Week 3: Day 13 – Lesson
“The thing we are trying to kill in you is what you think is your ‘individuality’ and we can’t do it. Individuality is a habit.” FM Alexander, Teaching Aphorisms, #40
Some students arrive with habits so tightly woven into their sense of self that they feel immovable. Not unwilling – just impenetrable.
I had one such student years ago, an ex‑teacher who came to me in considerable pain. She was very overweight, her knees hurt constantly, and she announced on arrival, “I’ve decided not to take my painkillers today so we can really see what you can do for me.
Oh heck, that’s a tall order right there!
Then, almost in the same breath, she told me she’d eaten a huge dish of rich Turkish Imam Bayıldı the night before – “I know I shouldn’t eat cooked tomatoes, they’re terrible for my arthritis, but I just love them so.”
Blimey. Where to start?
The urgency and pain was high, the lack of painkillers made everything harder for her, and she wanted me to do something to her – as if I were a therapist or manipulator who could fix her from the outside.
I was daunted to say the least.
Part of my work is helping people unlearn some of these false expectations, to take the reins lightly in their own hands. To learn thoughts and tools to help them help themselves.
She really liked to blether – a wonderful Scottish word for long-winded chat – and every instruction I gave was met with a sigh, a huff, a complaint, and a story.
I asked her to stand. She grumbled, planted her hands firmly on her thighs, pushed hard, held her breath, stumbled upright, and winced. “Ouch, my knees hurt.”
I asked her to sit again so I could observe her usual pattern. More huffing, more pushing, more pain.
When I asked what she noticed, she told me only about the pain. When I asked what her hands were doing, she explained – at length – why she needed them exactly as they were. She knew so much about so many things, and yet none of it helped her move with any more ease.
In England we say, “You can’t teach your grandmother to suck eggs.” Typically this is said when a younger one is trying to tell an older expert how to do things. That’s how it felt. True, she was an expert in how she currently moved, and I am an expert in Alexander’s discoveries – but there was no space for my expertise to land. And somehow the dynamic was upside down.
I realised, after a few sessions, that I was knocking against a locked door. She kept returning without painkillers, kept eating the foods that inflamed her joints, kept suffering, and kept wanting me to undo it all with my hands.
I tried everything I could think of. I was more directive than usual. I asked her – gently but firmly – to please take her painkillers before the next session if she needed them.
Again and again I offered her an experience of something different, the process, the self-care, but my small hands and her fixedness were not a match. I struggled to get a word in. I struggled to help her find even a sliver of space inside her habits. And I struggled with myself – with the feeling that I should be able to help her, that if I were a better teacher, I would find a way in.
Eventually, I steered her towards an osteopath. She needed a different kind of support than I could offer.
I used to think that if I just found the right words, the right tone, the right sequence of questions, I could reach anyone. But working with her taught me something I hadn’t wanted to learn: sometimes a person’s habits are so tightly woven into their identity that they cannot yet imagine another way.
FM said that what we call “individuality” is often just habit, and I saw that in her – habits of movement, yes, but also habits of coping, talking, suffering, and not listening.
And I saw something in myself too. I saw my own habit of trying to rescue, of feeling responsible for someone else’s change, of trying harder when the door stayed shut. In the end, the most constructive thing l I could offer was to step back.
To recognise that I was not the right teacher for her, that it was not the right time for her, and that the Alexander work is not the right tool for every person in every season of their life.
Letting her go was uncomfortable, but it was honest. And it taught me something I carry into every lesson now: my job is not to break down someone’s armour or expect an opening where there is none. Armour is there for a reason, and cannot be put down until more safety is perceived.
I also learned that people who are referred by a a secondary family member, are not the easiest to reach, as they haven’t come to me or the work ready to do what we do here. Sometimes people stay long enough to see a different approach, but mostly, they want quick results, they want me to do something to them and be passive. This I cannot do.
My job is to meet the person who is actually in front of me, offer what I can with clarity and kindness, and trust that freedom grows only when there is readiness. Some doors stay closed for a while. That doesn’t mean the work has failed. It simply means the person isn’t ready to change.