5. Nicholas Brockbank — Learning Methods — November 14/98
6. David Gorman — re: Learning Methods — December 10 /98
7. Nicholas Brockbank — Learning Methods — December 10/98
8. David Gorman — re: Learning Methods — December 10 /98
9. Nicholas Brockbank — Learning Methods — December 12/98
From: Nicholas Brockbank c/o dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
To: "David Gorman" 100653.2057@compuserve.com
Subject: Contribution
Date: 10 Oct 1998, 14:30pm
Hi,
Is it David Gorman reading this? I was trawling through the lengthy debate on the Direction web site but when I got to the end was disappointed to find it had fizzled out. Is that it or have I missed how these things operate? I wrote a small contribution but I don't know where by sending it to Alextech@pop.life.uiuc.edu it ends up.
Cheers, Nicholas
Date: 10/10/98 17:28 PM
From: David Gorman 100653.2057@compuserve.com
To: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
Subject: Re: Contribution
Hi Nicholas,
This IS David Gorman replying. Yes, I agree it did somewhat fizzle out in the public discussion. I was disappointed by the calibre of discussion and the degree of personal attacks. As you may know several of the people who were vehement in this debate have since been banned from the alextech list for attacking others.
As you read near the end of that debate, I wrote that I had said all that I had to say without just endlessly repeating myself so I bowed out of the public discussion inviting any who wanted to carry on to contact me privately. Aside from repeating myself, the other main reason for ending my participation was that so much of the debate was becoming about the validity of my new work and not about the premises of the AT work. I didn't want to continue any such discussion with people who had no experience of my work. There would seem to be little point in that...
Fortunately, there were quite a few people who did want to carry on discussing, but unfortunately, this was privately, not publicly.
I'd love to hear your contribution to the debate. If you want to, you can send it to me at this e-mail address (100653.2057@compuserve.com). I don't know if any new material can be added to the existing debate--you'd have to contact Jeremy Chance who runs the direction site [Ed. note: this refers to the posting of this debate on the direction journal site--parts 1-12 of the above in the same format--www.directionjournal.com/alextech.].
If you send your reply to the alextech@pop.life.uiuc.edu it will go out to the current subscribers of the Alextech list but will not automatically be added to the debate.
warmly,
David
From: Nicholas Brockbank c/o dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
To: "David Gorman" 100653.2057@compuserve.com
Subject: Contribution
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1998
David,
Thanks for replying. I suppose the debate did get a little over personal, although obviously there's a lot of history behind this I don't know about; but 'heated' discussions always tend to be a bit fruitless in terms of actually exploring ideas.
What I wanted to say wasn't so much to you as an individual, though it seemed to centre round your work, as to anyone who was interested in the issue of what the Technique is, what it does and how it does it; but I'm sending you my thoughts as I would have thrown them into the debate, anyway.
The only problem with this is it makes me sound rather impersonal towards you, as if you are a third party figure. Of course, you would be if this was just something for anyone to read. So, please bear that in mind.
BEGINNING
Reading through the contributions to this long debate, a number of issues strike me. The most prominent is the question of the Primary Control.
Either this, or what is meant by it, exists or else it doesn't. If it doesn't, fair enough, those who believe in it are fooling themselves; but if it does, then it exists in everyone regardless of belief.
If the Primary Control is a fact, and if interference with it debilitates us in the way Alexander suggested, believing we can only improve matters by stopping that interference shouldn't mean dismissing out of hand any possibility of doing so other than through our fairly limited definition of inhibition and direction. All approaches that engage us as human beings and bring about beneficial changes in use - even if this is incidental to their intention - must not only be worthwhile (from an Alexandrian point of view) but ought positively to be encouraged.
I'm sure I'm not alone in having seen, marvelling and despairing in equal measure, massive - and I mean, huge - changes in use taking place in Alexander students after they have attended some non-Alexandrian workshop that had no pretensions to doing any such thing.
On this basis, I have no problems whatsoever making comparisons and seeing connections between the Alexander Technique and other approaches, whether they are therapies or disciplines. Alexandrian attention may be more directly tuned to doing away with interference, but that is not to say NLP, or Yoga, or Creative listening, or even intra-family cuddling - especially on as prolonged and repetitious a basis as people are expected to have Alexander lessons - won't do something similar. Ours is only one approach among many. The major difference is that we like to think we are working consciously towards better use as a goal; but we all know how easily this can be confused with rigidity.
