Over the years many students have written to me asking me questions about the Alexander Technique: questions about body and being, about the sensory and the spiritual, about poise and peace. I’ve almost always written back.

Being somewhat technologically challenged, I have managed to lose these letters, theirs and mine. Fortunately, what little I know still resides within me waiting to be awakened by heartfelt questions.

Recently an enthusiastic young man from Korea has begun asking me many such questions and I have done my best, when I felt I had something worth saying, to answer him. This has been a privilege and a pleasure.

Suddenly the thought occurred, Why not begin anew?

So I invite anyone, Alexander student or teacher, or any seeker along a related path, to send me questions. I will do my best to answer them. If I cannot I will tell you so straight away, and if possible, refer you to someone who can.

Perhaps this time around I will be better able to record these conversations. The best way I can save myself is to give myself away.

That will be my intention.

Bruce

http://peacefulbodyschool.com/about-2/

bf@brucefertman.com

Photo: B. Fertman

Here’s a letter, an inquiry, from an Alexander Technique teacher, and professor of Architecture at Berkeley. Attempting to answer such good questions, as this one below, will help elicit and organize this old “body of knowledge.” Help me by asking me your questions. I’d be grateful.

Photo: B. Fertman, Coyote, New Mexico

from Letters To A Young Student…

How do I know when I am moving in the right direction?

It’s simple questions, like this one, that lead us in the right direction. This is what I mean by a heartfelt question. Questions asked from the heart don’t have intellectual answers. Ultimately a question like yours is about how to live one’s life. Living a life is not intellectual, not even for an intellectual!

So I will reflect on this question, not only for you, but for myself as well.

You are asking this question in the context of the work of F.M. Alexander, so let’s begin with a famous quip of  Alexander’s. “There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a think as a right direction.”

Let’s first zoom out and get the big picture and then work our way into the center. Alexander implies here that what you want is not a posture, not a place, nothing fixed. So if we feel held, placed, or fixed in any way then we are off. He seems to be saying that it’s about “the way” rather than “the form.” Taoism immediately comes to mind as it did for Aldous Huxley who referred to Alexander as the first Western Taoist. Lao Tzu’s references to “wu-wei”, translated non-doing, effortless effort, or harmonious activity, his reverence for water, the watercourse, his love of the valley rather than the mountain, of space over substance, his praise of softness over hardness, his desire for less rather than for more.

Ironically the best book on Alexander’s work may have been written 2400 years before Alexander was born, and may still be the best guide for pointing us in the “right direction.”  That’s why I’ve spent the last eight years studying and writing my own interpretation of Lao Tzu’s, Tao Te Ching, because my experience tells me this text is the predecessor to Alexander’s work.

I would however go a step further. I would say not only is there no right position, I would say there is also no right direction, no one right direction. Being on “a way” is important. In Japan, where I live half the year, people study such disciplines as Kyudo, the way of the bow, Aikido, the way of harmonizing energy, Sado, the way of tea, Shodo, the way of calligraphy, etc.

But being on a way, doesn’t mean we don’t lose our way because we do. Sometimes we have doubts about the path we are on, whether we are getting anywhere, whether it is the right path for us, whether or not we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way, whether we are ever going to get where we are going.

Perhaps a certain amount of doubt goes with the territory. Alexander asked us not to try to be right, not to try to feel that we are right. Not even to care whether we were right. In fact he’d sometimes begin lessons saying, “Let’s hope something goes wrong.”

When we don’t know for certain where we are, we sometimes begin to see where we are, to experience where we are. We open to what is around us.

Yet still, something in us wants some confirmation that we are moving in a good direction. There must be signs, and if there are, what are they?

Alexander gives us a hint when he says,

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

What does Alexander mean by “right conditions?” I’m not sure, but maybe it’s similar to Aldo Leopolds’s definition of right. In A Sand County Almanac, Leopold writes, “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

Perhaps Alexander is telling us that the way we know we are right, is when we are conducting ourselves in accordance with nature, that is, when we are tending toward the preservation of our integrity, stability, and (inner) beauty. And we are out of balance when we are not.

Let’s zoom into the biotic community within us and return to the question of knowing when we are moving in the right direction.

If we are a fractal of our larger ecosystem, then we too would be moving in a right direction when we are tending toward integration, stability, and beauty. I would add the complimentary opposites to these indicators: integration and differentiation, stability and mobility, and beauty and functionality. Complimentary opposites work with one another. Opposing opposites work against one another. My experience tells me that when we are experiencing an integration of complimentary opposites within us, we are moving in the right direction.

When we are feeling unified and articulate.

When we are feeling stable and mobile.

When we are feeling functional and beautiful.

When we are feeling light and substantial.

When we are feeling still as a mountain and moving as a river.

When we are feeling rest and support.

When we are feeling gathered and expansive.

When we are feeling within and without.

When we are feeling open and focused.

When we are feeling connected and independent.

When we are feeling committed and free.

When we are feeling spontaneous and deliberate.

When we are feeling soft and powerful.

When we are feeling relaxed and ready.

When we are feeling near and far.

When we are feeling time and the timeless.

When we are feeling gravity and grace.

When we are feeling self and others.

When we are feeling self and no self.

When we are doing less and receiving more.

If we decide to use the word direction in the strict Alexander sense of the word, and then ask how do we know when we are moving in the right direction, the answer may be hiding in The Use of the Self, one of Alexander’s books I read some 40 years ago. Somewhere, I believe in a footnote, Alexander mentions that a direction is a message we send to a part of the body. If the message is correct, if it is a right direction or order, it will conduct the energy within that part of the body in a way that will result in a general improvement of one’s overall integration.

The metaphor I use to get a picture of this is that of a lock and key. A joint in your body would be a lock, the key, its direction. It’s necessary to examine the lock to find out its structure. Then you can make a key to fit the lock. When the key fits the lock, the lock opens. This opens a door which allows you to enter into your house, your body, where you reside, your abode, your dwelling place, your refuge, your sanctuary.

