A SERIES of introductory workshops were offered on the island last week in hopes of exposing residents to an approach designed to improve performance in everyday and specialised activities. Called the Alexander Technique, it is based on principles first observed and formulated by F. Matthias Alexander between 1890 and 1900. Leading the sessions here was American Don Weed, a 35-year veteran of the Alexander Technique. The events were organised by Cathy Aicardi, a Bermudian who studied under him in Europe and was certified as a practitioner in 2007. Mid-Ocean News reporter Heather Wood and photographer Chris Burville met with the pair and Aingeala Deburca, a professional violinist who also swears by its tenets, to gain a better understanding as to why so many people around the world have been inspired by the teachings of the Alexander Technique.

Q: What attracted you to it initially?

CA: I went to a public speaking workshop and was introduced to the Alexander Technique tools and during that workshop I'll never forget how much improvement I made in my performance in a very short time. I love to perform. My background is in dance and what I experienced with this work was a naturalness, an ease of performance that I'd never experienced to that level before and that made me want to continue to explore this work and find out what it is, how it operates. The leader of the workshop, Lesley Stephenson, provided me the name of a trainer and suggested I go along to an Alexander Technique summer workshop, which I did happily. It was the Interactive Teaching Method (ITM) 8th Annual Summer Workshop in Cirencester, UK, led by Don and a team of his trained teachers. I started off for my own personal development and then got so engaged in the work, decided to join the training course that fall, eventually taking and passing the written and practical exams as well as a required amount of student teaching, in order to graduate as a teacher four years later.

Q: What is the Alexander Technique?

DW: It's a way of learning how to improve your efficiency at work, to get more out of life and to do it in a rather more easy way than maybe you have before. One thing I often ask in the class, for instance, is whether there is anyone who'd like to be 20 per cent more effective and have 30 per cent more energy at the end of the day*?>* Usually there are a few who put their hands up. And so it's, if you will, a constellation of principles and procedures, many of which have become quite familiar through other kinds of disciplines nowadays. We were teaching a class (recently) and someone said, 'Ooh, what you just said sounds like sports psychology.' The difference perhaps, is sports psychology is something relatively new. Alexander himself began doing this work back in the 1890s - he was actually born in 1869 - and published his first book in 1910. So he's not exactly new on the scene but the scene hasn't caught up to him yet.

Q: I realise they're completely different methods but why is the Alexander Technique less known than Pilates when both were introduced around the same time*?>*

DW: The kind of person that's drawn to Pilates, or at least people with whom I'm familiar, are people who are actually quite outgoing, quite driven, quite involved in other areas of their lives to which the Pilates philosophy and process can fit quite easily and quite well. Also, as far as I understand what's going on in Pilates, one of the things that one can do is they can add Pilates into their life and Pilates will in fact give them direct answers to their questions. Occasionally in the training course we talk about the difficulty of 'single right answers', but everyone loves them - tell me what to do and I'll do it. Stephen Covey (author of the best-selling book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People) calls that the 'gofer's philosophy'.

Q: How do you get around that?

DW: One of the very important things that I do with the teachers when I train them is to ask them, "What would life be like if there was more than one right answer?" One of the authors we study is a man named (Robert) Kiyosaki (of the bestseller Rich Dad Poor Dad). He asks the question, "Can two plus two equal five?" Well it can, but it depends on circumstances and what's important about that is that you can reverse them. Is there ever anything that you haven't been able to do - typically it's get the computer to work and then you find out it isn't plugged in or some such thing. The Alexander Technique or this philosophy, this way of life if you will, says, "Why don't we just look at what things are? Why don't we see what's there? Why don't we then use our powers of intelligence and find a way to solve the problem, as it exists, in the moment?"

Years ago I had a tape recorder and it wasn't working. I took it to a friend who was very good at fixing things and he took it and started to fix it. And he kept on fixing it. He was fixing it for 40 minutes. And then he finally asked me, "What's wrong with it?" After 40 minutes of "fixing" it, it still didn't work. So I told him and then he was able to fix it in just a few minutes. So I asked, "What were you doing for 40 minutes?" And he said, "I was fixing all the other tape recorders I've fixed before in my life." Rather than paying attention to the moment, looking at what's there and making simple decisions about how to go on - and that would be an (important) aspect of Alexander's work.

