Tradition and Authority
in the Yoga Traditions and the Alexander Technique
By David Moore
Alexander came into adulthood prior to the First World War, in an
age when optimism about humankind's evolution towards higher and
more rational states of being was paramount. Educated people such
as Alexander, were free of the oppressive shackles that religion
had cast over the European mind for almost 2,000 years, and the
power of rationality and consciousness as the driving force
behind people's lives seemed to offer a way forward. Despite the
times he lived through Alexander was never to lose that optimism.
The unbelievable horrors of the First World War, when the
citizens of the so called civilized world massacred each other in
battles of unprecedented ferocity, was followed by the rise of
Nazism, Communism and Fascism and then by the Second World War
and the descent of Germany into the barbarism of the holocaust.
From the start of the First World War to the death of Stalin in
the Soviet Union saw the death by war, massacre of deliberate
policies of starvation of something like 50,000,000 people. In
World War Two Britain let 4,000,000 of its subjects starve to
death in the Bengal famine. And Alexander lived to see the
development of the atomic bomb and its use on civilian
populations in Japan.
Alexander was horrified by the developments he saw in Europe
during his lifetime, especially the descent of Germany into
barbarism. Like many other thinkers of his time he saw the
problem as the phenomenon of irrational herd or mass behavior and
reaction, which demagogues such as Hitler and Mussolini were able
to manipulate. The fact that millions of people could be taken in
by these skillful manipulators was to him a result of them living
in a completely subconscious manner, completely at the mercy of
their unconscious prejudices and reactions. The answer for him
lay in the individual being of human beings. In his writings he
is constantly coming back to the fundamental importance of the
individuals coming into conscious awareness of their own
conditioning and working with themselves to reach a stage which
he described as constructive conscious control. At this stage
they would overcome their faulty sensory perception, and be able
to respond to things as they actually are. It is said that
friends advised him to shorten the title of his book,
Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, by leaving out
the last three words, but he refused, due to the importance he
placed on the individual in contradistinction to the mass man.
"..from any real history of human endeavour we must
eliminate the record of man's activites in wars and other spheres
in which he is swayed chiefly by herd instinct, where the
example, good of bad, or the command of one person, is
immediately followed by the rest as an unthinking, unintelligent,
automatic mass. I am quite prepared to admit that the history of
human being in wars and other spheres of massed activity is of
great interest to a great many people, but it is of infinitesimal
interest of value, particularly when man's future is concerned,
as compared with that of the individual effort of the human
creature struggling daily to find a solution to the flesh and
blood difficulties which directly concern his wellbeing."
CCCI p.152
The whole process which Alexander had been through to restore the
functioning of his voice was only possible because Alexander
possessed the personality to be able to question the most basic
and apparently common sense assumptions. This work on himself and
his subsequent experiences of working with thousands of pupils in
the work of restoring coordination and reliable sensory
appreciation, convinced him that the "commonsense"
assumptions upon which medicine, education, physical exercises,
psychology, sport and virtually every area of human endeavor,
were based on "end gaining" principles, and were quite
simply erroneous. ...a dangerous stage of perversion and
delusion has already been reached, when the attempts at a
solution to all the problems of life seem to call for complexity
rather than simplicity in procedure (1)
Alexander's genius was to be able to ask the right questions, to
dispense with received wisdom and to perceive the obvious.
Alexander's recommendation of the state of mind which we need to
develop if which we wish to develop towards conscious awareness
is that a person should stop and reconsider every particle of
supposed knowledge, particularly "pshycholgical"
knowledge, derived from his general education, from his
religious, political, moral, ethical, social, legal, and economic
training, and ask himself the plain strightforward question,
"Why do I believe these things?" "By what process
of reasoning did I arrive at these conclusions? (2)
The role of the teacher in the Alexander technique
We have however with the Alexander work the fact that for a time
it is essential to place ourselves in the hands of a teacher who
is able to guide us until we develop the sensory awareness to be
able to work on ourselves. Implicit in this relationship is the
understanding that the pupil does not know what she is doing with
herself, and that the teacher is in a position of authority. To
the extent that the pupil comes to the teacher full of her own
ideas and preconceptions and not being prepared to let go of
them, it is not possible to make any progress. I remember doing a
lesson with a body worker with a very good understanding of all
the muscles of the body. His insistence on analysing every moveI
guided him through, in terms of what muscles were being
activated, made it totally impossible for him to learn anything
from me.
So in what state of mind should we approach learning the
Alexander technique? The kind of pupil I find easiest to teach is
not one who takes my every pronouncement as revealed truth, but
rather one who is prepared to question and begin to understand
what is going on. It is the kind of person who is comfortable to
be in a state of not knowing, of not being sure, of being able to
suspend habits of thought and opinion, and being prepared to
experience feeling wrong with an open mind. As Alexander often
says in his writings the work is a process of moving from the
known to the unknown. Intelligence as it normally understood, has
very little to do with a person's ability to be prepared to
follow the teacher. The person who is attached to being right is
impossible to teach. As Alexander said People who haven't any
fish to fry, the see it all right. (3) As soon as people
come to you with the idea of unlearning instead of learning, you
have the in the frame of mind you want. (4)
Authority and the role of the teacher in Yogic traditions
In the yogic traditions we find a very different approach to
authority and the role of the teacher. In both Yoga and the
Alexander technique it is certainly very difficult to make
progress without a teacher. But in the yogic traditions the role
of the teacher is greatly emphasised. In the words of a classic
hatha-yoga text:
There is no doubt that the guru is father: the guru is
mother: the guru is God. Therefore he should be served by all in
deed speech and thought (5)
This is a very different conception of a teacher to that held in
the West. There is no room here for doubt or questioning. What
the guru says is true because he says it. What the guru asks of
you is justified because he is God. Therefore how the guru acts
must always be right no matter how wrong it may appear. The
problems of this approach to relating to the guru or teacher have
come very much into prominence in the recent past by the
behaviour of many of these gurus who have come to the West. Gross
abuses of power and sex are as problably more commonplace within
groups centered around such deified teachers as they have been
shown to be amongst the "celibate' clergy of the Catholic
church.