That was the question David Langstroth started this debate off with. Then everyone seemed to forget about it and go off at a tangent to discuss David Gorman's new way of teaching. This brings me to my second point, which concerns use.
I had always thought that what Alexander meant by use incorporated a person's state of mind and body. Presumably, since he equated muscle tension with character, he believed he could 'read' one from the other. This, after all, was the basis for his stance on psychophysical unity.
I find David Gorman's insistence that the 'real' person - what he calls "the conscious human being" - acts separately from (in his description, going "way out ahead of") his or her "body", leaving 'it' to somehow sort itself out, decidedly odd, even allowing for the fact he no longer claims to teach the Technique. The implication that our mental state, consisting of what we are conscious of, is somehow more authentic than what 'it' doesn't know the rest of the self is doing, seems unnecessarily divisive.
Surely, it is not only in Alexandrian terms that the self includes everything? We are indivisible, mind permeating body. I don't think any useful distinction can be made between the aspect of use that is thought and the aspect that is muscular, since they are essentially one and the same.
The sole rationale for making such a distinction would be on the level of intervention. David's way of working, as he describes it, is based on his and his student's perception of their mental state, which when subtly altered, produces gratifying though not directly sought after physical changes; but why this should be any more surprising than the reverse effect of a changed mental state being brought about through the physical touch of a teacher's hands, which Alexander teacher's lived with for years, I can't imagine.
David's main contribution here is obviously not the reiteration of one of Alexander's most basic insights - the phenomenon of endgaining - but his discovery of a means for ameliorating this without the need for touch, as well as, apparently, doing away with the concomitant requirement for endless repetition of lessons. This is a huge development, the truly "explosive" nature of what he proposes - always assuming it works!
As for whether or not what he is teaching is the Alexander Technique, I think Stacey Gehman put David's current position clearly. If David believes in the Primary Control as he describes it and is knowingly working towards stopping interference with that (and if, I might add, he believes this leads to conscious - ie, individual - control over the same process) then, yes, he is teaching the Technique, albeit in a radically different way. If, as I suspect, he has lost faith in the existence of a Primary Control, but prefers to work with the unspecified concept of allowing general use to improve through an indirect, hands-off approach, then I would say he is teaching something else.
Nevertheless, from the way David describes his session with the violinist, and from the way Peter Ruhberg later describes his more traditional (in a hands-on sense) lesson with the ironist, I have to conclude that David's approach is markedly more indirect and in keeping with the notion that something in us that is unknown and largely unknowable will put us right so long as the rest of us gets out of its way.
If that makes what Peter is doing 'not the Alexander Technique', then perhaps we should be thinking of redefining it rather than expecting everyone who doesn't adhere to strict principle (neck first, all else follows) to branch off on their own.
Incidentally, concerning the ironist, I am surprised David should tell Peter that his student "didn't know about the third degree of mobility in the shoulder joint before you told her". I would have thought she almost certainly did, in exactly the way I know about it, without having a clue what it means - unconsciously, from early learning experiences. Their only difference (David and Peter's) lies in how they might remind her (and me) of what had earlier in life been obvious.
David suggests that what he is doing is too far removed from the current general consensus to be comfortably included within the mainstream. He doesn't say so but I can readily imagine a moderator from a traditional training course, where hands-on work predominates in relative silence - or even noisy abandon - but where without a chair or a couch nothing much would be expected to happen, having problems authenticating people from David's course. Besides, why should he or his students want to be so authenticated?
If David's approach works, if the Primary Control exists, it will be happening on that level anyway, in which case his insights should eventually be incorporated into the traditional Alexander means; if the Primary Control doesn't exist, but some other, inherent internal wisdom does, which his approach helps elicit, then "LearningMethods" will come into its own, while the Alexander Technique either fades away, bereft of its central thesis, or becomes the pre-eminent system for purely postural improvement it often looks like doing anyway. If David's approach doesn't work, or doesn't work sufficiently often or well, it will presumably die a natural enough death.
