I’ve been very impressed with my progress since the first Alexander Technique lesson. In place of the wobbly board, I was given a length of building pipe to stand on while I practice. Having received some very odd looks travelling home on the North London Line with a violin and a large cylinder of plastic, I spent the first two days practice falling off the pipe.
After much perseverance and with a stubborn refusal to acknowledge that I was only reconnecting with my feet because they hurt so much from standing on (or abruptly leaving) the pipe, I managed to play my three-octave G major scale with only a few mishaps.
The next day I played the first eight bars of the Sarabanda from Bach’s D Minor Partita, and after 20 minutes I was a veritable acrobat: An acrobat with extremely tired ankles and very perplexed downstairs neighbours. My experiment with the Giga was not so effective. Landing on the floor with bump after non-legato bump, I couldn’t help considering that the exercise had at least done something to put my experience of bow-shake into perspective.
Today was day five of the pipe and I have achieved true mastery. I can now stand on the pipe, play sections of the D Minor Partita and concentrate my whole focus on all the niggling, negative little details I’m supposed to be overriding. I can stand there holding my breath, tensing my entire upper body and bracing my knees, and still make a go of playing the violin. Even David Blaine would be reckless to undertake such a challenge.
Perhaps I need to learn to let myself fall before I can start to believe in being grounded. Maybe it isn’t important that I stay on the pipe - maybe it’s more useful to discover where the floor is.
Or maybe I just need a bigger pipe.
