By Stella Weigel

Having eaten cake which caused her to grow to a tremendous height, Alice exclaims:

‘I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; —but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go!  Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’  And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.  ’They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet!  And how odd the directions will look!

(Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll)

I recently learned at an anatomy lecture that during embryological development the skin which sits underneath the first vertebrae (atlas) redistributes to form the skin of the soles of the feet.  This helps to explain why the receptors in the soles of the feet, provide such a good feedback to orient us in space and alert us to when we are going off balance.  Raymond Dart, anatomist and anthropologist, wrote, “In the human squatting or standing (or orthograde) positions, the dominant segmental skin information concerned in human head balance is probably that coming from the sacral or hind most body segments to supplying the soles of the feet, especially the pads of the toes and heels” (An Anatomist’s Tribute to F. Matthias Alexander, 20 March 1970, reprinted in Skill and Poise).  Alexander lessons encourage us to think of our feet being in touch with the planet, the pads behind the toes and the heels going back and down.

Due to a fear of falling, our common immediate response when we feel off balance is to stiffen; if this stiffening becomes habitual, then our fear response will become more or less a constant.  The possibility of any movement will lead to a perception that we are going off balance, and the fear response is therefore heightened.  This is a vicious circle.

No small wonder then that having developed a habitual fear reflex, I also developed a fear of heights; due to habitual stiffening, my feet were, quite literally, never on the ground.  I also sat in chairs that were too big for me, which caused me to stiffen as much I could.  As an undergraduate I avoided the paternoster lift at all costs, preferring to walk up twelve flights of stairs in order to reach the teaching rooms.

Dart continues, “Man is the creature of fear!  In other words, he is the most fearful (in every sense of that word) just as he can and has become the most fearless of all animals.  This is because he has become the most nearly tip-toed of all the two-footed, or bipedal creatures.  His walking is a constant precarious process of saving himself from falling.  So the primary fear to overcome is his fear of falling.”

The Alexander Technique teaches us to release and soften rather than to stiffen when being taken off balance, to experiment rather than to control, and to be aware that we do indeed possess a choice, either to topple over in a stiffening response
to gravity or to stand in dynamic equilibrium and stability, with gravity as our friend.

Alice sent presents to her feet.  But F.M. Alexander sent presents to us all.  He handed down the directions that help us experience standing on our feet as a pleasure, moving with them as a joy. Take a moment to think of your feet softening, spreading and enjoy being on the ground.  It is a kindness to yourself.

Merry Christmas!

Guest Blogger Stella Weigel lives in London and is an Alexander Technique teacher trainee at The Constructive Teaching Centre, the world’s oldest and largest Alexander Technique training school.

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In the last post, we looked at different examples of singing, in order to gain a clear idea of Ease in singing.  Here I will continue to outline how I work on singing, using the work of both FM Alexander and Manual Garcia, bringing the idea of Ease into the practice of Ease.

First off, what I do not do: I do not teach by imitation.  Telling a student to copy the teacher, or an accomplished performer is classic End-Gaining, and not a process of discovery whereby the student finds his true voice and ultimately becomes independent of the teacher.  This approach also presumes that the student is able to copy the teacher with freedom and ease.  Now if this were so, why is the pupil there taking a lesson in the first place?  The pupil could just get a record of say, Ivogun, listen and copy it.  Also, this approach does not ask the pupil to stop and think.  It treats the pupil like a trained seal and is insulting to even a limited intelligence.  What is learning if it tries to bypass thinking?

When I work with a singer, I must give him an actual, visceral feeling and the experience of Ease in singing by bombarding him with sensation until insight appears.  I see to it that the breath is not hurried, noisy or shallow, or that the face, hands, throat, entire spine, shoulders do
not betray any strain or tension whatsoever.  There is to be no forcing allowed into the process. We go very slowly in all of this. The rush and hurry in the study of everything is a big part of why we fail.

I use 4 mirrors and sometimes a DAT recorder and headphones so the pupil hears himself as we work.  Yes, it is very confrontational.

At this point I will ask the singer simply to intone of a series of legato vowels on one note (AH AE EE OH OO).  The note is one that the singer first chooses to hum, somewhere in the low to medium range; something he thinks is easy.  If I hear strain because the pitch is too low or a bit too high, then I will suggest another pitch.