This leads me to the tricky question of whether the specific approach David describes - which, I am happy to acknowledge, I cannot properly comment on without having experienced - sounds realistic. Initially, we have to go by what we are told, just as my first Alexander lesson only came after I had digested all that I could find out about the subject.
My biggest problem with LearningMethods is David's rather too simplistic offering of "being present in the moment" as the universal panacea. Please, don't get me wrong. I happen to believe, and have believed for some time, that this is the universal panacea. The difficulty is putting it into practice.
Assuming we we are born 'present', in a unified state of consciousness of both mind and body (with or without a Primary Control that lies at the heart of such consciousness) as we grow up, whether through the effects of civilisation or as the inevitable result of our human nature, our instinctive impulses are overruled by the requirement for reasoned decision making. Insidiously, as this area of our consciousness grows more dominant, it becomes decreasingly aware of what it is dominating.
I see this as the creation of what we call our conscious mind (David's "conscious human being") which is where 'we' reside; beneath it (constituting David's "body") a subconscious - made up, in simplistic terms, of learned behaviour - forms, leaving the instinctive remainder largely unconscious.
Obviously, this is a personal view; but I believe 'present moment living' only takes place when the edges between these three aspects of our consciousness blur sufficiently to enable no such distinctions to be made. This is as it was at birth, becoming less so as we grow older.
In adulthood, we find individuals are rarely fully present. I don't think this is any exaggeration. The majority of us most of the time are somewhere else: generally, reflecting on the past or anticipating the future; or isolated in a vacuum of non-time, exactly as I am now, writing these words
This absence from 'now' is pretty much continual; and although it may on the surface seem an exclusively mental predisposition, from an Alexandrian point of view our bodies are there with us - in the imaginary past or future, or 'out of time'. No part of us is really present.
For me, Alexander work has been, first and foremost, a superb means for returning to where I am. I firmly believe 'being here now' is our natural state; but because of the enormous effort we have expended over the years to get away from it (as an example, think what has led to our being able to contribute to this debate, in terms of abstraction) it's not so easy getting back.
Of course, the ability to reflect is the human condition. It's what separates us from animals. In fact, it's all that separates us from animals. I believe as a species we have overdone this, and that we should endeavour to find a way back to moment-to-moment living, at least occasionally, so that for some of the time we can return to full consciousness.
Alexandrian attention to, and awareness of, the self, which by definition engages us both physically and mentally (you can't be aware of the body other than through the mind, and you can't attend to the self - at least, in waking life - other than through the body) has enabled me to spend a lot more time - I'm talking of minutes, here, rather than nanoseconds - in the present than any number of alternative approaches.
I've been working on this for years. Not professionally, but off and on, along with trying to become more reasonable, loving, charitable, etc. Nothing ever seemed to work to get me even momentarily 'out of my head' (a telling expression, when you think about it) except excitement or fear. That was, until I came upon the Technique. Even with this, it took me years to realise that what I wanted was not what the majority of teachers were endeavouring to sell me; but that's another story.
All this might help explain why I am intrigued to know what exactly happens to David and his students when they are "present in the moment". Or even how they know when that is. What, after all, is their awareness of it? I am also keen to know what David believes happens to the use of those who have made 'present moment living' the study of their lives. My knowledge of these things is shaky but I assume Buddhists and others (including, presumably, all mediators) have an interest in this.
Intriguingly, I am reminded of Arthur Janov, originator of Primal Therapy, whose studies of advanced 'be here now' enthusiasts - many of religious persuasion - showed that however calm their brain patterns appeared to be, their bodies were bundles of repressed muscular tension. How he measured this, I don't know. Nor do I know what his results say for psychophysical unity. I do think, though, that it's probably a fallacy to imagine the 'present moment' is necessarily going to be tranquil.
If David has some new insights into ways of being "present in the moment", particularly how to enter this state at will, and remain there for longer than it takes to reflect on it; and if he is willing to share those insights, I for one would be extremely grateful to him.
Thanks for reading this,
Nicholas Brockbank.
END
All that was said, David, in the knowledge that actual experience of your work is the only way I'll ever get to understand it. You may remember me writing to ask if I could visit your London training course in its final weeks and you ringing to give me some possible dates. This was after Adam Nott mentioned to me you had evolved a 'new' approach.