Eventually, through study, whether that is on your own, or with the help of a teacher or teachers, you come to discover and learn about many of the doors and their locks, and you construct ever more precise keys to these doors which lead you through the gates into the holy city.

You learn, in Alexander’s enigmatic term, how to free into your primary control, or your true and primary movement, or as I sometimes refer to it as, your primary pattern, which is a fluid, moving, organizing pattern.

You learn how to enter into this fluid organization, into this knowing river within us, and it is the river who knows where to go, knows what a right direction is. Our job is to surrender to the river, to let the river take us to a place known to it, forever unknown to us.

…from A Body Of Knowledge – Letters To A Young Student

If the wrist is the “neck of the hand”, and the ankles the “neck of the feet”, (the literal translations in both Korean and Japanese for wrist and ankle), and if, in principle, the head leads and the body follows, then does it hold true that the hand leads, and the arm follows, and the foot leads and the leg follows?

It’s not quite that simple. Movement can, and is, initiated from many parts of the body, often simultaneously, and then sequences throughout the body in many ways, with an array of qualities. The head can lead the body, the body can lead the head, and one part of the body can lead other parts of the body. Any good dancer or physical therapist knows this to be true. The expression, “head leads, body follows,” a favorite among many who trained with Marj Barstow means, as I understand it, that your head poise “has a governing influence” over the quality of your coordination. You can see this at work in great figure skaters, or Olympic divers. But this is equally true in the simplest of movements that mere mortals make. If your true and primary movement is operating well and you raise your right hand in the air it will be light and easy and powerful, or it will be however you want it to be. Likewise, if your body’s true and primary movement is nowhere to be found, that same motion will be labored and your degree of control over it will be much less.

That said, when I stumbled upon this idea some 25 years ago, in the same way you did, linguistically, I found that applying the same notion of freeing my neck to freeing my wrists, ankles, and lower back as well, (it being the neck of the pelvis), worked. It felt like nothing short of a revelation. It freed the spheres to which these “necks” related, wrists to hands, ankles to feet, lumbar spine to pelvis. This was about when I started to question whether I could still rightfully consider myself an Alexander teacher. (Still haven’t been able to answer this question.)

When you gaze at the body innocently, without fancy words or concepts to get in the way, you see sphere-like shapes with longer narrow shapes in between these spheres. Vertically you see the head sphere, then a neck, then the rib sphere, then a neck, (the lumbar spine), then you see the pelvic sphere, then a neck, (the femur), then you see the knee sphere, then a neck, (the tibia/fibula/ankle), then you see the foot. The toes actually are not part of the sphere-like arch of the foot, but continue on to make further little spheres and necks. All these spheres and necks are not all stacked one upon the other, but flow together in elegant curves which resemble a meandering river. That’s why at times I refer to this as our Lengthening River.

Looking at our Widening River, we find an equally long river also comprised of sphere-like shapes and alternating long, thin areas, which is one definition for the word neck in English, as in, neck of the woods, or the neck of a violin. For me, the scapula and the clavicle, taken together, make up a sphere-like shape, followed by the end of the scapula, which believe it or not is called the neck of the scapula, followed by the ball of the humerus, followed by the humerus, the elbow and its small spherical joints, the long bones of the forearm and the little bones of the wrist, followed by the sphere-like hand which is one reason hands can catch a ball so well, or hold a rice bowl.

Within our various neck regions are large, powerful muscles. These muscles mobilize or immobilize the spheres depending on what they are up to, good or no good. That’s why having some say over these areas, at least having a vote, helps. And that is one good reason people study the Alexander Technique, though we by no means have a patent on this wisdom.

Circling back to your curiosity about hand leading and arm following. Sometimes it helps to think that way. When a baby wants something it’s not supposed to have, it just sees it and makes a beeline straight for it. It looks like the hand wants what it wants and just goes there, pronto, and the arm helps it get there before their parents have a chance to intervene. Same when the baby brings that object back to its mouth and considers eating it.

But when it comes to walking by leading with your foot and letting your leg follow, I don’t think you will get much mileage out of that one. A baby who wants to stick its toes in its mouth will lead with his foot, but once that baby moves on to crawling, and climbing, and walking other dynamics come into play.

However having a free ankle is really important when it comes to walking.

While there are similarities between the head/neck, ankle/foot, wrist/hand, lumbar/pelvis relationships, there are obvious differences as well. Best to look at both the similarities and the differences if we want to get a more complete picture.

Hope this helps. Great question as usual.

Photo: B. Fertman

(from a collection of stories on teaching entitled, Openings).

A woman wanted me to watch her teaching yoga. That’s part of what I do; watch people working and coach them as to how to do what they do more easily, more pleasurably, more meaningfully, more effectively.

Kumi begins by simultaneously demonstrating and explaining how to do a particular yoga movement. Both her movement and explanation are clear. I watch the students watching and listening to Kumi. By the end they look slightly overwhelmed: perhaps too much information at once. Some fear perhaps, “How am I going to remember all of that?”

I ask Kumi to stop. I tell her what, in my view, she did well. I make a suggestion. “I’m wondering what would happen if you told your students that you were going to show them a yoga movement, and then you did the movement in silence, as if you were alone practicing only for yourself. What do you think?”

Kumi agrees to give it a go. For a while she sits in silence. It’s the kind of silence you can hear. The students lean slightly forward, eyes wide open. Kumi begins. I can see she’s in unknown territory. She doesn’t do this when she teaches. She really wants to say something. I see her preparatory inhale, and before Kumi has the chance to speak I kindly whisper, “Shhh…” She continues silently. By the end I can see pleasure and beauty in her face. So can the students.

