The “Means-Whereby” Workshop published in “The Congress Papers” by STAT Books UK.

John A Baron

Conference Photo by Ralf Hiemisch

This paper is based on a workshop that aimed to explore the ‘means whereby’ principle, and the ramifications of truly putting this idea into action, moment to moment. It explored activities such as playing golf and dramatic performance, working with a text to bring it to life as a spoken piece. And the only way to work effectively with such a topic is by exploring it fully within oneself, during the preparation and actual presenting, a spirit that has been extended into the writing of this paper.

Day One.

‘Ok what am I forgetting?’ Having finally found Room 406 in ‘Mundelein’ and having staggered from an elevator jammed full of perky AT teachers while carrying a large bag of golf clubs, plastic golf balls, backpack full of my own stuff, notes on ideas for the next two days, about 40 or so poems/ excerpts from plays and a list of attendees, I’m wondering what I might have missed? The idea is/was to explore ‘means whereby’ thinking in our teaching, or so it says in the conference brochure, even making reference to ‘means whereby psychology’, interpretation of character and text, and the golf swing without club and ball (class descriptions having been submitted a year before when it seemed to make sense – back then).

I find the classroom empty. My mind is focused on 9.00am. I’m clearing a space to safely swing golf clubs. It’s 8.50. My notes scattered around the desk at the front. My mind now focusses on tomorrow’s class, of all things. ‘Will the transition from today’s class to tomorrow’s work? Golf and poems? Really?’ No one’s shown up yet. Now I find myself frowning and fidgeting and rehearsing what I’m going to say for the next hour and a half and then after that - tomorrow. ‘Ah’ he says to himself, ‘that’s what I’ve forgotten, that’s what I’ve missed – the plot.’ (As in ‘me’.) Not the fussing over the class but inhibiting the embodiment of this fussing. ‘Ok so walk yer talk!’

Of course, directly trying to pre-control how a class will go is a bit of an end-gain. I know from experience if I stay with this mindset it just won’t go well. Yes, lesson plans are useful, but if applied rigidly will result in a loss of spontaneity and connection. Likewise, an ‘anything goes’ attitude that abandons structure and form altogether will more than likely just lose the class. Perhaps a balance of both is called for, while trusting the work to show up. Leaving space, not doing, not needing to over control, allowing, inviting, not as some new age attitude but by us actually embodying the ease of being this work invites (as opposed to end gaining embodiment which invariably turns our striving and driving into narrowing and tight use). Applying all this to the habitual fussing over this that and the other, including this class I’m about to start, we start.

After all the hello’s etc., I read out a couple of quotes to help get us into the mood.

Means whereby….

… the ability to wait and to make reasoned choices before acting, the awareness of your own use at all times, and the willingness to give up achieving your ends by direct means.’ Pedro de Alcantara1

….in doing, you do it, whereas in non-doing, it does you. Patrick MacDonald2

I explain that whatever activities we do in this class are simply an excuse for exploring ‘means whereby’ in teaching and in learning.

The conventional way of learning a sport is to be given a series of instructions to develop over a period of time. If you want an example of this find an instruction book on a particular sport. Throughout the chapters, many ‘how to’ ideas and sequences of ‘and then do this,’ will be built up and compressed into a single volume. (This classic end-gaining approach reminds me of the challenges I have when attempting to construct IKEA furniture.)

Following the end gaining recipe of learning via ‘how to’ instruction, we now take the golf swing as an experiment in ‘how not to’ learn.

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The traditional way to learn the golf swing is to first take hold of the club. The teaching professional will generally demonstrate one of two ways to grip the club handle, the Interlocking grip or the Vardon grip, and will introduce your hands to one of them. Then through a series of lessons you will be taken through all the do’s, don’ts, theories and mechanics of a golf swing, complete with buckets of golf balls for you to hit; with drivers, woods, irons and wedges to wallop away with to your hearts content. You will also explore the art of putting and hitting the ball in different surfaces, sand, long grass and so on.

To take away a direct doing approach to all the above, namely the idea of having to hit a ball with a club to a distant target, we just take away ball, club and target. Then, we are left with the mechanics of a person’s use within a golf swing.

