Did an alexander technique 1h 1-on-1 ama
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"What" is it? A series of "poses" to do? Meditation/awareness esque exercises? A framework for thinking about the body?
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none of these. i would say: a guidance into the physical operationalisation of neither-doing-nor-not-doing by moving your body and distracting your mind until you've *gotten* it. agree/disagree?
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I like it!
I'm cautious about the "by moving your body" part. Awareness leads - body follows.
I like the idea of distracting your mind. From that angle it's like finally allowing the functioning of a far more sophisticated system without the interference of thinking.
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Huh. I don't know the Alexander Technique stuff well, but by this description it sounds like I was fumbling through a lot of the same territory with movement-based meditation last year.
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I have no explicit movement meditation experience.
But from the Alexander Technique perspective, I might ask: "what's it like to walk without *doing* walking?"
And then: "how does one move without doing moving?"
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Yeah that's pretty much the territory you get into when you cut most of the gross (as in 'not subtle') forms of 'me'-awareness.
Awareness flows into the wider body (and environment), and there are a lot of weird behavioural tics that feel like resets of muscle memory.
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can you say more about gross and subtle forms of me-awareness?
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There are constantly arising points of reference in consciousness; a sense of looking from, at.
This from, at gives rise to "self", e.g. reflexive thought about you. "I am so and so," for example.
The sense of looking out at the world from your eyes is another.
Pretty gross.
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But there are far subtler manifestations of this where the point of reference thing is more implicit than explicit.
You only realize you're "selfing" because whatever experience arises implies this self somewhere in the system.
Emotional suffering (vs. just pain), for example.
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People usually mix emotional suffering with abusive self-talk, mental imagery or w/e, so that there is a more gross level of "WHY IS THIS HAPPENING TO ME?"
But you can have this sense of something happening to a "you" without these additional layers.
There are also things like orientation in space, balance etc. that require a sort of constructed, instrumental sense of self in order to make sense.
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Point is you might not feel the need to name these things you, in the same way people do with their thoughts, feelings etc.
But experientially, there is the same component of reflexivity.
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