Soma in the City: How does listening and responding to a ‘somatic podcast’ drawing on the Alexander Technique, affect one’s relationship with urban space?
The ASO Newsletter - 32nd Edition
Helping you stay connected to Alexander Technique related research
‘Take a walk for a while. Allow the world to flow past under your feet and either side of you…
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‘Allow your traveling to slow right down to as far as where you are comfortable… Come back to a sense of the support of the ground below you as you move over it and allow yourself to free up, filling out the space all around you – behind, to the sides, in front and above. Receiving that space and taking it in with your periphery vision’
Introduction
(12.5 min read)
This article is a summary of a small piece of research carried out as part of an M.A. in Dance and Somatic Well-Being at the University of Central Lancashire. The basis of the research was: An interest in bridging the gulf between somatic perceptual/movement practice and being in a challenging urban environment, and curiosity in how using digital technology can possibly create more, rather than less, connection to psychophysical self and environment.
It involved creating an audio recording (the ‘somatic podcast’) that included me speaking and music tracks by various artists. I sourced six participants who I already knew, not closely, with varying degrees of experience in movement practices and the Alexander Technique. Research ‘data’ were drawn from the time we shared together ‘post-podcast’. Conclusions were drawn from extracting themes from the subjective experience of the individuals.
The experience of doing the research project gave me the impetus to develop more audio recordings to enhance my Alexander teaching practice and gave me more confidence in adapting to online and distance teaching during the pandemic.
Beginnings
As a student on the M.A. I and my peers would dream about the course running in a beautiful rural retreat centre instead of the unattractive area of the city in which we were based. It felt difficult to make the bridge between the experiences that we were having during studio practice time and then going outside into urban everyday Preston, an industrial town in Lancashire, UK. I decided to design an audio recording, aware, based on conversations that I was having, that there seemed to be a resistance in the field of somatics to embracing technology, as Wood puts it: ‘I am curious about the perceived resistance to the mediated in many somatically focused processes… despite the fact that most of us live highly urbanized lifestyles impregnated with technology’ (2011: 88). My curiosity lay in: how listening to a particular kind of audio recording (what I called a ‘somatic podcast’) may affect the listener’s feelings and sense of connection and relationship with the urban landscape. I wanted to know how it may be possible to induce an exploratory, experiential somatic learning environment within the larger environmental setting that contains the strong stimulus to perceive, move and respond habitually. For example, I have experienced myself bracing or pulling down when I move through busy, polluted, or deprived urban areas. I also wondered whether I could produce something that could be effective for individuals, ranging in age and experience when I would not be able to facilitate in real time.
Image painted by study participant
Theoretical Influences
Embodied person- environment mutuality and reciprocity
The theoretical model is based on current embodied cognitive science. Gibbs explains
‘The traditional disembodied view of mind is mistaken, because human cognition is fundamentally shaped by embodied experience… especially in terms of the phenomenological experience of our bodies in action.’ (2005: 3)
Of particular relevance to this research Gibbs says that
‘many philosophers and cognitive scientists now reject person-world dualism and advocate that persons be understood, and scientifically studied, in terms of organism-environment mutuality and reciprocity’ (2005:16).
Ecopsychology
Perceptual psychologist Laura Sewall describes how:
Deep Ecology and progressive psychology have begun to flesh out a conception of an ecological self, in which the division between inner and outer worlds becomes an arbitrary and historical distinction… the ecological self experiences a permeability and fluidity of boundaries… This manifests as an empathy and identity… a recognition that to tread heavily on the Earth is to tread heavily upon one’s self. (1995: 202–03)
Sewall recommends developing a perceptual practice in order to change our perceptual and behavioural habits. The four practices I touch on in the podcast are: (1) ‘learning to attend, or be mindful, within the visual domain’ which she explains as ‘the enhancement of selected sensory information’; (2) learning to perceive relationships, context and interfaces; (3) learning to re-perceive depth which she describes as
Most concerned with a change in world view and associated proprioceptive responses allowing a sensual response that comes from a recognition of being within, held by, and always touched by Earth and air. (1995: 212)
and (4) the intentional use of the imagination (1995: 204).