The new coordination will feel very strange and unreliable to the pupil.  It will feel quite unusual and odd because it will feel like there is too small an effort for “singing as he knew it.”  It will be lighter and easier.  He may hear it and feel this sound is not “important” or “rich” enough. I help him STOP this thinking.  Meanwhile with my hands on, I constantly reinforce the directions for the new and more logical (FM says “reasoned out”) means whereby the breath, voice and thinking of the pupil can come together in a new and more efficient manner of use.  We may hear damage due to past “lessons” he has in his voice, for example, a wobble.  The student may have to accept this for awhile as the repair work is being done on his coordination.  Remember, the muscles have to learn a new way to interact as they stretch and contract.  It takes time.

Using a metronome to keep a nice, slow and steady tempo, I give very simple scales, ones that the pupil has not likely sung before.  I take great care to help the pupil set up positions of mechanical advantage from which to vocalize.  I will frequently bring him into “monkey” or have him put “hands on back of the chair.”  All of this helps direct the intention towards setting up the conditions for a new and improved way of singing.

We work in this slow, methodical way without singing any music more complicated than these simple, very slow short scales on easy vowels, until the pupil is able to stop any undue vocal efforts and of egoism, of wanting to be right and impressive.  This is where all of our strained efforts in life actually come from: ego and fear of failure.

Keep in mind, we get what we practice.  If we are not well directed in our thinking we will probably get a mess.  If we are lucid and clear headed as we work toward a goal, we have a great chance of success.

As a teacher, I am being paid to direct my pupil’s thinking and his studies towards efficiency, ease, and pleasure in achievement.  This leads him to experience greater satisfaction, self worth, and happiness.  It is amazing how quickly the progress is made, even though we are going slowly.  One will hear the notes improve within minutes as the vocal faults melt away.  One might think scales are boring.  They are not.  They help us make great progress almost immediately.  That is very, very exciting.

Part I

Part II

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In the last post, I outlined the 4 steps that F.M. Alexander developed and documented in Man’s Supreme Inheritance for applying conscious control to the learning or re-learning of a skill (in our example, the skill of singing).  Here I would like to example the first step as it relates to
singing.  The first step, you recall, is to get a “detailed and accurate idea (a concept in mind) of what movements we have to make.”  It means we must have a clear idea of what is not needed.  The idea is Ease in singing.

When I work with someone on singing, I am clear about what Ease in singing is and I seek to communicate that sense.  I give examples that compare the sound of strain to a free sound.  Listen for yourself.

Here are recordings of Cecilia Bartoli and Von Stade, two mezzo-sopranos singing the same aria.

Ease is what Cecilia Bartoli does not have, and Ease is what Frederica Von Stade does have.

And here, compare two sopranos, a modern singer Beverly Sills, trained in a forced way of singing, with Maria Ivogun, who used a very “old” approach.  They sing the same aria.

Again, Ease is what Beverly Sills does not have, and Ease is what Maria Ivogun does have.

These examples give you the idea, the concept of ease.

Cecilia Bartoli, Beverly Sills, and so many other modern singers produce a horrible, choppy, pushed, wobbly, ugly, and out of tune sound.  This is the model that most people have for what classical singing should sound like.  We need a different model!  For you cannot sing what you cannot imagine.

Ivogun and Von Stade studied the method of Manuel Garcia (1804 -1906).  Garcia discovered the laryngoscope and wrote his Complete Treatise on the Art of Singing in 1846.  He was the foremost voice teacher of his time and taught at the Royal Academy in London until his death in 1906.  His teaching method was the study of the means whereby the voice would become free of all extra efforts.

What you hear when you listen to a singer who studied his method are the 3 basic elements of great singing: steadiness of sound, beauty of timbre (tone), and irreproachable intonation.  Ivogun studied with Mathilde Marchesi, who herself was a pupil of Garcia.  Von Stade studied Garcia before she became well known.

Garcia’s approach, like Alexander’s, encourages the freedom of Use that leads to mastery.  I use the Garcia method when working with singers, and in the next post I will take you through the remaining steps outlined in Man’s Supreme Inheritance, moving from idea into practice, utilizing Garcia’s work.

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How do we go about becoming more consciously directed, not only in terms of general living, but in the acquisition of skill?  Let us select a skill as an example: singing.  We want to learn to sing or improve our singing and we have gone to a teacher for help.

