| erschienen
in |
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| Direction |
| International
Journal on the Alexander Technique, Sept. 1991 |
| Vol.1
No 8: Music, Musicians and Performance |
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| Anmerkung
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| In den vergangenen
mehr als 10 Jahren seit Schreiben dieses Artikels hat
sich mein pädagogisches Verständnis, mein Verständnis der
Alexander-Technik, und mein Verständnis der zugrunde liegenden
anatomischen und neurophysiologischen Fakten z.T. sehr verändert.
Einiges, was ich geschrieben habe, finde ich heute fraglich,
anderes sogar falsch. Viele Überlegungen besitzen auch heute
noch ihre Gültigkeit. Zu dem Weg den ich seither gegangen
bin, stehe ich. Die Fehler sind alle meine. Dieser Artikel
ist hier im Sinne eines vollständigen Bildes wiedergegeben.
Ulf Tölle |
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| Stage
Fright by Ulfried Tölle * |
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| We all suffer from
stage fright in some form in our lives. Musicians, however,
have to regularly confront this issue. We learn an instrumental
technique to gain control over our instrument. We spend hours
on perfecting our instrumental skills in order to attain this
control. And then comes the moment of truth - the specter
of stage fright arises and then I don‘t know anybody who manages
to keep himself under control. In performance, a certain momentum
carries us along after the first note. But the problem of
the first note always exists. |
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Ulf.
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I‘ve been fighting stage
fright for more than ten years now.
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It was as part of this process
that I came to know the Alexander Technique and I must
say I abused it, because I was only interested in it as
a means of getting rid of my «stage fright». Although
my problems with it diminished throughout my training
course, I did not ever actually start to direct myself
as I was a stubborn end-gainer. And as a result, I continued
being such a victim of my trembling on stage that my French
horn shook, thus causing an uncontrolled vibrato.
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I struggled for a long time
to find the trick - I even trained to become an Alexander
teacher for that purpose - but I kept on not finding it.
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| What new insights
have I gained about the Alexander Technique through my confrontation
with my fears on stage? |
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| We all know about
letting our necks be free, etc., but we really know very little
about the nature of the habits we have and want to overcome.
Unless we investigate this question we will fall in any stress
situation just as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow. As
I see it, we have to know more about the nature of our habits
in order to take responsibility for the ones we have. Otherwise
we can always still quit yet once more and say «Sorry, I‘m
again the victim of my habit today!». But that isn‘t what
we want, is it? |
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| Let us begin our
investigation. Look at your Self, observe your Use. Have you
chosen the way you sit or stand? I don‘t know your answers,
but most of the time when I ask myself this question, I have
to answer, «No, I didn’t choose, it just happened that way.»
While we always can choose, we normally don‘t, do we? We just
don‘t think about choice. And when we fail to make a choice
we rely on our habits and react in accordance with our preconceived
ideas. |
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| I have come to realize
that there are two concepts which play a large role in my
life and thus also with stage fright. |
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| Firstly, I always waste the
most energy when I am somewhere and want to be somewhere else
or be somebody else. Of course, I am cheating myself. I know
there is only one possibility: to acknowledge where I am and
to be there. Secondly, I have the desire to gain and maintain
control (and I have come to understand that it is not only
my personal concept, but everybody‘s personal concept to a
greater or lesser degree). Let‘s see how this relates to stage
fright. |
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| What I have discovered up until
now is based on the above-mentioned knowledge that I waste
a lot of energy on stage by desiring to be someplace other
than I am. Today, however, I no longer allow myself to be
tied to the concept of having to gain control, but choose
to be out of control so that I can direct my awareness towards
that which is required now, whatever that may be. |
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| The only thing we can do, is
to allow ourselves to be where we are now, namely in the state
of being out of control! |
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| This, of course, did not solve
my problems all at once, but gave me the freedom to look in
new directions. I became free to look for the underlying concepts
which allow a specific habit to persist. I discovered that
I have been (and still am) thinking that I have to prove to
other people that I am (really) good enough. Furthermore it
revealed that I unconsciously assume that I am better than
others and then have to prove to myself that I am really someone
special. I still have not gotten rid of this idea and I think
that it is a part of who I am, of who Ulf is in my mind. I
create a gap between the audience and myself by the thought
that there is a «really big» difference between everyday life
and performance. So I have no chance of being in contact with
either the audience or with my Self. |
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| lt. may now perhaps be clear
to you that my mind was and still is preoccupied with such
thoughts. Remembering that I always waste the most energy
when I am somewhere and wish to be elsewhere, I now choose
to allow these thoughts to be there. I simply inhibit any
reaction to them and by this means gain more freedom to direct
my awareness. |
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| This in turn leads to another
aspect, that of action and being active. |
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| Most of the time I have my preconceived
ideas of what people, things, and situations are like. I get
in trouble with this by reacting to these ideas because l
am not responsible for what these ideas do to me. |
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Michael
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Michael, a student of mine,
complained to me about one of his habits in playing the
piano. He was always measuring the extent to which he
could express himself in sound and was never satisfied.
