My book is officially published!

Following is the copy from the  acknowledgement page.  I offer it here in hopes of reaching everyone whose quests, questions, and curiosity helped me develop this work.

Acknowledgements

The first acknowledgment goes to all the performing artists who have helped shape this work – the members of my theater company, Washington Street Players Place in Lincoln, Nebraska; The Performance School artists; and the performing artists of the Alexander Technique Training and Performance Studio; the current students and the alumni of the University of Washington School of Drama’s Professional Actor Training Program; the artists of Lucia Neare’s Theatrical Wonders; and performing artists from Alexander Technique communities worldwide. I am a most appreciative audience and ever grateful for what you share with me.

The University of Washington School of Drama Professional Actor Training Program has been my artistic home since 1986. I am grateful for the collaboration and support of its faculty and staff. I want to especially acknowledge Professor Emeritus Jack Clay, who, unbeknownst to him, was indirectly responsible for my study with Marjorie Barstow, and later invited me to join the faculty of the Professional Actor Training Program; Professors Steve Pearson and Robyn Hunt, for supporting an even more in-depth integration of the Alexander Technique into the program; Professors Sarah Nash Gates, Mark Jenkins and Valerie Curtis-Newton, for their ongoing support; my faculty collaborators, both current and past: Geoffrey Alm, Jeffrey Fracé, Scott Hafso, L. Zane Jones, Judy Shahn, Andrew Tsao, Jeff Caldwell, Judi Dickerson, Max Dixon, Connie Haas, Jon Jory, Betty Moulton and Shanga Parker.

I would also like to thank the Helen Riaboff Whiteley Center located at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL), for providing a refuge to begin writing this manuscript.

Thanks also to Professor Sidney Friedman, who invited me to participate in a workshop with Marjorie Barstow by simply saying, ‘I think you might like it’.

I am grateful to Matt Goodrich for what he describes as ‘various editorial roles’. His contribution to preparing the manuscript for publication exhibits the same commitment to the extraordinary that infuses his piano performance.

Thank you as well to Jessica Mitchell of Intellect Books for her guidance in bringing this book to publication.


For those of you in Seattle, there is a reading and book launch January 15, 2015 :

University Bookstore
4326 University Way NE
Seattle, WA 98105

7:00 p.m.

Please join me if you can to celebrate the book’s publication!

( The book is currently on backorder on Amazon, and you could also order it through the University of Chicago Press.)

A new study is being posted on many Alexander Technique websites.  And, for those of us who have known this work for a while, we might say, “duh!”

The specific study being cited is – “Assessment of Stresses in the Cervical Spine Caused by Posture and Position of the Head” by Kenneth k. Hansraj, MD Chief of Spine Surgery, New York Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine, published in SURGICAL TECHNOLOGY INTERNATIONAL XXV.(abstract accessed at https://cbsminnesota.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/spine-study.pdf)

When I read the abstract, while I was in agreement with its conclusions - 

 Loss of natural curve of the cervical spine s leads to incrementally increased stresses about the cervical spine. These stresses may lead to early wear, tear, degeneration, and possibly surgeries. While it is nearly impossible to avoid the technologies that cause these issues, individuals should make an effort to look at their phones with a neutral spine and to avoid spending hours each day hunched over.

I was concerned by some of its content. I note several things. It is not a study of actual people – it is a modeling study - A model of the cervical spine was created with realistic values in Cosmosworks, a finite element assessment package. And the table provided with the abstract does look like only the cervical spine was included in the model.  While the whole spine is pictorially represented, what the other vertebra are doing in response to the tilting of the head doesn’t make much sense in movement. I also note that in this particular abstract, what is suggested as good posture - perhaps what they mean by neutral spine-  is hopefully something no Alexander Technique teacher would ever teach! 

The writers of the study acknowledge that this is an initial study, and I applaud their call to their own profession to consider the whole picture of cervical pain. And, I do think that if we as Alexander Technique teachers are going to reference studies to promote the work, it is a good idea to read the abstract and/or the whole study so that we can discuss it more fully.

That said, I just spent a day with my sister who teaches elementary school.  Children in her school have carpal tunnel syndrome from texting.  Little kids in pain!

