Everyday Poise: Dare to be Wrong
I came across this Ted Talk the other day, and part of it struck me as a great articulation of an Alexander principle. Watch at least the first seven minutes of the video first, and then we’ll discuss.
At four minutes in he begins telling a story about his four-year-old son and the kids in his nativity play, and right around the 5 minute and 22 second mark, he says that “kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go…they’re not frightened of being wrong.” He goes on to give a particularly exact articulation of an Alexander concept. He talks about the idea that if you are not prepared to be wrong, you can never come up with anything original. This is almost exactly the way that Alexander explains the idea of Faulty Sensory Appreciation.
According to Alexander, we can only consistently do our habits, the things that are known to us already. If something is unknown, we can’t rely on our senses to help us complete it, because we will try to be right and just go straight back into our habit again. The habit is what feels “correct,” so it’s what we will end up doing if we have the desire to do something right. In order to move from the known to the unknown, we have to be okay with being wrong. Ken’s argument here is that children don’t mind being wrong, and will take a chance at something they don’t already know, but as we age we lose that confidence and begin to be terrified of making mistakes. He discusses this in the context of creativity, and the idea that in order to be creative you have to be willing to live in the unknown and prepared to make mistakes. But it is just as applicable in the context of Alexander lessons, the idea being that in order to make changes in the way you use yourself and interact with your surroundings, you have to be willing to be “wrong” for a while.
The whole talk is intriguing and well worth the twenty minutes to watch it, and I highly recommend that you do.
Forward and Up! is a Pittsburgh-based private practice offering quality instruction in the Alexander Technique in a positive and supportive environment.
