Once at breakfast, I remember being interrupted by a girlfriend pleading with me in an exasperated voice:

“What’s wrong with you this morning?”

I was genuinely surprised (and a little irritated).

“Nothing.” I lifted my eyebrows.

“Fine”, she re-joined “have it your way.”

I was fed up with this.

“What are you talking about!?”

Have you ever noticed how often FM’s work is “discovered” in other methods?

Haven’t you ever wondered about that?

Of course (speaking from my own experience) it can be intensely irritating to explain…

“No, AT isn’t really like Yoga. Not at all.”

…because not only is the listener nonplussed by your response, they also become slightly irritated and defensive too.

It’s like two 5 year olds on a playground: “My daddy’s better than your daddy. There!”

I was in Betty and Paul Collins’ house in Onslow Gardens, N10 in London.

It was 1977 and I was in my second year of AT training. Robert Rickover was waxing lyrical about this American teacher I had never heard of – Marjorie Barstow.

“She talks about the head moving…” I remember Rickover whispering to a few of us in the back room. I was scandalized.

That’s dreadful, I thought to myself, doesn’t this woman understand non-doing?

Once upon a time (it’s a true story) I was learning in a workshop with a respected colleague, and as she was demonstrating how the relationship between head/spine influences behaviour, she commented something to the effect:

“This is just a truth about vertebrates. We haven’t even got into Alexander land yet.”

I was startled.

First, I absolutely agreed with her.

Second, I thought: “If that’s not Alexander land, what is?!”

How brave are you?

Read on, and you will understand why I am asking this question.

This morning I was reading Peter Drucker – a famous management consultant who often worked in Japan - and a sentence in his book jumped out at me as quite profound. He wrote:

"Individual self-development in large measure depends on the focus on contributions."

How you can contribute to Society is a tricky question.

Senses are reliable.
Senses are unreliable.

Depending on how you think – both are true, and neither are right.

It’s a bit like light as particles or light as waves. Whichever conceptual approach you take, you find irrefutable evidence to support your concept. That is, until you think differently.

Isn’t all life like that?

People don’t buy when they are confused.

And Alexander's discovery is the mother of all confusing things!

I’m celebrating today the start of our 2nd ATSuccess annual coaching program with 9 teachers signed up, and another still on the fence. (BTW: the group is closed, this is not a sales letter).

Last month, in BodyChance’s Yoga Pro in Japan, I asked for a show of hands:

“Who has trouble explaining what they are doing here to their friends?”

All the hands went up.

Success is not something you make alone, it is something you make with others.

That’s so obvious and banal, you may wonder why I bother to state it?

Because I didn't get that, not for a long time. My ego was too noisy to let me really hear it.

The statistics are arresting: half of all small businesses will fail within 5 years. Consider that. It’s like throwing a dice. For Alexander discovery teachers, when starting out to build a business, that is not a comforting statistic.

50% or more of small businesses fail within 5 years. Wow!

Keiko Isomura passed away in 2013.

She was one of the first trainees to graduate from BodyChance in 2003 – when it was still called ATA (Alexander Technique Associates) in honour of Don Burton.

I encouraged Keiko-san to explore the world of alternative trainings, so a year after she qualified, she travelled to London and spent 3 months studying with Walter Carrington at the Constructive Teaching Centre in Lansdowne Road.

Keiko became a trainee again.

Ramachandran is the neuro-anatomist who successfully amputated a non-existent arm by using nothing more than a $2 cardboard box and a vertical mirror. I’ve written about him previously here. Not only is he wonderfully inventive, he is a harbinger for a new breed of scientist which gives me hope of a path forward to validate Alexander's discovery.