“Okay Kumi. Good job. What to do think about doing only the very first movement in that lovely sequence and then inviting the students to practice that movement on their own, at their own time? Just for fun.”

Kumi consents. I can see she’s comfortable moving in silence in front of her students. I’m thinking, “That was quick.”

The students look excited. They begin. Again Kumi’s getting ready to say something. I softly intervene. “Kumi come sit down over here. Get some distance from your students. Just watch them. Look how different they are. She’s watching. Her eyes begin to water. “Kumi, Who are they? Who are they? Find out.” Her eyes lower. Her hand comes up over her eyes. She’s crying. Strongly. Tears of recognition. “I never really look at my students!”  “That’s okay Kumi. You do now.”

Frank Ottiwell, one of my Alexander teachers, once said to me, some twenty years ago, “Bruce, don’t try to help your students. Get to know them instead.” Right then, Frank changed my way of teaching forever.

Yes. See them and they will begin to see. Listen to them and they will begin to hear. Know them and they will begin to understand.

I was happy to have the chance to pass that on.

Thank you Frank.

A mother, 70, has a son with cerebral palsy.  He is now 40 years old.  The mother is small and the son is not.  For years the mother has lifted her son from his wheelchair to the toilet, and back again.  I ask her to show me how she lifts her son up. The mother moves well. She has to.

I notice an almost invisible gesture she makes just before she begins the trying task of picking up her son. She quickly strokes the right side of her head, moving her thick, gray streaked hair back behind her ear.  I ask her to pause for a moment.  I ask her if she felt the movement she just made.  The mother says, “No, I didn’t do anything yet.”  I said, “Yes you did.” I tell her what she did. I ask her to do it again, very slowly, consciously.  She does.  I ask her to do it again, and then again.  I ask her to continue, but to do it now as if her mother were brushing her hair.  She continues. Soon the mother begins to cry.

I say, “Okay, go and lift up your son.” She stops. She doesn’t move, doesn’t speak.  I can wait. Then the mother says,  “I am too old to do this by myself.  I need help.  She turns to her younger son, who is in the room, and asks him if he wouldn’t mind helping her.  He is happy to do it for his mom, and for his brother.

The mother stands there watching her two boys.

At Crosslands, a Quaker retirement community, fifteen eager students, between the ages of 85 and 105, wait for the workshop to begin. After learning everyone’s name, and talking a bit about what will happen through the day, I ask them if there are any activities that are hard for them.  All hands go up.  One woman’s sparkly eyes catch my attention. I begin with Agnes.

Sitting fairly upright, she aligns her walker squarely in front of her chair, easily stands up, then very slowly shuffles over to me.

The bottoms of her feet are not leaving the ground.  Her ankles remain locked in a 90 degree flexion.  Her knees hardly bend. Her hip joints look stiff.  She’s hunched over.

“Agnes, would you mind walking back to your chair, and sitting down again?” Thinking that a bit odd, she nonetheless turns around and heads back to her chair.

I watch her slow, careful, shuffling. I watch her tentatively turn around, pause then sit down, gracefully. Her hips, knees, and ankles all flex smoothly and easily. Her balance is good. She’s transferring very little weight into her walker. I ask her to lean back against the back of the chair and just get comfortable. Her spine naturally lengthens. Her poise is good. I’m wondering…

“Agnes, did you ever fall when you were walking?”  Yes I did, and I broke my hip.”  “When was that, I ask?”  Agnes calculates. “Nine years ago.”

“Agnes, I couldn’t help noticing how naturally upright you are when you are sitting, and how well your legs work when you stand up and when you sit down. You look really beautiful and strong. When you get up and down your balance is so steady.” “Really, she says?” “Group, what did you see?” They agree. I can see they like Agnes.

“If I helped you with your walking, and if I promise you that you will not fall down or get hurt, would you consider working with me a little?”

Agnes thinks about it for a moment, smiles, and says, “Sure.”  She gets up and slowly shuffles over to me.

“Agnes can you keep the same amount of pressure between your hands and the walker, but gently let your head float up a tiny bit further away from the walker, so your spine feels more like it does when you are sitting?”  She becomes slightly more upright.  Her eyes tell me she’s a little scared.  Agnes, you are safe, I promise.  Tell me, do you feel more pressure or less pressure between your hands and the walker now?”

Surprised, she says, “More.”  “Isn’t that interesting?  You’re head’s further away from the walker and somehow that allows you to transfer more of your weight through the walker into the ground. You are higher up and yet you’re more stable. Feel that Agnes. It’s like this Agnes. A tall skyscraper could be very stable. And a little round hut close to the ground could be very unstable.”  I can see the wheels spinning. She gets it. Rounding over and trying to be closer to the ground might not be helping her.

“Okay Agnes, as you are standing there and sensing your stability, can you shift your weight slightly side to side, from your left foot, then to your right foot, and then back to your left foot, without losing your large, stable structure?” I can see that scares her a little, so I walk around behind her, softly touch her ribs, almost surrounding them with my large, warm hands, and send a little support up through her spine. I see her collapsed chest fill out and her head come back over her neck. For assurance, I keep my hands on her ribs.  Agnes shifts her weight.  No problem.  Then she shifts back again. No problem. I remove my hands so softly she doesn’t realize they’re not there.  She shifts again.  She continues several more times because she likes how it feels.

“Agnes. Well done. Now this time, when I finish talking, I want you to make sure that when you shift your weight, you shift your weight onto a truly straight leg, a completely straight leg.  See what happens if you firmly and gently refuse to crouch over or bend your knees. But for this to work you are going to have to make up your mind to leave yourself up here, no matter how odd it feels.  Go ahead and make your decision.” I can see a brave look come onto her face. There’s strength in her stance. “Agnes stick to your decision, and when you are ready, shift your weight.”

