Contents copyright © 2017 Dr Nick Drengenberg
ISBN 978-1-927437-57-5

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

LearningMethods Publications

Toronto, Canada

www.learningmethods.com

Other publications by David Gorman (founder and developer of LearningMethods)

– 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

I Wouldn’t Start From Here
by
Dr. Nick Drengenberg

This article is also available as a web page:

www.learningmethods.com/i-wouldnt-start-from-here.htm

Download other free e-books by Nick Drengenberg:

www.learningmethods.com/ebooks.htm

There’s an old joke, where somebody asks for directions, and in reply they get told “hmmm, well I wouldn’t start from here…” This is a short article about presence, and how we maybe don’t understand that joke well enough…

Presence traditions, particularly mindfulness, are popular and making inroads into both personal and professional life, including into medicine.

The basic approach is as simple a thing as you could imagine. Just let go, let things be as they are, discover the power of letting yourself automatically respond to things rather than always reacting to them. To not try to make things right or any particular way, but to let them just be as they actually are. Whether that be in your body, in your activities, or whatever.

Common training in achieving this sort of presence includes people being encouraged to learn again how to pay attention to things, to focus on their senses; on what they see, hear, smell, touch, and so on. It’s this attentional workout that can lead people astray, however, or at least get them stuck in years of repetitive, fairly meaningless sensing. A sort of trap, where people continue to be as reactive as they always were, while simply changing the focus of their reaction towards their senses. Experienced mindfulness practitioners are aware of and speak of this trap sometimes, but usually offer little more than encouragement to just keep at it.

Is there a faster way to achieve this sort of presence, and at the same time can we understand this trap a little better? I’ll have a go.

There would be many ways into this argument, but let’s use the senses. The senses are in themselves a fairly abstract idea, coming out of scientific study of human beings and how they operate. We are all told from a very young age that we see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and so on, and these are some of the most unquestioned core facts that we all share in our lives. And for most purposes it doesn’t really matter that these ideas don’t really make much sense (ha) at all.

It’s actually pretty obvious for example that we don’t see just with our eyes, our eyes are part of a head that is in turn part of a body that stands, sits and moves about. Saying that we see with our eyes is like saying we drive with a steering wheel, forgetting all of the rest of the car. The eyes are critical to seeing, no doubt, but as the great American psychologist J. J. Gibson once said, in describing what he called the “little man in the brain” theory of vision that most of use:

“...there has to be a little man, a homunculus, seated in the brain who looks at this physiological image. The little man would have to have an eye to see it with, of course, a little eye with a little retinal image connected to a little brain, and so we have explained nothing...”. (see his ‘The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception’, p. 53, the Psychology Press Classic Edition).

What we see is tied up with how we interact with the world around us, and not just with our eyes — with all of us. The same applies to what we hear, or touch, or even taste. People enjoy illusions that ‘fool’ the senses, but most of this fooling is nothing of the sort, it’s usually just a artificial and restricted situation that doesn’t provide the body (rather than only the eyes, or ears, or whatever) with the usual full set of information it needs to make an assessment.

So what does this have to do with presence? If you think of a human being as something that takes in sense data, an organ at a time, and then combines it all together (usually in the brain, as the silly theory goes and which Gibson so beautifully mocked in the quote above), then yes you will suggest that the solution to being more present will be to look at things, and to listen to things, and to smell things, and so on. And then you’ll see people trying this, wandering around randomly looking at things, and touching things, and listening out for things, for no purpose other than ‘to be present’. Like a camper in the dark trying to recreate a full scene of their surroundings by waving a flashlight about.

In everyday life this isn’t how we actually function. Yes we see things, and hear things and smell them, but not usually as separate acts. We do all of these things as part of a wider, meaningful and purposeful context of life, in a given moment. We ‘have a look at what’s making that sound over there’, or we ‘try to find the source of that smell’, and so on. We don’t need to undertake some activity of looking and hearing and smelling and touching, those are components of an entire activity we may be up to.

The ‘monkey mind’ that mindfulness approaches for example talk about, where it’s fiendishly difficult to bring our attention to heel and get it focused on something, is maybe in itself a type of illusion. There are two basic ways of experiencing the world, and presence traditions often confuse them. One where we just are, in the moment, looking for what caused that sound, making a cup of tea, or whatever. Where we’re seeing and hearing and smelling and touching, but those are seamless aspects of the full experience we’re living — they don’t stand out as separate activities. And the other is where we do stand back from the world around us, and ‘reflect’ on it, so that there is a sense of me here and stuff over there. We ‘stop to think’, we disengage from our surroundings so that there’s a feeling of me-and-the-world, as separate things.

Both of these experiences are real, but they’re not the same. We tend to assume the latter is our baseline, but the former actually is. Just being somewhere, sitting talking to friends or whatever the situation, and not splitting ourselves us off from what’s happening. We’re just in the moment, as the saying goes, there’s is no sense of us being separate from what’s happening, we’re just there.

Here goes with the hypothesis. Presence traditions often struggle with monkey mind because they start in the separate-me experience and try to use it to achieve the non-separate-me experience. They ask people to train their attention on sights and sounds and smells, but people when just living ordinarily in the moment don’t divide up their experience in those ways. The lack of presence that mindfulness and other approaches try to address isn’t people forgetting to sense, it’s people trying to negotiate their entire experience from somewhere up behind their eyes, in their head. They’re stuck in that feeling of being a lone soul staring out at the world around them, forgetting that a lot of the time, when they’re at a party or otherwise having a good time, for example, all of that is forgotten and they’re just there, seamlessly.

We can all experience just being there, right now. And we do that every day, we may retrospectively think that when we’re having a swim or enjoying the sunshine, that it was ‘me enjoying the sunshine and the swim’. But at the time there was no real sense of ‘me’ there at all, we were just in the moment. Our experience at that moment was sun and water, not me-sensing-sun-and-water.

All you need is to be aware of these two ways of experiencing the world: as just there, or as a separate thing that you’re looking out at. And then don’t confuse them. Don’t try to be just there by being that separate soul staring out at the world, madly taking in ‘sense data’. That may give you a type of presence, but as the joke says, for full presence, I wouldn’t start from there… that’s a surefire way to get a monkey in your head.

Appendix

About the Author

About the LearningMethods work

Find out more about LearningMethods

More Information on the Alexander Technique

LearningMethods Publications

About the Author

Nick Drengenberg trained and worked as an engineer, before working as a teacher of high school students for almost 10 years. During this time he also trained in philosophy, and now works as an administrator at a University, with active research interests in a variety of areas, including the LearningMethods approach.

He recently co-authored a book on learning analytics, which explored how technology and education have not really ever understood each other very well, and what to do about it.

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