What we have not yet seen
How what we experience takes shape
If we follow this more closely, something else begins to come into view.
Attention does not hold.
Reactions feel true.
What is happening is difficult to separate.
But there is something else that has not yet been clearly seen.
What is missing is not more attention, and not a better way of managing reactions, but a way of recognising how what we experience is formed.
Something is already taking place before we know that anything is happening.
It can be glimpsed in simple activity.
You reach for something. You stand. You turn your head.
These actions feel immediate and unproblematic. They seem to happen directly, without mediation.
But if you look more closely, it becomes possible to notice that they are not simply occurring.
They are being carried out.
There is a coordination of balance, a direction of movement, a distribution of effort. The body adjusts, the head moves, the breath changes. All of this takes place together.
And yet it is not experienced as a process.
It is experienced as a single, continuous act.
In the same way that thought, feeling and sensation are fused, so too is action.
We do not experience the organisation of what we are doing.
We experience only what it produces.
Because of this, the organisation itself remains unseen.
It is not that it is hidden.
It is that it is not distinguished.
What appears is the outcome.
What is taking place is the process by which that outcome is being formed.
To recognise this is to begin to see that experience is not simply given.
It takes shape.
And if this is so, it may become possible, gradually, to perceive it more clearly—by observing how what is already happening is being put together.
There is now the possibility of looking not only at what appears, but at how it is taking shape.
This is not how we usually look.
Why everything feels like one thing
When thinking, feeling and sensation merge in experience
If you try to observe yourself in the midst of ordinary activity, something else begins to appear.
Not only does attention shift, and not only do reactions feel convincing, but what is happening is difficult to separate.
Everything seems to arrive as one.
A thought appears, a feeling arises, the body responds. These are not experienced separately. They come together as a single event.
We experience only the result.
This is the third difficulty.
It can be seen in simple situations.
You are engaged in something, and a reaction forms. There is a sense of irritation, or pressure, or unease, or simply a feeling that something is happening. If you look closely, it is possible to notice that several things are happening at once: a thought about what should be happening, a feeling in response, and a set of physical changes, tightness, shifting balance, altered breathing.
But ordinarily, this is not how it is experienced.
We do not say: a thought has appeared, a feeling has followed, and the body has adjusted.
We say: something is wrong.
The different processes are not distinguished. They are fused into a single experience that feels simple and self-evident.
This fusion makes observation difficult.
Even when attention is present, what appears is already a composite.
It is not clear where one element ends and another begins. Thought blends into feeling, feeling into sensation, sensation into action. The whole is taken as one continuous event.
Because of this, it is hard to see what is actually taking place.
A thought may be taken as a fact. A feeling may be taken as a conclusion. A physical tightening may go unnoticed entirely, even as it shapes what is perceived.
Each element influences the others, but the interaction remains hidden.
Attention, when it is present, often lands on the already-formed whole.
It meets the experience after it has taken shape, rather than seeing how that shape has emerged.
It becomes necessary, gradually, to distinguish what is happening within the experience itself. To see that what feels like a single event is composed of different processes unfolding together.
At first, this is difficult.
The moment one element is noticed, the others are already shifting. Attention is drawn toward one aspect, and the rest recede. The whole reorganises itself before it can be clearly seen.
But even a brief glimpse is enough to suggest that what seemed simple is not simple at all.
What appears as a single, unified experience may in fact be a convergence of processes, thinking, feeling, sensing and acting, forming together.
This is not how it appears.
Summer 2024: Residential Masterclasses
There are two dates planned for residential weekends at my home in Hampshire this summer:
Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th August
Friday 6th to Sunday 8th September
| Time | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| 08:00-09:00 | Check-in | Breakfast | Breakfast |
| 09:30-11:00 | Check-in | Session 4 | Session 8 |
| 11:00-11:30 | Coffee | Coffee | Coffee |
| 11:30-13:00 | Session 1 | Session 5 | Session 9 |
| 13:00-15:00 | Lunch & break | Lunch & break | Lunch & break |
| 15:00-17:00 | Session 2 | Session 6 | Session 10 |
| 17:00-17:30 | Tea | Tea | Tea |
| 17:30-19:30 | Session 3 | Session 7 | Departure |
| 20:00-21:00 | Dinner | Dinner | Departure |
All the procedures used in the learning and the teaching of the Alexander Technique have a purpose, and being clear about that purpose can help us to decide when and how to apply them in our teaching.
In this three-day residential course, we will examen, discuss and practise the following procedures – which constitute the main physical aspects of Alexander’s teaching.
- Squatting
- Walking
- The Lunge
- Semi-supine
- Baby-bend (Monkey)
- Breathwork: Whispered Ah
- Breathwork: the vowels
- Breathwork: widening the ribs
- Hands on the back of the chair
- Going up onto the toes
- Wall work
- Being at the back of the chair
- Coming forward in the chair
- Leaning forward in the chair
- Keeping the back back
Musicians are welcome to bring their instrument. For pianists, please note that I have a piano.
As well as traditional AT work, we will cook and eat together, discuss the therapeutic, educational and evolutionary ideas of F M Alexander. We will explore ways of integrating “stopping” and “directing” into all aspects of our lives.
Attendance will be limited to seven people; teachers, students and pupils welcome.