In Part II of his first book, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, F.M. Alexander sets out a process very clearly and in great detail.  (If you have not read this book I urge you to do so. But go slowly and take much time.)  He gives us 4 steps to follow consecutively.

1.  We must have a detailed and accurate idea (a concept in mind) of what movements we have to make.

In singing this means that we have to know the simplicity and ease of singing as an idea.  This is a very tall order because if we had a clear and accurate idea of singing with ease and simplicity we would be already miles ahead of beginner status, which presumably we are not.  The teacher must know what ease in singing is and is not.  The teacher must know that ease in singing is singing with no unnecessary muscular movements.

2.  We must put a stop to any old subconscious habits we have built up that do not serve us.

This means we have to tell ourselves that we don’t know how to sing with total ease and simplicity.  If we knew we would do it.  So any ideas we have about singing and what is needed we must put entirely aside.  This means any idea we have of “taking a full breath” for example, or making a “beautiful sound” we must disregard.  We inhibit that thinking and we inhibit acting out on the idea of “make a beautiful sound” and “taking in the air.”  This step is even more important because if we are to get the right idea about singing, and make that idea whole and real for others to hear, we have to stop (inhibit) any wrong headedness we have held dearly in mind.

3.  We must continue inhibiting those old ideas while at the same time setting up improved conditions for new means-whereby.

These new and improved conditions will allow the breath to enter the body freely and provide space from the old clumsy forced habits that we
believed were absolutely necessary.  Improved conditions and means-whereby will let the muscles coordinate spontaneously for a new (and to us, novel) way of singing wherein the voice unites with the breath in a free manner.

4.  In the last step, under the skillful guidance of the teacher we must give consent to allow their muscles to contract and expand in this newly directed way.

This process must be repeated over and over again until new habits and new ideas have been formed.  It is only with repetition and time that we learn to trust these new sensations of freedom and ease.

This, my friends, is how FM first taught himself and then us “how thought becomes an activity.”  His genius was that he changed his frame of reference from one of “I know” to one of “I do not know.”  Nothing new happens if we keep on going about it in the same old (habitual) way!

Read the book.  He wrote if for you.

In the next entry we will explore in greater detail how these steps apply to the study of singing.

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by Stella Weigel

Alexander could not have been clearer: “In those cases where the psycho-physical mechanism is imperfect and functioning more or less inadequately, we cannot expect the best results in the conveyance or the acquisition of knowledge.” (CCCI)

My own education paid full testament to this in providing me with all the necessary tools of a confirmed end-gainer; I developed poor psycho-physical use in a most expert fashion.

My late father struggled to obtain his education. He grew up in war-time Germany and was called to military service on the Eastern front while still just a boy. He eventually studied chemistry and became a chemist and academic lecturer. 

The overriding memory I have of my own education is one of struggle, but of an entirely different nature than my father’s.  My education was designed to improve my intellect, but there was never any attention paid to my condition of use, or the reasons for my reactions, or any observation of the link between use and reactions.

All the groundwork for what was to continue throughout my entire education was laid as early as my primary school years; “worried” and “anxious” are words used frequently in my school reports.

Further, it occurs to very few [parents] to consider whether, in this process of “education” (i.e., in certain specific directions), the child’s fear reflexes will not be unduly and harmfully excited by the injunction that it must always try to “be right”, indeed, that it is almost a disgrace to be wrong.  (CCCI).

I attempted to obey instructions, achieve results, and meet the ever increasing demands “made by people who (were) guiding themselves by an unreliable and delusive sensory appreciation.” (CCCI).  This all took its toll.  The evaluation, “could do better,” became all too familiar and seemed to constantly announce my unfulfilled potential.  I dreaded sitting any tests or examinations, convinced that in spite of all my hard work I could only fail, that I had already failed.

There was little hope of taking my time to think.  Just the idea of taking an exam was the panic button inside of me which, once triggered, led me to rush and think all too quickly.  I was no different than Alexander’s golfer who failed at every attempt to keep his eye on the ball.  Time and again I would try to do my best, be left disappointed at the outcome, and lacking in self-confidence.

…every attempt on the part of the child to do something new or to acquire knowledge makes a psycho-physical demand, and (…) the child’s efforts, when judged on a general and not specific basis, will always be in accordance with the standard of psycho-physical functioning of its organism.  (CCI).  

