3. Understanding habits

Outcome: By the end of this course the learner will be able to identify, analyse and respond to postural patterns, habits and mindsets in self and others.

[This course corresponds to AUSTAT Standard S1M1 E2 PC1.7–1.14]

“Some people are perfectly willing to keep their disabilities if they can blame something or someone else for them.”¹ FP Jones

A trainee who is deepening their understanding of Alexander’s process, which he described as constructive conscious control will be interested to enquire about consciousness and what it means in day to day life. This course looks at a heightened level of awareness. It has you identify, analyse and respond to postural patterns, habits and mindsets in yourself and in others during activities. This represents an exciting undertaking where a light is shone onto a human underworld of levels of meaning, subtext and revelation. You will explore profoundly Alexander’s idea of psycho-physical unity;that mind and body operate as one inseparable whole. Your posture, your movement, your habits,your mannerisms, your language all provide information to the trained person. Who you are, how you feel,your health, your outlook are all revealed to the trained observer.

“In the ordinary person habit controls and directs thought—Alexander’s technique reverses this.”² FP Jones

The trainee/learner undertaking this course will begin to see that what people say is not always aligned to their movement, posture and habit. You will begin to unravel the fascinating world of complex human behaviour. It will allow you ,as a teacher, to understand the complex behavioural tension patterns that our students have cultivated within themselves over a period of many years. You will begin to see how people operate under inaccuracies, misinterpretations and delusions al of which set them wrong within their functioning sometimes to the point of chronic pain, anxiety tension and dis-ease.

Once you have developed your sensory acuity and can observe the constraints that we entangle ourselves with each moment, you will never see the world in the same light again. Blissful ignorance gives way to a deep knowledge on the path to becoming a convincing educator.

1. Freedom to Change. Frank Pierce JonesMay 1997 3rd Edition Mouritz. pp208 ↩︎
2. FP Jones. op.cit pp208 ↩︎

Reading

Freedom to Change. Professor Frank Pierce Jones