Influences of somatic practices and the Alexander Technique
Somatic practices are wide-ranging but with common values (Williamson 2009). These include valuing attending to sensing, grounding, spaciousness, a slowing down, and to movement emerging. The time spent together after the participant had finished listening to the podcast drew upon my practice and training during the MA course as a non-judgmental (as far as I was consciously able to be) ‘witness’ to their ongoing emerging expression of experience.
The basis, however, for me, being an Alexander Technique practitioner, is that the conditions for a change in perceptual practice, and in being available to attend to movement, is starting from the state of ‘non-doing’. This can mean raising one’s awareness of when one is ‘doing’ something to oneself. As Carrington explains
Rarely do people manage to stop and quiet themselves and get themselves into a situation of non-doing. Non-doing is, above all, an attitude of mind. It’s a wish. It’s a decision to leave everything alone and see what goes on, see what happens… (1994: 134)
I hoped in the podcast to imbue a sense of non-‘end-gaining’. Alexander wrote ‘…all those who wish to change something in themselves must learn to make it a principle of life to inhibit their immediate reaction to any stimulus to gain a desired end’ (1932: 115). Many years of working hands-on with clients has been a continual practice and expansion of the embodied knowledge that it is through coming to quiet, to a state of embodied non-doing and non-end-gaining that my hands become more receptive to sensory dynamic information. This state of embodied receptivity was a key element that I wanted to foster in the recording as a general basis for sensory awareness and as a source for movement.
Attending to movement
As well as heightened visual, sensory awareness and receptivity I wanted to encourage movement, for as Sondra Fraleigh puts it,
‘We are not essentially creatures of sight, but of all the senses, and of movement’ (2004: 10).
This echoes Sheets-Johnstone,
‘Sensing and moving do not come together from two separate regions of experience. Movement and perception are seamlessly interwoven’ (2009: 32).
She also indicates that movement may have to be encouraged:
‘Caught up in an adult world, we easily lose sight of movement and of our fundamental capacity to think in movement. Any time we care to turn our attention to it, however, there it is’ (2009: 61).
Sondra Fraleigh goes on to say
‘The intrinsic values of walking, meditation, and dancing have a common source in our body of time and movement. These are available to us when we attune to the poetics of space and pay attention to the pleasures of movement. (2004: 57)
Methodological Influences and developmental process
I was influenced by Moustakas’ approach of heuristic enquiry where ‘The self of the researcher is present throughout the process and, while understanding the phenomenon with increasing depth, the researcher also experiences growing self-awareness and self-knowledge’ (1990: 9–10). I embarked upon embodied ‘first-person practice as research’ and literally went out onto the streets and experimented, observing the effect on my whole psychophysical self. As Parker-Starbuck and Mock put it, ‘The researcher’s body becomes a conduit through which ideas are discovered and presented, and research is conducted about and through bodies’ (2011: 223). Research enquiries were guiding me and emerging as part of the process. The most significant being: what language best attunes the senses and invites receptivity? What language and music can be effective to coax the self into non-everyday movement in a public urban space? How and when should I make the transitions from a more passive sensorily receptive state to encouraging more movement? Without my embodied presence as facilitator, how can I imbue the recording of my voice to be conducive to the experience?
Working with the participants
I had four women and two men aged between 40 and 68 who I knew already but not closely. They had varying experience of the Alexander Technique (from none at all to having done the teacher training), and a range of experience of movement practices (from limited to extensive). One of the underlying research interests was that of encouraging personal agency, so I asked each of them to select an urban space in advance that they did not like. I then gave them the choice whether they wanted to me to stay with them at a little distance or whether they wanted me to wait at the meeting place. After they had listened to the recording they had the instruction to stay quiet and to keep with a sense of the experience as far as possible and I gave them the choice of either carrying on expressing themselves through movement, and/or art materials, and/or writing, and/or verbally sharing. After two weeks I sent them an email asking for any experiences related to their participation.
Findings
I collated together the themes that emerged from their experiences into five broad categories:
Shift in experiential state
Relationship with the environment
Creative responses
Participants’ self-reflection
The post-podcast impact for the participants
1. Shifts in experiential state
All the participants experienced a shift in their experience of their state of being. For example, descriptions of change of feelings included ‘less vulnerable’, more ‘relaxed’, ‘quiet’ and ‘expansive’, ‘protected’, ‘softer’, ‘a welcome relief from pain’. A notable shift, in terms of the aims of the research, was a sense of becoming less ‘end-gaining’ or goal-orientated. Quotes from participants include:
‘If you’d stopped the music then I would’ve walked here as a goal and I probably would’ve lost some of that nice furry sense of just being able to enjoy the landscape’.