She does it perfectly. I see her friends in the class watching closely. No one is drifting off. “Agnes, well done.” This time when you shift your weight to the left, as you did so well, be there for a second, and bring your right knee forward and touch my hand.” My hand is now two inches in front of her knee. She does it, and I say, “Good.”  I move my hand three inches away, and ask her to touch my hand again, and she does. Then four, then five.  Agnes looks really surprised. I said, “Agnes that is what your knee does every time you sit down and get up, so I knew you could do that. I will not ask you to do anything that I don’t know you can do. I promise.”

We do it to the other side.  Occasionally I remind her of her long spine and of the better stability she has through the walker, and of her straight legs. She’s now comfortable with my touch, which I use sparingly to remind her that she doesn’t need to crouch down.

“Agnes, in a moment you are going to shift your weight to the left onto a straight leg, send your right knee more forward than usual, and when your knee is forward, I want you to let your foot hang down like a horse’s hoof. Then you are going to let your foot come down to the ground wherever it wants to.” She does it. No shuffling, no sound, but I do not say anything about it.

“Well done. Agnes, is this fun?” Eyes sparkling she says, “Yes, fun.”  “Good. For me too.”

“Okay Agnes, can you sense that your feet are now slightly apart but instead of being side by side, one foot is just a little bit in front of the other? She nods. “Can you continue sensing all your stability, and shift your weight diagonally forward onto your straight right leg?  I am standing behind her, my hands on either side of her ribs encouraging her to remain easily upright. She takes her step. “Perfect.”

About 10 minutes have gone by. We are in another world, a world where time has stopped. Agnes has taken one real step.

We do the same with the left knee, and then with the right again, and the left again.

“Okay Agnes. If you can take one step like that, one stable, safe step, then don’t you think you could take two, and if you can take two safe, stable steps, don’t you think you could take three?” Agnes, decide to walk like that, at whatever speed feels comfortable for you. Go take your walker for a walk, as if you were walking a shopping cart down the isle of a supermarket.”

I stand behind her placing my hands lightly upon the back and sides of her lower ribs. We’re in tandem. When her right knee goes forward my right knee goes forward right under hers. But my touch is so light she hardly feels I am there.  After taking about 5 steps, my touch fades away. She is walking on her own, with her walker, upright, stable, safe.

“Agnes. Look at George, and walk over to him.” She does. She’s smiling. Now look at Ethel, and walk over to her. She does. She’s gaining confidence. Now look at Ada and walk over to her. She let’s out a laugh. Each time she walks over to a person, Agnes is thinking less about herself and more about the person she is seeing.  And each time, without noticing it, she is walking faster. But looking around, I see that Agnes’s friends are noticing it.

I am standing in front of Agnes. I kindly hold my hands in front of her inviting her to put her hands on top of mine. It’s like I am inviting her to dance with me. Agnes looks me in the eyes, not thinking about her body and places her palms on top of my palms.  “Agnes, I am a very good walker, and I’d like to be your walker.” I ask Ada to take Agnes’s walker promising Agnes that I will give it back to her. “Agnes, take me for a walk.” As Agnes walks forward, I walk backwards. She’s leading and I am following. We’re dancing.

“Agnes, walk me back to your chair.” She does. I sit down. My hands slide out from under Agnes’s hands. Agnes is standing fully upright on her own, but I say nothing. I slide my hands back under Agnes’s hand. Bending over slightly, I slowly begin to stand up and reflexively Agnes helps me onto my feet. I ask her to turn me around, so we can switch places, because it is her turn to sit down.  She is not thinking about herself, she is thinking about turning me around. She is in the lead.

“Thanks Agnes. You can sit down now.” I drop my hands away and, without her walker, Agnes sits down.

Agnes feels safe, secure, and stable, because she is.

Photo: B. Fertman

Do not spill thyself; neither lean forward into appearances nor opinions. Receive the light as it shines directly down upon you and through you. Know that this lightness resides in you, no, that this lightness is you, that this lightness dims the moment you begin looking for it out beyond yourself and elsewhere. So perceiving, stop and direct yourself unhesitatingly back upon your own thought. Instantly, without effort, you will stand easily upright, command your own limbs, work miracles.

Emerson inspired passage by Bruce Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

By Keiko Ishii*

I had an operation on my right hip joint nearly three years ago.  With a new artificial hip joint, my walking is fairly normal. Recently I learned that the cartilage around my left hip joint is wearing thin. My orthopedic surgeon warned me against impact. When I go down the steps and my left foot drops down onto the step below, I feel impact. Is there another way? In ten minutes I learned that there was another way. Here is what I remember.

Floating Up

After watching my usual way of going up and down the steps, Bruce quietly said, “Okay. I see.”

He had me place my right foot on the lowest step with my right hand on the handrail. I found myself looking up at the top step thinking, “I have to go all the way up there?” As if he could read my mind, Bruce said, “No need to look way up there. Just see right where you are. That’s enough.”

He gently placed his hands on my head and neck. My consciousness instantly dropped into what felt like my “inner body.” His hands touched my shoulders, my ribs, under my arms. Everything, my ribs, my entire spine, from my tailbone right up into my skull, was lengthening. Everything was getting bigger and lighter, and before I knew it, as if by itself, my body floated up the steps with no limp and no pain.

Falling Down

Bruce then asked me to walk down the steps. Immediately I tensed up. Bruce watched me take one step then said, “That’s fine. Keiko, pause for a second. Where are you looking? What are you looking at?” I was looking straight ahead. But I was not seeing anything. I was too scared about hurting my hip to see anything.

Bruce walked up the steps and joined me. “Watch me.” He faced the handrail, held it as if it were a ballet barre, placed his left foot on the edge of the step, his left leg straight, while his right foot dangled in space above the step below. He let his foot sway as if it were being blown by a gentle wind and with his soothing, rhythmic voice, I heard him sing, Yaa, yaa, yaa… Bruce asked me to do what he did. I did. I swayed my right leg in the wind. I sang, Yaa, yaa, yaa… I could feel my right hip joint freeing, and a relaxation coming over me.

