Alexander’s Dream

Guest post by Jill Tappin

Note from WAT: As ITM teachers, the three of us have the extraordinary privilege of having the support, the guidance, the mentorship and the friendship of our colleague Jill Tappin. Jill has shared her knowledge and skills as both a student and a teacher of Alexander’s work with us, with thoughtfulness and generosity over more than a decade. It is a pleasure to re-publish this essay, written twenty years ago, as a gift to all who embrace Alexander’s dream.

Dreams can be large or small but, regardless of size, dreams are always our vision of how life could be: our ideal, our inspiration, our “why to” do things. They are all this and more for at their centre, whether we are aware of it or not, is a Foundation Dream from which all our smaller dreams spring. If we let them, if we set our dreams free, they will form our goals and – with imagination, planning, and not losing sight of, or belief in, our dreams – we can make them come true. From our dreams, great and small, we can construct our own “big picture” which can act as a lode-star, as a guide, giving direction to the living of our lives.

Probably the best-known expression of one man’s dream is the eloquent and powerful “I Have a Dream” speech that Martin Luther King made at the Lincoln Memorial during the march on Washington in 1963.

Martin Luther King had a dream, a dream of racial equality, a dream that ‘all men are created equal’,¹ a dream he saw vividly, a dream he shared with others. Also he had faith, faith that the dream would come true, because, as he said in his speech: ‘With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, struggle together, … knowing that we will be free one day.’² Martin Luther King saw the big picture, his dream, and he had faith that it would become reality; he also saw that with that belief, that faith, everyone could face great hardships together and work together to come into their inheritance, the inheritance of being judged ‘not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.’³ Martin Luther King had a dream (an end, a goal). He had faith (genuine trust). He planned how to reach his dream and he did the work.

After hearing the speech James Baldwin said: ‘That day, for a moment, it almost seemed that we stood on a height, and could see our inheritance, perhaps we could make the kingdom real, perhaps the beloved community would not forever remain a dream …’⁴

In reading F M Alexander’s books we seldom, if ever, notice the dream, the big picture, and we therefore fail to have his dream as our goal; usually we give even genuine trust a rather doubtful reception. But Alexander had a DREAM: a big, beautiful, “impossible” dream. He shared it with us in his books, particularly in Man’s Supreme Inheritance, but maybe the dream is too vast for us to take in or maybe we choose not to see it because it is too bold and it scares us. But he not only dared to dream his “impossible” dream he took this dream as his goal. He worked out how this goal could be achieved and, with constructive, consciously directed effort, he then put the how into practice.

In all areas of human endeavour, but especially in teaching the Alexander Technique, people need their vision and their dreams.

Gelb and Buzan write: ‘Artists from past to present, from Michelangelo through Picasso to modern-day artists … visualize perfect images and then apply dedicated discipline to making those images become a reality.’⁵ Anyone involved in Alexander’s Work also needs to have a perfect image, a vivid dream, at all stages and levels of their work, No one can make a dream they have not dreamt a reality, and certainly no one can apply ‘the principle of thinking out the reasonable means whereby a certain end may be achieved’ ⁶ if they do not have the end in mind. If images, dreams, and ends are not clearly visualized and well-defined one may end up somewhere one does not wish to be.

Stephen Covey, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, introduces the idea of beginning with the end in mind. He explains that the idea of beginning with the end in mind is based on the principle that all things are created twice, that there is a first, mental creation, and a second, physical creation. He writes: ‘To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you’re going … so that the steps you take are always in the right direction.’ ⁸ And Covey’s ideas are very much in accordance with Alexander’s views that you need to form a clear concept of what it is that you want to do (“your end”) and then reason out a plan by which you are going to achieve your “end” BEFORE you put your plan, your “means whereby”, into physical action.