To my regret, I didn't pursue your offer. I have a complicated fear and loathing for training courses, primarily associated with the perceived disparity between the personal use and the nature of the hands-on work a visitor presents needing to conform to that pertaining on the course, and Alexander's exhortation to teach any way but the way he did. Had I known you had abandoned hands-on work altogether, it might have been different!
Nicholas.
From: David Gorman, deegee@learningmethods.com
To: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
Date: 02/11/98 02:07 PM
RE: re: Contribution from Nicholas Brockbank
Nicholas,
At long last I have a few moments to reply...
I cannot reply to every bit of what you have written, but there are a few things that I would like to say. I've appended your text then my replies below.
The main reason why I'm not going to respond to everything is that words cannot convey much here. I realized this anew with this whole debate. It is impossible and undesirable to try to put what I do in words when it is so much easier to see and understand directly in person. You are welcome at any workshop, where I'm sure what I was saying will be a million times more understandable. You can find a list of upcoming dates and places at my web site (www.learningmethods.com). It looks now that there will be another 1 or 2 weeks in London in February or March of 1999.
I too am sorry that you didn't come to visit the school back then. I felt that I went out on quite a limb (given the attitude of various colleagues and my so-called professional association, STAT) to call Adam Nott and share with him what I had discovered. I was profoundly disappointed that he didn't come to see for himself what I was doing (our meeting was short enough that it was mainly discussing the discoveries but not showing them). I was also disappointed that no one else from STAT came on their own steam to see until they were accusing me of not teaching the Technique at which point I did not want anyone with that pre-conceived attitude anywhere near my school and I refused to allow them in the door. All of this was instrumental in me resigning from STAT. And of course had its good side as it moved me toward going off on my own work a lot sooner that I might have otherwise.
I would suggest that you do post your contribution to the Alextech Forum. Perhaps make a not at the start that it is rather late in coming back but people who want to refer back to the debate can look it up at the direction site at (www.directionjournal.com/alextech.html), and maybe suggesting that this contribution be added to the debate. I will choose at that point whether to respond to the list or not. The original debate period served its purpose for me to put forward where I was. I can't see much point in trading more words with anyone who has not actually experienced my work. I have an e-mail discussion group, the LearningMethods Forum, like the alextech list where we do discuss all aspects of the work, but it is a private list only for those with experience of the work.
Now to your contribution:
You wrote:
"The most prominent is the question of the Primary Control. Either this, or what is meant by
it, exists or else it doesn't. If it doesn't, fair enough, those who believe in it are fooling
themselves; but if it does, then it exists in everyone regardless of belief. If the Primary Control is
a fact, and if interference with it debilitates us in the way"
I certainly do see that some sort of coordinating integrating mechanism or function exists in us, whether or not we'd call it the Primary Control and whether or not it has much to do with the head/neck/back relationship. Something certainly seems to coordinate and organize us when we get out of the way and cease to try to organize ourselves in any way. This goes for daily living, moving functions as well as totally new learned coordinations (e.g. violin playing). As you put it: "the notion that something in us that is unknown and largely unknowable will put us right so long as the rest of us gets out of its way. "
You also wrote:
"I find David Gorman's insistence that the 'real' person - what he calls "the conscious
human being" - acts separately from (in his description, going "way out ahead of") his
or her "body", leaving 'it' to somehow sort itself out, decidedly odd, even allowing for the
fact he no longer claims to teach the Technique. The implication that our mental state, consisting of
what we are conscious of, is somehow more authentic than what 'it' doesn't know the rest of the self
is doing, seems unnecessarily divisive".
When I mentioned that example I was not putting forward a theory, I was describing what that person experienced and described to me. You are absolutely right in that it is a very 'divided' way of being--and most unconstructive, but that was where the person was at and it was an accurate description from him of what he was up to. His belief system was that he needed to do something to get up and his experience from going about it that way was that he ended way out ahead of himself. This is a similar sort of thing to what some people describe when they've been working for hours at a computer and then have very stiff and sore shoulders, but say that they "don't know what they were doing to make their shoulders sore because they were just so involved in the program". That is, they were existing (in their consciousness 'space') in the program in the computer, or to put it another way, they had narrowed to the computer and were only present there.
