Contents copyright © 1991 – 2017 David Gorman
ISBN 978-1-927437-50-6

All rights reserved worldwide.
Book design and illustrations by David Gorman

This publication is a free booklet but remains copyrighted and protected by the author as above. The booklet may be reproduced and distributed freely to anyone PROVIDED that it is not changed in any way — that is, by way of additions, deletions, reformatting or any other form of change. The contents may not be reproduced or published in any other compilation, book, magazine or other form, whether commercial or not, without explicit written permission from the author. Permission requests must be addressed directly to the author (details at www.learningmethods.com/contact.htm).

Trademarks: The “LearningMethods”, “Anatomy of Wholeness”, “Patterns of the Body”, “The Body Moveable”, “Standing on Top of the World” and “Liberating Performers” names and their respective logos are all trademarks of David Gorman and may be registered in some jurisdictions.

First published in print and on the web in 1991
This ePub / Mobi e-book
version is published 2017 by

LearningMethods Publications

Toronto, Canada

www.learningmethods.com

Also by David Gorman

– The Body Moveable –

Blueprints of the Human Musculoskeletal System
Available as a colour version and in
two different black & white versions

– Looking At Ourselves –

Available in both black & white and colour print
editions as well as in various e-book formats

– Anatomy of Wholeness –

An online course in 18 parts (almost 27 hours) about
our structure and function – how our marvellous
human system works when it is working well

– Standing on Top of the World –

An online course over 12 hours of graduated
experiential explorations on the principles
and practice of balance and support

Experience & Experiments

in the Alexander World

by
David Gorman

This article is also available as a web page:

www.learningmethods.com/experience-and-experiments.htm

The following was originally published in The Congress Papers by Direction Journal, July 1992 and is a record of a masterclass given by David at the 3rd International Congress of the Alexander Technique in Engleberg, Switzerland in August 1991

As everyone who was at the recent Congress in Engleberg could see for themselves, we are starting to grow up as a profession. Not only in terms of numbers, but also in the confidence and willingness to look around us at our colleagues and to marvel at the range of talents and interpretations of this work we do. Except for a few sourpusses who held themselves aloof in the mistaken idea that their technique was the real thing and needed protecting from those who were either charlatans or fools, we all got stretched and inspired, appreciated for what we can do and able to see what we might do.

This seems to me, having attending all three congresses, the first one which really included and was representative of the entire community—by the entire community I mean all those who are sincerely exploring the Alexander work and teaching others (and of course, therefore have something to offer us all of their knowledge and their discoveries). It is precisely those who are farthest from us in their background and their way of approach from whom we stand to learn the most. I was very pleased to see so many people so excited by so many different understandings of the work. We still have a long way to go, both in opening ourselves up to the people around us in our own profession and in developing the potential of the work, but we’re off to a good and promising start that feels more solid than ever before.

It is a particularly good time for us all to be coming to this consolidation of the meaning of the work through sharing and openness because the profession has reached the ‘age’ when those who worked directly with Alexander are retiring or passing away and the mantle is passing to another generation of teachers who do not have that direct remembrance of where the work originated. We have only each other now and what we have learned from our teachers and discovered for ourselves, so it behooves us to begin to make the best of each other so that we don’t find ourselves slipping down the path to discord and dissipation of the force of the work through conflict in a way that has afflicted so many other nascent professions. Anyway, that’s enough of a plug for tolerance and openness...

The congress was such a fullness of possibilities that few of us were able to attend more than a fraction of the groups and workshops we would have liked. Perhaps as we read through these Congress papers we’ll be able to glimpse at least something of what we missed and whet our appetites for Australia in ‘94. I had initially decided against accepting the invitation to give one of the second generation classes because I’ve become less satisfied with the value of workshops where I show how I teach by working with others and demonstrating how I do it. It has become much more interesting for me to help others find their own way of teaching and/or what is stopping them from developing their unique and individual expression. I couldn’t quite imagine how to approach this in the time and format available.