He could not express himself as long as he was preoccupied
with measuring his sound. He was always so busy measuring
what had already happened that he left himself no room
to be in the present. He was definitely reacting to one
of his concepts. I could point that out to him clearly
enough so that he could understand what he was doing from
this point of view. I requested him then not to fight
against his measuring «automatism», as it is habitual
and will make its appearance anyway. I asked him to simply
be aware of it, not feeling bad or even guilty about it,
but to allow it to be there, taking over responsibility
for the fact that it exists within him, and to go on playing.
When it makes its appearance - fine! - and what about
the other qualities he could be aware of, such as his
contact with the chair, the length and width of his back,
the lightness of his movements, etc. Because he allowed
himself the possibility of being aware of these other
factors and thus was able to change his playing, he then
became satisfied with his sound, and not because he measured
his playing and felt bad about it.
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| As you see, his way of thinking
did not allow him access to a shift in awareness and thus
also not to a shift in Use because his thoughts left him in
the domain of reaction to other thoughts. The non-doing part
here was the inhibition of reaction to any thought that arises.
At the moment when Michael wanted something not to be or to
be different he was already reacting to preconceived ideas.
I perceive the active part of this situation as being the
assumption of responsibility for whatever thoughts or tensions
are present. I wish to define the simultaneity of non-doing
and becoming responsible as being action, as it is definitely
the opposite of reaction. |
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| How can we enter into a space
of action from our habitual realm of reaction? |
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| Normally I am in the state of
reaction, for example now when I am writing. As soon as became
aware of it, I began to sit differently as awareness caused
a shift in the relationship of my head, neck, and back. I
became responsible for my sitting while writing and in the
sense my writing became action. And if we observed ourselves,
we would all find ourselves in similar situations most of
the time. Perhaps you will find this easier to observe in
a lesson with one of your students. Ask him what he wants
to do now. He will give you all sorts of answers, but the
last thing he will tell you (while standing) is «I want to
stand now and talk with you.» That is a measure of how far
away we are from ourselves in our activity. I know that it
makes a difference in the head, neck, and back relationship
when you can help the student discover that he ran choose
to do whatever he is doing now whatever that may be. |
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| And, of course, what is true
for my «normal» state of being is even more true for the «abnormal»
one of performance. Only by taking responsibility for my habit
of trembling or stage, by allowing it to be there, can I become
aware of my Use, thereby causing a shift iii my head, neck,
and back relationship. I start actively playing: I choose
to go on stage, I choose to tune my French horn to the oboe,
I choose to listen to the orchestra in preparation for my
next entrance, etc. Thus, in order to deal with the symptoms
of my stage fright, I had to take responsibility for my habits. |
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| lt. is this sense of responsibility
for their habits that I try to communicate to my students
in our work. For it is only by assuming responsibility for
our habits - whether it be trembling on stage, sitting slumped
over a book, or measuring our playing - that we can become
free to direct our awareness towards our Use. |
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Irene
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Irene brought another, perhaps
more obvious concept of not being responsible to our lessons:
me - little student; you - big teacher. By this means
she gave me the power to tell her who and what she was
that day. This naturally spoiled our lessons. The moment
she delegated a part of her responsibility, she started
to carry out my instructions mechanically and simply replaced
old habits with new ones, for one of her preconceived
ideas was the desire to ding to something or someone else.
