Tips4Pupils – “Use” & “Self”
According to Erika Whittaker, when one of his students or pupils would complain to FM Alexander about something or other that was going on in their lives, his response was often to say:
“But it’s you! It’s you who’s doing it.”
So Alexander’s concept of “use” was total. It is not just about what you do or don’t do; or whether you do it with a free neck. It is about who you are: not “use of the body” but “use of the self”.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Great anecdote.
I am always surprised how sometimes the technique seems to be restricted to the purely physical realm. In MSI, part two, in his “synopsis of claim”, F.M clearly states that “psycho-physical guidance by conscious control” is to be “applied as a universal principle to ‘living'”. When he says “to ‘living'” I understand that he meant ALL of life, good use is a universal, not a merely physical phenomenon.
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