October 1/01

Choices:

 

We make thousands of choices every day. What time should we get up? What will we have for breakfast? What will we wear today? What time should we leave the house for work or for an appointment? Do we take a bicycle, a tram, the bus, a train, the car? The list is endless. Miss Piggy offers a nice one:

"Never eat more than you can lift."

I remember a few years ago when I was driving with my wife and children from Connecticut to Nova Scotia during a summer holiday. We stopped in a small town somewhere in Maine to have lunch. We found a nice looking little restaurant (another choice made) and I was delighted to see they had smoked meat on rye sandwiches on offer. I gave my order to the waitress. She then proceeded to offer me a list of choices: type of bread, toasted or plain, types of mustard or mayonnaise (4 kinds of each), did I want pickles (3 kinds), potato chips (4 kinds) - the list went on and on to include even more choices which I cannot, now, remember. It was so absurd that when she finished this list I no longer felt hungry.

Now, that is taking choice to ridiculous lengths, at least in my opinion, although I guess there are those who feel that, unless they have that degree of choice, they are not being well served.

What is important to remember about choices, however, is that the more information we have then the more informed can be our choice. Despite my loss of appetite, one cannot say I was at a loss for information about what was available regarding that smoked meat sandwich.

There are, for example, some things which we take considerable care to be well informed about. Buying a car, a home, a computer, a video camera or player, or taking a holiday.

What is astounding is that information we have at our disposal is sadly lacking when it comes to how we use our bodies . We don't even seem to realise there is information to be had, let alone have enough of it to make an informed choice as to how we are going to use our body. Of course we are bombarded with advertisements for food, for hygiene products and home help medicines. Information regarding what to do to our body is abundant. But as far as how we use our body, we are left to muddle through somehow until at some stage we begin to notice that our body is beginning to talk back to us in the form of aches and pains and/or signs of wearing out (knee and hip joints, for example.)

Let us just take one example, that of how we get in and out of a chair. We do this usually without so much as a single thought as to how we want to do it, let alone give any thought as to how to do it efficiently or consider that we might have a choice in how we do it.

Bertrand Russell said "Many men would rather die than think - in fact they do."

Even at the basic level of movement in and out of a chair, we make undue muscular effort to accomplish the task. We usually lift ourselves out the chair by a combination of shoving with the legs and lifting with the shoulders while, at the same time, stiffening our neck and pulling our head backward. All this muscular effort is totally unnecessary for getting out of a chair. It is probably accurate to say that we associate most body movement with muscular effort. The older we get, the worse it becomes. Patterns of movement established when young, repeated for a lifetime, tend to become ingrained.

Now let us look at the process involved in learning any new skill. Our aim should be to avoid exaggerating any defective muscular co-ordination already present. However, this is exactly how the vast majority of people approach learning how to sing or play an instrument. They begin learning a highly complex skill, like singing, without first having a good look at what they are already doing with their body which is detrimental to its good functioning and which, in the end, is going to make the task of learning to sing very much more difficult than it need be.

You can see the same process at work when you go to a fitness centre. People who are working out may well want to train the upper chest muscles, for example, but in the process, because they are working with far too great a weight, they will be bringing into play the neck muscles, the leg muscles, the buttocks and so on. Well, if all those extra muscles are involved, then the upper chest muscles are not being worked as efficiently as they should be while the other muscles are going to be pulled in directions which eventually will cause stiffness and pain.

Watch people running in a park. More often than not you'll see people running with stiff legs, stiff pelvis, head thrown back and neck stiff, and shoulders stiff. They look as if they are running with the brakes on.

In any of the physical activities I've mentioned here, muscle tension of some sort is needed in order to carry out the task. But there are muscles needed for the task, and others which are not needed. The Alexander Technique is all about learning to sort out the one from the other.

One could say there are two kinds of muscular tension. 1) habitual and 2) appropriate.

Habitual tension is the result of all that has happened to us in the past, and is associated with the bad patterns of use of our body which we have come to accept as normal. This sort of tension does not serve us positively and interferes with good functioning. This sort of tension can, with training, be usefully inhibited to allow a better overall function of the body.

Appropriate tension enhances functioning because it is the correct response to the situation or the task at hand.

The Alexander Technique is a wonderful means whereby one can learn to break the pattern of habitual tension. This is achieved by becoming aware of the habitual way we have gone about doing something, choosing not to do it the old way by saying "no" to it, and allowing the new way to take over. It is sometimes frustrating, at first, because we may not yet know or realize what the new way is. It is important in that case to inhibit our desire to "just do it and get on with it"

Let's go back to our example of getting up out of a chair and see how the Alexander Technique could help us.

We receive the stimulus to stand up. But before we do so, we stop a moment and say "no" to the usual response we give that stimulus - i.e., to just jump out of the chair in any old way without thinking about it. We then give some thought to choosing to use the new idea of getting out of chair which involves allowing the neck to be free, the head to go forward and up and the back to lengthen and widen. With repetition of this process we eventually can come to a different function based on making different choices.

Alexander was asked, once: "How can you do a thing if you don't mean to do it?" to which he replied "Because of my stupid quick reaction which causes me to act before I think."

Winnie the Pooh describes the situation this way: " 'That's me again' thought Poo. 'I've had an Accident, and fallen down a well, and my voice has gone all squeaky and works before I'm ready for it, because I've done something to myself inside. Bother!'" (From "The House at Pooh Corner")

It is interesting to note that most of one's education involves learning to respond quickly, before one is "ready", so as not to be considered stupid.

The more complex the activity, (swimming, tennis, skiing, playing an instrument, singing) the higher the degree of co-ordination needed. These activities also need a very high degree of skill, dedication and practice. I was interested to read that top tennis player Andre Aggassi scored higher marks than the fighter pilots when he took the US airforce hand/eye co-ordination tests.

An old Chinese saying states:

"There is no end to just getting a little bit better."

Yet, as Marcel Proust said:

"People wish to learn to swim and at the same time to keep one foot on the ground." - a condition which prevents one from advancing as one should when learning a new physical skill.

What is sad to see is that as an individual's training progresses, in learning to sing, for example, there are simultaneous processes under way that both direct and limit their future development. These processes take the form of habits which are cultivated during training that are, in large part, unintended - and unless these are addressed, the person training soon enters into the land of diminishing returns. These get piled on top of the old patterns of stress and increasingly interfere with the functioning of the body at a time when better and improved skills are most required. Is it any wonder then that, at this stage in learning, many people just give up? Thankfully, things need not go in that direction. We do have a choice and if we use that choice, we break the pattern.

Madness has been defined as "the expectation that if you carry on doing the same thing in the same way you can expect different results."

The truth is, if you wish different results, something must change.

The Buddah said "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world."

So, a thought can change us. For the better. But we need to be aware and then make our choice based on that awareness.

Alexander's advice to his students was this: "Never do anything that lowers the standard of your manner of use. It is no good doing something that puts you wrong and then trying to put yourself right in the process. The thing to do is stop and only to do what you can do without interfering."

To follow that advice takes time and patience. The reward is well worth it.

Or, you can follow the adventurous advice of Mae West who said:

"Whenever I'm caught between two evils, I take the one I haven't tried."

The choice is yours.!