What I watch over and over again are people, including children, imitating what they look at all the time – and the smaller the device, the smaller they try to become.  I have noted in other articles that there seem to be costs not only in discomfort, but also in self-image, thinking skills, and imaginative skills.  The abstract for this study does refer to these consequences as well.  (And there is information in my just-about-to-be-available book -http://www.cathymadden.net/onstage-synergy.html - on my work in this area.)  We are playing catch-up with how we humans interface with our devices – and the Alexander Technique is a fabulous tool for that catch-up. 

What is called into question is how we teach our children to interface with these devices.  While I believe that computers are poor tools for children (really, I think that developmentally 14 years old is plenty early enough to be at a computer or on a cell phone), I know that my belief prompts an uphill discussion in today’s world. What educators need now is a new approach to how movement (rather than posture) is vital in development. I am absolutely delighted when an elementary school teacher takes Alexander Technique classes, workshops, and lessons because I know that has an effect in their classrooms. And I am considering – both for myself and for the Alexander Technique profession -  ways to increase our reach to educators– they need it for themselves, they need it for their students.

Last week I spoke at the Performing Arts Lecture Series- Celebrity and Its Discontents- sponsored by the School of Drama at the University of Washington.  My subject -"Pioneering Spirit in the Celebrity of the Discontented Everyman: F.M. Alexander"

The perspective I took was that being labeled as a celebrity was a challenge to the self.  Celebrity stories provided a gateway to a discussion of how any of us respond to being labeled. Here is an excerpt from the speech -

 “For celebrity, the transition from a taken for granted belonging and solidarity with others to being separated as famous is an experiential turning point in the self.” (from David Giles Illusions of Immortality). So too in our own lives, any event may become an experiential turning point in the self. The Alexander Technique is designed to help us navigate those turning points with authenticity, cooperating with an evolving self.

“[One celebrity […} offered that, in the face of [the media attention],  ‘You constantly have to reassess who you are, take [the fame] off of you and make sure you are centered as a person.”

In actor training, I use the Alexander Technique to help actors sustain the illusion of truth in imaginary circumstance.  When a moment onstage is inauthentic, it is accompanied – in the coordination of the actors - by the characteristic overwork between head and spine.  And, since acting imitates life, the quality of our coordination in our everyman/everywoman moments also reveals to self and others…our truth.  The Alexander Technique turns out to be a powerful tool in cooperating with the evolving truth of ourselves.

The genius of the Alexander Technique, in addition to recognizing the importance of the head/spine relationship as monitor and preserver of coordination of self, is that it recognizes that knowing what we don’t want is, by itself, ineffective, in recovering an effective Use of our Self.…… We need to know what we do want – to actively research our desires - and to actively/volitionally invite ourselves to organize in service of those desires.  This return to conscious cooperation provides us with a replacement to what we may perceive as inauthentic….

The endowment of celebrity and its challenges to authentic communication is serving as an example of any interaction that causes DISCONTENT. 

Both previous speakers in the series, Odai Johnson and Ruby Blondell had referred to the adornments of celebrity – and I decided to give everyone an adornment – bow ties. At the end of the evening we used the bowties to “celebritize” ourselves.

“The moment of being set apart, of being labeled in either everyday or multi-media celebrity, is a challenge to the self – and the moment offers a choice to be a victim of the label, or to respond to the perception as a pioneer, coordinating to our own truth in the pursuit of our desires.”

Friday Harbor Labs, where I host my annual Alexander Technique Residential was in the news this week.  One of the headlines read- 

A Shimmery Sea Blob From The San Juans May Have Just Upended Evolutionary History

(For more of the story - http://kplu.org/post/shimmery-sea-blob-san-juans-may-have-just-upended-evolutionary-history)

One of the things that I enjoy about teaching at Friday Harbor Labs is its environment dedicated to exploration and discovery. Sometimes it seems each patch of ground or stone or beach  that you step on supports creative investigation.

There are two portions of the workshop - the 5 day workshop meets August 22-27; the 4- day meets August 28 -31 and you can take either or both.  Housing is full for the 5 day workshop, but there is a place available if someone stays off campus; places are available - with housing - for the 4-day extension.  For full information, please see the Friday Harbor page on my website.

