🧠 Alexander Technique and the Curious Mind
🧠 When something goes well or feels “right,” it’s so tempting to want to hold onto it, to recreate it later. I want a sure thing. I want a fix. I want to get it right. But the very attempt to hold onto something and recreate it later could be getting in the way of my curiosity and discovery. Does this mindset resonate with you?
🧠 When I have an ah-ha moment - a moment of effortlessness and freedom in my singing, for example - I can slow down and get curious about it. If I reflect on the PROCESS (what Alexander called the “means-whereby”) that resulted in my ah-ha, I can learn much more about how learning actually happens, rather than making a new rule about singing.
🧠 Here’s a common trap I fall into: If I’m exploring movement and singing, I might find freedom in my breath when my arms are raised. Which might lead me to conclude, “I must always sing with my arms above my head to sing high notes.” While this was true on THIS particular exploration, it might not be true tomorrow or an hour from now.
🧠 Pause. Reflect: what was my PROCESS? What was I really up to during this exploration that resulted in freedom and ease? Curiosity. Experimentation. Not attaching to any particular outcome.
🧠 I repeat: Not. Attaching. To. Any. Particular. Outcome. Alexander called this attachment to outcome “end-gaining”: ignoring the process and focusing on an end result.
🧠 What do you think? HOW do you think?
Many thanks to Tommy Thompson and the folks at Total Vocal Freedom for inspiring this post. And of course thank you to F. M. Alexander and Marjorie Barstow for being examples of curiosity and exploration in teaching.
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