You wrote:
"Surely, it is not only in Alexandrian terms that the self includes everything? We are
indivisible, mind permeating body. I don't think any useful distinction can be made between the aspect
of use that is thought and the aspect that is muscular, since they are essentially one and the same."
You seem to be speaking theory here or at best an abstract generality. I was speaking of the actual person's actual experiences and thoughts and their description of where and what they were up to... And then correlating that with what was happening to them.
You wrote:
"As for whether or not what he is teaching is the Alexander Technique, I think Stacey Gehman
put David's current position clearly. If David believes in the Primary Control as he describes it and
is knowingly working towards stopping interference with that (and if, I might add, he believes this
leads to conscious - i.e., individual - control over the same process) then, yes, he is teaching the
Technique, albeit in a radically different way. If, as I suspect, he has lost faith in the existence
of a Primary Control, but prefers to work with the unspecified concept of allowing general use to
improve through an indirect, hands-off approach, then I would say he is teaching something else."
If you mean by Primary Control, some relationship of the head/neck/back that we can change in some way to bring about better physical/mental/emotional functioning, then yes, I certainly no longer think that this is relevant--to either change or get involved with in any way.
What I do think is important to see what the person's belief systems are (their conceptual framework, their construct, whatever you want to call it), how this construct is reinforced by their experiences and how their actions based on this construct and experiences serve to further reinforce the beliefs. Once we can uncover this, it is relatively easy to show somehow how and where this construct simply does not match the facts of what happens right in front of them. When someone 'experienced' directly a 'violation' of his or her reality, change is inevitable. Before this they are trying to operate on the basis of the way they think/feel/believe things are. However, this is not the way the world actually is, so inevitably they are going to run into it and have problems. As they uncover these delusions and misconceptions and misappreciations and come to directly experience things more accurately--in other words, learn--their 'reality' changes and they are now living in a way more consonant with the world as it actually is--hence those problems are gone, never to come back.
You wrote:
"Incidentally, concerning the ironist, I am surprised David should tell Peter that his
student "didn't know about the third degree of mobility in the shoulder joint before you told
her". I would have thought she almost certainly did, in exactly the way I know about it, without
having a clue what it means - unconsciously, from early learning experiences. Their only difference
(David and Peter's) lies in how they might remind her (and me) of what had earlier in life been
obvious."
You appear to be operating from the same premise here as many others--that of thinking that someone can 'know' something unconsciously. If they don't know it, that is, they cannot say it if you ask them, then who is this unconscious 'them' who 'knows' it? When you see it from the person's point of view (not the point of view of the teacher or some god-like overview or in hindsight) it is obvious that the person does not know about it--this is why it comes as a surprise to them and a 'new' bit of learning for them if some teacher tells them.
But I would never 'remind' someone about such a thing because I do not think it is at all important--it is merely the way their system is responding to what they are up to. I am not interested in changing their functioning that way. I'm interested in finding out what they were actually up to during the ironing when they noticed their perceived symptoms. As you can se from Peter's lesson, the ironist had no idea of the arm ranges--he had to 'remind' her.
If we were to open up the student's world rather than project the teacher's knowledge onto her, chances are that things would be much more like this: (this is pure speculation, of course, but backed up by many similar teaching experiences), "I'm trying to get through it as fast as possible because I don't like ironing". Whereupon I would suggest that since she was rushing through it AND she had those symptoms, MAYBE they go together. To find out we could make an experiment to see what happens if she doesn't try to get through it as fast as possible, but rather let it take the time it takes and be there for each moment of it. What would likely happen then (again speculation based upon numerous experiences) is that she would report that she felt much better and rather enjoyed the ironing; perhaps also that she was much more 'here' and could see how she really was not at all present usually. In fact she might also realize that she was like this in so many other activities. Thus she would come to see that her not liking ironing was in large part a vicious circle of unpleasant feeling from rushing through it, which she was doing because she didn't like the unpleasant feelings she got from rushing through it. Maybe from this piece of work, but probably from exploring in addition some of the other places she rushes through, she would eventually learn that rushing is an unconstructive mode and is not the way we are built to operate. Furthermore she'd have the knowledge of the meaning of her system's feedback (tension/pain) to tell her when she started to rush again. She would not need to free her neck or release the tension, she simply needs to recognize that she was rushing and stop rushing. In other words she has a more reliable appreciation of her experiences...
