A Few Thoughts on Improving the Use of the Self

By "good use" I mean reliably completing a task efficiently, accurately, safely and reliably.  Maybe "good use" should also enable us to learn new tasks quickly and to undo unwanted habits.  Here is my feeble attempt to be more classical:  Good use is being able to do the right thing when confronted with a stimulus that usually puts you wrong.  I'll say that this includes ones' responses to emotional stimuli.  Considering that some people define happiness as doing a task well, I think that good use is important.

I've been telling people that students of the AT learn how to use themselves better.  It seems like a transparent and simple statement but people always look at me strangely.  They look like they have no clue about what I'm talking about. Why is it hard to grasp the phrase "learning how to use yourself better"?  Most tools I buy come with some instructions.  Every tool has a proper way to use it; and poor use of the tool leads to inefficient, perhaps dangerous use.  Proper use of a good tool leads to great satisfaction.  Why is it so weird to think of the body as a tool?  Is it not the most important tool?  Is it reasonable to aggressively pursue any instructions?

I made a huge error in the above paragraph.  I made the assumption (or perpetuated a common wrong presumption) that "use of the self" is equivalent to the "use of the body".  I'm ashamed - it's a bad habit of mine.  When I say stimulus I mean anything that prompts some kind of response, be it a thought, feeling or physical action.  Speaking of the self as a unified self - where body, mind, feelings are not seen as separate - taxes my very modest abilities.  I find it very hard to be concrete, to give examples and I fear being vague or intellectual.  My readers deserve better.  Oh well, I might as well be thorough in making my mistake.

To help me grasp what "the use of the self" means I've heard AT teachers use analogies such as 'teaching us to drive an automobile without the parking break'.  Or that 'the AT shows us how to not stand on the garden hose while watering the lawn'.  Analogies such as these create a feeling that an idea is being communicated, but I'm suspicious that analogies actually say very little - at best.  More likely they are misleading.

It seems we spend a lot of time on improving the self-as-a-tool, but no time thinking about how to use it better.  We improve the tool by sharpening it with Tai Chi, tempering it with yoga, oiling it with massage, elongating it with yoga, and allowing the chiropractor and Rolfer to align it.  This is all real, real good.  But what about how we grip the knife?  How much pressure to use?  At what angle?  It's not an either/or question.  Cooking schools teach both sharpening and knife use technique.  We can argue about which is more important, but I think good use is more fundamental.  Good use allows one to enter into any new situation with the best possible advantage.  And every situation is a new situation.

Perhaps the "use of the self" seems like an odd concept because we have never heard of anyway to improve our use.  With no conceivable way to improve the "use of the self" we naturally find some way to consider the task unimportant.  Well, given how easily the internet has made information on the AT acessible to teachers of all stripes there is no excuse for this ignorance.

Maybe you believe that you can use feelings somehow to guide you to learn or relearn an activity.   Maybe you think you feel when you are not sitting up straight.   Maybe you think that you can improve your use of your body by divining the meaning of the feelings you get while sitting.  I tried that for 20 years and failed.  Ok, sure, you think that I'm a loser and you aren't.  But take a moment and look around the meditation hall at the end of a long sitting.  Everyone is bent and twisted and leaning.  And they all feel they are sitting up pretty straight.  Maybe you think you're different.  OK, I won't challenge you.  Just consider that using your interpretations and ideas about the meaning of the sensations that you have gotten in the past are not useful in guiding your present use.

My AT teacher suggested that the notion that ones feeling can reliably provide a basis for improved use is very common among those starting to study the AT.  It's very hard for me to believe.  Maybe I should just skip this topic since I've written about it elsewhere.   But I'll say here that stimulus provides information to help one decide what next to do.  But it does not help you to actually DO anything.  Sensation or feeling only provides feedback on what is going on in the present moment.  To think about the stimulus that you have had in the past, make decisions about its meaning, and use those decisions as a basis to inform your present use is just crazy, it's nuts.  I get that you might not know what else to do, and to abandon such craziness is scary.  But there is a much better way.

 But it seems that few have taken a step back and considered if there is anything one can do to improve the ability to learn how to do things.   To improve piano lessons I would take lessons and practice, practice, practice.  If I don't succeed at first I'll just keep trying.   A piano teacher does not teach you how to learn, they will only teach you how to play the piano.  Who teaches you how to learn?  I don't want to minimize the effects that training, dedication, will power, nutrition, genetics, good coaching, family support, etc have on good use, but I am talking about more fundamental issues. 

Why is it that some people just "make it look easy."   They can make a difficult task look effortless.  One mark of mastering any task is that there is nothing extra being done.  When one muscle group is contracting the antagonistic muscles are relaxed.  There is no tension.  Look at Michael Jordan, stream a Astaire-Rogers film.  As you watch there is some part of your brain ("mirror neurons") that creates the sensation of same movements in your brain - and is a sublime feeling.

One feature of that might be found in Astaire-Rogers-Jordan at peak performance or use is that they are rather present.  They are not daydreaming or obsessed with a particular outcome.  They are 'in the moment'.  They are more attentive to the means where-by they are acting, and not so concerned about the gaining a particular end.  Sure, there is a big commitment to winning or making a great movie, but they are able to set it aside while enguaged with the task.  It's a nuanced task to set aside a strongly desired goal (WIN!!) to 'be in the moment'.  An athlete might refer to this as 'the zone'.  This might also be a feature of what Buddhist refer to as samadhi.

There might be other features of good use.  Try tapping your head with one hand, nice and rhythmically.  Not too tough to do.  Now try adding on, at the same time, rubbing you belly with the other hand.  Surprisingly hard to do?  Do you feel your body tense as you try harder?  Once you do it, once it really clicks in, does you body feel loose and relaxed?  Does it feel like you learned something brand new, or did you just manage to relax enough to let it happen by itself?  Now try speeding up one hands' activity.  Do you feel the tension return along with the stimulus to speed up?  Did everything fall apart?  Anytime you try to make an improvement does the tension come back?  What I find is that whenever I try to change anything I become more tense.  The very impulse to making an effort to improve creates tension and tightness in my body.

FM Alexander seems to have found this as well - and was quite exasperated trying to improve on his customary activity without tensing up.   Finally, he developed a technique where one learns to inhibit the desire to do an activity while directing ones self not to tense up, and to continue to inhibit and direct right up to the point of doing the activity.  Or any activity.  Or all activities.
I don't know if a teacher of the Alexander technique would agree with my assessments here, but I think it's a simple yet classic explanation of the technique.  What is more interesting is that it is a complete explanation of how to sit zazen.