Indirect approach:

The class lined up in two rows facing one another. I asked them to think ‘up’ and to let their knees go slightly forward into a small monkey position while maintaining length and width from head to heel, front to back. Taking away the idea of hitting a ball with hands and arms, they were asked to cross their arms, palms placed toward the top of the torso. As best I could, I went around the room occasionally helping a couple of the monkeys present (it’s wonderful for ‘means whereby’ if we can let our hands speak for us, rather than having to rely on verbal instruction alone).

So, what does the ‘self’ get up to within the mechanics of a golf swing?

Maintaining an awareness of connected use throughout the following, the group were asked to go through a series of movements, again without any thought of golf.

a) With arms still crossed while maintaining the slight monkey position, transfer weight first to the right foot and then to the left. A simple lateral sideways move. Try this several times.

b) Maintain the slight monkey position, turn the back approximately 90 degrees to the right. When turning the back this way, the weight will naturally transfer to the right foot, (providing use is ok). Again, try this several times.

c) Back to monkey. Look left by turning the head only. Find a spot at eye level on the wall. Turn head back to a forward-facing position.

d) Repeat move (b) above, turning to the right, thereby creating a simple winding up of the musculature, then gently stop.

e) Thinking of the spot on the opposite wall, undo the winding and then allow yourself to look at the spot while facing it square on at the end of the move. The weight should now be transferred to the left side.

Coming at the golf swing this way helped establish some of the basic fundamentals: the transfer of weight, the winding-up motion, the release, the turn-away-from and then toward a target, all the while maintaining ease, poise and good use. Yes, the ‘end’ is in awareness throughout but not jumped at, as we put this jigsaw together. The time for swinging the arms, holding and swinging the club,

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putting the ball within the pathway of the evolving swing, keeping the eyes gently on the ball before impact, will happen, but in its own time. Meanwhile the integrity of the real instrument – the individual – will not have been compromised in the process.

The class continued. We played with swinging non-doing arms around our golf monkey positions, then added this into the above movement. Only then did we begin to shake hands with golf clubs, moving into our first technical instruction: holding the club via the interlocking grip, where the left-hand first finger locks into the right hand little finger and the club is held by the base of the fingers.

Plastic golf balls then appeared. Half the class had clubs while the other half were to observe (this was more of a safety concern). Now it was possible to address the ball with good use, not be concerned about hitting the ball but to be focused on the procedure of swinging the club. If the ball got in the way of the swing and the ball flew away – all well and good. If not then also well and good.

Building the fundamentals of the golf swing with good use comes with the wisdom of maintaining the means whereby it can all come together and happen. And with our group of AT teachers present – it started to, and in a few cases it did.

Day 2.

From Sport Jocks to Artistes.

Our budding golfers from yesterday were continuing to explore ‘means whereby’ but today as budding performers. In fact, some in the class were or had been performers. We were to explore how use affects perception and creative interpretation positively, and as such, what may be the ‘means’ here?

AT teachers know that musicians who hold themselves tightly in performance tend to make an audience tense. My own observation from having worked alongside actors is that tense use limits an actor’s creative range, including their ability to play characters who are not as tense as they themselves are. That being the case, how then can they perceive openness and ease within the characters they play if they themselves are all locked up?

I am puzzled why some theater directors as well as actors feel the need to quickly decide on who and what a character is. Many actors arrive at the first rehearsal to be told what the play is and will be, who their characters are, and an analysis of the interpersonal relationships within the play. (Some of that is to be expected but within reason.) We could say here that immediate analysis is an end-gain. In contrast, the means whereby here may be, to inhibit immediate analysis and adopt more of a don’t know attitude in order to discover more. Surely the same applies when meeting someone in real life. Were we to decide on who someone was and is the first time we met them, it would block any chance of actually knowing them as they are. Getting to know someone is an on-going process

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and more often than not, doesn’t have an end to it. But to firmly categorize and decide on who someone is from the outset, has an end to it before it’s even begun. This projection from a preconceived fixed mentality invites a misuse that manifests in rigidity. (When playing Shakespeare, actors often recount that their understanding of a role increases and deepens over years. Likewise we can listen to Glenn Gould’s early recordings and later re-recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations and find a world full of variation.)