Then I remembered what one of the students on my training course had said about a lesson she’d had with Peggy Williams. The student had asked Peggy what she did to get ready to teach as she was about to work with a pupil. She said that Peggy had replied something to the effect that “why should I do anything to teach, I am a teacher!” It made me realize, of course! Why should we do things to get ready to teach if we’ve already integrated the work into our daily lives. We’re as ready as we’re ever going to be. If we haven’t integrated the work into our daily lives then we’re not suddenly going to get any better by preparing for a few seconds—we’re only going to get a little more prepared and less our normal selves. If we feel we have to get ready before coming into contact with a pupil maybe we should work a little more on integrating our ‘good use’ into our daily lives so that we actually are living what we suggest to our pupils.

So I decided to use the second generation class as a way to experiment with this issue with the various teachers and trainees who attended. We kept it simple—just splitting up into small groups, each person taking turns to come up to work on another as they ‘normally’ did, the others observing to see if they stopped and got ready, or ‘directed’, or ‘released’ or anything special that happened just before coming to contact and proceeding with the lesson. It was surprising for a lot of people how much they put in between them and the pupil in terms of preparation.

The second part of the experiment was then to leave out all that intermediate ‘Alexander stuff’ just to see what would happen. Here it was interesting how difficult people found it not to do their usual ‘teaching’ stuff. They felt as if they were no longer doing the Technique, or that they couldn’t possibly teach, or that they would be no good without their extra ‘Alexander armour’. It revealed a lot.

But the most fascinating (and powerful) thing was what actually happened when the ‘teachers’ didn’t do all their ‘teacherness’. The ‘pupil’ being worked with and the observing group all could see and feel the change. In their own way each person felt that the teacher was ‘more with them’ as opposed to behind their teacherness. They felt more ‘allowed’, more ‘space and warmth’. It was as if the teacher by being more themselves allowed the pupil to be more themselves, which felt good and was appreciated. The pupils found themselves less concerned with what was supposed to happen and less anxious of what was expected of them. They were more present with the rest of the group and less drawn in to some inner physical feeling process. For most participants this was all quite unexpected and interesting. Once the teachers got over their difficulty in letting go of the perceived necessity to ‘direct’, etc. they also felt more at ease and had more enjoyment in what they were doing. They didn’t have to do the teaching, they could be the teaching. In other words, they could be teachers.

I think for many it was a surprise to realize that, indeed, they already were highly-trained, sensitive beings embodying a lot more of the work than they had thought. That their preparation and doing actually kept them from their own integration. It distanced them from the pupil and from the human responsiveness between the two of them. I’m only sorry the time was so short (and that I had to miss the other classes to do my own).

I think I’ll go as a ‘civilian’ another time...

Appendix

About the Author

About the LearningMethods work

Find out more about LearningMethods

More Information on the Alexander Technique

LearningMethods Publications

About the Author

David Gorman developed the LearningMethods work from over 30 years of research and teaching experiences. He has a background in both science and as an artist and has always had a fascination with exploring human structure and function. In the mid-1970s he spent many nights dissecting and drawing in the human anatomy lab at his local university.

David has been studying and using the Alexander Technique since 1972 and has been teaching since the late 1970s becoming well-known worldwide for his innovations to the work, and notorious for challenging the orthodoxy of the profession. He has been invited to teach all over the world in universities, conservatories and training colleges, at conferences and symposia, and with performance groups and health and medical professionals.

In 1980 he published an illustrated 600-page work, The Body Moveable and in 1997 the first edition of a collection of articles and essays, Looking at Ourselves. David has also been deeply involved in the professional organization of the Alexander Technique. He was one of the founding members of CanSTAT (Canadian Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique), chairman of the founding committee of NASTAT (now AmSAT, the American Society for the Alexander Technique), the architect of the Affiliated Societies mechanism for Alexander Technique professional organizations to recognize each other, and the author of the original Sponsorship and Certification process of ATI (Alexander Technique International).

In 1982, his teaching was revolutionised by his discovery of a new model of human organisation with its profound implications of our in-built and natural tendency toward balance, ease and wholeness. He extended these insights into a new way of training teachers of the Alexander Technique and from 1988 to 1997 in London, U.K. he trained 45 teachers. However, further explorations in his own and other training groups made it clear that a huge part of our problems lay not in the functioning of the “body” but in our consciousness and our way of seeing things — our underlying belief systems and how we misinterpret daily experiences and then react to these misunderstandings. At this point it also became apparent that his discoveries and the changed teaching methods they implied no longer could be squeezed in under the premises and pedagogy of the Alexander Technique.

