State-Specific

There’s an important factor in learning and practicing that I’d like to bring to your attention. The scientific description is called state-specific learning. What that means is the content of what gets learned will be tied to the literal circumstance where you learn it. Context is important.

State-Specific learning is so effective that it’s actually used in animal training to solve behavior problems. If your dog is digging holes in your garden, you would deliberately train the behavior of digging on purpose while you’re located somewhere else (such as at the beach.) Then don’t give the command for the dog to dig at your house. The dog gets the idea that it’s only in sand that digging gets your approval, so there’s no use in making holes in the garden at home anymore because that results in your disapproval. You would turn the unwanted action into a command and then it has meaning when you don’t give the cue.

Most teachers assume that if you are an adult learner, you have the capacity to abstract what you are learning in their classroom or lessons in order to apply it to other instances that importantly similar. The factor of State-Specific learning works against this possibility. It’s a leap to abstract what has been learned; just because people can abstract, WILL they abstract? It’s an act of intelligence to notice the possibility to apply what was learned elsewhere exactly when this similarity of knowledge could be quite useful in this specific circumstance that’s a bit different. The ability to abstract takes observation, lateral thinking skills, memory and presence of mind. That’s why it’s important to directly consider the ability to abstract and apply what just was learned and to discuss the capacity to do so with your students if you’re a teacher.

For instance, I just published a story on my blog about how thinking about the lengthening phase of a motion while riding a bike helped me to refresh my range of motion in my leg strength while riding uphill. The comment of a reader who didn’t understand the abstract generalization of my message was, “I’ll do that the next time I ride a bike.”

“But that idea of using the lag in a phase is useful generally during any routine!!” I declared. “If you choose a ‘slack’ moment when you are gathering your energy to focus on in a cyclical phase, the other part (when you’re applying effort) will take care of itself in an easier and less stressed way.”

Unless you point to that concept specifically, it’s not a guarantee that people will make the abstract connection on their own.

So to do that now – (let’s say you’re reading stuff on the computer, right?)  You would observe routines that you do while in that activity, and choose one that isn’t imperative – so you can design a ‘resting’ moment into it that could offer a slight renewal for increased stamina over the long term. For instance, how about when you move your hands from the keyboard to the mouse or touchpad? (Or if you’re on another device, the time when you pick up your hand to use your finger to interact with the screen.) Why not use that moment to look away from the screen for a moment, perhaps look up and blink and momentarily rest your eyes and slightly turn your head. This only takes a moment, right?

By doing something like this, you’ll begin to be able to apply whatever you learn in one situation to other situations that do matter to you personally. Now that you understand whatever you experience can be applied elsewhere abstractly, you will be providing for the  limitations of State-Specific concerning anything you already know.

Can you think now of an insight or significant discovery you made that would be handy if it could be applied elsewhere?

 

Sense A Wake-Up

Students have complained that the Alexander Technique is too “mysterious.” Why do we have such trouble really knowing what happens as we get into habits? We can certainly feel the pain of going to far after it’s happened!

Maybe I’m not asking the most useful question. How about: It is possible to use what we can’t sense? If sensory events are taking place underneath our current capacity to sense it, how can we recognize an unfamiliar but meaningful change or sense the fulfillment of a string of gradual successes?

We use what we can’t sense every day. We believe what others tell us about the nature of how things work that we can’t see or understand from inventions and equipment. We are fascinated to gain the enhanced perception technology that inventors have offered humanity; those innovators, artists, authors and entertainers who pique our imagination. The telescope, microscope, cameras, MRI and X-ray; recordings, amplifiers and communication enhancements; maps, programs and models.

But what about our ability to sense ourselves in direct action without all this special equipment? Humanity hasn’t had a hardware update in movement sensory capacity in much too long. Movement is even a tricky thing to describe to ourselves.

Human ability to recognize improvement moment to moment while training sensory ability isn’t very precise by human design. This can be most easily demonstrated when it comes to the sense of establishing muscle memory, orientation and judging weight and effort. As fact, the kinaesthetic sense is taken for granted. It is truly our “sixth sense.” Seeing is believing; feeling seems like fact.