The cost for each weekend, including food, accommodation (in single-sex twin rooms) and over 17 hours of tuition is £400. A non-refundable (unless the course is cancelled) deposit of £80 is required to secure a place. The balance is due 28 days before the start date.
If you would like to apply or to get further information, please email me.
For feedback from previous courses see:
Forward and Up into 2024
My next immersive 3-day weekend masterclass at my home in Hampshire (accommodation provided) will take place from 5-7 January 2024.
Travel from London, if not driving, is by train to Bramley, Hants. via Reading or Basingstoke.
As well as traditional AT work, we will cook and eat together, discuss the therapeutic, educational and evolutionary ideas of F M Alexander. Drawing on my work with many first-generation teachers we will explore ways of integrating stopping and directing into all aspects of our lives. For people travelling long distances, overnight accommodation can also be provided at no extra cost on Thursday 4 and/or Sunday 7 January.
These weekends have been very well-received by earlier participants (see First Weekend Masterclass and Second Weekend Masterclass).
Attendance will be limited to seven people; teachers, students and pupils.
Cost, including food, accommodation and over 17 hours of tuition, is £400.
If you would like to apply or to get further information, contact me by email.
The Schedule
| Time | Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 |
| 08:00-09:00 | Check-in | Breakfast | Breakfast |
| 09:30-11:00 | Check-in | Session 4 | Session 8 |
| 11:00-11:30 | Coffee | Coffee | Coffee |
| 11:30-13:00 | Session 1 | Session 5 | Session 9 |
| 13:00-15:00 | Lunch & break | Lunch & break | Lunch & break |
| 15:00-17:00 | Session 2 | Session 6 | Session 10 |
| 17:00-17:30 | Tea | Tea | Tea |
| 17:30-19:30 | Session 3 | Session 7 | Departure |
| 20:00-21:00 | Dinner | Dinner | Departure |
The Programme will include:-
- Understanding opposition: the primary postural pulls.
- Connecting legs and back: becoming one piece.
- The “up” along the spine.
- Saying “no”, stopping and finding quiet.
- The whole-self touch: being behind your actions.
- Natural breathing: the difference between chest breathing, abdominal breathing and diaphragmatic breathing.
- Counter rotation – in walking, sport and playing a musical instrument.
- Going into movement: the head leads and the body follows.
- Staying present: be here now!
- Working with energy
- The giving and withholding of consent: letting do
The Giving and Withholding of Consent: the Secret of “Letting Do”
So you’ve learnt how to direct – and perhaps you experience some expansion, integration and a flow of energy when you “give your orders”.
You can inhibit some of your reactions and enter into a more quiet state. Maybe you can let your head lead as you go into activity. Then now it’s time to explore the world of giving and withholding of consent: the secret of “letting do”.
I had my first real experience of this in a lesson with Margaret Goldie. I was sitting with my hands resting palms-up on the tops of my legs. She took one arm, moved it around – up and down and rotating it in a particular way that she had – and let it rest at my side. Then the brain work!
“Not you doing it!” she quietly insisted.
“You are going to give consent to letting your hand come back up onto the top of your leg, but you are not going to do it.”
I had already been having lessons with her for some years so I was not distracted by “unbeliever” thoughts. I just listened to her and followed her instructions as exactly as I could.
“Not you doing it! You are going to give consent to allowing your hand to move. Give consent and let it do it!”
Then suddenly, effortlessly – my hand floats up onto the top of my leg. How? Not, evidently, by using the familiar pathways I associated with such a movement.
It’s all there in one of Alexander’s Teaching Aphorisms:
“The reason you people won’t give consent is because none of you will give consent to anything but what you feel.
F M Alexander 1
This approach gave me new insights into Alexander’s work, in particular the similarity with aspects of Taoism. 2
Withholding consent – inhibition – is the doorway. Pass through it and experiment with giving consent to what you wish to do – volition – and then “letting do”! Allowing activity to take place using unfamiliar pathways, given that so many of our “identity habits” are embodied, challenges our sense of who we think we are, opening a door to a world which seems to operate under different laws.
…the Alexander Technique, like Zen, tries to unlock the power of the unknown force in man.
Patrick Macdonald 3
Your early experiments might be simple physical activities – like the one Miss Goldie showed me; giving consent to a very basic movement of some part of the body, getting out of a chair, moving around from A to B or even (and this takes patient practice) making a cup of tea. As you become more at home in this new medium, you could experiment with interacting with other people. Give consent, for example, to chatting with your neighbour about the weather.4
You must learn to get out of the teacher’s way, learn to get out of your own way, then learn to get out of ITS way.
Patrick Macdonald 5
What do you find? Do you become more the watcher than the doer?
If you wish, share your experiences in the comments section or write to me.
1. Teaching Aphorisms: The Alexander Journal No 7, 1972, published by the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique. Also published in Articles and Lectures by Mouritz (1995).
2. The concept of non-doing in Taoism – Wu Wei – has been understood in different ways throughout its long history. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_wei
3. The Alexander Technique As I See It, Patrick MacDonald; Notebook Jottings. Published by Rahula Books, 1989
4. At the time of writing we are all practising social distancing so interacting with others may have to wait.
5. The Alexander Technique As I See It, Patrick MacDonald; Notebook Jottings. Published by Rahula Books, 1989
© John Hunter 2020
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