expectations automatically affect actions
“Knowledge and expectations automatically affect action. Changing habits to produce more efficient coordination requires addressing its underlying mechanisms, which depend on our ideas. … This is markedly different from using ones existing ideas to simply perform different movements.”
—
Science and Alexander Technique, by Tim Cacciatore,
Direction. Vol 2, No. 10, August, 2005
This is where the Alexander Technique differs from a method of postural correction. We are not about re-aligning our bodies. We are about re-aligning our beliefs and expectations about how much effort it takes to perform movements, and how much effort it takes to live.
This is also where the technique can suddenly spark to life. We are not so much dealing with moving this bone here, and releasing this tense muscle there, but examining our entire approach to life. Suddenly we see who we are, and all the extra work we add on to the already difficult prospect of being human.
The solution becomes marvelously simple — although not necessarily easy. We are released from the specifics of trying to figure out our coordination. We can leave all that complicated work to the various motor control systems in our brains.
Our concern is noticing and choosing.
That is, noticing our beliefs about what it takes to get from here to there, and noticing our anticipatory tension. We get to pick and choose what we want to take on. Suddenly we have a range of options, and one of them includes less anxiety and less work. Then we have the happy prospect of allowing events to unfold without our interference.
This is where all the surprises are.
This is where the joy lies.