“When a man reaches the point where he concludes that he ‘knows’ his subject, he decides, consciously or subconsciously, that he has nothing more to learn, and he promptly begins to lose what he does know; when he becomes aware that he has ‘grown up’, he has reached a stage where he has already begun to stultify those potentialities for growth which once were his, and which might have been his to the end. Boredom, monotony, and discontent follow swift…
“Unfortunately, we have been taught that all the ordinary, most necessary, and therefore most oft-repeated acts of life should be automatic and unconscious; for this reason they have become indifferent. The condition here indicated is one that induces stagnation…and as it becomes more and more pronounced with advancing age, we gradually lose the capacity to take conscious interest in and derive pleasure from those normal and useful activities of life… Small wonder, then, that sooner or later we seek satisfaction…
“Everyone wants to be right, but no one stops to consider if their idea of right is right.”(Taken from “Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p194)
“There is no such thing as a right position, but there is such a thing as a right direction.”(Taken from “Articles and Lectures – Teaching Aphorisms p194”)
“People that haven’t any fish to fry, they see it all right.”(Taken from “Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p205)
“The experience you want is in the process of getting it. If you have something, give it up. Getting it, not having it, is what you want.”(Taken from “Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p196)
“The brain becomes used to thinking in a certain way, it works in a groove, and when set in action, slides along the familiar, well-worn path; but when once it is lifted out of the groove, it is astonishing how easily it may be directed. At first it will have a tendency to return to its old manner of working by means of one mechanical unintelligent operation, but the groove soon fills, and although thereafter we may be able to…
“When he comes into my room at first, I ask him to sit down in the chair – and we all do that, it is a matter of etiquette – and when he has sat down in the chair, I have the history of his life’s use of himself. It is all there. It is a very simple way, ladies and gentlemen, of getting at the habits and peculiarities of a person, but we get at it that way.”(Taken from…
The next point I think I should make here is in regard to position…A position that is right today, cannot possibly be right tomorrow if you have improved. How can it be? It must be wrong tomorrow, and it will be wrong again the next day if you have improved, because it will have changed with the rest of your changing conditions.(Taken from “Articles and Lectures” – Bedford Physical Training College Lecture p171)
Worry is one of these bad habits which, once established, are very hard to break. A curious feature of this habit is that, in certain cases, though you may remove the cause for worry, and the subject may admit that the cause has been removed, the removal of the cause does not remove the “mental” state which the subject declared was the cause of the worry. The fact is, the person has developed the worry habit, a state in which…
All I want you to do is to give certain directions for me, and then inhibit the tremendous effort you are making to be right.FM Alexander (“Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p204)
Again, in the sphere of politics, what can be more stupid than the ordinary party attitude, leading, as it does, to undesirable individual manifestations of deception, prejudice, egotism, and “emotional gusts”? It is an unreasonable and dishonest course to withhold support from or denounce measures which one believes to be right and of value to humanity, simply because they chance to be advocated by the political party to which one does not belong. Under the present plan politics and deception…
Boiled down, it all comes to inhibiting a particular reaction to a given stimulus. But no one will see it that way. They will see it as getting in and out of a chair the right way. It is nothing of the kind. It is that a pupil decides what he will or will not consent to do. They may teach you anatomy and physiology till they are black in the face – you will still have this to face:…
Everyone is always teaching one what to do, leaving us still doing the things we shouldn’t do.FM Alexander (“Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p196)
You are not here to do exercises or to learn to do something right, but to get able to meet a stimulus that always puts you wrong and to learn to deal with it.FM Alexander (“Articles and Lectures” – Teaching Aphorisms p203)