How often can you prove today, that you, all we humans, are not ungovernable minds in disobedient bodies, but a harmonious, conversing whole, minded body and embodied mind. That is the thinking to which the world is coming even I write and you read these words.
If, for instance, we think our torsos contain and reflect an ever expanding universe, our torsos expand and our breathing responds. As minded body and embodied minds, we have potential as yet only touched on by theology and science.
Just hours ago, walking in Central Park and wishing to change my worried thinking, I felt and saw the bluestone path on which I was walking begin to dissolve into luminosity. Body and mind were neither separate from one another, nor from the immensity and intimacy of the whole. At just three other times in my long life have I experienced such a thing, and the three, now four are the most magical experiences of my life, the transmutation of all things into a vibrating, luminous singularity.
Now to those who experience such a state as a continuum, mine is a pathetic accounting. Yet to me, it is a vivid hint of how we might live, as minded body and embodied mind, one with the universe. Today, I want to talk about a step in that direction, namely, the discipline of Alexander Technique.
Staying back
The attention we pay to the functional uprightness of our bodies is Alexander Technique. Our backs are the sounding boards of our experience. Back stays back, the organ of receptivity. We think of the shoulders opening from the torso, we know their connection to the ground, and they open. We let them know the ground on which we stand. We discover that as of old, thinking makes it so.
Vehicles of conveyance
Our bodies have countless functions. They are vehicles of conveyance, intelligence gatherers, mills of foodstuffs, efficient little sewer systems, fuel cells, storing and distributing vital energies, all directed by an on-board computer system whose sophistication is still, in the approaching mid-century, a subject of marvel. Our bodies, our good selves, are works of wonder.
Attention
Bless the dimensions, joints, and functions of your body with the gift of attention. Light them up by the part. Bless all the juicy little pumps and tubes and sacs and flows, our beating hearts. Fill them each and all with your breath.
A blessing
Begin with your toes, your feet, your ankles, your limbs and neck and head. Sense their aliveness, the course of energy within them. Delineate on all of them thoughts of wholeness, flexibility and health. Could this be a meditation, a prayer, a wakeup call, the beginning of a class?
Blessing our singular abilities
We can celebrate still more, namely, our three dimensionality, our architecture, and our singular skills. It is only we hominoids that have the capabilities of purposeful throwing, launching, and hurling,
A game of catch with a frisbee or a rubber ball can teach more of our facility for play, musical and recreational, than many a pedagogue. Guiding our throw of ball or bow, aiming them, can have results equally comical as counterproductive. Don’t cultivate control, but rather, launching, loosing. And liberating. Three L’s. Let me explain.
Our forebears on the savannah, walking through tall grasses, may have heard a sound, a rustling, a humming, a grinding of teeth, a roar. They squatted instinctively and with elegant economy. They shot their knees forward from deep in their torsos, where legs and torso meet. They simultaneously cantilevered their torso over them. We are equally endowed as those progenitors, but civilization has cost us too much. We likely should not squat in Times Square no matter how or where our bodies meet.
Touch for our ancient ancestors was a call to action, a precursor of communication, a predictor of combat, love making, hunting or gathering. Not so for us.
Everyday insults
Today, we might be jostled, bumped, tapped, touched, and teased mindlessly too many times before we arrive at our work. And no, we don’t squat, and we seldom find reason to react outwardly. We pull inward, minimize the space we expose to unwanted stimulus.
We colonize our vulnerable extremities, our heads and necks, and hold them close. We wear our tribulation and there’s the rub, quite literally. Muscle combats muscle. Contraction mitigates against our freedom.
Every bit of work we do—work in the sense that physics allows—we must first overcome our holding. We must push through our holds to accomplish the smallest of tasks, lifting a pencil or bringing our hands to our keyboards of Dell or Steinway. We leave our offices or practice rooms in a state on near exhaustion. Not me, you may be thinking.
Paying attention
Pay attention, dear reader, to your shoulders right now. Like mine, they’re probably pulled in. Let them open to the horizon and notice how your breath corresponds. How many times might you need to do this? You tell me, but the number might be surprisingly high. One hundred times might be an undercount. Live expansively.
We colonize our limbs, hold them close, limit the space we expose to unwelcome contact. What’s to be done or rather, undone? Remember those 3 L’s, Launching. Loosing. Liberating? Put them to work for you.
A launched movement breaks the boundaries we erect around us. They are wholly devoid of overt control. They are initiated by that part of the brain that overwrites worry, concern, and control, namely, by the cerebral cortex. In countering stiffness and constraint, launching is to be your best friend. It is the perfect companion to the study of Alexander Technique.
Right where you are, come to standing with your hands at rest at your side. Launch them, one after another away from your side as though throwing your hand away. First make sure there’s no chair top, object or person within your reach, ‘cause that could really hurt. Launch your hands outwardly and away.
Let them fly. Don’t guide. Don’t direct. Launch your arms and hands as though tossing a ball underhanded and let them come back on their own. Find other opportunities. Your curved hand on your desk, fingertips touching the surface of the desk offer an opportunity.
Flick your fingers away as though flicking a crumb from your desk. Notice, as scientists have, that the action of the fingers in one hand benefit the freedoms of the other. And yes, in the office or classroom your flighty hands might invite attention. That’s how hidebound we are. A flight may earn a slight. But nevertheless, let fly.
And yet another blessing
We are so enormously blessed by our bodies and their propensities. It is at no cost to ourselves and of great benefit to pay them what they’re owed, namely, our attention. Attention must be paid. Now, in a class or by Zoom let me show you a number of ways you can apply these ideas to your work or your learning. You may say as others have, that at no other meeting or venue have I learned so much or had so much fun.