Bruce then leaned every so slightly over his swaying leg, and fell. He landed quickly but softly onto the step below. He showed this to me a few times. It looked simple enough, but when it came time for me to do it myself I hesitated and pulled back my leg from the step. I was afraid of falling down, afraid of there being too much impact on my artificial right hip. Again, as if Bruce knew exactly what I was thinking and feeling he said, “Keiko you are safe.”

I was scared, but I took the chance. I leaned slightly over my dangling right leg and fell. But I didn’t fall. There I was standing on my right leg. No work for my supporting leg. No impact on my landing. I repeated this several times. All I was feeling was joy.

We then did this with my hands touching the wall on the other side, this time my right leg serving as my supporting leg. Bruce showed me again. Again he assured me it would be fine, and it was. No impact. Just comfortable. Facing sideways, I continued “falling down” the stairs until I was at the very last step when Bruce said, “Keiko, wait there for me.”

“I watched you fall onto that dangling leg ten times and everything was fine. That’s exactly what we are going to do now; the only difference is that instead of facing sideways, we’re going to face forward. Can you put your right leg forward and let it hang and sway, Yaa, yaa, yaa…just like this?” For some reason it was much, much scarier facing forward. But I was on the very last step before the landing. So I did it.  I fell onto my right foot. No problem. Then Bruce had me do it again this time landing on my left foot. No problem. It was easy, but…

“But that was easy because it was the last step,” I heard myself say. “Keiko, isn’t each step the same as every other step? If you can do what you just did, both on your right side and left side, easily, then what does that mean?”

I got it. I knew I could do it. I went up to the top of the stairs. I turned around. Suddenly I was afraid, staring into the distance. Below I heard Bruce’s gentle, firm voice, “Keiko, look down at the step just in front of you. You only need to see where you are going next.” I did and, when I did, it was as if everything I had learned from all my Alexander teachers came flooding back to me. My body was organizing itself. There I was at the very top of a flight of stairs, my right foot dangling as if over an abyss. Still I felt fear, the fear of impact, of hurting myself. And just then, “Keiko, you are fine. Really. Just fall. Waaaa…

I did. The steps were coming into my vision, one after the other. Waaaa…and there I was at the bottom of the stairs. I asked Bruce if I could do it again. He nodded and up I went, like a cat, like a victorious hero. Like water cascading over rocks, I almost ran down the steps. Everyone was there waiting for me, happy for me.

*I wrote this piece originally in Japanese, and later in English. I asked Bruce to do what he thought best to make my account read well for English readers.

Photo: B. Fertman

This life of ours would not cause you sorrow

if you thought of it as like the mountain cherry blossoms

which bloom and fade in a day.

MURASAKI SHIKIBU (974-1031)

Photo: B. Fertman

Perception

…a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; intuitive understanding and insight.

How are these two women feeling?

Look closely.

What do you actually see, what specifically tells you  how they may be feeling?

I’d like to know what you see.

If you like, share your perceptions with me.

Thank you.

There’s nothing quite like real life.

Helping people who come to our studio for lessons to become more physically and personally comfortable really does help. Sometimes a lot. It’s a beginning. Helping a person experience this newfound liveliness as they engage in an activity, like playing a violin, or doing the dishes, or working at a computer takes the work beyond the bodyself and into the world of action, and interaction, into life. My teacher, Marjorie Barstow, was masterful when it came to “working in activity” within a group setting. That stands as a major pedagogical contribution. Overtime, for me, “working in activity” evolved, transforming itself into “working situationally.”

It was some years ago, a workshop in Lubeck, Germany, an elementary school teacher wanted to work on teaching. I said, “Sounds good, lets do it. What’s the most stressful moment look like for you when you’re teaching?” She says,” When class is over and the students are running either out the door, or to my desk, while simultaneously, the next class is running through the same door and  into the classroom, or toward my desk.” “How’s that feel,” I ask?  She says, “ I feel bombarded”, and I observe her as she answers my question, her eyes wide open, her lips apart, her body arching back, her hands springing up in front of her like a shield, her breath held high in her chest.

To the fifteen other people in the room I say, “Okay, let’s make a classroom.” I ask the teacher where the door is in relation to her desk and the students proceed to set up the room, happy to be participating. I watch everyone move and interact. My job is to get to know people, so I sit back and watch as much as I can.

The room’s set up. The teacher is standing in front of her desk. Half the students are in their seats, the other half ready to stampede into the room. Everyone understands that they now are 9 or 10 years old. “Okay, go!” I watch the scene as it unfolds. I see what I need to see.

The teacher’s eyes are bugging out of her head, mouth open, body arching back, hands behind her, elbows locked, hands pressing down against the edge of the desk, knuckles white, body rigid. She’s virtually paralyzed, appearing much like she did when responding to my earlier question, though much more pronounced.  I get all the “kids” to pipe down and to prepare for “take two.”

I ask the teacher to sit behind the desk. She wondered why she had not thought of that. Once in her chair, I ask her to pull her chair forward, closer to the desk, and then to sit back, to let herself rest against the back of the chair, to let the chair support her body. I invite her to feel how the chair comes up under her and supports her pelvis and her thighs too. I have her rest her hands in her lap, and her feet on the floor. Gently, I use my hands to help her decompress her spine, I make her aware of her facial tension until she is able to release her jaw, let her tongue rest, which softens her breathing and her ribs. I encourage her to feel the weight of her eyelids until her forehead relaxes. I watch her arms disarm, her legs ungrip.

