Being with Erika: #06, Back in Melbourne, 1992
Despite the political problems, which related to AUSTAT’s path towards affiliation with STAT, I enjoyed my time in Sydney. The four week refresher course went well and the teachers’ group asked me to return for a longer visit.
So about a year later, in 1992, I was back in Melbourne – having delivered this time a three month refresher training course in Sydney; by then I was very glad to see Erika again.
I tried to get her to be more specific about how she worked with people. She would always answer in a practical or anecdotal way – never theoretical. Some of my insights into her approach are as follows.
Tea is very important!
My friend and colleague Professor Marilyn Monk also went to visit Erika in Armadale and was duly served with a cup of tea. After about half an hour or so of tea, cake and chat Marilyn said, “This is all very interesting Erika but actually what I came for was a lesson“.
Erika looked at her, somewhat surprised, and replied. “Well, you are having one!”
Tea provided the opportunity for Erika to get to know the person coming for lessons; whether they had what she described as a ‘straight-forward physical difficulty’ or some underlying personal problem. If the former, they were fairly easy to help, she would say. If the latter, she needed to find out why they were, as she put it, ‘closing themselves’; to discover their ‘trick’ – that is to say, the little habit they had by means of which they avoided something that was uncomfortable for them; not in order to engage in some kind of analysis, but in order to help the pupil to see their ‘trick’ for what it really was, and to then help them to see their ‘problem’ from another perspective – the perspective of ‘presence’ – thereby loosening its grip on them.
As they engaged in conversation and began practical work, Erika would encourage the pupil to use their senses to connect with the outside world whilst bringing about a change in the head, neck back relationship – but with very little hands-on contact; just enough to begin a process. In Melbourne she used the seagulls always visible from her window. Later, when she was teaching in my apartment in London, she used the aeroplanes on their way to Heathrow in the distance.
She said that it was a question of timing. One had to chose one’s moment to help pupils to see their “trick” without it becoming an issue.
However, it would not be accurate to define this as her ‘teaching technique’; it was one aspect which I observed and garnered from various conversations. Her approach was expressed very well by one of her young Melbourne ‘Alexander friends’. “Erika is just so open that after being with her for a while, you find that you are opening too”. R.D. Laing’s term ‘co-presence’ comes close, but with a lightness of being.
I felt that it was outside of the more ‘formal’ teacher/pupil relationship – which she was always keen to avoid – that the most ‘learning’ took place. She often referred to her favourite Zen stories, in particular one which talks of a man advancing to the stage where he goes beyond all techniques; now a Master, he returns to the world and mixes with ordinary people – appearing to be one of them. This was a key element in Erika’s approach to teaching. As she once said, “The best teaching happens when the pupil doesn’t know he or she is being taught”.
Many people, including Alexander teachers, who met Erika saw only a pleasant elderly lady. The ‘wise-woman’ in her cohabited with the very sociable “Leo”; there but ‘hidden in plain sight’.
If one tried, with one’s questions, to ‘pin her down’ – then, like a judo master, she stepped lightly aside; before one knew it the subject was changed and the moment had passed. She was also very adept at acting. When someone wanted her to do something that she didn’t want to do, she could be a “very confused old lady” for a time. “Well” she told me, “one has to get along with people!”
I remember one incident when I and a colleague were spending a morning with her in Melbourne. She was out of the room when we began discussing some lofty subject – I can’t remember what – and at the moment when Erika came back into the room my colleague happened to be saying the word ‘truth’.
“Truth!” said Erika, in a firm voice.
We both stopped, surprised at her tone, and looked at her.
What I saw at that moment is difficult to put into words; something like ‘total presence’.
She continued, “Truth is right now.”
We were all silent for a few timeless seconds. Then she picked up an earlier conversation and time moved on again.
After my second visit to Melbourne I was beginning to get a taste of something. The things I was learning by being with Erika were, I felt, important not only for me but for the Alexander community. She was having less difficulty with her leg after the accident some two years earlier, and was talking about coming to the UK the following year to see friends and family. We discussed the possibility of her teaching in London.
I had a few days in Tasmania, visiting friends and making a ‘sentimental journey’ to Wynyard and Table Cape, then returned to London.
Erika and I kept in touch and plans began to take shape. Towards the end of 1993, I was delighted to welcome her – on her way to Edinburgh to spend Christmas with her family – for what was to be the first of many visits to my home in West London. A very busy programme awaited her there.
© 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!”
#04, Melbourne 1991 – Tea Ceremony
#05, Melbourne 1991 – Jean Jacques by the Sea
#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
Equilibrium: Freedom and Limitation
One hears a great deal of talk about ‘freedom’, but it should be remembered that in all spheres of life – and that includes Alexander Technique, personal development, spiritual growth and education – limitation, or boundaries, are just as important.
The balance, or lack of it, between freedom and limitation manifests itself in many ways in a human being, some of which I will try and address in separate posts.
