Features
Changing times: On-line teaching By Malcolm Williamson
A
lexander used an analogy borrowed from nineteenth century technology to explain “primary control”. He described it as the body’s self-regulator operating like the governor of a steam engine that prevents its moving parts from running amok and causing irreparable damage to itself.1 Interestingly, a governor was also known as an ‘inhibitor’ and Alexander’s major contribution was to develop a self-help way of bringing an inhibitory control over disruptive habits (misuses) as key to the “harmonious working of the parts” of the human body. Although inhibition is necessary it is not always sufficient. Alexander thought mankind had ceased being a natural animal.2 In adapting to the conditions of a rapidly changing, industrialized world most adults have developed habits that interfere with the integrated functioning of the organism. Restoring this organization is fundamental to our ability to adapt successfully and respond moment-to-moment to our surroundings. But there is a problem with trying to do this directly for ourselves. The familiar “guiding sensations”3 (feelings) we use to organize our movements are themselves the product of our aberrant muscular habits – the very things we may want to change. Now, the idea of nerves as telegraph wires carrying information is another analogy borrowed from engineering. In-put (afferent, sensory) nerves transmit information about our environment. They also transmit information that gives rise to the “resident” feelings produced by our body as it moves. This was William James’ explanation: [W]e have, whenever we perform a movement ourselves, another set of impressions, those, namely, which come up from the parts that are actually moved. These kinæsthetic impressions . . . are so many resident effects of the motion. Not only are our muscles supplied with afferent as well as with efferent nerves, but the tendons, the ligaments, the articular surfaces, and the skin about the joints are all sensitive, and, being stretched and squeezed in ways characteristic of each particular movement, give us as many distinctive feelings as there are movements possible to perform.4 As for information transmitted by the out-going (efferent, motor) nerves that innervate our muscles, these send us no feedback (or feelings) whatsoever. Sherrington noted: I reflect that various parts of my brain are involved in the coordinative management of [the act of standing], and that in doing so my brain’s rightness of action rests on receiving and despatching thousands of nerve messages, registering and adjusting pressures, tensions, etc., in various parts of me. Remembering this I am perhaps rather disappointed at the very little that my mind has to tell me about my standing.5 So, we are unaware of all the complex processes that 12
intervene between our wishing and the act that follows. Many theories have been proposed to explain this phenomenon from Descartes’ notion about the pineal gland to divine interventions! The one that gave support to Alexander’s empirical discoveries was ideomotor theory that still retains credibility.6 Quite simply, we think an action (James gave the example of getting out of bed on a winter’s morning) and, so long as there are no other conflicting thoughts – “It’s cold and dark outside” – it happens.7 To summon up a movement voluntarily, according to the theory, we have to think of what it felt like on a previous occasion: James concludes, before performing a voluntary action (e.g., making a toast at a dinner party), one must have an idea of what that action is to be. These ideas are often based on memory. As James (Vol. 2, p. 487) . . . notes, ‘If, in voluntary action properly so-called, the act must be foreseen, it follows that no creature not endowed with divinatory power can perform an act voluntarily for the first time.’ These representations are not of the action itself but, rather, of the perceptual consequences in the world (or in the body) of the action having been expressed.8 James wondered how it is that we make a particular movement for the very first time. He could think only of random and reflex movements, or “passively received experiences” as when we allow someone else to move us.9 The first chiefly relies on trial-and-error; the second can be more reliable but is obviously impractical as a permanent solution. Whatever, the fact remains that, until we have experienced the ‘resident’ feelings produced by a movement, we have no conception of what it feels like to do it. But there is a third way unknown to James (cue fanfare): the way of working developed by Alexander: . . . teaching to the principles of conscious guidance and control on a basis of re-education and general coordination . . . [the pupil] can be taught to inhibit the faulty movements, and his teacher can assist him to gain slowly but correctly the necessary experiences in the correct use of those muscular mechanisms which will enable him sooner or later to govern them properly without the aid of the teacher, and to employ them with accuracy and precision . . . 10 In this case, it is usually a matter of changing a longstanding habit. So first, the pupil has to prevent it, and the associated feelings, from happening. He refuses to contemplate carrying out the activity by saying ‘no’ or withholding consent. Then, he must allow himself to be guided by his teacher in restoring primary control and gaining “the necessary experiences in the correct use of [his] muscular mechanisms”. And only then can he be taught with
