F. Mathias Alexander, the developer of the Alexander Technique, wrote a lot about concentration, particularly in Man’s Supreme Inheritance and Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual, his first 2 books. He saw concentration as a harmful habit, and many AT teachers today would agree.
At the same time, concentration is seen as a powerful skill by most other people.
This page is devoted to understanding how this divide came about, what Alexander believed was the cause of harmful concentrating, and how we can learn to avoid it. And, most importantly, seeing if his solution holds up a hundred years after Constructive Conscious Control (CCC) was published.
As a first step, Robert Rickover and Imogen Ragone recorded several short videos detailing Alexander’s thinking process. The primary source is CCC where his understanding of the concentration problem was laid out in greatest detail. It is also where he wrote extensively about mind wandering, which he believed was the immediate, but not the ultimate, cause of concentration. Two of our videos below are devoted to mind wandering, Another useful source of information can be found here: Mind your Mind.
(If you want to do a pdf search for Alexander’s statements in CCC about concentration and mind wandering, for the later be sure to search for his spelling: “mind-wandering”. If you don’t have a searchable pdf, go to Google Books where you can download it.)
Below are the videos, and their audio podcast versions. If you want to add your thoughts to this page, contact Robert using contact button at the top of the page.
Concentration Videos:
Introduction: Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Omaha, Nebraska talks with Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware in which we introduce our four conversations about the two types of concentration, why it is important to distinguish one from the other, and what F. M. Alexander had to say about them in his second book, Constructive Conscious Control of the Individual. We discuss how this topic brings out aspects of F. M. Alexander’s thinking – sometimes very good, and sometimes problematical – that have huge implications for how the Technique is taught today. We also discuss how potential Alexander Technique students may find that their concentration improves as a sort of “side-effect” of taking lessons for the usual reasons – back pain, stress, improving skill for performers and the like.
Part 1: Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Omaha, Nebraska talks with Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware in which we outline F. M. Alexander’s understanding of the harm caused by one type of concentration, and the sequence of events he believes brought us to this sad situation: Poor Use of people today leads to Mind Wandering which then leads to Concentration.
Part 2: Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Omaha, Nebraska talks with Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware go into more detail F. M. Alexander’s understanding why so many of us today are caught up in the harmful, narrow focus, type of concentration, and what the “solution” is in his view. Unfortunately it was next to impossible for most of his students to implement and moreover it disregarded the core principle that our body should be viewed as unified whole, not a collection of parts. It also reveals Alexander’s misunderstanding of how our brain and nervous system work – not surprising given that he was writing a hundred years ago. Nonetheless his “solution” continues to inform some Alexander Technique teaching methods today.
Part 3: Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Omaha, Nebraska talks with Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware discuss the fact – and it’s implications – that most Alexander Technique teachers believe concentration is harmful, while most of the rest of the word think it’s a good thing. This site is a good example of the Alexander view of concentration
Audio version
Part 4: Robert Rickover, an Alexander Technique teacher in Omaha, Nebraska talks with Imogen Ragone, an Alexander Technique teacher in Wilmington, Delaware discuss F. M. Alexander’s view of the underlying cause of the narrow focus concentration that is so prevalent today – namely our poor use of ourselves compared to that of “savages and wild animals”. Not an easy topic to talk about but very important if we want to understand Alexander’s thought process.
Mind Wandering videos:
Part 1: Robert Rickover and Imogen Ragone discuss a simple and powerful new Alexander Technique self-direction with far-reaching implications for all facets of your life.
Part 2:
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