I also remember a loving father who helped me with my schoolwork as much as possible, especially when he saw me struggling.  He educated me during our summer holidays, when we would travel to more remote corners of Western Europeand to marvel at its beauty: the landscape, culture and history.  My father taught me respect, curiosity, an enduring appreciation of the arts, and the importance of human relationships and communication.  He encouraged me to discover a desire for learning and questioning.  He taught me the importance of determination for when the going got tough.  Above all, he wanted me to live my life to its full potential.

My fear of failure was a subconsciously self-imposed response to expectations of achievement.  The awareness of my father’s educational and academic achievements, no doubt, provided me with a strong stimulus.   But I was not taught to STOP and question whether in fact this fear-response was based on reason, until I studied the Alexander Technique.

The Alexander Technique offers a unique opportunity to begin to observe, question and learn to consciously control one’s physical and mental reactions in relation to stimuli; to attend to the “means whereby.”   Lessons provide a non-judgemental, non-end-gaining environment in which to develop this practice.

My father’s specialization, chemistry, is the physical science of matter and the changes that matter undergoes during chemical reactions.   I believe my father would have been absolutely delighted to see how much my physical matter has changed as a result of changes in my own reactions and vice versa. John Dewey states in the introduction to CCCI,

Mr Alexander has found a method for detecting precisely the correlations between these two members, physical-mental, of the same whole, and for creating a new sensory consciousness of new attitudes and habits.  It is a discovery which makes whole all scientific discoveries, and renders them available, not for our undoing, but for human use in promoting our constructive growth and happiness.

Guest Blogger Stella Weigel lives in London and is an Alexander Technique teacher trainee at The Constructive Teaching Centre, the world’s oldest and largest Alexander Technique training school.

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Part 1: The Premise

In this first book Man’s Supreme Inheritance, written in 1910, F.M. Alexander argues that we now struggle in all kinds of ways (social, economic, legal, physical, moral, ethical, educational, governmental, and of course personal) because we do not stop and think before we act. (He wrote this book 100 years ago. I wonder what he would be saying if he lived now!)

Alexander observed that we continue to rely on our instinct (the subconscious mind) to guide us, even though instinct can no longer be satisfactory for our present needs.  If humanity is ever to reach its full potential, we must cultivate conscious, reasoning mindfulness so that it dominates the subconscious mind.

Early man evolved slowly and became essentially different from other primates.  He conquered fire.  He developed powers of thought, and was endowed with curiosity and enterprise.   (I have a mental image of man wondering ‘What is over on the other side of those mountains?’ and leaving his home in the rift valley, thus starting his trek to inhabit and finally dominate the world.)

For a long time man was able successfully to rely upon his sense of feeling (his sensory appreciation) in order to meet the demands of survival.  If he sensed, for instance, that winter was coming, or felt that he and his tribe had better move in order to find better hunting grounds, his instincts still served him well.  Thus he survived.

But as man progressed to a stage of more complexity, he established permanent settlements; the start of civilization.  This was a huge shift and it brought with it lots of problems.  As man developed consciousness, reason, and logic, he made changes to his environment that would make his life much more complicated.  His subconscious mind was still dominant, and thus, instinct still ruled.  But as it was no longer reliable, man was at odds with himself. In many ways this is our crises facing us today.

My next blogs will continue this theme.

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by Stella Weigel

In Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, FM Alexander provides the following illustration:

A seven-year-old boy was given an aptitude test designed to measure “control.”  The test involves an electronic apparatus with holes varying in size.  His task was to touch the centers of the holes with a small, pencil-like, metal rod without touching sides of the holes.  If he touched the sides, an electric flash would result.  He was warned ahead of time to avoid this at all costs, and “he at once became so excited through the fear of making a mistake that his hands shook and he stiffened and tensed his whole body unduly in making the first try” (original emphasis).  Needless to say, he performed very poorly on the test.

The boy did not have a means whereby to inhibit his habitual, fearful reaction to the thought of failure.  Instead, he remained caught in the vicious circle of end gaining; having failed to avoid the flash in the first instance, he continued the test repeating the pattern.

Alexander Technique lessons can help us to learn a practical means whereby, and give us a process to inhibit our habitual fear reflexes of one sort or another which lead to disappointment and failure.  Over time, it will also lead us to an improved sensory appreciation.

