Notes of Instruction

When I first started my Alexander adventure in 1972, all of Alexander's books were out of print, so it was a book called, "The Resurrection of the Body" that introduced me to Alexander’s writings.

Edward Maisel, who frequented Marjorie Barstow's Summer workshops in the 70's, made the selections from Alexander's books and also included prefaces to Alexander's books written by John Dewey and George E. Coghill aa well as a scientific paper by Frank Pierce Jones.

The book was a great introduction to all things Alexander, and Maisel’s own introduction provided a clear sense of the depth and breadth of Alexander’s work.

My favorite part of the book was the little 10 page chapter entitled: Notes of Instruction; a collection of things that Alexander said to a variety of students during teaching sessions.

These were my faves:

Control should be in process, not superimposed.

Change involves carrying out an activity against the habit of life

When you are asked not to do something, instead of the decision not to do it, you try to prevent yourself from doing it. But this only means that you decide to do it, and then use muscle tension to prevent yourself from doing it.

The things that don’t exist are the most difficult to get rid of.

You can’t do something you don’t know, if you keep doing what you do know.

Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn’t do.

We can throw away the habit of a lifetime in a few minutes if we use our brains.

You can’t know a thing by an instrument that’s wrong.

You all believe that you must know whether you are right or wrong if you are to make progress.

When people are wrong, the thing that is right is bound to be wrong to them.

Everyone wants to be right, no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right.

When the time comes that you can trust your feeling, you won’t want to use it.

This last one warped my brain for the longest time. What do you think he meant?