Tips4Teachers – ‘Monkey’
The primary purpose of ‘monkey’ is to teach a pupil about the postural pulls which provide support for the body: head against hips against knees (‘against’ in the sense of ‘away from’ or ‘in opposition to’).
As many pupils will have various mis-uses which are interfering with these antagonistic pulls, it is advisable to take time to establish as far as possible each stage of the procedure.
Firstly, while indicating a ‘forward and up’ direction to the head, ensure that the pupil sends the knees ‘forward and away’. At this stage the torso is still vertical. If necessary, use a wall to help the pupil maintain an upright posture.
The second stage is to come forward from the hips without either the head pulling back or the knees pulling in. A helpful ‘trick’ is to ask the pupil to bend the knees ‘just another inch’ and as soon as he or she begins to do so, bring about a hinging at the hips with one hand on the head and one below the hip bone at the ‘crease’ between the pelvis and the thigh.
It is very advantageous to then reinforce the kinaesthetic experience of being in ‘monkey position’ by again having one hand just under the back of the skull and one at the hip whilst, being oneself in monkey, imparting a two-way (antagonistic) direction through one’s own expansive tendency. This should then be modified with one hand either behind the knee or just below the knee cap and one at the hip to indicate the opposition between hip and knee.
As the directions are imparted, the ‘orders’ or ‘directions’ should be clearly stated: head against hips, knees against hips.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Being with Erika: #04, Melbourne 1991 – Tea Ceremony
I arrived at Fulton Street, Armadale for my appointment with Erika. After my lesson with her six years earlier I was curious to discover how I would experience this one. But a lesson with Erika was nothing like what we are conditioned to expect. A lesson almost invariably began with a cup of tea.
Erika confessed that she had heard on the Alexander grape-vine that the ‘Chair of STAT’ was coming to Melbourne and she had been looking forward to meeting me. She did not remember the young teacher she had met in London after her Memorial Lecture in 1985. She left me sitting in her living room and went off to get the tea.
As I looked around I noticed several editions of STATNews were lying about on the coffee table and on chairs, all open at pages on which were articles I had written over the past two years in relation to various bits of ‘STAT business’.
“Oh dear,” I thought. “She certainly does her homework. She wants to find out what makes me tick.”
She asked me, with regard to the Alexander Technique, what I was concerned about. I was not aware that I was concerned about anything, but I said, “That it is all still a mystery”. We talked on a little more and then she suggested we go into the next room to “do some work”.
I fell straight into the first ‘trap’. As soon as I saw her hands moving towards me I immediately started to ‘give my directions’.
“Whoa!” she said. “You’re getting ready aren’t you! Wait and see what it is I am going to do.”
She commented on some of my misuses, saying she was trying to see my “trick”. The whole time she was directing my attention to the outside; using her hands just a little – to initiate a change – and then immediately taking them away again. A gradually increasing sense of length and width in my back was beginning to appear, and it was something that was ‘doing itself’.
She asked if I would like to work on her and I was struck by the quality of relaxation and liveliness in her body. ‘Work’ was never allowed to become something that we were doing for its own sake though. As soon as anything became fixed (a thought, an idea) she redirected my attention. The conversation continued throughout.
“It’s really something practical”, she said. “When I look around and I see that the sink has filled up again with dishes, instead of grumbling I put my head forward and up and I get on with it. That’s the Alexander Technique. That’s Zen too.”
I was still calmly expanding as I left, with a sense of something really new. It was as though a light had been shone through the diamond of Alexander’s discoveries from a completely different angle; I was given a glimpse of hitherto unseen aspects.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Other Posts on Being with Erika:
#01, London 1985 – Annual Memorial Lecture
#02, Brighton 1988 – Key Note Address
#03, Melbourne 1991 – “Come for lunch!”
#05, Melbourne 1991 – Jean Jacques by the Sea
#06, Back in Melbourne, 1992
#07, “Where did you train?”, London, 1993
#08, “It’s all the same”, London, 1993
#09, “Making the Link”, London, 1993
#10, A Lesson in Stopping, London, 1993
#11, Hands, London 1994
#12, “Yes, but you’re worrying!”, London, 1993
#13, “Nothing special”, London, 1994
Being with Erika: #03, Melbourne 1991 – “Come for lunch!”