You wrote:
"David suggests that what he is doing is too far removed from the current general consensus
to be comfortably included within the mainstream. He doesn't say so but I can readily imagine a
moderator from a traditional training course, where hands-on work predominates in relative silence -
or even noisy abandon - but where without a chair or a couch nothing much would be expected to happen,
having problems authenticating people from David's course. Besides, why should he or his students want
to be so authenticated?"
Well, they certainly don't now. The latest 2 to become LearningMethods teachers had started training with me several years ago in my Alexander teacher training school but now are happy to call what they do LearningMethods. The other 5 teachers were all Alexander teachers before and are now gradually ceasing their Alexander practice and leaving that name behind. The newest ones coming in to train with me, of course, have no connection to the Alexander work.
You wrote:
"If David's approach works, if the Primary Control exists, it will be happening on that level
anyway, in which case his insights should eventually be incorporated into the traditional Alexander
means; if the Primary Control doesn't exist, but some other, inherent internal wisdom does, which his
approach helps elicit, then "LearningMethods" will come into its own, while the Alexander
Technique either fades away, bereft of its central thesis, or becomes the pre-eminent system for
purely postural improvement it often looks like doing anyway. If David's approach doesn't work, or
doesn't work sufficiently often or well, it will presumably die a natural enough death."
Nicely put. We'll see, I guess...
You wrote:
"My biggest problem with LearningMethods is David's rather too simplistic offering of
"being present in the moment" as the universal panacea. Please, don't get me wrong. I happen
to believe, and have believed for some time, that this is the universal panacea. The difficulty is
putting it into practice."
I'm not saying that being present in the moment is the universal panacea at all. It is in fact quite easy to be present in the moment, but it is not a goal in itself. It is rather a means to learning. Only when we are present in the moment can we really see what happens and thereby expose our misconceptions and make the connections between our thoughts/actions and our emotions and reactions. That is to say, through being more in the moment we can learn how things really are. The more we learn this, the more we are operating in the world in consonance with it and the better everything is. This leads to being more present and therefore more learning and more accurate
You wrote:
"My knowledge of these things is shaky but I assume Buddhists and others (including,
presumably, all mediators) have an interest in this."
Yes, it seems so. I have not studied Buddhism, but various people write me and say how similar some aspects are. Perhaps I could say that there seems to be a recognition of the same truths about being present and the unhappiness caused by our imagined ideals and desires. What seems to be a big difference is in the means used to discover more on the one hand and to come into a more aware state of being on the other...
You wrote:
"I do think, though, that it's probably a fallacy to imagine the 'present moment' is
necessarily going to be tranquil."
Exactly. The present is simply whatever it is and is often full of all kinds of reactions and emotion from people. However, the more they can really be here, the more apparent it is to them where and what are their misconceptions and how their actions bind them into repeating and reinforcing their point of view. This knowledge is the liberation that blows their old belief systems out of the water leaving them with a more accurate appreciation of reality and all the attendant benefits (or rather it would be more accurate to say, without all the attendant problems of their old less accurate reality appreciation and operating).
You wrote:
"If David has some new insights into ways of being "present in the moment",
particularly how to enter this state at will, and remain there for longer than it takes to reflect on
it; and if he is willing to share those insights, I for one would be extremely grateful to him."
Lots, but this is where it is essential to be there in person... I'll look forward to that opportunity,
warmly,
David
From: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
To: "David Gorman", deegee@learningmethods.com
Date: 14/11/98 06:30 PM
Subject: LearningMethods
Hello David,
Thanks for your response to what I wrote. I don’t think our points of view are that far apart; it's more how we describe things. Certainly, I would agree I tend to theorise while you look at an issue from a more practical angle. Given that, I see no reason to argue, except possibly over whether we can or can't 'know' something unconsciously. Oh, and the relative ease of being in the present. Thrashing these questions out would be interesting, but they're a bit of a side issue.