‘Because I was more in the present moment there was more of a sense of flow of movement into movement’.
‘Yes I really liked it when you said ‘let the world flow past’ it had a really calming effect as it just means that you can really let it go past, you don’t have to do anything with it, you can let it flow.’
There was a sense of choice or empowerment that emanated. For example, one participant in becoming less ‘reactive’ said he was able to move towards that which ‘appealed’.
2. Relationship with the environment
The theme of protection emerged:
‘Because of listening to you I felt like I had complete permission and safety to be in that space and I wasn’t afraid – only at times – I felt I could trust myself to be there in an unusual and unfamiliar way which is being fully there rather than closing down to enter a space.’
Secondly, the sense generally was a stronger sense of connection to themselves, the environment, and to other people: ‘When I was more inside myself I began to look, straight away, I began to look out more’. One participant said in reference to an older woman
‘she was moving slowly forward, she was moving slowly forward yes, and I was in touch with that with my body, I was, so I was in touch with her, I was in touch with her, yes I was’.
Third, the theme of a sense of life in, or relationship with, the material world.
‘So it was almost like the spaces, whether they were curved or passageways through things, were inviting me to move through them in different ways’
‘I took the tree as my partner, so I had to reach up high to get this branch as a shoulder, and then I kind of did all these very slow tango little steps around the tree as if the tree were partnering me.
Fourth, the theme of heightened sensory awareness of the external world without being overwhelmed.
‘I felt moved but not overwhelmed by any of the experience… it was a kind of structure’
One participant (who refers to herself as ‘a bit Asbergers’) said
‘It was a more relaxed way of taking in a lot of information... relaxing and allowing it all to be there seemed easier somehow.’
Finally, the theme of a shift in perception: this was towards the experience and practice of perceiving with phenomenological appreciation. For example, one took things in ‘just as they were’. Another said it had given her confidence and permission to value her experiences. She said
‘It was like “oh I can respond and value these very ephemeral moments”, and they are what becomes one’s experience – so that allowing the sensitivity of things whatever they are, to enter in’.
One went to address dualism in its broader sense:
Like that thing between not distinguishing between what’s urban and harsh and toxic in a way… I really got that feeling this is quite a metaphor coming out of the piece – it was like ‘my god – there isn’t ‘this is beautiful and this ugly, and this is good and this is evil’ – these dichotomies, these polarities – it just stopped that rejection.
3. Creative responses
One participant said
It felt like being in a dance piece or an art piece or something that was really interesting – it was like shifting the experience of being in a shopping centre into a piece of dance almost but without making any obvious dancey movements.
Another said
it really did work on my own playfulness – I could almost make a choreography with what happened. When you said ‘Let your imagination play’ – I’m such a creative person, but I don’t really let my imagination play – ‘is too childish’ or something – I definitely have a judgment on that myself… but that was what really brought me into that moment.
4. Participants’ self-reflection
This included simple reflections, for example, one realized that ‘even though I was trying to be urban, I absolutely really love that looking up at the sky’, to more complex emotional states:
‘This woman came out… and I started to move right in front of her and think that there’s a great need, certainly there is for me, there’s a great need for me to remember that I expect the predictable, but actually the predictable is not what happens, it’s the unpredictable that happens, it’s the surprise that happens, thank goodness, but looking into the predictable for me takes me out of the present, and it takes me into a place where I don’t want to be because I lose myself and I’m in a place which doesn’t exist, so it’s very strange, it’s not even abstract, it’s something worse than that, anyway it’s a separation, a separation, and it puts me in touch with my sense of loss so I get stuck in a lot of stuff about my loss and that takes me further away from myself.’