Recognizing the need for a new and effective approach to help people uncover and liberate themselves from these circular traps, David developed the LearningMethods work to teach people how to gain command of their exquisite in-built clarity of perception and powerful tools of intelligence so they can successfully navigate their lives.

Since the beginning of the work in 1997, David has completed the training of a growing number of LearningMethods Teachers, many of whom are now teaching the LM work in universities, colleges and conservatories. He continues to evolve the Apprenticeship Teacher Training Program and since 2010 has added live online video-conferencing as part of the training as well as running online post-graduate groups for Alexander Technique teachers and groups for those who want to learn to use LearningMethods in their own lives and work. He also gives in-person workshops in Europe, North America and Asia as well as writing about the work and raising another young son.

Anyone interested in the work, upcoming courses, training as a teacher, etc. should visit the LearningMethods website for more information and contact details (www.learningmethods.com), or e-mail David directly at david@learningmethods.com.

About the LearningMethods work

We are the most amazing learning creatures on the planet. We have a wonderful in-built intelligence, an exquisitely sensitive awareness and a wealth of experience. Yet we still suffer from so many chronic and completely unnecessary problems.

Why?

Because only a few people have moved into their full heritage as humans and learned how to bring their intelligence to bear on their experience to understand and solve their problems.

How do I know this?

I see it every day in my teaching. Once people learn the simple yet incredibly powerful tools of how to unravel what’s happening to them they can change far more easily and quickly than they dreamed possible.

How can this happen?

Because everything you need is already within you — the only thing missing is learning how how to use it.

LearningMethods teaches you how to use your intelligence to explore and understand your daily experience, to make sense out of your issues and problems, and how to change them. In other words, LearningMethods gives you the set of tools to navigate your life successfully — to find your way back to your natural wholeness and presentness; to be free of chronic tension and effort; to be more effective and stress-free at work and to be more at ease and in harmony with others — in fact, the tools for solving any problem that’s solvable.

It is not a far-off dream — it is in your very human nature to be able to learn from experience and liberate yourself from problems. It is your birthright to gain wisdom about life and to feel at home in the universe. And, there is no time like the present to start !

David Gorman, founder of LearningMethods

Find out more about LearningMethods

Studying and upcoming workshops, finding teachers, reading on-line articles, publications and online store, teacher training and professional development:

LearningMethods homepage — www.learningmethods.com

What is LearningMethods? How it can help you; what you’ll learn
— www.learningmethods.com/lm-engl.htm

The principles of the work How does it operate? What is it based on?
— www.learningmethods.com/question.htm

How do I study it? How LM is taught and the various ways to study it
— www.learningmethods.com/lmstudy.htm

Finding a Teacher List of LM teachers and apprentice-teachers
— www.learningmethods.com/lmteach.htm

Quotes and Testimonials How LM has helped people and what they have said
— www.learningmethods.com/lmquotes.htm

Online Library of Articles Exploring and solving various problems
— www.learningmethods.com/lmarticle.htm

Online Store Buy printed publications, e-books, audio and video recordings
— www.store.learningmethods.com/

Professional Development Online learning and professional development for teachers, practitioners or performers
— www.training.learningmethods.com/

Training as an LM Teacher What’s involved in becoming a LearningMethods or an Anatomy of Wholeness Teacher
— www.training.learningmethods.com/

More Information on the Alexander Technique

Information about the Alexander Technique on the Internet

The Complete Guide to the Alexander Technique is a good general Alexander Technique Internet resource with many resources on the Alexander Technique — articles, audio and video recordings, podcasts, interviews and more: www.alexandertechnique.com

Alexander Technique Professional Organizations

Here is a listing of the current Alexander Technique professional organizations beginning with ATI, the international professional body with branches in 12 countries and members world-wide. All these bodies have a mechanism for assessing the competence of teachers and for granting Teaching Certificates and/or Teaching Membership. All have a Code of Ethics to which all Teaching Members subscribe.

Alexander Technique International (ATI)

Web: www.alexandertechniqueinternational.com
E-mail: office@alexandertechniqueinternational.com

Most of the other Alexander Technique professional organizations are local groups comprising the teachers in separate countries. As of the publication of this book these national organizations can be found at: www.alexandertechniqueworldwide.com (this link is to the web site of the UK-based STAT).

