A Parable for Our Time

There are moments in our lives when illumination strikes.

We are brought in to the light like the Roman tax collector Saul on the road to Damascus being “struck” by the holy spirit, or Marlow in Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” who strikes a match to light a cigarette in the darkness before revealing a profound insight about the evils of imperialism and racism.

A profound, life changing, moment of illumination occurred to me when I was first learning the Alexander Technique.

It happened when I was confronted with a reality that didn’t fit my belief. The life-changing illumination unfolded innocently as I prepared to get out of a chair with guidance from my teacher. 

Previously, in the fraction of a second before I stood up, my brain would leap to the learned concept called, Get Up. When I stood up, with the gentle insight of my teacher, I learned there were consistent overuse,(tension) patterns. It didn’t matter where my feet were placed on the floor, how much I bent forward, or whether I stood straight up or spiraled out of the chair.

The patterns of overuse included:

Trying to bend forward from the waist. When there is too much tension in the pelvic region, which there often is, it doesn’t allow coordinated movement between the torso and the legs at the hip sockets which are below the top of the pelvis. 

Narrowing and shortening of my back. I believed I had to activate my deep erector spinal muscles to lift me up. Tension in the deep back muscles causes the spine to hyperextend, something you would do if you were doing a back flip, not getting up from a chair. 

Hyperextension caused the pulling of my head out of balance in a backward and downward direction.  The direction of the head back and down as a got up signaled my legs to fire prematurely with much more force than was necessary.

The Alexander Technique relies on information from the Vestibular Apparatus, the GPS in our head.

Subsequent repetitions of getting up from a chair revealed more previously undetected tension patterns. Such as the over activation of hip flexors in the front of my body, the activation of arm muscles for momentum, and tension in my feet. All of this happened in less than a second…

Awareness of the whole body tension pattern was beginning to illuminate the problem. I was grateful for the information, but still in the dark as to what to do about it. 

The light bulb came on during a series of seemingly pedestrian events. 

First came the experience of cognitive dissonance. It happened while I practiced getting up from the chair with my teacher.  In standing from a sitting position, there are proper biomechanics to relearn, like moving from the hip sockets, timing the action of the legs and accurate spatial intention. (The proper sequence and timing of any movement is crucial to the dynamic equilibrium of forces acting on the body.) But the illuminating learning experience from my cognitive dissonance started before I got up.

As my teacher oscillated my torso forward and back in a small rocking motion and cued me to let go of any unnecessary tension, (see Inhibition blog) the dissonant thought, “I can’t get up” burst into my consciousness. My unconscious brain was signaling me that if I tried to get up with the current sensations in my body, I would fail. My brain and body said I had to do what felt right. 

 A sophisticated awareness of body sensations is an important part of the Alexander Technique and mastery of any motor skill. Cognitive dissonance arose when I realized my current sensations didn’t match the learned movement concept “Get Up”. 

My teacher then asked if she could gently guide my head as I moved. I dutifully said yes, in full awareness that my sensations made it clear, the attempt to get up would be futile. 

The next thing that happened I describe as flying out of the chair and not only standing but with so much momentum I had to take three steps forward! The sensation was of effortless gliding. There was no hint of pain or strain in my back or knees. It was as if the movement “did itself” without any conscious intention on my part. That was the Moment of illumination!

I paused for a moment to process what had happened. When I asked my teacher, she said, “That was the amount of force your brain expects to use for this activity “applied efficiently through your system”.

 As a former professional ballet dancer, I had learned how to be aware of internal bodily sensations. But this was different. The shift in my awareness was bigger, inclusive like tectonic plates moving. It rendered me speechless because I had no words to describe the experience. There was no awareness of body parts, no hint of body mechanics.

In fact, there was a startling lack of sensation. The absence of sensation is what surprised me the most. I later came to know that a window to the ZONE had opened.

I was now forced to face a reality that did not match my unassailable belief. The cognitive dissonance was between what my brain/body expected and what it actually experienced.  

How did I get inaccurate, even harmful ideas about what I was doing and thinking? What if there were other inaccurate concepts in my brain that existed undetected?

It turns out the answer to that question is simple yet profound. I had been taught concepts about anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology that were not accurate. Prior inaccurate concepts from life experiences were then linked with the scientific information. The combination formed large bundles of neuronal firings. The firings had become unconscious, and self-perpetuating grooved behaviors.

A grooved movement like getting out of a chair may seem pedestrian. But it is precisely because it is pedestrian that makes it a powerful metaphor. The reason stems from new research in brain science.

The new paradigm demonstrates that it is through the combination of external stimulus and internal sensations that the brain forms our most important concept, the SELF. 

It was previously thought that what we took in through vision and sound played a major role in the formation of the self. But neuroscientists such as Lisa Feldman Barrett and Antonio Damasio, now believe the internal landscape of body sensations and movement, play a much larger role in the formation of the self.

As I continued to process the absence of familiar sensations that day, a new sense of self began to emerge. It was a more open and expansive self. My brain was computing new spatial coordinates because my body was at its full stature. And I was compelled to contrast the feeling of openness with the constricted concept of a self I knew all too well. The contrast was stunning! 

Although the new experience of expanded awareness and effortless movement faded, I had come face to face with both a familiar and a potential self.

I remember thinking, I was a spelunker with a headlamp revealing the mysteries in a dark cave.

The illumination of my full upright stature and unexplored inner landscape that started with a simple movement continues to be surprising and rewarding. I have subsequently changed numerous inaccurate beliefs and faulty movement habits. The tools I acquired from learning the Alexander Technique have changed my health and life for the better. 

As an Alexander Technique Teacher, I have often felt like the man in Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” who escapes from the cave to find the reality of what were only shadows and drawings on the cave wall. When he returns to tell the people what he saw, he is dismissed and ridiculed.

The illumination I experienced that day and others that have followed since changed the trajectory of my professional life. I help people emerge from the cave of their inaccurate beliefs and still use the chair.

My transformative incident may seem trivial, but opening a window into the ZONE for athletes and people who love to move is no trivial matter.

Nor is the discovery of previously unknown beliefs and harmful behaviors that lead to a change in the concept of a SELF. A Zen monk once reached enlightenment while raking leaves. Moments of illumination are rare events and deserve to be identified and celebrated. 

It was Socrates who said, “An unexamined life is not worth living”. 

-Edward Bilanchone

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