First and foremost we must learn to stop.  We must learn to say “no” to whatever harmful habit is inferring with our Use.  Only then can we come back to ourselves.  From this place of inhibition, we are able to make a new, conscious choice.  This capacity to choose will allow us to change.  Developing such awareness takes time, an incredible amount of time, which is why the Alexander Technique is truly an ongoing re-education.

As a teacher-trainee, I find that “stopping” during vacation is equally as important as “stopping” during the work undertaken during term.  I now take this opportunity to marvel at the abundance of Spring blossom, reconnect with family at home and abroad, and to enjoy inordinate hours of sleep.

Stopping to observe what is happening with us right NOW is definitely worth the wait!

Guest Blogger, Stella Weigel, is an Alexander Technique student at The Constructive Teaching Centre, London, the world’s oldest and largest Alexander Technique training school.  She had Alexander Technique lessons from 2006-2009 before embarking on her training in April 2009.  She lives in the city of London.

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Giraffe Birth on YouTube

It takes less than five minutes for this animal to adjust reflexively in gravity.  Notice the HEAD LEADS, then the partial or secondary patterns follow (first with the forelegs then hind legs) becoming reflexively coordinated.  The reflex travels down from the head end to the tail and co-ordinates the entire animal.  There are some Alexander Technique “teachers” who actually dispute that the primary control even exists.  This is because they are badly trained.  There is no nice way to put it.  But here is the principle of it for everyone to see for themselves.

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We seem to be more and more nervous, mentally unbalanced and muscularly unfit. Our children are fatter, becoming less motivated and more entitled, showing all the signs of ill health (of course diabetes, but also many are emotionally maladjusted) and they seem to have all the signs of a terrible life ahead of them. They don’t move, or play. They sit at computer games and go online, connecting to sites that are mostly a waste of valuable youth. Some of these sites are criminal and dangerous. They don’t use this time to shape themselves for their futures. And nobody is guiding them either!  They take all manner of drugs and many are addicts before 15. Others are fixated with celebrity and they want recognition as a validation for themselves.  This alone shows a total lack of values and the power they should be developing to make a life in the future. They can only become shallow, angry adults without a shred of the wherewithal to face life.

Seeing such children lumber around deformed and unhappy, I ask myself Why is this? How can it auger well in the future for all of us if these young generations are already so dysfunctional and delusional? Everything about them screams out at the casual observer and these are the young that will run the governments, make the policy and shape the way our world is run.

We adults seeing this, seem incapable of lifting even one finger. So I decided to offer either free lessons or nearly free lessons to some children who I believe need this work. They fill all these criteria of need to change their ideas of self and life. I can’t change the world but I can help one person or even two. Maybe it helps them and maybe it falls on deaf ears, I don’t know, but I am doing this because it is the heart and core of Alexander’s principles to work with the individual. One child at a time.

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“There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellence that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellence will we have lives blessed with happiness.”

 Aristotle

 I contend that FM Alexander managed to offer us a pathway to develop this very human excellence.  By overcoming our shortcomings and the traits that block us, we can learn to more fully realize our potential and enjoy a greater measure of happiness.  What is demanded of us is a great deal of self-examination.

 But how does the practical work of an Alexander lesson relate to human excellence in the general sense?  How do we possibly connect standing and sitting in a chair (with some gentle “adjustments” along the way) with an excellence that leads to happiness in life?  What on earth has one to do with the other?

 Think of it this way.  If we are habitually distorting ourselves just in order to stand on the planet, if we’re constantly contorting ourselves as we move, and slumping to sit, if we go about the very basic tasks of life while simultaneously pushing ourselves down and lifting ourselves up, then we are in a bad fix.

 In this condition, as we set about to master any specific trade or occupation or any avocation with specialized demands, we bring all of our habitual baggage with us.  In the process we can make an even bigger mess of things.  We pressure ourselves to excel, practice longer and harder, and get better and better at distorting and blocking ourselves.

 The process of learning that FM Alexander discovered, offers us a way to change this condition, because it offers us a way to change our habits.  With the help of a good teacher we can have a new experience; we learn to Stop/ Think/ Observe/ and Allow change.  This leads to self-possession and toward self-mastery.  This is the kind of excellence I believe Aristotle had in mind; excellence that can help us to “have lives blessed with happiness.”

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