A colleague at the office recently told me about his experiences with the Alexander Technique and how it has helped him become aware of bad postural habits that were causing back pain. It still seems quite mystical and almost incomprehensible, but I like the little I've read about it. In particular, an essay by Jeremy Chance strikes the perfectly paradoxical note about not-doing and not-knowing:

Here's the first fact that makes this technique such an enigma to everyone who studies it: you are not going to learn anything new–everything you will learn you already knew before you started–but you didn't know that you knew. Confused? Good. You are starting to have your first Alexander experience. Get used to it. In fact, if you try to learn something 'new' you will only hamper your progress. Alexander: "Trying is only emphasising the thing you already know." The thing you want to learn is the absence of what you have, and that's nothing. How can an absence of something be something? As my loved and treasured teacher Marjorie Barstow always used to remind me: "All you want is a little bit of nothing. The trouble with all you people is that you all want something. And the something is your habit."

Tres Zen, eh?

^z - 2012-03-12