Q: I still don't understand why, if it can help so much, it isn't more popular?

DW: Sometimes when I talk to people in the classes I say, "I don't ask for much, all I'm asking you to do is to change everything yourself". Very few people are willing to do that. Years ago I wrote a book called What You Think is What You Get and the very first story is about something that I call the First Law of the Alexander Technique. The First Law of the Alexander Technique - and by the way it doesn't exist, I made this up - is that people are willing to do anything to get better as long as they don't have to change. I think that we're very happy to get a quick fix. We're very happy to have someone come in and solve our problems. We're very happy to do something, which makes us feel virtuous.

Q: Why is that?

DW: There's a lovely footnote in one of Alexander's books where he talks about doing things the right way. And if we do it the right way, we do it the orthodox way, then when we're finished we can say to ourselves, "Well, at least I tried." He describes that as offloading responsibility rather than doing things the unorthodox way and changing what needs to be changed, giving up what needs to be given up. Very often when I talk to people in my introductory classes I'll ask them, "Is it okay if you get better?" (The response is) "Oh yeah". And I ask them, "Is it okay if I work with you?" Which seems funny because they're sitting in the chair and coming to the class but I've had half a dozen or more people say, "No", which leads to an interesting conversation. (I've asked), "Is it okay if you change?" And I've had people say,"'No". There's this constant (stream of) people being people - which thrills me to no end. Sometimes I'll ask, "Is it okay if you have to give up some of your favourite ideas?" And then there's a hesitation. Even though they're not sure what that might entail, they're not sure they're willing to do that.

Q: Is there any person out there who could not benefit from the Alexander Technique?

DW: I've not met anyone who couldn't. I've had the privilege to work with some very accomplished musicians and dancers and business people - different walks of life. And without exception I've been able to help all of them including, incidentally, my teacher, a woman named Marjorie Barstow. I noticed that she waited until I'd been doing the work for 17 years before she let me give her a lesson - but she finally did. And when she let me work with her she'd been doing the work for 56 years.

Q: Why? Is it because it's an ongoing thing, you're learning constantly?

DW: Yes. But even more exciting than that, most people believe their potential, what they can do in life, is a fixed entity. That is, I've got a potential and if I fill it up, I'm done. I don't believe that. It's not universal but there's this idea. I was talking about fulfilling potential, which is what Alexander's very much about, and someone asked me the other day, "Have you filled your potential?" I said, "Many times." Because what Alexander believed was that we were made for constant improvement. And to a lot of people that is very bad news. A lot of people just want to get to a certain place, sit down and pop a cool one, have something to relax with. For me, it doesn't work and so consequently in just about any area of my life I've achieved what my original goals were.

Q: Can you give an example?

DW: Many years ago - 30 something years ago - I was determined to be just as good a teacher as Marjorie Barstow was. At that time we'd have an intense study session in the summer and then six months later in the winter in that kind of a rhythm. And I would go away and I would work and I would read and I would teach and I would go back so much better than I was before and I was sure every time I'd catch her. But you know what, she had the same six months and when I came back, she was ahead of me. I did this every half year after half year after half year, and I never got any closer, in fact I got behind. And finally one year I realised that where I was at that point in time, was so much better than where Marjorie had been when I made the vow, that I'd already achieved what I thought I'd set out for but because of the nature of this process I was still moving forward.

Q: You've been teaching this for 40 years?

DW: Nearly.

Q: You're an American*?>*

DW: Yes.

Q: How did you end up teaching in Europe?

DW: I was part of a group of people that started a training course in Seattle, Washington. I promised them I'd work for about five years and during the fourth year, 12 people came to Seattle from Switzerland. (My thought was), 'Either they can give the money to Swissair or they can give the money to me.' It looked like an opportunity. The demands that I make and the approach to the work that makes the most sense to me were demands that not many Americans were willing to do - it involves homework. I went to Switzerland and I said, "Here's the homework." They said, "Okay". It never occurred to them that they couldn't not do homework and it was the first time I found myself teaching in a population that worked as hard as they did - and it worked brilliantly. I think the reason why it hasn't had the popularity and success it deserves is because of the way it's been taught historically. It is taught in a fairly rote fashion, in a way that's largely dead. A number of my students were trained students in the more conventional approach, the more common approach and I did a survey (asking) what percentage of your training course do you believe was wasted time? An unkind question but I think an important one. The answers ranged from 30 to 95 per cent. The average was somewhere around 40 or 50 per cent. And the reason for that, in my opinion, was people simply did not engage with the work at its highest level.