What really interests me in what you're doing is how far it seems even from the 'purest' Alexander Technique. The more I consider it, the less I understand those people mailing into the debate who felt you were somehow repackaging and calling something else what they considered they were already teaching.
The use or non-use of the hands is a key issue; but if that was the only difference between what you do and what they do (and you used to do) it might only mean you had discovered a new method for achieving what Alexander originally did for himself in front of mirrors. That in itself would be formidable. Unfortunately (you might think, fortunately) that doesn't seem to be the case.
The crux of the matter is the thorny question of the Primary Control. (I only give it capital letters because Alexander did). I remember from your Alexander Review articles (particularly the last one, I think) you had ambivalent feelings about what this meant; but I don't believe there can be very much doubt that an Alexander teacher who doesn't subscribe to a belief in the 'directions', in the order in which they are traditionally given (whether preventative, as in inhibition, or otherwise), is not teaching the Technique so much as 'use'.
Teaching use is great. It's what I've always assumed Alexander teachers who don't go along with the Primary Control get satisfaction from doing; but what you’re up to is even further away from this sort of teaching - light years, really - than the real Alexander Technique.
One of the contributors to the debate made a lot of the space Alexander devoted in his books to the nature of the thought processes ("conception") preceding an action.
However, although Alexander may have maintained that thought was primary, and only through changing it would general use change, he advocated such a precise form of 'preferred thought' along with such a specific idea of 'improved use', his approach really stands alone. Either it is followed to the letter or it isn't being followed at all.
What you appear to be doing is initially similar in that you encourage a student, at the moment of their habitual response to a stimulus, to recognise not only the nature of their thoughts but more importantly that by changing - or stopping - them, other, usually physical change occurs.
Obviously, from your viewpoint as an experienced (if no longer practising) Alexander teacher you
would be able to recognise any similarities between the changes in use that may happen as a result of
LearningMethods and those that result from the application of the Technique; but you have emphasised
that you are not looking for anything particular but rely instead on people changing in ways that are
appropriate for them and that you can't possibly know in advance.
I assume therefore that you don’t think the underlying wisdom that 'puts us right' is the same as
Alexander's Primary Control. This is the major difference (besides hands on or off) between what you
do and what Alexander teachers do. They (at least as I understand how most people teach the 'pure'
Technique) are looking for specific physical changes in a specific order (neck free, etc.) brought
about through a specific change in the student's thought process. Your approach is more open ended in
that you appear to be accepting whatever physical change might come about through a student's self
examination of, and self-experimentation with, their habitual patterns of thinking.
Last night, musing over the way you have explained what it is you are teaching, I had a sense of, not exactly deja vu, but...I don't know if you are familiar with Cognitive Therapy? I bought a book on it years ago by David Burns - I think I was training at the time - and was impressed by what I saw as similarities between his approach and what I was struggling to make sense of in my Alexander work.
His main - only, really - contention is that the way a person is feeling (emotionally) at any one moment is entirely dependant on the way they are thinking. He has a variety of examples of habitual ways in which we tend to think, almost all of which lead to our feeling bad. (His book is called "Feeling Good".) So long as a particular stream of thought (including variations on the same theme) continues, so the feelings persists. He emphasis that the thoughts are not so much unconscious as simply failing to be recognised, similar in nature to our habitual surroundings: always present but barely noticed.
I had a personal example of this recently when my neighbour cut into our side of the hedge in a way I didn't like. I felt sick to the stomach out of all proportion to what had happened. My thoughts were actually very apparent, although I was unwilling to recognise them, centring as they did not on the hedge so much as my unwillingness to confront him on the issue.
So, the question I would like to ask you is, do you believe our emotional feelings are inextricably linked (and may even be physiologically identical) to our physical sense of ourselves and therefore our use? If so, assuming I had followed the procedures outlined in Burns' book for changing my thought processes to something more objectively appropriate, and had felt emotionally better as a result - I used to do this and it did work although it demanded constant vigilance - could I reasonably expect similar sorts of changes in use to those you are recognising in the people you work with to come about at the same time?
