Our debt to AR Alexander

Concept Corner by Don Weed

An on-going series of essays that deals with various concepts in the work.

One of the oldest sources of disagreement between the conventional approach to teaching the work and the approaches from which the Interactive Teaching Method is derived has to do with the use of particular procedures while teaching. Some teachers have tried to establish the idea that certain procedures that FM used while teaching must be used in teaching his work. Not only do these individuals want to restrict the practice of teaching primarily to the use of these procedures, some also want to restrict the definition of the term “Alexander Technique” to mean these practices and these practices only.

Proponents of other approaches to the work, most notably those developed in America, away from the dominance of the London-based training courses, ask a simple question, “If Alexander’s work is based on principles, then wouldn’t any procedure that is consistent with and empowered by the principles that Alexander wrote about be an appropriate procedure?” More to the point, “Wouldn’t any progress in the work or the teaching of the work necessarily have to move beyond the teaching practices that were used before”? It is either the case that the work has been perfected and we should do all we can to keep it pure or, as Alexander wrote, “the knowledge gained is but a beginning”1 and we have a duty to take up the adventure to pursue the work with which he challenged us.

Principles v. procedures. The content of a lesson and the ideas behind that content v. the particular form that the teaching of that content ought to take has been at the center of much of the disagreements in our profession since I first began learning the work in 1971.

What most people do not realize is that this split concerning principles v. procedures, along with the debates about how hands ought to be used in a lesson, how teachers ought to be trained to use their hands, and the mechanics by which manipulative change takes place in a lesson is as old as the first teacher-training course.2 Prior to that time everything in the work had been decided by the two Alexander brothers working things out together. The technique was what the Alexanders said it was. As I shall write about next time, after 1934, everything changed and the opinions and the procedures created by some of Alexander’s students began to change the shape, and perhaps even the nature, of how lessons would be taught in the future.

Perhaps the single, most important factor that led to the dominance of this one particular school of thought and the subsequent claim that this way of teaching was the one and only way to teach was the absence of opposition to this point of view. Walter Carrington tells us that the students on the first teacher-training course had split into two groups, conceptually and procedurally.3 One of those groups – “Patrick Macdonald’s lot”4, as Walter calls them – stayed and worked primarily in London during and after the thirties, and their viewpoint was largely unopposed. But, as important as this lack of opposition was, I believe the most important factor with respect to the narrowing down of the work’s scope to a single approach in teaching was the fact that the London group did not have to deal with the presence and teaching mastery of AR Alexander.

As FM’s brother, AR had an early and long-standing influence on the development of the technique.5 His knowledge, command, and understanding of the work begun by his brother is legendary and evidenced by the often remarked upon fact that he required only six lessons to learn the work and never needed the use of manipulation to aid him in the process.6 Marjorie Barstow, a member of the “other” group on the first training course, often used to say that, “FM was the genius who discovered the work; but AR was the teacher who knew how to teach”.7 When I first began learning the work in the seventies, I was told repeatedly in lessons and conversations by many different people from many different backgrounds that, although FM expressed reservations about all of the teachers who remained in London, he never lost faith or trust in AR and his work.

What made AR so important to the work and what made his absence from London so significant is that he taught differently from FM. Marjory Barlow tells us that, “A.R.’s way was different. I had both uncles’ work over the years, and they were teaching exactly the same thing, but their method was different.”8 How could there be only one way to teach if both Alexander brothers taught the same thing differently? Further, this difference doesn’t seem to have been a problem for Marjory because she also informs us that “A.R. used to help us a lot. Really help us, because he was so insistent on ‘thinking’”.9 Frank Jones tells us that when training teachers, “A.R. did not give much specific instruction in the use of the hands [a practice, according to Carrington10 and Gummere,11 that was also true of F.M.], believing that the important thing was to be able to observe both yourself and the pupil and to work out your own style of teaching without end-gaining for specific changes.”12 Frank also confesses that, “This disturbed me at first, but I now believe he was right, since I was forced to develop an understanding of the Alexander principle[s so] that I could communicate in my own terms instead of taking over a reasonably accurate facsimile of the Alexander’s way of teaching.”13

Acquiring a reasonably accurate facsimile of “the way Alexander taught” lies at the heart of the procedures v. principles argument. Acquiring a reasonably accurate facsimile of “the way Alexander taught” is the goal behind insisting that training courses ought to be run in a particular way to produce a particular product. Yet, as I shall demonstrate next time, this way of training was never Alexander’s way of training, nor even his desire in how training should occur. But this particular way of teaching that a very small group of individuals tried to change the work to -- according to their own viewpoints and preferences -- still dominates much of our profession.

I believe that the major reason why this is so is that with AR in America, these didn’t have to acknowledge the fact that, in the history of the work, there has always been more than one dominant way of working, a way different from their own. As Frank Jones put it, “having lessons from each of the Alexander brothers gave me a perspective that I do not believe I would have obtained if I had only worked with one of them. (Working with both of them made it) much easier to see that there was a fundamental principle involved that had nothing to do with the personality of the teacher or his particular way of teaching.”14

As Marjory Barlow reminds us, the opposition in London to AR and his way of teaching, however, was quite stiff. There was even a signed, round robin letter sent to FM in the middle thirties claiming that AR was not really teaching the work! In telling us this, Marjory hints that AR’s move to America may have been an outcome of these complaints15 (although this explanation differs from the accounts told by American teachers and although Evans’ claim that AR’s move to America had more to do with the death of his wife and with having his sister take over the running of his house in England is far more persuasive16). Because of FM’s steadfast support of AR even after these complaints – after all, FM did not denounce AR as a result of this letter, and in fact he continued to teach with AR in America and began the “third” teacher-training course with him there -- it is far more reasonable to conclude that AR was indeed teaching the work in a way of which FM approved. AR was just not teaching it in the way the teachers back in London believed it ought to be done.

And that is the crux of the issue. There is no one way to teach the work. There never has been. FM changed the way he taught significantly throughout his career.17 AR taught differently with FM, but with great success. But with AR in America, the people back in England did not have to account for a demonstrably different and successful approach to teaching the work by someone with arguably better credentials and greater experience in the work. With AR in America, they could claim to be preserving the one and only way to teach – “FM’s way of teaching” -- when all they were really preserving was their own modifications and ideas.

Because Alexander’s work is based on principles -- basic truths that have universal application -- the idea that there could only be one way to teach makes no sense. As proponents of the idea that Alexander’s work is principle-driven, we, in the ITM, recognize that the London-based, procedure-driven approach to teaching does work and is therefore valid, useful and worthy of preservation. But, we also believe it is not the only way to teach, and therefore should not be adopted as a standard for the profession.

[This essay, “Our Debt to AR Alexander”, is actually the first half of a two part essay. The second part, “The Revolution of ‘34” will appear in the next issue of Contributions. As always, most of the more controversial claims made in both essays are taken from the Alexander literature. Although the appropriate footnotes are indicated by numerals in this essay, space prevents us from printing the source references in this issue. They will be included in the next issue.]

Don Weed