The secret most people don’t understand is all of our senses do not truly give us the facts. They are merely registering relative information that needs interpretation. It’s up to us to interpret what our senses say. Of course, an education can compensate, but where do we get this education? Education for has taught most of us to avoid mistakes at any cost. Putting together how to constructively use our mistakes or our successes is the challenge.

Here’s an educational secret: Human sensation registers differences that are notable as determined by the person who is experiencing it.

Awareness of what appears to be “notable” is skewed by a design feature of being able to adapt. This is a human strength in most situations. Adapting allows humans to habituate anything we can do. Adapting is a brilliant, indispensable advantage; it allows sophisticated skills to be learned by connecting new behaviors together in series as what is known as a behavior chain. Without habituation, it would be overwhelming to execute skills. (Surely you’ve had the experience during learning of: “my brain is full.”)

You’ll learn as you read more of this blog some unusual ways to deal with it that work without special training to improve this situation. Why this happens is an “aha” moment that more likely starts as a mystery. There is also a human sensory software update available that takes focused study over time called Alexander Technique, (also worth learning for other preventative health effects.)

So – the answer is “yes!” You *can* wake up and sharpen your sensory abilities, learn to observe yourself, spot what others miss and make anything that takes practice to learn to go faster. To take the reins back from habit – it takes awareness and the ability to observe yourself in action.

Stay tuned for the next part where more of your questions will be questioned!

Unfamiliarity Land

Let’s say that the medium is movement, how an intention translates into physical action. The challenge or proof that you’re doing as you intend could be to use less effort, more mechanical advantage, perhaps even an ideal economy of applied physical energy during motion.

Maybe you have a goal in mind, a purpose about why you are wanting to improve the way you move. Now there is also another challenge about how to interrupt one’s own routines.

I’ll explain what I mean by that last sentence. One direction will, theoretically by default, “cancel out” the other. At the moment when you direct your whole self to go physically in one direction, the other possible options are de-selected. You can’t go two places at the same time.

If you try that theory out by putting  a new improvement into action – what happens is your old routines have the power to run interference on the new things that you really want. Your habits do this as if it’s life itself that is at risk. What’s unfamiliar and new is totally threatening to most people. Granted that some people can leap… but in order to leap, they need a complete conviction that they don’t want the old same thing. Another way around that is to go bit by bit to reassure yourself, and the imperative protective alarms never go off. There are obviously more ways to make the unfamiliar less scary too…

It takes a clarity of intent to gather one’s sense of purpose and direct one’s whole self. But, maybe that’s not what it takes. For instance, people used to tell me that I was patient when they saw the detail in my artwork. But for me, in an experience of absorption, an experience of being patience didn’t exist because my attention was fully engaged.

This ability to direct one’s attention has many qualities – some work with your goals and some don’t so well.  The one that work the most flexibly are ones that don’t focus on the goal – strangely enough. The admonition to “Just Do It,” will likely activate what is most familiarly trained and ingrained. This works fine if you know how to do what you’re trying to do – like a music conductor who only needs to give the signal at the right time.

But how to practice to train a flexible habit?

Strangely enough, the best route is indirect and paradoxical. It is a brand of surrender or suspension of desire. It even works to use a brand of trickery: refusing to mentally say the “action word” and instead stick to the new steps of what you imagine might improve things. It takes at least sixty-eight times to train a new skill!

As a skill, it turns out that “taking out the complication” of the habitual routines is all that’s necessary. “The goal does itself” as the hindrances or complications are removed. This happening is a strange feeling of effortlessness – something you might need to get used to experiencing.

It’s worth it – you figure that out by doing what you couldn’t do before. The land of unfamiliarity is where all the new discoveries are.

Teaching Attention

Observation is the perceptual ability to collect first-hand information. It’s determined by the way a person uses their mind and attention to direct their investigating. Similar to the way that the selection of a question directs the mind toward where to gain results, attention has qualities of perception that direct the way it can may be used.

The most simple way to use your observation is to just do it. But often people find they don’t notice anything; nothing “stands out.” This is why it pays to be able to shift your attention on purpose to generate new, creative ways of observing.

