Basic Principle Underlying the Practice of Every Art
Whatever the art you may wish to learn, whether it be acrobatics or violin playing, mental prayer or golf, acting, singing, dancing or what you will-there is one thing that every good teacher will always say: Learn to combine relaxation with activity; learn to do what you have to do without strain; work hard, but never under tension.
To speak of combining activity with relaxation may seem paradoxical; but in fact it is not. For relaxation is of two kinds, passive and dynamic. Passive relaxation is achieved in a state of complete repose, by a process of consciously "letting go." As an antidote to fatigue, as a method of temporarily relieving excessive muscular tensions, together with the psychological tensions that always accompany them, passive relaxation is excellent. But it can never, in the nature of things, be enough. We cannot spend our whole lives at rest, and consequently cannot be always passively relaxing. But there is also something to which it is legitimate to give the name of dynamic relaxation. Dynamic relaxation is that state of the body and mind which is associated with normal and natural functioning. In the case of what I have called the fundamental or primary psycho-physical skills, normal and natural functioning of the organs involved may sometimes be lost. But having been lost, it may subsequently be consciously reacquired by anyone who has learned the suitable techniques. When it has been reacquired, the strain associated with impaired functioning disappears and the organs involved do their work in a condition of dynamic relaxation.
Malfunctioning and strain tend to appear whenever the conscious "I" interferes with instinctively acquired habits of proper use, either by trying too hard to do well, or by feeling unduly anxious about possible mistakes. In the building up of any psycho-physical skill the conscious 'I' must give orders, but not too many orders, must supervise the forming of habits of proper functioning, but without fuss and in a modest, self-denying way. The great truth discovered on the spiritual level by the masters of prayer, that "the more there is of the 'I,' the less there is of God," has been discovered again and again on the physiological level by the masters of the various arts and skills. The more there is of the "I," the less there is of Nature-of the right and normal functioning of the organism. The part played by the conscious "I" in lowering resistance and preparing the body for disease has long been recognized by medical science. When it frets too much, or is frightened, or worries and grieves too long and too intensely, the conscious "I" may reduce its body to such a state that the poor thing will develop, for example, gastric ulcers, tuberculosis, coronary disease and a whole host of functional disorders of every kind and degree of seriousness. Even decay of the teeth has been shown, in the case of children, to be frequently correlated with emotional tensions experienced by the conscious "I."
That a function so intimately related to our psychological life as vision should remain unaffected by tensions having their origin in the conscious "I" is inconceivable. And, indeed, it is a matter of common experience that the power of seeing is greatly lowered by distressing emotional states. As one practices the techniques of visual education, one discovers the extent to which this same conscious "I" can interfere with the processes of seeing even at times when no distressing emotions are present. And it interferes, we discover, in exactly the same way as it interferes with the process of playing tennis, for example, or singing-by being too anxious to achieve the desired end. But in seeing, as in all other psycho-physical skills, the anxious effort to do well defeats its own object; for this anxiety produces psychological and physiological strains, and strain is incompatible with the proper means for achieving our end, namely normal and natural functioning.
— Extract from The Art of Seeing. By Aldous Huxley.
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