Q: How influential was Marjorie Barstow?

DW: (She was) a character in her own right. I had the privilege of staying with her, looking after the house when she was gone, just spending time with her. And I realised that where I was learning the most wasn't in class, it was in her library when she was home at night and we were talking about what the work was. We'd read passages and say, "What do you think this means?" And then we'd do some work and try it out. Marjorie brought two very important innovations to the Alexander Technique. She said, "It's innovation. Why not teach it in classes? Why not work in groups*?>*' If you only work one on one and you have a very successful business, let's say you teach for 20 years and you have 50 new students a year, well in a 20-year career you've worked with 1,000 people. Someone figured out not so long ago that I've worked with about 10,000 people. Not all of who have embraced the work - because it doesn't match them, it doesn't fit them - but it does get the information out there. Marjorie also strongly believed, as I mentioned earlier, that the work should come to the students and the student to the work. I think Aingeala had a very early Alexander experience.

Q: What was that about?

AD: It was a group class. All the students were put into semi-supine positions - that's lying on the floor. It's a conventional position of the Alexander approach. I just remember being put into this position and thinking that I didn't understand how I could relate that to my life or to playing the violin. I think the thinking was for us to take it away and practise it in our own time. I (decided) I was never going to have anything to do with the Alexander Technique again (however) I got into some difficulty playing the violin and I happened to meet one of the (few) teachers in Ireland, who'd trained with Don and I was lucky enough to go to her for lessons. I reluctantly picked up the phone and rang Katie and talked to her and had a lesson with her and it was very likeable. Cathy had the same kind of experience.

Q: It showed you what?

AD: First of all, for quite a few lessons I wasn't lying on the floor and so I thought this is already good. She was talking about the idea, which the other Alexander teachers hadn't done - that struck me. And the work that she did on me with her hands changed the way that I carried myself, the way that I walked. I then drove for seven hours, slept, got up the next morning, played the violin and the difference¿..I hadn't played the violin in the lesson but I picked up the violin the next morning and played it and it was so much easier. There was so much more tone coming out of it. It was rather a dramatic start to my Alexander experience.

Q: You're a professional violinis?

AD: Yes.

Q: So being good counts?

AD: Being good counts. As a professional you get very tired, I think, over years of playing. I suppose I wasn't really thinking about what I was doing or how I was doing it, which I think is something that happens to a lot of professional musicians. It becomes a job. I didn't realise that over time, over the years I was developing ways of playing that weren't doing me any favours. Now I have a very different way of working. I can play for hours and hours and not get tired while my colleagues around me are stretching and complaining.

Q: Cathy, you could have come and held the courses on your own, why did you feel it important to bring Don ?

CA: I thought it was important because, for the first introduction I wanted the best. I thought that was important for my own training and education and I felt this is my home, and I wanted the community here to have that same opportunity. I'm very grateful that Don did accept to come here. I thought it would be the most effective way to introduce the work, so people could have a greater understanding of what the Technique is and what it can do for them.

Q: What do you hope happens as a result?

CA: I hope that people who attended the workshops that we've held all week at the Bermuda College and also one sponsored by the Bermuda Arts Council specifically for dancers - which is very close to my heart because of my passion for the art of dance - think about what they have learned, what they have experienced, and hopefully want to continue to experiment and explore the work, just as I did.

Q: Is it more beneficial to a certain age group?

CA: I think it's beneficial for all age groups. In reading Alexander's work, what I find interesting is that teaching children was of paramount importance to him. But it's for everyone. In the training course, we start off with some of the basic ideas that we learn in analysing selected text in Alexander's books.

This is followed by anatomy and physiology as it relates to human movement, and (then we study) the field of success education, which helps with self-observation and learning to more effectively interact with people, useful on a personal level as well as for teaching. I believe that those first three modules would be beneficial, in fact, essential, as part of our early education system. This is a goal of mine.

