Imagery and analogy in teaching.

I asked one of today’s students if the use of analogy and imagery was actually ok for her. (We have been using them for several lessons.) She said they were fine and very helpful - I said I felt directions like ‘lengthen your spine’ or ‘widen your shoulders’ (or even ‘allow your shoulders to widen’) often brought about ‘doing’ in students. She agreed and said, “I think they work especially well as when I direct with words I am not sure that I am doing what I think I am doing, but with images, that confusion seems to happen less.” Wonderful! I asked if I might use this in this blog and she agreed. 

We both agreed, she from her lesson experiences and me from sensing and observing many different students over the years, that imagery embodies itself more directly than words. The mind mulls over words and decides if they are good or bad and gets into all sorts of ‘old stuff' about them, but the body, if it likes it, simply responds to the imagery even before the mind has had a chance to think. I told my student today how I had recently found a ‘poster’ I made years ago for my then singing workshop series. It said, “Let your shoulders be full of sunshine”. She smiled, and then laughed as her shoulders had ‘just got it’. It really does seem that you can’t ‘do’ sunshine, but you can ‘do’ widening, and 'doing' isn't what our work is about. So I stand somewhat corrected by myself as to the giving of ideas and tips to non-students about the Alexander Technique. Perhaps if words are used that stimulate imagery, all can be well. If the words stimulate the mind to think, it can - sometimes and in some people (me included) - go rapidly pear-shaped in the way of 'doing' and 'trying'. Of course our work is about thinking, and clearly there are many different ways of thinking, but some are useful and some are not. Time for some pondering on that one. (Oh dear, yes; pondering is just another word for thinking, isn’t it!) But I will say that I have been amazed over the years to discover just how powerful the image of endlessly creating 'champagne bubbles from the soles of the feet or sitting bones upwards' are for a uniform, three-dimensional, and non-doing, upward release, and I have many more images that I wont post here now. But I go with if they work, I use 'em! (Champagne, not soda - (don't) think about it! ;-) )

I have also started a ‘ban’ on the word ‘monkey’. I am guessing many don’t use it now anyway (?), but as a teacher qualified in the early ’80’s, it has been a big part of my AT vocabulary for some years. Another student said recently that he didn't like it; it wasn’t a good word as its very name implied a shape, and a shape can be ‘done’ and is fixed. So today we threw it out, and played with watching how the body simply moved and kept moving in flow in response to a given stimulus. Using a ‘script’ (which I always do in my teaching because it links any stimulus to move to a real life situation,) it could be said the body moved through a million ‘shapes’ as a book was “picked up off the chair in order to show it to someone” - but we didn’t go naming any shapes; they can cause us to stiffen and try too hard. We both simply enjoyed the beautiful flow of her purpose. “So much easier and lighter!” was the verdict.

She also noticed a big difference between the experience of picking the book up (light) and putting it down (not so light.) She said reason was that for the former we had played with the idea that ‘something’ was taking up a ribbon attached to her fingertips and drawing them gently towards the book, and she simply followed as she moved through what might have once been called ‘many monkeys’. When putting the book down she forgot the ribbon and started moving with the book instead - close, but it was not as light. Bringing in the ‘ribbon-mover’ to lead the book back to the chair brought back the lightness. Yes, it was pure direction, but using imagery and not words. I know this isn’t going to work for everyone, teacher and/or student, but it might work for some and I pass it on as today’s experience.

Ah, the learning continues and I am delighted to be confirming - for me - the positive use of analogy and imagery, and dropping yet more of my possibly way outdated AT vocabulary. Bless him, but FM was around at the time of very different language - time to move on perhaps. And yet again I am ever grateful for all that my students teach me!