A Touch of Love

My Most Touching Affair.
What is the connection between Stanislavsky and Alexander technique?  This was the question posed to us by Jeremy at our week long Alexander Technique (AT) retreat.
`No idea and frankly not much interest,`  was my first thought.  I had,  after all come here for AT which I knew as an approach to life in which one consciously stops misusing the mind/body. Stanislavsky, I was pretty sure had some connection with acting,  in the same way that `War and Peace,` was about Russia.
Jeremy began with a brief explanation of how Stanislavsky had been the first actor/director to lead the theater away from stylized movement into the present moment.  I was not sure if I completely got that but we were quickly shown the actual manifestation of the idea.
`Imagine you are at a train station,` said Jeremy.  `You are wondering what the time is because you don`t want to miss your train.  Could somebody act that out for me,  please?`
It sounded pretty straightforward and sure enough the first volunteer did what I had planned on doing.  The body judders to a halt and an elaborate look at a wristwatch accompanied by facial expressions running the gamut from puzzlement to Bhuddist enlightenment.  Jeremy then stopped the proceedings and asked us to think more deeply about what might occur. Perhaps a simple movement of a head to look at the station clock and nothing more.  The penny drops. This is the difference between `acting` and `doing real life, in the moment` on stage. 
We are paired off and I find myself working with a Japanese woman so beautiful people had been taking covert looks at her all morning-  a sort of rosy cheeked oriental madonna in jeans sprayed on so well the Toyota Assembly Line would have been envious.  Our task is to create an `in the present moment` scene in a launderette.  We hum and haw together,  positioning laundry machines and soap powder in a model of complexity that I cannot help confusing with the clean smelling sweetness this woman exudes unconsciously.  A sweetness I want to lay my tongue on.  Jeremy comes over and untangles us.
'As usual Buri, you are thinking too much. Keep it simple.  Try going through the door one after the other. The person in front drops something from her basket.  You pick it up and hand it to her. That`s enough.`
`What drops?`  I wonder and instantly blush a deep red as my minds eye paints a vision of tight little silk panties sliding between the elegant labia we have been viewing thought the opaque window of her jeans  all morning,  separating those elegant buttocks.  Somehow I manage to grunt in acquiesence.  It`s actually not so difficult now and we just run it rather than consciously practicing over and over.  The group reassembles and Jeremy asks `How did you feel doing that?`
My breathtaking partner  screws up her face in a delightful combination of wonder and  puzzlement for a seeming eternity.  `Jeremy,  just for the exact moment he was handing me those socks I TRULY loved him. `
I am not sure if it was myself,  the lady or the group who was more startled by this admission,  but Jeremy was unperturbed.
`Oh yes,` he nodded. ` We modern people are so removed from the present reality that we don`t know how to love well anymore.  Anything that takes us into the present moment, be it AT,  Bhuddism  or Stanislavsky brings us so close together it often engenders true feelings of love for an instant.
I am lost but I manage to gasp out,
`May we do it again?`