So I requested her to simply regard me as a fellow student
and not to put me on a throne. I pointed out to her that
by placing me there she was avoiding assuming responsibility
for herself. She understood this and we then finally managed
to have a successful lesson together.
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| In this conjunction I wish to
mention that I think praise in teaching is very problematic
although I find myself saying «Yes>~, «That‘s it!», and similar
things often enough in lessons. lt. makes my students believe
that they are finally doing something correctly, as there
is a universal desire to ding to something perceived to be
good. This can, however, undermine the possibility for a successful
lesson, because the instant a student does something correctly,
he is no longer responsible and he stops being active. By
fixing on a specific idea which is correct just at this very
moment, he starts to react to a newly created preconceived
idea, thus curtailing the reasoning process. The Alexander
Technique is so powerful just because it sets the reasoning
process in motion by which people are enabled to start to
release tensions and concepts. |
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| As this is a universal problem,
some Alexander teachers have begun to use very few words,
to work more practically, or to only express the directions
by means of metaphors. I do not know whether these methods
of instruction can empower a student to become responsible
for his habits. For myself I have found that the instant I
deal with a pattern of movement I have to deal with the underlying
concept at the same time. |
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| Let us take another look at
the question of stage fright now that we have examined these
aspects of a person’s conceptual make-up. |
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| Alexander once said that «the
most difficult thing to get rid of are things that don’t exist.» |
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| For you know, stage fright does
not exist. There are a lot of symptoms that occur when I‘m
on stage similar to symptoms of other people when they are
on stage which by convention are called stage fright. So for
more than ten years I have been working to reduce something
that does not exist. |
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| I sometimes still have to contend
with these things today. But by shifting my approach to my
everyday life (which also takes place on stage) I can be increasingly
aware while performing, or if you prefer, I have started performing
in my everyday life. |
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| Maybe the most active part of
this shift is assuming responsibility for the fact that we
have these ideas and by this simple act we no longer need
to react to them. We are free to allow already reacted to
the first concept that pops into my subconscious. In teaching
this has the effect that I always automatically force my students
to conform to this concept when either of us is not «present».
For me the Alexander Technique is a brilliant method for entering
the domain of now; through Union with the body in the present
moment, we attain awareness of physically being here, now. |
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Andreas
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Andreas plays the organ professionally
and came to me complaining about a Lack of connection
with his arms. His preconceived idea that he already knew
how to play the organ prevented any change in his playing,
and that is why he used himself the way he did. After
about eight run-of-the-mill lessons he then came and told
me of a shift in his awareness which enabled him to change
his Use. Andreas realized that he could give himself directions
and was able to release undue tension the instant he became
aware because, as he expressed it, «he was in contact
with that which is». Similarly, Michael formulated forward
and up as «the ability of the senses to be in contact
with the world».
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| Andreas and Michael emerged
from their habitual realm of reacting to preconceived ideas
into a space where action becomes possible. Real action is
unpredictable in its power. |
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| In my opinion, our work as Alexander
teachers consists of knowing what is required and the search
for what is missing - the awareness of what we feel and do
not feel. We can only know intellectually whether something
is missing - normally we even overlook the fact that something
is missing. It is only with our intellect that we can remember
and remember once again, and start being aware, right now
... today. |
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October 1990
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| Ulfried Tölle is a performing
musician. He plays coordinate solo horn in the Symphonic Orchestra
of Zurich in Switzerland. He received his training as an Alexander
teacher from Yehuda Kuperman from 1983-86. Today he teaches
the Alexander Technique at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart,
Germany, as well as privately in Switzerland. |
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| * With the help of Anne Smith,
Jeremy Chance, Vivien Mackie, and Linda Zraik Mussele who
each in their own way made it possible for me to write this
article. Thanks! |
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