USE AND FUNCTIONING

“…a close connection exists between use and functioning…”
“…our manner of use is a constant influence for good or ill upon our functioning…”
FM Alexander

“Use” was Alexander’s word for the process by which we control and coordinate the self in its entirety. The quality of our use determines the quality of our activity, or “functioning”. Many forms of under-performance, as well as posture-related and tension-related pain or injury are unwittingly aggravated, or even caused , by habitually poor use of the self. Conversely, learning improved use can lead to surprising improvements. People routinely report reduced pain and/or stress and more more stamina and strength in their activities.

PRIMARY CONTROL

“…there is a primary control of the use of the self, which governs the working of all mechanisms and so renders the control of the complex organism comparatively simple.”
FMA

“Primary control” is Alexander's name for the natural relationship of the head to the spine. Biologists Coghill and Magnus, who did not know of Alexander, observed this natural relationship to be the central mechanism in orienting vertebrates to the environment. It organizes our muscular support against gravity. It is the basis of all our skills. It is in us at birth and we employ it instinctively. It can, however, be overcome by habitual distortion.

  
"I am amazed to see how you, years ago, discovered in human physiology and psychology the same principle which I worked out in lower vertebrates." (Biologist George Coghill, in a letter to FM Alexander)

UNITY OF THE SELF

“…Nature does not work in parts, but treats everything as a whole.”
“…It is impossible to separate “mental” from “physical” processes in any form of human activity.”
FMA

 “Mind and “body” are points of view of one thing: the self. Mind and body have distinct characteristics, but as with the ‘heads’ or ‘tails' of a coin, neither can exist unless both exist, as aspects of one psychophysical self. Our habit, however, is to interpret mind and body as discrete components inside a skin. Countless disciplines purport to “unite” body and mind. This is no more possible than “uniting” heads and tails to make a coin.

We extend this misperception when we describe our behaviors as physical or mental. Are the pictured behaviors physical or mental? Could either aspect exist without the other?

  FAULTY SENSORY APPRECIATION/HABIT

“You can’t know a thing by an instrument that is wrong.”
“What is right is natural, but not habitual.”
FMA

Faulty sensory appreciation occurs in a distorted psychophysical self. Just as we become stuck in habits of movement, we become stuck in habits of thought. New information is undermined by “old” information from past experience. We respond by doing more of what we’ve done before. Functionally, we’re living in the past.

INHIBITION

“It all comes down to inhibiting a particular reaction to a given stimulus. It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to do.”
FMA

Inhibition is the delay of habitual response long enough for reasoning to intervene. Given the speed of the brain, this pause is immeasurably small. Without this pause, there is no possibility of changing old habits. Contrary to Freudian inhibition, Alexander’s inhibition releases, rather than represses, spontaneity. You can’t satisfy your desire unless you think about what it is. Inhibition allows our true nature, rather than our habit, to express itself.

 DIRECTION

“There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a thing as a right direction.”
FMA

Direction is the unforced process of projecting messages from our brain to the mechanisms of behavior and of conducting energy for the use of these mechanisms. Direction is not movement, nor does it cause movement. Our direction flavors our movement.

 END-GAINING

“This direct procedure is associated with dependence upon sub-conscious guidance and control, leading…to an increase in the defects and peculiarities already existing.”
FMA

The cause of our misuse of ourselves is end-gaining. End gaining occurs when the main focus of our attention is on achieving a result in any activity directly, without paying attention to the process by which the result is achieved. In doing so, we surrender control of the process to the sub-conscious.

The simplest of activities, e.g., moving from sitting to standing (and vice versa) are rife with end-gaining, so much so that they are a standard means of illustrating the concept in a lesson.

 MEANS-WHEREBY

The means-whereby is the process - that series of intermediate steps which must be accomplished in order to attain an end. The means-whereby principle is the recognition in practice that these intermediate steps are as important as ends in themselves, that the most important step at any time is the one being performed at the present moment, and the second most important is the next one. Application of the means whereby principle requires conscious thought, accurate sensory awareness of the conditions present, a reasoned consideration of their causes, inhibition of habitual or end-gaining responses to these conditions, and consciously guided (i.e., "directed") performance of the indirect series of steps (the process) required to gain an end.

The ends do not justify the means.

The means do condition the ends. For better or worse, the means to any end bring about that end, and no other.

 IN CONCLUSION:

“When an investigation is made, it will be found that every single thing we are doing in the Work is exactly what is being done in nature, where the conditions are right, the difference being that we are learning to do it consciously.”
FM Alexander

*****

A true story of my experience with the principles, before I knew what the Alexander Technique was:

The Means Whereby I Could Have Found Victory In Da Feet

Road runners all have experienced “leaving it on the track,” i.e., training for a race, and somehow never running as fast in the race as they did in training the week before.

My physical therapist was a Russian who was trainer to East Germany’s Olympic teams, and a competitive weight lifter. He once told me that weight lifters don’t train at 100% of maximum load. Rather, more like 95%. For example, if one’s maximum lift were 300 pounds, by training at 90 to 95% of that -270 to 285 pounds –one’s maximum would grow beyond 300.

I decided to apply that to my daily running. Whatever the distance, I always stayed aware of my perceived degree of effort, never exceeding what felt like 90% of capacity. Alone, I would start my stop watch and not look at it until I had completed the day’s allotted miles. It was magical. Runs were a joyous hour spent within myself, feeling, seeing, hearing my body working. Gradually, my training times got faster, without ever arriving at the finish line spent and exhausted. I simply could not wait for the next race, where I could really turn it on, stay with the faster guys in my club, and score a “personal best.”

It never happened. Never. I could not understand why I now “left it on the track,” every time.

Now, as an Alexander student, I understand. In training, I was unwittingly focusing on the means whereby. The only way I could stay within my self-imposed 95% parameter was to focus on each step I took, as I took it and not before. In a road race, however, emotion took over. My focus was on how soon I could reach the finish line, how much time has elapsed, how fast will I have to run the remaining distance, ooh, can I keep up with her, etc. End gaining, all the way, never producing the results that came so easily when I focused on the means whereby.

DGH

An excellent narrative of how the principles work in us:
http://www.pedrodealcantara.com/forward.html

And another:
http://www.alextech.demon.co.uk/wac203.htm