Admittedly, the nature of both our emotional feelings and our physical sense of ourselves will depend - they obviously already depend - so critically on the precise formation of our thoughts that the way in which we are encouraged to change them will have a huge bearing on results. Just as Alexander teachers specify an almost religious (sometimes even military) adherence to a specific form of thought, so David Burns tends to emphasise a sensible, realistic, objective outlook on life for turning the tables on what he sees as excessive 'negative' thinking.
I don't know in what directions if any you may or may not guide your students' thoughts, but I guess this - or any other LearningMethod teacher's influence - will be reflected in their use, if not their emotional state, too.
All the best,
Nicholas.
From: David Gorman, deegee@learningmethods.com
To: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
Date: 07/12/98 02:07 PM
RE: LearningMethods
Hi Nicholas,
I was just looking down my 'queue' of e-mails to answer and saw (again) your last e-mail to me. I just wanted to say that I am still intending to reply to it, but I have been so busy recently... There is, however, a light at the end of the tunnel in the shape of 6 weeks break when I can get caught up. I re-read the e-mail and also want to let you know how much I enjoy your articulateness.
Please be patient and a response will soon be winging its way to you.
warmly,
David
From: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
To: "David Gorman", deegee@learningmethods.com
Date: 10/12/98 06:30 PM
Subject: LearningMethods
Hello David,
Thanks for the message. This is just to say I'm probably not going to bother mailing that original contribution I sent you to AlexTech - at least for the time being - since it would just vanish beneath the avalanche of carping about quackery, etc, that seems to be the current topic.
Actually, I noticed the last couple of days a relatively conciliatory tone appearing, possibly in response to a couple of plaintive requests from 'wounded' subscribers to turn it down. John Coffin even found time to say something vaguely positive about you!
Nicholas.
[Ed. note: Here is the relevant snippet from the posting from John Coffin (replying to Tom Vasiliades):
"Tom Vasiliades wrote:
"Yes, FM was able give a demonstration of the principles he had discovered. Does this mean we should not attempt to advance the work. Marjorie Barstow was much maligned in certain Alexander circles for teachings groups and/or not being 'true' to the Alexander work. What if David Gorman is on to something and advancing the Alexander work?""What does this have to do with the matter at hand? I have said nothing about anything you may be proposing as 'advances' to the Technique, though I suspect I might. Barstow's group work inspired healthy doubt among those who were worried about the special problems such work could entail. On the other hand, she forced 'normal' teachers to think about how and why they taught the way they did.
My take on Gorman's new work (at least as I have seen it described) was that he IS advancing the Technique, by reemphasizing aspects of the work that had been ignored or underused by the rest of us. I objected to his taking this new emphasis out of the 'Alexander' loop, although I am more sympathetic now.
From: David Gorman, deegee@learningmethods.com
To: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
Date: 10/12/98 02:07 PM
RE: LearningMethods
Nicholas,
I understand your reluctance to post your contributions so long after the fact, especially in the current climate. I, myself, almost unsubcribed from the list in the last few days... but am hanging in for a while.
If you don't post your writings to Alextech they can't be added to the debate 'archive' which is on Direction Journal's web-site. However, I am still maintaining a copy on my web-site (I was the one who put together the directionjournal version). Would you be OK with me adding your contribution and my replies and your reply to my reply etc. up on this version? I would just add them onto the end of debate with a note that these were not posted to the list but send back and forth privately, but are reproduced here with permission. I think it would add a very articulate new dimension and summation of the debate... Let me know your feelings about this...
Just had Peter Ruhrberg come on my recent workshop in Freiburg. We had a good time exchanging ideas and he had some very positive things to say about the work. It makes such a difference of course to see the work in action and so far he's the only one from the debate who has actually come to see for himself. By the way, I will be in the UK soon for another workshop (late January in Edinburgh, early February in London). I'll send out an e-mail message with details soon... Perhaps we can meet up then?
warmly,
David
From: Nicholas Brockbank, dod@dodman.freeserve.co.uk
To: "David Gorman", deegee@learningmethods.com
Date: 12/12/98 06:30 PM
Subject: LearningMethods
Hello David,
Yes, for sure, tack what I've sent you so far onto the end of your copy of the debate. Please do send details of your upcoming February trip.
Nicholas.
Continued in Part 14...
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