How To Try
 

How To Try

By Bill Olson


“Try harder.”


The phrase is offered as a solution to everything from how to get ahead in business to success in sports.  It is hammered into us with cliches about “Wanting it more” and “relentless drive.”  Advertising images reinforce it, showing us sweat dripping off of sculpted bodies in the midst of herculean endeavors.  The American Dream tells us that we can be anything if we “try hard enough.”    But is it really true?


Leaving the socio-political implications of that question aside, let’s just look at the idea of “trying harder.”  What does that mean?  Pour more effort into achieving your goal.  Push harder, strain against whatever is in your way.  But does that really help?  Whether you want to start your own business or lower your golf score, does expending more effort get you where you want to be?  I ask you, can you name one activity where greater effort leads to what we really want, which is to refine our skills?  Even power driven sports like weightlifting or football are dependent on the finesse of good technique to apply power efficiently and effectively.


Because we hear “try harder” so often, it has become codified in our awareness.  “If at first you don’t succeed . . .”  But a child learning to write, or draw, or ride a bike, gains nothing from putting more effort into the attempt.  In fact, the effort gets in the way.  The more muscular effort we use, the less likely we are to improve our control.  Whether we’re swinging a tennis racket or typing at a keyboard what we really need is the freedom to move.  Freedom allows our skill to shine.  “Try harder” doesn’t show open any other pathway than increasing effort.  So added muscular effort becomes a habitual, unconscious response to anything where success is not immediate.


So what do we do?


We need to “try better.”  Repeating the same action with increased effort is not only a quick path to frustration, but also to bad habits, and eventually to injury.  To “try better” requires that we make a conscious, and more difficult choice, to avoid the easy answer of pushing harder and think about what we are doing.  The Alexander Technique gives us a framework we can employ for exactly that.  When we inhibit our response to a stimulus, we open the door to possibilities that effort closes.  That moment makes it possible to refine skills and techniques because we are getting out of our own way instead of putting up roadblocks. 


Allow me to provide an example.  Years ago I was working with a competitive ballroom dancer.  At one lesson they said, “My rear ankle is too weak to support me when I do a lunge.  It wobbles.  I’ve tried to strengthen it, but it still wobbles.”  In this lunge, the heel of the rear foot is in the air and the weight of the leg is supported by the ball of the foot.  This instability caused problems both aesthetically and technically.  I asked them to demonstrate, and it was immediately clear that they were choosing to address this by pressing their toes into the floor.  This effort shifted their balance back, adding to the strain on the ankle and contributing to the unsteadiness. 


I encouraged them to try something else.  Helping them free their neck to restore their balance, I asked them to lengthen the rear leg.  When they allowed it to extend out through the heel instead of press into the floor, the wobble disappeared.   In addition, they were surprised to discover that they were in a better configuration to recover from the lunge and move on to the next step. 


Efficiency.  Why try harder when we can try better?  Inhibition and direction give us the chance to do just that.


June, 2018