I tell her, even though a batch of kids may arrive at her desk in the near future, seemingly all at once, that one student will get her attention first. “Turn and look at that student and address only that student as if she were the only person in the room. Give her all the time she needs. When you feel finished, notice the next student who catches your attention and do the same. Just see what happens. You won’t know until you give it a go. Okay?”  She says okay. Getting that commitment is important.

I give a nod, the kids flock toward her desk. The questions are coming from everywhere. Resting in her chair she turns her head toward one student and says, “Hi, what can I do for you?” She listens to the child, thinks for a moment, then replies. The other kids are desperately trying to get her attention while she’s living inside of a private world with this one student.  She smiles, and tells the child she looks forward to seeing her tomorrow. She turns to another student and says hello. Suddenly, a breeze of silence fills the room. The teacher continues to give her undivided attention to the second child. Gradually the students at her desk decide to leave until only two are left. She finishes, turns to the two other students and tells them she really wants to meet with them and that she’d like to do it after class. They sit down.

Working situationally.  If you bring a person’s real life into the classroom, they will more likely be able to bring what they experienced in the classroom into their real life.

That has been my experience.

Photo: B. Fertman

Bruce,

Today I have a question for you. It’s about the center of the body. People often say the center of body is near the navel. But when I think about the navel as my center I tend to bend at the waist and this doesn’t feel right. When I relocate the center of my body nearer to my hip joints, this seems to work. But actually, I ‘m not sure. What do you think?

Different ideas work for different people. You have to play with it, as you are doing. I have thought about this one for about 40 years. Here are just three possibilities.

In Aikido there is the idea of one point. You meditate on your one point getting smaller and smaller as you are becoming larger and larger. But it is not at the navel. To find your one point, walk the tips of your fingers straight down below the navel until you come to a place that is very firm, just above the beginning of the pubic synthesis. Then press in slightly but firmly, on about a 70% angle, scooping upward toward the back, just where the lumbar spine begins to curve into the thoracic spine. This is easier to show on a skeleton. You just have to poke around until you find what works for you. If I direct through that point just so, then I sense my body becoming strongly organized. But be careful not to start sucking in your abdominal muscles. One point is deeper in than that, behind the stomach muscles. If you tap into this you will find that your body has a tendency to organize itself over the hip joints, which will likely create a sensation of being ever so slightly inclined forward. But it is not a bend from the waist. It’s being poised over your hip joints in such a way that they feel oiled, so you are ready to move in any direction. When the body is in a condition of readiness, like an Olympic diver preparing for a dive, you won’t see a person who is standing at an exact 90% angle in relation to the floor. Their whole body will incline slightly forward from the ankle and a tiny bit from the hip joint.  When you are sitting, and you tap into one point, it will orient you slightly toward the front of your sits bones.

Now if we travel from Japan into China, the Hara becomes the T’antien, which most often is translated as belly. So rather than being a point it becomes a whole area, a large container. In English the word belly usually implies bigness, fullness, relaxation and sometimes humor. My tai chi teacher used to talk about the belly as a large basin, a very big bowl, like  people, in the old days, would use to wash up before there were sinks and running water. My teacher would ask us to move as if that basin were completely full of water. She wanted us to sense the weight of the water, while at the same time, moving so that we didn’t tip the bowl causing the water to spill out of the bowl to the front or to the back or to the sides. This is particularly important when doing tai chi, as it is critical to cultivate a strong sense of horizontality while moving.

For some people this larger sense of center works better.

Now we get to my favorite version.

Nietzsche wrote, The center is everywhere. This frees me. I no longer have to look for “my center” or locate it somewhere inside my body. Actually, I don’t have to try to locate it anywhere.  Drop the very notion of a center and sense what happens. Look around and sense that the center is everywhere. When this works, it really works.

Stephen Hawking, the great astrophysicist, has the same idea, but here he is contemplating our macro-cosmos.

“Now at first sight, all this evidence that the universe looks the same whichever direction we look in might seem to suggest there is something special about our place in the universe.  In particular, it might seem that if we observe all other galaxies to be moving away from us, then we must be at the center of the universe.  There is, however, an alternate explanation: the universe might look the same in every direction as seen from any other galaxy too.  We have no scientific evidence for, or against, this assumption.  We believe it on the grounds of modesty:  it would be most remarkable if the universe looked the same in every direction around us, but not around other points in the universe!  The situation is rather like a balloon with a number of spots painted on it being steadily blown up.  As the balloon expands, the distance between any two spots increases, but there is no spot that can be said to be the center of the expansion.”

As usual, great question. I hope this gives you a few possibilities with which to play. If you discover something let me know.

http://backhope.com/

Yes I plan to do the whole course. Lower back pain visited all the men in my family as far back as i can trace. Whether it is genetic or learned or both I will probably never know. As a gymnast I took some big falls. By the time I was 16, L5 and S1 was half as thick as normal. Dance injuries followed. I turned to the Alexander Technique, and Marj Barstow, and after three years I began to dance full out again and to study Aikido. Wow. Was that great. Now, at 63, I am running into some trouble again. So I will bring my beginners mind and heart and body to the backhope telesummit. Most likely I will not agree with everything, but I am sure I will learn something that will be of help to me, and hopefully to my students as well.

…from A Body Of Knowledge – Letters To A Young Student

If the wrist is the “neck of the hand”, and the ankles the “neck of the feet”, (the literal translations in both Korean and Japanese for wrist and ankle), and if, in principle, the head leads and the body follows, then does it hold true that the hand leads, and the arm follows, and the foot leads and the leg follows?

It’s not quite that simple. Movement can, and is, initiated from many parts of the body, often simultaneously, and then sequences throughout the body in many ways, with an array of qualities. The head can lead the body, the body can lead the head, and one part of the body can lead other parts of the body. Any good dancer or physical therapist knows this to be true. The expression, “head leads, body follows,” a favorite among many who trained with Marj Barstow means, as I understand it, that your head poise “has a governing influence” over the quality of your coordination. You can see this at work in great figure skaters, or Olympic divers. But this is equally true in the simplest of movements that mere mortals make. If your true and primary movement is operating well and you raise your right hand in the air it will be light and easy and powerful, or it will be however you want it to be. Likewise, if your body’s true and primary movement is nowhere to be found, that same motion will be labored and your degree of control over it will be much less.

