Six Variations on the Theme of Hands-On
A Workshop for Alexander Teachers with Pedro de Alcantara
For more information and to register, please contact the ACAT office manager
In this workshop we'll explore the way we use our hands in communicating with students and working on our own use. Each day we'll study two different subjects, or variations on the theme of hands-on.
- “Pressure, resistance, connection, release.”
- Why do you put your hands on a student?
- How many different things can your hands do?
- How many directions can you create with your hands, at the same time?
- Layers: clothing, skin, flesh, bones.
- Direction as Energy.
1. “Pressure, resistance, connection, release.”
Imagine that I put a little pressure somewhere on your body: for example, I stand behind you, place my hands on your shoulders, and squeeze your shoulders gently. If you resist my pressure and create an opposition of forces—in versus out, up versus down, forward versus backward—then the shoulders connect to the back, the back to the pelvis, the pelvis to the legs, and so on. Thanks to this circuit of connections, the neck releases, the back lengthens and widens, the breath flows easily… Release, then, is the result of a process, not the process itself. In this session we’ll explore the process of “pressure, resistance, connection, release.”
2. Why do you put your hands on a student?
We use our hands to “read” the student, to help him or her feel things more clearly, to prevent certain things from happening and encouraging others to happen instead, to “give the student directions.” It’s all true. But I think the most important reason we use our hands lies elsewhere. The operative word is “connection,” as in the previous work session. And whose connections, exactly? That’s the really pertinent question! In this session we’ll explore “constructive selfishness.”
3. How many things can your hands do?
Alert and proactive hands can perform many different actions: hold, point, poke, caress, twist, snap, throw, squeeze… Your hands will be more intelligent and sensitive if they have multiple capabilities in reserve, whether or not you choose to use these capabilities during a lesson. In this session we’ll explore the hands’ innate talents.
4. How many directions can you create with your hands, at the same time?
Suppose you stand behind a student and put one hand on his shoulder, another on the opposite hip. Your hands can push the student forward, sideways, downward, and in various dynamic permutations; you can twist your hands clockwise or counterclockwise, both on the same direction, each in a different direction; your hands can attempt to gently move in toward each other, through the gentle resistance of the student’s body… The possibilities are huge. In this session we’ll explore “multiplicity of directions, multiplicity of connections.”
5. Layers: clothing, skin, flesh, bones
Suppose you take hold of your student’s forearm with one hand, wrapping your fingers and palm all around the forearm. If you pay attention, you’ll discern many layers to your student: a sweater and a shirt; beneath it, skin and perhaps hair; beneath it, flesh and muscles; beneath it, bone. Moreover, your own hand has many layers: its own skin, its flesh, its bones. So you might feel as many as nine or ten layers, each with a certain texture, each responding differently to your touch and perhaps even “requesting” a particular touch. In this session we’ll explore layers of sensation and response.
6. Direction as Energy.
In The Use of the Self, Alexander descfribed direction as “the process involved in projecting messages from the brain to the mechanisms and in conducting the energy necessary to the use of these mechanisms.” Direction, then, appears to have two sides: “messages from the brain” plus “energy.” In this session we’ll explore the energetic aspects of direction.