In, for example, improvised music the satisfaction comes from finding freedom of expression within a given scale. Although this may be modulated, it is nevertheless the relationship with that scale which gives form, and creates the satisfaction of tension and resolution.
In dance (for example Argentinian Tango), in order to experience the wonderful freedom of moving with another – sometimes in dynamic opposition, sometimes ‘as one’ – both partners must first accept the limitations of the dance form.
We tend, in contemporary times, to demand a great deal of ‘freedom’ in how we behave. However, it is not only for the sake of the ‘social contract’ that boundaries need to be both understood and respected, but also for the development of certain – what could be termed – ‘inner qualities’.
Limitation must not go too far. As the I Ching states:
“… in limitation we must observe due measure. If a man should seek to impose galling limitations upon his nature, it would be injurious.” 1
The Book of Changes also warns, however, that without appropriate boundaries development cannot progress:
“Unlimited possibilities are not suited to man; if they existed, his life would only dissolve in the boundless. To become strong, a man’s life needs the limitations ordained by duty and voluntarily accepted. The individual attains significance as a free spirit only by surrounding himself with these limitations and by determining for himself what his duty is.” 1
What, for me, are the unnecessary ‘boundaries’ that restrict me, and what are the ‘limitless possibilities’ which lead to dissolution? In my own ‘use’ the challenge is to find a dynamic balance between freedom and limitation, and to be perceptive enough to recognise both.
1. I Ching, The Richard Wilhelm translation, rendered into English by Cary F Baynes, Hexagram 60. Chieh / Limitation, published by Penguin Arkana, London 1989.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Tips4Teachers – Lying-down Work, #2 – Connecting the Legs and Back
Related to using lying-down work as a ‘horizontal monkey position‘, there is a simple procedure through which the pupil can be taught to connect the action of the legs with the powerful anti-gravity muscles of the back.
The pupil being in semi-supine, the teacher takes one of his or her legs and firstly ensures that the hip and knee joints are free. Keeping the pupil’s leg bent at the hip and knee, the teacher then applies a gentle pressure to the pupil’s heel whilst the teacher stays ‘back and up’ in opposition to the applied force. In this way one can elicit a reflex response which will cause the pupil’s leg to straighten.
This response, however, is often overlaid with patterns of learnt movement and persistent, unnecessary tensions. Consequently it is necessary to patiently ‘look for’ and ‘cultivate’ this response. It is interesting to note that the overuse of certain muscles and some uncoordinated movement patterns are usually related to the inadequate use of the postural muscles.
In order to ‘wake up’ the reflex response, the pupil may be asked to push against the teacher’s hand in the direction which could be described as the ‘virtual continuation of the lower leg’, and ‘through the heel’.
Usually repeating this a few times is sufficient to be then able to elicit the reflex response to a rightly applied (i.e. applied as a consequence of the teacher him or herself ‘going up’) pressure against the heel. It should at this point be explained to the pupil that he or she is to try to catch the moment at which the leg seems to want to straighten of its own accord, and that he or she should not attempt to inhibit this activity in the leg. Indeed at the beginning he or she should be encouraged to ‘go with’ the leg movement even if they are not sure whether or not it is a reflex response or something they are doing. Once the response begins to be more active, it is practically invariably very easy for the pupil to recognise the difference between the two.
Needless to say, reminders should be given frequently, with words and hands, to the pupil’s head and neck.
The benefits of this procedure are:
- It engages the right muscles in an effortless leg-straightening movement.
- It connects this movement with a simultaneous, coordinated ‘spreading out’ (lengthening and widening) of the back muscles against the surface of the table.
- The engagement of the postural muscles of the back and legs allows for a freedom in the hips and lower back which is otherwise difficult to bring about.
- The postural muscles having been activated in this coordinated way makes them more ‘vital’ even at rest. Energy begins to flow.
- It introduces to the pupil the action of the anti-gravity muscles in a secure position (i.e. lying down), thereby helping him or her to be able at an appropriate time to keep the back back in chair-work, walking etc. and – most importantly – to understand the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of it.
© 2013 John S Hunter
Working with the Masters
Each of the ‘first generation’ teachers from whom I learned clearly had something special in how they understood and transmitted Alexander’s ideas to their pupils.
In these posts (see the “Categories” menu in the right-hand column of this page for links to the posts about different teachers) I will attempt to convey some of my personal impressions from working with such exceptional people.
I certainly do not claim to have any special insights into them as people or into their teaching; there are undoubtedly others who knew and understood them better.
It seems to me that for each one of them, certain aspects of what they had learned from Alexander – and gone on to develop, as their own individuality developed – tended to predominate.
How can it be that all of these people seemed to understand, or at least to emphasise, something different? What, then, is “the thing in itself”?
Or, just as a quantum wave/particle, has no fixed reality until it is observed, does the Alexander Technique not exist “in itself” until each new moment it is put into practice?
Perhaps, at the end of the series, I will try and convey what, for me, is the significance of the different approaches of these ‘first generation’ teachers, and how and why that matters for those of us who follow.
© 2013 John S Hunter
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