That said, when I stumbled upon this idea some 25 years ago, in the same way you did, linguistically, I found that applying the same notion of freeing my neck to freeing my wrists, ankles, and lower back as well, (it being the neck of the pelvis), worked. It felt like nothing short of a revelation. It freed the spheres to which these “necks” related, wrists to hands, ankles to feet, lumbar spine to pelvis. This was about when I started to question whether I could still rightfully consider myself an Alexander teacher. (Still haven’t been able to answer this question.)

When you gaze at the body innocently, without fancy words or concepts to get in the way, you see sphere-like shapes with longer narrow shapes in between these spheres. Vertically you see the head sphere, then a neck, then the rib sphere, then a neck, (the lumbar spine), then you see the pelvic sphere, then a neck, (the femur), then you see the knee sphere, then a neck, (the tibia/fibula/ankle), then you see the foot. The toes actually are not part of the sphere-like arch of the foot, but continue on to make further little spheres and necks. All these spheres and necks are not all stacked one upon the other, but flow together in elegant curves which resemble a meandering river. That’s why at times I refer to this as our Lengthening River.

Looking at our Widening River, we find an equally long river also comprised of sphere-like shapes and alternating long, thin areas, which is one definition for the word neck in English, as in, neck of the woods, or the neck of a violin. For me, the scapula and the clavicle, taken together, make up a sphere-like shape, followed by the end of the scapula, which believe it or not is called the neck of the scapula, followed by the ball of the humerus, followed by the humerus, the elbow and its small spherical joints, the long bones of the forearm and the little bones of the wrist, followed by the sphere-like hand which is one reason hands can catch a ball so well, or hold a rice bowl.

Within our various neck regions are large, powerful muscles. These muscles mobilize or immobilize the spheres depending on what they are up to, good or no good. That’s why having some say over these areas, at least having a vote, helps. And that is one good reason people study the Alexander Technique, though we by no means have a patent on this wisdom.

Circling back to your curiosity about hand leading and arm following. Sometimes it helps to think that way. When a baby wants something it’s not supposed to have, it just sees it and makes a beeline straight for it. It looks like the hand wants what it wants and just goes there, pronto, and the arm helps it get there before their parents have a chance to intervene. Same when the baby brings that object back to its mouth and considers eating it.

But when it comes to walking by leading with your foot and letting your leg follow, I don’t think you will get much mileage out of that one. A baby who wants to stick its toes in its mouth will lead with his foot, but once that baby moves on to crawling, and climbing, and walking other dynamics come into play.

However having a free ankle is really important when it comes to walking.

While there are similarities between the head/neck, ankle/foot, wrist/hand, lumbar/pelvis relationships, there are obvious differences as well. Best to look at both the similarities and the differences if we want to get a more complete picture.

Hope this helps. Great question as usual.

Photo: B. Fertman

 …from Where This Path Begins

Renderings from the Tao Te Ching by Bruce Fertman

 Sphere within a Sphere.
A child grows.
 
Sphere within a Sphere.
Without knowing this child, she loves this child.
 
Sphere within a Sphere.
A child comes into this world.
 
The child begins to crawl, then walk.
The mother’s sphere grows larger.
 
The child begins to run and climb.
The mother’s sphere grows larger.
 
The child leaves home.
The mother’s sphere grows larger.
 
The child has a child.
The mother’s sphere grows larger.
 
The child’s mother dies.
The child’s sphere grows larger.
 
Sphere within a sphere.
The mother grows within the child’s heart.

This video is in honor of all the bright, inquisitive, lively students who took my workshops.

It’s a thank you present from me, to you.

I’ll be returning to Japan, my second home, in the beginning of November 2013, and I will live in Japan until mid-April 2014.

I hope to give lots of workshops. And I will be giving individual lessons in Osaka and Kobe too.

I hope I will see many of you again.

Life is better when we’re together.

Yours,

Bruce Fertman

Photo: B. Fertman

It’s crowded. The waitress finds us a corner table. I watch Erika quickly size up the situation. She sees there’s not a lot of room around the table and proceeds straight away to slide through a rather small space into one of the chairs, no small feat given Erika is in her mid-eighties.  I squeeze, not quite as gracefully, into the chair next to Erika. Some pretty big, jovial people live in Australia, and a few of them happen to be sitting at the tables next to us. Still, we’re happy to have gotten what appears to be the last table.

Christine’s looking around too, but it seems she’s looking for where there is the most space. Sure enough she sits down in the one chair that is not butting up either against the wall nor next to a chair occupied by one of our large, husky fellows. Barbara takes the remaining chair.

Christine still feels as if she hasn’t enough space. She moves her chair back, further away from the table and proceeds to sit on the very edge of the chair, legs apart, perfectly upright, as if she’s about to begin meditating. Christine’s an Alexander Technique teacher, and a very skilled one at that. In fact, all of us teach Alexander’s work, Erika having begun studying with Alexander when she was eight years old.

In contrast to Christine, I notice that Erika’s chair is drawn up almost as close to the table as possible. She’s comfortably leaning back into the chair. Rather than taking the most space, Erika created the most space around her as possible.

Four tall glasses of water balance precariously upon a tray which a shy, young boy is carrying over  to our table. He’s not sure how to get around Christine’s chair. He decides to cut left around the table, doesn’t see the leg of Christine’s chair sticking out, trips, miraculously managing to prevent the shaky glasses full of water from toppling. He feels terrible about it. I get this feeling it’s his first day on the job. He apologizes profusely. Erika praises him on his stunning recovery, coaxing a slight smile from his sweet face.