(See The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power and Prophetic
Charisma by Len Oakes, Sycracuse University Press 1997 for in
depth examination of the dynamics which take place when this type
of relationship is set up.)
Of course most people who go to yoga classes, do not relate to
their yoga teachers on this level. There is however a tendency
within the hatha yoga traditions to take the received wisdom
unquestioningly. This is the right way to practice this
particular asana. Any other way is incorrect. This asana is good
for this particular ailment. In certain schools of yoga students
are encouraged to do postures against their better judgement, and
injuries are often the result of this. I have had students come
to me for lessons with neck problems who have been put into a
head-stand at their very first yoga class! One prominent Indian
teacher well known for his authoritarian style of teaching is
well known for hitting and even kicking students in his classes!
A friend who works in child protection was horrified on observing
one of his classes to see the bruise left on the chest of one of
the participants. Of course there are many teachers and
traditions that are much more respectful of the individual.
This type of authoritarianism is certainly not unknown in the
West - the most obvious authoritarian institution is the army
where men are trained to respond automatically to orders from
superiors. The inculcation of this readiness for authomatic
obedience in inculcated by a process of bodily training. In his
book UCL, Alexander has reproduced a photograph from a newspaper
entitled "How The Sergeant-Major stands.
Alexander writes: It would seem incredible to
me ...that anyone should find it in him a wish to distort the
body of a human being in this way, and still more incredible that
anyone could be found who would submit to the indignity and folly
of procedure that can bring it about. (6)
The distortion of the human body is a common technique of all
totalitarian regimes and organisations. The goose-stepping of the
Communist and Nazi military is an even more extreme example of
distortion than displayed by the British Sergeant-Major. Of
course if you can train people in such body use, it is easy to
get them to override any reactions of fear, pity, conscience or
empathy. The aim of both yoga and the Alexander technique is of
course opposite to these technologies of oppression. There is no
right way of standing, sitting or walking. Our bodies are unique
just as we are unique. I often tell my students that if they look
like they are doing the Alexander technique, they are not
applying the principles, but rather imposing something on
themselves. The application of the principles should provide us
with more comfort and flexibility, not stiffness and rigidity.
When I was at school, teachers would often attempt to regain
control of a class by telling the pupils to "sit up
straight." In fact one of the things which schools teach
young children coming in to them is to sit still. Some
educationalists are questioning this approach, and there seems to
be some evidence that some students with a 'kineasthetic'
learning style need movement in order to memorize and process
information.
How can I judge if I have found a good teacher?
We all deal with this sort of question when we are seeking out an
expert of professional in any field. How do I know that the
dentist, doctor, lawyer, my child's school is good. The answer is
that, unless we have some expertise in the particular field
ourselves we can't for sure. We can of course judge if a teacher
is personable, and respectful, but good interpersonal skills
don't necessarily indicate the level of competence in their
particular field. You will of course want to work with a teacher
who you can communicate with.
Alexander teachers
You should of course question your teacher as to his or her
training and qualifications. In the Alexander technique you will
need to find a teacher who has completed a three year training
course affiliated with STAT or a national society. (AUSTAT,
CANSTAT, SVLAT, AmSTAT) These courses have a minimum of 1600
hours instruction with a maximum teacher to student ration of 5:1
and directors of such courses must have been teaching for many
years themselves prior to training teachers. Of course as in any
profession there are more and less skilled practitioners, and
just because the training courses all agree to minimum
quantitative standards doesn't mean that all courses are equally
good. There are also a smaller number of teachers affiliated to
ATI, under whose umbrella a number of training courses are run.
Their courses often allow for more variation in training. My very
limited experience of the courses which they have approved range
from excellent to very bad. I suspect that with the exception of
New Zealand, ATI trained teachers are as likely to be competent
as STAT trained.
Once you have had a number of lessons with a teacher, it is
always good to have some lessons elsewhere. You will find that
different teachers teach differently. This is because the
technique is more about the application of certain principles to
our use rather than particular procedures. Most teachers will
work with you in the constructive rest position on a table, and
in getting in and out of a chair and walking. Many teachers,
myself included will work with you in other activities,
especially activities that you do frequently or have problems
doing with ease and comfort. What is important is that you begin
to learn how to coordinate your movement more effectively and
improve your sensory awareness.
Yoga Teachers
In the area of yoga training there is a huge variety of
trainings available. There are weekend, week or month courses
which offer to give you training as a yoga teacher as well as
trainings that take place over many years. Find out what sort of
training your teacher has had. There are also a wide variety of
different yoga organisations. As with the Alexander technique a
good teacher at a minimum has practiced intensively for a number
of years. As with the Alexander work skill is developed over
years and decades of teaching. Like the Alexander technique yoga
practice is related to the individual. Traditionally it was
taught as the Alexander technique is predominately taught by one
teacher to one pupil. Though for economic and time considerations
yoga is mostly taught in class situations the yoga teacher should
still be able to assess individuals different needs within a
class situation.
(1) CCCI p.7
(2) CCCI p.50
(3) Teaching Aphorisms from Articles and Lectures p.205
(4) Ibid p.198
(5) Shiva-Samhita (III.13) p.21
(6) UCL p.69
School
for F.M. Alexander Studies
330 St. Georges Road
North Fitzroy (corner Holden Street)
Victoria, Australia
Tel: 61 3 9486 5900