Misha Magidov was invited by some Australian teachers to visit Sydney and run a refresher course for them. Afterwards they wanted him to go again soon, but he had other commitments so asked me – one of the assistant trainers in his school at that time – if I would like to go instead. It sounded like a wonderful opportunity to travel and meet new people. If I included a trip to Melbourne I would, I hoped, be able to reconnected with Erika.
Shortly after initial plans were discussed I had a visit from a woman called Jacqui Baker (now Hindley), a teacher-trainee from a school in Melbourne. She wanted to discuss some concerns with me as I was then the Chair of STAT. I said I was planning on visiting Melbourne the following year and she invited me to stay with her in the house she shared with Diana Johnston (now Devitt-Dawson). I knew Diana from when she was a student in London. So it was all set up for September 1991.
After a stopover in Bangkok and a visit to a contact in Canberra. I arrived late one evening in Melbourne. Diana and Jacqui being away, I had to let myself in with a key left under a dustbin.
The next morning I was wondering how to get in touch with Erika when the phone rang. I answered and strangely enough there she was. She gave me some helpful hints about places to go and things to do in Melbourne on a Sunday and invited me to lunch the following day. Later that evening Jacqui arrived and the next morning we went round to Erika’s apartment in Armadale, the first of many visits.
About a year before my first visit Erika had had a serious accident. She was knocked down on a pedestrian crossing and had fractured her leg in the knee joint. Her mobility was affected by this and her regular trips to the UK to visit her daughter and grandchildren in Edinburgh had been suspended.
Lunch – helped down with one or two gin and tonics – seemed to last most of the day, and a wonderful day it was! The time flew by with endless conversation about FM, AR and Erika’s fellow first generation teachers; also Chinese medicine, comparative religion – just about everything. I had a strong sense of how integrated she was. Just being with her was to learn; no trying, no doing, no stiffness, just natural. Although we were discussing themes of some import, the tone was light.
Then she went out of the room to attend to something. When she came back she looked at me very intensely. “That key-note address I gave in Brighton – I meant every word I said.”1
I almost fell off my seat!
Seconds later the conversation was light again. I asked if I could have a lesson with her and a time was set for later that week.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Other Posts on Being with Erika:
#01, London 1985 – Annual Memorial Lecture
#02, Brighton 1988 – Key Note Address
#04, Melbourne 1991 – Tea Ceremony
#05, Melbourne 1991 – Jean Jacques by the Sea
#06, Back in Melbourne, 1992
#07, “Where did you train?”, London, 1993
#08, “It’s all the same”, London, 1993
#09, “Making the Link”, London, 1993
#10, A Lesson in Stopping, London, 1993
#11, Hands, London 1994
#12, “Yes, but you’re worrying!”, London, 1993
#13, “Nothing special”, London, 1994
Being with Erika: #02, Brighton 1988 – Key Note Address
The next time I met Erika was not in Australia, as a new phenomenon appeared in the Alexander world – the International Congresses – which took Erika to New York in 1986 and to Brighton in 1988.
After her exposure to the ‘state of the Alexander nation” at Stony Brook, Erika felt she had something to say. Marj Barstow encouraged Michael Frederick to give her a platform to say it, so she was invited to give the Keynote Address at the opening ceremony.
In that talk she issued a dire warning:
“….I see a great danger of his work suffering the same fate as that of many other great original innovators in the history of the world. It is a pretty familiar pattern. Successors to the master tend to launch into interpretations, which in time cause arguments, dissensions, disagreements, splits into schools or sects, fragmentation leading to dogma, to tradition, and to fixation”.1
I did not get much chance to make contact with her in Brighton. She was, as I learned from her years later, not well at that time and had decided to keep a very low profile.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Other Posts on Being with Erika:
#01, London 1985 – Annual Memorial Lecture
#03, Melbourne 1991 – “Come for lunch!”
#04, Melbourne 1991 – Tea Ceremony
#05, Melbourne 1991 – Jean Jacques by the Sea
#06, Back in Melbourne, 1992
#07, “Where did you train?”, London, 1993
#08, “It’s all the same”, London, 1993
#09, “Making the Link”, London, 1993
#10, A Lesson in Stopping, London, 1993
#11, Hands, London 1994
#12, “Yes, but you’re worrying!”, London, 1993
#13, “Nothing special”, London, 1994
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