Christine pauses for a split second, perturbed that this boy had interrupted her account of an Alexander lesson she had recently given.

My eye catches Erika’s eye. She smiles at me.  Silently, I thank Erika for her exemplary way of teaching without teaching.  She heard it, I’m sure.

Commentary.

In the Alexander Work we sometimes speak of the relationship between parts of the body, the relation of the head to the neck, or the relation between the ribs and the arm structure, or the relation between the hips joints and the sacrum.

As Alexander teachers we rarely ask a person to notice a part of their body in isolation. We teach our students how to perceive themselves “relationally.” We’re after a harmonious orchestration of parts into a symphonic whole. This “unified sound” is the product of a myriad of instruments all attuned one to the other.

What if our work extended beyond our “little body”, into the world, into our “big body.” What would happen if we perceived our body/self as just one little part of a larger body/self? What would the operational principles be for integrating into the larger body/self? How do we help make our big body/self comfortable, peaceful, and lively? How can we distribute support and freedom equally throughout the entire body/self, so that no one part is given less attention than any other?

It might be worthwhile to extend Alexander’s concept of “use” beyond our individual selves. What if we were attending to our collective use, our immediate social body, as was Erika during our dinner together? Isn’t the waiter as important as anyone else? Wasn’t he part of who we were that evening?

Our souls dwell where our inner world and the outer world meet.  Where they overlap, it is in every point of the overlap.  The soul is found, not within, but between. 

Novalis

Photo: B. Fertman

Mr. Yamamoto has had a long day.

Finally finished, he gets on his bicycle and winds his way through narrow streets lined with old, dusty shops and brown wood weathered houses. It’s winter, 6:30pm, and already dark. Heavy, white snowflakes fall in slow motion through an indigo sky, the way they have in Kyoto for 1400 years.

Mr. Yamamoto emerges from the back streets of Old Kyoto and into what looks like another world, wide avenues full of vertical neon signs, high rising financial institutions, and upscale department stores. He pulls in front of a Seven Eleven, grabs a bento, and a box of butter cookies to share during the break, gets back on his bike and realizes he’s late.

Mr. Yamamoto is a 50 year old high school math teacher who dreams of retiring. Inside his beat up leather briefcase, which is now resting, seemingly exhausted, in his bicycle basket, he’s got his student’s math exams, which he will be grading late into the night because, this evening, he will take a class he wants to take, a class for himself.

Mr. Yamamoto’s hoping to learn more about his body. He wants to have more energy. He wants to have some fun, do something good for himself. At the suggestion of a friend, against his better judgment, he signs up for a series of classes in the Alexander Technique.

About twelve students have gathered, men and women, old and young, people for the most part who just want to feel more alive, a bit lighter, a little happier.

Tonight I’ve been working with the students doing things they have to do at work that they don’t like doing. I worked with a man who receives phone calls from disgruntled customers complaining about what they just bought and wish to return. I worked with a woman scrubbing a wooden floor on her hands and knees. I worked with a man who has to listen to his boss yelling at him first thing in the morning.

It’s Mr. Yamamoto’s turn. He unsnaps his briefcase and slides out his stack of ungraded exams. He sits behind a desk in the front of the room, drops the pile of papers onto the desk, pulls out a pencil from his shirt pocket, lets out a big sigh, and begins.

I just watch, feeling how he feels, seeing what’s happening throughout his entire body. Under the table I can see that his feet and legs are turned in, especially his left leg. His pelvis is rolling back. His stomach’s tight. His chest is sunken. His head’s dropped and tilted to the left. His body looks like it’s crying, but Mr. Yamamoto is not crying. Then I see it: quiet, almost desperate, resignation.

Mr. Yamamoto scribbles something onto the first exam. “How did your student do?” I ask. “D. Not good.” Mr. Yamamoto continues. C. D. C+. F. He’s shaking his head. He’s aging right before my eyes.

“Mr. Yamamoto, (that’s what everyone calls him), how do you feel about my helping you a little?” “Onegaishimasu,” he says bowing slightly. Please help me. I walk behind him, softly place my hands, one on either side of his neck, and gently guide his head back on top of his body. His body rises up like a man underwater who’s finally coming up for air. His chest swells, his whole body expands reflexively in every direction. A thin, tired Mr. Yamamoto now sits at his desk exuding a quiet, focused authority.

“Okay, Mr. Yamamoto, begin grading your papers and let’s see what happens.”

B. Everyone smiles, but not Mr. Yamamoto. B+. Eeeeehhhhhhh!?, a rising sound heard when Japanese people are pleasantly surprised. More smiles and some laughter, but not from Mr. Yamamoto.

A. A. A+. A. Now everyone’s almost falling off their chairs. The laughter is irrepressible. Mr. Yamamoto remains still and expressionless. I’m not sure what he’s feeling. I’m doing my best to stick with him, but the unbridled laughter in the room is too contagious. I just lose it.

And, suddenly, so does Mr. Yamamoto. He’s laughing so hard tears are rolling down his cheeks. “Maybe those crazy Buddhists are right”, Mr. Yamamoto says. “Maybe the world is nothing but one big mirror.”

“On that note, let’s finish,” I say. Quickly everyone sits in a circle on the floor, kneeling in seiza, and bows deeply. Still smiling from ear to ear, we loudly exclaim, “Doumo arigatou gosaimashita.” Thank you very, very much.

We’re thankful to be together, thankful to be learning, thankful for a little lightness in our lives.

Mr. Yamamoto throws his scarf around his neck, tosses his briefcase into the basket, and hops on his bike. The crisp night air fills his lungs. The snow looks whiter. It’s swirling. It’s falling up.

A celebratory video honoring the artists coming this weekend to Santa Fe to grace us with their beauty. Photos and compilation by B. Fertman