LearningMethods Publications

For a complete list of LearningMethods Publications:

– books & booklets – downloadable e-books
– audio recordings – video recordings

visit the LearningMethods Online Store: www.store.learningmethods.com

– descriptions of the publications – details of costs and shipping
– secure ordering by credit card – instant downloading of e-books

Here are a few examples of what is on offer:

The Body Moveable — A detailed study of the structure, function and dynamics of the human musculoskeletal system with thousands of beautiful illustrations and clear and detailed text. See sample pages at link below.

First published 1981, now in its 6th edition. Size: ( 8.5” x 11” / 21.6cm x 28cm )

In three different formats. all with the same content:

— Single-volume Colour hardback (above left) - ISBN 978-1-927437-01-8

— Single-volume B&W hardback (above middle) - ISBN 978-1-927437-00-1

— Three-volume B&W hardback set (above right) - ISBN 978-1-897452-90-5

All versions have a laminated hardcover for years of long-lasting use.

Full details, sample pages and ordering at www.bodymoveable.com

Looking at Ourselves – Exploring and Evolving in the Alexander Technique

Print edition: 2nd edition, 176-page paperback (in Colour or B&W)
Size: 6.69" x 9.61" / 17cm x 24.4cm

Ordering: www.learningmethods.com/lmpub-looking-at-ourselves.htm

E-book: (same content as above) for PDF and various e-book readers

Ordering: www.learningmethods.com/ebooks/gorman-looking-at-ourselves-ebook.htm

In Our Own Image – The elastic suspension system

This series of 8 articles is part of the Looking At Ourselves book above, and has been extracted to its own e-book.

E-book only: for PDF and various e-book readers

www.learningmethods.com/ebooks/gorman-in-our-own-image-ebook.htm

The Anatomy of Wholeness – An online course on our innate coordination of wholeness and ease; its implications for daily life, performance, recovery and healing.

Video - Online course (stream to any Internet-connected device), 25+ hours

www.learningmethods.com/lmpub-courses--anatomy-of-wholeness.htm

Standing on Top of the World – Experiencing the Fundamental Freedom of Support and Balance

This graduated series of practical and experiential follow-along demonstrations was developed over the last 15 years by David Gorman to teach the principles of support and balance and how to live them in everything you do. This video course is also aimed at helping teachers learn how to teach this material themselves.

Video - Online course (stream to any Internet-connected device), 12+ hours

www.learningmethods.com/lmpub-courses--standing-on-top-of-the-world.htm

Liberating Performers – Eliminating Performance Anxiety (nervousness, self-judgment, doubt and fear)

A recording of the “Liberating Performers” series of workshops helping performers to see through the misconceptions that generate fear and nervousness, and how to get rid of it permanently.

Audio - Online course (stream to any Internet-connected device), 19+ hours

www.learningmethods.com/lmpub-courses--liberating-performers--audio.htm

Sounds of a Provence Summer – Day & Night

Live recording of the quintessential sounds of the hot Provençal summer – the cigales (cicadas) by day and the crickets at night, plus a summer thunderstorm and soothing rainfall. Listen to a sample of the CD at the link below.

Audio CD, 76 minutes – 1 CD (playable in any CD player)

www.learningmethods.com/lmpub-cdcigales.htm

Free e-books to download — Browse a large collection free e-books versions of various articles. Download, read and send to friends . . .

www.store.learningmethods.com#ebooks

And More Books Coming in the future . . .

Revealing the Obvious – The Anatomy of Wholeness
A new book, still in process, on the coordination of wholeness and ease and its implications for you, the whole thinking responding being. Extracts will be available in e-book format soon.

www.learningmethods.com/revealing.htm

Standing on Top of the World – Experiencing the Freedom of Balance and Support
A book about a series of practical demonstrations that will put you in touch with your own system’s signals about support and orientation so you can be supported, whole and easy, responsive and present in every aspect of your life.

www.store.learningmethods.com

Liberating Performers – Escaping the trap of nervousness, self-judgment, and fear
An upcoming book on why we get trapped in performance and social anxieties, how these fears are based an interlocked series of misconceptions, and how understanding and using your in-built “value register” will liberate you permanently.

www.store.learningmethods.com