The first proofs for my book have arrived.. the process towards publishing continues.

Meanwhile, initial information about the book is available from University of Chicago Books - 

http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/I/bo19194482.html

and Amazon - 

http://www.amazon.com/Integrative-Alexander-Technique-Practice-Performing/dp/1783202181

Between now and then, more caring work to bring it to publication in December. 

Seeing the Quality of Coordination

Recently, I encountered once again what seems to me to be a mistaken belief that it is not possible to see the quality of coordination in how someone speaks and moves and thinks as they teach the Alexander Technique.  It reminded me that not all of the many ways and styles of learning to teach this work include the development of observation skills.  Which is ok – as I hope it is ok that that is a skill that I have honed and continue to develop for myself and to teach others.

I thought of the performances in sports and the arts that I have seen in which the quality of the head/spine relationship was very clearly visible; performances in which the coordination is very clearly serving the movement of the joints; performances in which whole self coordination serves brilliant expression.  I thought of many examples, and link here to one of many I could offer and chose this 1998 ice skating performance by Michelle Kwan.  Even in this not very good quality link, the quality of her coordination, including her head/spine relationship is very clear and very describable.

I thought of how I teach even beginning groups to start seeing movement changes and hearing sound changes from their first lessons.  From the beginning class asking them what they see in others.

Sometimes I have beginners reach for something, watching their hands as they reach.  Then ask them to “scrunch up a bit”, interfering with their head/spine relationships and do the same movement, then describe to me what they see has changed in reaching of the hand.  And they can see it and usually can describe it.  While my primary purpose when I do this is to demonstrate the importance of the head/spine relationship in vertebrate coordination, it does also start to teach them how to observe movement.

As I learned to teach, I was asked to develop was the ability to describe accurately what I saw in the quality of my student’s movement.  This process gathered the specific information to accurately use all my teaching tools, including the use of my hands, specifically in relationship to the student I was with.  And, when I did begin to use my hands as part of the teaching process, my instruction was to “look at your hands as you move them to your student.”  Part of the explanation for that was that if I saw my hands tightening on the way to my student, I could renew my coordination as I continued to move my hands to my student.  I noticed that if I was watching my hands, I also saw my student – what a good idea!

As I always do when I am teaching someone to teach, I recently coached someone with the same instruction – watch your hands – and even though I have experienced and seen how useful this is many times, was still delighted (as was she) in its effect in the quality of how she was coordinating to teach.

(Of course, all of the senses – the omnisensory universe of my whole self– are involved in teaching – visual observation is my focus here.)

****

Although it isn’t the primary way that I teach, I do have students who take Skype lessons with me, or who have send me recordings of something they have done.  Some teachers have sent me recordings of their lessons to get feedback on their teaching.  All but one of these students are people that I have taught in person and have some information about the Alexander Technique.  In those lessons, the observation skills that I have developed are vital.  When I can describe to someone what I see, they can use the Alexander Technique to experiment and then I can describe the results of their experiment to them.  Which usually creates another experiment ….and so on.  There is usually a bit of fun in organizing the computer so that I can see what I need to see – and sometimes need to view from multiple angles.  But it works.

(Incidentally, the one person who I hadn’t taught before was a beginner who was hurting from how she played the cello.  Even though we weren’t in the same time/space, the process I guided her in – via Skype - was enough to stop the pain. There was no Alexander Technique teacher in her area so this was her only means of getting the information.)

****

I wouldn’t expect someone whose Alexander Technique practice doesn’t include observation in the way that I have described  to want to teach via Skype or Video.  And, while, I prefer to have real time/real space interactions, I am grateful to have this tool in my toolkit.  And I continue to develop it.  That’s why I watch people who do things well who don’t necessarily know the Alexander Technique - like Michelle Kwan – I want to keep growing my understanding of what works in human coordination

Some years ago when I was trying to solve some coordination issues for some actors in the University of Washington Professional Actor Training Program,  what I was learning gave me a new way of seeing how electronic media might be affecting child development which might be affecting imagination which would of course affect acting techniques, and might explain the odd coordination patterns that I was viewing through the mirror of the Alexander Technique.  The linking of all those separate threads – linking images – is foundational to creativity – and is a skill that not all of those who are what I call ‘electronically-raised’ are able to easily do.  (On the article page of the website, there is more information about this topic in the issue of Direction called Paradigms of Self.) 

