People have asked me:

“Why do you insist on calling our work ‘Alexander's discovery’?”

It’s a valid question, and one I continue to ask my Self. The simplist answer I have is this:

Alexander's discovery is just that, a discovery. It is not a technique or method.

It’s like the realization that the earth revolves around the sun. Knowing it doesn’t change it, but it changes you. It changes your ideas, your beleifs, your choices.

Alexander's discovery can be expressed in several different ways:

Back in the 1980s, I negotiated a deal with an upmarket Chiropractic Centre in Neutral Bay, a suburb full of married woman who practised Yoga because they hadn't heard of Pilates yet. Luckily, Alexander was in vogue back then, so I could demand my terms.

I told the Manager: I can pay you when I teach, that's it. No monthly rent, sorry.

I was happy to walk away from the deal.

*** SIDE BAR ***

That's the simple secret to being strong in a negotiation. As English billionaire Felix Dennis puts it in 88 The Narrow Road:

It amazes me that anyone finds teaching groups difficult.

And I get it. I worried once too. So what's difficult about standing in front of a group of people?

TWO THINGS:

1. The trash in your head
2. Not knowing what to do

---

1. THE TRASH IN YOUR HEAD

It's not what is happening in the room that makes it "difficult" - it is what is happening in your head. You look at them all and think: "What do they think of me?" And because you can't possible know that - (can you read minds???) - then you make it up:

I have a confession to make.

My original motivation for creating my 2 year certificate course in “BodyThinking” was fear of what would happen if I didn’t. It was 2003 and I was worried.

Fear is not always a negative thing: running away from a fire is clever.

Here’s the story of the fire I was running away from…

“Rafferty Rules” was the biggest day in my little 5 year old life.

It happened on Fridays, I don’t remember much more. All I remember is that Dad said I could do…

ANYTHING: Rafferty Rules = There Are No Rules (Wow)

To my magical baby mind, that was, like – incomprehensible. Anything? I can do anything? What will I do? I know, stay up late. Which was about all I could think of (since in those days no one was obsessed about sugar intakes).

In May 2007 I was sitting on a plane on my way to New York. One of the highlights of my visit was to ask advice from Lucy L. Brown Ph.D. at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, on our BodyData project in BodyChance at the time.*

As preparation for our meeting, I was brushing up on her Alexander orientated speculations by re-reading her Paper on Sensory-Motor Contagion† from the first Lugano Conference in Switzerland.

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?

Back in the day when I was training in London during the 70s, group teaching was considered a cheaper, lower grade version of learning Alexander's discovery. Some people still think this way. This wisdom is premised on the idea that giving pupils’ an experience is king: what you are teaching is a sensation.

I agree - when your primary means of education is first to deliver an exceptional experience, then prolonged physical contact with a pupil is pretty much essential. This in turn leads to a world of “hands on” and intensive one on one teaching.

People ask me: why am I so against tablework, hands-on practise and teaching individually?

Good question.

I ask it to my Self often, because it appears I am against the flow of an entire profession. All three of these are revered and valued, yet here I am stating unequivocally that I do not support this vision of our work.

No wonder I get attacked.

I don't see it as attack though, I see it as people defending their own position. Fair enough. What else can you do when someone (like me) appears to be undermining all that you hold valuable in your work?

I am creating quite a ruckus in Japan these days - I announced that we will now call what we do BodyChance Method, not Alexander Technique.

What?!!

Students are exclaiming: we came to learn Alexander Technique!

Yes, well - of course. I do get that.

But how do you define Alexander Technique?

There are two ways to define Alexander Technique:

1.Alexander Technique is what Alexander discovered.
2.Alexander Technique is a way of teaching what Alexander discovered.