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.

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?!”

To qualify for the Alexander lie test you must travel in cars (or buses/taxis), use a smart phone (or iPad/computer) and know about Alexander's discovery.

If you this true for you (?) then take the test:

1. Do you want to keep travelling in a car?
2. Do you want to keep using a smart phone?
3. Do you want to keep thinking about your head/spine relationship?

To pass this test you needed to answer an unequivocal yes to all three questions.

Right now I am in the process of ripping apart my past to find a way to my future.

Contained within my past is a modus operandi that I conceive holds back my ability to act effectively and efficiently. To get to the future, I think I need to understand my past.

Maybe you identify this same tendency in you? I am certainly not alone in this…

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.

He was their last hope, the desperate solution, the final wacky choice before the lid of their coffin was fastened over the top of their finally resting heads.

And of course – as we know – FM came through.