5. The post-podcast impact on the participants
First, a theme of continuation: One fed back that when she went back to the shopping centre days later she was able to stay relaxed and found herself more curious and open, and as a result got more creatively inspired by what she saw. Another realized how much in ‘story flow’ he actually was, and how much that sensation continued throughout the rest of the day. He said, ‘I think that your activity provided for me the opportunity to just associate in a free-form way with the urban landscape’. He also said that he was noticing more and that the world appeared ‘brighter and sharper’. Another wrote that ‘The whole experience feels very fertile, and increases my self-awareness, and awareness of the environment.’
Second, a theme of practice: One asked for a copy of the podcast as she wants to practice it regularly; ‘I really feel that I’d like to do it every 2 or 3 days just for my own state really because it’s very calming’. Another asked if he could take the script away with him as he recognized it as useful. He has since fed back to me that he has a stronger, more positive sense of self in a place, moving and in connection with what is around him. He said that he has continued in other places looking out and about and he is walking more upright, with more rhythm, with more of a sense of the whole body. He is also doing it indoors as at home he tends to get lost in his own thoughts, as things around him are so familiar.
Since the research
Image painted by study participant
I have used this audio in many different contexts working with individuals and groups and always find witnessing the participants and hearing about their experiences enriching. In fact I experienced a breakthrough moment when I connected the Alexander psychophysical practice of cultivating a state of ‘non-doing’ and non-‘end-gaining’ as an embodied means to encounter another (and collect qualitative research data) without so much judgment or bias. In one project I made a film. I have learnt that the participants’ depth of engagement is generally fuller when they know that I am witnessing them or will be waiting to hear about their experience. I have developed different kinds of audios with different ‘flavours’ for example focusing on attending to bone or our fluidity. I have three audios that I think of as my ‘pure Alexander Technique’ audios: Semi-supine, sitting, and a walking one. I usually suggest sending them to a client when they express wanting to connect more with the practice in between lessons. I find it is a useful bridge between the more receptive context of a hands-on lesson and them in their everyday life trying to remember to inhibit and direct. I also use the walking one as a group activity in the local park for drama students as a way to reflect on the impact of a different environment and to have an individual but shared experience. I often get feedback from people using my audios that ‘the voice’ brings them into a calmer state. This is gratifying as in making the audios I spent time working on myself first to bring myself into an optimum psychophysical state. This experience gave me more confidence in trusting that when I had to teach online during the pandemic that my voice in itself was a tool for teaching.
References
Carrington, W. (1994), Thinking Aloud, California: Mornum Time Press.
Fraleigh, S. (2004), Dancing Identity, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Gibbs, R. (2005), Embodiment and Cognitive Science, Cambridge: US: Cambridge University Moustakas, C. (1990), Heuristic Research: Design, Methodology, and Applications. California: Sage.
____ (1994), Phenomenological Research Methods, California: Sage.
Parker-Starbuck, J. and Mock, R. (2011), ‘Researching the body in/as performance’, in H. Nicholson (ed.), Research Methods in Theatre and Performance, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd, pp. 210-235.
Sewall, L. (1995), ‘The skill of ecological perception’, in R. Roszak, M. Gomes and A. Kanner (eds), Ecopsychology, Los Angeles: University of California Press, pp. 201-215.
Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2009), The Corporeal Turn, Exeter, UK: Imprint Academic.
Williamson, A. (2009), ‘Formative support and connection: Somatic movement dance education in community and client practice’, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 1:1, pp. 29–45.
Wood, B. (2011), ‘Coming to our senses: Perceptual performance and fields of intensities’, Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, 3:1+2, pp. 85–89.
Presenter Bio
Korina Biggs has been a teaching member of STAT since 2001. As well as a private practice she is part of the faculty at RADA, London, and the Institute of Contemporary Theatre, Brighton. She has been part of the STAT Research Group and the STAT Performing Self Team and is currently part of the Alexander in Education Group. She has a background in physical theatre, a degree in Sociology, and an MA in Dance and Somatic Well-being. She currently is serving on STAT Council and recently formed the EDI (Equality, Diversity & Inclusion) Working Group. To learn more or get in touch please visit www.korinabiggs.co.uk or www.thespaciousself.co.uk.
Thank You
Thank you for being here and supporting research on the Alexander Technique and its teaching. Special thanks to Korina Biggs for her generous contribution to this post. Also to Charlotte Woods and Erica Donnison for their supportive efforts. To all community members who have contributed so far, thank you! Your work is appreciated and making a difference.
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