In The Use of the Self Alexander gives us an idea of how early in his life his belief in the importance of the potential of mankind was formed. He writes: ‘The idea of the wonderful potentialities of man had been a source of inspiration to me ever since I had come to know Shakespeare’s great word picture: “What a piece of work is man!”’ ⁹ The continuance of his belief in the strange and wonderful potentialities possessed by humankind is expressed throughout his books from the first chapter of his first book Man’s Supreme Inheritance, written in 1910, where he talks about humans developing ‘new powers [that] held strange potentialities,’ ¹⁰ to the last chapter of his last book, The Universal Constant In Living, where he writes about ‘the development of the potentialities of the individual’.¹¹

Perhaps Alexander best expresses the size and scope of his dream in Man’s Supreme Inheritance. There he writes that ‘the physical, mental, and spiritual potentialities of the human being are greater than we have ever realized, greater, perhaps, than the human mind in its present evolutionary stage is capable of realizing’.¹² He tells us that ‘the familiar processes we call civilization and education are not, alone, such as will enable us to come into that supreme inheritance which is the complete control of our potentialities’ ¹³ because, ‘subconscious (instinctive) control … does not ensure progress to those higher planes of evolution which should be the goal of civilized growth and development, the goal for which mankind was undoubtedly destined.’ ¹⁴ But he points out, ‘it is [his] belief … that man’s supreme inheritance of conscious guidance and control is within the grasp of any one who will take the trouble to cultivate it’,¹⁵ and he tells us that ‘in the mind of man lies the secret of his ability to resist, to conquer and finally to govern the circumstance of his life.’ ¹⁶

In the final paragraph of the first (1910) edition of Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Alexander summarizes his dream when he tells us that ‘it is essential that the peoples of civilization should comprehend the value of their inheritance, that outcome of the long process of evolution which will enable them to govern the uses of their own physical mechanisms. By and through consciousness and the application of a reasoning intelligence, man may rise above the powers of all disease and physical disabilities. This triumph is not to be won in sleep, in trance, in submission, in paralysis or in anaesthesia, but in a clear, open-eyed, reasoning, deliberate consciousness and apprehension of the wonderful potentialities possessed by mankind, the transcendent inheritance of a conscious mind.’ ¹⁷ And in three breathtaking sentences he elevates his vision for the individual to the level of governance when he advances the view that ‘given … a power of co-ordination and of self-control in the race, as a unit, as could be compared with the balance of a wise and healthy man, that nation would be free, with greater liberty than history can record, and to such a nation little would be impossible. She would become the teacher of the world by the force of her reason and example. She would inaugurate the coming of a greater and wiser humanity.’ ¹⁸

Dee Hock, in his book Birth of the Chaordic Age’ writes: ‘… it is no failure to fall short of realizing all that we might dream – the failure is to fall short of dreaming all that we might realize.’ ¹⁹ In his books F. Matthias Alexander clearly shows that he did not fall short of dreaming all that each of us, each individual, and mankind in general might realize.

It is therefore up to us, his successors, to accept the legacy of his dream ‘which offers unlimited opportunity for fruitful research to the patient and observant pioneer’,²⁰ and by quickening our conscious minds and learning to put his work into practice embark on an adventure to make the realization of his dream possible.

References

1. Oates, Stephen B, Let the Trumpet Sound, Payback Press, p.261
2. Ibid. p.261
3. Ibid. p,261
4. Ibid. p.262
5. Gelb, Michael J. and Buzan, Tony, Lessons from the Art of Juggling, Aurum Press, 1995, p.56
6. Alexander, F. Matthias, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1987, p.42
7. Claxton, Guy, Hare Brain Tortoise Mind, Fourth Estate, 1988, p.93. [Kekule – 1829 to 1896]
8. Covey, Stephen, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,Simon & Schuster,1992, p.98
9. Alexander, F. Matthias, The Use of the Self , Victor Gollancz Ltd, p.36
10. Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Methuen & Co.Ltd, 1910, p.2 & Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Centerline Press, 1988, p.1
11. Alexander, F. Matthias, The Universal Constant In Living,, Dutton, 1941, p.240
12. Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Mouritz, 1996, p.7
13. Ibid. pp.7-8
14. Ibid. p.45
15. Ibid. p.141
16. Ibid. p.8
17. Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Methuen & Co.Ltd, 1910, pp.139-140 & Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Centerline Press, 1988, p.41
18. Alexander, F. Matthias, Man’s Supreme Inheritance, Mouritz, 1996, p.221
19. Hock, Dee, Birth of the Chaordic Age, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 1999, p.30
20. Alexander, F. Matthias, The Universal Constant In Living, Dutton, 1941, p.xlii

April 2003