The Alexander Technique has proved to be a very useful tool to retrain image-making skills in adult performers.  Using the Alexander Technique in order to do sensory-based games/exercises develops the skill to create 3- dimensional omni-sensory images; using the Alexander Technique in order to do imagination games/exercises trains or re-trains linking skills.  The research confirming the plasticity of the adult brain confirms the viability of the process.

The next step could be a call to action regarding early childhood education.  Today’s blog is a response to a Huffington Post article that does call for action regarding children and handheld devices –

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cris-rowan/10-reasons-why-handheld-devices-should-be-banned_b_4899218.html

What the article doesn’t directly mention is the cost in coordination.  I teach adults who are in pain because their movement seems to mirror the 2 –dimensional media that they grew up with.  Their movements are jerky, some seem to try to turn their torsos into a square or rectangle, or pancake themselves as flat as they can get.  They have spent so much time thinking of themselves as small and 2-dimensional that it takes diligence for them to reform their self - images.  They can – and the Alexander Technique is the ideal tool for the job.

Announcements

Registration is open for the Friday Harbor Residential (see the tab on the website for details.) It is almost fully booked – there are spaces available in the extension. I will start a waiting list for spots in the first 5 days.

I have been absent from the blog for a while because I was preparing my manuscript for publication; its expected publication date is January 2015 – I will keep you posted.

            A student in Seattle gave me a calendar for 2014 with calligraphy from a Zen Monk and a message about Kaikatsu Jizai.  Another student gave me the gift of a question about the heart (in the metaphorical sense). 

            The phrases on my new calendar concerning Kaikatsu Jizai that ring out to me are:

“ all-embracing, expansive state of mind – limitless, wide-open, magnanimous”
“flexible and resilient”
and
“this mind [i.e. kaikatsu jizai] is who we all truly are from the origin.”

That last phrase, I need to reword as “this self is who we all truly are from the origin.”  (Some people know “mind” must include “body” – and when either word appears alone it still evokes a mind/body split.)

What challenges me about some of the other text written on the calendar are phrases about this state of self meaning that you are “unshaken” by various stimuli of life.  This is probably occupational – since I question any notion of the Alexander Technique that seems to say “don’t react” to the stimuli of life, anything that talks about an unflappable self causes me to concern. So many times I have encountered people who are making themselves wrong for their reactions!  And I teach performers a lot – and their job is to react, to be shaken by, stimuli!

I have always thought that learning the Alexander Technique has given me a choice about how to receive and respond to the stimuli of life.  I want to respond!

            Perhaps “unshaken” in the Zen sense does not necessarily mean unaffected.  I looked “kaikatsu” up in an online Japanese/English dictionary and its first definition is cheerful, lively, lighthearted; the second is openminded.  A lively self moves with what is happening in the present moment – perhaps the choice to move with (rather than resist) the stimuli is what the idea of being “unshaken” means. That is really what we are all doing all the time – we are moving with our rapidly moving planet hurtling through space – but we look “un-hurtled.”

            I like the world evoked by my evolving knowledge of “ Kaikatsu” –  a world combining cheerfulness and liveliness with flexibility and magnanimity.  Magnanimity - generosity of spirit - names the values of the heart as part of this state of being – the wholeness that is our birthright. 

            While I talk about the head/spine relationship all the time, it is the values of the heart that fuel me everyday.  It is good to be reminded of that as the New Year begins.  Thank you to my students for these gifts! And, with a grateful heart for all of the gifts of the past year, and looking forward to this year's gifts, I am Wishing us all a Happy "kaikatsu" New Year!