Next, the participants were handed out poems and play excerpts to read. As a precursor to this, we wanted to create a little more ease, so we had a brief session of ‘lying down’. The more open and at ease in ourselves we are, the more we perceive, which is why our work offers further dimensions to all, including performers.

The ‘trial and error’ method, which F.M. oftentimes references, produces right and wrong thinking in its adherents. Rather than getting lost in right and wrong concerns, especially while learning, applying or teaching the Technique, we’re better off just observing connection and disconnection (seeing and knowing either connection or disconnection in AT world is success).

I deliberately wanted everyone in the class to have a poem or an excerpt they were NOT familiar with. After finding a separate place in the room for themselves the suggestion was then to read but not interpret the poem/piece immediately, or rush to decide its meaning, but to focus on their own ease/use while browsing the poem or piece, simply allowing perceptions and understandings to appear in their own time if they did. In this way images, emotional perceptions and sensations would have more of a chance to connect.

One of the poems that someone worked with was Rilke’s ‘The Swan’. It’s included here in case you, the reader, wish to use it belatedly to join the class and follow along.

This laboring of ours through what is still undone,as though, legs bound, we hobble along the way,is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And then dying to let go, releasing ourselvesfrom the very ground in which we stand —is like the way he hesitantly lowers himself

into the waters, which receive him gently and, as though with reverence and joy, flow back beneath him, as wave follows wave,while he, now wholly serene and sure,with regal composure, and ever more indifferent,he allows himself to glide.

After staying quietly with their piece for quite a while, people were then asked to experiment with their use by holding themselves in deliberate tensions, then collapsing, while

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continuing to stay with the piece – just to see what might happen. (One could also experiment with opening and closing physically with relative ease, or with drifting into movement, then into stillness.)

Next, people were to read their pieces out loud without attempting to bother about meter or other technical considerations, in some cases just reading out one or two lines at a time. No need to declaim, produce, finish, act, and so on - just remind ourselves to simply stay with the work.

Introducing the idea of audience, they paired up, one to read their piece to the other, the other to listen/observe – but silently. After a while roles were switched. Then, hands-on work came into play.

I so enjoyed this bit. Moving from group to group and seeing their ease, hearing it, noting the absence of pressure, and connecting to the bits and the pieces. Some were so connected to the poem/piece and the meaning it had for them that it came to life in its conveyance.

Next: Staying in pairs and having the poems/pieces directed, one to the other. The words were to remain unvoiced, just thought, but silently performed as the ‘actor’ went through the piece from start to finish. It’s important to say this is very different from miming the piece. It’s not playing charades. We don’t want the other person to have to guess where the actor is in the piece. It’s simply witnessing the stillness, sensations and emotion inherent in the embodiment of the person reading the poem/piece, whatever that may be.

To further explore our collective understanding, the group was then asked to choose a character they knew personally that may remind them of the piece or parts of it. Then, to read it out loud as this character might read it. (What perceptions of the piece then might this character bring?)

Did anyone want to share their piece? Some did. They performed as themselves, previous experiments as characters being part of this non-analytical approach to exploration and study. Those who performed surprised us. All seemed to convey humor, dimension, profundity and personal connection, and all performed effortlessly. Someone read a poem by Neruda which so obviously resonated with their own depth and sensitivities that I imagined the poet himself, were he to have been present, would have been so moved, to have preferred this to any technically perfect rendition. Time for the class to end.

It’s easy to think of a technical phrase like ‘means whereby’ to be a mere technical phrase, but in actuality it needs to come alive to have meaning and connection. Then ‘means whereby’ becomes an ever-changing way of thinking, discovering and being.

References

1 De Alcantara, Pedro (1997). Indirect Procedures: A Musician’s Guide to the Alexander Technique. Oxford University Press, p20

2 Ibid, p5

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John A. Baron has been a full-time teacher of the Alexander Technique for over 34 years and a

teacher trainer for over 25 years. He has taught in England, Ireland, Italy, Germany, and the US and

works with a wide range of organizations including: Google Inc., San Francisco Ballet, San Francisco

Opera, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Co, Cal State University Hayward, The Esalen Institute, and The

Sundance Institute. He is co-director of The Alexander Educational Center in Berkeley, CA, a teacher

training school for the Alexander Technique, and gives private lessons from his studio in Sausalito.

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