APHORISM OF THE DAY
“CONSTRUCTIVE CONSCIOUS CONTROL… CONSTRUCTIVE: because we are changing something in ourselves which is ineffective, harmful. CONSCIOUS: because we become aware of what we are doing. CONTROL: because we are redirecting energy and bringing freedom into the whole mechanism.” — Marjorie Barstow, Published list
Week 3: Day 12 – Science
I don’t like it when Alexander teachers argue with each other in public forums. It’s striking how quickly discussions about ‘the science’ of the work can turn into debates about who is right, who is wrong, and whose explanation is the most authoritative.
Over the years I’ve realised I’m not the international teacher who flies anywhere to stand on a big stage and propose or defend a theory. I’m more a jobbing Alexander teacher. I have my home studio, my groups, my long-term students, my writing. My work is relational, steady, and built on the quiet science of how people actually learn – not the science of winning arguments.
I’ve never believed that a rational, scientific explanation is the only way to teach this work. For some students, it helps. For others, it gets in the way. One size does not fit all.
Years ago in Manchester I had a maths PhD student – I’ll call him Bob. His mind was quick, analytical, endlessly curious. If I had relied only on discussion or science, I would have been outpaced by his academic reasoning and lost in the labyrinth of his intellect and he wouldn’t have had a new experience of himself.
What helped him wasn’t my ability to ‘explain’ constructive conscious control. It was my hands. My touch communicated something his mind couldn’t grasp alone: that control could be a process of bringing in more freedom, not tightening the reins.
Then came Covid, and touch disappeared overnight. Many at Alexander HQ UK were adamantly against online teaching. For a while they borrowed guidelines from hairdressers and sports coaches, allowing us to guide constructive rest online, but only if the pupil had a glass of water nearby. I found this absurd.
I was trained in hands-on teaching, and this particular way to touch, listen and inform is something I value immensely. Yet I’d also run countless group classes where I didn’t always get to touch everyone, and still they learned. So I began working online. I really just wanted to be useful.
At first I had to find words for what my hands would have done in a moment. One of my early online students was Mike, a computer programmer whose back pain had become so severe he’d stopped wearing socks and shoes because he couldn’t bend down to put them on. He worked from home, couldn’t ride his bike, and couldn’t get down on the floor to play with his child.
We started simply: standing, sitting, noticing. I asked him to describe what he was doing. I trained him to observe his movements, his thoughts, the sequence of his coordination. Eyes, head, neck, shoulder girdle – slow, gentle explorations, stopping him when he went ‘out of order.’
I got him to angle his screen in different ways and learned to observe cues from his feet that helped me guess what he was doing with his head and neck joint.
Over time, I noticed he’d started wearing socks again. A few months later he told me he’d cycled to the shops and back with his groceries. Eventually he could get down on the floor and play with his child. His strength returned. His suppleness returned. His confidence returned.
Through our partnership working with the tools Alexander gave us, clear and systematic reasoning, he reclaimed his own constructive conscious control. I’d say he unearthed more freedom than he’d had in years. I never touched him. We never shared the same air. And yet he was changing and improving and had some tools to work on and with himself.
Some would say it’s only the Alexander Technique if understanding is transmitted through touch. I say the results speak for themselves. The principles were there. The process was there. The means‑whereby was there. My means were different to some, as we couldn’t meet and touch, but the work was essentially the same.
So where do I stand on the science question? I stand here: science can illuminate the work, but it cannot replace the work. Some students need explanation. Some need experience. Some need both. The nervous system learns through relationship, attention, a sense of safety and experiences – and that is its own kind of science.
I didn’t want to argue with people at HQ, so I stopped paying my subscription and quietly carried on serving people, helping them learn to help themselves. That, to me, is the real science of this work: the ongoing experiment of being human, and the freedom that grows when we learn to direct ourselves with awareness.