Sometimes, it’s not what the content are of what is being observed that needs consideration. How attention itself gets directed is important to learn about. Most people in our Western culture have honed their attention to be used as a selective searchlight, but that is only one possible means. There are probably as many ways of using attention as there are cultures. Attention can assume the investment of cultural or personal interest, as if it is being directed through a magnified or many faceted lens. Attention can skip and select using varied criteria. Its priority may also be reordered to fit the situation on the fly. Attention can inhabit different points of view through psychological projection or imagination. Attention can allow itself to be deliberately suspended; attention can coerce and leave no choice because of the rate of pace toward a goal. Attention can be diffused; attention can be used in a broad, general connective sense as if merging into a figure-ground relationship. Necessity directs attention for safety’s sake or in service of a specific goal that directs a course of action. In service of the needs of others and communication is another motive that warrants honing specialized skills of paying attention.

Whatever it is you do, most people have a routine of various selected ways of using their attention; these routines often use a only a few ‘favored’ qualities. This short list suffices, so new means are not often intentionally created. In fact, when asked about how many ways are there to pay attention…most people can’t think of more than a few.

Consider the quality of attention mentioned of a figure-ground relationship. This particular kind of attention would be appropriately used by an artist of any medium who is noting and bringing forth certain desired qualities without translating their meaning into words. This artistic mode of perception has quite different qualities than the kind of attention used by someone who must imperatively decide if a priority action is about to be immediately required for self-preservation motives quickly. However, if you were hunting or hiding for self-preservation, then skill at this same sort of attention would allow scanning the view to spot the location of what is being obscured by scenery. Having many qualities of attention is handy to know.

It is possible to train attention. Of course, in the doing of different skills & activities, some qualities of attention are developed and exercised in context, and this can be their largest value. There are also many philosophical essays on attention, but ideas profit from having a form for practice. Meditation practices feature attention training specifically, but these practices often contain a culturally defined prescription of how the ability should affect other values.

Purposeful Freedom Of Allowing and Leaving Out

Beyond selling the value of constructive effortlessness and patience, Alexander Technique trains attention without a prescription of what goals & content should be pursued. Although Alexander Technique uses specific examples in context to conduct a lesson and has the obvious purpose of freeing posture and gaining poise as a by-product, it is designed to be abstracted into all general contexts involving movement response. The ability to observe and choose appropriate qualities of attention tailored to certain purposes should be free from any specific context of how it was learned. This requires the ability to abstract.

Another Reason Why Alexander’s Work Is Notable
Alexander Technique is fascinating partly because it requires training attention, as well as an ability to describe what goes on inside that is not often brought to light. There are not many words for the proprioceptive sense of balance, location and relative effort in English, so the search for meaning and description can be poetic fun. Alexander Technique is a handy form for learning because it creates a circumstance where thinking has a specific physical expression that can be factually witnessed in how a person moves. Having a real example that can be used as a hypothesis shows off or proves how much the person was able to do as they intended. It’s also a medium for shining the intuitive sense buried underneath what is usually hidden by habit. Shaping expressions of intent is, in a sense, a performance art and a chance to tap the unknown for whatever you guessed might exist…so you can pay attention to what’s new!

For example, most people are not used to perceiving their proprioceptive sense. Many have never before heard of the word “proprioception”. This is defined as our sense of location in space, judgment of weight and the amount of effort it takes to perform an action. (This sense is even skipped over in the list of the 5 senses.)

If I ask someone to notice while they are taking a few steps what they are doing concerning the way they are moving, (even including causes, conclusion or judging in what they notice,) most people draw a complete blank. It helps to provide them with a list of words so they can come up with a ways to ask. They want to ask for the goal of obtaining any description, so they can compare results after experimentation.

In training the ability to observe oneself, it seems that adverbs are useful to jog and note how ones’ own perception works. It is best if that action is done playfully, because once the survival sense is active, it seems to cut off rather than open perception because attention is being used in service of an immediate imperative to act. In particular, four specific questions are help the ability to observe and describe for oneself. They are: quality, direction, sequence, timing, (in no particular order.)