Earlier this week, I was delighted when Carol Levin’s poem was published online at String Poet - String Poet, Volume III, Issue 2 Winter 2013.  I reprint it here with Carol’s permission

Robert Davidson, Trapeze Dancer

2013 String Poet Prize 3rd Place

You fly and I am you.
Your right hand
locks on your trapeze
mine curls

tight in my pocket.
Like heart beats
from stage right
drums and flutes. You fly
buoyed in blue air
I know how it feels to die.

Stagelight strobes your eyes
flashing cellophane stars
extruding a limb of light
to me. I look out
through your eyes.
Magnetized I am you.

We are a jaguar
swooping. We
levitate silently
from prehistoric tarpits
of ordinary life to dance
a pas-de-deux
and I am you

until you smile
in the bow light
embracing applause.
My hands sting,
widow of feats
of association.

What delights me is that it beautifully describes what happens in the performer/audience relationship. It is a phenomenon also described by science writers Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee:

            In The Body Has a Mind of Its Own, Sandra and Matthew Blakeslee summarize some recent studies that begin to supply scientific answers to this phenomenon. They begin the book with a discussion of “this invisible volume of space around your body out to arm’s length - what neuroscientist call peripersonal space---is part of you.” (2007, p.3) and go on to say:

“Through a special mapping procedure, your brain annexes this space to your limbs and body, clothing you in it like an extended, ghostly skin. The maps that encode your physical body are connected directly, immediately, personally to a map of every point in that space and also map out your potential to perform actions in that space. Your self does not end where your flesh ends, but suffuses and blends with the world, including other beings.” (Blakeslee and Blakeslee 2007, p.3)

When they go on to describe this phenomenon in performance, the example they give is a concert:

“And have you ever gone to a reggae or rock concert where thousands of people move in unison to the music?  If you stand back and watch the crowd, you may get a vivid sense of One Big Body Map.” (2007, p. 137)

(Quotations from The Body Has a Mind of Its Own published by Random House).

As a performance coach, the desire to maximize the potential for this in-sync-ness, is why the Alexander Technique is such an essential tool in my toolkit.  It is much more work, and sometimes nearly impossible, for this in –sync-ness to be artistically uplifting if the performers are out of coordination.  I have been very frustrated as an audience member when I see someone who clearly has good ideas and commitment to the work – and is tightening to do it.  Their tightening interrupts the flow of their work and then they need to try and get back in the flow and with all those “bumps” in process, their good work doesn’t have the reward it promises. It is so much easier for an audience to participate with the performer if the performer is modeling freedom of self in action. 

****

And, while the realm of the performer reveals the power of coordination in artistic communication,  conscious coordination is  a sweet tool to have when you are talking to your family, your friends, your colleagues-in-life.

What these leaves, though beautiful, don't have

At the center of every use of the Alexander Technique is conscious freedom – in Alexander’s words,  a “wish you carry with you through the activity”.  As you do what you are doing – taking a moment to enjoy the beauty of autumn leaves, sitting in a chair to write an email, swinging a golf club, or playing the cello – this wish cooperates with a truth of our selves – our “all-doing-ability”.  What I mean by “all-doing-ability” is the freedom to choose the how and the what of our daily lives and change course at any moment. 

(You do need to have the skills for what you choose – I might want to play a cello, but I have very little practiced knowledge of that activity – in that case, “all-doing-ability” contributes to my freedom to learn as well as to the quality of how I learn.)

“All-doing-ability” is a companion to every moment in time – concurrent with our lives, inviting our natural way of behaving – whatever the amount of effort required.  It is the center of the process, the heart of how the Alexander Technique contributes value to our days.

When the autumn leaves left the tree branches, they had no choice about how they fell to the ground.  Most of the time, humans do have freedom.  If we fell out of a tree, our choice would be about organizing how we responded to the fall – gravity would still bring us to the ground.

 This freedom to choose is part of our birthright.  Someone on the University of Washington campus yesterday chose to exercise their “all-doing-ability” to create something beautiful with the fallen leaves.  I don’t know who it was – its relationship to the Alexander Technique their artful moment serves as a reminder that choice is part of our natural behavior.  Whoever made this spiral chose to spend part of the day in this task, creating a surprise for strangers. The wish of the Alexander Technique consciously cooperates with our ability to choose that in this case, created a beautiful spiral.