Q: How fast do people see results?

AD: I saw them in one lesson (because) I had the right person (and was taught) in the right way. But that was just the beginning. I've been practicing the technqiue for six years now.

CA: I just wanted to understand more. For the first time in an educational process, I felt I had a significant role to play in my own development, and that I had the potential to discover things for myself. So instead of doing what I was told - there is a certain comfort to that - and it certainly was in keeping with most of my schooling and dance training - I was encouraged to ask questions and make mistakes. To take a critical look at my thinking and the truth about how we move. This is very engaging and motivating.

DW: In terms of results, I'd like to see Cathy available here on the Island to teach, that people pick this up and start to put it into their lives. Bermuda is a small enough community that if there were a core of people who took this on I think you would find it almost transformative in terms of the whole community because it's far more usual than not for people within their first lesson to have results. Maybe not to the point of Aingeala's, but to have some extraordinary process happen.

We were teaching at the Bermuda School of Music. We had five musicians come in and all five of them had wonderful first lessons, all five of them had changes and we had enough time for a pianist and a guitarist to play. We were all struck by the difference in the playing. The pianist said, 'I've got to go now. I've got to go play now.' It was wonderful. At that point in anyone's career that's an unusual outcome but that immediate benefit, that immediate result, that immediate self-responsibility and self-guidance of what is going on rather then having to wait or having to be told or having something that is done to you, I like that.

Q: You mentioned that it helps transform the community. How?

DW: Has anyone ever been rude to you? Have you ever wished that someone paid a little more attention? Have you ever wished it was easier to get along with people? For us, the highest value is flexibility. What if everyone's personal life was built around flexibility, grace and power? What would happen if you had your community working that way? You'd be amazed what can happen. I cannot begin to express what a magical life, almost, it has been to be a teacher of this work. People come in and share amazing things, do amazing things.

Q: What are some of the misconceptions that people who are familiar with the Alexander Technique have?

DW: The one we've touched on - failure for this to generate 'single right answers' that they can grab hold of immediately. There was someone who said, 'What I dislike about this is that there's nothing to grab onto and yet I keep getting better.' Because of course it looks like there's nothing to grab onto. It looks like there's nothing to do. Inevitably you work with someone, they'll change, you'll say, "Do you like that?" They'll say, "Yes I do. What can I do to keep it?"

And I'll say, "Well, how did you get it?" And they'll say, "I gave up trying to keep my old life and trying to hold myself in the right place". To which I say, "Well now that you're moving so well, what is your first instinct?" (And they reply), "To keep moving."

It seems that maybe there's a small change in transaction. It can be seen as something that holds people up, but it can also be seen as their pathway. I've noticed over the years that teachers tend to teach beginning students differently than their old time favourite students because the old time favourite students are kind of students for life. I teach every student as if he or she were students for life - it just may take a very long time between the first and second lesson. People say, "How am I going to remember (what I've learned)?" And I say, "Go home. See if you can forget." And I've had people come back four, five, six, seven years after a first lesson and start again. And to me, that's probably perfect timing because something had to happen to get them there. I tell the teachers that our task is about opening doors and letting the person choose.

Q: Do you think the concept was well received?

CA: For me it's a success, this week. There have been many highlights - watching my friends and family members lose a lot of their self-inflicted tension and stress. That's been amazing and it's another benefit of a group class. Even if you don't have one-on-one work with the teacher, when you're in a group setting just by listening and observing other people and seeing the changes happen before your eyes, for me, lovely.

Observing Don teach in a manner that quickly engaged and gained the trust of participants was wonderful. During our dancers workshop, I recall this involvement and gaining of trust happening.

The dancers reported having tried certain movements for a long time without success, and sometimes with pain, and to have an expert teach them to use themselves with a lot less energy and strain - this was simply beautiful to witness. And of course the learning that myself and Aingeala as young teachers - to be in all these sessions, we're constantly learning, constantly picking up new things and deepening our ownership of the ideas and the principles of the work.

Q: If people are interested in learning more they should contact you how?

CA: This is the beginning of ITM Bermuda. I'm in the process of setting up a studio here and working from here as well as in Zurich. I can be contacted via my e-mail address, cathystudioaicardi.org